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Infidelity, Post-Infidelity Stress Disorder, And Post-Infidelity Stress Marital Outcomes, Faith Christie Leigh Roby

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Marital infidelity discovery has been noted in the literature for traumatic emotional, behavioral, and psychological reactions in the injured spouse, but not extensively in terms of post-infidelity stress disorder. To that end, this cross-sectional quantitative anonymous online survey study explored marital infidelity, post-infidelity stress disorder and post-infidelity marital outcomes in 202 participants using certain frameworks, such as Glass’s traumatic aftershock and Ortman’s post-infidelity stress disorder. This researcher sought to investigate whether there is a relationship between post-infidelity stress disorder that is moderated by religious/core beliefs and marital repair efforts and marital outcomes of healing, forgiveness, benevolence, revenge, avoidance, divorce/desire to …

Pronomian Paradigm: A Pro-Torah, Christocentric Method Of Theology And Apologetics, Gregory Scott Mckenzie

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation sets out to demonstrate the continued validity of the Torah for all believers today. As such, this dissertation attempts to show that discontinuity of the Mosaic Covenant is scripturally, theologically, and philosophically untenable. The thesis of this dissertation is that Pronomianism is the paradigm that most cohesively melds theology and apologetics, through its interpretation of Paul’s words and deeds at the second Jerusalem council, which unveils the Torah’s centrality in New Testament theology, and that Pronomian moral apologetics reveal the Law of God as the only foundation for objective, biblical morality, and the guide to righteous living. This …

The Stratified Leadership Model Of The First-Century Christian Church, Barton Schuyler Garratt Edsall Iv

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

As Christianity enters its third millennium, it faces the sharpest decline in the number of people attending church congregations compared to the total population. In Romans 1:13, the Apostle Paul states that God’s people should not be ignorant that the purpose for leaders within the collective church body, beginning with himself as the example, is so the people’s lives would be fruitful–spiritually enriched and productive. Logic dictates that if the lives of those who attended Christian churches in the twenty-first century experienced and displayed such spiritual quality, attendance would not be declining but contrarily on the rise. Regarding church clergy …

Examining The Impact Of Sustained Trauma-Informed Care Training With Educators Who Service Students With Exceptionalities And Challenging Behaviors, Miyokia D. Carter

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The number of trauma-exposed children is on the rise, and it poses a significant public health issue. Trauma-exposed children especially those with exceptionalities and behavioral problems require support across various aspects of their lives, including their school environment. One way to properly support students is adopting a trauma-informed approach as it diminishes presumptions regarding misbehaviors, increases understanding, genuinely helps students with traumatic symptoms, and restores relationships in the classroom. However, the transition to new approaches such as this can affect the perceptions and attitudes of those encouraged to implement the framework. This qualitative case study aimed to comprehend how staff …

Leveraging Ministry And Community Partnerships To Address Community Needs, Chaunceia Renee Mayfield

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This qualitative DMIN project aims to expand the outreach impact of Strengthen Thy Sister Ministry by continuing to leverage ministry and community organization partnerships to address a specific community need. Strengthen Thy Sister, an ecumenical women’s ministry in St. Louis, Missouri, partnered with Jennings School District Hope Houses to provide tangible support to the organization during the COVID-19 pandemic. The partnership helped to address food insecurity among homeless students and families in a crisis. This partnership granted Strengthen Thy Sister an opportunity to partner with certified and experienced educational practitioners with the infrastructure to serve the students at Jennings School …

A Mixed-Method Approach Identifying Antecedents Of Employee Engagement In A Nondenominational Church: Perspective From Volunteers And Employees, Gregory A. Rodriguez

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Employee engagement is a crucial factor that affects organizational success, productivity, and overall well-being. Extensive research has been conducted on factors contributing to employee engagement in secular organizations. However, additional study on the volunteer workforce is needed, particularly on the factors influencing engagement within the Christian community. This study explored the antecedents of employee engagement from a comparative perspective, examining volunteers and employees to shed light on the factors that drive engagement across different work commitments. Drawing upon a mixed-methods research approach, data was collected from a diverse sample of Christian church volunteers and employees. The research used an adapted …

Rest, Rhetoric, And Suffering In The Letter To The Hebrews: How The Author Of Hebrews Uses Classical Rhetoric To Resolve Tension Between Invitation To God's Rest And Present Suffering, Dickson Kûng’Û Ngama

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Epistle to the Hebrews invites the followers of Jesus to enter God’s promised rest. Unlike the Israelites of the wilderness generation who failed to enter God’s promised rest, the followers of Jesus can enter that rest now and more fully in the future by obedience to God. This is possible because of God’s most recent intervention. God has sent his own son to become a sacrifice for their sins and a high priest for their intercession. Because the way to God is now open, the followers of Jesus can boldly approach God in prayer, gather regularly in worship, and …

Forward Pointing Introductory Formulas In The Gospel Of Matthew: A Solution To One Of Matthew’S Most Problematic Scripture Citations, Donald C. Mcintyre

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

This paper will seek to interpret one of the most problematic passages in intertextual studies. Matthew 2:23 does not have a clear Old Testament referent, and this presents a problem. How can an unknown prophecy be fulfilled; where is the text cited to be found? However, by keeping the original in mind during interpretation, it seems that Matthew was intentionally creating a hermeneutic of suspicion creating a deliberate rhetorical effect. This paper will seek to determine how Matthew artistically arranged and derived the significance of the Old Testament for his contemporary readership in light of the Christ event. It will …

The Effects Of Communicative Language Teaching Methods (Clt) Of Teaching Ancient Greek On Student Motivation, Language Learning Experience, Self-Efficacy, Facilitating Anxiety, And Debilitating Anxiety Compared To The Grammar Translation Method (Gtm), Dustin J. Humphreys

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this quantitative, causal-comparative study was to determine if ancient Greek language programs that use communicative language teaching methods (CLT) produce different student motivation, language learning experience, self-efficacy, facilitating anxiety and debilitating anxiety scores than programs that primarily use the grammar-translation method (GTM) of teaching ancient Greek. This study is critical because the comprehensive teaching of the ancient Greek language has been on the decline in recent decades. This research aims to inform colleges, seminaries, and other language learning schools that teach classical languages, such as ancient Greek, about the potential positive effects of CLT on student motivation, …

A Phenomenological Study Exploring The Lack Of Baptist Church Participation In Seminole County, Florida, Ismael Melendez

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This phenomenological study explores the reasons for a lack of participation in in-person Baptist churches and the rise of participation in online Baptist churches in Seminole County, Florida. The theory guiding this study was Martin Heidegger’s hermeneutical framework which focuses on the commonality of experiences. Heidegger believed that to arrive at the essence of a phenomenon a researcher must go through the revisionary process of what Heidegger termed the Hermeneutic Circle. The principal research question in this study explored existing relationship(s) between in-person and online Baptist church leaders and how such relationship(s) contributed to a lack of church participation. The …

Resetting Foundations. Congregational Training For The Small Group Ministry: An Action Research To Correct Intent, Cultivate Community, And Grow Spiritually, Jarrett Gallardo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Small group ministry is crucial for the health and well-being of the church. The problem this DMIN action research sought to address was that Valley Gate Church did not grasp the purpose of small group ministry due to not implementing small groups with well-defined intent. Valley Gate Church is a church plant that launched in 2016. This DMIN action research aimed to create and implement a six-week congregational training to develop small group leaders and members at Valley Gate Church. Twenty-two participants were involved in the entire six-week training. All participants took a pre- and post-training assessment consisting of surveys, …

Platonism’S Influence On The Hermeneutic Of Augustine: Exploring The Philosophical Roots Of Augustine’S Interpretive Approach, Kent T. Maitland

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

This paper contends that Augustine was a significant contributor to the “Spiritual Vision Model” of the Christian conception of heaven described by Craig Blaising. This model is premised on the Platonic understanding of perfection in which the soul unites with the Good, and heaven is primarily a cognitive state in which the individual possesses perfect spiritual knowledge. This model also provides a rational basis for favoring a figurative or spiritualized interpretation of Scripture over its literal meaning. Augustine’s early life and conversion reflects a commitment to the SVM’s Platonic ideals, as demonstrated in his deference to Cicero, his journey into …

The Lived Experiences Of Faculty Conducting Post-Simulation Debriefing In Nurse Practitioner Programs, Jodi Borden Duncan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Simulation-based education is a teaching–learning pedagogy widely used in nursing programs today. While much research has been done on student perceptions of simulation and the fact most learning occurs in the post-simulation debriefing session, little research has been done on how learning takes place in debriefing. Nurse practitioner faculty also use simulation as a teaching methodology, but the implementation of debriefing methods and faculty experiences with debriefing sessions are not known. As simulation may not be counted as direct clinical hours in nurse practitioner programs, more research must be done before the substitution of hours can be considered. The substitution …

Skole And Sabbath As A Way Of Being In Classical Educators: A Hermeneutic Phenomenology On Leisure, Erin Haley Uminn

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to describe the essence of the lived experiences of 10 classical Christian secondary teachers and administrators who embrace Greek skolé and Christian Sabbath at classical Christian schools in the United States. Leisure theory guided this study, particularly Sabbath as described by Heschel and Brueggeman, Christian leisure as understood by Pieper and Heintzman, and Samaras’ description of skolé in Greek philosophy, as they point to a specific type of leisure and way of being understood by classical Christian educators. van Manen’s hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used for data collection and analysis of open-ended …

The "Write" Stuff: The Plausible Capability Of Jesus’ Followers To Author The Gospels, Charles D. T. Miller

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

It is common for critics of the New Testament to cite William Harris’ 10% literacy rate for first-century Greco-Romans as evidence for the implausibility of Jesus’ followers to write, publish, and circulate the New Testament. This “evidence” is often used to dismiss the entire New Testament as a second-century fabrication that cannot accurately represent the true teachings of Jesus. Is this an accurate portrayal of Galilee during the time of Jesus? The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that Jesus’ followers possessed the “‘Write’ Stuff”—the ability to read, write, and memorize, as well as, access to the technology needed …

Bibliotherapy In The Helping Professions: A Heuristic Model For Intervention Design, Natalie Marie Haney

Masters Theses

I propose a new approach to examining bibliotherapy’s usefulness in the community-based care of individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), focused on producing a heuristic that benefits helping professionals who offer non-clinical and non-psychiatric services. Meant for writers designing bibliotherapy interventions in the helping professions, I conceptualize bibliotherapy in a model against the backdrop of community-based care’s history. A model has the potential to allow each writer to conduct situation-specific inquiry, invent bibliotherapy intervention designs suited to the unique needs of the profession’s help-seekers, and reflect on knowledge generated for intervention reiteration. Referring to Dewey, Rosenblatt and Barnlund to create …

A Phenomenological Qualitative Study Of Discipling Church Congregants Using Three Christ-Practiced Church Communities, Bryan Wade Ewing

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover the perceived impact of local church leadership’s implementation of three Christ-practiced discipling communities for the equipping of local-church congregants within six local bodies in the state of Indiana. Communities are generally defined as intentional groups of different purposes within the local church. The study sought to better understand the impact of congregants being involved in weekly, corporate worship, small groups, and mentorship groups in their discipleship journey. The rationale behind the study was to explore the phenomenon of the discipleship process as certain congregants were engaged in only a weekly worship …

A Linguistical Analysis Of The Greek Perfect Tense: A Defense Of “Causative Aspect.”, Malcolm Goh

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Modern Greek studies have undergone intense debate over the past several decades regarding whether to and how grammarians and linguists should apply verbal aspect theory to Greek verbs. A significant portion of this debate has centered on the Greek perfect verb. Buist M. Fanning, Constantine R. Campbell, and Stanley E. Porter are three prominent voices in this ongoing debate. While traditional grammars have done well in describing the actions of the Greek perfect tense form, a consensus has proved challenging in describing the perfect tense form within an aspectual framework. Aspectual theorists agree that the perfect tense form concerns itself …

Addressing The Inactivity Of Youth And Young Adults In The Church Environment, Leonard Burgest

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

One of the significant components of church growth and development is having a functioning youth and young adult ministry founded on the Gospel and managed by individuals who understand youth participation in the church. Unfortunately for the black church and many others, the grim reality is that they have been suffering from the same inactive youth and young adult ministry problem for quite some time. Local churches have recently witnessed a steady decline in youth attendance due to neighborhood irregularities, parental responsibilities, and youth activities. This thesis project seeks to address and implement methods and processes that will aid in …

An Analysis Of The –Μός Suffix In The New Testament, Ryan Kendall Phelps

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation describes and analyzes the –μός suffix in the New Testament. This suffix indicates a noun derived from a verbal stem, i.e., a deverbal noun. Due to the lack of an in-depth analysis of this suffix, some incomplete ideas about this suffix have appeared in Greek grammars. Along with scholarship in Greek grammar, this dissertation employs terms from the field of linguistics, as well as patterns suggested from studies of deverbal nouns in other languages. This method will reveal two groups of conclusions. First, it will reveal that the suffix and nouns in which it occurs follow traditional expectations, …

Paul's Personification Of Hope A Historical-Rhetorical Approach To Romans 5:5, David V. Lott

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Recognized allegory has existed from antiquity to the current times and withstood the vicissitudes of scholarly research. Embedded beneath the realm of the overarching rhetorical device of allegory exists the often recognized yet readily overlooked literary device of personification, the “giving of face” to a concept or an abstract. Once considered the tool of the simple and naïve, it lay in the shadows of rhetorical criticism through the years and is only starting to elicit credible academic research. However, even within the purview of this research, there is a bifurcation of focus between what critics assert is literary personification (giving …

Revisiting The Future: The Future Indicative And Perfective Aspect In Johannine Literature, Casey Lou Price

Masters Theses

As Greek aspectual studies continue to develop, there remains a significant gap in research on the future as it pertains to aspect. The nature of the future indicative is debated, especially as to whether or not it conveys aspectual value. Using Buist Fanning’s premise that aspect and Aktionsart interact to produce predicable outcomes, Mark O’Brien has shown that future STATIVE verbs consistently create an ingressive meaning that mirrors that of STATIVE verbs in the aorist tense. He has used this to demonstrate that the aorist and future share the same aspect-Aktionsart interactions and that they therefore both communicate perfective aspect. …

Exploring Strategy Planning And Execution Methods In Church Missions Programs, Jonathan Daniel Deming

Masters Theses

The aim of this thesis is to explore the extent to which church missions programs employ strategic planning and execution methods. In order to validate available literature on the topic of strategic planning (both biblical and secular), the author contributes a current survey dataset which validates the problem and highlights specific areas of potential improvement. This research successfully articulates the need for North American Southern Baptist Convention churches to focus on strategic planning. In analyzing the survey data, one is able to understand the cause-and-effect relationships between successful strategic planning and a church’s ability to optimize their ability to advance …

Telling The Story: Diabetes Prevention And Management, Brandi Caitlyn Frizzell

Masters Theses

Diabetes has been studied for thousands of years, however the root cause of this disease is still unknown. Although there are have been many disoveries for treatment options for this disease, there has yet to be a discovery of a cure. Diabetes is a worldwide epidemic that currently affects millions of people and is expected to affect millions more in the future. This disease often results in fatal health complications which contribute to years of life lost and mortality rates. The project proposes a solution for individuals affected by diabetes and those that are currently undiagnosed. The expected outcome of …

Lost In Translation: A Linguistic Understanding Of The Use Of The Middle Voice In The Septuagint Of Esther, Abigail Prejean

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Textual or Investigative

Matthew Doesn’T Mean What You Think He Means, And Why It's Significant: A Form Critical Evaluation Of Plēroō’S Relation To Pesher Formulas And Its Solution To An Age-Old Problem, Donald C. Mcintyre

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

This paper will evaluate Matthew 2:13-15 analyzing Matthew’s questionable use of Hosea 11:1. Turner has noted that, “Those who think that Matthew saw a prediction of Jesus in Hos. 11:1 must either disparage Matthew’s hermeneutic . . . or attribute to Matthew revelatory insight into the sensus plenior of Hosea” (Turner, 2008). While the majority of commentators have found Matthew to be practicing typological interpretation, there has been a neglect to analyze the structure of Matthew’s particular introductory formula since Stendahl (1968), which have led many to see a pesher employment by Matthew in these formulas. This paper evaluates the …

Reflip Type: Developing Visual Strategies For Teaching Typography To Collegiate Students With Dyslexia, Brittany D. Strozzo

Masters Theses

In educational facilities today, the approaches to teaching typography to college students with dyslexia are limited. This thesis provides a research-based pedagogy for teaching typography to students in a way that accommodates the visual, processing, and auditory differences present in students with dyslexia. Through the analysis of the learning disability itself, existing material for graphic designers with dyslexia, and current accessibility standards for those with dyslexia, this thesis offers a practical solution to provide a more balanced learning experience for all students, especially those with dyslexia. The aim of this study was to examine the current graphic design standards and …

Promoting Health Literacy To Aging Christians To Combat The Scourge Of Euthanasia Through The Church, Willie Mae Corley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The many dilemmas that occur in the medical care of chronically ill seniors raise the question of whether senior populations have become the new black. The research seeks to provide an evidence-based review of limited health literacy among elderly African American Christians regarding diagnoses and medical treatments, which has resulted in unethical Christian practices becoming a norm. The researcher adapted the health literacy framework of Paasche Orlow and Wolf’s view of three distinct causes that influence health literacy: the access and utilization of health care, the patient-provider relationship, and self-care. The problem is that Victory Church members may not understand …

Crucifixion In The Ancient World: A Historical Analysis, Gary Habermas, Benjamin C. F. Shaw

Eleutheria: John W. Rawlings School of Divinity Academic Journal

Cook, John Granger. Crucifixion in the Mediterranean World. 2nd ed. Vol. 327. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. Pp 549 pp. 79,00 €.

Preaching To Millennials: A Content Analysis Of Preachers' Communication As It Relates To Millennial Congregants, Matthew Joel Hastings

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The American church is facing a decline in attendance (Barna, 2014). This truth is especially prevalent in the millennial generation, the largest yet also the least religious American generation. Many of whom describe themselves as spiritual but not religious. The church has a unique opportunity through the weekly sermon that other organizations do not have. This opportunity provides the ability to verbally communicate in person with the entire organization at one time. The purpose of this qualitative content analysis study was to better understand how preachers who led the fastest growing churches in the Southern Baptist Convention used communication tactics …