Digital Commons Network^™

Positive Deviance : Empowering Ecclesial Contextualization With Theological Praxis, Douglas Wayne Balzer

Doctor of Ministry

No abstract provided.

Where Does Faith-Learning Integration Happen? - Chapter 4 From "Faith Integration And Schools Of Education", Ken Badley

Faculty Publications - College of Education

No abstract provided.

Is "Nontheist Quakerism" A Contradiction Of Terms?, Paul Anderson

Quaker Religious Thought

No abstract provided.

Blind Men And Elephants: A Multi-Method Analysis Of Periodical Literature, Garrett Trott

The Christian Librarian

One blind man feels a tree. Another blind man feels something sharp, like a spear; and a third, feels something like a fan. All these men feel the same thing, an elephant, but different parts of it. This article looks at journal content through three separate lenses: faculty perception, citation analysis, and journal use. Each lens perceives journal value differently. Once these pictures are assembled, the challenge begins, attempting to understand what they compose. Like the disagreements these blind men had on what they were feeling, the data produced from these three lenses does not appear to coincide. It did …

The Last Of The Rephaim: Conquest And Cataclysm In The Heroic Ages Of Ancient Israel, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

This dissertation explores the role of giants in the narrative and historiographic worlds of symbol, geography, and religion in ancient Israel. The Nephilim, Anaqim, Rephaim, Emim, Zamzumim/Zuzim, some Gibborim, and other individuals (e.g., Goliath) can all be classified as “giants”—not only with respect to their height and other physical properties, but also with respect to the negative moral qualities assigned to giants in antiquity. Previous interpreters have treated giants as merely a fantastical prop against which God’s agents emerge victorious. I argue that giants are a theologically and historiographically generative group, through which we gain insight into central aspects of …

Thinking Beyond The Scroll: The Ancient Library At Alexandria, Gerald Franz, Phd

The Christian Librarian

The ancient library at Alexandria, Egypt became a unique institution, influenced by Aristotle’s school in Athens and the Greek model of learning. The institution consisted of a museum, which functioned as a learning center, and a library collection. The Library grew under the generous patronage of the Ptolemies and became a thriving center for learning and scholarship. The Christian academic library shares some important similarities, but its starting point for knowledge is quite different.

Embracing The Margins: Covenant Faithfulness Over Mainstream Favor, Nathaniel J. Mullen Iii

Doctor of Ministry

Since its origin as a pejorative label for members of the 2nd century church, the word "Christian" has been used to describe Saint, Priest, humanitarian, and martyr as well as murderer, bigot, inquisitionist, republican, and disruptor of peace. This truth is evidence of the ability to misrepresent the Christ of Christ-ian. Right now we are in the position of transforming what images come to mind when people hear the word Christian. In Matthew's gospel, Christ is given the name Immanuel, which means, "God with us."1 The person of Jesus Christ is spoken of as the embodiment of Immanuel in every …

Imagery In Spiritual Formation: Recovering A Lost Art, John P. Stone

Doctor of Ministry

No abstract provided.

Christian Special Educators Responding To The Call To Serve: The Perception Of Disability With A Christian Worldview Lens, Nilsa J. Thorsos

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Most Christian special education teachers respond to a call to teach children with disabilities and are inspired to share the plan, purpose, and perspective of Christ; in other words to have the mind of Christ (Tucker, 1996, p. 29). This paper examines how the Old and New Testament traditions permeate the way people with disabilities are perceived in Western culture. An examination of the Old Testament shows a perception of disability as connected with sin, a manifestation of God’s punishment and exclusion of people with disability from the temple (Winzer, 1993, p. 17). The New Testament provides narratives of compassion …

Conference Participation And Publishing (Chapter Eight Of Prepare, Succeed, Advance: A Guidebook For Getting A Ph.D. In Biblical Studies And Beyond), Nijay K. Gupta

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

Two clear marks of a good scholar or doctoral student are published pieces of research (articles, essays, reviews, etc.) and active participation in academic conferences (presenter, chair, respondent, etc.). Especially for graduate students, the research experience can be very isolated and have a minimal impact without attention to such avenues of dialogue and interaction. Also, practically speaking, when the time comes for the job search, a demonstration of such activity often shows that the prospective professor is a real participant of and contributor to the field of biblical studies. We will begin by discussing how to get involved in conferences.

Sustaining Team Leadership In Recovery At Magnolia Baptist Church In Riverside, California, Richard Perez

Doctor of Ministry

No abstract provided.

Scholarship In The Gfu School Of Education: High Expectations And High Commitment, Ken Badley, Marc Shelton

Faculty Publications - College of Education

Christian scholarship is more than this, but it is also mainly an opportunity to tell our stories to peers in our respective content disciplines - and in telling our stories, we are in fact telling God's story of partnering with us in his work. We fully intend this White Paper to be used as a resource within the School of Education and as a way of informing groups outside of the SoE about our work as scholarship, or in another way of saying it, about our work as learners - with both humility and service.

Part One: Introduction & Methodology …

The Coming God: Pursuing A Theology Of Hope, Ed Love

Doctor of Ministry

No abstract provided.

Adventures In Churchland: Discovering The Beautiful Mess Jesus Loves, Dan Kimball

Doctor of Ministry

A growing number of young adults (those in the 18-30-year-old age range) are not
engaging, becoming involved or entering into the church of America. An increasing
number of those who grew up attending church are leaving after their high school years.
I have observed this as a pattern when visiting churches and talking to church
leaders across America. Statistics are showing this as seen in studies such as Dave Kin-
naman’s research and writings from the Barna Research group and Ed Stetzer’s research
from LifeWay Christian Resources. This is a very significant problem because if the
church loses connection with …

The Current Crisis In Protestant Theological Education In The Former Soviet Union, Mark R. Elliott

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

"The Harmony Way:" Integrating Indigenous Values Within Native North American Theology And Mission, Randy Woodley

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

Given that Western models of mission have failed among Native Americans and that colonial practices have devastated native communities, this research sought a better way of pursuing Christian mission among Native Americans by asking two questions: (1) Do Native Americans have a generally shared set of values that could guide the construction of new models for mission in North American Native communities, and, if so, to what degree are these values shared among Native American communities? and, (2). What resources (particularly values) are available within the Native American communities themselves for developing appropriate models of mission and could such resources …

The Theological Significance Of ר ע ב And ש ב ע In The Hebrew Bible, Kathleen Lamberg

Seminary Masters Theses

This study examines the literary pairing of the words full (עבש) and hungry (בער) in the Hebrew Bible from the perspective of inner-textuality. This thesis explores the theological development of the terms, beginning with their appearance as words of simple meanings pertaining to physical condition, in Genesis 42 and Exodus 16. Deuteronomy 8 emerges as a theological catalyst for the terms when it redresses hungry to mean humility before YHWH, and full as arrogance toward YHWH. Full and hungry are made into two endpoints on a paradigm in Deuteronomy 8, highlighting the attitudinal approaches that Israel is and is not …

Holistic Discipleship In The Shadow Of The Cross: An Interdisciplinary Investigation Of The Anthropological Foundations Of Western Theology And Praxis, Jeddediah Maclaurin

Seminary Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Missions: A Pathway For Helping The Next Generation To Fulfill Christ's Great Commission, Jon Olson

Doctor of Ministry

No abstract provided.

To Whom Was Christ A Slave (Phil 2:7)? Double Agency And The Specters Of Sin And Death In Philippians, Nijay Gupta

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

Paul’s so-called “Christ-hymn” in Philippians 2:6-11 is one of the most scrutinized passages in the Pauline corpus as questions abound regarding its origins, purpose, format, and the theological components of its Christology. One factor in the determination of this Christology is the interpretation of doulos in 2:7 focusing on the question to whom was Christ a slave? While a number of answers have been put forward, it will be argued that the best explanation involves “double agency.” That is, when the hymn is closely examined, as well as the theological character of the whole letter, Christ appears to be a …

Legalists, Visionaries, And New Names: Sectarianism And The Search For Apocalyptic Origins In Isaiah 56–66, Brian R. Doak

Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology

This essay re-examines the difficult questions concerning the origins of apocalyptic literature and the rise of Jewish sectarianism. Since the publication of O. Plöger’s Theokratie und Eschatologie and P. Hanson’s The Dawn of Apocalyptic, the search for proto-apocalyptic origins in early post-exilic period sectarian conflict has generated a fair amount of debate. The most cogent and sustained response to Hanson’s and Plöger’s theories, S. Cook’s Prophecy & Apocalypticism (1995), attempted to purge the influence of “deprivation theory” from the field of biblical studies, and, more broadly, social anthropology. The present essay makes a fresh study of some central lines of …

Faith At Work: How Churches Can Better Enable Believers To Integrate Their Personal Faith In The Workplace, Stuart D. Dugan

Doctor of Ministry

No abstract provided.

Building A Community Of Shalom: What The Bible Says About Multicultural Education, Heekap Lee

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Multicultural education is a highly controversial topic in which it has been the center of contentions and conflicts as it has evolved for the last couple of decades. Several concerns and problems existed in the field of multicultural education will be addressed in this article. In addition, a new framework of multicultural education, called the shalom model, which is drawn from the Bible is presented, along with the characteristics of the model. The goal of multicultural education, according to this model, is to build a community of shalom, an image that is clearly described in Isaiah 11:6. In order to …

Special Education And Spiritual Formation, David W. Anderson

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Faith-learning integration is a complex and sometimes challenging issue for university faculty, and something which our students have not likely engaged in. Rather than “integration,” emphasis will be on how Christian thought informs educational practice, and contributes to our spiritual formation, igniting flames of faith-learning and helping prepare caring and competent teachers.

Which “Body” Is A Temple (1 Corinthians 6:19)? Paul Beyond The Individual/Communal Divide, Nijay Gupta

Faculty Publications - Portland Seminary

Pauline scholarship has always been interested in the “theology” of the Apostle, and questions of his understanding of God, Christ, salvation, the church, and ethics are as passionately pursued now as in any prior generation. An important methodological point that has been widely accepted among scholars, though, is that such attempts at extracting theological bits from Paul must take sufficient account of the ancient context of his writing and the “contingency” of his literary engagements, that is, “the specificity of the occasion to which it was addressed.” One major manifestation of this concern for understanding Paul in his original setting …

That They May Be One: Spiritual Formation And Its Locus In Community, Phillip G. Carnes

Doctor of Ministry

American Christians, as a whole, lack a spiritual maturity that infuses the whole of their lives with Christlikeness. Additionally, Americans suffer from an epidemic of loneliness. These two problems are related. We will demonstrate that American Christians lack spiritual maturity, in part, because they have privatized their faith and made spiritual formation an individual endeavor. Furthermore, we will show that spiritual formation is best located and grounded within a community context. Humans are social creatures. It is becoming ever more widely recognized that social isolation and loneliness are root causes of much psychosocial dysfunction. Humans do not function well if …

Christian Faith, Nonviolence, And Ukraine's Orange Revolution: A Case Study Of The Embassy Of God Church, Svetlana Filiatreau

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Imago Dei As Missio Dei, Fourie Van Den Berg

Doctor of Ministry

Section 1 of this paper describes the Dutch Reformed Church in Namibia's (DRCN) problems, uncertainty, and loss of direction because neglects God's mission. As a rule, the DRCN has lost members and credibility and cares more about itself than the suffering Namibian society. Because and the DCRN lost its connection with the missio Dei, Namibian socio-economical problems increased and created a huge gap between the DRCN and Namibian society. The DCRN has little impact on major sociological issues. The DRCN can address these realities by rediscovering imago Dei theology and the missio Dei. This change will bridge the gap between …

Gill's "The Political Origins Of Religious Liberty" - Book Review, Mark Hall

Faculty Publications - Department of History and Politics

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Human Emotion In Christian Discipleship, Alex Bryan

Doctor of Ministry

This dissertation asks and attempts to answer the following question: What role does human emotion play in the problem of contemporary Christian discipleship and how might emotion play a provisional and productive role in its success ? The argument of this project, in response to the above question, is that recognition and recreation of human emotions is essential in corifronting the challenges of contemporary Christian discipleship. Just as the rational (left brain) component of human beings is complicit both in the spiritual pathology and redemptive potential of mankind, so to is the emotive (right brain) mind a responsible party in …