Psy. D., Antioch University, 2025, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

This dissertation presents a comprehensive analysis of the current research on scrupulosity, a subtype of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) characterized by intrusive thoughts and compulsive behaviors related to religious and moral concerns. The dissertation identifies key similarities and differences from OCD, and directs focus to thematically related yet unsubstantiated theoretical work in psychology that helps elucidate the core features and etiological factors of scrupulosity as differentiated from other OCD subtypes. The study addresses the critical dearth of research on scrupulosity, aiming to fill significant gaps in the literature regarding its historical context, varied presentation and prevalence in different cultural contexts, and potentially effective treatment approaches to address better the needs of a significant number of people worldwide. Beginning with an exploration of historical conceptualizations from the 2nd through the early 21st centuries, the dissertation traces the recognition of scrupulosity and recommendations for treatment across various cultural traditions and major world religions including Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity, from both Protestant and Catholic sources, as well as non-religious belief systems. It highlights notable historical figures who exhibited scrupulous behaviors contextualizing them with a modern psychological lens. As the leading theologians of their faiths, they often ironically v advised its treatment from their own experience as the most influential theologians of each of their faiths. These historical writings still have wisdom to impart today. The history of scrupulosity is, in many ways, a history of religion across time and culture, as well as of the birth and first 150 years of psychology itself. Key schools of psychological thought are explored for relevance to developing contemporary evidence-based treatments. Due to few qualitative or quantitative studies on scrupulosity compared t (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

This thesis analyzes the domains and procedures of the dead as described in Enoch's tour of the underworld in the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 22). It further seeks to elucidate certain themes within this chapter through a historical and comparative approach. Of particular interest is the location of the dead, the legal suits of the murdered, primarily Abel against Cain and his children, and how this may relate to the coming judgement of the flood on the earth in the Book of the Watchers

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.

MA, Kent State University, 2023, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

This paper offers a comparison of early Christian and Roman accounts of paradise, decline, and restoration, focusing on writings of the first centuries B.C.E. and C.E. As Christianity arose as a sect within Judaism, my analysis will also include Jewish texts, many of which were written before the first century B.C.E., but which continued to be very influential during the period on which I am focusing. My comparison will be focused on the cultural values that are reflected in such discourses as utopian and eschatological accounts have a lot to tell us about the ideals of their authors. In particular, I will be analyzing the values presented in Christian texts in light of the Roman virtues of virtus, self-restraint, and pietas, as well as Roman views of social hierarchy. In doing so, I hope to highlight not only the similarities between Judeo-Christian and Roman accounts, but also, and perhaps more importantly, the differences. While the Roman writings that I will discuss almost invariably present a view from the “center” of imperial power, the Jewish and Christian writings, at least to a large extent, originate at the “periphery.” This difference, as we will see, has a significant effect on the values of each group, despite superficial similarities.

Doctor of Education , University of Dayton, 2023, Educational Administration

The goal is to shine light theologically on the role of transformational leadership in the missional church. What concepts about pneumatological discipleship, influence, power, authority, and transformational leadership suit a radically missional church? Radical missional challenges demand new notions about servant and transformational leadership. Pneumatological discipleship, as well as transformational leadership, must reflect the identity, calling, life, and order of the church. This autoethnographic action research project, therefore, addresses life in the Trinity and participation in the Missio Dei and outlines the radically missional church as the point of entry to develop transformational leadership insights and pneumatological discipleship practices. It contributes towards creating an appropriate model of pneumatological discipleship and transformational leadership for radically missional churches. Recent developments in the theology of mission seem to address the area of missional ecclesiology comprehensively. However, there is a gap in the development of pneumatological discipleship and transformational leadership models based on the concept of authority in the radically missional church.

Master of Fine Arts, Miami University, 2023, English

This collection has ten stories exploring queerness, religion/apostacy, family/estrangement, and how we react in the face of complete upheaval. Eschewing traditional forms, the collection crosses genres, consisting of fiction, non-fiction, and hybrid stories, making it not all one thing or another, but a non-binary collection, if you will. In several of the stories, we encounter monsters; in others, we plot to kill them. “The Path” follows a Mormon missionary caught in a liminal space between believing and doubting, though “Lessons From the Grave” plants its feet firmly outside of religion, detailing Mormon violence against queer people. The stories progress from grief to rage to acceptance, a record of emotions through two years of estrangement and shunning.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2023, Media and Communication

Generations of women in the Evangelical Church have embodied narratives passed from mother to daughter, from church leadership, and through their religious communities. These narratives, including those of women's subservience and deserving of suffering endured from spouses, church leaders, and others, have origins in the earliest days of church history. In this thesis I examine how such narratives are embedded in books on pubertal guidance targeted to mothers and daughters in Evangelical Christian communities. Building on Fish's work on interpretive communities, Gramsci's conceptualization of hegemony, Foucault theorizing on power, and an interdisciplinary literature on the interaction between religion, culture, and politics, I interrogate themes of puberty, sexual function, gender roles, consent, and gender-based violence addressed in books on pubertal guidance, and how these books contribute to or reinforce evangelical Christian doctrinal narratives on gender and sexuality. Through a methodological approach using grounded theory, narrative inquiry, autoethnography, and textual analysis, findings indicate Evangelical Christian culture creates an interpretive community which drives only acceptable interpretation of religious texts (primarily the Bible), gender norms, and patriarchal power dynamics. Themes emerging from the texts analyzed, including Complementarianism, submission, purity, modesty, inadequacy, and silencing, have deep consequences not only for women and girls in Evangelical Christian communities, but for society at large as the legislative push for adherence to Evangelical Christian doctrinal ideologies work to remove access to basic human rights for people who do not adhere them. Misinformation, incomplete information, and hegemonic narratives serve to perpetuate gender inequality and have broad effects on women's and girls' mental, emotional, and physical health. In light of the most recent intrusions by Christian Nationalists into the legislative (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation examines early Christian literary hierarchies and categories, beginning in the pre-Christian context of the Hellenistic world and ending in the early Middle Ages. While scholars have long studied the formation of the biblical canon and the development of ancillary classes of text, such as the so-called “apocrypha,” many accounts of this history struggle to evince how these intellectual and institutional categories changed over time, which tends to obscure early Christian intellectual nuance and circumspection. This project improves our understanding by rooting early Christian evaluation of sacred (or potentially sacred) literature in the literary criticism of the classical world. It finds that, over the course of centuries, early Christianity generally moved away from the question of textual authenticity to the question of theological authority. In many cases, this movement corresponded to the maturation of the institutional episcopacy, particularly in the post-Constantinian era. Consequently, while Hellenistic literary criticism had once provided the chief template for Christians to evaluate books, hierarchies of text became increasingly institutionalized and supposed to have been settled by earlier authorities. By the sixth century, some Christian commentators forgot the meaning of the older categories altogether.

Master of Arts in Theology, Mount St. Mary's Seminary & School of Theology, 2022, School of Theology

In this thesis, I propose that the synthetic thread of Balthasar's theological trilogy is his understanding of the apocalyptic. The problem that I am trying to tackle is that within such a massive body of work, it is easy to lose hold of Balthasar's project. Many scholars have proposed ways of summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing Balthasar's thought (chapter 1), but none address the specifically biblical and thus eidetic, historical, and noetic way that Balthasar's project concretely comes together. My methodology, then, is aporetic: responding to the gap in scholarship, I propose that it is precisely the apocalyptic that holds image and history in Balthasar in their proper tension with each other and with concept in his thought (chapter 2). The aporetic methodology continues, though, since my examination of Balthasar's apocalyptic synthesis and retrieval raises questions about his definition of the apocalyptic and his relationship with biblical studies. In response to this gap, I articulate Balthasar's specific definition of apocalyptic as imminent expectation of the coming of the kingdom of God while I also point toward Balthasar's own dissatisfaction with the apocalyptic in biblical studies as he reaches out for a more Johannine apocalyptic (chapter 3). I conclude that Balthasar's thought is synthesized by an understanding of the apocalyptic which preserves the horizontal and vertical tension of salvation history as it unites within itself the perennial importance of image and drama, but Balthasar's own understanding of the apocalyptic is more substantially informed by his reading of John's Apocalypse rather than biblical studies. I end by gesturing towards a continued rapprochement between Balthasar and the ‘new perspective on apocalyptic' begun by Christopher Rowland, championed by Crispin Fletcher-Louis, and centered around the open heaven and the Temple: each side could benefit substantially from the other.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

This dissertation assesses biblical prophets' claims to possess access to suprahuman knowledge. A common modern scholarly construct of biblical prophecy holds that prophets were primarily social critics who denounced social injustice and exhorted repentance. The problem with that construct is not that it acknowledges prophets as decrying social ills and admonishing repentance, but that the construct marginalizes prophets' alleged suprahuman knowledge to the function of social criticism. A close analysis of the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible, as provided herein, reveals that the modern construct has inverted the primary focus of the ancient texts. Rather than present the prophets as primarily social critics who denounce social injustice and exhort repentance, the biblical authors principally emphasized the prophets as suprahuman knowledge specialists who occasionally decried social ills and preached repentance. The introductory chapter demonstrates the prevalence of the modern scholarly construct by citing numerous statements by scholars who explicitly marginalize biblical claims that prophets possessed access to suprahuman knowledge in favor of interpreting prophets as social critics denouncing social ills and exhorting repentance. Chapter two provides a history of scholarship from the Dead Sea Scrolls through the twentieth century that establishes the origin of the modern construct as a product of the nineteenth century. Prior to the nineteenth century, exegetes never understood prophetic claims of suprahuman knowledge as subordinate to issues of social justice and repentance. In chapter three, I expose how biblical prophetic texts only occasionally depicted the prophets as social critics. Even in cases where the prophets were portrayed as decrying social injustice or exhorting repentance, the authors paired those statements with claims of prophets announcing information beyond normal human ken. Whereas relatively few prophetic texts paint the prophets as (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2022, Leadership and Change

Today, Black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs) struggle to use empirical data to address financial burden, elitism, hazing, relevance in social justice issues, and the anti-BGLO movement. The anti-BGLO movement frames this study. The movement stems from beliefs that secret societies, fraternities, and sororities are anti-Christian. Society will continue to question the relevance and importance of BGLOs if they cannot overcome the issues plaguing them. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to ascertain why members are leaving BGLOs, in case the organizations find the anti-BGLO movement to be a threat to organizational vitality. Through thematic analysis, 18 YouTube testimonials from denouncers were investigated to answer the research question: What are the most significant reasons ex-BGLO members say they denounce their organizations? The dataset produced 12 themes, scriptural evidence to support the speakers' decisions, and a narrative overview of their journey. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA (https://aura.antioch.edu) and OhioLINK ETD Center (https://etd.ohiolink.edu).

Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Creative Writing/Poetry

As much embodied practice as a manuscript, Full Moon Soup invites us to engage in the ancient technologies of Jewish magic, prayer, and mystical text to locate present-day ancestors and create new rituals. The book begins with a folktale ushering us into a world where lagoons speak, flowers pray, and angels sit at the kitchen table. Fragrant and intoxicating, it is a world filled with honey, lemon, garlic, and salt. Through the use of fabulism, folklore, and lyric prose, Full Moon Soup swirls the reader into reverie with recipes, spells, prayers, and plant remedies. The poems trace a nonlinear journey through a world left by Jewish feminine ancestors, plantcestors, and priestesses, asking en route what it means to heal lineage, to honor women's magic as community care, and to create space for an authentic relationship with a feminine God. In this asking, we are invited to lean into our own sacred longings.

Master of Arts in Biblical Studies, Mount St. Mary's Seminary & School of Theology, 2021, School of Theology

The end of 2 Samuel's Jerusalem conquest posits a challenge for modern Scripture scholars. 2 Sam 5:8b contains a puzzling reference to the blind and the lame being banned from a house. It seems that this line was added into the narrative due to similarity in vocabulary utilized in the pericope, referencing an idea or a mindset that the author or the author's culture had at large at the time of writing. This thesis attempts to answer the question as to the identity of the blind and the lame referenced, as well as what “house” they are not allowed to enter. After engaging in the scholarship surrounding this passage, I hope to show that this addition into the Samuel narrative continues a theme of disability and role reversal by the author. The blind and the lame correspond to the families of David and Saul. The kings of Israel and their descendants are found unworthy of the kingship through their unfaithfulness and are thus removed from the role in the Deuteronomistic narrative.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), University of Dayton, 2021, Theology

Churches of Christ (Stone-Campbell Movement) have inherited from early thinkers in the Restoration Movement and generally operate out of an ethic which can be summarized in the maxim, “Try hard to do what the Bible says.” This approach has two major flaws: self-reliance rather than reliance on the Holy Spirit, and a tendency to treat Scripture and an individual's obedience to Scripture as ends in themselves instead of the means to an end. This ethic yields an anthropology that is at once too high and too low: too high in its assumption that we can achieve goodness without the direct aid of the Spirit and too low in its assumption that obedience is the highest good to which we are called. To this problem, I propose a two-part prescription. The first element of my proposed solution is recommendation of Alasdair MacIntyre's recovery of Aristotelian virtue ethics. Key concepts like teleology, narrative, community, practices, and traditions help provide a more wholistic, practical, and, I argue, biblical way to think about ethics. Helpful as he is, MacIntyre presents his project in the language of philosophy, and if virtue ethics are to be accessible to Churches of Christ, they must be baptized and appear in explicitly Christian language. Providentially, Stanley Hauerwas has already done precisely this work. His theological appropriation of MacIntyre transforms teleology into eschatology, narrative to the gospel, practices to sacraments, and traditions to the church. But Hauerwas's work, as has often been noted, tends to offer only a bare account of the Holy Spirit. The second element of my prescription is a more robust pneumatology than can be provided either by Hauerwas or by Churches of Christ but which draws on the best elements of both. Following Hauerwas's aphoristic style, I propose a riddling methodology to explore three major themes in pneumatology: 1) the Holy Spirit as both the power/presence of God and as a person, 2) the Holy Spirit's role in (open full item for complete abstract)

Licentiate in Sacred Theology (S.T.L.), University of Dayton, 2021, International Marian Research Institute

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Mariology of St. Lawrence of Brindisi in order to show how he applied the psalms to Mary. It will be shown how he found the literal sense of the text important for understanding the mysteries of the faith. His sermons in the Mariale were not meant to be scholarly examinations, but Brindisi often went back to the Hebrew text to have the best possible meaning of what the sacred writer intended. Next, it will be shown how finding Mary in the psalms requires the use of the spiritual senses of Scripture. Then there will be shown a spirituality of the psalms with Mary as a model of the faithful and also an intercessor on their behalf. Finally, the psalms will show the way to heaven; and it is Mary who led the way by living a virtuous life. Now she aids the faithful in attaining the same goal.

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2021, Communication

ABSTRACT Guided by the normative approach this research seeks to understand how Black single adult mothers communicate with their religious Black married parents in terms of childrearing. This research examines the communication challenges faced by single mothers and their parents as the two parties share the child rearing responsibilities. The normative approach suggests that family communication is challenging due to the context specific demands, or multiple purposes associated with interactions. In this study the normative approach was used to study communication challenges between Black single mothers and their religious married parents who are helping with childrearing, and the difficulties faced without having the father present in the picture. Six Black single mothers and their parents who assist with childrearing were interviewed. Analysis of the qualitative data found two major themes that emerged about the communicative challenges between Black single mothers and their married religious parents using a normative approach. Within these themes there were three subtopics found in each: (1) Topics avoided that lead to stress and or conflict: A- Topics regarding the absent father of the child B- Topics regarding unresolved childhood issues C- Topics regarding lifestyle choices 4 (2) Tensions arising from generational differences A) Differences regarding childrearing B) Differences regarding marriage beliefs and views C) Differences regarding religious points of view

Bachelor of Arts, Marietta College, 2021, Communication Studies

Western Europe has long been established as a highly patriarchal culture that has established strict and rigorous gender norms and values for men and women. Such gender norms have determined how men and women behave, dress, work, and are depicted in the arts. During the time of the Italian Renaissance, these distinct gendered divisions were apparent in the works of male artists painting both male and female subject matter and themes. When artistic pieces were not catering towards the Catholic Church's goals, they were centered around the external male audience, focusing on appealing to male ego, arousal, and comfort. The depiction of strong female emotion during the Italian Renaissance illustrates not only the cultural and gender norms surrounding women during that time, but also how both men and women interacted with those norms. This paper analyzes the perspectives on the Italian Renaissance's gendered norms as seen through the work of Artemisia Gentileschi and Michelangelo Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes and Gentileschi and Cavaliere d'Arpino's Susanna and the Elders. Utilizing feminist criticism and historical analysis, this paper examines whether the hegemonic messaging of the Italian Renaissance permeates both male and female-created artwork, or if the differences in experience and gender brings a new narrative to the Judith and Susanna themes.

Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.), University of Dayton, 2021, International Marian Research Institute

DENIS the Carthusian affirms Mary as the summa contemplatrix, interpreting the plenitude of grace of Luke 1:28 to include the theological gift of wisdom. In Dionysian thought, the gift of wisdom equates to mystical theology, unitive wisdom, or contemplation by negation, the highest form of prayer possible in this life to a wayfarer. Denis the Carthusian makes an original contribution to Marian studies by positing the exemplarity of Mary's prayer, in accord with Denis's notion of contemplation, suggesting that Mary enjoyed a singular perfection in Her intellectual knowledge of God before the Incarnation; was later instructed in mystical theology by Her Divine Son, the God-Man; and attained to the contemplative vision of God while still on earth as a foreshadowing of the beatific vision Mary now possesses in heaven. This doctoral dissertation, written by a cloistered monk not unlike Denis the Carthusian, seeks to penetrate the silence and solitude of contemplative monastic life lived by one of Christianity's most prolific authors and popularly hailed "the last of the schoolmen" to explore the notion of Marian contemplation and the incomparability of Mary's prayer for twenty-first century imitation and pastoral application.

Doctorate in Sacred Theology (S.T.D.), University of Dayton, 2020, International Marian Research Institute

This work examines Marian Ark of the Covenant typology in Scripture, Patristic era, and liturgical sources of the first Millennium. Greek texts of Luke 1, John 1, and Revelation 11:19-12 exhibit Ark and closely related Shekinah and Tabernacle allusions consistent with the operation of contemporaneous Jewish exegetical principles such as Hillel's rules of interpretation, and with early Jewish traditions of the Exodus, Ark, and Shekinah. The syntax of the three texts is consistent with Semitic translation Greek. All of these Scriptures have Incarnational contexts. Lucan investigation furthers the findings of Rene Laurentin. Luke and Revelation support Mary as individual realization of a corporate person in a context of eschatological joy. John and Revelation portray the advent of the Word using cycles of heavenly, earthly, witness, and wilderness phases. The Shekinah is referenced in all three texts. Ark and Shekinah allusions are seen in the Protoevangelium of James, and in the Transitus Mariae, which also references Psalms 44(45) and 131(132). Patristic writers include Marian attributes of the Ark such as holiness, protection, and effulgence, and associate her with closely related Dwelling of God constructs found in Exodus 25 such as tabernacle and sanctuary/temple. Ark typology is taken up in ancient Eastern Church liturgies from at least fifth century Jerusalem as seen in a Georgian chant book and a feast of Mary Type of the Old Ark, and is prominent in Dormition liturgies. Texts from all the major ancient Churches were included. An investigation of later Western post-Patristic writers to 1200 and liturgies was made, and though rich Ark references are not found, the same Ark attributes are present, but with Mary as tabernacle and sanctuary/temple, and frequent reference to Sirach 24 and Canticles vs. the Psalms in the East. Three Hebrew Biblical verbs of dwelling that show increasing permanency, found in Judges 5 with Greek equivalents in Ephesians 2, resonate w (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Ministry , Ashland University, 2020, Doctor of Ministry Program

The purpose of this project was to impact the participants' commitment to obeying God's voice through a Marysville, OH based small group blended learning study of Israel's wilderness journey, conducted across seven sessions between February 23rd and June 7th, 2019. To measure its impact, participants completed pre and post-tests. This study most prominently impacted participants' understanding of how God's loving formation fuels our obedience to his voice.