Digital Commons Network^™

A Faculty Member’S Response To David Bauer’S Article, Ruth Anne Reese

The Asbury Journal

This paper was part of an oral panel presentation that was given on October 12, 2012 at Asbury Theological Seminary. The panel was asked to engage with the question of Inductive Bible Study and its relationship to the global church. The paper is only minimally revised from its original oral presentation.

The Trinity In The Old Testament, Jiri Moskala

Faculty Publications

The fundamental mystery of the Christian faith is belief in the Triune God. As Seventh‑day Adventists, we confess that God is One but manifested in three distinct persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When we speak about God, we need to remember that weenter holy ground, and we need to do it with deep humility, knowing our limits. We are using imperfect human language to describe an infinite God. The transcendent God always surpasses even our finest categories of thinking and logic.

Structure And Mission Effectiveness: A Study Focused On Seventh-Day Adventist Mission To Unreached People Groups Between 1980 And 2010, Abraham Guerrero

Dissertations

The present study examines the impact of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's structure on mission effectiveness in taking the gospel to unreached people groups between 1980 and 2010. A historical descriptive study, this dissertation's theory base includes structure from an anthropological perspective; structure, mission, and effectiveness from an organizational perspective; and church structure and mission effectiveness in Christian history.

The impact of structure on mission effectivenessis evaluated in the present work by looking for patterns in history in which the structure has been either a facilitator or a hindrance for establishing churches among those who have not been reached with the …

Contingency And The Giftedness Of Creation: Enacting Grace In A Fractured World, Philip J. Rossi

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Adoil Outside The Cosmos: God Before And After Creation In The Enochic Tradition, Andrei Orlov

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Religious Acculturation And Spirituality In Latter-Day Saint Committed Converts, Kristin L. Hansen, Laurie Page, Lane Fischer, Marleen Williams

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

This study examines religious acculturation and spirituality in committed Latter-day Saint (LDS) converts living in Utah. We conducted a qualitative analysis using interviews from a sample of 20 North American and 20 International Latter-day Saint converts attending or working at Brigham Young University (BYU)—a western LDS private university—of varying age, time since baptism, and country of origin. Of the 40 converts, 39 were classified as committed in their LDS religious affiliation using Henri Gooren’s (2007) Conversion Career Model. Based on our analysis of the interviews, several pertinent themes emerged: converts (1) recognize and choose to acculturate; (2) report positive changes …

From The East To The West: The Problem Of Directions In The Book Of Mormon, Brant A. Gardner

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

The 1985 publication of John L. Sorenson’s An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon presented the best argument for a New World location for the Book of Mormon. For all of its strengths, however, one aspect of the model has remained perplexing. It appeared that in order to accept that correlation one must accept that the Nephites rotated north to what we typically understand as northwest. The internal connections between text and geography were tighter than any previous correlation, and the connections between that particular geography and the history of the peoples who lived in that place during …

Story, Ritual, And Religion In Changing Social Climates, Denise Young Jackson

Communication & Leadership Dissertations and Theses

This study was created to investigate how ministers of the Montana/Northern-Wyoming Partnership express the story and ritual of religion in changing social climates. It was designed to answer three questions. RQ1) How are mission activities interpreted, defined, and given form through the storytelling by the ministers within the Church? RQ2) How do ministers integrate the mission statement and the mission activities into their Bible based storytelling? RQ3) How and for what purpose do ministers incorporate or connect issues and ideas from the secular sphere into religious-based storytelling? Since the dramatic social and economic changes in Montana as a result of …

Jewish, Christian – Or What? Questions Of Self-Designation In The 'Ascension Of Isaiah', Meghan Henning, Tobias Nicklas

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

The Question of the “Parting of the Ways” between Jews and Christians has become a matter of debate again: is it really appropriate to speak about two more or less coherent groups going two different ways from a certain point in history – perhaps after Paul’s mission, after the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE), or after the Bar-Kokhba War (132-135 CE)? Does the image of a tree with one root and two different trunks going into two different directions really fit what the extant sources tell us about the complexities of the past? Or shouldn’t we distinguish between …

Mathers Systematic Theology - Chapter 2, Norm Mathers

Faculty Publications and Presentations

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES

2.1 The Inspiration of the Scriptures involves the accurate recording of the revelation.

2.1.1 Central Passages establish the inspiration of the Scriptures.

2.1.1.1 2 Timothy 3:16-17

An Intelligent Critique Of Multiple Intelligences: A Christian Review For Leaders, David A. Mcgee, Bryce Hantla

Faculty Publications and Presentations

Ideas have consequences—for good or bad. The apostle Paul, in his letter to a group of Romans, stated that the metaphysical world could be known to humanity (Rom 1:18ff). Over 1,800 years later, Emanuel Kant, a German philosopher, challenged this view of the metaphysical world; that is, Kant claimed that God could not be known, and western Christian philosophy has scrambled ever since to make sense of the two.1 On a similar scale, Howard Gardner, professor at Harvard University, challenged the prevailing view of intelligence in 1983 with his book Frames of Mind, stating that there were a number of …

Dynamics Of Shame In Genesis 3 And 4: Missiological Implications For Today, Andrew Tompkins

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

Friendship With God In The African Context, Emmanuel Takyi

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

Orthodox Perspectives On Mission, Petros Vassiliadis

Edinburgh Centenary Series

The collected volume is divided into two parts: Part I under the subtitle The Orthodox Heritage consists of a limited number of representative Orthodox missiological contributions of the past, whereas Part II includes all the papers presented in the Plenary of the recent Edinburgh 2010 conference, as well as the short studies and contributions prepared during the Edinburgh 2010 ongoing study process.

Bible In Mission, Pauline Hoggarth, Fergus Macdonald, Bill Mitchell, Knud Jorgensen

Edinburgh Centenary Series

While the essays in this volume contribute individually to collective reflection on the Bible in mission, the larger significance of the book is greater than the sum of its parts. First it must be noted that the volume is part of the larger 2010 process, a collection of essays that grew from a “transversal” theme identified for the centennial of the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh. As such, it joins a rich collection of contemporary missiological reflection generated by the series of 2010 meetings.

Pushing The Pictorial Turn: Mitchell, Benjamin, And Religion Online, John William Borchert

Religion - Theses

This thesis asserts a visual ontology as a way of understanding religious practice online. W.J.T Mitchell argues twenty-first century humanities are shifting away from text and towards an interest in the meaning of images. However, he denies digital images a place within this pictorial turn, judging them banal. Mitchell's theorization of new media is a postmodern rereading of Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". I argue that Mitchell's utilization of Benjamin's aura in his constructions of the human relationship to new media misinterprets the role of these technologies in relating the image to the …

A Brief Stretch Of Adventist Witness To Hindus In Guyana, J. L. Samir

Journal of Adventist Mission Studies

No abstract provided.

Jewish Law Courts In America: Lessons Offered To Sharia Courts By The Beth Din Of America Precedent, Michael J. Broyde

Faculty Articles

Although the BDA is now a fifty-year-old organization, its true metamorphosis as an arbitration panel began only in 1996 when it gained autonomy from the Rabbinical Council of America. In the fifteen years since, an independent board of directors has worked with the BDA’s rabbinic leaders to craft an arbitration process that secular courts would feel comfortable upholding. While the BDA’s transformation required some level of compromise within Jewish law itself, the adaptations necessary for judicial acceptance proved to be procedural. Broadly, this meant conforming to the tenets of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). More specifically, the BDA’s viability came …

Afterword, David G. Schultenover

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Today many books appear regarding Vatican II. Yet, only very few of them manage to locate this crucial event in the life of the twentieth century Roman Catholic Church against the broad horizon of both its prehistory and its aftermath. This book does just that. In seven chapters, this volume offers a survey of the evolution of Post-Enlightenment Catholicism, in the period spanning from ca. 1830 to the present, tying together the renewals proposed by the first and the Second Vatican Councils. Each phase in this evolution is discussed from a double angle: on the hand from the viewpoint of …

"Light From The West": Byzantine Readings Of Aquinas, Marcus Plested

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Lonergan On Imitating The Divine Relations, Robert M. Doran

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Self: A Transpersonal Neuroanthropological Account, Charles D. Laughlin

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The anthropology of the self has gained momentum recently and has produced a significant body of research relevant to interdisciplinary transpersonal studies. The notion of self has broadened from the narrow focus on cultural and linguistic labels for self-related terms, such as person, ego, identity, soul, and so forth, to a realization that the self is a vast system that mediates all the aspects of personality. This shift in emphasis has brought anthropological notions of the self into closer accord with what is known about how the brain mediates self-as-psyche. Numerous examples from the ethnography of the self are given, …

Understanding Bohm’S Holoflux: Clearing Up A Conceptual Misunderstanding Of The Holographic Paradigm And Clarifying Its Signifigance To Transpersonal Studies Of Consciousness, Mark A. Schroll

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

Throughout the past 31 years transpersonal anthropologists and transpersonal psychologists seeking a scientific language to discuss anomalous phenomena and the farther reaches of human nature (or to invoke a discussion of ultimate reality, universal mind or cosmic consciousness) have referred to the holographic paradigm, the conceptual origin of which is directly related to David Bohm’s implicate order theory. In 1982 and 1984 Bohm discussed the holographic paradigm’s limitations (and more specifically his concept of holomovement) to accurately represent his implicate order theory, suggesting instead the more precise conceptual reference holoflux; yet the limited publication of this correction has not been …

Shamanic Cosmology As An Evolutionary Neurocognitive Epistemology, Michael Winkelman

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The biological foundation for a shamanic epistemology is indicated by the cross-cultural distribution of a shamanic cosmology derived from knowledge obtained during altered consciousness. These special forms of consciousness involve integrative brain conditions that access ancient ways of knowing, expressive systems which have evolutionary roots in the communicative and social processes involved in animal displays or rituals. These were augmented over the course of hominid evolution into expressive and mimetic activities that provided a basis for significant epistemological expansions of consciousness exemplified in shamanic out-of-body (OBE) experiences. These manifestations of consciousness involved new modes of self and processes of knowing, …

Witnessing The Web: The Rhetoric Of American E-Vangelism And Persuasion Online, Amber M. Stamper

Theses and Dissertations--English

From the distribution of religious tracts at Ellis Island and Billy Sunday’s radio messages to televised recordings of the Billy Graham Crusade and Pat Robertson’s 700 Club, American evangelicals have long made a practice of utilizing mass media to spread the Gospel. Most recently, these Christian evangelists have gone online. As a contribution to scholarship in religious rhetoric and media studies, this dissertation offers evangelistic websites as a case study into the ways persuasion is carried out on the Internet. Through an analysis of digital texts—including several evangelical home pages, a chat room, discussion forums, and a virtual church—I investigate …

Converge International Missionaries And Their Churches In Thailand: Different Strategies Reaching Different People Groups In The Bangkapi District Of Bangkok, Thailand, John F. Easterling

Great Commission Research Journal

In 1990, two missionary families moved to Thailand under the supervision of the Baptist General Conference to study the Thai language, intern under a Thai pastor, and eventually plant churches. Their coming to Thailand was following many years of Buddhism that is firmly established in the land. Christianity has not had an easy reception, but slowly the Christian church has been planted by men and women with faith, a call, determination, vision, and hard work. As these two missionary families began to work together, they started to realize that they each had a distinct calling. After twelve years, their one …

Attending To Reality: Iris Murdoch’S Ethical Realism, Ante Jeroncic

Faculty Publications

Even a scant acquaintance with current cultural and philosophical trends will readily point to a widespread predilection for subjectivist forms of moral reasoning. By “subjectivist” I refer to various non-cognitivist and constructionist paradigms in moral philosophy and popular parlance that reduce ethical statements to expressions of individual or collective preferences, feelings, or prejudices stripped of any object-given normativity. The following are but some of the factors that fuel such perspectives: the proverbial fact/value dichotomy and anti-realist sentiments pervading large swaths of analytic philosophy; poststructuralist and postcolonial “genealogies” that tie the language of universal morality to discourses of power, patriarchy, and …

Thrones In The Book Of Revelation Part 2: The Lamb On The Throne, Laszlo Gallusz

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

Is Sexuality Impure? An Alternative Interpretation Of Leviticus 15:18, Rene Gehring

Journal of the Adventist Theological Society

No abstract provided.

The Rhetorical Approach To 1 Thessalonians In Light Of Funeral Oration, Jae Kyung Cho

ATS Dissertations

The present dissertation is a study of the rhetorical approach to 1 Thessalonians, particularly funeral oration. Though many scholars have interpreted 1 Thessalonians in light of thematic perspective, mirror reading, and epistolary approach, this dissertation asserts that Paul employs elements of epideictic funerary oratory to persuade his audience in writing 1 Thessalonians. Moreover, the dissertation shows that Paul’s use of funerary language with some twists in meaning and purpose illustrates that Paul employs topoi and the purpose of funeral oration in 1 Thessalonians.

Encountering the growing persecution, sufferings, and even death of members, the believers of Thessalonica needed encouragement and …