Practical Theology Commons^™

Borderless Boundaries – As Means Of Death And Life: Wilderness Portraits In Patristic And Rabbinic Literature, Daniel Maoz

Consensus

This study examines the role played by environmental representation of an apparent borderless boundary, the desert, as presented in Scripture – the Hebrew Bible / First Testament. It considers lessons derived from “desert-thought” testified within Rabbinic and Patristic literature. In Scripture, the desert played a prominent role in both Exodus and Akedah, two narratives central to Jewish thought and Christian theology. Beyond this, desert fathers such as Antony of Egypt expressed profound spirituality through this desolate land (Chrysostom; Athanasius, Vita). The Rabbis repeatedly embellished, for virtue’s sake, lessons gained from this same bleak landscape (Midrash Bemidbar Rabbah). An early version …

Old Testament Costume Resource Guide, Rory R. Scanlon

Faculty Publications

This report offers visual costume research support for artists working on Old Testament Bible projects, with an historical overview of Mesopotamia and how to understand its historical clothing pieces, an annotated listing of the best research sources, a list of garment and fabric terms for the 4000 BC to 0 AD period, and sample sketches from historical artifacts to suggest how to interpret the original research images the artist will encounter.

A How-To Guide To Single-Parent Ministry: An Inside Look To The Single Parent World In The Christian Community, John E. Walker Ii

Senior Honors Theses

The status of the family dynamic in the church has changed significantly, but the cultural understanding of ministers regarding the dynamic has changed little to none. As a result, the church’s ministry has become ineffective to the single-parent community because of ignorance. The goal of this thesis is to help educate Christian ministers and lay staff on the single-parent family condition and ministry opportunities to serve this demographic. This proposition includes information gained from interviews of single-parents, and ministers with experience regarding single-parents by someone with a single-parent upbringing. Overall, the single-parents interviewed stated that the Christian church is missing …

Calvin Theological Journal (Vol 50 No 2 - November 2015), Calvin Theological Seminary

Calvin Theological Journal

ARTICLES: Doing History as Theologians by David C. Steinmetz - 174 / Hagiography and Theology for a Comprehensive Reformed Church: John Gauden and the Portrayal of Ralph Brownrigg by Stephen Hampton - 181 / Whose Common Grace? Exploring the Implications of Common Grace on an Analysis of the Effects of Globalization by Jessica Driesenga - 211 / Celebrating Relief from the Enemy: Discerning and Preaching Esther's Post-canonical Adversary by Arie C. Leder - 230 / Reading the Bible with Rembrandt: A Fresh Look at Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 11 by Amanda W. Benckhuysen - 247 / CALVIN BIBLIOGRAPHY 2015 …

The Initiation Of Growth-Focused Relationships Involving Healthy Accountability, Stephen L. Shaffer

Discernment: Theology and the Practice of Ministry

This paper summarizes a Doctor of Ministry project thesis conducted in 2011 that introduced healthy accountability within growth-focused relationships to shape an emergent spiritual growth culture at the Carbondale Church of Christ. The theological basis for the intervention (1) uses Romans 12 to establish the Christian community, not the individual, as the ultimate vision of fully realized human life and (2) asserts that spiritual growth, following Alasdair MacIntyre’s definition of a practice, must involve virtues such that the means of growth are reflective of the desired ends of growth. The positive results demonstrate the effectiveness of healthy accountability, illuminate participants' …

An Understanding Of The Biblical View On Homosexual Practice And Pastoral Care: Seventh-Day Adventist Theological Seminary Position Paper, Seventh-Day Adventist Theological Seminary

Books

The intent of this document is not to judge but to clearly set forth what Scripture teaches concerning homosexual practices and offer guidelines on how to interact with persons of same-sex orientation.

Preaching The Psalter's Words Of Praise, Prayer, And Trust, Rolf A. Jacobson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Calvin Theological Seminary Forum: October 2015, Julius T. Medenblik, John W. Cooper, Jeffrey A.D. Weima, Arie C. Leder

Calvin Theological Seminary Forum (2002- )

Biblical and Hermeneutical Reflections on Same-Sex Relationships

Articles
3 - Entering the Conversation by Jul Medenblik
5 - Not Like Women in Office: Scripture, Hermeneutics, and Same-Sex Relations by John W. Cooper
9 - Same-Sex Activity: What Does the New Testament Say? by Jeffrey A.D. Weima
13 - Until my Body Finds its Rest in You, O Lord by Arie C. Leder
17 - From Dream to Forum Editorial from the Inaugural Issue by David E. Holwerda

Called to Serve
18 - Calvin Seminary’s Certificate for Hispanic Ministry Program
19 - 2015 Convocation Address excerpts from Professor Mary Vanden Berg …

Should Southern Baptists Baptize Their Children?: A Biblical, Historical, Theological Defense Of The Consistency Of The Baptism Of Young Children With Credobaptistic Practices, Robert Matz

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Southern Baptists have expressed increasing degrees of alarm over allegedly rising rates of child baptisms. As a result, an increasing number of Southern Baptists have argued that the baptism of young children is inconsistent with Southern Baptists’ understandings of credobaptism and a regenerate church membership. Against these allegations, this dissertation asserts that children can be converted and when converted they should be baptized. The first chapter of this dissertation argues that water baptism is prescriptively contemporaneous with Spirit baptism. It establishes such based on the relationship between water and Spirit baptism as seen in the seven direct references to Spirit …

Flight Lead: The Mission Of A Father And Husband, John Marselus

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Similar to fighter pilot flight leads, the Lord created multiple roles and responsibilities for husbands and fathers to lead their families. Millions of dollars are invested into the training and readiness of a fighter pilot to lead a flight into combat. Flight leads must perform multiple missions to ensure the success of friendly armed forces against their enemy. The multiple roles and responsibilities for husbands and fathers are remarkably similar to the functions a flight lead must execute to successfully complete a mission. This study compares the author’s military experience with scholarly research, Scriptural analysis, quantitative survey, and case study …

Servant, Leader, Or Both?: A Fresh Look At Mark 10:35-45, Bill Thompson

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

How can Christian leaders find a balance between serving and leading? Part of the confusion lies in Jesus’ striking paradox itself. Following an exegetical study of Mark 10:35-45, i use John Stott’s categories of the choices between selfish ambition and sacrifice and between power and service to explore two key areas of application for pastoral leaders. if competent Christian leaders constantly seek to put Christ’s mission ahead of their own glory and to put the good of the group before their own desires, then their followers will be more likely to accept their influence.

Developing An Embedded Process Of Spiritual Healing/Growth For South Korean Presbyterian Churches, Sung In Chang

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this project is to provide a biblical discipleship manual that restores believers to an intimate and obedient relationship with God through an embedded process of spiritual healing. Many disciples within South Korean Presbyterian churches are hindered from leading biblical lives of obedience by unresolved pain and scars that stem from their sins and misunderstandings about God. This is a direct result of dysfunctional discipleship processes within churches that do not empower the disciples to fully trust and obey Jesus Christ. The research will be conducted by surveying 100 Korean Presbyterian Church members. This thesis project will attempt …

The Eucharist In An Unarticulated World, Tim Sensing

Graduate School of Theology

Ethnographic data from the lived experiences of teenagers participating in the weekly observance of the Eucharist provided rich data for an application of Bakhtinian approaches to discourse in order to inform current practice. Bakhtin’s understanding of dialogism and heteroglossia asserts that all discourse communities are located in historical situations that involve complex interactions. Each utterance takes meaning from its “actual social life.” Bakhtin gives priority to utterances that occur in context and focuses on the intentional negotiation of meaning and interpretation between author and reader, or, in this case, researcher, participant, and community. The research provides opportunity for teenagers to …

An Analysis Of Students' Perception Of Biblical Community Within The Environment Of Digital Media: A Mixed Methods Study, Matthew Alan Vander Wiele

Faculty Dissertations

This study is an examination of teen perception regarding their understanding of biblical community within the environment of digital media. The study also examines the principles, essentials, or characteristics of biblical community regardless of environment.

The researcher surveyed a sample of teens that attend classical, open enrollment, and closed enrollment Christian schools of various denominations as well as no denomination. A survey presenting a list of the essential principles of biblical community, regardless of environment, including questions for each objective was sent to the sample. The respondents were asked to participate in a quantitative Lickert-scale survey. An expert panel was …

Facilitating A Pastoral Leadership Model For The Ulysses Church Of Christ, Warren Baldwin

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project intended to train leaders in principles of character-based leadership. I applied five principles drawn from Proverbs to the current situation of the Ulysses Church of Christ. The principles included community development, integrity, listening, ministering to the marginalized, and shepherding. I intentionally focused this character-based leadership training more on theological principles found in Proverbs than on skill development or leadership theories from the social sciences. I paid some attention to skill development and incorporated some principles from the social sciences, particularly psychology, but I placed greater emphasis on learning what …

An Examination Of The Doctrine Of Death And The Afterlife From A Biblical And Historical Theology Perspective Compared To The Level Of Sophistication Among The Laity, Wayne Allen Patton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Several key aspects of eschatology and their treatment appear to be under-explored in contemporary preaching. Within the context of individual eschatology, notions of death, the intermediate state, and the eternal state vary widely. A clearer understanding of these facets of the faith are necessary to fully understand the full measure of the work of Christ, the hope Christians have in Him, and the ability to convey these essentials to the lost. In this project, the writer will seek to discover and examine the key aspects of this doctrine and measure the level of sophistication among a sample of the laity. …

Midwest Mission: Developing A Church Planting Prospectus For The City Of Indianapolis, Joseph Allen Lightner

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) of Indianapolis, Indiana has a total population of 1,823,479 residents. (stats.indiana.edu) The North American Mission Board reports that "only one out of every five `Indy' residents" attends a church. (namb.net) In order to reverse this trend, new churches need to be started. This thesis will provide a biblical church-planting prospectus that takes into account the culture of the Indianapolis MSA area, specifically Hamilton County. This thesis will introduce the reader to the research and development required in order to write a church-planting prospectus.

Fostering Healing Through Reconciliation In The Abernathy Church Of Christ, Randall K. Carr

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This project is an exercise in addressing anxiety as a result of unresolved conflict in the Abernathy Church of Christ. In 2009 emotions escalated to a climactic point, leading a group of participants to separate from the Abernathy Church of Christ. The events surrounding this episode have played an influential role in shaping the narrative of the Abernathy Church of Christ. This project seeks to identify areas of residual pain in the existing narrative and move the congregation into a narrative of hope for the future of the Abernathy Church of Christ. The central theme is reconciliation and results from …

Cultivating The Practice Of Missional Hospitality For Small Groups At West Houston Church Of Christ, Kevin Stewart

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the results of a project in which I led a team to develop a plan to cultivate the practice of missional hospitality for small groups at West Houston Church of Christ. I used missional theology as a framework to give shape to the practice of hospitality. The project team met for nine weeks in the fall of 2014. The team practiced lectio divina focused on Luke 10, participated in theological reflection on missional hospitality, and fulfilled assignments to practice missional hospitality. These activities helped form the group spiritually and informed the development of a …

Evaluating An Oral Draft Of Luke 8:4-15 In Uduk, Jeremy N. Harrison

Doctor of Ministry Theses and Dissertations

This doctor of ministry thesis presents the findings of a project in which I led a group of immigrants from South Sudan through the process of generating and evaluating an oral draft of Luke 8:4-15 in Uduk. The aim of this project was to provide a substantive field test of an oral translation methodology conducted among immigrants living in the United States who speak a language that lacks a translation of the entire Bible. The project involved facilitating basic translation training and conducting an oral drafting process with a team of three Uduk speakers. This project also involved evaluating the …

Calvin Theological Journal (Vol 50 No 1 - April 2015), Calvin Theological Seminary

Calvin Theological Journal

EDITORIAL: "Why We (Still) Speak" Calvin Theological Journal: Vols. 1.1 to 50.l, by decades by Arie C. Leder - 6 / ARTICLES: Dating John Davenant's De Gallicana controversia sententia in the Context of Debate over John Cameron: A Correction by Richard A. Muller - 10 / Spiritus Propheticus: Spirit and Prophecy in Calvin's Old Testament Exegesis by Keith D. Stanglin - 23 / Protestant Preaching: Its Strengths and Weaknesses by H. de Leede and F. Stark - 43 / The Worship of the Reformed Church and the Creation of Its Service Book by Abraham Kuyper - 59 / …

Reclaiming And Reconciling What Was Originally Ours--Christianity And Feminism: A Concise History, Soquel Filice

History

No abstract provided.

Psalms In Our Lamentable World, Don Saliers

Yale Journal of Music & Religion

Where are worshipers in Christian communities to go with their experiences and observations of violence, injustice, and other forms of suffering? Historically, a central source of realistic faith-based responses to tragedy has been the Psalter, broadly defined as a set of biblical psalms arranged by date to be individually and collectively read, sung, and prayed. Recent scholarship on psalms has focused on lament and complaint, and questions regarding the presence of trauma and violence in religious traditions have shown such psalms to be particularly relevant to contemporary culture.

This article examines three “psalms of lament,” Psalms 13, 42/43, and 88, …

The Bible Marksman: A Course In Bible - Marking, Covering In A Simple And Comprehensive System, The Most Important Bible Topics, And Comprising Work For One Year, Amos R. Wells

Books

No abstract provided.

Imagining The Scandal Of The Cross With Graphic/Novel Reading, Elizabeth Rae Coody

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For countless adherents to the Christian tradition, the Cross functions as a symbol of divine power. For the earliest Christians, however, this overwhelmingly positive valuation of crosses would have been unintelligible. Living under Roman rule, their immediate understanding of crosses would have been as instruments of execution and thus symbols of the power and victory belonging to a foreign empire rather than to the Lord they worshipped. For them, the crucifixion was a traumatic event in which the Messiah died shamefully. It is for these reasons that the scandal of the Cross is a prominent theme in the New Testament, …

We Have Found Water: Patriarchal Paradigms For Cross - Cultural Mission, A. H. Mathias Zahniser

Papers

No abstract provided.

Some Practices Of Theological Reasoning, Or, How To Work Well With Words, Brad Kallenberg

Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications

This Companion introduces readers to the practice of Christian theology, covering what theologians do, why they do it, and what steps readers can take in order to become theological practitioners themselves. The volume aims to capture the variety of practices involved in doing theology, highlighting the virtues that guide them and the responsibilities that shape them. It also shows that the description of these practices, virtues and responsibilities is itself theological: what Christian theologians do is shaped by the wider practices and beliefs of Christianity. Written by a team of leading theologians, the Companion provides a unique resource for students …

The Puzzling Plurals In Philemon, Ernie Bursey

Journal of Applied Christian Leadership

"this passionate appeal for Philemon to welcome his slave as a brother in the Lord explains Paul’s intention to include the members of the house church in the reading of the letter. If Paul’s efforts are successful in helping Philemon to embrace Onesimus as a brother in the Lord, that welcome will also need to be extended to him by the other brothers and sisters in the Lord in the little house church that met in Philemon’s house."

Some Reflections On The Field Of Sermon Studies, Robert Ellison

English Faculty Research

Multidisciplinary endeavours with the word ‘studies’ in their names have brought like-minded scholars together for over sixty years. Those specializing in certain parts of the world, for example, can join the North American Conference on British Studies (founded in 1950), the British Association for American Studies (1955), the African Studies Association (1957), or a host of other groups. Similarly, organisations for scholars interested in specific time periods include the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies (1983), the Society for Renaissance Studies (1967) and the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies. Finally, students of politics, gender and other aspects …

On The Highway, Ella N. Wood

Books

No abstract provided.