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Frontmatter, Paul B. Mojzes

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Mojzes, Paul (2017) "Frontmatter," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 37 : Iss. 1 , Article 1.

Kazakhstan: Is Sharing Faith A State Security Issue?, Felix Corley

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Review Of Kuburić'S "The Self-Image Of Adolescents In The Protestant Family", Radmila Radonjić

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Serbian Jerusalem: Religious Nationalism, Globalization And The Invention Of A Holy Land In Europe's Periphery, 1985-2017, Vjekoslav Perica

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

According to beliefs of religious nationalism, a nation is a community of ancestors and descendants, dead and living, past and present. As such, it incorporates within its territory all past and present markers of nationhood, notably historic religious monuments as the physical evidence of the perennial existence of the religious and ethnic community that is, in the nationalist imagination, of the nation. Thus, the history of the shrines and monuments, as told in religious tales and preserved in the rituals, is the history of the nation. In many parts of the world, contesting claims to consecrated territories clash. The struggles …

Following Jesus In The Kingdom Of God: Leadership In The Synoptic Gospels, R. Wayne Stacy

Faculty Publications and Presentations

When I counsel my students about how to approach a research topic, the first thing I tell them to do is to read a good general article on the subject in one of the several standard scholarly Bible dictionaries. Such a strategy does several things: (1) it provides an overview of, and “feel” for, the subject; (2) it offers insight as to how one might organize their research; and (3) it suggests bibliographic resources with which to move deeper into the subject. That is usually sound advice; however, when it comes to the study of leadership in the Bible, that …

Letter From The Editor, Jennie A. Harrop

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

When I began preaching occasionally at my home church some years ago, I struggled at first with the ebb and flow of engagement in the eyes of those listening. I longed to flip the classroom, so to speak, or at least call on the sleepy friend in row four or the murmuring teens to my left. The head pastor assured me that some people would be shocked into staying home if I treated the sanctuary too much like a university classroom, so I restrain myself. Instead I study their responses as I speak, counting it a win when my words …

Encourage, Enlighten, Engage: Using The Three E’S To Build Students’ Intercultural Competence, Tolulope Noah

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

This essay explores the experiences of a young female faculty member who transitions from being a K-12 classroom teacher to a teacher educator in an undergraduate program at a Christian university. She is initially apprehensive about teaching the diversity course due to fears regarding the sensitivity of the subject matter, personal competency, and classroom dynamics. However, she soon comes to embrace the opportunity she has to help build students’ intercultural competence. The essay includes practical activities and strategies that professors can use in their courses to help students grow in their intercultural competence skills. This essay is based on a …

Integrating Domains: My Work As A Christian Teacher Educator, Thomas D. Buchanan

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

This essay on one teacher educator’s integration of faith, learning, and scholarship articulates the author’s exploration into what it means to be a Christian teacher educator who seeks to integrate the cognitive and the spiritual domains at a small private Christian university. Drawing from both educational and spiritual literature, the essay examines both the ideals and applications of one who seeks to be a teacher educator who is informed by the life and teachings of Jesus.

Hated On Both Sides Of The Aisle: Overcoming The Tension Between Christian Foundation And Present-Day Social Advocacy, A. Gillian Stewart-Wells

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Heeding the imperative of recent social movements calling for racial justice, university educators are faced with the challenge of developing curriculum that eliminates cultural stereotypes and mobilizes students toward social action. There is an imperative (Smith, 2015) to increase Anti-Racist Pedagogy (ARP) (Ladson- Billings, 2005) and refine Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) (Gay, 2000) in our education systems, leaving university faculty and administration with the daunting task of designing curriculum that reflects both an understanding of and respect for all students’ identities. The author shares how she blends the social justice research she conducts, the education courses she teaches, and her …

Cultivating Inclusive Learning Communities With Careful And Caring Conjunctions, Sunshine Sullivan

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

This essay was originally the invited lecture I shared at ICCTE 2016. I arrived there, prepared to share about inclusive learning communities and our responsibilities to both model and teach our emerging educators to plan, teach, and assess diverse learners with inclusive and responsive practices. But just as I had to listen to the Sabbath whisper, I could not ignore the and whisper. So I ask that as you finish reading this essay and we go our separate ways, remember that we are embodied conjunctions. We are an important part of our language system that communicates so much about our …

Letter From The Editor, Susanna Thornhill

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Nearly two years ago, the newly-formed ICCTE editorial team sat around a conference table and tried to come up with ideas for how to generate increased interest and submissions to the journal. We wanted to invite authors into a shared space of collaboration, encouragement, and sustainability. Story proved to be the vehicle; we designed a call inviting our colleagues to share stories about their experiences in the classroom that would be shorter and less formal than an average article. We imagined that this invitation might offer our colleagues a chance to reflect on the moments of education that seem most …

Spotlight: Tom Buchanan

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

The ICCTE-J editorial team is pleased to welcome Dr. Thomas Buchanan to the work of online journal publishing in service to the ICCTE community. Tom is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education at George Fox University.

Stimulating Critical Literacy Consciousness, Kathryn S. Hastings

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

This story from the field recounts how, after being an educator for over ten years, I became aware that I had been responsible for misrepresenting information to my first-grade students. This difficult realization shook me to the core, but it also became the impetus for me to learn about critical pedagogy and critical literacy. Both of these educational practices align with my faith and have been transformational to my teaching. As a result, I am able to teach my pre-service and graduate students how to instruct in more socially-just ways.

Book Review: Grit: The Power Of Passion And Perseverance, Matthew L. Johnson

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

I first stumbled across the research of Angela Duckworth after she was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 for her work investigating the character traits that impact the achievement of long-term goals. So, when it was announced that she would be publishing a book in 2016, I immediately pre-ordered copy so that I could dig into her insights as soon as possible. When I received my copy of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance in the mail, I was excited to crack it open… and then the self-doubt settled in. “What if, after reading the brilliant ideas of …

Devotion And Discipline: Christian Yoga And The Yoga Of T. Krishnamacharya, Stephanie Corigliano

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

SA tu dīrgha-kāla-nairantarya-satkārāsevito dṛḍha-bhūṃiḥ, Yogasūtra 1.14 states, “Practice becomes firmly established when it has been cultivated uninterruptedly and with devotion over a prolonged period of time.”¹

As a student of the late Pattabhi Jois, I heard this sūtra countless times during Jois’s afternoon conferences with his students. In the context of practice in Mysore with Jois, I understood the concept of discipline. However, the concept of devotion, satkārā, was more ambiguous. Questions about God and devotion were usually met with a simple, “God is one.”

Some Thoughts On God And Spiritual Practice In Yoga And Christianity, Bradley Malkovsky

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

I do not approach this topic as an expert historian of the diverse schools of yoga or as a systematician of their teachings or as an exegete of their classical texts.¹ Rather I address the theme of yoga and Christianity as a Christian theologian who has been a practitioner of Iyengar yoga, a prominent method of modern postural yoga, for more than thirty years and who has done some scholarly reading on contemporary and classical yoga and on Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutra (hereafter YS) in particular.² Despite all the controversy that has arisen in recent years about whether or not …

Fourth World Conference On Dialogue Among Religions And Civilizations In Macedonia 2016, Paul B. Mojzes

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Review Of Beljakova, Bremer And Kunter's "'Es Gibt Keinen Gott!' Kirchen Und Kommunismus. Eine Konfliktgeschichte [There Is No God! Churches And Communism: A Conflict Story]", Reka Juhasz

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.

Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam: The Jesuits In Albania, Ines A. Murzaku

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

When Pope Francis addressed students, teachers, and parents of the Jesuit schools of Italy and Albania in 2013, he discussed the core and the value of a Jesuit-Catholic education, which in essence follows St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. The Jesuits in all multifarious activities and apostolates put Jesus in the center, thereby making him the prototype. It was Jesus who had trodden a novel way for the Society of Jesus to follow and that meant to live a meaningful life, live well, and live joyfully among the people they were serving. …

Spiritual Formation: A Model To Strengthen The Mission, Operation, And Commitment Of African American Churches, Anthony Bailey

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Spiritual formation, the practice of intentional spiritual disciplines like fasting, silence, studying, and fellowship, should be the heart of growth in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina small churches. This practice assists congregants in developing closeness with God and relationships with others. Amidst a steady decline in national church attendance since 1992, few of today’s African-American Church ministries address the need for spiritual formation. This thesis explores this critical issue at the local level through interviews with pastors and church leaders, who describe their churches’ current efforts to foster spiritual formation in congregants. The findings are used to propose a model for local …

The Worship Experience We Long For: The How Of Worship, S. Joseph Kidder

Faculty Publications

Have you ever longed for meaningful worship? In the previous article of this series, we discovered that God’s identity as the powerful and good God is the reason—the why—of worship. Now that we know the why behind our worship, it’s time to answer the question of how. Amidst all our discussions of worship, we often center on the style of worship. The intent of this article is to describe how to behave in a worshipful way, whether in a personal or corporate setting, given insights gleaned from Psalm 100.

Latino Protestants And Their Political And Social Engagement (Chapter Six Of Latino Protestants In America: Growing And Diverse), Mark T. Mulder, Aida I. Ramos, Gerardo Marti

Faculty Publications - Department of Sociology

Excerpt: "On a rainy early spring morning in a modest brick Presbyterian church just outside the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California, sixtyfour worshippers gather. The entire worship is in Spanish. During the sermon, the pastor makes a passing reference to how few of the attenders now live in Oakland proper, that many have to drive farther than ever for church services. The implicit message: the leadership of the church realizes that gentrification of San Francisco has spilled over the Bay Bridge and now threatens the availability of affordable housing throughout Oakland. In response, the congregation has started programs that offer …

Perceiving The Cultural Sea That Is Our Home - Spiritual Formation And Western 21st Century Culture, Lisa Graham Mcminn

Faculty Publications - Department of Sociology

Spiritual formation occurs in the routines of daily living. We are formed by choices made at the grocery store, as we reach for our medicine cabinet, as we consider whether to drive ten minutes or walk thirty. Such seemingly insignificant choices reflect assumptions held about who we are, and how we are supposed to live in the world. Spiritual formation, like notions of civic duty, develops from within a cultural context. Cultural environments give us largely unquestioned taken-for- granted assumptions about how the world is and how we should live in it. This essay explores three of the many Western …

The Contexts Of Conversion Among U.S. Latinos, Aida I. Ramos, Robert D. Woodberry, Christopher G. Ellison

Faculty Publications - Department of Sociology

The growth of Protestantism among U.S. Latinos has been the focus of considerable discussion among researchers. Yet few studies investigate how Latino Protestants and Latino Catholics differ, or which types of Latinos convert from Catholicism to Protestantism. Our study tests various theories about why some Latinos convert including a modified version of the semi-involuntary thesis, the national origin hypothesis, and assimilation theory. We use data from a large national sample of U.S. Latinos and find some support for assimilation theory and less for the semi-involuntary thesis. However, context matters. If we divide Latinos into national origin groups, these groups strongly …

Vital Role Of Religion In The Calamitous World Of Today, Jovan Kovačić

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

No abstract provided.