Digital Commons Network^™

Καθαρός, The Pure: Setting Narrative In The Fourth-Century Roman Empire, Emma Branstetter

Honors Program Projects

This thesis illustrates the development of the Christian historical fiction novella named Καθαρός set in the early fourth century of Christian history closely following the events of the Great Persecution and its long-term effects on Christian communities in Asia Minor and North Africa. Previous Christian novels set in the Roman era primarily focus on the first century, and with the significant thematic potential found in later centuries after the life and resurrection of Christ, I embarked on this writing project. The research that affects my narrative is separated into four categories: the history and effects of Diocletian’s Great Persecution, fourth-century …

Square Peg: Why Wesleyans Aren't Fundamentalists, Al Truesdale (Editor), Craighton T. Hippenhammer

Faculty Scholarship – Library Science

A review of a book that delineates the differences between Christian fundamentalism and Wesleyanism, including theological control beliefs and why the distinctions matter, written by and published by well-known leaders in the Church of the Nazarene.

F.F. Bruce: A Life, By Tim Grass, Craighton T. Hippenhammer

Faculty Scholarship – Library Science

Frederick Fyvie Bruce (1910-1990) was one of the most influential evangelical biblical scholars of the last half of the Twentieth Century within the UK and the United States at a time when highly respected evangelical academics were rare and almost non-existent. Over his lifetime he wrote over two thousand articles and reviews plus four dozen books, mostly about the Bible, biblical commentary and interpretation, and classical language translation. His approach was nonsectarian and inclusive, from the standpoint of insightful biblical translation rather than systematized theology. This biography is a fully realized, in-depth treatment, covering both Bruce’s academic career and personal …

Brief Glimpses Of Women In Ministry Within Early Holiness Organizations And The Church Of The Nazarene, Robert Doyle Smith

Faculty Scholarship – Theology

This is a revised paper edited to fit the format for Scholar Week presentations April 2013 at Olivet Nazarene University. The earlier longer draft had been presented in the Women’s In Ministry Conference held at Glasgow University in May 2012. As a document delivered in a speaking context it does not include the normal documentation.

Reading the journals of the three primary groups that merged to form the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene (PCN) in 1907 and 1908 reveals the context that made possible the ordination of Olive Winchester and her early ministry within the PCN. This paper provides glimpses …

Reducing Barriers To Wesleyan Thought: Olivet Nazarene University And The Wesleyan Holiness Library, Craighton T. Hippenhammer

Faculty Scholarship – Library Science

Olivet Nazarene University’s recent move to start publishing academic scholarship in a digital institutional repository, Digital Commons, is a smart move to not only highlight and preserve Olivet scholarship, but also to support the worldwide open access movement that is widely expected to rescue the current failing model of academic publishing. The traditional methods for publishing faculty scholarship have been inadequate for some time, and the financial structures that sustain them are collapsing due to skyrocketing journal prices. What faculty members want most for their research is that it be as accessible, available and useful to other researchers and to …

Early Glimpses Of Women In Ministry Within Early Holiness Organizations And The Church Of The Nazarene, Robert Doyle Smith

Faculty Scholarship – Theology

Paper first presented at the Women in Ministry Conference held at Glasgow University in May 2012. The conference celebrated the first woman, Olive Winchester, to be ordained in the UK. As a document delivered in a speaking context it does not include the normal documentation.

Reading the journals of the three primary groups that merged to form the Pentecostal Church of the Nazarene (PCN) in 1907 and 1908 reveals the context that made possible the ordination of Olive Winchester and her early ministry within the PCN. This paper provides glimpses of women minsters through the journals of these early groups …

The Church Of The Nazarene In The U.S.: Race, Gender, And Class In The Struggle With Pentecostalism And Aspirations Toward Respectability, 1895-1985, Charles L. Perabeau

Faculty Scholarship – Sociology

This dissertation considers how the issues of race, gender, and class factored in the response of the Church of the Nazarene to the Azusa Street Revival, and how the processes of anti-Pentecostalization, whitening, masculinization, and embourgeoisement have contributed to elevating the social respectability of the Church of the Nazarene in the United States.

Articles Of Faith, Church Of The Nazarene

Official Statements

Preamble to the Articles of Faith:

In order that we may preserve our God-given heritage, the faith once delivered to the saints, especially the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification as a second work of grace, and also that we may cooperate effectually with other branches of the Church of Jesus Christ in advancing God’s kingdom, we, the ministers and lay members of the Church of the Nazarene, in accordance with the principles of constitutional legislation established among us, do hereby ordain, adopt, and set forth as the fundamental law or Constitution of the Church of the Nazarene the Articles …

Core Values Of The Church Of The Nazarene, Church Of The Nazarene

Official Statements

1. We Are a Christian People -- 2. We Are a Holiness People -- 3. We Are a Missional People.

Does Inerrancy Allow The Possibility Of Evolution?, Kevin Twain Lowery

Faculty Scholarship – Theology

The question of integrating science with a high view of Scripture is explored through case studies of two 19th-century Evangelical thinkers: Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (Calvinist) and William Burt Pope (Wesleyan). Both men attempted to reconcile evolution with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, and this provides a basic template for Evangelicals who wish to uphold a high view of Scripture while respecting the advancement of science.

The Amana Society, 1867-1932: Accommodation Of Old World Beliefs In A New World Frontier Setting, Frank M. Moore

Faculty Scholarship – Theology

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the religious character of the Amana Society from the death, in 1867, of Christian Metz, the inspired leader who brought the group to America, to the time of the Great Change in 1932 when the religious and economic interests of the society were separated. This study begins with a brief history of the society from its inception in eighteenth-century Germany to the time the community moved to Iowa and continues with a presentation of the doctrines and worship patterns of the Amana Society. They, too, must be taken into consideration if one …

Practical Norm Of Love: Religious Existentialism Iii, Mildred Bangs Wynkoop

Wesleyan Holiness Articles

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is the test and measure of love to God. It, in the most fundamental way, evidences the sincerity of our love. It also gives it concrete and wholesome content. Had not this description of agape been given to us, Christian ethics would have been left dangerously subjective and abstract, dangerous because abstraction cancels out love. The second commandment is the test of the keeping of the first.

Love Is Existential: Religious Existentialism Ii, Mildred Bangs Wynkoop

Wesleyan Holiness Articles

Jesus' command that we love the Lord with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength puts the Christian life into the plane where we all live. It speaks of the moral atmosphere out of which life with all of its phases is lived. it is a dynamic principle o f life and love to God that proceeds from the deepest depth of human personality up and out, to the farthest edge o f everything we do. To love with the heart is the whole man integrated about a chosen object. The heart is often considered the center o f the …

Sanctification Is Existential: Religious Existentialism I, Mildred Bangs Wynkoop

Wesleyan Holiness Articles

It has been the contention of the church that sanctification is not simply an intellectual idea and a formal statement of faith but also a way of life. Religious existentialism is a reaction against hollow orthodoxy, icily correct doctrine, and an empty religious profession. It is an affirmation for theological truth presented in such a way that, when properly believed, it demands a thorough transformation of a man’s everyday life.