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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Embodied Superintendence: The Person Of The Preacher In Lutheran Homiletics Especially In Relation To Cultural Identity, Dennis Matyas
Embodied Superintendence: The Person Of The Preacher In Lutheran Homiletics Especially In Relation To Cultural Identity, Dennis Matyas
Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation
Over the past several decades, the greater homiletical academy has progressed from questions of authority to dialogics to identity, both of the preacher and of the hearers. Within this timeframe, modern Lutheran homiletics has stayed relatively silent on considerations of the person of the preacher, opting instead for certain foundational homiletical truths including the efficacy of the Word of God, the proclamation of justification, and the authority of the Ministerium. After recovering the consideration of the person of the preacher as a foundational Lutheran homiletic, this work explores the formational significance of the preacher’s cultural identity by offering a theoretical …
Behind The Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces A New America, Larry Vogel
Behind The Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces A New America, Larry Vogel
Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation
The dissertation examines membership data for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) from the mid-1970s to the present. It considers the analysis of LCMS decline by two scholars, George Hawley and Ryan MacPherson, who independently proposed that LCMS membership decline was internal in causation due to diminished birthrates and fewer young families. While acknowledging the reality of such internal decline, this dissertation argues that the lack of external growth is a greater cause for LCMS decline. Its lack of external growth is due primarily to the racial and ethnic homogeneity of the LCMS and its failure effectively to evangelize the increasingly …