Religion Commons^™

Recapturing Evangelism: A Biblical-Theological Approach, Bruce Gregory Gale

Witness

No abstract provided.

Holy Hunger: A Study Of How Spiritually Formative Practices Shape A Faith Community At The Cedar Lane Church Of Christ, David W. Mitchell

DMin Project Theses

I have served in leadership as an elder/shepherd at the Cedar Lane Church of Christ in Tullahoma, Tennessee, since 2011. Before serving in this leadership position, I was in full-time ministry with churches of Christ from 1982 to 2005 (as a youth minister, education minister, and preaching minister). Since 2007, I have been a public educator, first as a High School Civics teacher and now as a Middle School Social Studies teacher. My primary work as an elder includes education, spiritual formation, and community engagement. Another role I have is to assess the spiritual health of the believers I am …

Apostle Patrick’S Orthodoxy: Selection From Hymn Of St. Secundinus (Sechnall), Ca. Fifth Century, Maksim Astashinskiy

Faculty Papers and Publications

The Latin text is drawn from “[13] Hymnus Sancti Patricii Magistri Scotorum,” in: F. E. Warren, ed., The Antiphonary of Bangor: An Early Irish Manuscript in the Ambrosian Library at Milan. Henry Bradshaw Society Vol. 10. (London: Harrison and Sons, St. Martin’s Lane, 1895), 14–16, https://ia800105.us.archive.org/32/items/TheAntiphonaryOfBangor/TheAntiphonaryOfBangor.pdf; also, see: “Incipit Ymnus Sancti Patricii Episcopi Scotorum” in: Robert Atkinson and John Henry Bernard, eds. The Irish ‘Liber hymnorum’: Text and Introduction, Vol. 1 (London: Harrison and Sons, St. Martin’s Lane, London, 1898), 7, 11–12, https://archive.org/details/IrishLiberHymnorumV1.

Late Medieval Saint Valentine’S Day Observance Selection From Christine De Pizan’S Le Dit De La Rose (The Tale Of The Rose), 1402, Maksim Astashinskiy

Faculty Papers and Publications

There are four known manuscript traditions (see below), including a membra disjecta, of Christine de Pizan’s Le Dit de la Rose, see: “Christine de Pizan, Dit de La Rose.” Github.io, 2026, https://ditsma.github.io/Dits-du-Moyen-Age/roseChristine.html: This translation is drawn from Ferdinand Heuckenkamp, Le Dit de la Rose von Christine von Pisan (Halle a. S.: Buchdruckerei des Waisenhauses, 1891), 12–13, 18-19.  https://archive.org/details/LeDitDeLaRose/mode/2up; also, see: La querelle du Roman de la Rose, Le Dit de la Rose, 14 février 1401, anc. st., Bibliotheca Augustana, https://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/gallica/Chronologie/15siecle/Christine/chr_rose.html. 

1. Chantilly, Bibliothèque du Château (Musée Condé), 492-493 (1667-1668), fol. 74ra à 79ra …

Ammonihah's Allegory Of Damnation: "Fire And Brimstone" In The Book Of Mormon And Doctrine & Covenants, Ella Bethany Sessions

Honors Projects

This paper examines D&C 76, an 1832 revelation penned by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon that details Mormon theology in regards to eternity, salvation, and damnation, and Mosiah 27 and Alma 9–14 from the Book of Mormon to observe and analyze how the D&C 76’s specificity is mirrored and encased in two Book of Mormon stories: Alma the Younger and Ammonihah. The first section synthesizes D&C 76’s doctrinal claims and contextualizes Mormonism’s salvation and damnation as uniquely epistemic—or reliant on knowledge—and oriented around the internal processes of progression towards or away from God as necessary precedents to external and eternal …

A Hybrid Generation: Globalization, Migration, And Cultural-Theological Reconfiguration Among Second-Generation Ghanaian Pentecostal Immigrants In The United States--Toward A Diasporic Mission Theology, David Osei-Nimoh

College of Theology and Ministry Dissertations, Projects, & Theses

This dissertation investigates how globalization, migration, and Pentecostalism shape the cultural and theological of second-generation Ghanaian Pentecostals in the United States. Using Mark Cartledge’s four-stage empirical theological cycle, it interprets participants’ lived experience as theological data in critical dialogue with Scripture, the doctrine of The Church of Pentecost (COP), and Pentecostal theological method. The study is based on 26 weeks of multisite fieldwork in three COP U.S.A. congregations—Washington, D.C., Dallas, and Tacoma—and draws on participant observation, 55 semi-structured interviews, three focus groups, and archival materials. The analysis yielded three interrelated findings. First, participants negotiate a bicultural Ghanaian American identity within …

Contesting The Sacred: Ideology And Church Music Reform In Spain, 1850–1900, Francisco J. Legasa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation argues that sacred-music reform in Spain between 1850 and 1900 was not a unified movement culminating in the 1903 Motu proprio, but a contest between two distinct and contemporaneous programs. The first, associated with Hilarión Eslava, affirmed musical expression and artistic progress, embraced stylistic eclecticism, and sought to rebuild musical institutions, modernize pedagogy, and forge alliances with civic life. It drew on Romantic thought that attributed to music a distinctive capacity to mediate religious experience. The second, aligned with Roman ultramontanism, held that Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony were the only legitimate models for sacred music and that …

Beyond The Veil Of Modernity: René Guénon, Prophet Of The Metapolitical Imaginary, Frederic Colier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Heralded by some as one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century, French metaphysician René Guénon (1886-1951) is also the controversial father of Primordial Tradition, a metaphysics designed to remedy the decline of Western civilization. Guénon viewed the West in the grip of a prolonged cycle of degeneration. He sought to implement a pseudo-authoritarian spiritual reset that required a total rejection of its Western intellectual heritage and an embrace of Eastern doctrines.

Focusing on his landmark book The Crisis of the Modern World (1927), the dissertation examines how Guénon implemented his controversial reset. After outlining the religious, cultural, and …

Does This Story Make Sense?, Wayne Brouwer

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Surpassing Peace We Can Seek, Joel Kok

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

Imaginatively Humankind Dwells: The Necessity Of The Imagination For Divine-Human Commun(E)Ication, Tracey-Ann Pypker-Van Brenk

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

But What Did I Really Know?, James C. Schaap

Pro Rege

No abstract provided.

America's Founding Theology, Michael Payne

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Building off of Mark David Hall's thesis that America had a Christian founding, this paper seeks to explore the theology of this Christian founding. While acknowledging that Enlightenment and English Common Law also influenced American founding thought, the paper seeks to look specifically at America's theological outlook. It concludes that American founding theology was overwhelmingly Reformed but with some key influences from the Baptist, Quaker, and even Catholic traditions. These influences can be found in the writings of the founders as well as in America's founding documents such as the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. The point of the …

A Distinctly Christian Understanding Of The Technical Details In Engineering, Paul Griffioen

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Within engineering disciplines, much attention has been given to developing pedagogical techniques and practical applications that are distinctly Christian. However, not as much attention has been given to understanding technical engineering content from a distinctly Christian perspective. The main reason is that the technical details of engineering seem to be the same for both Christians and non-Christians. After all, does being a Christian have any impact on the content of specific technical details like integration and finite element analysis? Since the vast majority of time in engineering jobs, research, and teaching is spent on specific technical details, this is a …

Little Hallelujahs, Jennifer Vermeer

Staff Work

"What if we each spent a little more intentional time calling attention to the ways the world begs us to recognize [God's] glory?"

Posting about ­­­­­­­­celebrating the small joys in life from In All Things, an online hub that offers insight into maintaining and faithful and orthodox Reformed Christian worldview while fearlessly engaging in every aspect of contemporary life – until all is made new.

Little Hallelujahs

The Image Falls Apart, Alexa N. Curran

Masters Theses

The Image Falls Apart is a phenomenological account of my collision with Rogier van der Weyden’s The Descent from the Cross (ca. 1435). In an ever-expanding landscape of visual stimuli, how do we make sense of images that are an encounter with the sacred? Of what use to a modern viewer is an altarpiece of the late medieval period that, in its miraculous rendering of each of its human figures, reflects the impending iconophobia of the Protestant Reformation? And what does falling have to do with it? With careful attention to the assembly of bodies in space, this multidisciplinary project, …

Love In Passing Time, Elysa T. Adams

Masters Theses

Elysa Adams, 2026

Love in Passing Time reflects on how the Black church has molded my understanding of faith, family, and community. Working across relief, screenprint, sculpture, and sound, my practice explores how knowledge is shared across generations through music, tradition, and adornment.

The exhibition draws on my upbringing as a pastor’s child, in which the church serves as both a spiritual and communal home. These experiences appear through sculptural paper garments based on childhood memories, tambourines featuring the faces of people who have impacted my life, carved portraits of my grandparents, and sculptural pews that reference the architecture of …

From Christology To Ontology: A Diachronic And Exegetical Evaluation Of A Maximalist Sacramental Interpretation Of John 6:51–58, Andrew R. Johnson

Masters Theses

John 6:51–58 occupies a central place in the debate regarding the ontological nature of the Eucharist, frequently serving as a primary scriptural warrant for sacramental realism such as articulated by the Council of Trent as it concerns the dogma of transubstantiation within the Roman Catholic tradition. This thesis conducts both an evaluation of historical reception and a critical exegetical analysis to determine whether the Evangelist’s primary intent was to establish sacramental doctrine in this passage or to further develop already pervasive Johannine soteriological and christological themes.

Methodologically, this study bridges the gap between historical reception and synchronic exegesis. The first …

Covenantal Allegiance In The Epistle Of James: An Integrative Critical-Covenantal Interpretation, Lorpu Davis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation argues that the Epistle of James presents faith as covenantal allegiance enacted through communal practices under social and theological pressure. While scholarship on James has frequently separated socio-historical analysis from theological interpretation, this study proposes an integrative reading through the Integrative Critical-Covenantal Method (ICCM). ICCM employs a three-step procedure comprising close textual analysis, text-triggered socio-historical diagnosis, and theological analysis, with integrated adjudication. The dissertation examines seven strategically selected “pressure texts” in James: 1:9–11; 1:27; 2:1–13; 2:14–26; 3:13–18; 4:1–10; and 5:1–6. These passages reveal how James addresses status competition, patronage expectations, economic vulnerability, partiality, rivalry, and injustice within diaspora …

Ethnicity And Evangelism: Understanding The Crucial Role Of Ethnic, Social, And Cultural Factors In Proclaiming The Gospel, Bernardo Salcedo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation examines the pivotal role of ethnic and socio-cultural backgrounds in proclaiming and expanding the gospel to the nations during the early church's formative period. Building upon the theological foundation of God's overarching mission plan throughout Scripture, the research examines how these factors influenced the development of early Christian evangelism, particularly concerning the context of Jewish, Samaritan, and Gentile cultures. The study argues that the early church’s approach to spreading the gospel was profoundly influenced by the ethnic and cultural contexts of the people it encountered. Thus, the dissertation proposes that understanding these cultural dynamics is essential for a …

Discipleship: Attracting, Retaining, And Discipling Young Adults In Beauty Spot Missionary Baptist Church Fayetteville, North Carolina, Mamie Masella Bailey-Kindell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The partnership of young adults as well as their active involvement in God’s Kingdom work is a key issue facing Christian discipleship within churches in the 21st Century (Allan & Allan, 2020). The young adult congregants had been missing from the sacred teaching, preaching, and discipleship development training within congregations. What seemed only a temporary phenomenon had become a startling realization that reflected the demise of discipleship among the young adult congregants within churches. Christian leaders had wondered when the young adult congregants would return to the gatherings for spiritual worship, refreshing, and spiritual development (Barna Group, 2019, October 21). …

Second Temple Period Foundations Of The New Testament: A Teaching Model At Longview Evangelical Community Church, Stephen T. Dixon

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This action research project examined whether a structured Bible study focused on the Second Temple Period could improve participants’ ability to recognize historical context in the New Testament and apply that knowledge to a more Christocentric understanding of Scripture. The project was conducted at a local church and involved adult participants from diverse educational and spiritual backgrounds. The study used a six-week instructional model that integrated historical background, theological reflection, and guided discussion. Data were collected through an initial questionnaire and Likert-scale surveys administered before the study began, observational notes and recordings during the study, and a final assessment after …

The Servant-Leader: A Qualitative Phenomenological Study Of The Associate Minister’S Character Traits In Small Non-Denominational Ministries, Rhonda Y. Cochran

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to fill a gap in the existing leadership literature by delving into the servant-leader’s character traits of integrity, sacrifice, humility, emotional intelligence, and strength (Cook, 2020) of the servant-leader. By exploring the lived experiences of associate ministers in small non-denominational ministries who are servant-leaders, this researcher intended to show how the character traits compelled the purposive population to fulfill the ten characteristics of listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community (Greenleaf, 1977) of the servant-leadership role. The theory guiding this study was …

The Deuteronomic Portrayal Of The Messiah: Christ And Mosaic Typology In Matthew, Francis Riggs

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation addresses an underemphasized area in the study of Mosaic typology in the NT portrayal of Christ. Matthew’s Jesus is widely viewed in Mosaic terms, and scholars also consider the nature of his new Exodus, but there is little discussion of the character of the new Exodus participants. Yet the matter is quite relevant because the participants in the historical Exodus were disobedient, and, for the most part, they perished in the desert. Accordingly, this study seeks to find out how the new Exodus participants will be different from those of the historical Exodus, and whether they will now …

Empowering Lay Leaders For Relational Discipleship At Christian Stronghold Church, Philadelphia, Pa, Keith Paul Bethel

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This thesis project examines how empowering lay leaders for relational discipleship can revitalize member engagement and spiritual formation at Christian Stronghold Church, an evangelical, multi-generational congregation in West Philadelphia experiencing declining participation and stagnating discipleship models. The ministry context includes significant demographic diversity, leadership transitions, shifts in discipleship structures, and the lingering effects of the COVID 19 pandemic, all of which have weakened historical patterns of evangelism, Bible study involvement, and leader development. The purpose of this study is to design, implement, and evaluate a relational, leader led discipleship intervention that strengthens lay leaders’ capacity to disciple members, deepens member …

God’S Design For Human Nature: Paul’S Biblical-Theological Use Of Creation Theology In Romans 1:18–32, Eunsoo (Daniel) Seo

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The world in which the Apostle Paul ministered was not a theological vacuum, but a sophisticated marketplace of competing worldviews and diverse moral frameworks. Within the specific milieu of first-century Rome, the cultural forces of Stoic philosophy, Roman imperial ideology, and pagan polytheism created an environment where complex expressions of human nature and sexuality emerged. Dominant Roman social stratifications often celebrated or normalized same-sex relations and blurred the distinctions of the created order. Paul found himself proclaiming a message of a Sovereign Creator in a society that had been conditioned for centuries to view the human nature through the lens …

Spiritual Health Support Groups In The Local Church: Addressing Spiritual Wellbeing In West Virginia’S Eastern Panhandle, Grant Michael Davis

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Mental health services in the Appalachian region of the United States were lacking, both perennially and at the time of writing (Smith & Fisher, 2016). As the needs of this region and the nation continued to climb, the availability of trained, clinical counselors remained stagnant or worse. This lack of socially necessary services created a need that could be addressed in part by the local church. While professional counselors were in short supply and took a great deal of time to educate and train, the repercussions of the then-current mental health crisis needed to have immediate solutions and relief. The …

Intelligence-Based Missionary Preparedness, Barry Marbach

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This Dissertation in Praxis applies Biblical imperatives, theoretical research on leadership, relevant training models, and leading with intelligence to improve missionaries’ overall effectiveness. The dissertation supports CLUB1040 as a relational missionary movement created to contribute to the fulfillment of the Great Commission. CLUB1040 trains and mobilizes indigenous church leaders throughout the Middle East and North Africa. This mission includes inspiring the church to make this generation the one that reaches every unreached nation. Recognizing the possibility of hostility to the Gospel due to religion and culture, the intent of the training is to introduce intelligence to mitigate the danger and …

Walking With The Wounded: Chaplains As Agents Of Christ’S Healing Ministry, Fred Okechukwu Anucha

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This Doctor of Ministry action research project evaluated the effectiveness of an eight-week Christ-centered training intervention designed to strengthen hospital chaplains’ confidence and clarify sacramental boundaries in end-of-life care at AdventHealth Celebration. Hospital chaplains frequently encounter situations in which patients and families request sacramental or spiritually significant practices during moments of crisis, yet chaplains often lack structured training that addresses how to respond with both pastoral sensitivity and theological clarity within a multifaith healthcare environment.

The project implemented an eight-week training program that integrated theological reflection, case-based discussion, and practical ministry applications intended to strengthen chaplains’ confidence in providing spiritual …

The Effects Of Narrative Identity Awareness On The Relationship Between Adult Attachment, Shame, And God Attachment, Jacqueline H. Watson

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This quantitative study examines the interconnectedness of adult attachment, shame, God attachment, and narrative identity awareness. Insecure adult attachment has been shown to result in increased shame experiences and has been linked to insecure God attachment. Awareness of narrative identity has been used to improve left-right brain integration and correct problematic narratives that often lead to shame. This research employs Likert scale-style questionnaire data, parallel mediation, and linear regression-based models to assess the connections between study variables. More specifically, it examines whether narrative identity awareness moderates the relationship between adult attachment, shame, and God attachment. Participants included self-identifying Christian adults …