Religion Commons^™

“Armed With Righteousness And With The Power Of God”: Allusions To Priestly Clothing, Priesthood, And Temple In 1 Nephi 14:14, Matthew L. Bowen

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

Nephi saw in vision that in the latter-days “the saints of the church of the Lamb” and “covenant people of the Lord” who, though scattered across the earth, “were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory” (1 Nephi 14:14). Nephi’s prophetic statement is loaded with meaning. This study explores how “armed with righteousness” means “clothed with righteousness” (Psalm 132:9) not merely in a martial, but also in a priestly sense (compare 1 Samuel 17:5; Isaiah 59:17). This concept relates to the latter-day temple and its ordinances, which enable the Lord’s people to “go forth” from …

An Analysis Of The Financial Incentives In Attacking The Restoration, Ron C. Rhodes

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

With the popularity of social media growing exponentially, prominent critics of the Church are leveraging the platforms, particularly YouTube, as a key resource to produce thousands of negative videos about the Church. The accusations made in the videos about Church history, leadership, doctrine, and culture are so numerous that it could take months or even years to research fully, all while the flood of new content continues. It is easy for those exposed to the accusations to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume and, therefore, assume at least some of it must be true. This could place at least some …

The Seven Women Seeking The Bridegroom: Isaiah 4:1 As Transition Point In A Redemption Allegory, Jared T. Marcum

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

Nephi laboriously copied many of the words of Isaiah in hopes that his readers would rejoice in Christ. While Isaiah 4:1 (2 Nephi 14:1) is generally not viewed as Messianic, there may be an allegorical interpretation that would place this verse among Isaiah’s other Messianic writings. A pre-Nicene patristic writer, Victorinus of Poetovio, interpreted the seven women of Isaiah 4:1 as representing the seven churches of the Apocalypse and the one man as Christ. Victorinus’s Christ-centered interpretation of Isaiah 4:1 has received very little attention in modern scholarship. This paper uses textual analysis to determine if a Christ-centered allegorical interpretation …

A Liturgy For Wholeness Culture Shaping Practices For Flourishing In Ministry, Mike Bellanti

Doctor of Ministry

A Liturgy for Wholeness emerged from the opportunity to “shape ecclesiastical culture that reimagines the holistic flourishing of vocational pastors.” The research suggests that many pastors are not flourishing but surviving. Unrealistic expectations, comparison, an unreasonable number of needed competencies, and long work weeks contribute to this challenge, often resulting in burnout or moral decline. Reimagining pastoral work within the life arenas of divine calling, daily well-being, formational relationships, and resilience creates a significant opportunity for pastors to thrive holistically.

The context in which this project will be deployed is Northbrook Church, a large non- denominational church in the exurbs …

Story, Senses, Community And Fun: Teaching The Bible As Christ Centric Story For The Local Church, Adam Barton

Doctor of Ministry

NPO: The leadership at Harvest has observed that our people need improved methods to combat the trend of decreased understanding of the Christ centered Bible story.

My research identified numerous factors for this trend (too busy, too tired, the Bible is too difficult to understand and is no longer relevant, etc.) Perhaps more than all these, we have lost our Hebrew sensibilities of conveying the truth of the scriptures as a story to be experienced. A story told in community (not isolation), a story that draws in the senses (not a text to be analyzed), a story that is enjoyable …

The Church In-Between Raising Up Leaders In The Liminal Context At St. Andrew’S Presbyterian Church, Peter Dunn

Doctor of Ministry

St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Redondo Beach, California, is facing significant organizational challenges due to an experience of complex, rapid, and unprecedented change. Thus, my NPO statement identifies the need for the church to create a framework to empower emerging leaders for effective ministry in the liminal context.

This Doctoral project targets staff members and lay leaders, particularly Elders and Deacons, who play pivotal roles in overseeing and leading the church's ministry teams. The goal is to equip these leaders with a deep understanding of the liminal context of ministry and provide them with spiritual formation practices to navigate and …

Hybrid Faith: A Study On The Impact Of Digital Technology On Church Communication During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Gertrude Dzirasa-Payne

Doctor of Ministry

The 21st Century has witnessed a new age characterized by exponential growth of global internet users and the central role of digital technology impacting the economy, science, religion, government, and society.1,2 Information is available via digital channels in every form, whether word, image, or sound.3 Digital technology is integrated into society and has influenced the practice of the Church, leading to the emergence of a phenomenon known as “Hybrid Faith,” the merging of in-person faith and online faith into one holistic integrated experience.4 This study explores how small and medium-sized churches in two cities adopted digital communication technology to engage …

Fostering Collaborative Partnerships Through Clear Communication Strategies: A Foster Care Model, Cheryl E. Haskins

Doctor of Ministry

Children need out of home placements (foster care), due to abuse and neglect, often languishing in the foster care system for years, before returning home to a safer biological family, adoptive home, or another permanent placement. Historically the Christian church and other communities of faith have functioned as social service providers, building hospitals and orphanages, caring for people in need. City Church (Churchome) a Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. based local church story is presented in this research as a model of faith, leadership and collaboration.

Chapter one describes the need, current environment, key terms, and examples of how faith-based organizations engage. …

How Does Therapy Impact African American Christians?, Suzette Theresa Law

Doctor of Ministry

A fundamental problem for African Americans is the underuse of mental health services, leaving mental health needs unmet. Many African Americans have already been subjected to enough stigmatization to the point they refuse to open themselves up to further ridicule and do not acknowledge mental health problems as medical. As a culture, African Americans continue to be distrustful of Caucasians, who fill most roles in the mental health field. 1 The researcher found cultural mistrust was the most consistent and powerful predictor of help-seeking attitudes.

This research explores the reasoning behind why those in African American communities are reluctant to …

Project Portfolio: From Here To Home: A Proven Pathway From Visitor To Member In Our Church Community, Leon Mckenzie

Doctor of Ministry

Through my role as a pastor in my local church and dean in my diocese, I’ve learned of a growing concern about the lack of hospitality within the local churches. Hospitality holds significant importance in the Bible and is a central aspect of the Church's mission. Thus, I have the opportunity to assist churches in evaluating their readiness to welcome strangers and provide them with a practical framework to apply this concept in their specific contexts.

Through my research, I have found that most perspectives on hospitality focus on its application in the business field or creating a comfortable environment …

The United Churches Of America: Post-Denominationalism, Theocracy, And Justice Systems, Tyler Joshua Green

Doctor of Ministry

The purpose of this research is to the unify, organize and equip Christian churches to address the injustices of disenfranchised communities throughout the United States. This work calls for the 21st Century church to answer a charge to organize post-denominationally in an effort to expand the church’s reputation, reach and resources leveraged to address injustices. Upon identifying the identity crisis of the American church due to the vestiges of colonialism, this provides a totally different means by which churches can be identified beyond worship styles, liturgical idiosyncrasies and even biblical interpretations. Calling on the oneness that Christ invites the body …

Epic Preaching: Making Sermons More Participatory And Experiential To Maximize Engagement, Retention, And Transformation, Zach Fitzpatrick

Doctor of Ministry

Over the last three years, I have sought to answer the question: Given today’s technologically-sophisticated, experiential-learning world, how can preaching best engage hearts and minds in simultaneous virtual and in-person worship services? The past three years have taught me that people are hungry for participatory, experiential elements in sermons on occasion and that it does promote engagement, retention, and transformation.

This project was almost entirely conducted within the membership and ministries of Elizabeth Lee Methodist Church in Chickamauga, Georgia. Chickamauga is a small, Northwest Georgia town located in the heart of the Bible belt. The church is a medium-sized church …

Defeating Racism And Overcoming Generational Poverty: Re-Educating African American Youth, Adrian D. Ware

Doctor of Ministry

After the 2023 U. S. Supreme Court ruling that diluted President John F. Kennedy’s Executive Order Number 10925, commonly known as Affirmative Action, this research proposes viable strategies that could afford African American society solutions to re-educate its youth to advance future generations toward an educational and cultural evolution. Evolution suggests a systematic process toward improvement that takes time, strategy, effort, and resources. America’s founding fathers brought Africans to the United States to build an economic empire. While Florida Governor Ron DeSantis puts forth that enslavement was a form of apprenticeship where enslaved persons trained for lucrative careers, a more …

Always Christmas, But Never Winter: A Guided Companion For The Season Of Advent, John Lemons

Doctor of Ministry

This Project Portfolio will display my attempt to address the following NPO: To help Young Adults (ages 18-39) recognize the beauty in their lives and friends’ lives and identify where God is working so they can engage in authentic conversations about faith and fulfillment in Jesus. The overall insight that emerged from my research was the desire among Young Adults to understand and articulate their faith from a perspective of desirability. This awareness blossomed in my current ministry setting – as a Young Adult Minister at an established church in the Southern United States. My project is step one of …

New Wine: A Spiritual Approach For The Intervention Of High-Functioning Alcohol Use Disorder, Elias J. Suddarth

Doctor of Ministry

Considering the approximately 29 million adults in the United States struggling with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), we have discovered 85-90% do not seek available recovery options for alcoholism because a significant percentage do not see themselves within the typical narrative of a conventional recovery program. Most recovery approaches, whether secular or those involving spiritual principles, follow a century-old template for how any addict at any level ought to approach an abstinence-only treatment for their habitual misuse of a particular substance or behavior. Treatment for alcohol addiction has remained largely unchanged since the 1930’s even in the face of tremendous cultural …

Women Senior Pastors In The Black Baptist Church: A Study Of Pathways To Access And Model For Sustainability, Wendy Vanhosen

Doctor of Ministry

The thesis of this research is that the continued survival and influence of the Black Church hinges on the level of access and sustainability of women in senior leadership roles, emphasizing the historically protected position of senior pastor. It has become urgently necessary to move the needle beyond engaging in the perpetual debate about the role of women in ministry, and towards solutions that address the unique issues of this contemporary era. This era is characterized by a collision of the rise in women occupying senior leadership roles, increases in social justice concerns, and the unanticipated post-pandemic ramifications that have …

Carriers Of The Cloak: Six Steps For Christian Chaplains To Grow As Humble Leaders And Healthy Servants, John Gabriel Lawson

Doctor of Ministry

Chaplains are expected to be the spiritual leaders of their units, sometimes for thousands of people at a time, while also being expected to maintain the highest professional standards of regular military officers. They are charged with defending religious freedoms and guarding the spiritual development of those under their care, regardless of their faith background. These expectations, coupled with combat deployments and high levels of vicarious trauma that is often experienced through counseling, make it very difficult to maintain spiritual health. Given all these pressures, I noticed how spiritual health and leadership quality can suffer in the lives of military …

Formational Living: A Blueprint For Spiritual Formation Within A Virtual Church Community, Darcy Lynn Shepherd

Doctor of Ministry

An opportunity exists to design and develop an educational and experiential spiritual formation website for the virtual E-Church community at The Potter's House to create safe fellowship space, offer formational resources and inspire the community to "Live More Like JesusTM."

Three key insights emerged upon completion of the research: (1) 100% of respondents found The Daily Clay to be a helpful resource to learn more about spiritual formation; (2) 100 % of respondents thought The Daily Clay would be a helpful resource for a church community; and 100% of respondents indicated that they would subscribe to The Daily Clay. Collectively, …

A Discipleship Model For Oral Preference Learners: Specifically Related To The Turkana People Of Kenya, Theresa Lynn Pottenger

Doctor of Ministry

The Turkana people of Kenya are primarily oral learners, processing information in oral ways. Oral learners are completely reliant on what they hear, see, and experience because they cannot or choose not to read.¹ Missionaries from highly literate western cultures unwittingly burdened these oral learners with literacy dependent teaching methods and discipleship practices. This has particularly left Turkana Christian leaders with few options for deepening their own Christian spirituality or leading others in discipleship. Additionally, a cultural disconnect between western spiritual categories taught by the missionaries and Turkana spiritual categories have left several Turkana spiritual needs unmet. The Turkana …

Conscience In The Catholic Church, Hang Geum Augustine Osb

Obsculta

This paper deals with the topic of “conscience” in the Catholic Church. It explores the historical origins from the patristic and monastic traditions to the theologians in the medieval period and then also in the post-conciliar era through the lenses of canon law, catechism, and papal encyclicals. Finally, the author highlights the significance of conscience in monastic life as "mirror" of self-reflection.

The Art Of Silence In Waiting, Melissa Tovar-Guerrero

Obsculta

This piece reflects on what can happen when we decide not to worry and elect to learn the art of remaining silent. Like any art, it requires time to learn how to skillfully apply it in our lives. This paper was written as a homily for the Synoptic Gospels class at the Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary.

The Monstrous In Our Techno-Social World: Black Mirror Season 6. Produced By Charlie Brooker And Annabel Jones. Netflix, 2023, John Anthony Dunne

Seminary Faculty Publications

The sixth season of the technologically-dystopian anthology series, Black Mirror, was released on Netflix on June 15, 2023. The five new episodes, or films as producers Charlie Brooker and Annabelle Jones prefer to call them, were the first offerings of Black Mirror to appear on our respective “black mirrors”since before the start of the global pandemic. In the latest installment of eerie reflections about how technology saturates and shapes our social worlds,the showrunners both provide vintage Black Mirror and a new trajectory of what is possible for the series, even to the point of ostensibly breaking some of theirown rules.

Temple Themes In The Book Of Abraham, Stephen O. Smoot

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

The Book of Abraham is replete with temple themes, although not all of them are readily obvious from a surface reading of the text. Temple themes in the book include Abraham seeking to become a high priest, the interplay between theophany and covenant, and Abraham building altars and dedicating sacred space as he sojourns into Canaan. In addition to these, the dramatic opening episode of the Book of Abraham unfolds in a cultic or ritual setting. This paper explores these and other temple elements in the Book of Abraham and discusses how they heighten appreciation for the text’s narrative and …

Second Nephi As A Legal Document, Martin Oman Evans

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

Considering conventions of the ancient Near East, 2 Nephi can be understood as a legal document or legal archive. Factors supporting this view include 1) Nephi’s allusions to sealing the record and to a bar of judgment, 2) discussion of the law of witnesses and reference to Isaiah and Jacob as witnesses, 3) components and formatting consistent with Neo- Babylonian depositions and plaintiff statements, 4) uncharacteristically formal and conservative (high-fidelity) citations of Isaiah, and 5) rhetoric and vocabulary consistent with the Judean legal genre. Nephi’s inclusion of Jacob’s and Isaiah’s words as a witness and his references to judicial procedure …

“That They May Once Again Be A Delightsome People”: The Concept Of Again Becoming The Seed Of Joseph (Words Of Mormon 1:8 And Mormon 7:4–5), Matthew L. Bowen

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

In Words of Mormon 1:8, Mormon declares, “And my prayer to God is concerning my brethren, that they may once again come to the knowledge of God, yea, the redemption of Christ; that they may once again be a delightsome people.” The expression “that they may once again” plausibly reflects the Hebrew idiom wayyôsipû or wayyôsipû ʿôd. Mormon’s apparent double-use of the wayyôsipû (ʿôd) idiom in Words of Mormon 1:8 (or some Nephite scribal equivalent), like 2 Nephi 5:2–3, recalls language in the Joseph story (Genesis 37:5, 8). The original Lamanite covenant, as an extension of the Abrahamic covenant, involved …

The Eucharist Of The Latter-Day Saints: The Sacrament In The Broader Christian Context, Robin Douglas

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

This paper views the sacrament prayers and rituals of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the broader context of Christian eucharistic worship, focusing on how the Latter-day Saint observances both resemble and differ from those of other Christian communities. It argues that, contrary to what is often supposed, the Church has a relatively “high” eucharistic theology.

Heirs Of Pietism In World Christianity: The 19th To The 21st Centuries, Wendy J. Deichmann, Scott T. Kisker

Academic Books

No abstract provided.

What Motivates Authors To Include Religious Identity In Children's Picture Books?, Kenneth J. Eiker

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores children's authors' experiences of and motivations for including religious and spiritual themes in their picture books. It investigates the intricate connection between authors' backgrounds, including their cultural, spiritual, or religious, and familial roots, and how these elements permeate their writing. The study examines these authors' lived experiences and personal narratives, uncovering how their unique identities shape the portrayal of complex spiritual or religious themes in children's literature. Across the interviews, several themes were identified, including family teachings, religious upbringing, and personal spirituality. Authors draw from a wealth of personal experiences, such as Matt de la Peña's Christian …

Providing Specialized Preparation For Counselors In Catholic Schools, Timothy J. Cook, Jan Powers, Jiwon Kim

Journal of Catholic Education Pre-Prints

School counselors are needed now more than ever. Providing Catholic school counselors the specialized formation they need to be effective in the Catholic school context is essential. This study addressed two research questions in this regard: (1) What competencies (e.g., understanding, incorporating) and topics do Catholic school principals and school counselors believe are important for school counselors to fully contribute to the educational and faith-based mission of Catholic schools; and (2) How might the research findings inform pre-service education and/or continuing education and formation of school counselors for the Catholic school context? Online surveys were developed using the “Defining Characteristics …

Logos-Sophia, Elliott Norman, Donald Wayne Viney, Keith Elliott Perkins, Addyson Kay Campbell, Hunter Hinds, Scott Squires

LOGOS-SOPHIA: The Journal of the PSU Philosophical Society

Logos-Sophia, Volume 17, Spring 2024. The Journal of the Pittsburg State University Philosophical Society has largely been a student publication with occasional faculty contribution