Henry Imler March 28th, 2007

For my American Religious Experience final project, I have the freedom to look outside American religion and to my thesis field, New Testament Studies. I am interested in building a picture of lived religion for early Christianities. I don’t know yet what branch I am going to target - most likely it will be urban Christians. As to what Christianity to look at, I want to go as early as possible, so there would be no established branch that can be distinguished from another.

I need to focus on practices (lived religion) and the common people, not beliefs nor elites. Interesting thing here is the creation of elites from the common people. I think that is what is happening, especially if you define elite as “one with authority or power.” I’ll also try to keep a close eye on the changing roles of women. I preliminary guess is that, like always, they were given newfound power and responsibility at first, and then as the movement crystallized, they were shut out of authority.

As of right now, I am using the following books for the basis of my research.

• Christians as the Romans Saw Them by Wilken
• Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance by Horsley
• Christianity and the Roman Empire: Background Texts by Novak
• Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Corinthians

I plan on focusing on the religious background that the Christians developed out of and look for differences that made them stand out. I will assume for the sake of the paper that everything else was maintained. Even though I have no way of knowing if they dropped certain practices or not, I’ll assume for the preliminary examination that they do. Perhaps in a later project I can look for the differences, say perhaps in another thesis chapter?

• Christianity , Religion
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