Divinity School
Duke migrated to an electronic-only system for theses and dissertations between 2006 and 2010. As such, theses and dissertations completed between 2006 and 2010 may not be part of this system, and those completed before 2006 are not hosted here except for a small number that have been digitized.
Recent Submissions
-
Banished from the City: The Exilic Ecclesiology of Luke-Acts
(2023)This dissertation examines those scenes in Acts where members of the church are banished, exiled, or displaced from the city, such as Acts 8:1, 13:50, and 16:35-39. It argues that Luke-Acts presents the church as a community ... -
Consent Forms: A Biopolitical Theology
(2023)What is consent? What does it mean, what is its use, and what good does it do? My dissertation turns these questions over and over, looking at the answers given by three different eras of western history: the Information ... -
The Munus Triplex: Pastoral Leadership Paradigm for HIV Prevention Ministry in the African American Context
(2023)Pastoral leaders in African American contexts often play a critical role in conveying messages about what is vital to black and brown people. Pastoral leadership has always been the driving force behind change within the ... -
No Longer Male and Female: Ancient Christian Voices Illuminating Gender Beyond the Binary
(2023)As faith communities engage in conversations about the meaning and significance of gender, many people have begun exploring the concept of gender beyond a fixed binary of male and female. These conversations can be challenging, ... -
Pray Without Ceasing: Corporate Prayer in the Evangelical Church
(2023)This thesis argues that evangelical Christian communities, which traditionally reject liturgical models of prayer, might be spiritually enhanced through more disciplined prayer practices—specifically the corporate observance ... -
Breaking Barriers: Documenting the Trailblazing Black Students of Duke Divinity
(2023)This abstract describes an oral thesis documentary project aimed at honoring the stories and experiences of trailblazing Black students who integrated Duke Divinity School in 1962 and the development of the Office of Black ... -
Redefining Church: Reaching, Retaining, and Assimilating Gen Z and Millennials
(2023)This project seeks to present a model that will strengthen national non-denominationalchurches’ capacities for reaching, retaining, and assimilating Generation Z and Millennials. The central pillars of this project examine ... -
Discerning Beyond the Screen: Embracing Christian-based Films as a Spiritual Discipline for Spiritual Formation and Discipleship
(2023)This thesis seeks to demonstrate that by intentionally integrating Christian-based movies and shows, faith leaders can encourage members of their communities to initiate, establish, grow, and sustain a relationship with ... -
Augustine and the Therapy of Self-Love
(2023)For over a century, theologians, ethicists, and philosophers have debated the coherence and moral validity of Augustine’s account of self-love. What to make of statements like “Love the Lord, and in so doing learn how to ... -
The Loneliness Epidemic: The Call of Christian Communities to Create Meaningful Connection and Transform Loneliness into Belonging
(2023)Loneliness is a common and near-universal experience that causes us to feel isolated and disconnected from others. More and more Americans experience it most or all the time. With at least 30% of the US population experiencing ... -
Revelance At All Costs: A Theological Exploration of Burnout and a Call to Relational Leadership in a Secular Age
(2023)ABSTRACTThis thesis explores the issue of burnout in congregational settings. Unmanaged stress in a system is a cause of burnout. Individuals can feel burnout, but a systemic approach is needed to prevent and address burnout. ... -
Walking the Back of The Crocodile: A Manual of Biblical Interpretation for Queer Members of the Black Church
(2023)June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States, ruled that same sex marriage was constitutional, extending the right and its accompanying benefits to millions of persons to whom legal recognition of their marriages ... -
A Storied God, A Storied People: A Strategy for the Local Church to Practice the Narrative Nature of Scripture by Adhesion to a Particular Story
(2023)This thesis aims to develop a narrative strategy for the local church parish, drawing on postliberal and narrative theologies. It argues that the narrative nature of the incarnation is not only descriptive of God's movement ... -
Sabbath Rest(oration): Reframing the Purpose and Witness of an Eschatological Sabbath-keeping Community
(2023)ABSTRACTThis thesis touches on several massive themes within Christian theology, including questions of ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, and missiology. Yet it is grounded in a very real and practical question. What ... -
Compelling Black Preaching Themes Reaching Black Millennial-Xennial Males
(2023)ABSTRACTThis thesis examines Black preaching themes appearing to yield influence on Black Millennial-Xennial males. The prospective connection of this demographic giving ear and response to certain preaching motifs, is approached ... -
Death Work: Prison Chaplaincy, Karl Barth, and Practicing Life in Prison
(2023)This is a book about life-in-death work, what the Christian tradition has often called salvation or atonement. How does the life, arrest, trial, conviction, execution, and release from state-supervision of Jesus Christ enact ... -
Religionless Christianity for Today's Church
(2023)This thesis introduces a new interpretation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s religionless Christianity from a missiological perspective. It will argue that religionless Christianity reflects Bonhoeffer’s theology of mission for ... -
Created and Evolved: Describing a nuanced theological anthropology for the contemporary church through the writings of Gregory of Nyssa and Charles Darwin
(2023)The following thesis addresses an issue in ways of knowing that is both commonand destructive in the contemporary American context. Specifically, the issue of misunderstood anthropologies is posited to be an unnecessary ... -
Reclaiming the Tradition of Prophetic Proclamation in the Black Church: The Significance of Proclaiming Life in the Face of Death
(2023)Out of the crucible of racism, pain, dehumanization, subjugation, marginalization, discrimination, enslavement, and death inflicted upon Black bodies, Black persons responded with a hermeneutic of freedom and prophetic ... -
The Redemption Of Capitalism Through Christian Principles
(2023)Capitalism and Christianity have been at odds in the application of this system of economics that has been deemed exploitative, manipulative and destructive of people who are not beneficiaries. In essence, the divide between ...
RSS 1.0