Religion Commons^™

Lightning Flashes And Thunderbolts: A Series Of Gospel Sermons And Talks By Rev. Sam P. Jones, The Great Georgia Evangelist, In Savannah, Ga., In 1901. Scences And Incidents Of The Meeting. George Stuart And Others., Sam P. Jones, J. S. Shingler, W. E. Towson

Heritage Material

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Traditional (Non-Affirming) Black Church Affiliation On Exploration Of Sexual Identity For Black Assigned Female At Birth Lgbq+ Individuals And The Associated Mental Health Risk, Aurielle J. Sutton

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explored the impact of Black traditional church upbringing on the sexual and religious identity development, including the subsequent mental health risk, for Black assigned female at birth (AFAB) LGBQ+ individuals. Studies conducted on Black AFAB LGBQ+ individuals are limited, especially in terms of  assessing their experiences in sexual identity development based on religious upbringings. Studies have overlooked the experience of LGBQ+ Black AFAB individuals navigating sexual orientation development and religious and racial identities. Studies have greatly favored Black gay men and supported health risks such as HIV. In the present study, twelve Black AFAB Queer individuals participated in …

Sufism At The Service Of Ḥadīth Commentary: Re-Framing Al-Kalābādhī'S Baḥr Al-FawāʾId In Fourth-Tenth Century Transoxiana, Fadhil Yunus Alsagoff

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Abū Bakr al-Kalābādhī’s (d. 380/990) understudied ḥadīth commentary, the Baḥr al-fawāʾid al-mashhūr bi-maʿānī al-akhbār. The first Anglophone study of the text as a whole, this thesis situates itself within the emergent literature on ḥadīth commentaries and challenges the prevailing scholarly tendency to reduce Sufi-authored commentarial texts to the ishārī method of interpretation and to treat them solely as repositories of Sufi themes. This thesis argues that, contrary to current perceptions of the text as primarily a work of Sufism, the Baḥr al-fawaʾid is first and foremost a work of ḥadīth commentary, its main intent being to …

“The Light Of Certain Belief” – Orthodoxy Versus Innovation According To Abū Ḥāmid Al-Ghazālī’S Al-Risāla Al-Qudsiyyah, Thomas Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the question of Islamic orthodoxy in the thought of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī, with particular attention to his Risāla al-Qudsiyya and its place within his wider intellectual and reformative project. It begins by exploring concepts of orthodoxy and heterodoxy across the Christian and Islamic traditions, arguing that orthodoxy emerges through processes of interpretation, doctrinal conflict, boundary formation, and communal consensus. Islamic orthodoxy is understood as the historically consolidated mainstream of belief rooted in the Qurʾān, the Sunnah, the authority of the early community, and the scholarly tradition.

The central argument of the thesis is that al-Ghazālī conceives of …

Idda, Sherry Coman

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Idda (2026), directed by Irene Dionisio.

What Film Is Good For: On The Values Of Spectatorship, Pablo Alzola

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Julian Hanich and Martin P. Rossouw, eds., What Film Is Good For: On the Values of Spectatorship (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2023).

A Poetic History: Islamic And Japanese Parallels In Film, Joshua Polanski

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of David Sander, A Poetic History: Islamic and Japanese Parallels in Film (Bloomsbury, 2026).

Cloud: Between Paris And Tehran: Kiarostami/Corbin/Lacan, Heba Arafa

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a book review of Joan Copjec, Cloud: Between Paris and Tehran: Kiarostami/Corbin/Lacan (MIT Press, 2025).

Eternity, Leah R. Sisk

Journal of Religion & Film

This film review of Eternity was developed from an essay on how the film demonstrates the nature of choice, including William James's notion of a leap of faith.  The original essay was submitted for an undergraduate Philosophy and Religion class on American Pragmatism at Western Carolina University.

Disclosure Day, Christian Wilken

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Disclosure Day (2026), directed by Steven Spielberg.

Nothing Is As It Should Be: Estrangement, Threshold-Crossings, And Cosmic Struggle In David Lynch’S Blue Velvet And Lost Highway, Susanne Wigorts Yngvesson

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines estrangement as a structuring existential and aesthetic principle in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) and Lost Highway (1997). Through close, plot-attentive readings intended to remain accessible to readers unfamiliar with Lynch, it argues that the films stage three interlocking dynamics: becoming a stranger to oneself, the fracturing of the ‘ground’ of ordinary existence, and life as a cosmic struggle in which human agency is partial and contested. Paul Tillich’s The Courage to Be provides the main theological–philosophical lens, clarifying how anxiety, non-being and courage shape scenes of desire, violence and transformation. Film-theoretical work on thresholds and cinematic …

Making Meaning: Free Will And The Meaning Of Life In Barbie, Bertha A. Manninen Ph.D.

Journal of Religion & Film

Greta Gerwig’s 2023 film Barbie highlights both the empowerment and drawbacks of one of Mattel’s most famous toys. Although Barbie’s feminist messages have taken center stage, the film also has several theological dimensions and touches upon what it means to live a meaningful life. I will argue that Barbie can be interpreted as a defense of the free will theodicy in response to both the logical and evidential versions of the problem of evil. One common challenge to the theodicy is that even granting that free will is a great good, it is not so good as to be worth …

Moving On: Purgatorial Seriality And Unanswered Prayer In Lost’S “Ab Aeterno”, Christian Wilken

Journal of Religion & Film

“Ab Aeterno” (Lost, 6.09) distills the series’ religious logic with unusual explicitness by staging theodicy not as doctrine but as narrative procedure. This article argues that the episode converts Catholic sacramental form (confession, absolution, and penitential address) into a serial ethics of endurance in which closure is structurally deferred. Richard Alpert’s confession establishes a subject who seeks an authorized word that would stabilize suffering, yet the priest’s refusal (“I can’t”) installs a theology of unanswered prayer that becomes the template for Richard’s long durée of waiting. Jacob’s “cork” parable then supplies a katechontic justification of restraint: evil is not abolished …

Between Icon And State: Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan The Terrible, Milja Radovic

Journal of Religion & Film

Remembering the 80th anniversary of Sergei Eisenstein’s film Иван Грозный (Ivan the Terrible, 1944/1945), it is crucial to re-examine Eisenstein’s work, including his last film that became an unintentional ‘testament’ to cinema. Eisenstein’s mastery has been pivotal for understanding cinema and film language, the way this language operates, constructs and deconstructs and communicates historical realities. This paper focuses on a film that was made in two parts, Part I in 1944 and part II in 1945, to investigate Eisenstein’s approach to the subject of history, nation and religion. The research considers how this master of cinema contemplated intricate ideas and …

Piercing The Veil In Sinners: Theological Insights From The Juke Joint, Antonio D. Sison Cpps

Journal of Religion & Film

Celebrated as a critical and commercial success, Ryan Coogler’s genre-defying opus Sinners has also been considered as one of the most culturally significant films of 2025. It also promises to be one of the most theologically resonant films of the year. This is evinced not only in its thematic and literary bases but, importantly, in its very audiovisual language and grammar, its stylistic strategies qua film. As reasoned in this essay, Coogler’s film is a rich locus theologicus, a nexus for theological discovery and insight.Sinners kindles the hermeneutical impulse to dialogue with African American/Pan-Africa theologies exemplified by the …

Affirmative Transcendence: The Ethics Of Mazu And The Internal Expansion Of The Confucian Moral Imagination, Yu Pei

Journal of Religion & Film

This paper proposes and defends the concept of affirmative transcendence through a systematic analysis of the 2012 Chinese television drama Mazu (38 episodes, CCTV). Affirmative transcendence names a structure in which the protagonist achieves sacred status (shen 神) not by negating her human relationships but by maintaining them while exhibiting a mode of moral perception that exceeds the limits of role-based ethics. The paper argues that what is analytically distinctive about this structure is its internal character: the tradition is not rejected but exceeded, and the exceeding is accomplished through resources the tradition itself provides. The paper identifies two …

A Metaphorical Passage To God: Simone Weil And Robert Bresson, V. G. Voigt Hogg Phd

Journal of Religion & Film

VOIGT HOGG_Abstract (REVISED)_Journal of Religion & Film_30 April 2026

This article contrasts the metaphysical and religious philosopher Simone Weil’s concepts of attachment and detachment with auteur director Robert Bresson’s method of subtraction. It argues for a commonality in their philosophy and cinema, that guides the reader or viewer respectively, to perceive a metaphorical passage to God through the lived experience of suffering. The article considers by what means does Weil and Bresson share a mutual commitment to understanding the state of the soul in affliction, while also acknowledging an opposition in the interpretation of detachment in relation to suicide. The …

Documenting The Ineffable: A Comparative Analysis Of Mystical Representation In Kimiavi’S The Garden Of Stones And Western Sufi Documentary, Hessam Abedini

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines how documentary film attempts to represent mystical experience through comparative analysis of Parviz Kimiavi's The Garden of Stones (1976) and American documentaries featuring Samuel Lewis, particularly Sunseed (1973). Rather than assuming terms like "sacred" or "authentic," the study grounds its analysis in empirical definitions from William James, historical scholarship by Carl Ernst and Annemarie Schimmel, and literary theory from Fatemeh Keshavarz. Through detailed examination of specific scenes—Darvish Khan hanging stones from dead trees, Lewis leading ecstatic dances—the article demonstrates how different cinematic strategies approach documentary's epistemological limits when confronting ineffable experience.

The analysis corrects historical misunderstandings about …

Formed Together: A Value-Based Model Of Mutual Spiritual Formation For Pentecostal Pastors And Churches Under 500, W. T.A. Mcmillan

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock” (Acts 20:28) is both a warning and an invitation. It insists that the pastor's inner life and the congregation's shared life cannot be pulled apart without doing damage to both. This dissertation grows out of that conviction and out of years of pastoral ministry in Pentecostal churches where the pressure to perform often overwhelms the slow work of being formed. It asks a simple but searching question: How do Assemblies of God pastors serving congregations under 500 in attendance understand the connection between their own spiritual health and the spiritual …

Sanctified Rhythms Of Rest: Reclaiming Sabbath And Spiritual Retreat For Pastoral Renewal And Burnout Mitigation In The Georgia Assemblies Of God, Philip Sosebee

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

“Sanctified Rhythms of Rest: Reclaiming Sabbath and Spiritual Retreat for Pastoral Renewal and Burnout Mitigation in the Georgia Assemblies of God” explored how intentional rhythms of Sabbath observance, solitude and silence, and spiritual retreat shaped the lived experiences of credentialed ministers within the Georgia District of the Assemblies of God. Pastoral burnout, emotional exhaustion, and unsustainable ministry expectations continue to affect ministers across denominational contexts, raising questions regarding the role of biblically grounded rhythms of rest in fostering pastoral renewal and sustainability. Using a six-month longitudinal hermeneutic phenomenological design, twenty-nine credentialed ministers participated in the intentional practice of weekly Sabbath …

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) …

Powerful Pulpits: Black Preachers As Cultish Leaders In The Axman Murders, 1909-1912, Lauren N. Henley

Interdisciplinary Journal of Leadership Studies

Southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas experienced a series of disturbingly similar ax murders from November 1909 to August 1912. In nearly every case, a black family living within a mile of the Sunset Limited line of the Southern Pacific Railroad was brutally slaughtered in their own home, victims of a surreptitious assailant. Eventually, a young black woman would take credit for some of the crimes, ushering in the language of “religious fanaticism” as a potential motive. This confession sparked an intense period of criminalization of black male preachers, with a particular focus on Pentecostal leaders in southwestern Louisiana. This article …

Church-Based Qualitative Research, David R. Dunaetz

Great Commission Research Journal

Qualitative research is collecting, analyzing, and interpreting subjective data to answer an important research question. It can be contrasted with quantitative research, which focuses on collecting numerical (relatively objective) data to test specific hypotheses. It is an attractive form of research in church contexts because it does not require training in statistics and can be conducted in almost all ministry settings. It is especially appropriate for topics that are under-researched, poorly understood, or involve concepts that are difficult to measure. Common problems associated with church-based qualitative research include overly broad research questions, weak descriptions of what has been observed, shallow …

Maximizing The Use Of Interpreters In Shortterm Medical Missions, Barbara L. Loach

Great Commission Research Journal

In the debate over the effectiveness of short-term medical missions (STMM), the role of interpreters has received cursory attention. However, the perceived quality of care and the actual care that patients receive, and therefore their receptivity to the organization and the presentation of the gospel by faith-based STMMs, hinges greatly on employing trained interpreters who can reliably communicate on behalf of all parties involved. Each barrier to cross-cultural communication —verbal, non-verbal, and cultural—can and should be addressed to have a successful mission outreach; providing adequate training for all participants in STMM, especially for interpreters, is critical to mediate the communication …

When Everything Moves Faster Than The Soul: Spirituality In A Fast-Paced World, Pablo Marzilli

Great Commission Research Journal

This article analyzes one of the main characteristics of the hypermodern era in which we live: social acceleration. We live in an extremely individualistic era that forces us to be highly efficient and productive in everything we do. This social phenomenon leads to a sense of being overwhelmed; our culture demands that we maximize the use of our time, to the point where we feel that we are less productive than we actually are, even though this is objectively impossible. This culture of acceleration, which makes us live at a dizzying pace, also influences the church and reshapes our daily …

My Pilgrimage In The Growth Of The Church, Charles Van Engen

Great Commission Research Journal

I have lived a life invested in the growth of the church and forming leaders who would mobilize the church toward growth. I have sought to pay forward what others did for me. Born of missionary parents, I was raised in the state of Chiapas, in southern Mexico. From 1973 to 1985, my wife, Jean, and I served the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico in Chiapas, Mexico, in leadership formation, training evangelists, pastors, and teachers of rapidly growing churches. In 1981, I received a Ph.D. in missiology under Johannes Verkuyl at the Free University of Amsterdam. I taught Mission Theology …

Repairing The Missional Breach: Why The Church Isn’T Making Disciples And How We Can Fix It By Kevin Blackwell, Henry E. Walker

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

How Did We Get Here? Examining 70 Years Of The Church Growth Movement By Todd Wilson, Mike Morris

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Understanding Evangelism: Biblical Foundations, Historical Developments, And Contemporary Issues By J.D. Payne, D. A. Horton

Great Commission Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Outside The Church Walls: An Empirical Exploration Of Organizational Culture And Pastoral Leadership In Two Urban Churches, Althea P. Gordon-Scott, Joshua D. Henson, Bethany D. Peters, Katrina Hutchins

Great Commission Research Journal

A mini-ethnographic case study explored the interconnections of organizational culture and pastoral leadership with sustainable outreach in two very different churches that focus on ministry to people with life-controlling issues and economic need: a small, primarily Black church in the Great Lakes region and a large, primarily White and Hispanic church in the western United States. Despite their differences, the churches shared similar espoused values and leadership characteristics that facilitated their outreach initiatives. Themes derived from the data include altruistic foundations, the value of relationships, exemplary pastoral leadership, organizational challenges, agile organizational systems, and the centrality of God.