Ethics in Religion Commons^™

Editorial: Theology, Shaping The Soul Of The Faith Community, Wonsuk Ma

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

An editorial by Wonsuk Ma introducing the special issue on the ORU College of Theology and Ministry.

Editor's Note, Jeffrey S. Lamp

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Spiritus 8.2 (Fall 2023), [email protected]

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, Spiritus 8.2 (Fall 2023), [email protected]

Spiritus: ORU Journal of Theology

A special issue on the history of ORU College of Theology and Ministry.

Designing A Drama-Based Arts Ministry For The North 10th And Treadaway Church Of Christ, Curtis Alexander King

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

The North 10th and Treadaway Church of Christ (“Treadaway”) is a small, predominantly African American congregation located in Abilene, Texas, home of Abilene Christian University (“ACU”) and several other institutions of higher learning. Considering ACU’s Church of Christ heritage and continued affiliation with the Churches of Christ, it is no surprise that Treadaway has often served as a “home away from home” congregation for ACU students and recent graduates who choose to remain in the city. The level of integration of the students from ACU and other local colleges into the life and ministry of Treadaway has varied greatly over …

Intergenerational Factors That Contribute To Millennial Church Engagement, Parker Sanderson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Millennial church attendance has declined since the beginning of the new millennium. Intergenerational ambivalence has been known to contribute to this phenomenon. Through this action research, the researcher sought to determine what intergenerational factors have led to millennials’ continued or discontinued attendance within churches. A phenomenological qualitative approach centered around interviews for this study was used to determine these intergenerational factors. The sample was taken from a 1,100-member church in a major Texas metropolitan area. The goal was to help church leaders decrease relational distancing and reduce ambivalent factors to increase millennial engagement in this local congregation.

Ethical Considerations In Working With Roman Catholic Seminarians And Men And Women In Religious Formation, Thomas G. Plante

Psychology

There are many ethical challenges when mental health professionals work clinically with Roman Catholic seminarians as well as with men and women in religious formation. This article highlights several of the most prominent ethical issues and challenges confronted by mental health professionals working with these clients. These topics include issues of competence in evaluating, treating, and consulting with seminarians, those in religious life, or those applying to enter religious life. Issues of informed consent must also be considered so that seminarians, religious life clients, applicants, and their religious superiors have clarity about the limits of confidentiality and who maintains the …

Taking Dominion To End Dominion: The Mennonite Influence On The End Of Russian Serfdom, H. Michael Shultz Jr.

Bound Away: The Liberty Journal of History

Serfdom in Russia was abolished in 1861, only 76 years after the first Mennonites were invited into Russia by Catherine II. By examining the lifestyle of the Mennonites who settled in the agriculturally productive “New Russia” (modern-day Ukraine), as well as the impact that the Mennonites had on the Imperial family, peasantry, and government, it is evident that the Mennonites played a recognizable role in bringing about the abolition of serfdom across the empire.

Divergence: Toward A Neurodivergent Latinx Liberative Social Ethic, Rudolph P. Reyes Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A significant problem facing neurodivergent Latinxs is the invisibility of their marginalization and oppression. Neurodivergent Latinxs are invisible in dominant society and theological discourse. While neurodivergence and disability are not synonymous, the failure to recognize the marginalization of disability contributes to neurodivergent invisibility. Disability is depoliticized when disability is conceived as an issue of individual embodiment rather than a social issue of acceptance, accessibility, and equality. Neurodivergent Latinxs are erased, and the physical, epistemic, and institutional violence against them go unnamed.

This research project uses the hermeneutical circle for ethics in formulating praxis in combating the oppression of neurodivergent Latinxs. …

The Spiritual Impact Of Disability On Parents And Caregivers, Grant Azbell

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

This study was designed to examine the impact of disability on the faith and faith communities of parents and caregivers of persons experiencing disability. This study proceeded by asking nine parents or caregivers of persons experiencing disability a series of seven questions to evaluate the impact of disability on their faith and on their relationship to their faith community. The interviews were conducted on Zoom and the recordings were transcribed and coded to observe discernable patterns and themes amongst the participants. What emerged from the data is important for ministers, church leaders, and anyone wanting to know more about the …

Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology Through Mythology With The Maker Of Middle-Earth By Austin M. Freeman, Alex (Oleksiy) Ostaltsev

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

The powerful and highly informative definitions that Freeman applies to Tolkien’s Middle-earth phenomenon in the title of his book create a productive interpretational framework. Myth and mythology in Inklings’ writing were always understood, in an almost Jungian way, as a cultural paradigm flexible enough to embrace the free creativity of the playful human mind and a philosophical postulate, or credo, of the humanistic religious intuition of Christianity. In Freeman’s interpretation, Tolkien’s literary myth in some ways requires a theological background, which, in its turn, leads to inevitable dogma, a statement that reveals the sensitive mechanics of literary myth as it …

Belonging In Unashamed Authenticity, Nathan R. Kitchen

Together We RISE (Making Excellence Inclusive)

In 2020, the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute reported that 47% of LGBTQ adults were moderately or highly religious. This equates to 5.3 million religious LGBTQ adults in America. We cannot ignore this population.

When making the transition into young adulthood, many religious LGBTQ youth feel they must make a choice between their spiritual well-being or their queerness. As a university community interested in the success of the rising generation, we can provide support for religious queer young adults through understanding:

1. What is happening in this transition and why,

2. The well-being needs of religious queer young adults …

Transformational Healing Within An Incarcerated Exile Community, David W. Phipps Jr.

DMin Project Theses

This August 2023 Doctor of Ministry project thesis at Lipscomb University is the beginning foundation of a dream that I first started dreaming of while I was in prison. The dream is the development of a community in exile with the understanding that those living in exile have something to offer within the prison walls. Furthermore, those in exile have something to offer when they are released from exile. God, through Jeremiah, tells those living in exile in Babylon that they are to build communities while in exile. Through the building of communities God informs that they are to offer …

The Struggle Is Real: Constructing Liberative Meaning Making That Facilitates Black Student’S Authentic Identity Formation And Navigation Through Predominately White Institutions, Felicia Marie George

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on how Black students’ use of navigational capital reflects a quest for complex subjectivity that facilitates authentic identity formation and navigation through a private, predominantly white, four-year, R1 institution (PWI’s). A qualitative study that used portraiture methodology was conducted to collect stories of the lived experience and perceptions of two Black senior undergraduate students who attended a PWI. Their stories provided the foundation for constructing liberative meaning making (LMM), an ethic of praxis that uses a hermeneutics of listening to heighten students’ awareness of and living from interiority. The concept engages De La Torre’s theory of liberative …

The Decalogue Of Justice: A Covenantal Application Of Biblical Justice, Andrew Mark Adil

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This dissertation aims to establish a biblical theology of justice (מִשְׁפָּט), ascertaining the commands and references to justice in Scripture are comprehensively and exclusively rooted in the Moral Law of the Torah, summarized in the Ten Commandments, and embedded in the Covenant of Grace (Old and New), making it binding on New Covenant believers and inextricably attached to the church’s Great Commission mandate. To this end, the study examines the concept of justice in the OT and the Moral Law, contrasting Reformed evangelical hermeneutics with the modern iteration of Liberation Theology in connection with the application of biblical justice. Additionally, …

Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 65, No. 3

Restoration Quarterly

PDF of the cover of Restoration Quarterly: Vol. 65, No. 3.

This repository hosts selected Restoration Quarterly articles in downloadable PDF format. For the benefit of users who would like to browse the contents of RQ, we have included all issue covers even when full-text articles from that issue are unavailable. All Restoration Quarterly articles are available in full text in the ATLA Religion Database, available through most university and theological libraries or through your local library’s inter-library loan service.

The Influence Of The Gospels Of Matthew And Luke On Carl F. H. Henry’S Kingdom Theology, Michael Cunningham

Liberty Theological Review

Carl F.H. Henry was a leading theologian of American Evangelicalism and prominent voice in the Neo Evangelical movement of the twentieth century. His prominent book The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism (1947) persuaded conservative evangelicals to avoid the separatist inclinations of fundamentalism. He, instead, championed a biblically based brand of cultural engagement rooted in the kingdom theology found in the Gospels. Harnessing the “Already, but not yet” view of the kingdom popularized by Herman Ridderbos and George Ladd, Henry effectively engaged culture during a tumultuous twentieth century. This paper will begin with a survey of the historical legacy of Carl …

American Indian Residential Boarding Schools: Historical Trauma And The Role Of Government, Churches, And Tribes In Healing Indigenous Communities, Briana Slaubaugh

Liberty Theological Review

Throughout the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Native Americans and Indigenous tribes in North America faced systematic destruction of their cultures, genocide, and extreme abuse. With wars against Native Americans, forced relocation from their historic lands, and mandatory residential boarding schools where Indigenous children were forcibly separated from their parents, the social fabric of Native American communities was destroyed. These travesties were government sanctioned and enacted by churches. The American Indian Residential Schools serve as the most recent and egregious factories of abuse. The policies and actions enforced against Native Americans left a generation plagued by abuse leaving a …

New Commandments, Jacob Sussman

Masters Theses

I reach into the earth, pull out mud-encrusted objects, and recombine them to define new meanings. With every object transposed, the past breaks down; new potentials form. “New Commandments” recombines historical symbolism through an intuitive building, destroying, and merging to reimagine or re-establish meaning.

The work critiques rites of passage, masculinity, and stereotypes by deconstructing how histories, ideologies, and preconceptions form.

As a queer person raised in-between Judaism and Christianity, social preconceptions and religious expectations festered my formation. Our choice is taken away at this moment of conception. To take back autonomy, I reimagine historical, and religious symbolism and transmute …

Flores, Rigoberto Flores

Masters Theses

My name is Rigoberto Flores and I was born in Guerrero, Mexico. The work I make involves politics, immigration, cartel violence and religious themes. I’m interested in presenting these challenging and difficult concepts, to have them remain in the public consciousness. The work I produce involve charcoal drawings, textiles, print, and painting. The work I create is intended to address inconstancies in established ideas, usually involving government violence. Throughout history art has been used to promote institutional propaganda. I am searching to do the same, but to oppose those structures.

Eudaimonist Exemplarism And Saints, Brian C. Clark

Religious Studies Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary moral philosophy tends to treat saints as either maximally moral and thus exemplary only for those who share their ideals or as so morally excellent that they are inimitable and “Other.” Thus, the saint is practically useless as a model for plain persons. Moreover, in the case of Christian saints, modern moral theories tend not to account for their religious and theological dimensions. As a remedy, this dissertation argues for thinking about the exemplarity of saints in eudaimonist and theologically naturalist terms. Christian saints exemplify what Christians consider human flourishing, revising natural accounts of human flourishing but preserving the …

Recovering A Missional Ecclesiology: A Framework For Reviving Congregational Mission Within The Baptist Union Of Victoria, Gayle Hill

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT This project is an intervention to develop a theological and theoretical framework

that will become the foundation for a future curriculum for recovering a missional ecclesiology for the pastors of the Baptist Union of Victoria (BUV). Despite mission being central to the overall vision of the BUV, declining numbers, the post-COVID context in Victoria, and an overarching post-Christian and pluralistic context have significantly challenged the centrality and functioning of mission across our denomination. The impetus of this project was the observation that our churches were floundering rather than flourishing in the missional space. Many chronic and acute provocations were …

Cultivating Reproductive Small Group Leaders Within Southwest Church, Springboro, Ohio, Roger D. Hendricks

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This project was designed to address an ongoing challenge within the Southwest Church (SWC) in Springboro, Ohio. The specific challenge that SWC leaders have faced throughout the twenty-five-year history of the church is to continually increase the number of small group options within a growing congregation. Small groups have been identified as the primary vehicle for SWC members to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. This congregational emphasis has led to the good dilemma of having more individuals willing to participate than lead weekly small groups. In the past few years, SWC leaders have identified the need for the …

Hildegard Of Bingen – 12th Century Feminist Mystic, Robert F. Stamps

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

Hildegard of Bingen is one of history’s remarkable people. Born into German nobility in 1098, Hildegard began having mystical visions at an early age and saw God as light. Hildegard chose a spiritual life and entered a religious cloister at fifteen. There she was educated, studying many subjects, including Latin and music. In 1136 Hildegard became the prioress. The confines of the cloister did not stop Hildegard from becoming a major theological force. She wrote books on theology and medicine, authored plays, and composed music. Theologically, Hildegard contributed to the development of the theological construction of the concept of purgatory. …

Redeeming Theodicy In Job: Moving From A Classical To A Christological Framework, Jaime L. Riddle

College of Theology and Ministry Dissertations, Projects, & Theses

This thesis analyzes existing interpretations of theodicy in the book of Job, in order to suggest an alternative approach informed by the nature and mission of Christ. Much of biblical scholarship in Job has focused on a classical approach to theodicy or, in recent years, deconstructed anti-theodicy. This thesis offers an alternative approach that focuses on the Christological overtones in Job and a modern synthesis of Old and New Testament theodicy.

Chapter 1 introduces the problem of theodicy in Job, and a taxonomy of lenses traditionally used to examine Old Testament theodicy. Chapter 2 analyzes classical perspectives of Job derived …

Exploring Theological Themes Of Bridehood In Revelation 19:6-9: An Analysis Of The Marriage Supper Of The Lamb, Riley F. Kempker

College of Theology and Ministry Dissertations, Projects, & Theses

Most people see Revelation as a book shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. As well, the various interpretations offered only add to the confusion of the book. Yet, John uses clear images and themes in his Apocalypse, on which most people can agree. The account of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19:6-9 offers an open window into John’s theology of the Bride of Christ. This thesis seeks to understand John’s theological implications that arise from the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

This thesis began in chapter 1 with a statement of the problem in understanding John’s theological implications …

Saint Monica’S Model Of Catholic Excellence In Augustine’S Confessions, Caelan Mckamey

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

This paper discusses Saint Augustine’s presentation of his mother, Monica, as a model Catholic throughout his Confessions. Saint Augustine utilized individuals he encountered throughout his life as models of perfect Catholicism in an effort to provide resources for his medieval contemporaries to draw from throughout their own faith journeys. As a convert himself, Augustine drew holy inspiration from his mother, Saint Monica, as he searched for life’s purpose and God’s grace. He presents his mother throughout the first nine books of the Confessions as a human woman – trapped in a loveless marriage, filled with anxiety and fear, yet …

Karl Rahner And Vatican Ii: A Sacramental Vision Of The Church, Geoffrey Watson

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

This paper is an exploration of Karl Rahner’s theology, his relationship to Vatican II, and the legacy of the council. In it, I examine not only Rahner’s role in the council but also the way in which his thinking has helped move the church from a Eurocentric, hierarchical institution, concerned mainly with its own sense of authority and holiness, to a more collegial, global church that embraced its identity as a community of sinners. First, I examine the sources behind the council texts, specifically Rahner’s transcendental Thomist background, as well as his specific understanding of grace and the role of …

Is It A Requisite For A ‘Believer’ To Be Part Of The Formal/Institutional Church?, Dillon Cook

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

For the purposes of this paper, I attempt to wrestle with the question of whether or not it is a requisite for a “believer” (which turns out to be a loaded and ambiguous term) to be a part of a formal/institutional Christian Church. This is a difficult task to accomplish, and this, I admit. There is no way to answer this, truly with certainty. But Metaphysics are rarely grounded in “certainty.” This is true for many Christian Theological tasks as well. Nevertheless, this argument will be attempted by working with and off of the Black liberation theologian and philosopher, James …

Nostra Aetate To Combat Anti-Judaism, Marjorie Shahani

Say Something Theological: The Student Journal of Theological Studies

This essay explores the reason the Catholic Church felt the need to release Nostra Aetate, specifically Article 4, and were they in fact successful. The intention to improve Catholic - Jewish relationship and to denounce anti-Judaism were primary. Christianity grew on the backs of centuries of anti-Judaism rhetoric expressed by Catholic Church leaders and anti-Jewish literature written by the Church fathers. All this negativity against the Jewish people contributed to the beginnings of anti-Semitism and purposely or inadvertently influenced the reality of the Shoah. These sentiments included the deicide condemnation of the Jewish people, the replacement theory or concept of …