Digital Commons Network^™

Creation Costs: Hermeneutical And Scientific Repercussions Through The Lens Of The Day Age And Young Earth Views, Mark Alan Langner

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Genesis’s creation narrative is crystal clear: God is eternal and preeminent, humankind is made in his image, and all nature results from God’s spoken word. Christocentric truth bursts forth from the opening words of creation, reality transcended by the Son of God. However, particularly in the years following the beginnings of Darwinian theory, questioning of the biblical creation narrative and variant versions of that narrative has exponentially expanded. This project is intended to biblically and systematically underscore the supernatural attributes of the Creator and the inerrancy of the Bible that God inspired, to determine hermeneutical and scientific costs associated with …

The Impact Of People Of The Dream Applied To Kingdom Authority Christian Center Lay Workers Church Plant: A Mixed Methods Approach, Kenneth Kief Davis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Kingdom Authority Christian Center (KACC) is growing more attentive to the changing demographics in the world. It seeks to understand that as other countries and nations continue to diversify by race and ethnicity, change is needed. The problem is that KACC has no training curriculum designed to impact and employ change. A mixed-method approach will be applied to fix KACC’s problem and the proposal of correspondence from People of the Dream. This thesis project will provide research from individual interviews, a population group, and an inside viewpoint from one of the people in the dream. This project will also add …

Semeiotic And The Problem Of Panentheism For Christian Natural Theology, Nathan G. Wheeler

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation considers the theological suitability of Charles S. Peirce’s philosophy of signs (semeiotic) for use in theories respecting the great Christian tradition. As a case-study, this dissertation examines panentheism as a problem for a Christian approach to natural theology utilizing semeiotic, as proposed by Alister McGrath. Leading interpreters of Peirce’s philosophy of religion, Michael Raposa and Robert Corrington, hold that Peirce’s semeiotic entails a panentheist ontology. If that is the case, then a fully developed use of semeiotic by McGrath may inad-vertently risk the coherence of his theory. The present study takes a systematic theology approach combined with an …

Catholics & Cultures As An Act Of Improvisation: A Response, Thomas M. Landy

Journal of Global Catholicism

This essay responds to seven articles published in the same issue of the Journal of Global Catholicism on the use of Catholics & Cultures, a multimedia website, as a pedagogical resource for college classrooms. The site is deliberately presented in a fashion that undermines notions of center and periphery and presents Catholicism from a lay, lived-religion perspective as the multicultural faith that it is, minimizing reference to religious typologies. Particular attention is given to how to navigate tensions around theorizing, categorizing and sorting information for cross-cultural comparison. Given scholars’ current state of knowledge, writing about and teaching about global Catholicism …

Catholics & Cultures: A Panoramic View In Search Of Greater Understanding, Stephanie M. Wong

Journal of Global Catholicism

While internet-based technologies can open up greater awareness of the world or create self-perpetuating echo-chambers, the Catholics & Cultures project aspires to do the former. Aiming to ‘widen the lens’ on the variety of Catholic communities and practices, the site delivers on this goal by introducing viewers to a vast array of articles, pictures and videos from around the world. The organization of the site by country and by certain key features of lived Catholicism offers some interpretive guidance. However, the project could be strengthened as a pedagogical resource if it were more extensively thematized and hosted reflections on potential …

The Value Of Online Resources: Reflections On Teaching An Introduction To Global Christianity, Hillary Kaell

Journal of Global Catholicism

Reflecting on my experience teaching Introduction to Global Christianity, this essay ponders questions at the heart of undergraduate teaching: How can we encourage students to utilize online sources? How can we empower them to seek out answers to their questions? It offers practical examples of how I have used the Catholics & Cultures website in my classroom at a large public university. In particular, I reflect on my experience working with students who are mostly of Catholic heritage, but from many cultural and social contexts.

Teaching Sexuality On The Catholics & Cultures Website: A Refreshing Turn Toward The Longue Durée, Marc Roscoe Loustau

Journal of Global Catholicism

I present a close reading of the Catholics & Cultures (C&C) website’s treatment of sexuality-related issues and discuss this material in relation to debates about how to teach sexuality in religious studies and theology classrooms. The C&C website occasionally and intermittently uses a typical “contemporary issues” approach that considers sexuality in relation to legal and legislative decisions and government policies. In contrast, country profiles consistently situate sexuality in relation processes like nation building, urbanization, and lay Catholics’ growing authority. My interpretation highlights the site’s decision to emphasize the longue durée, long-term and deep structural processes driving cultural and religious changes. …

Focus On The Busy Intersections Of Culture And Cultural Change, Laura Elder

Journal of Global Catholicism

The dynamics of religious resurgence reveal the important ways that religious ritual and performance are meaning making spaces which are not self-contained or cut off from the rest of culture, but rather are a key locus of cultural change. A renewed emphasis on the busy intersections of meaning making – as rituals are connected, disconnected, and reconnected to other domains of social life – would improve the utility of the Catholics & Cultures website for understanding global cultural change. And a renewed emphasis on cultural change would also provide a better means for exploring reflexively by seeking to understand both …

A Widened Angle Of View: Teaching Theology And Racial Embodiment, Mara Brecht

Journal of Global Catholicism

Today’s undergraduate students are digital natives, shaped by constant access to information and countless experiences of encountering the world through the convenience of a screen. The ostensible comfort students have with difference gives way to a paradox, and one that’s made especially apparent in the theology classroom: Students are comfortable with seeing difference and particularity at a distance, but not adept at locating difference and particularity “at home.” I contend that Catholics & Cultures can help students from the dominant culture—namely, white students who comprise the vast majority of Catholic college students—destabilize their notion of the Catholic tradition as tightly …

Introducing Catholics & Cultures: Ethnography, Encyclopedia, Cyborg, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

In introducing the Catholics & Cultures site and the articles in this special issue, this essay initially locates the overall Catholic & Cultures project within the traditions of ethnography and encyclopedia. Drawing extensively on the work of J. Z. Smith, this essay reflects upon the theoretical implications of emphasizing the diversity of Catholicism in and through a web-based platform that facilitates comparative study and pedagogy. This essay then more specifically considers the web-based aspects of Catholics & Cultures by identifying a nascent cyborgian aesthetic in the site and considering how the site might eventually engage post-modern themes and concerns.

الجثوم والجثو في القرآن الكريم دراسة موضوعية, د. محمود عبد اللطيف حمد

Midad AL-Adab Refereed Quarterly Journal

Thank for allah , the God of all and pece upon our master mohammed and on his follower ,what else.

The Holy quraan that allah had sent to mohammed (peace up on him) is aguidance ,mercy ,light and a protection hence no way to amend the nation dignity and nature other than following the quraan .all should under sland what it means and directs

After getting a wide glance at quraan ,the term "kneeling and barrow "has been chosen ,that the researcher has dedicted it and found that it has been mentioned in eight quranic verse .so the present research …

Gospel As Recipe Book: Nonlinear Reading And Practical Texts In Late Antiquity, Jeremiah Coogan

Jesuit School of Theology

Der Artikel widmet sich der Frage, wie Christen und Nichtchristen in der Spätantike mit dem »Evangelium« als Textartefakt umgegangen sind. Zunächst werden spätantike Praxistexte wie rituelle Formelsammlungen, medizinische Handbücher, landwirtschaftliche Leitfäden und astronomische Tabellen betrachtet, die in einer Vielzahl von Situationen abschnittsweise verwendet wurden, etwa beim lauten Lesen, beim Befolgen der Anweisungen für die Ausführung eines Rituals, die Zubereitung eines Medikaments oder den Entwurf eines Horoskops. Um dies zu erleichtern, waren solche Praxistexte für den nichtlinearen Zugriff angelegt. In spätantiken Evangelienkodizes spiegeln sich offenbar ähnliche Organisationsstrategien und Gebrauchsweisen wider. Mit verschiedenen Gliederungs- und Verweissystemen wurde die Möglichkeit (affordance) des nichtlinearen …

The Mass Is The Medium: Marshall Mcluhan And Roman Catholic Liturgical Change, Ashil D. Manohar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The liturgical changes of Vatican II sought to bring a period of renewal to the Catholic laity by encouraging active participation and making the Mass more simple to understand. However, the time after the Council was characterized by confusion and disengagement by the laity. I will be discussing three significant changes to the liturgy at this time, The change from Latin to the vernacular, the change in the orientation of the altar and priest, and the change in acoustics, sound, and music. I will be examining all of these changes through the media theory of Marshall McLuhan, famous for coining …

منهج المبرد في تفسير القرآن الكريم في ضوء آرائه التفسيرية في كتابه المقتضب, أ.م.د. ياسر إحسان رشيد النعيمي

Midad AL-Adab Refereed Quarterly Journal

The books are full of linguists mention Quranic verses; not so strange; The Quran is the most important sources of the Arabic language. Upon reading the citations of these imams Quranic verses we see that they gave their opinions in the interpretation of many of them, and many of these views have a high value for use in the interpretation of the Qur'an and understand its meaning.

From here we see that the language of scholars wrote dictionaries and books about and the other is the great treasury of important explanatory views the problem of the basis of interpretation of …

أَسْماءُ مَكَّةَ المُكَرَّمة والمَدينةِ المُنَوَّرةِ فِي القـُرآنِ الكَريمِ - دراسةٌ دلاليَّة -, د. حيدر حسين عبيد

Midad AL-Adab Refereed Quarterly Journal

Praise be to Allah , the lord of the worlds, and may his peace and blessings be upon our prophet Muhammad , his family and all his companions .

It is beyond dispute that the glorious Qura'n is inimitable in its composition . thus , each single words in it chosen in a high-accurate to be appropriate for the context and place in which it is mentioned and revealed

The multi-names for one thing or one person, specially will bring to light the aesthetic touch of the multi-names for one thing or one person specially for the names of the …

Reinforcement Of The New Islamic Civilization Through Qur’Anic Literacy, Asmaji Muchtar

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This article aims to provide a solution for how the new Islamic civilization in the modern era should be the answer to overcoming the various problems of the world community. Since its emergence, Islam has provided answers related to the role of science as a whole contained in the Qur'an, so it is not surprising that Muslim scientists and their work have become a reference for scientists around the world for 14 centuries ago. However, the literacy of Muslim scholars is too focused on qouliyah verses that contain Sharia, rather than kauniyah verses that contain science. On the other hand, …

Anti-Reductionist Christian Philosophy In The Twentieth Century: Owen Barfield And The Neo-Calvinists, Jamin Hubner

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Worship Contextualization In Seventh-Day Adventist Ethnic Congregations In São Paulo, Christian C. L. Britis, Marcelo E. C. Dias

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

This article offers an example of Adventist ethnic churches in São Paulo. Next, it analyzes the contextualization of worship among those groups. Finally, it explores contextualization possibilities in the face of the growing missionary challenges in these urban contexts of cultural plurality. The data was collected in three ways: (1) exchange of e-mails with current pastors of nine contextual projects; (2) ethnographic observations in two of the contextual projects (the Korean church and the Chinese Adventist community of São Paulo) at the time of an internship in 2020; and (3) bibliographic review.

The analysis and evaluation of the projects was …

Addressing The Issue Of Low Attendance In Emmanuel Church Among Young Adults, Ivett Beverley Mcdonald

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of the study was to address the issue of low attendance in Emmanuel Church among young adults. This topic is based on the investigator's awareness that individuals who grow up in Emmanuel discontinue attendance between the ages of eighteen to twenty-nine years. The literature review revealed that many churches commonly experience this problem. Emmanuel Church is primarily made up of Jamaicans and their descendants, and no literature addressed the immediate context of Emmanuel Church. The investigator interviewed twenty young adults who were previous members of Emmanuel Church. The study revealed that young adults leave Emmanuel in record numbers. …

Traversing A Tightrope Between Ecumenism And Exclusivism, Retief Müller

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

During the first few decades of the 20th century, the Nkhoma mission of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa became involved in an ecumenical venture that was initiated by the Church of Scotland’s Blantyre mission, and the Free Church of Scotland’s Livingstonia mission in central Africa. Geographically sandwiched between these two Scots missions in Nyasaland (presently Malawi) was Nkhoma in the central region of the country. During a period of history when the DRC in South Africa had begun to regressively disengage from ecumenical entanglements in order to focus on its developing discourse of Afrikaner Christian nationalism, this venture …

Morality And The Personhood Of God: A Moral Argument For The Existence Of A Personal God, Stephen Scott Jordan

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The concept that God is personal is an important part of religious belief. If God were not personal, it would be odd to think of him as moral or loving; it would also seem counterintuitive to speak of him as One with whom humans can have a personal relationship, One who can be trusted, cares for the people he created, listens to their prayers, acts on their behalf, has their best interests at heart, and so on. In short, to talk of such matters in a sensible manner and to experience them in everyday life seemingly requires that God is …

Welcoming And Belonging: Voice, Acceptance And Purpose, Kevin Driver

Consensus

No abstract provided.

Connections: Church In Community, Shirl Christian

Consensus

No abstract provided.

The Green Lectionary: Creation Care And The Revised Common Lectionary, George Jacob Bolton V

Doctor of Ministry

As Christian communities become increasingly interested in engaging with humanity’s biblical connection to the earth, and the spiritual response to this relationship, there is uncertainty regarding the most contextually appropriate methods to pursue. Impressive projects that conserve and honor elements of creation, activities such as community gardens or solar panel installation projects, are often disconnected from the liturgical life of the congregation. Conversely, honoring creation and the biblical connection people of faith have with nature is a widely under practiced liturgical activity. This paper argues that the most direct and practical method to enhance a congregation’s awareness of their spiritual …

Re-Enchanting Adolescence: Using Story To Give A New Generation Fresh Hope, Susan Stratton

Doctor of Ministry

The repercussions of four distinct world shifts—the Reformation, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution—has produced a narcissistic culture that impedes Gen Z’s ability to cultivate a transcendent personal narrative that is open to authentic spiritual formation. This “immanent buffered self,” so prominent in western culture, is taking a toll on the spiritual lives of 21st-century individuals of every age. The devastation in Gen Z, the newest generation, has severe consequences for the health of Gen Z and also for the church. One in three young adults do not believe in a Divine Being, and those young adults who are in …

From Recreational To Sacramental: Observing Past Entheogenic Practices And Considering Their Potential Application In The Future Of Christianity, Heath Hollensbe

Doctor of Ministry

This dissertation aims to consider whether Jesus followers in North America could begin to adopt entheogens as items of sacramental worship.

Section One will describe the opportunity on the horizon for the institutional church in North America.

Section Two will focus on alternative readings of biblical texts and look at the basis of convictions about entheogenic use. By looking at the history of entheogens around the world, I attempt to show that entheogenic use is not a new trend to adopt, but part of religious history.

Additionally, I will present a proposed path forward on culture-wide adoption of entheogens.

Section …

Christian Leadership In An Age Of Identity Politics, Lloyd Wilkinson

Doctor of Ministry

This dissertation is an attempt to understand New Zealand Christian leadership in a time of divisive identity politics. Using epistemological mapping, the first part of the research begins by considering the effect postmodernism had on the self-understanding of both western society and the wider church. It then considers the impact of neo-economics on traditional political divisions and the shift towards empowering minority social groups. As these changes unfolded, the New Zealand church experienced a dramatic decline, creating significant challenges for its leadership. Through interviews and reflection on leadership writing over the last fifty years, the research maps the change in …

Handbook For The Deceased: Re-Evaluating Literature And Folklore In Icelandic Archaeology, Brenda Nicole Prehal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The rich medieval Icelandic literary record, comprised of mythology, sagas, poetry, law codes and post-medieval folklore, has provided invaluable source material for previous generations of scholars attempting to reconstruct a pagan Scandinavian Viking Age worldview. In modern Icelandic archaeology, however, the Icelandic literary record, apart from official documents such as censuses, has not been considered a viable source for interpretation since the early 20th century. Although the Icelandic corpus is problematic in several ways, it is a source that should be used in Icelandic archaeological interpretation, if used properly with source criticism.

This dissertation aims to advance Icelandic archaeological theory …

The Illusion Of Self Revisited: Replies To Critics, Karsten J. Struhl

Comparative Philosophy

Anand Vaidya, Sean Smith, and Mark Siderits have presented thoughtful comments and provocative challenges to my article “What Kind of an Illusion is the Illusion of Self?” Their challenges raise significant questions about the nature of illusion, whether Buddhism is denying the self in all senses of the term, whether there could be a self that exists for some limited duration of time and has at least some measure of control, whether there is a phenomenal illusion of self, whether the neuropsychological assumptions embedded in Thomas Metzinger’s Phenomenal Self Model is consistent with Buddhist metaphysics, the usefulness of evolutionary psychology …

Buddhist Modernism, Scientific Explanation, And The Self, Sean Smith

Comparative Philosophy

No abstract provided.