Digital Commons Network^™

The Quest For Sacred Truth In A Secular Society What Is Fueling Gen Z’S Return To Faith And Church Attendance In America?, William W. Dornbush

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

This dissertation investigated the Critical Research Question: What are the key external factors influencing Generation Z’s internal quest for spiritual renewal? The study examined biblical, historical, and contemporary revival movements, including the Exodus, Pentecost, the Great Awakenings, the Jesus Movement, Charismatic Renewal, Brownsville, Toronto, and Asbury, to identify recurring patterns linking external pressures to spiritual awakening. Using a qualitative design, the study conducted semi-structured interviews with twelve Generation Z participants who experienced spiritual searching, renewal, or a deepened faith between 2020 and 2025, exploring how contemporary external pressures influence spiritual openness and transformation. The findings revealed six major themes: (1) …

"The Voice Of The Universe": Cosmic Immanence In John Elof Boodin’S Process Thought, What It Is And Why It Matters, Michael A. Flannery

Libraries Professional Work

For most, the way to process thought has been through mathematician-turned-philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947). However, his contemporary, Swedish–American philosopher John Elof Boodin (1869–1950), offers another path. While both clearly exposit a process-based philosophy/theology, there are important differences. The main purpose of this essay is to delineate those differences and highlight Boodin’s concept of cosmic immanence (CI) as a key feature separating him from Whitehead’s metaphysic. It is argued that CI can provide the heavy lifting for developing a coherent and satisfying process theology without the baggage attached to Whitehead’s difficult intricate interconnections and enigmatic neologisms. In other words, Boodin’s …

Christotechtonics: Dildonic Prostheticity In Theological Formulation, Evan Taylor Marsolek

Dissertations

This dissertation asserts the following claim: Christ is a dildo. This project brings Paul B. Preciado into conversations with contemporary philosophies of religion and interrogates a hegemonic Christian theological political matrix. This project articulates a hermeneutic of christotechtonics, which studies appearance, formation, and utilization of Christ. This project is twofold. It begins with a transdisciplinary exploration that entangles queer and trans theories, religious studies, secular studies, and philosophy of religion to position reading queer and trans theories as forms of counter political theologies. The work then transitions into dildonic prostheticity in theological formulation. The 2019 Vatican document “Male and Female …

Songs As Theologizing: Annamma Mammen’S (1911–2002) Contribution In Shaping The Kerala Pentecostal Imagination, Allan Varghese Meloottu

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

In Indian Pentecostal theological and missiological literature, the role of Kerala Pentecostals is well documented. However, the pioneering voices that are highlighted are of men, sidelining women’s voices and contributions that shaped the grassroots Kerala Pentecostal imagination. The preacher-songwriter Annamma Mammen (1911–2002) is one such voice that impacted early Kerala Pentecostal growth. Therefore, this article, in addition to bringing forth the sidelined story of Annamma Mammen, emphasizes Mammen’s role as a songwriter and analyzes one of her early songs to highlight how her theology encapsulates early Kerala Pentecostal theological emphases (eschatological imagination, scriptural importance, contextual primacy, and Jesus-centeredness). Although Mammen’s …

The Process Theology Of John Elof Boodin, Michael A. Flannery

Libraries Professional Work

Despite his impeccable academic pedigree, a protégé of Josiah Royce and a friend and student of William James, John Elof Boodin is nearly forgotten today among American philosophers; hence, an essential aspect of his thought lost to history is his contribution to process theology. The leading features of process thought demonstrate Boodin’s connections to this unique theology and show it to have been established early on, as early as 1900 and 1904. This places Boodin’s writing on process philosophy/theology well before Alfred North Whitehead, the putative pioneer in modern process metaphysics, by more than twenty years, and co-extensive with Henri …

An Interdisciplinary Theological Method From The Knowledge Of The Forgotten, Alexandre A. Martins

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Orthodox Theology Of Modernity: Problem Statement And Prospective Tasks, Hennadii Khrystokin, Vasyl Lozovytskyi

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article studies the problem of Orthodoxy's attitude to modernity. The concept of the theology of modernity–a new section of the social theology of the church, which considers the specifics, main trends, problems, and tendencies of modernity–is proposed. The theology of modernity raises questions about the possibilities, boundaries, and ways of renewal of the church. The concept of the theology of modernity is a set of methods, approaches, and discourses that allow us to comprehend modernity, carry out its assessment by means of Orthodox theology, and find its religious potential for the actualization of Christianity in our time. The analysis …

Pentecostalism And Social, Political, And Economic Development, Allan H. Anderson

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

This article traces the global impact of Pentecostalism with reference to its definition, varieties, and statistics. It also discusses the subject of development from a theological perspective, considering how development applies to Pentecostalism. The first part considers the ambivalence involved in Pentecostal sociopolitical engagement, and then in the second part, discusses how Pentecostalism and development relate to each other. It gives examples throughout the article of how Pentecostals are involved in development projects and sociopolitical activities worldwide.

Providential Capitalism: Heavenly Intervention And The Atlantic’S Divine Economist, Ian F.P. Green

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Providential capitalism names the marriage of providential Christian values and market-oriented capitalist ideology in the post-revolutionary Atlantic through the mid nineteenth century. This is a process by which individuals permitted themselves to be used by a so-called “divine economist” at work in the Atlantic market economy. Backed by a slave market, capital transactions were rendered as often violent ecstatic individual and cultural experiences. Those experiences also formed the bases for national, racial, and classed identification and negotiation among the constellated communities of the Atlantic. With this in mind, writers like Benjamin Franklin, Olaudah Equiano, and Ukawsaw Gronniosaw presented market success …

Preaching Proverbs: Wisdom For The Pulpit, Alyce M. Mckenzie, Russ Holden

Leaven

No abstract provided.

Preaching Jesus: New Directions For Homiletics In Hans Frei's Postliberal Theology, Charles Campbell, Mark Frost

Leaven

No abstract provided.

The Sermon: Dancing The Edge Of Mystery, Eugene L. Lowry, David Fleer

Leaven

No abstract provided.

Toward Recontextualization Of Christianity With Popular Catholicism : A Study Of Dialogical And Cooperative Mission With Popular Catholicism Through The Perspectives Of Methodist Christians In Batangas, Philippines, Eugene Kim

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Struggle Against Racism And The Global Horizon Of Christian Hope, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Protestant Nuns As Depictions Of Piety In Lutheran Funeral Sermons, Kathryn Dillinger

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Protestant nuns, Stiftsdamen, fulfilled a unique role in early modern Lutheran society. This papers focuses on the implied social roles and expected virtues of Protestant nuns [Stiftsdamen] in the works of male Lutheran pastors who supported Protestant theological positions that promoted marriage as the proper place for women, and yet who also praised unmarried female monastics in funeral sermons [Leichenpredigten]. Lutheran pastors wrote funeral sermons for both Stiftsdamen and married women, funeral sermons display similarities or differences between what virtues, characteristics, and displays of piety for women. A comparison will also be made between funeral …

The Systemic Erasure Of The Black/Dark-Skinned Body In Catholic Ethics, Bryan Massingale

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

One of the questions I address in my scholarly work is this: What would Catholic theological ethics look like if it took the "Black Experience" seriously as a dialogue partner? To raise the question, however, is to signal the reality of absence, erasure, and "missing" voices. The question is necessary only because the "Black Experience"--the collective story of African American survival and achievement in a hostile, exploitative, and racist environment--and the bodies who are the subjects of this experience have been all too often rendered invisible and therefore "missing" in U.S. Catholic ethical reflection.

Social Justice And Common Good: What Are They For?, Thomas Hughson

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The "Ecclesial" Critique Of Globalization: Rethinking The Questions, James K.A. Smith

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Justice For The Displaced: The Challenge Of Christian Understanding, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Murray: Faithful To Tradition In Context, Thomas Hughson

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Kerux - Vol. 40, No. 7, Calvin Theological Seminary

Kerux

Inside This Issue

• Schedule of Events Page 6
• Tuition for Seminary Children Page 3
• On Why We Send Our Kids to a Xian School Page 4
• On Why We Homeschool Page 5
• Ministry as Matchmaking Page 6
• Family of Faith CRC Page 7
• Why Xian Ed? Page 8

A Response To Chris Sugden, Peter Beyerhaus

Journal of the American Society for Church Growth

No abstract provided.

Mission Leadership And Church Growth, Chris Sugden

Journal of the American Society for Church Growth

My question is what we can learn from Dr. Cho’s experience and writings about the role of leadership of Christian communities in Church growth. It is quite legitimate to do this as there are precedents in Christian history to characterize a movement of God by the writings and activities of a leader – there are Lutheran churches and Wesleyan churches. We are meeting to reflect on what characterizes a Choian church.

Public Theology In Central Europe, Charles C. West

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Mission: Vol. 14, No. 2

Mission

Mission: Vol. 14, No. 2. The articles in this issue include: "Roots? Why Bother?" from the Editor, "The Sectional Origins of the Churches of Christ" by David Edwin Harrell, Jr., "The Churches of Christ and Religion in the South" by Samuel S. Hill, Jr., "Books: Robert E. Hooper: Crying in the Wilderness" by Bobbie Lee Holley, "The South Moves West" by Bruce Bradberry, "Bibliography," and "Forum."

An Examination Of Personal Salvation In The Theology Of North American Evangelicalism: On The Road To A Theology Of Social Justice, Robert F.J. Gmeindl

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The question under consideration is the effect of the belief in personal salvation on the theology of North American Evangelicalism, for the purpose of developing a theology of social justice.

This study is a preliminary investigation of the history of Evangelical individualism and the potential influence that individualism might have on Evangelical theology. Certain trends toward isolation and separation, as well as a tendency to neglect what I have called systemic evil, are examined to see how they may result from the Evangelical stress on individualism. Also presented in a skeletal outline of Marcuse’s analysis of one-dimensional society in order …

The Social Gospel, P. E. Kretzmann

Concordia Theological Monthly

''Why bother about the social gospel?" a man recently told the present writer. ''The social gospel is dead and buried. No one concerns himself about it any more. It has been superseded by the theology of Karl Barth in its various forms, by the religious philosophy of Kierkegaard, by the neo-orthodoxy of Niebuhr and others, and by a number of other movements and developments."