Religion Commons^™

The Unashamed Plan: Expository Methods For Reconciling Unchurched Young Adults At The Friendship Baptist Church Of West End, James Daniel Spencer Ii

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Young adults are absent from the pews of churches within the urban African American community. Churches within the community face dissolution because a generation no longer seeks to solve its problems by connecting with the household of faith due to shame-based alienation. There is a need to reconcile young adults into the citadel of invincible grace, God’s church, to fulfill the Great Commission and ensure a generation is not lost. Therefore, this action research project teaches church members through expository preaching and teaching The Unashamed Plan to educate them to reach youth for Christ. The Unashamed Plan is a theological …

Worship Harmony: Addressing Fragmented Practices Through Sacramental, Evangelical, And Charismatic Engagement At Beach Church, James Brockway

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This Doctor of Ministry thesis project addresses worship fragmentation at Beach Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, where sacramental, evangelical, and charismatic elements have historically functioned independently, leading to theological imbalance and diminished congregational unity. The purpose of the project was to develop and implement a framework for unified worship that reflects the Trinitarian nature of God by integrating Word, Sacrament, and Spirit in a cohesive, theologically grounded, and experientially rich liturgy. The study employed an action research methodology involving surveys, interviews, focus groups, and worship observations to assess congregational perceptions before and after the intervention. The resulting framework demonstrated measurable …

The Error Of Replacement Theology, Its Significance For Christians Today, And Its Theological Implications For Participants In The Vintage Truth Bible Study, Jeffery Bruce Kinley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The nation of Israel regularly makes geopolitical and cultural headlines, and antisemitism continues to increase on a global scale. This carries profound theological and practical implications regarding Israel’s relationship and relevance to the Church. This DMin action research project was designed and implemented to evaluate the impact of replacement theology on approximately thirty participants in the Vintage Truth Bible Study. Through a sustained, eight-week study examining the tenets of replacement theology, along with Scripture’s teaching on God’s relationship with and covenants to Israel, and prophecies regarding that nation’s future, the doctrine was addressed. The research combined thorough biblical exposition, three …

The Servant’S Ear: Study Of The Servant In Whom Yhwh Is Well Pleased: An Expositional Connection Of Exodus 21:5-6 And Deuteronomy 15:16-17 To The Servants Of Revelation, Warren Eugene Hoskins

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation undertakes an extensive investigation into the theological, historical, and literary development of the biblical servant motif. This study examines the evolution of the concept of servitude, beginning with its origins in Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) laws and culture.

It is anchored in the tradition of ear-piercing for the willing servant, as outlined in Exodus 21:5-6 and Deuteronomy 15:16-17. This research unpacks how ideas about servitude changed in the Old Testament law and how this relates to the end times and the early church, as described in Revelation. This study also compares Old Testament servant laws with those of …

Bridging Machine Learning And Islamic Scholarship: A Study In Hadith Translation And Similarity Analysis, Asiyah R. Speight

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Translation of Islamic religious texts poses unique challenges requiring both linguistic and theological expertise. This study explores the application of neural machine translation (NMT) models to Arabic-English hadith translation while analyzing semantic similarity patterns across different human translations. Using the complete Sahih Bukhari corpus (7,550 hadiths) as the primary dataset, we adopt a dual approach combining transfer learning and comprehensive neural network analysis to demonstrate the critical impact of corpus size on model performance.

First, we fine-tune a pre-trained MarianMT Arabic-English translation model on the full Sahih Bukhari corpus, comparing models trained on 40 hadiths versus 7,550 hadiths. Performance is …

Advent Season And God’S Unchanging Purposes, Isaias D'Oleo-Ochoa

CTS Student Publications and Creative Works

Christian Advent, or Adventus, is the four-week period before Christmas in the Christian liturgical year. Each week encompasses one of the following themes: hope, peace, joy, and love. The Advent season serves as a remembrance of Christ’s incarnation, inviting us to reflect on God’s promises of liberation and salvation. I find a powerful connection between Advent and God’s unchanging purposes since the Advent season is not only about remembrance but also about expectation. We expect Christ’s return. Considering this, I see Advent as a great time to meditate on God’s purposes, which help us prepare our hearts for Christ.

Liturgia Queer Para Afrontar La Situación De Forma Activa: Oraciones Judías Para Tratamientos Y Pruebas Médicas Lgbtiq+, Elazar Ben-Lulu Dr

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

In recent years, medicine has moved toward greater inclusivity of the LGBTIQ+ community, ushering in an era focused on health needs linked to diverse identities. This qualitative study analyzes six contemporary Jewish prayers that address LGBTIQ+ concerns, such as support for medical care and treatments related to sexual and gender identities, including hiv/aids. Often written by LGBTIQ+ rabbis, these liturgies introduce new conceptions of body, gender, sexuality, and divinity. They express reverence for creation, trust in medicine, and respect for the body’s capacity for transformation, articulating queer Jewish liturgy as active coping.

¡El Cielo Es Una Habitación Llena De Mujeres Gordas Riendo!, Lisa Isherwood

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

This article examines a pervasive yet often overlooked form of abuse against women: the lifelong regulation of bodily size and shape. While acknowledging the horrific rise in domestic physical violence during the United Kingdom’s lockdown, the focus shifts to the normalized pressures of patriarchal control that women internalize from an early age. Such control disguises itself as concern or benefit, yet inflicts profound personal and spiritual harm. Approaching the issue from a Western perspective, the article argues that, within an incarnational faith, the disciplined body becomes the very site of resistance where transformative divine power is located in human experience.

El Corazón Al Descubierto: Reflexiones Sobre Levítico 18.22, Renato Lings

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

The article explores the hermeneutical paradoxes of the book of Leviticus through the personal experience of Rabbi Steven Greenberg, whose encounter with Leviticus 18.22 transformed his relationship with the Torah and his own identity. Through rigorous textual analysis, the article questions traditional cis-heterosexist interpretations and examines the semantic complexity of the expression mishkebey ishshah [a wife’s bed]. The study shows how Leviticus—far from being a monolithic code—contains internal tensions, profound ethical elements, and a surprising openness toward neighbors and immigrants, inviting a critical and liberating reading.

La Pasarela De Santiago 2.1-26: Buitres, Muertas Y Otros «Varones De Fe», Roque Javier Cabrera Feliciano

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

The article proposes a theological-academic and creative-critical reading of James 2.1-26 through the metaphor of a fashion runway, integrating biblical exegesis, socio-historical analysis, and contextual theology. The study addresses the denunciation of favoritism toward the rich and the relationship between faith and works, engaging Paul in critical dialogue without positing doctrinal contradiction. Through a camp aesthetic register, the figures of Abraham and Rahab underscore an embodied faith expressed in concrete practices of justice, hospitality, and mercy. The study advances an explicit critique of capitalism, cis-heteropatriarchy, and the spiritualization of poverty, and proposes a coherent, contextually grounded Christian ethic.

Pensar Desde Los Márgenes: Travesías Teológicas Desde Cuerpos, Fronteras Y Disidencias En La Obra De Hugo Córdova Quero, Anderson Fabián Santos Meza

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

This essay offers an interpretive reading of Hugo Córdova Quero’s theological work from a third-person perspective, avoiding a laudatory or autobiographical tone. Based on queer and decolonial Trinitarian theology, the text traces a path that articulates biblical hermeneutics, migration studies, popular culture, queer theory, and pastoral praxis. The work is read as a relational and pilgrimage project. In this difference, displacement, and violated bodies do not constitute a theological problem, but rather an epistemic place from which to rethink the sacred, community, and justice.

Travesías Y Disidencias: Queerizando/Cuirizando La Hermenéutica Bíblica, Hugo Córdova Quero, Anderson Fabián Santos Meza, Cristian Mor, Jorge A. Aquino Ph.D.

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

This essay proposes to queer biblical hermeneutics as a critical theological intervention that is not limited to the creative rereading of texts, but questions the epistemic and political conditions that regulate interpretation. From a situated and embodied perspective, it affirms that queer bodies and lives do not constitute a pastoral or doctrinal problem, but rather an epistemological place from which to rethink the sacred, authority, and community. In dialogue with Spanish-speaking ecclesial and academic contexts, the analysis is presented as a rigorous and vital intervention that opens fissures, disrupts consensus, and vindicates hermeneutical plurality as theological power.

Cartografías Del Que(R)Er: Subjetividades En Tránsito Y Creación, Dan González-Ortega

Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer

I propose insights into a theology in motion that maps «Wanting» [que(r)er]—love, desire, and the search for a whole life—amid multiple transitions: forced migrations, the climate crisis, queer and digital (epochal) subjectivities. From a territorial and incarnate biblical hermeneutic, I reread Scripture from the perspective of marginalized bodies and territories. I integrate feminist, postcolonial, and posthumanist contributions to think of creation as living territoriality and subjectivity of revelation. Human mobility and the wounded Earth are understood as intertwined cries that challenge the world. I present a potential open spiral of communion, in which all subjectivity—human and more-than-human—is welcomed …

Christmas Calories And Hallmark Movies, Mark Volkers

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"Christmas is a great time to indulge in a few sweets, while also enjoying hearty meals that give us strength for the new year to come."

Posting about ­­­­­­­­balancing seasonal comforts with faithful living 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.

Christmas Calories and Hallmark Movies

The Role Of Religion In Ensuring National Security In Kazakhstan, Nurzhan Arystanbekuly Tursin Nur, Mukhan Issakhan, Shamshadin Kerim, Kovalev Dmitriy, Kalimash Begalinova

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article explores the foundations of state policy aimed at ensuring religious stability in Kazakhstan. It analyzes the scientific basis of religious studies, principles of tolerance toward the country’s traditional religions, and the role of religion in maintaining national security. The methodology, goals, and objectives of the study are shaped by the interdisciplinary nature of the subject. The research examines state and interfaith relations, the development of freedom of religion, its integration into domestic and international law, and ways of resolving legal contradictions, traditions, and stereotypes. The theoretical framework relies on the works of domestic and foreign scholars devoted to …

The Rhetorical Discourse Of Uniate Writers’ Polemic Literature Of The End Of The 16th – First Half Of The 17th Century In The Retrospection Of Oratory's History, Ruslan Tkachuk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The examination of the poetics inherent in the polemical prose authored by Uniate writers during the late 16th and the first half of the 17th centuries holds substantial significance for comprehending rhetoric as a pivotal element in the stylistic evolution of Ukrainian literature throughout this period. The objective of this article is to explore the interrelationship between the works of Uniate polemicists and the framework of classical rhetoric, particularly by elucidating the functioning of rhetorical figures and argumentation techniques within their texts. To accomplish this aim, a range of literary methodologies were employed. Those methods included historical-cultural, comparative-historical, biographical, structural-analytical, …

The Legal Position Of The Religious Communities In The Republic Of Macedonia, Jovan Jonovski

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The territory of the modern Republic of Macedonia (official name as of recently is Republic of North Macedonia) has historically been exposed to Judaism, Eastern and Western Christianity, Islam, and later to Protestantism. In the People’s /Socialist Republic of Macedonia, the religious communities were kept out of public life and suppressed. The government favored the Macedonian Orthodox Church for strengthening the Macedonian national consciousness. The Republic of Macedonia is a self-declared secular multi-confessional state. The article covers the history of the religious landscape as well as the legal framework and practices of the state toward the Churches, faith communities, and …

Religious Communication In Ukraine's Media Space As Factor In The Formation Of Confessional Identity, Oleh Sokolovskyi, Dmytro Garaschuk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article presents a comprehensive study within religious studies of religious periodicals in Ukraine from the early 1990s to the present. It attempts to analyze the dynamics of the emergence and transformation of printed religious mass media in the context of the democratization of social life, changes in the information environment, and the development of civil society. It is noted that religious periodicals occupy a special place within the media landscape, since they perform not only the function of conveying information but also tasks of catechesis, spiritual-educational ministry, the formation of value orientations, and the preservation of cultural-historical heritage.

The …

Religion And Human Rights In The Realities Of The Russian-Ukrainian War, Andrii Marchenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to the peculiarities of the relationship between religion and human rights in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. It is noted that Russia’s expansion results in a decrease in religious freedom in the temporarily occupied lands, a narrowing of the scope of this fundamental norm. At the same time, the author emphasizes not only the violations of the rights and freedoms of believers in the temporarily occupied territories of the country caused by external factors, but also some internal problems of the socio-religious life of modern Ukraine.The article analyzes the actions of the Ukrainian authorities to …

Orthodoxy, Culture And Language: Alaska In Russia’S Religious Diplomacy Of The 21st Century, Oleksandr Lukyanenko

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to the analysis of the religious factor of the Russian foreign diplomacy in the light of Vladimir Putin’s high-profile visit to Alaska n August 15, 2025. The paper studies a special place of Alaska in the historical imagination of Russian political and church discourse. The status of this particular territory in Russian state worldview – the former “Russian America” – is indicative: it refers to the idea of an unfinished imperial legacy. The research doesn’t touch a main event that included a meeting with US President Donald Trump but an off-schedule meeting with Archbishop Alexei (Trader) …

“Mysterium Tremendum Et Fascinans”: Melian’S And Lúthien’S Numinosity, Alexandra (Oleksandra) Filonenko

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

At the heart of all the positive changes in Middle-earth, and at the starting point for undoing the great evil wrought by male characters (divine or otherwise), are two female characters: Melian the Maia and her daughter Lúthien. They form a kind of mythological complex of mother and daughter goddesses, similar to that of Demeter and Persephone. Melian, as a static, maternal figure, forms a sacred centre of Beleriand to which all in need of protection gravitate, while Lúthien, representing a dynamic principle, can be considered the greatest hero of Tolkien’s Legendarium, performing feats unmatched by any male character. Yet …

Belief After The Death Of King Arthur: Lev Grossman’S Postsecular Portrayal Of Nimue In The Bright Sword, Liz Busby

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

This paper explores Lev Grossman’s 2024 novel The Bright Sword as a postsecular retelling of the Arthurian legend, focusing on the character of Nimue. Unlike previous modern portrayals that align Nimue with pagan traditions in opposition to Christianity, Grossman presents her as both a practitioner of magic and a sincere Christian believer. Through this duality, Nimue embodies the tensions and contradictions of faith in a postmodern age, where belief persists amid doubt, historical trauma, and religious pluralism. Drawing on postsecular theory, the paper situates Grossman’s work within a broader literary tradition that includes Marion Zimmer Bradley’s The Mists of Avalon …

Second Sunday In Ordinary Time - 19 January 2025, Pina Ford

Pastoral Liturgy

No abstract provided.

Charity Begins With Zoning Reforms, Mark D. Bjelland

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

When my family moved to Michigan over a decade ago, we were looking for something more than a three-bedroom house in our price range. We wanted a place of beauty, refreshment, and welcome for our children and guests. As newcomers to the state, we took the location seriously. Our previous house lost value due to its small-town setting, so we worried about future property values. As an urban geographer, I mapped changes in demographics and housing prices and created bike and bus travel-time maps from work and schools.

Environmental Beliefs Among Evangelical Leadership, Jeffrey Stark

Dissertations

There has been consensus among climate scientists for over a decade about the reality of human caused climate change. Even with this consensus, the public understanding of this issue remains divided based on factors generally unrelated to the science. Evangelical Protestants are one group which consistently polls as more skeptical of climate change. This is true not only when compared to the general population but also when compared to other religious demographics. Most large-scale surveys of evangelicals assume the demographic to be a monolith and do not attempt to break the demographic down further. In this mixed methods study, we …

White Horse Village: A Northern Utah Ufo Narrative, Melissa Petersen

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In the early 1960's a group of UFO believers, called Christ Brotherhood Inc., established themselves in Smithfield Canyon, UT and called their commune White Horse Village. A main house was built where the leader of the group lived and two or three smaller cabins were erected for the believers. Without running water they used an outhouse among them and built a small church where they would meet for lectures. Their beliefs centered around the popular movement of New Age spirituality of the time, which included scientific explanations for Christian beliefs including a belief in benevolent aliens as modern angels. Their …

(Nuevo) 10 Liderazgo En El Nuevo Testamento, Gerardo Kempff

Liderazgo

10 Liderazgo en el Nuevo Testamento

A Roadmap For Equipping Saints For The Work Of Ministry At Sugar Land Church Of Christ, Lewis Anthony Parker Iv

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project was to create a roadmap for a process that invites and equips saints at Sugar Land Church of Christ to work in ministry. As part of the research process, a design team was empaneled and met for eight sessions, during which participants offered valuable insight into Sugar Land’s ministry context. This data informed the final roadmap. Ephesians 4, which discusses the importance of every member getting involved in ministry, serves as the foundation of this project. The work of every member is for the edification of the entire group, and the calling and gift of …

More Than Peyote: Trauma, Healing, And The Politics Of Indigenous Cultural Survival In The Age Of Psychedelic Colonialism, Christine Diindiisi Mccleave

Indigenous Studies

This dissertation examines the intersection of peyote religion, historical trauma, and the emergent psychedelic movement through a critical Indigenous lens. Centering peyote as both a sacred medicine and a symbolic flashpoint, the study highlights how contemporary psychedelic policy, practice, and commercialization perpetuate settler-colonial paradigms and threaten Indigenous cultural survival. While mainstream narratives frame psychedelics as tools for healing, this research emphasizes how such framing often obscures deeper histories of dispossession, cultural appropriation, and epistemic violence. Using a mixed-methods approach, including 50 anonymous survey responses, 13 qualitative interviews, and a 6-person focus group, this study amplifies the voices of tribal citizens …

A Faith-Based Approach To Mental Health Challenges, Patrick Leblanc

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This project sheds light on mental health issues within the Black community and the need for faith communities to intentionally address mental health issues in communities of color. Black men are oppressed by an interplay of cultural, historical, societal, and economic factors that impact their well-being. Racial discrimination and oppression are non-medical drivers exacerbating mental health disorders among Black men. The influences of culture and faith fabricate barriers to help-seeking behavior, and mistaken perceptions of masculinity cause many men to suffer in silence. To begin erasing derogatory perceptions of mental health disorders, faith communities need to increase mental health …