Digital Commons Network^™

Kalunga Crossings: Waterscapes Of Terror And "Teachment" In The African Atlantic World, Dianne M. Stewart, Tracey E. Hucks, Solimar Otero

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

In this article, we think alongside historian of religions Charles H. Long to analyze the relationship between water and empire, explore theoretical approaches to water and modernity, and probe the significance of water in Africana ecologies and spiritual cultures, highlighting its suggestive contributions to restorative epistemologies of ecological co-habitation. Our investigation advances an Africana religious framework of “waterscapes of terror and ‘teachment’” that centers diaspora bodies of water as loci for analyzing history, materiality, and ecological regard. Teachment is an anti-colonial linguistic irruption, an all-encompassing term for Africana pedagogies and epistemologies that defy antiblack and anti-African colonial instruction. Examining how …

Kingdom Classrooms: A Redemptive Framework For Revitalizing Christian Schools, Chad A. Kellogg

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Rural Christian schools across the United States face critical threats to their long-term sustainability, particularly in remote communities such as Salmon, Idaho. These institutions frequently operate without public funding, endure persistent staffing shortages, and struggle within aging facilities while lacking robust community advocacy. This Dissertation-in-Praxis (DiP) addresses these systemic inequities by developing a replicable, biblically grounded framework designed to strengthen the financial viability, educational quality, and missional integrity of rural Christian schools. Calvary Chapel Heritage Center (CCHC) in Salmon, Idaho, serves as the central case study. Utilizing a mixed-methods action research approach, the study incorporates qualitative interviews with church and …

The Error Of Replacement Theology, Its Significance For Christians Today, And Its Theological Implications For Participants In The Vintage Truth Bible Study, Jeffery Bruce Kinley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The nation of Israel regularly makes geopolitical and cultural headlines, and antisemitism continues to increase on a global scale. This carries profound theological and practical implications regarding Israel’s relationship and relevance to the Church. This DMin action research project was designed and implemented to evaluate the impact of replacement theology on approximately thirty participants in the Vintage Truth Bible Study. Through a sustained, eight-week study examining the tenets of replacement theology, along with Scripture’s teaching on God’s relationship with and covenants to Israel, and prophecies regarding that nation’s future, the doctrine was addressed. The research combined thorough biblical exposition, three …

The Rhetorical Discourse Of Uniate Writers’ Polemic Literature Of The End Of The 16th – First Half Of The 17th Century In The Retrospection Of Oratory's History, Ruslan Tkachuk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The examination of the poetics inherent in the polemical prose authored by Uniate writers during the late 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries holds substantial significance for comprehending rhetoric as a pivotal element in the stylistic evolution of Ukrainian literature throughout this period. The objective of this article is to explore the interrelationship between the works of Uniate polemicists and the framework of classical rhetoric, particularly by elucidating the functioning of rhetorical figures and argumentation techniques within their texts. To accomplish this aim, a range of literary methodologies were employed. Those methods included historical-cultural, comparative-historical, biographical, structural-analytical, …

Orthodoxy, Culture And Language: Alaska In Russia’S Religious Diplomacy Of The 21st Century, Oleksandr Lukyanenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to the analysis of the religious factor of the Russian foreign diplomacy in the light of Vladimir Putin’s high-profile visit to Alaska n August 15, 2025. The paper studies a special place of Alaska in the historical imagination of Russian political and church discourse. The status of this particular territory in Russian state worldview – the former “Russian America” – is indicative: it refers to the idea of an unfinished imperial legacy. The research doesn’t touch a main event that included a meeting with US President Donald Trump but an off-schedule meeting with Archbishop Alexei (Trader) …

Provenance: The History Of Ownership Of A Valued Object Or Work Of Art Or Literature, James C. Schaap

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

White Horse Village: A Northern Utah Ufo Narrative, Melissa Petersen

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In the early 1960's a group of UFO believers, called Christ Brotherhood Inc., established themselves in Smithfield Canyon, UT and called their commune White Horse Village. A main house was built where the leader of the group lived and two or three smaller cabins were erected for the believers. Without running water they used an outhouse among them and built a small church where they would meet for lectures. Their beliefs centered around the popular movement of New Age spirituality of the time, which included scientific explanations for Christian beliefs including a belief in benevolent aliens as modern angels. Their …

Charity Begins With Zoning Reforms, Mark D. Bjelland

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

When my family moved to Michigan over a decade ago, we were looking for something more than a three-bedroom house in our price range. We wanted a place of beauty, refreshment, and welcome for our children and guests. As newcomers to the state, we took the location seriously. Our previous house lost value due to its small-town setting, so we worried about future property values. As an urban geographer, I mapped changes in demographics and housing prices and created bike and bus travel-time maps from work and schools.

Islamic Political Anti-Theology: A Discursive Practice Of Contingency Beyond Sovereign Politics, Jason Andrus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Contributing to the field of political theology from outside the European Christian tradition, this dissertation develops a description of the distinct logics that Islamic theology generates from its metaphysical assumptions. These logics in turn make possible a discourse of political anti-theology where politics operates through contingency rather than sovereignty. Political theology scholarship has excavated how modern politics derives from secularized Christian theological concepts—particularly transcendent sovereignty. This study demonstrates that Islamic theology's absolute insistence on divine transcendence (tawhid) produces something fundamentally different: a politics that renders sovereign authority conceptually impossible. I identify this discursive practice of political anti-theology through …

Training Timothy: An Analysis Of Discipleship And Leadership Development In Multicultural Churches, Philip Thomas

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

As America’s social and cultural landscape continues to diversify, churches face the challenge of fostering contextually relevant, biblically grounded communities characterized by unity in Christ. Church leaders play a crucial role in this process by articulating a shared mission that transcends humanistic cultural differences and working towards a unifying biblical culture, based on a common understanding and vocabulary. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine how church leaders were selected, developed, and mobilized in Protestant multicultural churches in America to create a unifying biblical culture through biblical discipleship in a multicultural context. For this study, discipleship was …

Investigating The Relationship Between Noun Classes And Plant Folk Taxonomy In Chasu Language Of Kilimanjaro Region In Tanzania, Peter Rabson Mziray

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

The current study investigates the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu (G 22). The study focuses on two objectives: the first objective is to describe the plant folk taxonomy in Chasu and the second objective is to determine the relationship between noun classes and plant folk taxonomy in Chasu. Data were collected from rural villages in Same and Mwanga districts by using free listing, field interviews (jungle-walk-and-identify), and written texts containing Chasu plant names. The findings reveal that Chasu folk taxonomy reflects different ethnobotanical categories; including a unique beginner which is mmea/mimea ‘plant(s)’, and three life …

Home And Religion, Emma Alexandra Grimley, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

This chapter explores how religious practices and identities intersect with the home as both a construct and physical locale and surveys the social science literature on religion in/and the home. We argue that the shifting space-times of religious practice reflect and influence the changeable and porous boundaries between public and private space, the home and beyond the home. This influence is shown by reference to three areas of focus: the home as a private space of and for religion; the use of religion to cross social and spatial boundaries of home; and the reconfiguration of the home in religious practice …

Generation Z And The Church: A Phenomenological Study Of Perceptions, Barriers, And Opportunities For Church Engagement, Hector Albert Soto

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the perceptions, barriers, and opportunities that shape the relationship between Generation Z and the Christian church, with particular attention to how these factors influence patterns of engagement. Recent trends indicated a significant decline in church engagement among Generation Z, contributing to the erosion of vital resources necessary for the sustained vitality of contemporary Christian congregations (Barna, 2020; Braddy, 2021; Earls, 2020). The study was guided by three research questions: 1) What Generation Z variables did the church need to focus on to attract and retain Gen Z (e.g., social concerns, leadership …

Singing A Wide Heart: Timbre And Sung Prayer In Senegal’S Layène Community, Margaret L. Rowley

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Layène sung prayer (called sikkar) is embedded within the religious practices of the Layène community, a minority Sufi order in Dakar, Senegal. This article explores the functions of Layène sung prayer, focusing especially on its loud, vibrational timbre. Both men and women vocalists in call-and-response sing loudly, using wide vibrato and electronic amplification to ensure that the sikkar reaches the inhabitants—both human and non-human—in the surrounding community. This article demonstrates that the distinctive timbre of Layène sung prayer serves the spiritual functions of binding the community together in spiritual and social cohesion, increasing individual and collective generosity, and demarcating …

Live Wires: The Angelus Temple And The Timbre Of Power, Catherine Provenzano

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

This article is a media history and contemporary case study of The Angelus Temple in Los Angeles, founded by Aimee Semple McPherson in 1923. My analysis of the Angelus insists upon the centrality of a hyperaudible paradigm of worship that uses media to maximize the legibility of a Christian message, and, more than this, imagines that media itself as a living soul in need of redemption. Many contemporary megachurches employ savvy applications of sound and sound transmission as instruments of belonging as well as action, and these rely on high-budget investments in church infrastructure, software and personnel. I argue that …

Performing "Manly" Worship Music: Gender And Timbre At Mars Hill Church, Maren Haynes Marchesini

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Ten years ago, Mars Hill boasted fifteen campuses and 15,000 members. Amid mounting allegations of abuse and mismanagement leveled against founding pastor Mark Driscoll, the church famously collapsed, closing its doors at the end of 2014. Driscoll had built Mars Hill’s core brand around his opposition to the perceived feminization of the Christian mainstream, and appointing himself the “leader of a heterosexual male backlash” in the church and broader culture. While Driscoll’s muscular Christianity stands in a wide historical stream, Mars Hill long led the charge in establishing a youth-oriented, hipster brand of hypermasculine Calvinism. And while rhetoric and theology …

Theorizing Rabbinic Folklore: The Miraculous Sleep Of The Holy Man, Gal Sela

Jewish Folklore and Ethnology

The miraculous sleep (ATU 766) is a well-known, recurring tale-type observed in Abrahamic folktales since the Second Temple period. This study compares variants of ATU 766 on three levels of analysis: as a popular tale in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writings from late antiquity and early medieval times; as a Jewish rendition; and as a multiple tale-type in rabbinic literature. The analysis engages with Dan Ben-Amos’s critical work concerning the use of syntactic methods in folklore studies to analyze Midrash and Aggadah. The essay offers a new theoretical perspective on rabbinic folklore using the notions of tale-type, ecotype, …

Analysis Of Pilgrimage To The Evangelical Lutheran Church In Zimbabwe (Elcz) Mission Centres, Rabson Hove

International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage

A pilgrimage is usually a sacred journey undertaken by religious adherents to holy places associated with their own traditions. As religions grow, religious pilgrimage also expands as the members of the religious traditions continue to influence each other. These holy religious centres influence religious enrichment, enhancement, strength and growth. Members get in touch with their origins and the history of the expansion of their religion as they encounter their holy sites or centres. In the case of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe (ELCZ), their important holy sites are missionary centres which are commonly located in rural Zimbabwe. The majority …

Engaging The Somali Diaspora: A Case Study Of One Agency’S Community Programming Approach, Farhia Abdi

The Journal of Social Encounters

This case study investigates how a local community agency engages with the Somali diaspora to design and implement culturally responsive services, such as the Settlement and Integration Program. It also explores the potential of fostering meaningful dialogue with community members to inform the development of culturally sensitive programming. The research question guiding this study was developed by findings from previous research, which highlighted the significance of community engagement, sustained dialogue, and the necessity for agencies to design clearly defined programs. These programs should prioritize active participation from community members in both the creation and implementation of tailored initiatives.

Naming The Church: Expressions Of Belonging And Belief Through The Centuries, Kyle J. Dieleman, Jeremy Perigo, Sarah Moss

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Our individual churches have value and are distinct, but our connection to the Church also deeply matters."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­naming conventions for churches from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.

Naming the Church

A Time For... Reckoning With Kirk's Assassination, Donald Roth

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"For Christians, engagement with culture is about a long-slow obedience in the same direction. It’s a deep investment in the communities where the Lord has placed us."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­responding to cultural crises from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.

A Time For... Reckoning with Kirk's Assassination

Week 1: Can I Get A Witness?, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

Refashioning The Meanings Of Dress In Palestinian Transnational Communities, Enaya Othman

Journal of Gender, Ethnic, and Cross-Cultural Studies

This paper examines how Palestinian women in both the homeland and diaspora contexts have sustained and redefined cultural heritage through tatreez embroidery and revitalized the traditional thob since 1948. As designers, artisans, and entrepreneurs, they have transformed cultural dress into a site of socio-political agency, economic empowerment, and national identity-making. Their work not only preserves inherited forms but also recasts them as living cultural practices that resist colonial erasure and counter Orientalist and Western feminist narratives portraying Arab and Muslim women as passive. From post-Nakba efforts to safeguard thobs as tangible material testaments of Palestinian life to contemporary hybrid fashion …

An Analysis Of Feminist Biblical Scholarship Through Case Studies In Judges, Erika Conner

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the rise and significance of feminist biblical scholarship, particularly as it engages the book of Judges. Feminist approaches to Scripture have often been criticized as politically motivated or ideologically biased, yet they also claim to offer corrective readings to centuries of male-dominated interpretation. This study situates feminist scholarship within its historical development and cultural context, beginning with the reconstruction of women’s societal, familial, religious, and agricultural roles in ancient Israel. Building on this foundation, it undertakes a comparative analysis of three key figures in Judges, Deborah, Jael, and the unnamed Woman of Thebez, first through traditional interpretations …

The Day Of The Lord As The Unifying Theme Of John’S Revelation, Jared Michael Quirk

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study is to argue that the day of the Lord (DOTL) is a major unifying theme within the book of Revelation. Chapters 2–3 of this study prepare the reader to accept this point by first arguing that the DOTL was a prominent theme in both the Old Testament Scriptures and the other New Testament writings besides Revelation (Matthew–Jude). After establishing the validity of the DOTL as a prominent theme in the biblical corpus (and thus as a theme worthy of John’s consideration), chapters 4–5 of this study focus specifically on the book of Revelation, highlighting how …

A Middle Bronze Iia Pottery Production Site On The Northern Bank Of NaḥAl Soreq, Near Yavne-Yam, Lily Singer-Avitz, Yossi Levy, Etan Ayalon

'Atiqot

A Middle Bronze Age IIA pottery production site was uncovered on the northern bank of Naḥal Soreq, near Yavne-Yam. Excavations revealed installations, including pits, an oven, a stone pavement and a two-story pottery kiln. The discovery of a potter’s wheel and petrographic analysis confirm local ceramic production using nearby ḥamra and kurkar materials. Stone anchors found on-site suggest the transport of vessels via small boats along the stream, connecting the site with nearby settlements such as Nabi Rubin and Yavne-Yam.

Understanding The Role Of Drug Offenses And The Death Penalty In Iran, Cyrus Zarganj

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been governed by Islamic laws devised by Shia Muslim clerics, significantly influencing the nation's legal framework in both criminal and civil contexts. The death penalty in Iran covers a broad spectrum of offenses, many of which would not be considered capital crimes or even crimes globally. This extensive application of the death penalty is an instrument of social control during periods of political tension, indicating a direct relationship between the regime's stability and the enforcement of extreme punitive measures. Despite some reduction in the visibility of executions due to international …

Pigs For The Dispossessed Goat Demon: Jesus’ Exorcism In Mark 5 And Animal Interest, Michael Joseph Gossett

Masters Theses

This thesis explores how a historical-literal reading of Mark 5:1-20 can be defended against objections that claim Jesus caused or allowed unnecessary animal suffering. Contextual insights gleaned from 2nd Temple Watchers Traditions and Greco-Roman polytheism illuminate plausible symbolic value present in the deaths of the Gerasene swine. The context of Mark 5:1-20 presents a supernatural conflict compatible with Christian theology and rebel angel theodicies. Jesus’ actions concerning the Gerasene pigs are not necessarily unjustifiable examples of animal mistreatment.

A Teleoisrael And The Μυστήριον Of Mercy: The Identity Of Πᾶς Ἰσραήλ And The Apocalyptic Realignment Of God’S Covenant People In Romans 9–11, James Matthew Nowotny

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation explores the meaning of Paul's assertion in Romans 11:26 that "all Israel will be saved," situating it within the broader theological and literary context of Romans 9–11. The study addresses the complex question of Israel’s identity in Paul’s writings, arguing that Paul envisions a future eschatological salvation for ethnic Israel that coheres with God’s covenantal promises while incorporating Gentile believers into the redemptive plan through union with Christ. Utilizing exegetical analysis, intertextual engagement with the Old Testament, and investigation of Second Temple Jewish conceptions of Israel, the study proposes a nuanced model termed TeleoIsrael—a theological construct reflecting the …

The Apologetic Implications Of Paul's First Missionary Journey, Mark Garro

Masters Theses

This thesis takes a careful look at Paul’s first missionary speech in Acts 13 and the larger narrative of his first missionary journey in Acts 14, asking two main questions: What is Paul saying in his first recorded sermon, and what can the modern church learn from it, particularly when it comes to apologetics and suffering? Through literary and exegetical analysis, this study examines how Paul’s message fits into the broader narrative of Acts, paying special attention to the historical setting, rhetorical flow, and theological implications of the speech. The research is grounded in a wide range of scholarship and …