Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

In today's mainline Protestant churches, young women clergy navigate a precarious leadership space. While women's ordination is well-established in American Protestantism (Burnett, 2017), Gen-X/Millennial clergy women find themselves at the crosshairs of conflicting gender narratives and unsustainable expectations of what it means to be both a woman and an ordained pastoral leader. Through the use of feminist constructivist grounded theory methodology, this study explored the lived experiences of Gen-X/Millennial clergy women who have left active ministry or a specific pastoral position due to concerns over their own interpersonal boundaries and psychological safety. Through dimensional analysis of in-depth interviews with 20 clergy women representing eight mainline Protestant denominations, this study identified the co-core dimensions of experiencing feminized servanthood as dehumanizing and experiencing feminized servanthood as abusive. The social processes within these co-core dimensions severely compromised the clergy women's physical and psychological safety and informed their decisions to leave their respective ministry contexts. Extending from these co-core dimensions were five primary dimensions: 1) developing a sense of call; 2) differentiating self from system; 3) exposing vs. protecting toxic leaders and harmful systems; 4) nail in the coffin; and 5) reconstituting self. As a result of these findings, this study presents five theoretical propositions that address 1) the shadow side of servant leadership in the context of feminized servanthood; 2) reclaiming Gen-X/Millennial women's leadership strengths; 3) perceptions of self-differentiated women leaders as a “dissident daughter” and an “emasculating disruptor”; 4) gendered scapegoating and the disappearance of Gen-X/Millennial clergy women; and 5) reconstituting self beyond “reckoning” and “resilience.” This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD cent (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

Antisemitism has a long and troubling history in the United States, often manifesting in various social settings, including organized sports. This study investigates the experiences of Jewish-American youth athletes in Central Ohio, focusing on how modern antisemitism affects their participation in sports and overall well-being. Recent data shows a resurgence of antisemitic incidents, which has prompted a need for detailed exploration of its impacts on young athletes. The problem addressed in this study is the increasing prevalence of antisemitism in youth sports and its detrimental effects on Jewish teenagers in Central Ohio. Through a Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) methodology, this research combines qualitative and quantitative data to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the issue. Surveys conducted with Jewish teenage athletes reveal experiences of verbal abuse, exclusion, and other forms of discrimination leading to heightened psychological distress, and negative impacts to Jewish identity and sense of belonging. This study underscores the urgent need to address antisemitism within youth sports in Central Ohio. By implementing targeted community interventions, harm can be mitigated and a supportive environment for Jewish athletes can be fostered. This research contributes to the broader understanding of how antisemitism affects minority youth in sports and provides a framework for future studies on marginalized groups. Continued efforts and collaboration among community organizations, educational institutions, and policymakers are essential to combat antisemitism and promote inclusivity in youth athletics.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, History

For the first century of its existence, colonial Puritanism in New England embraced anti-Catholicism. It first emerged out of anti-Catholic efforts to continue the Reformation in England, by removing Catholic rituals, symbols, ideas, and people from the English church, state, and society. Through the processes of migration and settlement-building in the unique contexts of the New England borderlands, their once “English” anti-Catholicism evolved and became “Americanized.” Puritans felt this new “Americanized” anti-Catholicism on an everyday basis, making colonial Puritan anti-Catholicism more intense than its English counterpart. Embracing an anti-Catholic “errand” into the New England borderlands, a region filled with new people and geography that was far from the reaches of the English state, colonial Puritans experimented with and crafted their religious, political, and social institutions, practices, and identities on anti-Catholicism. Catholics became “the Other,” imagined as violent and oppressive tyrants, plotters, murderers, and even the anti-Christ, from which colonial Puritans defined their community in opposition. Constant conflict with Indigenous peoples, New France, and “popery” raised anxieties and fears over the very survival of Puritan communities. As a result, New Englanders passed stranger laws—regulations, oaths, and other means to control the presence of alien peoples—to restrict Catholic “strangers” within their colonies. By exploring the relationship between the colonies of New England and Ireland, it becomes clear that the English language of civility and violence, which was employed in New England against both Indigenous peoples and Catholics, originated within the process of Irish colonization. This language was thus tied to that colonization's virulent anti-Catholicism, which was then transported to New England.

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2024, Theological Studies

Pope Pius XII did not define the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary in his 1950 Apostolic Constitution, Munificentissimus Deus. Theologians have debated her death since then in the context of Munificentissimus Deus. The question of the death of Mary has been seriously debated between the Mortalists and Immortalists of the Roman Catholic Church and the Mortalists of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The aim of this thesis was to find the theological differences between two Mortalists and four Immortalists of the Roman Catholic Church and four Mortalists of the Eastern Orthodox Churches. There are two major theological differences that separate them: 1. The Immortalists of the Roman Catholic Church understand the unity of body and soul differently from the Mortalists of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. 2. The Immortalists of the Roman Catholic Church also argue for their position from the persepective that Mary did not have Original Sin. The theologians from the Roman Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches approach the question differently. The theologians of the Roman Catholic Church rely on the Magisterium. The theologians of the Eastern Orthodox Church do not believe in formal definitions and so rely on the experience of the Divine Liturgy and the Tradition of the early Church. This thesis therefore looked at the question of the death of Mary in the early Church and found that the records on the topic date back to the second century in the Dormition Apocrypha. The Dormition Apocrypha were narratives that detail the end of the life of Mary. The narratives describe her dying before being assumed body and soul to heaven. Nine Church Fathers who wrote in Greek and came from the East are shown to be Mortalist and the early Byzantine Liturgy is also shown to be Mortalist. Notable exceptions to the majority Mortalist opinion include Saint Epiphanius of Salamis and Saint Modestus of Jerusalem, who both say that only God knows where t (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2024, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

Since the inception of Christianity, Christians have struggled to know how to interact with surrounding cultures, what aspects of life to pass on to the next generation, and how to disciple the next generation in faith in Christ. This project is an ontological investigation into Christ-centered education, making the case to move beyond the pre-critical, and critical to embrace an affirmative post-critical pedagogy. Having been grounded in the faith and grace of the evangel (Chapter I) and approaching epistemology with Christian humility (Chapter II), the Christ-centered educator embodies both critical pedagogy and affirmative pedagogy (Chapter III), based on six biblical principles that undergird Christ-centered education: 1. worship, 2. wisdom, 3. love, 4. faithfulness to the Bible, 5. in community fellowship, as 6. responsible stewards (Chapter IV). Christ-centered educators should be affirmed in these principles by their community (of other Christ-centered educators, administration, and by local Christ-centered churches and families) as they are called to live out the evangel in their classrooms and churches, flourishing as disciples of Jesus and as teachers (Chapter V). This is the ontological embodiment of Christ-centered pedagogy expressed in an affirmative, post-critical pedagogy.

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2024, Psychology

This study focuses on the possibility of differing attitudes toward mental health between Buddhists, Muslims, and undergraduate students and how knowledge and framing effects might play a role in these attitudes. Participants were recruited for an online survey containing three distinct measures of mental health literacy, religious coping techniques, and attitudes toward mental health. Four tests found no significant differences in mental health literacy or attitudes between Buddhists and Muslims, and video framing was not found to affect mental health attitudes regardless of the participant's knowledge level, and Muslims tended to incorporate religious coping techniques much more frequently than Buddhists and the undergraduate sample. This study suggests that religious identity and coping preferences may be important to consider for the future of culturally competent therapeutic services.

Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, 0, Psychology

Despite increased social acceptance, sexual minorities continue to experience significant health disparities compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Religiously raised sexual minorities may face additional stressors associated with their religious upbringing. Through a sample of 484 Christian-raised participants reporting same-sex attraction, this study examined several proposed correlates of moral struggle experienced by Christian-raised sexual minorities around same-sex relationships and how experiences with these moral struggles relate to well-being. The project required the creation of novel items, which showed good reliability and preliminary evidence of validity. All proposed variables correlated with moral struggle and internalized homophobia, while some variables did not correlate with depression, anxiety, or life satisfaction. Findings suggest that moral struggles around same-sex relationships relate to poorer well-being including internalized homophobia, depression, and anxiety. Moral struggle did not correlate with life satisfaction and did not predict unique variance in depression, anxiety, or life satisfaction above and beyond the proposed variables.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Greek and Latin

This project uses mythology as a heuristic tool to enrich our understanding of the ancient female body and its processes. Alongside the important and necessary implications afforded by Greco-Roman myth, each of my chapters works through the prominent tripartite biological statuses of the ancient woman that appear in the surviving Greco-Roman gynecological documents—post-natal care, pregnancy/birth, and virginity. By approaching the material from three separate angles, my dissertation explores the complex relationship between medicine and mythology. In each life stage of an ancient woman, I reveal how “irrational” myth and “rational” Greco-Roman medicine support one another in the reckoning, mechanisms, and actions of the female body. Each chapter utilizes Soranus' Gynecology to commence an analysis of each life stage because, as a document speculated to be a manual for midwifery, it offers a viable proving ground due to its range of topics from virginity to raising children.

Master of Arts (M.A.), University of Dayton, 2024, Theological Studies

This thesis examines the influence of conspiratorial content present throughout American Catholic digital spaces. Drawing on several contemporary definitions of contemporary conspiracism, the thesis first identifies rhetorical hallmarks of digital conspiracism in places like social media feeds and blogs, including accusatory claims about power; binary framings; and aesthetic invocations of violence and eschatological judgment. Based on these definitional grounds, the thesis conjectures a disproportionate amount of existent conspiratorial rhetoric in primarily English-speaking Catholic digital spaces compared to estimates of total participants within #CatholicTwitter and adjacent digital spaces. The first chapter affirms the many benefits media and connective technologies bestow on contemporary societies. It largely agrees with works like Katherine G. Schmidt's Virtual Communion which highlight how concepts like mediation and virtuality—both key to internet functionality—lie at the heart of Catholic theological understandings of reality. Given those two points and the initial conjecture, the thesis asks the following question: if digital interactions are real (albeit nuanced) parts of human life, what should scholarly observers and institutional leaders alike make of the conspiratorial fragments floating between cyber and "real-life" conversations? Utilizing an interdisciplinary methodological approach drawing on Catholic intellectual history, recent social science research, and theological reflection, the rest of the project tries to answer that question. In answering it, the project warns institutional American Catholicism might yet fail a twenty-first century "stress test" alongside other contemporary institutions. The second chapter examines historical conditions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries during which emergent media technologies helped polarize ideas and detach individuals from their immediate communities. It also contrasts institutional C (open full item for complete abstract)

Bachelor of Arts (BA), Ohio University, 2024, Classics

This work explores current scholarship on Christianity's role in shaping hierarchy, race, and science. Myth is used as a way of understanding how oppressive structures took root within the West, and helped create the concept of "the West." Finally, mermaids are introduced as a new figure of study within religion and the humanities. Mermaids, as they appear within the Christian West, reveal how the body is tied to humanity, and thus exemplify Christianity's role in creating race within the Western imagination.

MA, Kent State University, 2024, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

My thesis discusses the history of gender and sexuality politics in postcolonial Zimbabwe. It utilizes the convening of Christianity and politics to explore how these areas of public life combined to influence different perceptions towards gender and sexuality identities. The background appraises the impact of African Traditional Religion (ATR) during the colonial period and the changes ushered in by Western Christianity. During this time of colonial conquest, ATR was the cornerstone of all the sectors of life including politics. This included the worshiping of God through nature and ancestral spirits. Reincarnation was a very prominent practice of the colonial Zimbabwe ATR, also known as the Mwari cult. The concept of reincarnation was considered an effective way of communicating with the dead through the Masvikiro (spirit mediums) who transmitted information, requests for rains, or prayers for healing and harvest to Mwari or Unkulunkulu (God). Masvikiro gained popularity as the quest for nationalism continuously shaped every aspect of colonial Zimbabwe especially in the anti-colonial protest of 1896-97 Chimurenga (war of independence). Although there was transition in religion since the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial period where ATR's prominence began to diminish due to the absorption of western doctrines, all the three historic phases elaborate how religion was shaped by the prevailing situations until it became a chief cornerstone of every aspect of the postcolonial economy. As a result of colonialism, a significant number of people converted to Christianity. My thesis, therefore, serves to confirm the existence of a continued influence of religion in politics. It reexamines the various ways in which a combination of religion and politics affected the perceptions of gender and sexuality identities. This pinpoints dimensions in which gender identities were understood and perceived in independent Zimbabwe and most significantly how these changed through (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, History (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis essays to study and interpret a small body of poems from Southern Gaul which respond to the breach of the Rhine frontier and subsequent crises from 406-418 AD. After demonstrating contemporary literary conventions in both secular and Christian discourses, the paper will survey how the poems in question came to terms with recent catastrophe and thereby rearticulated differing ideas of empire and meta-history which drew upon the Latin Epic tradition but deployed them in a context that was increasingly Christian and destabilized. While this will shed limited light on the political events, it will primarily serve to situate the beginnings of the Fall of the Western Empire in their intellectual context and indicate how they served as agents of the transformation of the Classical World and the draining of the secular.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Social Work

Spirituality has been popularized as a support for those in addiction recovery. Millions of individuals have transitioned from active addiction to addiction recovery through interventions informed by spiritual and religious principles. However, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reports that relapse rates within the United States remain high. This data may indicate a potential discrepancy between the present utility of spirituality and its practical implementation. Many researchers have attempted to find solutions and pathways that utilize spiritual components that would benefit those in addiction recovery. Theories and definitions abound for spirituality in addiction recovery, yet the operational and developmental nature of spirituality remains clouded. These limitations frustrate plans to reduce relapse rates by effectively implementing spiritually or religiously aligned program elements. Therefore, this project proposes three papers aimed at addressing this substantial gap: Chapter 2 is an inductive scoping review of empirically-focused peer-reviewed articles exploring how spirituality is defined and measured within addiction recovery literature. This chapter aims to assess how spirituality is presently defined within the context of addiction recovery literature and will consider definitions, components, indicators of health, and measurement as elements of how spirituality is structured. Chapter 3 is a deductive qualitative content analysis that explores how a synthesis of Canda's operational model of spirituality and Worden's Tasks of Grief align with the operational principles of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). AA has helped millions transition from active addiction to addiction recovery through a practical spiritual process. The content analysis study will explore the operational literature of AA, explicitly examining the content for components of spirituality and spiritual change. Doing so rigorously will bring additional insight to future work and (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Ministry , Ashland University, 2024, Doctor of Ministry Program

The purpose of this project was to create and evaluate a manual for the equipping of worship leaders in The Word Church and The Light Church of Northeastern Ohio. The manual was evaluated by a panel of twenty-four experts using a five-point Likert scale survey administered electronically via Google documents and in person. Major findings suggested an overwhelming response by the panel experts who believed the manual is a usable tool that would help church worship leaders be equipped to lead and enhance the worship ministry.

Doctor of Ministry , Ashland University, 2024, Doctor of Ministry Program

The purpose of this project was to discover to what extent Christian Medical and Dental Associations (CMDA) campus leaders practice evangelization of Muslim doctors from other countries studying on Christian Medical and Dental Associations campuses in the United States. The results of this study demonstrated that campus leaders regularly encounter Muslims on campus, but they rarely consider themselves to evangelize Muslims. When the leaders did engage in Muslim evangelization, they did so most frequently by living a holy lifestyle in which they modeled a life of compassion and integrity for others to see without any specified evangelistic strategies.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2024, Art History (Fine Arts)

This thesis examines the cultural and religious contexts behind the production of the Girona Apocalypse [Museu de la Catedral de Girona, Num. Inv. 7(11)], a tenth-century copy of Beatus of Liebana's eighth-century Commentary on the Apocalypse. It delves into the ways in which medieval society, guided by the gendered perceptions of the Latin Church, played a pivotal role in categorizing women within a binary framework: either as pure or immoral. The focus is on the portrayal of femininity in the Apocalypse of St. John, where the contrasting figures of the Great Harlot and the Woman Clothed with the Sun are juxtaposed, and how this imagery and symbolism are transformed into feminine archetypes in the Girona manuscript, resulting in a pictorial conflict and shedding light on the nuanced dynamics of gender in medieval Iberia. The Girona Apocalypse was created at the dual monastery at San Salvador de Tabara, and apparently was illuminated by a woman, Ende. Her contribution provides a subtle layer to the understanding of womanhood in medieval Iberia, highlighting the importance of the role she played in a society where women received limited validation and recognition. The Girona Beatus not only offers a unique perspective on the conception of womanhood in the Middle Ages, but also provides valuable insights into how a woman artisan painter navigated her identity within the constraints of a malecentric Christian narrative.

Doctor of Ministry , Ashland University, 2024, Doctor of Ministry Program

The purpose of this project was to impact the participants' house church planting skills within a select group of emerging leaders of Bhutanese-Nepalese churches in Columbus, Ohio. The results of the study, measured through a pre-assessment and post assessment, revealed all five project goals were positively impacted. Participants were most impacted in understanding of essential need of planting of house churches and the second most impacted in understanding of an effective missional enhancement to fulfill the Great Commission through the house churches.

Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2023, College of Education and Human Services

Urban ethnic churches across the nation continue to be beacons of light in communities throughout the United States. The people within have endured the same centralized struggles found in every impoverished urban neighborhood, be it crime or gentrification. Many, like the millions of Latinos across America, find respite in belonging to ethnic spaces where they can preserve parts of their cultural identities as they navigate the duality of their culture, what it means to be Latino, while navigating acculturation, what it means to be American. Whether they are immigrants, English Language Learners, or second-and-third-generation Latinos, the meaning-making found in faith-based affinity groups, like ethnic churches, where faith and ethnicity intersect, can serve as a source for understanding leadership and social mobility among minority groups. The leaders of these communities, or pastors, have a unique ability to function as transformational leaders, gatekeepers of social capital, and agents of social and economic advancement in addition to their role as spiritual leaders. This hermeneutic phenomenological study conducted in the Midwest region of the United State States, questions whether urban pastors perceive themselves as social and economic transformational agents, and how keen they are on discovering the meaning-making that happens within the walls of their often small but mighty congregations. When urban Latina/o pastors and their churches discover the intersection of their ethnic and religious identity and their ability to use their social capital through trust (Coleman, 1988), networks (Bourdieu, 1986), and resources (Putman, 2000), they may not only empower their congregations spiritually but also socially and economically.

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2024, Educational Administration

African American religious organizations have been the pillar of the urban community since their inception in the late 1700s. Throughout the years, as the religious organization grew, so did the need for church and attendance. In 1990, the number of Christians reported attending church service was 70%. By 2018, it was reported a 50% decline. In that, 50% decline are millennials who serve as important members of that church as it relates to the future of the church's existence. Church attendance continues to decline in the present day. The purpose of this study was to determine those contributing factors and identify opportunities for religious organizations to stop declining participation. I found that focusing on authentic engagement may improve church attendance.

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2023, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

A large body of research has investigated the role of religious belief within terror management theory and the cognitive science of religion, with interesting results emerging for atheists as compared to religious individuals. While atheists explicitly disavow religion, implicit measurement techniques have revealed an intuitive belief in religious concepts, particularly following reminders of death (Jong et al., 2012). However, to date, no studies have directly observed the cognitive processes that underlie these effects. In response to this gap in the literature, the present study seeks to propose and test a model of the cognitive pathways utilized by religious and atheistic individuals as they manage existential concerns. Specifically, this model proposes that following mortality salience (MS), both religious and atheistic individuals experience intuitive religious belief due to evolutionary cognitive biases. These intuitions are then consciously shaped in accordance with explicitly endorsed ideologies, leading religious individuals to accept intuitive religious belief and atheistic individuals to override their intuitions with a more analytic orientation. As such, the present study hypothesized that MS (compared to pain) would lead to decreased need for cognition (NFC) in Christians but increased NFC in atheists. In a sample of 248 adults, an ANOVA indicated that Christians primed with MS reported lower NFC than those primed with pain, while the opposite effect emerged for atheists, providing compelling evidence for the proposed model. Limitations and future directions are discussed.