Religion Commons^™

New Farms Review Considers Status Of Lds Scholarship

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The latest issue of the FARMS Review (vol. 19, no. 1) is now available, and within its pages readers will discover a plethora of subjects addressed, including external views of Latter-day Saint scholarship, the historical validity of central LDS truth claims, and much more.

Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology Of The Body (Book Review), Alida Sewell

Pro Rege

Reviewed Title: Wonderfully Made: A Protestant Theology of the Body by John W. Kleinig. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021. 235 pp. ISBN: 9781683594680.

Three Tributaries, Exploring The Reformed, Baptist, And Catholic Branches: A Review Of The Church's Book, David Westfall

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"If our conversations about the Bible, its meaning, and its authority seem always to prove fruitless, perhaps this is a better place to start."

Posting about the book The Church's Book from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/three-tributaries-exploring-the-reformed-baptist-and-catholic-branches-a-review-of-the-churchs-book/

The Now And The Not Yet: A Review Of The Art Of New Creation, Justin Bailey

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"What does it mean to create art that reflects the reality of new creation, in a way that is attentive to the gritty particularities of our present moment?"

Posting about the book The Art of New Creation from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/the-now-and-the-not-yet-a-review-of-the-art-of-new-creation/

Interviews In Global Catholic Studies: Paul D. Murray, Mathew N. Schmalz

Journal of Global Catholicism

Mathew N. Schmalz, Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Global Catholicism, interviews Paul D. Murray, Director of the Centre for Catholic Studies and Professor of Systematic Theology at Durham University, about his own intellectual journey and building a global Catholic studies program at Durham.

Reviewing Beyond Profession: The Next Future Of Theological Education, James Shelton

Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for Christians in Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Reviewing The Outrageous Idea Of Christian Teaching, Garrett Trott

Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for Christians in Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Reviewing Forming Ministers Or Training Leaders? An Exploration Of Practice In Theological Colleges, James W. Barber

Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for Christians in Higher Education

No abstract provided.

A Theological Framework For Reflection On Artificial Intelligence, Michael D. Langford

SPU Works

The theological questions before us in a digital age are pressing. What does God think of AI? Is AI good or evil? Will AI save us? What sort of future will AI give us? In what follows, I want to briefly introduce a few theological concepts that will hopefully help equip us for theological reflection on AI. We will begin with the question of epistemology, or how it is that we come by knowledge; in the realm of theology, this centers on revelation. We will then touch on the doctrine of creation, including the understanding of what it means to …

Artificial Intelligence And Theological Personhood, Michael D. Langford

SPU Works

Can AI be a person? What does God tell us about humanity and personhood? These are questions of theological anthropology and involve inquiring after the nature of humanity as God’s creation and what God wills for human personhood.

To address these inquiries, we will look at three biblical texts that bear on issues of theological anthropology, hopefully garnering some theological resources to consider the anthropological status of AI. Specifically, we will look at three “creation” texts that necessarily deal with the nature of human personhood within the divine economy of salvation history. The first is Genesis 1 and 2, which …

Sin And Grace, Bruce D. Baker

SPU Works

The theological lens of sin and grace gives a broader and deeper viewpoint than mere ethics. Ethical analysis is of course useful and necessary, but ethics alone is not enough. Ethics apart from a robust, holistic understanding of humans as persons-in-communion will remain mired in reductionist thinking about human dignity and morality. Therefore, this final chapter addresses the ethical issues of AI through the lens of sin and grace.

Epilogue: A Litany For Faithful Engagement With Artificial Intelligence, Bruce D. Baker

SPU Works

A litany is a thoughtfully organized prayer for use in public worship by the church, or as a personal devotional practice by individuals. This seems a fitting way to close our reflection on AI, faith, and the future. Prayer will be essential to our faithful response to the new opportunities and challenges AI brings. Our hope is that this litany will serve as a practical guide to thoughtful invocation of the Holy Spirit in prayers for wisdom and discernment, and in the daily disciplines of spiritual growth.

Moving Syriac Literature Into The Digital Age, Carl Griffin

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The mother tongue of Jesus and his disciples was not Greek or Latin or even Hebrew, but Aramaic, the language of Israel’s Babylonian captors. Aramaic, and in particular the dialect of Syriac, has continued to be spoken by many Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere down to the present time. This Semitic language became the vehicle for a vast body of early Christian literature that expressed Christian theology in singularly Semitic forms. For example, just as the Hebrew prophets expressed themselves primarily in poetry or rhythmic prose, rich with symbolism and analogy, so also early Syriac teachers composed didactic …

New Book Explores Faith And Philosophy

Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

The Maxwell Institute and Brigham Young University are pleased to announce the publication of a new volume by BYU philosophy professor James E. Faulconer.

Gaming & Faith, Sarah Moss

The Voice

No abstract provided.

An Integrated Preaching Design : A Methodological Framework For Preaching In The Indian Context, Ancy John

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Becoming Stewards Of Attention: A Theological Appeal, Joshua Gorenflo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The widespread compromising of attention currently taking place in our digital age is, at least in part, a theological issue necessitating a theological response, which invites an examination of the human person in relation to God. Familiar within the biblical narrative and throughout Christian tradition, I suggest that when the role of steward functions as the operative paradigm for humans, the claims made upon their lives have profound implications for attending within the digital age. More specifically, the steward’s attention becomes a tangible expression of authority and accountability in representation of God’s image to the rest of creation. In pursuit …

Whence Faith? The Nexus Of Passional Reason, Christian Personalism, And Abduction In Apologetics, Thomas Jefferson Gentry Ii

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Motivated by a desire to understand better and articulate matters touching on how beliefs are formed, this research considers the possibility of a religious epistemological nexus, a connection between the rational and affective capacities possessed by persons, human dignity and self-determination, and the method of argumentation used by apologists. The thesis defended is that through the means of the concomitance of the human intellect, emotions, and will (passional reason), the whole person is engaged in the process of passional reason whereby one can perceive, assess, and decide to believe in matters of religious faith (Thomistic doxastic voluntarism). Further, at the …

A Reader’S Guide To Worship And Liturgical Studies, David Kneip

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

The history of writing about worship in the Christian tradition is almost as old as the tradition itself, and it shows no sign of abating anytime soon. As a result, readers may find it difficult to know where to begin reading, and how to evaluate books that are popular or otherwise available to them. This annotated bibliography aims to assist readers in navigating the huge field of Christian publishing in worship studies, both by offering specific book recommendations and by demonstrating some of the different sub-categories that one might examine in attempting to choose what to read or study. The …

Arius As A Figure In Church History, Kendall Davis

Grapho : Concordia Seminary Student Journal

Church history, much like any other kind of history, is an exercise in meaning-making and identity creation. As Anglican theologian, Rowan Williams, writes regarding Church history, “We begin with a sense of identity that is in some way fragile or questionable, and we embark on the enterprise of history to make it clearer and more secure. In the process, of course, definitions may change a good deal, but the aim is to emerge with some fuller sense of who we are.”1 This is quite obviously true when we tell stories about the heroes of the faith: Irenaeus, Martin Luther, C. …

Old Faith New: Risking It All For The Kingdom Of God, Bridget Thornton

Doctor of Ministry

The opportunity existed to develop a curriculum on a theology of risk for Key West United Methodist Church. This will enable us to begin to risk substantially for the Kingdom of God. This NPO was developed over the three years of the DMIN program; each milestone provided clarity to get to this final NPO. I began searching for tools used by United Methodists in previous times of liminality and discovered the need for a theology of risk. A hero who risked for God’s kingdom emerged in this search, Robert Strawbridge. Strawbridge was a layperson who exceeded his authority to reach …

We Are All Eve: Rescuing The Mother Of All Things From Patriarchal Interpretation And Its Implications For Modern Christian Women, Maeve Pioli

Senior Theses

For centuries, the traditional Christian understanding of the Genesis narrative has relied heavily on the patriarchal biases of historic church figures to enforce a gendered hierarchy where women are deprived of authority, voice, and agency. My thesis deconstructs these misogynistic interpretations to provide liberating, alternative readings for the Garden of Eden as well as New Testament verses that utilize Eve’s transgression to justify women’s secondary status. As a former Christian, I have witnessed the persistence of this oppressive theology, often repackaged as a “complementary” relationship between sexes where women must dutifully submit to the headship of men. Therefore, by building …

Jesus’S Subversive Reading Of The Isaian Jubilee: Luke 4:16–30 In Theological-Historiographical Perspective, Jeff Scott Kennedy

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A growing number of scholars have proposed that Luke, or his sources, fabricated the story of Jesus reading a text in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:14–30) in order to appeal to the literate sensibilities of Luke’s Greek audience. The thesis of this dissertation is that Luke’s portrayal of Jesus as a capable public reader and expositor of the Scripture is historically credible and Christologically significant. Rather than implying that Jesus was a scribal-literate reader, Luke’s synagogue narrative signals that Jesus was a capable and a welcomed lay-reader of the Prophets, and a capable yet unwelcomed expositor who appeared to have …

"Engaging Theology: A Biblical, Historical, And Practical Introduction" [Review]/Blackwell, Ben C. And R. L. Hatchett., Sussie Stanley

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

This is a book review by Sussie Stanley.

Connecting Youth To The Gospel: The Role Of Theology And Apologetics, John Wesley Sales Iv

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Connecting youth to the Gospel sounds like a basic undertaking. However, evidence shows students know very little about the Gospel. While they grow up in church and attend Sunday school, there is still a lack of desire from students to want to know who God is. There needs to be a path to teaching students the genuine and deep teachings of the Gospel. This topic is important because as students grow older, they may grow apart from what they learned in Sunday school. When they are challenged and distracted by the world, they need a strong anchor to keep them …

Pathology, Identity, Or Both?: Making Meaning From Early Christian Martyrdom, Matthew J. Recla

University Author Recognition Bibliography: 2022

Partly in response to an earlier ‘pathological approach’ that seemingly stigmatised early Christian martyrdom, recent scholarship has adopted an ‘identity approach’ that explains martyrdom as a normative discourse of self-construction. This explanation of martyrdom as Christian identity-making, not willing death, is insufficient for three reasons. First, this approach implicitly reaffirms the theological claim that religious identity alone makes martyrs. In doing so it reduces the complexity of the individual martyr to ‘Christian’. Second, this approach excises the existential phenomenon of the martyr from martyrdom. Third, the term ‘identity’ has become ubiquitous, and its use to mark both sameness and difference …

“Change And Become Like Children”: Eschatological Childhood As Critique And Intention Of Ecclesiological Life, Joel Young

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Excluded From Our City: Clement Of Alexandria And The Porous Frontier Of Early Christian Identity, Jordan C. Goneau-Goncalves

Theology Graduate Theses

In the Paedagogus, the second volume of his three major works, Clement of Alexandria develops a “Christian” ethic and sense of identity, which is dependent on one’s “habits, deeds, and passions.”¹ The work itself is directed toward “you who are children” and is intended to instruct Christians in matters of character and behavior.² Though he is preoccupied with attempting to educate—rather, allowing his understanding of Christ to educate—Christians in regard to appropriate behaviors and values, thereby defining and maintaining a unique sense of Christian identity in late second century Alexandria, he is also at home in a …

Active Participation In The Two Direct Points Of Contact With God Within The Thomistic Metaphysics Of Human Nature, Richard. R. Palin Jr.

Theology Graduate Theses

No abstract provided.

‘He Hath Borne Our Infirmities And Carried Our Sorrows’: Thomas Aquinas On Christ’S Suffering In His Descent To Hell, Stephen Beale

Theology Graduate Theses

No abstract provided.