Mainline Protestant congregations are struggling to adapt to the rapidly changing culture. Grounding congregants in the biblical narrative, theological reflection, and ethical practices have long been a function of local congregations. However, as American culture has become mor…
Shared leadership is an important emerging leadership praxis. Empirical studies on teams that use shared leadership in businesses, education, and non-profits suggest that they tend to be more effective and produce increased team member satisfaction and commitment. However, littl…
This work is about Christian peacebuilding in Burma in relation to the ongoing militarization in that country. It proposes a public practical theology of peacebuilding for Burma. Militarization has victimized many people there. Burma needs peace. Christians can contribute to the…
In an aging western society, and in the Christian church, the challenge is to embrace a ministry to and by older persons with a wholehearted approach as views of aging are changing from the negative to the positive. Selected statistics are discussed in the Introduction Any such …
This dissertation explores the practical theological implications of Dorothy Day’s 1958 diaries. Dorothy Day’s 1958 diaries were brought in dialogue with the moment in history in which they were written as part of a practical theological method that emphasizes context and everyd…
Humility is an integral virtue within Benedictine spiritual traditions. It is also the subject of a burgeoning body of empirical literature in the field of psychology. This dissertation undertakes an interdisciplinary dialogue between Benedictine spirituality and contemporary ps…
The purpose of this dissertation is to prompt ecclesial imagination for the sake of envisioning and reshaping contemporary ecclesiology and church practice in more liberative forms. The thesis is that non-dominant theologies and historical narratives are sources that prompt eccl…
This study is a work of Practical Theology aiming to create an interpretative paradigm within which to evaluate faith brands theologically and identify whether faith brands are problematic or beneficial to Christian faith. The research used qualitative research techniques – five…
This research is concerned with the construction and expression of selfidentity in a sample of lay Christians working in a contemporary workplace. It seeks to understand how these believers construct and sustain, in and through autobiographical narrative, a faith-full self-ident…
This study examines the form of Christianity that emanated from Gullah culture for the purposes of recognizing the ethical dimensions of that version of Christianity and determining the implications for the practical theology of contemporary African-American Baptist Churches. Gu…
Bildung ist ein zentrales und aktuelles Thema kirchlicher Arbeit, das eng mit der Gemeinde als Lernort verknüpft ist. Die Gemeindepädagogik, seit den 1970er Jahren als Reformprozess in den Kirchen in Ost und West entstanden, hat sich angesichts der Herausforderungen in Kirche un…
Benjamin Titus Roberts has left a theological legacy to the church he started in 1860 and to American Christianity as well. It is a practical theology delivered over a fifty-year period in magazine articles, books, ecclesiastical documents, letters, and essays. Roberts's "Earnes…
Preachers who seek to address conflict or controversial issues from the pulpit often encounter homiletic models that either encourage taking a stand (the “prophetic”) or keeping the peace (the “pastoral”), both of which prioritize transmission of a message over the relational ef…
This dissertation develops a public practical theology of education. It argues that education is a practice that “schools the imagination,” forming individuals and communities to operate within social imaginaries that have been shaped by a latent, anti-material, and individualis…