Religion Commons^™

Alone, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

Care, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

Falling Short, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

Fear Of The Future, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

Fight With A Friend, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

God Feels Absent, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

God’S Sovereignty Amidst Evil: A Defense Of The Complex Good Of The Christian God With Reference To C.S. Lewis, Sawyer C. Lake , '20

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

Brokenness, Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.

A Strategy For Increasing The Levels Of Financial Literacy Among African-Americans In The Greenville Neighborhood Of Jersey City, Nj, Troy S. Levy

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Financial illiteracy afflicts many African-American and Black immigrant communities. The realities of residing in urban locales have contributed to the illiteracy and many times have led to a negative legacy of financial stewardship in these same communities. There are external challenges as well as internal challenges that have stifled African-American financial literacy. Not only is a negative corporate legacy of financial stewardship a result, but poverty, higher vulnerability towards financial bullying (housing discrimination, payday loan shops, etc.) among other challenges are directly correlated to the problem. Although poverty is an effect of lower levels of financial literacy in these …

Strategy To Implement And Evaluate A Health And Wellness Program In The Inner-City Of Benton Harbor, Michigan Through The Harbor Of Hope Church, Imasiku Mubita

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The data from the Berrien County Health Department (2011b) shows that the city of Benton Harbor has unusually high prevalence of obesity, hypertension, and diabetes. In addition, the city is a food desert and residents lack good healthcare coverage which helps to exacerbate these lifestyle diseases among its inner-city residents. Also, the dearth of healthy food intake plus the lack of exercise further hampers the community's health.

Method

A nine-week health-wellness program was opened to the community through the Harbor of Hope church in Benton Harbor. During this program community members had their biometrics screened at the beginning and …

Training, Equipping, And Deploying Teenagers For Preaching With A Prophetic Emphasis At The Plantation Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Iosif Salajan

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Teenagers were not integrated in the preaching ministry of the Plantation Seventh-day Adventist Church. Their involvement in the worship service revealed challenges in publicly expressing their faith and spiritual experience. The absence of training, equipping, and deploying teenagers for preaching ministry contributed to their low retention and their lack of representation in the leadership of the church.

Method

Between August 2018 and May 2019, under the coordination of the researcher, preaching mentors offered teenage mentees from the Plantation Seventh-day Adventist Church a complete learning cycle called sermonic process. It started with producing the sermon, continued with practicing the sermon …

A Strategy To Train Members To Encourage Non-Members To Make Decisions For Baptism And Church Membership At The Middletown Valley Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Joshua William Voigt

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

In every church I have pastored, there have been individuals who attend the church but are not members. Some come to community-focused events the church holds throughout the year, while others come to the weekly worship service. There are also some who come whenever the doors of the church are opened. This group of people includes both Christians from other denominations, as well as non-Christians. The Middletown Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church had an unusually large ratio of non-member to member attendance.

Method

A six-month evangelistic strategy was developed for the Middletown Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church. The strategy began with …

Developing Spiritual Disciplines In Youth And Young Adult Leaders Through Mentoring At The Peachtree City Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Nathaniel E. Elias

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Peachtree City Seventh-day Adventist Church (PTC) leadership and parents of teenagers expressed concerns regarding the lack of spirituality and church involvement of their youth and young adults. Church appointed youth and young adult leaders had not received consistent spiritual equipping to share with the youth and young adults of the church. Youth ministry primarily focused on recreational fellowship and lacked spiritual focus. The church approached the associate pastor to provide spiritual equipping for youth and young adult leaders.

Method

Six church nominated youth and young adult leaders participated in a 10-month mentorship program that equipped them with spiritual …

Applying Biblical Principles Towards A Model Of Theological Dialogue At The Hillside O'Malley Church, David Shin

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Based on feedback from members of the Hillside O’Malley Church through personal conversations, theological polarization threatened to paralyze the local church and keep it from fulfilling its mission of ministering to its members and reaching out to the community with the gospel message. The theological polarization stemmed from divergences on the presuppositional, macro-hermeneutical level that are revealed visibly in how members interpret the biblical text.

Method

The methodology that was employed was to derive biblical principles from an exegesis of the book of Acts specifically related to theological reason, which included an understanding of how presuppositions worked in the …

Discovering Successful Pastoral Mentors Based On Their Spiritual Gifts Cluster And Engaging Them In Mentorship In The Wisconsin Conference Of The Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Adam Case

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Many pastors are placed into pastoral ministry with passion and education but lack sufficient mentoring to help them succeed in ministry. These pastors would benefit from a mentor who could support them and/or grow them through intentional mentorship in specific agreed upon areas. The concept of mentoring is biblical, Jesus being a prime example, and one that is in line with the principles of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. There is no conflict with the concept of mentoring, but nothing practical has been put into place in the Wisconsin Conference to discover good pastoral mentors and then engage them in …

Increasing Effectiveness And Efficiency Through A Collaborative Evangelism Strategy Within The Georgia-Cumberland Conference Of Seventh-Day Adventists, Victor Maddox

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

There were a number of organizations, ministries, and individuals throughout the Georgia-Cumberland Conference (GCC) territory engaged in various forms of evangelism which include health education, literature distribution, media presentations, community service, Bible instruction, etc. All had some level of success. Personal observations of these efforts revealed a redundancy in programing, uncoordinated planning, insufficient record-keeping, inadequate follow-up on interests generated, and failure to build upon the results of previous evangelistic meetings within the GCC.

Method

The goal was to improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the evangelism process in the GCC through the coordination of evangelistic meetings between organizations, …

A Strategy To Coach Pastors To Revitalize Declining Churches In The Carolina Conference And Other Seventh-Day Adventist Conferences In The United States, Brad Cauley

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

Many English-speaking Seventh-day Adventist churches are in an attendance decline or plateau in the United States. Specifically, the investigator found that 56% of English-speaking churches within the Carolina Conference of Seventh-day Adventists were in decline when comparing the five-year attendance mean for 2008-2012 and 2013-2017 using annual average attendance data. This discovery was alarming. Simultaneously, however, the population was growing in many of these communities. More intentionality was needed to stem the tide of attendance decline. These churches were in need of revitalization, but many of their pastors lacked the natural temperament and/or support needed for revitalization to occur. …

Desarrollo E Implementación De Un Seminario Respecto Al Ayuno Bíblico En La Iglesia Adventista Hispana De Fort Worth Norte, En Texas, Aníbal Antonio Herrera Pellicer

Doctor of Ministry Projects

Problem

The Fort Worth North Spanish Seventh-day Adventist Church has no record of a seminar on biblical fasting, a practice that is perceived as spiritually and physically beneficial in several cultures and religions worldwide. Within Adventism, fasting is seen as an outward expression of the person’s inner commitment and reliance on God (Rodriguez, 2001). Furthermore, pastoral observation revealed that in this local church there are conflicting views and a lack of knowledge about biblical fasting. The observation also disclosed the need for developing a training program in the area.

Method

The task of this project was to develop, implement, and …

Social Justice And Liturgical Practice: Engaging The Earth/ Cultivating Solidarity, Daniel O'Dea Bradley

Philosophy Faculty Scholarship

In North America, across the political spectrum, we have a strong tendency to reduce religion to nothing more than a tool to promote our own socio-political views. Tis is a natural consequence of our hyper-polarized culture and our impoverished view of “religion.” It is also, however, a problem—particularly for those inspired by the call to renewal through an integration of the quest for social justice and the pursuit of the spiritual life. By focusing on the value of participating in religious liturgy, I show how a renewed respect for religion can help the proponents of social justice fulfill some of …

'We Were Hoping': The Emmaus Road Encounter As A Novel Approach To Faith-Science Dialogue, Harold A. Laurence V

Seattle Pacific Seminary Theses

This thesis proposes a novel paradigm for faith-science dialogue, drawing a Biblical analogy between two disciples’ Emmaus Road encounter with the risen Jesus (Luke 24:13-35) and contemporary faithful scientists wrestling with narrative conflict between the findings of science and the confession of faith. For science’s reading public, science serves as an alternative mythmaking discourse, whose narratives may indeed conflict with faith. This thesis proposes that theology ought to deploy Biblical preaching to resolve such narrative conflicts. To guide this process, this thesis proposes that Jesus’ two responses to the troubles of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) …

Supervisor Experiences Mentoring Therapists-In-Training On Issues Related To Religion/Spirituality Among Lgbt Clients, Stephanie Kolhei

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There are known issues related to religion and spirituality (R/S) among the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) population, such as identity struggles, religious abuse, and internalized homonegativity. Many therapists are uncomfortable incorporating R/S into therapy, with poor training and supervision identified as a possible rationale. The purpose of this study was to explore supervisors’ experiences mentoring therapists-in-training on issues related to R/S among LGBT clients as well as supervisors’ level of preparation to mentor this area. The integrated affirmative supervision model (IAS) and multiple dimensions of cultural competence (MDCC) conceptual frameworks drove the development of this study. A generic …

The Hope And History Debate In Fundamental Theology, David Patrick Collits

Theses

The hope and history debate in twentieth century Catholic theology concerned to what extent the object(s) of eschatological hope could be realised within history. Its context was the ‘secularisation of Christian eschatology’. On the one hand, Joseph Ratzinger, who was indebted to the philosophical work of Josef Pieper, considered hope’s object to belong to the realm of gift. He was sceptical of the extent to which hope could be manufactured by human means within history. On the other, Edward Schillebeeckx, Johann Baptist Metz and Gustavo Gutiérrez presented theologies of futurity, including political theology and liberation theology, in which the realisation …

Rational Creatures: Examining The Cat-Dog Divide In The Medieval World, Emily Price

Capstone Showcase

The spiritual chasm of status that exists between man and beast is daily put to the test by the very beasts kept in our homes. Human beings have a long history of keeping animals for one reason or another, but it has only been recently that the concept of animals purely maintained for companionship has taken center stage. The Middle Ages in particular served as a transformative moment in the history of the “pet,” where not only was the role of the animal within man’s existence re-examined, but so, too, were the specific animals preferred by different cultures more solidly …

Wedded To Change And Tradition: Conservative Jewish Same-Sex Weddings And Ritual Change, Logan Kramer

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how the Conservative Jewish wedding ritual shifts in meaning during the creation of same-sex wedding rituals because of a re-definition of the Conservative Jewish community as a whole. This case study is then tied to ritual theory more broadly.

In Chapter 1, I discuss what makes a wedding a ritual. By defining the wedding as a powerful, transformative, and performative ritual, I examine how the creation of same-sex wedding rituals is an ideal example to help us understand the ways that a religious community might approach ritual change. I also interrogate how marriage has been used to …

Grieving The Eternal Present: The Pressures Of Being A Person (With Words), Rowen Light-Wills

Scripps Senior Theses

I started this poetry project from the jumping off point of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott's most well known theory; that of the "good enough" mother. This appealed to me because like Freud's, Lacan's, and other psychoanalysts’ work, it centers the infant and attempts to understand the developing psyche. In combination with Melanie Klein’s theories, this thesis aims to pinpoint specific anxieties that transcend childhood and feel applicable to the rest of the relationships a person develops in their life. Did they experience nurturing and detach from their primary caregiver at a developmentally healthy time? Or did they lack some relationship between …

Islam And The French Republic: Approaches To Laïcité In The Era Of Jacques Chirac And Nicolas Sarkozy, Jennifer C. Grady

Scripps Senior Theses

Often interpreted as the separation of Church and State that guarantees the freedom of public space from religion, laïcité is a foundational principle of French Republican ideology and is regarded as a central component of French national identity. This thesis focuses on the issue of laïcité that developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a period that witnessed a resurgence of debates on the purpose and function of laïcité after several decades of immigration from former colonies rendered Islam the second largest religion in France. Centering on the era of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, I examine the approaches …

The Necessity And Detriment Of Shame As Presented In John Calvin's Institutes, Tova Cohen

Scripps Senior Theses

In this senior thesis, I aim to explore the presence of shame in John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, via the excavation of the three main components that comprise of his edifice: original sin, grace, and predestination. Through a close reading of Calvin's Institutes, its application to Aristotelian ethics, and its consistencies (or lack thereof) with the biblical story of Genesis, I found that Calvin's theology not only suffers logical structure, but implores the Christian practitioner to embrace shame as a means to spiritually elevate the self. To conclude, I utilize Stephanie Arel's Affect Theory to uncover the …

The Vespers Psalms Of Baldassare Galuppi, Scot Buzza

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Although Baldassare Galuppi was arguably the best known and most successful Italian composer of the eighteenth century, his name, his history, and his works have been relinquished to the periphery of the historiographical narrative. While Galuppi's masses, operas, and solo motets have been examined, his vespers psalms have been neglected by previous musicologists; most of the existing studies have been superficial, with little consideration of important questions such as formal approach, stylistic development, compositional idiosyncrasies, questions of authenticity, or what those factors might collectively tell the twenty-first-century musicologist about music in settecento Venice.

The bulk of this work consists of …

American Christian Nationalism & Racial Justice, Trevor O'Reggio

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Leaf Printout (For "Falling Short" Study Guide), Calvin University

Campus Ministries Resources

No abstract provided.