Networking Grants

Applicants will complete an online application.  Please download the below attachment to review the application elements.

2023 Planning Grant Application Sample Form

CCCU-Planning-Grant-Budget-Form-2024

Evaluation criteria: The following criteria will be used in evaluation of the proposals:

Quality of scholarship

• clearly informed by Christian practices perspectives and purpose
• topic of interest to larger academy with potential to advance the visibility of Christian scholarship

Proposal plan

• effective plan, including timeline and budget
• team expertise and background for this project

Promise of impact

• evidence of strong network base for project
• likelihood of effective dissemination to the academy
• future promise for implementation (Initiative Grant  or other funding)

To obtain a link to the online application, please complete the following form:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/grantplanning

Applicants will complete an online application.  Please download the below attachment to review the application elements.

CCCU Initiative Grant Application Form 2023 Sample

CCCU-Initiative-Grant-Budget-Form-2024

Selection criteria:  The following criteria will be used in evaluation of the proposals.

• Scholarship clearly informed by a Christian perspective
• Topic of interest to larger academy with potential to advance the visibility of Christian scholarship
• Quality of project conceptualization
• Quality of project plan, including timeline and budget
• Team expertise and background for this project
• Preparedness of team
• Advantages of networking
• Likelihood of significant dissemination beyond Christian circles
• Evidence of strong network base for project

To obtain a link to the online application, please complete the following form:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/initiativegrant

Planning Grants

The Missionary Database and Map Initiative: A Collaborative Digital Humanities Project

Project Director:
Dr. Thomas Whittaker
Assistant Professor of History
LeTourneau University

Team Members:
Dr. Matthew Preston
Chair and Assistant Professor of Computer Science
Anderson University

Dr. Alex Mayfield
Assistant Professor of History
Asbury University

Mr. Joseph Wang
M.S. Student in Computer Science
University of Southern California

Abstract:

The Missionary Database and Map Initiative (MDMI) seeks to construct a database and interactive map visualization of Christian missions. Using Native American missions from all Christian denominations in the 50-year period from 1787 (the creation of the first post-revolutionary American missionary society) to 1838 (the Cherokee Trail of Tears) as its test case, the project will create a platform that could be expanded to encompass a much broader array of missionary data. By allowing for quantitative analysis and visualization of denominations, ethnic groups, biographical data, and missionary funding, the MDMI will offer a powerful tool that will enrich the research of historians, theologians, missiologists, and social scientists, while also offering a resource for Christians (including indigenous Christians), churches, and mission societies to understand their heritage. Through a CCCU Initiative Grant, a group of cross-disciplinary scholars in mission history and computer science from LeTourneau University, Anderson University, and Asbury University, will work collaboratively to develop the parameters of the prototype database and map, gather data from primary and secondary sources, prepare for additional funding opportunities, and form partnerships with potential sponsor organizations, at the same time engaging students on these campuses to grow spiritually and intellectually by engaging with the history of missions.

Deception, Occultism and Cultism in the Body of Christ: Towards Understanding of False Doctrine of Death

Project Director:

Dr. Laban Ayiro
Vice Chancellor
Daystar University

Team Members:
Prof. Egara Kabaji
Professor of Literary Communication
Daystar University

Dr. Caroline Ayuya
Senior Lecturer, Clinical Psychology

Dr. Martin Munyao
Senior Lecturer, Theology
Daystar University

Dr. Niceta Ireri
Senior Lecturer
Africa International University

Mr. Charles Mr. Charles
Accountant
Daystar University

Abstract:

This research project aims at directing enquiry into the deception, occultism and cultism witnessed in Kenya in recent years resulting into death of hundreds of people deceived to starve to death in order to see Jesus Christ. The most horrific of these cases is now what is termed as Shakahola horror where a religious leader led his followers from all over the country to a remote part of the Kenyan coast and hypnotized them to starve to death. Hundreds of bodies of adherents have been exhumed from the eight hundred acre farm from where the evils took place. So far, the official records show that two hundred and fifty one bodies have been exhumed! This is just one of the horrific cultic and occultist events witnessed in recent years and there are many. This research will collect narratives from survivors of various cult activities, religious leaders, scholars, opinion leaders, survivors of the various cult activities and interrogate them to reveal the strategies of deception and the general occultism and occult practices. This approach to research in this issue in which real witnesses tell their stories is rare to come by. We will further direct enquiry in the practice of magic and witchcraft within thebody of Christ while focusing on manipulation of prayer and faith. In essence, we will seek to reveal characteristics of cults, types of cults, the underworld of cultism, cult practices, cult totems, cult membership, secrets of cults, tactics of deception, manipulative process of reading and misreading of scriptures in Kenya.

Chaplains and Spiritual Care in Community-Based Social Services

Project Director:
Dr. Ryan Gladwin
Associate Professor of Theology and Ministry; Director of Community Transformation Center
Palm Beach Atlantic University

Team Members:
Dr. Stephanie Boddie
Associate Professor of Church and Community Ministries
Baylor University

Dr. Gaynor Yancey
Professor, Lake Family Endowed Chair in Congregational and Community Health; Director of the Center for Church and Community Impact
Baylor University

Mrs. Emma Feyas
Associate Director of Community Transformation and Chaplaincy
Palm Beach Atlantic University

Mr. Jeremy Morse
Associate Director of Recruitment and Development, Community Transformation Center
Palm Beach Atlantic University

Abstract:

This project brings together an interdisciplinary team in theology, chaplaincy, and social work from Palm Beach Atlantic University’s School of Ministry and the Community Transformation Center and Baylor University’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work, the George W. Truett Theological Seminary, and the Center for Church and Community Impact. The project seeks to explore the potential benefits of providing spiritual care alongside community-based social services in partnership with Community Partners of South Florida (CPSFL). First, the project examines how social service organizations are well-positioned to address the growing mental health crisis but under-prepared to offer spiritual care and support. Second, examining research on spiritual caregiving, the project incorporates chaplain interns into the agency setting as uniquely primed to fill this service gap. Third, the project will engage in a qualitative research case study to understand (1) the need for spiritual care in a community-based social service organization Community Partners of South Florida, and (2) to demonstrate if chaplains can provide this care, improve organizational functions, and provide a benefit to service providers and the recipients of their services. Fourth, the project serves as a pilot study and justification for a more extensive project funded by the CCCU.The project will develop a qualitative case study focused on the following research question: To what extent could a chaplain or spiritual care provider be an integral part of a clinical care model for helping social service providers and service recipients? The study will use a triangulation assessment approach including participant observation, interviews with service providers and service recipients,and historical and sociological analysis of this agency and the surrounding community. The study will also offer a practical theological and social care assessment of the material in conversation with the growing field of study on chaplaincy and spiritual care.This project aims to demonstrate the need for chaplains in community-based social service settings. The project intends to make an academic contribution (e.g., a conference presentation and/or a journal article) and fill a gap in this research area. This project ultimately intends to serve as a pilot study to justify a larger CCCU grant to develop a more extensive project focused on case studies at various community-based social service settings in the tri-county region of Southeast Florida (Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade counties). Ultimately, this research will result in the development of a community-based chaplaincy model implemented in social service settings.

Initiative Grants

The Interplay Between Christianity, News, and Sports

Project Director:
Dr. Timothy Macafee
Chair, Associate Professor
Concordia University Wisconsin

Team Members:
Dr. Mike Mirer
Visiting Assistant Professor
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

Dr. Steven Montreal
Professor
Concordia University Wisconsin

Dr. Scott Chappuis
Assistant Professor
Concordia University Ann Arbor

Abstract:

In Kennedy v. Bremerton Schools (2022), the United States Supreme Court used the case of a junior varsity football coach and his post-game prayer sessions to rewrite the rules of engagement between people of faith and public institutions. That sports figured heavily in the story is vitally important. Similarities between sports and religion have long been asserted (Bain-Selbo et al., 2015), with some claiming they are part of what Robert Bellah described as “America’s Civil Religion.” And yet, the playing field also is the site of open religious expression, be it on-field prayer, expressions of faith in media interviews or the use of sports by religious institutions to share their own views of doctrine. While Kennedy’s prayer circles acquired an openly political valence, a fall weekend full of “Hail Mary”passes and “miracle finishes” infuses faith (and usually Christian faith) into public discourse through mainstream television. Yet this is happening at a time where religious identification is declining and fewer Americans identify as Christian (Pew, 2019). This set of opposing trend lines set the context for this proposed study. This three-step research proposal seeks to explore how the expressions of the connections between faith and sport manifest in the sporting press and in other media formats and how those messages shape attitudes toward the athletes who express those ideas, the media outlets who amplify them, and perceptions of religious and religious values themselves. In step one, we will use qualitative methods to explore how mainstream sports media tell stories about athletes of faith and their use of religious language. The findings of step one will be used to inform experimental research. In step two, we will use differences in news framing to see how different frames affect how the public understands religious institutions, athletes of faith, and the media products that carry these messages. In step three, we will test different expressions of faith by athletes, using social media and other mediated formats to explore the same outcome variables as step two. The goal here will be to provide a more nuanced understanding of how a secularizing public processes the messages of faith they encounter in a sporting context.

The Nature of Spiritual Ties to Place

Project Director:
Dr. Victor Counted
Associate Professor
Regent University

Team Members:
Dr. Benjamin Meagher
Assistant Professor
Hope College

Dr. Richard Cowden
Research Associate
Harvard University

Dr. Jamie Aten
Blanchard Chair of Humanitarian & Disaster Leadership
Wheaton College

Abstract:

Despite its presumed ethereal nature, human spirituality has long been closely tied to physical places, a concept that finds resonance in both the Old and New Testaments. The importance of places such as Mount Sinai, Jerusalem, and Galilee underscores the role of ‘place’ as an interconnected context – physical, social, cultural, ecological, personal, and spiritual – that profoundly shapes the opportunities (e.g., personal, professional & financial, social & community), resources (e.g., psychological, economic, interpersonal, physical), and experiences (e.g., thoughts, emotions, and behaviors) that contribute to holistic growth, relationships, and flourishing. Christian theology presents a nuanced understanding of place, intertwining these views with an attachment to Jesus that transcends any particular geographical location. Even so, Christians still have profound ties to particular sacred spaces (as do adherents of many other religious and spiritual traditions), as demonstrated by the emotional response from believers towards church closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. But how do spiritual ties to place actually contribute to a flourishing life? Previous work has explored the role of explicitly sacred environments (e.g., churches, temples, pilgrimage sites) on religious expression and practice, but recent theorizing suggests that people develop spiritual connections with many different types of places in their pursuit of a flourishing life. Nevertheless, there is little empirical research investigating how this unique type of emotional bond to place might be measured and shape human functioning.This collaborative project will answer three questions: 1. What varieties of spiritual ties to place exist? We will seek to identify the types of places where individuals feel an emotional bond to the sacred. 2. Is the nature of spiritual ties to place consistent across different religions and cultures? Using a diverse sample of participants, we will assess whether the dimensions of place spirituality vary across belief systems. 3. To what extent do spiritual ties to place relate to flourishing? We will explore whether spiritual ties to place might shape well-being, religious beliefs, and other important life outcomes.Using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methodology to investigate these questions, this project will create a more substantial definition of spiritual ties to place, synthesize and broaden existing empirical literature in both environmental psychology and the scientific study of religion, and provide an empirically rigorous and robust tool for measuring this construct in future research.

Planning Grant

Reframing Covenant for Nursing Theory and Practice  
 
Mrs. Dorolen Wolfs  
Project Director
Sessional Assistant Professor
Trinity Western University, BC, Canada 
 
Co-investigators 
Dr. Marsha Fowler 
Senior Fellow and Professor of Ethics and Faculty Scholarship 
Azusa Pacific University, CA 
 
Dr. Darlaine Jantzen 
Associate Professor 
Trinity Western University, BC, Canada 
  
Dr. Lynn Musto 
Assistant Professor 
Trinity Western University, BC, Canada 
  
Dr. Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham 
Dean and Professor 
Trinity Western University, BC, Canada 
 

Nurses shouldered remarkable social responsibility during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing faithful care with thin or missing resources, and exposing themselves to the SARS-CoV-2 virus while society sheltered at home. Support for this role typically derives from nurses’ duty to care, which some have described in the nursing literature as covenantal (Coffey, 2006; Stenberg, 1979). In the context of the nurse-patient relationship, covenant tends to be constructed as something more—an ethic of trust (Krauss, 1998; Hayes, 2020), a moral bond or commitment (Wagner, 2015), or as the foundation for ethics or ethical motives (Vogelstein, 2019). Nurse scholars from Christian and secular backgrounds have endeavored to clarify what covenant means, often by pointing to Christian theology, from where the concept was initially borrowed (Stenberg, 1979; Cooper, 1988) and by comparing it to contract (Bradshaw, 1994; Fowler, 2015; O’Brien, 2018).      Currently, the social contract between society and the nursing profession is often perceived as broken. A lack of ethical commitments at all levels of healthcare has contributed to situations involving highly compromised care and individual nurses’ ethical practice being called into question. With nurses poised to leave healthcare in increasing numbers, we argue reframing covenant for nursing theory and practice is timely. Redefining covenantal caring as a bi-lateral covenantal alliance between the nursing profession and society may provide a fruitful path to articulate the shared, moral commitments of healthcare.    Our purpose is to bring together nursing scholars with theologians, philosophers, and social scientists in a Think Tank, to conceptualize the parameters of the nursing profession’s covenant with society and translate covenantal caring for a broader audience.  This will be the grounding for future research and development of a comprehensive covenantal ethic and pedagogical strategies for nursing students. Our unique contribution will be bridging the concept’s founding theological perspectives with nursing’s secular ethics, and how covenantal caring might be applied at social (macro) levels in addition to at the level of the individual (micro) nurse-patient encounter.

Initiative Grants

Is “Wisdom Literature” Dead? The Future of Israelite Wisdom Studies  
 
Dr. Will Kynes  
Project Director 
Associate Professor of Biblical Studies 
Samford University, AL  
 
Co-investigators 
Dr. Mark Sneed 
Professor of Bible 
Lubbock Christian University, TX  
 
Dr. Jacqueline Vayntrub 
Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible 
Yale University, CT   
 

Wisdom is one of the richest gifts Israel’s Scriptures offer their readers. Indeed, Paul begins his endorsement of those Scriptures by praising their power to “make one wise” (2 Tim 3:15). However, current study of Israelite wisdom, which seeks to extract, examine, and understand that wisdom, is ensnarled in debate about fundamental features of the concept and its biblical expression. Questions about a purported “Wisdom tradition” in ancient Israel (Sneed 2011, 2015) have progressed into challenges to the “Wisdom Literature” category itself (Kynes 2019). Is this category a means of illuminating Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, and related texts, the concept of wisdom in the Bible, the theology of the Hebrew Bible, and the social world of ancient Israel, as the previous century of scholarship has assumed? Or is the category a nineteenth-century invention, which distorts our understanding of each topic by projecting post-Enlightenment values onto them. In other words, is “Wisdom Literature” more of a hindrance than a help? The field is currently in the midst of a “revolutionary phase” (Kuhn 1970), in which old paradigms and long-held assumptions may be questioned and new methods and theories proposed and debated. New approaches are transforming the study of texts, such as Proverbs and Sirach (e.g., Vayntrub 2019, 2021), and with them our understanding of the wisdom the Bible offers as a whole. As leading voices in this current debate, Sneed, Kynes, and Vayntrub aim in this project to capitalize on this transformative moment in the field by inviting leading wisdom scholars to weigh in on the current state of the debate and provide direction for its future. To reach both scholarly and broader audiences, they will host two panels, one at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting and the other online, and combine the proceeds with papers from a similar panel in April 2021 to produce an edited volume that will shape future study of wisdom in the Bible. 

Religious Faith and Meaning-Making: A Multidisciplinary Approach  
 
Dr. Kirk Lougheed  
Project Director 
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Director of the CFHF 
LCC International University, Lithuania 
 
Co-investigators 
Dr. Joshua Harris 
Assistant Professor of Philosophy 
The King’s University, AB, Canada    
 
Dr. Elizabeth Jackson 
Assistant Professor of Philosophy 
Toronto Metropolitan University, ON, Canada 
  
Dr. Myron Penner 
Professor of Philosophy 
Trinity Western University, BC, Canada 
 
Dr. Tricia van Dyk 
Assistant Professor of Philosophy 
LCC International University, Lithuania   

 
Religious faith and its connection to meaning in life is a frequent object of study in the contemporary academy. It is studied in humanistic fields such as religious studies, history, and literature. It also occupies the attention of the social sciences, including in fields such as sociology, anthropology, cognitive science, and psychology. However, the work in humanistic disciplines on faith and meaning are not always informed by our best and most up to date scientific knowledge. The purpose of our grant is to bring together a group of Christian philosophers in order to examine the role that faith plays in meaning-making from a scientifically informed Christian perspective. Our group will then collaborate with an interfaith and non-confessional group of internationally recognized philosophers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists.    There is a distinct need for Christian philosophers to stay up to date on current humanistic and scientific research in faith and its connection to meaning. For Christians typically hold that faith is an integral part of their life. It is often considered a life-changing event when a person comes to have religious faith. Alternatively, existential despair and dread are sometimes reported by the person who loses their religious faith. Not only is either type of event a significant moment in a person’s life, but how a person’s faith (or lack thereof) is lived out throughout the course of their life is also importantly connected to meaning. Contributing philosophical answers to questions about faith and meaning that incorporate a scientifically informed Christian perspective is our goal.    The first phase of our project will consist of a group of Christian philosophers, but we will build up to an interfaith and non-confessional group in order to utilize the most up to date research from cognitive science and psychology. This will enable our grant to have a wide impact across the secular academy. The analytical tools characteristic of philosophy including conceptual analysis, logic, and clarity, make our team well poised to draw on insights from other humanistic fields such as Biblical studies and theology. Importantly, team members also have experience incorporating empirical research from cognitive science and psychology into their work. Our project is well-positioned to break new ground on this important topic, having the potential not only to help us better understand how faith shapes meaning in life, but to help us discover the role it ought to play in meaning-making from the Christian perspective.

Understanding Resilience in Women Refugees  
 
Dr. Jamie Sanchez  
Project Director 
Associate Professor 
Biola University, CA 
 
Co-investigators 
Dr. Laura Dryjanska 
Associate Professor 
Biola University  
 
Dr. Rachel Hagues 
Associate Professor 
Samford University  
 
Dr. Jackie Parke 
Licensed Psychologist 
Private Practice 
 
Limited research has been conducted specific to women refugees (Gissi, 2018), though some studies have considered the intersectionality of gender and migration (Marchand, 2008; Freedman, 2015). Resilience, or the ability to successfully overcome adversity (Masten, 2018), is one theme that has emerged in some studies about women refugees. For example, Munt (2012) asserted that female refugees have developed a vigilance that is demonstrated through the reflection of their life journeys. Additionally, Hutchinson and Dorsett (2012) asserted that refugee resilience depends on external environments as much as on internal strength. What is not known is what factors impact development of resilience in women refugees, specifically. For example, how does self-agency, religion, the refugee community, or the host community play a role in women refugees’ ability to be resilient? In this qualitative study, our aim is to understand factors that impact the development of resilience in women refugees. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation, we will gather data from adult women refugees in various sites throughout the world, utilizing connections in Poland, Romania, Italy, Germany, Lebanon, and in different parts of the he United States. Findings will broaden the understanding of the phenomenon of resilience with particular focus on how women refugees develop resilience. Additionally, research findings will be useful to educators and practitioners working with and preparing others to work with refugee populations, as it will further our understanding of how to better engage with women refugee populations. Data will be disseminated through conference and public engagement presentations, journal articles, and a research symposium hosted at Biola University.

Planning Grants

Patristic Christianity and Contemporary Immigration: An Integrative Exploration of the Tradition for the Present

George Kalantzis
Project Director
Professor of Theology
Wheaton College, IL

Myles Werntz
Project Co-Director
Associate Professor of Theology
Abilene Christian University, TX

This project will investigate doctrinal and moral writings within the Christian tradition from between the 3rd-8th centuries, asking what light these texts and movements shed on contemporary questions of immigration. There has been a great deal of attention given to biblical sources for thinking about immigration, as well as attention from theological ethics, from philosophy, and from pastoral theology, but little has been done to ask what traditional Christian sources might have to add to offering a Christian response to the contemporary dynamics of immigration. Bringing together ethicists who are attuned to the patristic traditions of Christianity, with patristic scholars who are sensitive to the moral concerns of the era, this project will produce a volume, popular publications, and other forms of scholarly production which draws out the riches of the patristic world for one of the most pressing moral questions of our time.

Initiative Grants

Who “Belongs” at Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Table? Research and Dialogue on American History, Identity, and Immigration

Ruth Melkonian-Hoover
Project Director
Professor
Gordon College , MA

Soong-Chan Rah
Robert Munger Professor of Evangelism
Fuller Theological Seminary, CA

Matthew Rowley
Visiting Fellow
University of Leicester, UK

Judd Birdsall
Senior Research Fellow
Georgetown University, DC

The 400th anniversaries of the Mayflower landing (fall 2020) and the first Thanksgiving in Plymouth, MA (fall 2021) come at a time of great insecurity and polarization about the past. Some celebrate the Pilgrims; others confront them. In the American church, likewise, polarized histories cut between and through denominations, exacerbating the intra-Christian “culture war.” Unable to articulate a clear and universally convincing narrative about where the nation came from, many Americans feel anxious or even threatened in discussions about the past or about the path forward. America’s ambiguous relationship with the Mayflower generation stems from fundamental tensions within that story: they fled the coercive arm of the English monarch but felt justified in enslaving Algonquians and Africans; many desired good for Native Americans but their individual and collective actions made coexistence difficult; persecution drove them from England, but they drove Native Americans from the land. Pilgrims represent the promise that America is a haven for the distressed and a refuge for the weary. From another perspective, they are a parable about power and imperialism. Re-examining Plymouth history and legacies of “founding” narratives is more important than ever. This project explores the complex relationship between three interrelated strands: colonial history, Christianity, and attitudes towards immigrants. The wake left by the Mayflower is still felt, particularly by indigenous communities impacted by the loss of land and by African Americans whose ancestors’ subjugation was intertwined with European liberty. The wake was also experienced by centuries of immigrants who felt unwelcomed because they did not descend from Pilgrim or Puritan stock. As a boat sends ripples on both sides, so the waves from the Mayflower roll in pro-immigrant and anti-immigrant directions. Scripture and theology have similarly been used for cross purposes, to welcome the immigrant or keep her out. The wake cuts across American history in curious, complex, and often contradictory ways. In focusing on the impact of the Pilgrims, it is not that all the wonders and woes of American history can be traced back to Plymouth. Rather, persons throughout American history have reached back to the Pilgrims and Puritans—often conflating or confusing the two—to legitimize their own plans for the nation. As this project aims to demonstrate, the ways people use the past often speaks volumes about their hopes and fears in the present.

Developments and New Directions in Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord

Rachel Hostetter Smith
Project Director
Gilkison Distinguished Professor of Art History
Taylor University, IN

Ronald R. Bernier
Professor of Art History
Wentworth Institute of Technology, MA

Linda Stratford
Professor, Art History & History and Director
Asbury University, KY

James Romaine
Professor of Art History
Lander University, SC

Jonathan A. Anderson
Postdoctoral Associate of Theology and the Visual Arts
Duke Divinity School, KY

In 2004 James Elkins’ On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art was published, wherein the critic argued that a general tendency within the art world to see art that invokes religion in anything but a critical or derisive way as retrograde and reactionary. This presented a challenge to the profession to answer for its aversion to one of the most significant dimensions of human experience and diversity—faith and religious expression.      Much has changed since this assessment was made. Artists, art historians, critics, and curators have vigorously challenged the assumed secularism of institutional art history, and a generation of scholarship and exhibition has developed that resists the skepticism that often still arises when religion is a topic of discussion in the academy.    This initiative brings together established and emerging scholars and arts professionals who represent a diversity of disciplines and perspectives who are exploring the rich place of the sacred and the transcendent in contemporary visual culture, in order to help give shape to a field that has begun meaningfully to address arts’ (re)engagement with religion to recognize that faith and religious or spiritual experience are essential to the fabric of the social and to human being.    This project aims to do two main things through 1) the development and publication of a substantial new book with about 30 contributors, 2) a significant scholarly symposium as follow up to spur additional new scholarship and cast a vision for the ongoing development of the field, and 3) the creation of a body of videotaped presentations and/or interviews to be posted online. First, it will identify and examine theoretical frameworks and interpretive strategies for exploring the reemergence of religion in the making, exhibition, and discussion of contemporary art. Second, it will examine common strategies contemporary artists employ in the interface between religion and contemporary art practice with a significant number of specific case studies. The work proposed would produce important new resources in this developing field of study and spawn new collaborations and projects for the future.    Ultimately, this work provides platforms for vigorous and generous scholarly discourse and the production of serious new scholarship to prompt more “theo-aesthetic thinking” that is grounded in the richness of the Judeo-Christian faith to open up the field of art historical, critical and museological inquiry to include theological aesthetics that is revelatory, participatory, and potentially transformative.

The Sexual & Gender Identity Project+

Mark Yarhouse
Project Director
Endowed Chair and Professor of Psychology
Wheaton College, IL

Janet Dean
Professor of Psychology
Asbury University, KY

Stephen Stratton
Professor of Counseling and Pastoral Care
Asbury Seminary, KY

The debate around the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and other (LGBTQ+) students in religious settings has intensified this past year. News reports and monographs have attempted to paint a picture of mental health disparities between LGBTQ+ and heterosexual/cisgender students at private Christian colleges that are the result of discriminatory policies and religious tenets on sexual and gender identity and expression. Without a basis of research with comparison groups at public universities, those reports have described elevated rates of depression, anxiety, harassment, sexual assault, and disciplinary action.  It is our concern that there are indicators of distress among LGBTQ+ students across faith-based and non-faith-based settings in which higher education takes place. We propose to address a research gap by comparing LGBTQ+ students at Christian colleges, LGBTQ+ students at public institutions, and comparison groups of straight/cisgender students in both settings, through a mixed-methods, cross-sectional study with an anonymous survey and optional confidential follow-up interview.  With support from the planning grant we received from the CCCU this past year, we completed a pilot study with two institutions, one a private Christian college and the other a public university.  Our proposed research will expand to include several more private Christian colleges and several more public universities so that we have an adequate number of LGBTQ+ and straight/cisgender participants to conduct the relevant analyses with comparison groups and to help us understand mental health disparities that may exist, as well as potential mitigating factors that may contribute to reduced risk across different educational settings. Our proposed research will reflect Christian perspectives in care for underserved and marginalized populations, as well as a Christian view of persons whose health is related to a cohesive view of self in relation to God and others. We hope to identify potential sources of mental health disparities, and to draw on the strengths of Christian colleges and universities in caring for the whole person in education and student development. We believe this research project will generate a number of deliverables that will benefit the larger academy through dialogue partnerships and improved student care across public and private institutions. We anticipate we will find broad parameters that are respectful of conventional religiosity while emphasizing models of assisting LGBTQ+ students as they integrate their religious and spiritual identities in ways that mediate potential distress and facilitate well-being of the whole person.

Planning Grants

The Christian Home in Global Protestant Mission Thought and Practice, 1800-2000

Anneke Stasson
Project Director
Associate Professor of Humanities and History
Indiana Wesleyan University, IN

Leanne Dzubinski
Associate Professor of Intercultural Education and Studies
Biola University, CA

Soojin Chung
Director of Intercultural Studies and Assistant Professor Intercultural Studies
California Baptist University, CA

A growing body of literature addresses Christian mission and domesticity. Still, few studies describe efforts by nonwestern Christians to spread an ideology of “the Christian home.” By analyzing books, conferences, and radio broadcasts prepared by Christian leaders in twentieth-century Asia, our study will begin to fill that gap in the literature. In America, “the Christian home” tends to signify an ideology of “male headship” and “female submission,” but leaders of a Christian Home movement in Asia tended to speak of marriage in terms of equality, partnership, and self-expression and to see the Christian home as a place of healing from the social disruption caused by colonial encounters and urbanization. Women missionaries established relationships with local women and subversively created spaces for communication and solidarity. In so doing, they weakened the gendered constructs of Confucian relationalism by presenting wives as partners with, rather than subject to, their husbands. By highlighting nonwestern perspectives on the Christian home, our study debunks the notion of Victorian normativity that has hitherto dominated academic discourse about Christian mission and domesticity. We argue that Christian reflection on home life constituted a significant and as yet underappreciated expression of contextual theology during the twentieth century.

The Gender Identity & Faith Project

Mark Yarhouse
Project Director
Professor of Psychology
Wheaton College, IL

Stephen Stratton
Professor of Counseling & Pastoral Care
Asbury Seminary, KY

Janet Dean
Associate Professor of Psychology
Asbury University, KY

We are in the midst of an important cultural moment around the issues of norms for sex and gender and also care for gender diverse persons. Discourse is heated and polarizing public policies may undermine care for people navigating gender identity questions. Our project is intended to extend the Christian academy’s voice to model and inform charitable public discourse bridging religious communities on one side and LGBTQ+ supporters on the other, with language valuing both conventional religiosity and diverse gender identities. Our proposed long-term project is to build upon a two-year pilot study to launch a larger, mixed-methods study to assess the experience of gender diverse students and to identify variables contributing to emotional and spiritual growth and well-being. We will study whether religiosity is a protective factor or risk factor for transgender and gender questioning persons, as well as the extent to which self-acceptance mediates the role of religiosity and social support on psychological health. The research team will build upon their experience in LGBTQ+ studies and their reputation beyond the Christian academy to generate and disseminate models for improving dialogue in which gender identity, religious identity, and the relationship between these two are taken seriously.

Initiative Grants

Between Pandemic and Protest: Exploring the Future of the Liberal Arts in Higher Education

Noah Toly
Project Director
Professor of Urban Studies and Politics and International Relations   Wheaton College, IL

Jeffrey Bilbro
Associate Professor of English
Grove City College, PA

Kristin Kobes du Mez
Professor of History
Calvin University, MI

David Henreckson
Raquet Endowed Director’s Chair, Institute for Leadership and Service (Religion)
Valparaiso University, IN

Jonathan Tran
George W. Baines Professor of Religion
Baylor University, TX

Jessica Hooten  Wilson
Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence (Literature)
University of Dallas, TX

COVID-19 has been apocalyptic for higher education, and indeed for our nation as a whole. It has intensified pressures already threatening liberal arts education: concerns over the cost of college, particularly for majors without clear career outcomes; the popularity of professional degrees with large numbers of required credits; the push for badges or micro-credentials as alternatives to a four-year degree; declining birth rates; the growth of online programs and other hybrid forms of “content delivery.” Concerns over the practicality of the liberal arts intensify ongoing questions about the very idea of moral formation central to this tradition. And within our nation, the pandemic has exacerbated preexisting inequalities and racial injustice. Pandemic conditions have fueled a surprisingly robust protest movement that is powerfully, and inspiringly, raising questions too often ignored by Christian educators. These are particularly pressing issues for Christian colleges and universities, which situate career preparation, moral formation, and critical inquiry within a broader vision for spiritual vocation. This project gathers faculty from a variety of Christian institutions to lead conversations regarding the enduring relevance of the liberal arts. Participants will lead video and audio conversations with a variety of stakeholders—including students, faculty, administrators, and residence life leaders—over the course of the coming academic year. The 2020-2021 academic year will likely prove an inflection point for higher education as the coronavirus pandemic and #BlackLivesMatters protests accentuate financial difficulties and surface mission ambiguities. Might it be a tipping point in a positive direction, as institutions seek to better equip students for the complexities facing them? Our conversations will enable colleges and universities across the country to learn from one another in addressing these challenges and opportunities, and they will encourage these institutions to draw on the rich heritage of the liberal arts tradition, while acknowledging its historical limitations, in shaping their responses. We will launch a website this fall to host such discussions while these events unfold. In the summer of 2021, we will then convene a public conference to digest what we have learned. The following year we will continue hosting online conversations while also preparing a book manuscript for publication. Our audience will include those within higher education—faculty, administrators, and residence life leaders—as well as prospective students and their parents. Our goal is to think and talk in public about the enduring value of the liberal arts for the particular concerns and challenges of our time.

Flourishing Congregations in Canada

Michael Wilkinson
Project Director
Professor of Sociology
Trinity Western University, BC, Canada

Mark Chapman
Associate Professor of Research Methods and Director of Doctoral Ministry Program
Tyndale University and Seminary, ON, Canada

Catherine Holtmann
Assistant Professor of Sociology
University of New Brunswick, NB, Canada

Sam Reimer
Professor of Sociology
Crandall University, NB, Canada

Kathleen Steeves
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Trinity Western University, BC, Canada

Joel Thiessen
Professor of Sociology
Ambrose University, AB, Canada

Human and institutional flourishing is an area of interest among scholars and practitioners, especially in times of upheaval and social change. This project seeks to study flourishing congregations, notably, Catholic, Mainline Protestant, and evangelical Protestant churches in Canada. Two questions shape our study on flourishing congregations: (1) What are the mechanisms, pathways and processes that contribute to congregational flourishing? (2) How does congregational flourishing intersect with individuals, neighborhoods, and organizations? By flourishing congregations we refer to the complex and nuanced interplay between the following: organizational ethos (self-identity, leadership, innovation, structure and process), internal attention (discipleship, engaged laity, hospitable community, diversity) and outward focus (neighborhood involvement, partnerships, evangelism). Case studies will allow us to analyze and assess the role of congregations for understanding the personal, organizational, and social well-being of communities. Congregations play an important role in serving communities and the people they interact with as sources of human, social, and spiritual capital. Research shows that when congregations flourish, its members and neighborhoods also flourish. This study will allow us to consider and evaluate the contribution congregations make to the flourishing of individuals in urban settings, small towns, families, and alongside other important civil society groups including social and human service agencies that partner with local congregations.

Does grace to the undeserving have social costs? Investigating the prevalence and observer perceptions of benevolent responses to offensive or toxic comments in online discourse

Alison Young Reusser
Project Director
Assistant Professor of Psychology
Houghton College, NY

Jonathan Case
Professor of Theology
Houghton College, NY

Lisa Gassin
Professor of Psychology
Olivet Nazarene University, IL

Kristian Veit
Professor of Psychology
Olivet Nazarene University, IL

Imagine you read a comment in an online forum you find deeply offensive. A second individual jumps in and, instead of criticizing the first commenter, she writes in an empathic tone, saying she understands where the first commenter is coming from even though they disagree. How might your view of this second individual change as a result of her empathic, benevolent approach? Would you evaluate her more positively? Or would you believe she is compromising, even endorsing the first commenter’s statement?  Research into one benevolent response to an offense, forgiveness, suggests that those who forgive may be seen by observers as somewhat weaker and less competent (e.g., in the case of romantic infidelity; Smith, Goode, Balzarini & Ryan, 2014) than those who take a stand (e.g., by leaving the offender). Further, if the offense impacts multiple victims, one victim who forgives may be evaluated by others as less benevolent toward them and as overclaiming their right to forgive (Raj, Wiltermuth, & Adams, 2019).  Our research program is aimed at exploring the impact of an online commenter’s expressions of benevolence (e.g., empathy, forgiveness, understanding, love, etc.) in response to online conflict on observers’ evaluations of that commenter. Our plan is to use a mixed-methods approach with exploratory sequential and explanatory sequential elements with the following phases: (1) a “big data” investigation of large text corpuses from online discussion fora/comment sections (e.g., reddit, YouTube, etc.) using machine learning to understand the prevalence of benevolent responses to conflict; (2) focus group and individual interviews to evaluate the context and personal experience of benevolent responses to online conflict; (3) informed by the previous phases, development and administration of a quantitative survey to a large, diverse online sample to understand observer responses to a benevolent commenter (in terms of, e.g., evaluations, perceived competence, perceived benevolence toward observers, overclaiming the right to act benevolently), as well as (4) a quantitative experiment manipulating the benevolence/punitiveness of a response and investigating how that response impacts observers’ attitudes toward the responder. Our final step (5) will be to follow up with an explanatory qualitative study to explain any interesting or unexpected findings from previous phases. This research will involve student collaboration and will be disseminated at international, national and regional conferences. One or more manuscripts will be submitted to high-quality, peer-reviewed journals in the fields of psychology and communication.

Planning Grants

Understanding the Impact of Displacement on Women Refugees in Europe

Jamie Sanchez
Project Director
Assistant Professor, Intercultural Studies
Biola University, CA

Mandy Baraka
Assistant Professor, Counselor Education and Supervision
Huntington University, IN

Laura Dryjanska
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Biola University, CA

By the end of 2017, more than 68.5 million people had been displaced from their homes, either as internally displaced persons or as refugees, due to violent conflict, persecution, famine, or natural disasters (Braithwaite, Salehyan, & Savun, 2018). This project seeks to understand the impact of such displacement on women refugees throughout Europe. While there is a growing amount of literature throughout several different disciplines in the academy about the topic of refugees, broadly speaking, there is little research conducted on understanding the impact that displacement has on women refugees. The proposed long-term project seeks to fill the academic gap while producing research that is helpful to practitioners who work with NGOs, government agencies, and refugee agencies.  The team will conduct qualitative field research gathering data from women who have been displaced from their homes and relocated to Europe. The grant team is comprised of three Christian female scholars which provides a unique positionality for this project. As Christian scholars in the field of cultural studies, counselor education, and psychology, there will be particular focus on themes of human agency, the role of worldview in crisis, identity and human flourishing.

Initiative Grants

Religion and the pueblo in the aftermath of Hurricane María

Julianne Bryant
Project Director
Associate Professor, Spanish
Biola University, CA

Melanie Nyhof
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Northwestern College, IA

Eundria Hill-Joseph
Assistant Professor, Sociology
Biola University, CA

Jennifer Abe
Senior Research Associate
Loyola Marymount University, CA

Eliezer Ronda Pagán
Pastor
Iglesia Cristiana (Discípulos de Cristo) Metropolitana, PR

Abstract
Religion has been shown to provide a forward focus, beyond one’s current circumstances and, thus, create an empowering and unifying function.  Various studies demonstrate a correlation between religion and positive coping and resiliency following stressful or traumatic events, some even measuring posttraumatic growth.  This understanding has informed the scientific study of religion in dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster, an emerging and growing field of inquiry.  Many resources have been developed to encourage the integration of religious and spiritual elements in disaster relief efforts.  And current research has supported the benefits of positive religious and spiritual care in disaster survivors.  However, studies examining spiritual and emotional care in practice are very limited.  Even fewer are investigations within actual church communities.  This study proposes to investigate how religion has influenced the spiritual and emotional care of the people of Puerto Rico following Hurricane María in three specific religious communities in San Juan and Caguas, Puerto Rico.  We define spiritual and emotional care as any intervention that mitigates distress and promotes emotional health and well-being.  Specifically, we seek to investigate: • How have clergy provided spiritual and emotional care for community members? • How have clergy experienced spiritual and emotional care? • How have community members experienced spiritual and emotional care? • How have other church staff/community members provided spiritual and emotional care to each other?  Examining these multiple church communities, using mixed-methods (both qualitative and quantitative) approaches and involving both clergy and community members as co-researchers we will better understand how religion has influenced their spiritual and emotional care in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.  With this new understanding we will be able to isolate variables and develop models for practitioners that may contribute to a more culturally sensitive practice.  This knowledge will also contribute to theory building, as the development of robust theories that are able to guide practice in the field of Disaster Spiritual and Emotional Care are only beginning to appear.    Our multi-disciplinary research team is a unique and valuable aspect to this proposed project.  Not only do the investigators represent the fields of Hispanic Sociolinguistics, Clinical Psychology, Developmental Psychology and Sociology, but they each have engaged in multi-disciplinary training and experience within their own fields.  This will allow us to bring diverse perspectives to the study and to disseminate the findings to a wider audience, thus increasing the overall impact of the study of religion within the social sciences.

Planning Grants

The Music of Social Protest: An Intersection of Politics and Faith in Latin America

Nestor Quiroa
Project Director
Associate Professor of Spanish
Wheaton College, IL

Wilfredo Canales
Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American Culture
Department of Modern Languages
Olivet Nazarene University, IL

Lindy Scott
Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies
Whitworth University, WA

Gretchen Abernathy
Translator and Editor
Freelance Consultant

Abstract
“These songs are sung today, they were sung yesterday. They will be sung forever.” With this proclamation Miguel Ángel Asturias, Guatemalan Nobel Laureate in Literature, expressed his admiration for the first collection of Latin American social protest songs, compiled by the Italian Meri Franco-Lao in 1968. Asturias’ prophetic statement reveals the significance of this musical genre in the history and culture of Latin America. Nevertheless, Latin American social protest music has not received the attention from the academic world in the United States that it deserves. We believe that this neglect is due to two main reasons. The secular academic might feel awkward or ill-prepared to address the faith elements alluded to in most of these songs. The religious academician might feel that the songs’ themes of exile, justice, freedom, and shalom are too “liberationist” or revolutionary for Christian students accustomed to a more “feel-good” faith. This project responds to this academic reticence by situating Latin American social protest songs in their historical, social, and religious contexts as well as exploring the themes that emerge in light of biblical teaching.

Creative Dance to Foster Resilience in K-12 At-Risk Youth

Emily Wright
Project Director
Associate Professor of Dance
Belhaven University, MS

Sally Schwer Canning
Professor of Psychology
Wheaton College, IL

Merry Lynn Morris
Assistant Director of Dance Program
University of South Florida, FL

Laura Morton
Associate Professor of Dance
Belhaven University, MS

Bradford Smith
Director, Institute for International Care and Counsel Belhaven University, MS

Abstract
Considerable evidence supports a link between adverse childhood experiences and long-term negative outcomes (Taylor, Way, and Seeman, 2011), yet, not all children and adolescents who experience chronic stressors develop problems due to what is termed resilience (McLaughlin, K. and Lambert, H., 2017). Recent research from the National Organization of Arts in Health demonstrates that creative arts therapies contribute to resilience in diverse populations (Lambert, Betts, Rollins, Sonke & Swanson, 2017). This project seeks to cultivate resilience through a creative dance intervention by: (1) developing a workshop model that investigates the resilience-building potential of creative dance for K-12 at-risk youth in the Stewpot Community Services After-school program in Jackson, Mississippi; and (2) utilizing methodological approaches that further contribute to resilience by employing a research design that situates participants as co-researchers and cultivates skills in cooperation, empowerment, agency, creativity, relationship-building, and community development through a collaborative dance-making project. The core activity of the planning stage is the gathering of the research team in Jackson for a shared experience of relationship development and learning with Stewpot Community Services staff and West Jackson community members. This workshop model could provide a framework for developing effective, low cost, and scalable approaches for other contexts.

Initiative Grants

Reexamining Evangelical Populism and Evangelical Internationalism

Kevin den Dulk
Project Director
Professor of Political Science
Calvin College, MI

Robert Joustra
Associate Professor of Politics & International Studies
Redeemer University College, Ontario, Canada

Dennis Hoover Editor (political science)
The Review of Faith & International Affairs

Abstract
In contemporary scholarship and popular discourse two starkly different narratives are common regarding the role of evangelical Protestant Christianity in American global engagement generally and U.S. foreign policy specifically: evangelical populism versus evangelical internationalism. The former narrative pictures evangelicalism, especially in its various fundamentalist and charismatic expressions, as comprising the bedrock religious constituency for right-wing populism and associated ideologies of nationalism and nativism. The latter narrative asserts a growing trend of “new internationalism” among many evangelical leaders and institutions, especially over matters of religious liberty, humanitarian aid, immigration, and global health. Despite the prominence of these conflicting narratives, however, we know relatively little about their intersections, breadth of acceptance, and current and future trend lines. There is a need for empirical research to better measure and estimate the extent to which contemporary American evangelicalism actually fits either (or both) of these narratives, as well as evangelical approaches to world affairs that fit neither of the narratives. Too often the lack of nuanced and fine-grained research enables simplistic paradigms and misleading characterizations to go unchallenged, both within academia and in policy and media discourse more broadly. Deepening and clarifying our assumptions about evangelical international engagement is particularly important in this moment of great normative debate over the political role of evangelicals—a debate that often focuses on domestic policy and politics and neglects the complexity of faith in international affairs. This project will address these needs for empirical research through a series of convenings and publications bringing together leading scholars from multiple institutions (within the CCCU and broader networks) and from multiple disciplines. The principal methodologies that will be employed in this collaborative scholarship are (1) historical analysis, (2) survey data analysis, (3) media studies, and (4) interest group and party organization studies. The consortium of scholars will build on existing research and fill gaps, with particular emphasis on research approaches that integrate studies of both leadership and laity within evangelicalism. Through a series of articles in two separate journals with wide readerships, both in the scholarly guild and among attentive practitioners, we hope to engage scholars and political professionals, Christian and non-Christian alike, over the research findings.

Shaping Citizenship: Christian Institutions and Youth in Africa

Megan Hershey
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
Whitworth University, WA

Tracy Kuperus
Project Director
Professor and Director
International Development Studies Program
Calvin College, MI

Amy Patterson
Professor
Department of Politics
Sewanee University of the South, TN

Abstract
This project explores the relationship between Christian institutions and youth citizenship in Africa. African youth, comprising over 30 percent of the continent’s population, face a precarious socioeconomic environment with high levels of poverty, yet they also constitute a growing number of African Christians and a key political group. We analyze Christian institutions such as ecumenical bodies, para-church organizations, and faith-based organizations across denominational lines. Defining citizenship as actions (e.g., voting and volunteering) and norms that promote those actions (e.g., responsibility and reciprocity), we address three significant questions: (1) How do Christian institutions shape citizenship norms and behaviors among African youth? (2) How do Christian institutions prioritize citizenship norms and behaviors, depending on gender? (3) How do these Christian efforts influence how youth themselves understand citizenship and act on that understanding?

Both the literature on African politics and religion and the scholarship on African youth have ignored these questions. Our project addresses this omission through its comparative analysis of countries that all have Christian majorities, but varying levels of democratic governance: South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia. Recognizing youth as a heterogenous group, we adopt a multimethod approach to examine the complexities of gender, nationality, and citizenship. In 2018, we will statistically analyze Afrobarometer data on religiosity and youth political engagement to generate broad findings. In 2019, each scholar will travel to a different country to interview national church officials about youth and citizenship and to conduct a case study of a faith-based organization that trains youth on citizenship. The case studies will include a pre- and post-training questionnaire, participant observation, and focus group discussions with participants, segregated by gender. To deepen the analysis, and to isolate the effects of the trainings, we will also conduct focus group discussions with youth who have not participated in these trainings.

The project reflects the belief that Christian institutions have the potential to foster good governance and promote human flourishing, and our work will inform Christian efforts in these areas. Our attention to the voices of Christian youth will innovatively enhance knowledge on the complexities of religion and politics in Africa.

Supplemental Grant

Multi-institutional Campus Safety and Preventing Misconduct Project

Nathan Tintle
Project Director
Professor of Statistics
Dordt College, IA

Kristin Van De Griend
Adjunct instructor of Social Work; Research Associate
Dordt College, IA

James R. Vanderwoerd
Professor of Social Work
Redeemer University College, Ontario, Canada

Abstract
Recently, a study conducted in Canadian Christian colleges revealed that more than 20% of female students had experienced sexual violence in the previous 12 months, numbers in line with national surveys of secular colleges and universities which claim that as many as one in four women will survive a completed or attempted rape while in college. Intimate partner, including dating violence, and sexual violence have numerous adverse consequences on well-being, including education, employment, and long-term psychological well-being. Evidence shows that violence prevention education programs can reduce the incidence of sexual violence. To be most effective, prevention programs need to be multi-level and be created by experts in multiple disciplines. A majority of prevention programs are secular programs that may have less efficacy on Christian campuses than one created with a Christian framework. The aims of this project are to 1) better understand, through survey validation, the experiences and prevalence of sexual misconduct and harassment, dating violence, and stalking on college campuses; 2) examine the approaches used by Christian faculty and staff to uniquely and compassionately respond in these situations; and 3) develop a pilot, multi-level violence prevention program that builds on the unique Christian approaches already taken in order to better address campus safety and misconduct on our campuses, in a scalable and quantitatively effective manner that is relevant for both Christian and non-Christian campuses alike.

Planning Grants

Religious Communities as a Social Support Source for Children and Families Experiencing Stressful Life Events

Robert Crosby
Project Director
Assistant Professor of Psychology,
Online and Professional Studies
California Baptist University

Erin Smith
Assistant Professor of Psychology
California Baptist University

Leon Blanchette
Chair of Christian Ministries
Olivet Nazarene University

Gregory Palardy
Associate Professor of Education
University of California

Abstract
Social support is crucial to the well-being of children because it mitigates the negative effects of stressful life events. Children’s social support research generally focuses on support received at home and in school, but many children do not receive support from these conventional sources. Given the enduring presence of religion in the USA, some authors suggest that religious communities, such as churches, are a potential source of social support for children and families. However, this line of research is relatively new and still somewhat limited in scope and impact. The purpose of this study is to build on this growing body of research to (1) determine whether churches are a viable and significant source of social support to children and families and (2) to identify the characteristics of churches that are most supportive. The sample will consist of school-aged children, their parents, and the children’s church program leaders in 30 diverse churches. Using a multi-level modeling approach, we will determine the church-level variables most strongly associated children and parents’ supportive experiences. In addition to contributing to the social development literature, the findings will inform practice for those seeking to identify and foster supportive social networks for children in stressful situations.

Effectiveness of Approaches to Exposing Engineering Students to Service

Michael Foster
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
George Fox University

Gary Spivey
Professor of Electrical Engineering
George Fox University

Justin Vander Werff
Associate Professor of Engineering
Dordt College

Gayle Ermer
Professor of Engineering
Calvin College

Brian Swartz
Associate Professor of Engineering
Messiah College

Norman Reese
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Technology
LeTourneau University

William Jordan
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Baylor University

Abstract
Service is a key area of praxis for the Christian faith, and the engineering programs in the CCCU have taken a variety of approaches to expose students to service through engineering. This grant will support the examination of the effectiveness of several approaches. This research will identify effective strategies for teaching engineering with a service-oriented pedagogy. Several approaches are already in use, but their impact has not been carefully studied. An intentional planning process is needed to develop sound assessment practices to compare learning gains made across several institutions that employ different educational strategies. A small scale pilot study conducted at one institution relied primarily on student survey results. Those survey will need to be generalized for use across multiple institutions and re-validated. Once the data is obtained, the grant writers will partner with undergraduate students to analyze the results and draw conclusions. The outcomes will provide each participating institution with insight into their own programs. In addition, the partnership across multiple institutions facilitates idea sharing and improved strategies for each involved.

Christianity, Youth, and Democratic Citizenship in Africa

Tracy Kuperus
Project Director
Professor
Calvin College

Megan Hershey
Assistant Professor
Whitworth University

Amy Patterson
Carl Biehl Professor of International Affairs
University of the South

Abstract
This project investigates the role of Christian organizations in fostering citizenship among African youth. Despite the advance of democratization in Africa since the 1990s, the sub-Saharan region demonstrates few instances of genuine liberal democracy. Indeed, many scholars are concerned about democracy’s stagnation since the mid-2000s. This struggle for democratic consolidation at least partially reflects the underdevelopment of a robust citizenship in Africa, where citizens have been relatively unwilling to participate in politics and to hold government accountable. In Africa’s increasingly undemocratic environment, youth have the potential to engage in civil unrest or to advance the continent’s democratic project. As a distinct and recognizable group in African politics and religious organizations, youth are crucial for the development of democratic citizenship, peaceful mobilization, socioeconomic development, and African Christianity. Through research with Christian organizations that work with youth on citizenship activities in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Zambia, we will investigate how religion may affect citizenship among young people. Using interviews, focus group discussions, participant observations, and survey data, we will explore how Christian organizations define citizenship, why they design citizenship projects for youth (if they do), and how these efforts shape young people’s citizenship attitudes and behaviors.

Initiative Grants

South Asian Christianity in Transition: Identity, Theological Education, and the Plight of the Marginal

Chandra Mallampalli
Project Director
Professor of History
Westmont College

Dr Dyron Daughrity
Professor of Religion
Pepperdine University

Abstract
In recent decades, developments in global Christianity have attracted increased scholarly attention. An important but often overlooked dimension of this scholarship is South Asian Christianity. Religious transformations among Indian, Nepalese, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan Christians present critical insights concerning religious identities, the plight of marginal peoples and responses of theological education. By bringing these topics into dialogue with literature on global Christianity, this project will enhance our understanding of this vital dimension of the global church, while engaging in fruitful comparative analysis with other regional studies.

Our research project examines three distinct but related aspects of the church in South Asia: first, the heated debate over religious conversion; second, the response of theological education to changing economic and socio-political contexts; and third, the predominant role of marginal groups – specifically Dalit (outcaste) and Tribal communities in southern, central, and North East India. The goals of the study are to a) produce two scholarly monographs relating to South Asian Christianity, b) host an international workshop on religious conversion at a participating CCCU college with an aim to publish the proceedings as an edited volume, and c) establish mutually enriching ties between CCCU affiliated institutions in the United States and institutions of higher learning—both Christian and secular—in South Asia. As well-established scholars of history and religious studies (with strong records of research and publication on South Asian Christianity), the team members of this project, Chandra Mallampalli of Westmont College and Dyron Daughrity of Pepperdine University will bring interdisciplinary approaches to the project’s key areas of study.

At the heart of this initiative are Christian practices tied to the mission of the gospel in South Asia and empathy for the persecuted Christians there. We seek to cultivate supportive and encouraging bonds of Christian fellowship with South Asian Christians who are facing hostility and increased marginalization, particularly within the present climate of Hindu nationalism. By nurturing ties with theological institutions in South Asia, we intend to offer our support and expertise to those seeking to connect with scholars on the outside. Their stories, in turn, will enrich our understanding of the lived experiences of fellow believers, and inform the scholarship we will produce for the broader academy. By advancing research on the topics addressed in this proposal, we hope to stimulate new avenues for advocacy and support for Christians living in times of persecution and duress.

Informed compassion: how faith shapes decisions in Christian relief

Michael Veatch
Project Director
Professor of Mathematics
Gordon College

Danilo Dierdichs
Assistant professor of Mathematics
Wheaton College

Paul Isihara
Assistant professor of Mathematics
Wheaton College

Jarrod Goentzel
Director, MIT Humanitarian Response Lab
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Abstract
Faith-based organizations (FBOs) play an increasing role in responding to humanitarian crises. While FBO involvement has been scrutinized, this study asks the unique question of how Christian perspectives influence the planning and implementation of disaster relief. With the increased sophistication of humanitarian relief efforts, it is timely to ask how FBOs compare with other organizations in their shared mission of delivering relief, and where FBOs can make unique contributions.

Response to a major disaster involves rapid movement of people and supplies. The logistics (procurement and transport of goods) can easily be 80% of the total expenditures. The response takes place in a challenging environment, with limited resources, life and death decisions, uncertainty about needs, and limited or damaged infrastructure. Our thesis is that the decisions made by Christian organizations about how they respond to a crisis can, and should, be affected by their unique values. We consider two levels of decision-making. At a higher level, FBOs must establish resource allocation goals involving categories, populations and locations. Then, detailed decisions turn goals into the movement of resources through the supply chain to the beneficiaries. Both of these involve tradeoffs, and the tradeoffs made reflect values.

A quantitative approach will be taken to measure the preferences of FBOs for different outcomes and to model how these values lead to decisions in the process of disaster response. A comparison with other organizations will also be undertaken. First, logisticians at these organizations will be surveyed about their detailed logistics decisions and organizational values. To demonstrate how these values can shape a response, a model will be developed for a large FBO that incorporates their values to optimize a logistical response. Second, conjoint analysis will assess the preferences of FBO decision-makers, including the higher level of resource allocation. These preferences will then be used in a decision analysis to illustrate how a second NGO’s resource allocation decisions can incorporates these preferences. A framework will be developed describing the decisions and potential outcomes. Both studies will seek to demonstrate how distinctive Christian values are incorporated in their decisions and how their planning could be better aligned with their organizational values. To focus our study, we consider U.S.-based Christian FBOs responding to a disaster with significant logistics.

Planning Grants

Christian Voices in Musicology

Timothy H. Steele
Project Director
Associate Professor of Music
Calvin College

Johann Buis
Professor of Music
Wheaton College

Stanley Pelkey
Assistant Professor of Music
Western Michigan University

Abstract

There is a significant need for Christian music scholars to address issues raised by major reorientation in the discipline of musicology since the 1980s: what music counts for study, analysis and critical reflection, and what place has the particular identity of the musicologist in her orientation to research and in the shaping of critical observations and theoretical frameworks.  The members of the planning team propose to initiate a research project that will engage in path-breaking work on these core questions of the discipline.  Varied approaches to this task have already been discussed among the team members, including a thematic approach that would address specific issues and motivate particular research projects.  Suggested themes include the formation of musical identity, the nature of musical meaning, the relationship of music to recent critical thought about human embodiment, and human creativity in the midst of relationship and community.  Questions to be asked include, “What musicological work might be prompted by Christian concern for social justice?” and “How ought musicologists to confront the problem of evil?”  As scholars with deep Christian convictions, we intend to explore these themes and others as ways of interacting with and responding to the assumptions that have shaped musicology over the last twenty years, recognizing that although music has been the subject of much Christian thinking there is no clear framework or set of scholarly agendas for Christian musicologists.  Our proposal for this planning grant is to create the context within which we can explore various perspectives and achieve a clear focus for the extended research project we will propose following the planning period.  We anticipate meeting on two occasions for intensive discussion of the project and for refinement of the Initiative Grant proposal.  These meetings will take place in the early summer and autumn of 2008.  We envision the larger project for which this it the planning stage to result in a book of essays and conference presentations by members of the project team and additional contributors.

Towards a Christian Conception of the State’s Role in Creation Care

John L. Hiemstra
Project Director
Professor of Political Science
The King’s University College

John R. Wood
Academic Dean
Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies
Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies
The King’s University College

Jonathan P. Chaplin
Director
Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, Tyndale House, Cambridge

Abstract

Contemporary environmental crises are sending churches and Christian NGOs to the Christian scholarly community for guidance on, and understanding of, the state’s role in creation care.  Many Christian traditions address issues of faith and politics, but have done little sustained reflection on the nature of the state’s and government’s role in society.  When addressing environmental questions, they often utilize ethical approaches that give little direction on the distinctive task of the state in creation care.  Roman Catholic and Reformed traditions have produced in-depth philosophical reflection on the state’s role but little directly on the state’s role in creation care.  Furthermore, many mainstream secular approaches to the state’s role on the environment no longer seem to work, for example, the environmental movements’ failure to achieve significant governmental action on global warming.  Critics attribute this failure in part to the underlying Enlightenment liberal assumptions of the dominant view of government.  The Christian communities with traditions of reflecting on the state’s role are in an excellent position to contribute to the renewal and deepening of faith-based and mainstream reflection on the state’s role in creation care.  This is so precisely because they have the experience and approaches required to engage the deeper religious and philosophical roots of these questions as well as theories that acknowledge the complex, plural structure of society.  Our research network will make an interdisciplinary contribution to the development of a Christian framework for understanding the state’s role in creation care.

American Pentecostalism’s Engagement with Race and Ethnicity: Historical Realities and Theological Perspectives

Dr. Arlene M. Sanchez Walsh
Project Director
Associate Professor, Haggard School of Theology, Azusa Pacific University

Dr. Paul Alexander
Professor of Theology and Ethics
Asuza Pacific University

Dr. Anthea Butler
Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
University of Rochester

Abstract

As Pentecostalism enters its 2nd American century, one of its critical issues will be how it continues to function as a multicultural entity.  The purpose of this planning group is to grapple with the historical and theological issues embedded in the overarching theme.  The eventual outcome of this planning group’s work will be to collaborate with interested clergy and other academics in producing work relevant to local churches as it will challenge the historiographical trend in American Pentecostal history that suggests that racial inclusion evident in the early years of the movement was evidence of a sustained effort towards racial equality.

This collaboration will lay the groundwork for producing work relevant to the local church and denominations presented by our clergy.  We also hope to provide proscriptive solutions to help American Pentecostalism manage the inevitable demographic shift to help dominant white majority movement to a movement coming closer to demographic parity.  We want to argue that the current problems of race/ ethnicity in Pentecostalism are traceable to the very roots of the movement.  We also want to break with the black/ white dichotomy that has marked much of the debate and acknowledge that issues of race/ ethnicity in American Pentecostalism are not simply products of a white dominant culture suppressing people of color, but in fact, of people of color often suppressing each other, especially in the late 20th and early 21st century urban centers where African Americans, Latinos, and Asians often compete for scarce goods, services, and compete in a complex religious marketplace.  As theologians, we want to offer a broader view of the ethical dimensions of personhood, of abuses of power and again bring the Pentecostal church to a reckoning with its multicultural realities and offer a suitable pneumatology for how the church can be truly multicultural and not just a gathering place for diverse peoples.

Initiative Grants

Christian Reasoning

Jens Zimmermann
Project Director
Professor of English and CRC Chair for Interpretation, Religion and Culture
Trinity Western University

Tony Cummins
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
Trinity Western University

Matthew Levering
Associate Professor of Theology
Ave Maria University

Judith Toronchuk
Assistant Professor of Psychology and Chair, Research Ethics Board
Trinity Western University

Merold Westphal
Distinguished Professor of Philosophy
Fordham University

Holger Zaborowski
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Catholic University of America

Abstract

The project Christian Reasoning examines and seeks to substantiate the intrinsic role religion plays in human existence and public life.  In the current dispute whether religion is the problem or the solution to the most pressing global concerns such as terrorism, tribal wars, the social cohesion of Western societies, and the relation between religion and science, reflection on the nature of reason has emerged as the most fundamental issue.  In seeking to address this foundational problematic, the proposed research initiative pursues two distinct goals.

The first goal is to examine and show to what extent religion is constitutive for the very nature of human reason as such.  Despite a major shift away from scientific rationalism in academic circles, religion continues to be relegated by many to the private, even irrational sphere of human existence.  Against this lingering separation of faith and reason, our first research track focuses on the extent to which human perception, knowledge, understanding, and learning- in short, human reasoning- require the central religious elements of personal relation, tradition and belief.  The collaborative philosophical (phenomenological and hermeneutical), social, and empirical research seeks to answer this question in the affirmative by drawing mainly on the Christian tradition but also on different faith traditions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism).

Assuming a defining role of religion for human reasoning and public life, the second goal of this project us to articulate a specifically Christian understanding of human reasoning in response to current fears that particular religious convictions should be excluded from public life because they inevitably result in conflict and violence.  Our research will address the seeming impasse between a recognition of the much publicized “return of religion” on the one hand, and a continuing public fear of religion as bigoted intolerance on the other.  More specifically, this research phase will examine:

• The dependency of cultural and religious relativism (i.e. “all religions are the same”) on a rationalist view of truth and the need for a different approach to comparing and assessing particular religions
• Compatibility of scientific and religious accounts of human rationality
• The relationship between reason, identity, religion and culture
• The importance of interpretation as intrinsic to any religion’s theological ability to separate church and state
• The relationship between revelation and reason, including the role of sacred texts, tradition and interpretation in the mediation of divine revelation
• The relationship between religious conceptions of law and reason.

Religious Worldview, Ego Identity, and Attachment: Necessary Strengths for Navigating the Challenges of Emerging Adulthood

Kaye V. Cook
Project Director
Professor, Psychology
Gordon College

Cynthia N. Kimball
Associate Professor, Psychology
Wheaton College

Kelly S. Flanagan
Assistant Professor, Psychology
Wheaton College

Kathleen C. Leonard
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development
Tufts University

Chris J. Boyatzis
Consultant
Associate Professor, Psychology
Bucknell University

Abstract

Emerging adulthood is a distinctive era of development.  Arnett (2000) has highlighted three areas of unique challenge during emerging adulthood, marked by changes in one’s worldview, sense of self, and relationships with others.  We will explore how strengths in these areas help individuals navigate the challenges that accompany a frequent and increasingly common transition of emerging adulthood: graduation from college.  Because Christian colleges self-consciously desire to graduate students with coherent religious worldviews that affect one’s entire life, and we can measure their religiosity, we focus on the worldview of those graduating from Christian colleges.  We believe that a stable worldview, a solid sense of self, and secure relationships with parents and others in the face of challenges best prepare emerging adults to manage the stresses of this uncertain time.  We hope to use this information to contribute to the larger literature on emerging adulthood and to help Christian colleges to nurture and strengthen the faith of their graduates.

The research will consist of two phases.  In Phase I, we will survey 60 graduating seniors and 60 two-year alumni from each of the two Christian colleges, for a total of 240 participants.  We will more extensively interview 20 graduating seniors and 20 two-year alumni from each context.  In Phase II, we will interview the same participants, using comparable measures, two years later.  We thus use cross-sequential analyses to allow us to draw conclusions about development and coping over a four-year period.  The data consists of surveys and open-ended questions designed to explore religiosity, sense of self, and relationships with others. Data will be examined by regression analyses using religiosity (intrinsic, extrinsic, quest, perceived similarity with the larger context, perceived faith support, and stability of belief), ego identity status, and attachment measures to predict to our outcome measures, as well as by ANOVA analyses of age differences in the same measures.  Outcome measures include participants’ total stress, perceived stress, balance between stress and coping methods, and satisfaction with life and faith.  Reponses to open-ended questions will be coded by qualitative analysis.

The project will result in several outcomes: multiple presentations, multiple research papers submitted for publication or in process, and a book proposal and accompanying request for added funding.  In developing the project, particularly since this group of faculty has never worked together, we will also need to convene several team meetings.

The Aelfric of Eynsham Project

Aaron Kleist
Project Director
Co-Chair Department of English
Biola University

Sexuality, Coping, and Moral Decision-Making in Christian Adolescents

Kevin Reimer
Project Director
Professor of Graduate Psychology
Azusa Pacific University

A Christian Theoretical Framing for the Concepts of Religion, Spirituality and Culture in Healthcare

Barbara Pesut
Project Director
Associate Professor and Chair of Nursing
Trinity Western University

Bart Cusveller
Associate Professor of Ethics and Nursing
School of Nursing, Christian University Ede (The Netherlands)

Marsha Fowler
Professor of Ethics and Spirituality
Azusa Pacific University

Elizabeth Johnston Taylor
Associate Professor of Nursing
Loma Linda University

Sheryl Reimer-Kirkham
Associate Professor of Nursing
Trinity Western University

Abstract:

The purpose of this proposed networking project is to establish a Christian theoretical framing for the concepts and intersections of religion, spirituality and culture with a healthcare context. Issues of spirituality and culture have gained increasing attention in the healthcare literature over the past two decades. However, with this attention has emerged an increasingly politicized debate about the nature of these concepts. Religion and spirituality in particular are being re-defined. Spirituality has become a universal, inherently good, individualized concept while religion has been relegated to external rituals and beliefs, a social product of culture. What has emerged is a healthcare discourse that has produced vague, contentless spirituality, and a marginalized understanding of religion.

The reframing of these concepts has implications far beyond ideological discourse in the healthcare literature. Practical assessment and intervention frameworks to address spirituality from this perspective are being created and applied within healthcare contexts. Likewise, research instruments created within these understandings are being used to construct a knowledge base upon which healthcare is being shaped. A whole new generation of clinical nurses will be affected by programs and courses in spiritual care based on concepts and methods not necessarily in accord with the Christian worldview. Scholars have suggested that this “new” spirituality, rather than doing justice to the diversity and richness of spiritual perspectives, is having the reverse effect of erasing distinctions and producing an unintended hegemony in healthcare.

It is important for Christian scholars to respond to this evolving discourse with a Christian theoretical framing of these concepts. We propose bringing together a group of scholars from Canada, the United States, and the Netherlands with significant expertise in spirituality, religion and culture from a healthcare perspective to create this framing. We will do this through a series of meetings where we will first construct the framework and then through a small pilot study seek feedback from the broader Christian academy. This preliminary framework will then be published, but more importantly, will form the theoretical lens for a collaborative research grant proposal for an integrative theoretical work that will explore and analyze these concepts more broadly from the healthcare literature, contrasting them to the Christian theoretical framing. The work of this group will be groundbreaking in that rather than adopting the common approach of focusing on either religion/spirituality or religion/culture, the intersections of all three concepts will be explored, an area of scholarship that is not well developed in the healthcare literature.

The Forgotten Founders on Church and State

Mark Hall
Project Director
Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Political Science
George Fox University

Daniel Dreisbach
Professor, Department of Justice, Law, and Society
American University

Jeffry Morrison
Associate Professor of Political Science
Regent University

Abstract:

Over the last decade political scientists and historians have come to recognize better the important relationship between religion and politics. With respect to the founding era, they have argued persuasively that religion was far more influential than many twentieth-century scholars understood. Books like Barry Alan Shain’s The Myth of American Individualism: Protestant Origins of American Political Thought have painted a broad picture of how religion impacted the political theory and practices of the founding generation.

By necessity, scholars like Shain paint with broad strokes. If the role of religion in the founding era is to be more fully understood, students of the era must study individual founders more carefully. To be sucessful, such an examination requires a combination of critical scrutiny and a willingness to take religion seriously. This combination has been too rare among students of the founding. Dreisback, Morrison, and I have each authored such articles and books, and in 2004 we co-edited a collection of essays on the subject entitled The Founders on God and Government.

The Founders on God and Government focused on well-known figures such as George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. We now propose to bring together a group of scholars to study less-well-known but still significant founders. We will ask each participant to present a paper on a forgotten founder’s view of the proper relationship between religion and politics at a conference to be held at George Fox University in the spring of 2007. Papers delivered at this conference, as well as two previously published essays and a few additional papers, will be edited by the three applicants and published as a book.

We believe that this volume will meet an even greater need than The Founders on God and Government. Although students of the era will recognize the names of most of the individuals that we intend to cover, in many cases they know little else about them. As well, many of our proposed papers/chapters will be original works- often the first extended treatement of the profiled founder’s religious convictions and views of church-state relations. Altogether the conference and edited volume will help expand the scope of the discussion about what the founders thought about religion’s place in public life-a conversation that often centers on just two or three individuals.

Good Book and Holy Land: Historical Perspectives on Anglo-American Christians’ Critical Engagement with the Bible and the Middle East

Stephen Alter
Project Director
Associate Professor of History
Gordon College

Thomas Kidd
Assistant Professor of History
Baylor University

Timothy Larsen
Associate Professor of Theology
Wheaton College

Sarah Miglio
Doctoral student, Department of History
Notre Dame University

Project Consultants:
Bruce Kuklick
Professor of History
University of Pennsylvania

David Livingstone
Professor of Geography
Queen’s University (Belfast, Northern Ireland)

Abstract:

The past two centuries have seen steadily increasing interest on the part of British and American Christians in the Middle East. this interest, in turn, has influenced Christians’ self-perception. Critical Bible scholarship, Holy Land exploration, “Near Eastern” archaeology, foreign missions, and imperial diplomacy-these activities have raised the question of Christianity’s identity as a mainly western religion having its historical roots in a far-away region. Was the Land of the Book a source of ancient light and inspiration for modern Christians, or was it the site of Islamic “other,” a major challenge to Christianity as a world religion? This group of research projects has two foci: the history of Anglo-American Bible scholarship and of American perspectives on the Middle East and Islam. The common question is: How have Amerivan and victorian British Christian’s understanding of their faith and of biblical authority interacted with their perceptions of the Holy Land, its religions, and its on-going history?

Kant as Moral Realist: A New Interpretive Approach

Benjamin Lipscomb
Project Director
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Houghton College

Karl Ameriks
McMahon/Hank Professor of Philosophy
University of Notre Dame

John Hare
Noah Porter Professor of Philosophical Theology
Yale University

Andrew Chignell
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Cornell University

Patrick Frierson
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Whitman College

Lee Hardy
Professor of Philosophy
Calvin College

Patrick Kain
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Purdue University

James Krueger
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
University of Redlands

Houston Smit
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
University of Arizona

Rachel Zuckert
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Rice University

Abstract:
The Current, most popular reading of Kant features a fundamentally anti-realist, constructivist understanding of his moral philosophy (the view being that we create our moral obligations through rational deliberation). This reading poses specific challenges for Christians who find aspects of the Kantian view attractive, for it appears to leave little role for God in the moral universe. A few scholars, however, have challenged this dominant interpretation, arguing instead for a realist interpretation of Kant’s practical philosophy. Though the arguments of these scholars have not always been overtly religious, it is significant that the most prominent scholars advancing a realist interpretation are Christians (including, notably, Karl Ameriks and John Hare).

The aim of this project is to gather together a number of scholars who are sympathetic to a realist interpretation of Kant, including Hare and Ameriks, to explore the extent of their shared commitments and the possibilities for building upon one another’s work. The interactions of the research team will take the form, first, of an intense, week-long workshop in August 2005, and then, the following April, a nationally advertised conference. The conviction of the research team is that discussions at the workshop and conference, and informally between, will assist them in articulating and refining a realist interpretation of Kant’s practical philosophy. Out of the workshop and conference, an edited volume will take shape, intended both to define this alternative (on its own terms and in contrast to anti-realist views) and to situate it within the broader discourse of ethical theory.

This project is of particular importance for Christians both because it will, if successful, bring to light and develop a rich source for Christian ethical reflection , and because the project will involve, in one of its dimensions, renewed attention to the relationship between Kant’s writings on religion and on ethics. Anti-realist readings of Kant have achieved the dominance they enjoy, in part, by bracketing or marginalizing Kant’s religious writings. In short, the aim of the project is to develop and refine an alternative to the dominant interpretation of Kant’s practical philosophy, and to bring this alternative to the attention of scholars both in Kant studies and in contemporary ethical theory, prompting new reflection and perhaps, new openness to a moral outlook common to Kant and much of the Christian tradition.

Saint Paul’s Secular Destinies: A Critical Engagement

Douglas K. Harink
Project Director
Associate Professor of Theology
The King’s University College

Alexandra R. Brown
Professor of Religion
Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA

Jeffrey Dudiak
Associate Professor of Philosophy
the King’s University College

Chris Huebner
Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics
Canadian Mennonite University

P. Travis Kroeker
Professor of Religion
McMaster University

Mark Reasoner
Associate Professor Biblical Studies
Bethel University

Gordon Zerbe
Associate Professor of New Testament
Canadian Mennonite University

Abstract:
The apostle Paul has recently become the subject of serious study by a number of important Continental philosophers, among them Jaboc Taubes, Stanislaus Breton, Alain Badiou, Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Žižek. While these philosophers do not all share Paul’s theological convictions (although Breton is a Catholic philosopher; Taubes is Jewish), each finds in Paul’s mission and message something of critical, even constitutive, significance for the largely secular philosophies which they are developing. Paul is appropriated to address philosophical themes such as ontology, the ‘other,’ the ‘event,’ the nature of truth, the human subject, and the concepts of the apocalyptic and the messianic in political philosophy; and to engage socio-political themes such as social theory, the state, the market, capitalism, democracy, empire and globalization. Each of these philosophers write significant books and articles on the apostle (Badiou, Breton, Žižek), and even philosophical commentaries on Paul’s letters (Taubes, Agamben), as a way to give shape to their philosophies.

This project gathers a team of philosophers, theologians and Paul scholars for a critical engagement of this recent development in philosophy. Our aims are several:

• To accurately describe and map out the various philosophical and political appropriations of the work of Saint Paul, displaying common themes and sometimes sharp differences among them, and exploring connections to other historical and contemporary interpreters of Paul.
• To engage the readings of Paul by the philosophers from the perspective of current biblical scholarship on the apostle, asking 1) in what ways the Paul(s) of the philosophers are similar to and different from the Paul(s) of biblical scholarship; and 2) in what ways biblical scholarship on Paul might confirm, expand, deepen or reshape the readings of the philosophers.
• To explore how secular philosophical and political readings of Paul might provide Christian scholars with unexpected, valuable, even indispensable perspectives on the apostle which would further deepen and reconfigure Christian understandings and appropriations of Paul in contemporary philosophical and political discourse.
  Most importantly, to make our own fundamental contribution to the discourse among secularists, Christians and Jews over Saint Paul’s ongoing relevance for philosophical, social and political life in the modern worlds. We do so from en explicitly Christian perspective which affirms and participates in Paul’s own theological convictions.

We propose to meet these aims through team meetings, seminars with graduate and doctoral students and faculty, and, if further funding becomes available, a seminar/conference for the wider scholarly public. Results will be disseminated primarily in an edited volume published by a major university or other scholarly press. Conference papers, refereed publications, and possible other monographs are also envisaged.

The History and Sociology of the Protestant Missions Movement from the Global South

Paul Freston
Project Director
Byker Chair in Christian Perspectives on Political, Social, and Economic Thought
Calvin College

Young-Gi Hong
Professor, Hansei University
President, Institute for Church Growth (Seoul, Korea)

Kim-Kwong Chan
Professor, University of Hong Kong
Executive Secretary, Hong Kong Christian Council

Dario Lopez
President & Professor
Centro Evangelico de Misiologia Andino-Amazonica (Lima, Peru)

Sushil Aaron
Researcher
Centre de Sciences Humaines (New Delhi, India)

Abstract:

‘The History and Sociology of the Protestant Missions Movement from the Global South’ will develop knowledge of the process by which Protestant transnational proselytism has ceased to be the near-preserve of Western agencies and has been ‘browned’ by missionaries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The shift in the center of Christian gravity has been brought increasingly to academic, media and popular attention, but ‘southern’ roles in expanding the faith transnationally have been little examined.
Also, while the complexity of global religious ‘flows’ is recognized, this is usually not related to ‘southern’ Christian missions. Thus, the project fills a gap in empirical research and theoretical reflection found in scholarship both on global Christianity and on global religious flows.

The project director has addressed this through theoretical reflection and empirical research into the exporting of Brazilian evangelicalism. But little has been done from a sociological perspective on other ‘southern’ cases. The project will use the director’s work on Brazilian missionaries to stimulate similar studies on the missions movement (understood as transnational [outside national borders] and trans-ethnic [not just servicing the respective diaspora]) from other areas of the global south. This will be related to questions of: the future of religion under globalization; models of religion and modernity; the reality of Christianity as a ‘globalization from below’; debates on proselytism and human rights globally; the ‘Davie hypothesis’ regarding the religious future of Europe (that non-European efforts to re-Christianize it will have little success); the ‘Jenkins hypothesis’ regarding supposedly conservative attitudes of ‘southern’ evangelicals; and implications for mission in ‘resistant’ areas such as the Muslim world.

The project thus unites theoretical concerns with methodological discussion and empirical research. Case studies will include missions originating from ‘homelands’ and from their respective diasporas, as well as ‘full time’ and ‘tent making’ missionaries.

The team will first hold a workshop to discuss texts on: global Christianity; classical missions from the West; globalization and religion; models of religion and modernity; and the project director’s own work on evangelicalism and globalization, and Brazilian missions. Then the intended research on Protestant missions from the ‘south’ will be addressed directly (state of current knowledge; methodological questions; issues to be examined). Team members (from Korea, the Chinese world, India, West Africa and Spanish-speaking Latin America) will then carry out research and produce lengthy chapters (to be discussed at a subsequent team meeting) for an eventual collaborative volume and other forms of dissemination.

Science, Faith, and Human Nature: Reconciling Neuroscience and Christian Theology

Brad Strawn
Project Director
Associate Professor
Point Loma Nazarene University

William Struthers
Department of Psychology
Wheaton College

Tom Fikes
Department of Psychology
Westmont College

Stephanie Smith
School of Intercultural Studies
Fuller Theological Seminary

Thomas Jay Oord
Department of Religion and Philosophy
Northwest Nazarene University

Kevin Corcoran
Department of Philosophy
Calvin College

Paul Moes
Department of Psychology
Calvin College

Rebecca Filetstra
Department of Biology and Chemistry
Point Loma Nazarene University
Lecturer: Warren Brown
School of Psychology
Fuller Theological Seminary

Abstract:

Cognitive neuroscience has raised important questions regarding the traditional Hebrew/Christian understanding of persons as bodies inhabited by immortal, non-material souls, i.e.dualism. Research has increasingly shown that capacities once thought to be in the realm of the soul have neurophysiological correlates. Physicalism (monism) offers an alternative. However, this view has typically been associated with forms of reductionism that are repugnant to a religious/theological view of the person. Non-reductive physicalism provides a view of human nature that can be reconciled with a theological perspective. From this point of view, humans (as physical beings) are souls- they do not have souls. However, any attempt to bring together dimensions of human persons traditionally termed body, mind and soul into a single entity must be concerned about preservation of critical properties and attributes of human nature, and potentials for human experience, which have been presumed in Christian tradition and theology to be aspects of a soul.

A gathering of CCCU scholars is proposed to consider the issues and implication of nonreductive physicalism from the perspectives of biology, psychology, philosophy, and theology. The focal event of this gathering will be the 2005 Fuller Integration Lectures to be given by Warren S. Brown. These three lectures will explore the problems raised by neuroscience with respect to dualism, recent evidence for nonreductive properties of the nervous system (i.e., emergence and top-down causation), and suggestions for the alternative formulations of theological anthropology that are consistent with nonreductive physicalism.

Warren S. Brown is professor of psychology at the Graduate School of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he is Director of the Lee Travis Research Institute. He is actively involved in experimental neuropsychological research, particularly related to functions of the corpus callosum in relationship to human higher cognitive processes. He has authored or coauthored over 70 scholarly articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals; 15 chapters in edited scholarly books; and over 120 presentations in scientific meetings. Brown has also written and lectured widely on the implications of neuroscience for a Christian view of human nature. He served as principal editor of Whatever Happened to the Soul: Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature (with Nancey Murphy and Newton Malony; Fortress Press, 1998) and Understanding Wisdom: Sources, Science, and Society (Templeton Press, 2001). Brown and philosopher Nancey Murphy are currently working on a book entitled, Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?: Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility.

Theology and Management

Kenman Wong
Project Director
Joseph C. Hope Professor of Leadership and Ethics
Seattle Pacific University

Richard Martinez
Assistant Professor of Management, Hankamer School of Business
Baylor University

Bruno Dyck
Professor of Management, I. H. Asper School of Business
University of Manitoba
Denise Daniels
Associate Professor of Management
Seattle Pacific University

Randal Franz
Associate Professor of Management
Seattle Pacific University

Blaine McCormick
Assistant Professor of Management, Hankamer School of Business
Baylor University

Mitchell Neubert
H.R. Gibson Chair of Management Development
Assistant Professor of Management, Hankamer School of Business
Baylor University

Tim Dearborn
Associate Director, Christian Impact
World Vision International
Former Associate Professor of Theology & Dean of the Chapel
Seattle Pacific University

Jeff Van Duzer
Dean, School of Business Law and Ethics
Seattle Pacific University

Abstract:

At present, academicians in the field of management (and its sub-disciplines) are highly interested in a number of themes that should be natural topics of Christian scholarly concern. For example, recent theme issues of respected journals and/or sessions at the yearly Academy of Management conference (average attendance 6,000) have focused on spirituality/vocational significance, trust, forgiveness, servant leadership, and managerial/corporate purpose, to name a few. Yet, a distinctively Christian voice on these topics is barely audible in these settings. So far, these discussions have been framed largely by secular and, in some cases, eastern religious assumptions. Christian scholars attempting to address these issues from within a Christian worldview are apt to find a huge gap in the literature. Past attempts at “integration,” with few notable exceptions, have been relegated to the domain of applied ethics, leaving worldview or paradigmatic level issues as “givens” that go largely unquestioned. Furthermore, past endeavors have rarely reached secular audiences. Prevailing assumptions and current directions in the management literature tend to reduce human beings to physical/material objects with instrumental value, rest on the radical individualism and/or economic reductionism, promote efficiency as the sole goal of managerial work, and places “self” at the center of vocational purpose and meaning. Our project will bring Christian theology to bear on these types of assumptions and values, and the theories built upon them. In addition to engaging in evaluation, and critique, we will develop alternative theories and models of management. This grant would help bring together a working group of scholars (with a broad spectrum of academic training) who have begun, largely independenlty of one another, to successfully bring a Christian perspective into the mainstream of the management academy. We will meet together during three successive summer working sessions to deepen our knowledge of theology and Christian scholarship, produce papers of high academic quality, and disseminate our work to the mainstream academy. Our hope is to nurture the development of a sustainable network/community of scholars who can work together to inform management theory, research, and teaching with Christian values and ideas. A major goal of our work is to make a significant contribution to a repository of developed ideas that can be used by scholars engaged in similar research efforts in the future.

Testing a Model of the Role of Forgiveness in the Social Competence of Young Children

Beverly J. Wilson
Project Director
Associate Professor of Graduate Psychology
Seattle Pacific University

Susanne Denham
Professor of Psychology
George Mason University

Stephanie Pickering
Clinical Psychology Doctoral Student
Department of Graduate Psychology
Seattle Pacific University

Abstract:
The proposed project involves a collaborative research project between faculty at Seattle Pacific University and George Mason University. The project will investigate factors that facilitate children’s ability to form supportive relationship with peers. Children who have problems making friends are at risk for continuing problems throughout development. An important aspect of children’s social competence involves their behavioral and emotional responses during challenging interactions with peers. Specifically the proposed study examines children’s tendency to respond to these situations with forgiveness and prosocial behavior versus anger and revenge. Anger and revenge-oriented responses tend to lead to rejection by peers, whereas more prosocial responses facilitate the development of supportive peer relationships. This area of research is also important for understanding interpersonal aggression because many acts of violence appear to be motivated by anger and revenge. The current study also seeks to understand factors that influence children’s tendency to seek revenge or forgive others such as individual differences in the child and experiences in the family. Very little is currently known about forgiveness in young children; most of the previous research in this area has been completed with adults or adolescents. We plan to investigate the relations between children’s anger/revenge, prosocial behavior, forgiveness and their social competence through the use of multiple reporters and observations in the parent/child setting.

Assessments include individual interviews of children’s:
a) tendency to forgive peers when they have been harmed
b) processing of social information including revenge versus prosocial solutions to social problems
c) emotion regulation skills
d) empathic concern for others
e) general verbal skills.

Children will also complete an assessment of their attention skills and two semi-structured interactions with their parents.

Parent/child interactions include:
a) a physical game designed to elicit positive and negative emotions and
b) a discussion of recent events where the parent and child have harmed each other and how they dealt with these situations.

These tasks provide opportunities for observing how families deal with interpersonal events that elicit emotions and the degree to which children and their parents express empathy and forgiveness toward each other. The ultimate goal of this project is to develop and test a model of forgiveness in children including the role of individual and familial factors. This information should prove useful for designing more effective interventions for children who have social and conduct problems.

Virtue in Culture: A Hermeneutic Perspective

Kaye Cook
Project Director
Professor of Psychology
Gordon College

Oliver Lindhiem
Associate Project Director
Anchorage House
Beverly, MA

Peter Hill
Professor of Psychology
Biola University

Steven Sandage
Associate Professor, Marriage & Family Therapy
Bethel Theological Seminary

Brad Strawn
Associate Professor, Psychology
Point Loma Nazarene University

Robert Roberts
Professor of Ethics
Baylor University, Consultant

Project Abstract:
Believing that hermeneutic psychology—with its emphasis on context, the dynamic and interrelated nature of behavior, everyday morality, narrative, and humans as self-interpreting beings—provides the best paradigm for exploring virtues, we plan to interview religious leaders from several cultures, asking them to identify exemplars of virtue within their culture and to talk about the virtues. We then plan to interview the individuals they identify as virtuous. We believe that, by studying the similarities and differences between people’s understandings of the virtues in different cultural and religious contexts, we can contribute to theorizing about the nature of the virtues.

The research will consist of two stages. In the first stage, we will interview religious leaders from four populations, the first of which is Christian American non-immigrants, interviewed by two team members in two different parts of the country. In addition, we will interview first-generation Hmong immigrants (who historically are animist), first-generation Sudanese immigrants (families, not the so-called “lost boys”) who are often predominantly Muslim if they are from the North and from African traditional religions if from the South, and first-generation Cambodian immigrants (who are predominantly Buddhist). These populations are selected for convenience and because we expect to find differences in virtues among animists, Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian groups. The interviews will have several components: (1) We will ask religious leaders to name and describe important qualities for a virtuous person to have. (2) We will give them paragraph summaries of virtues and ask which they prefer and why. (3) We will ask them to name virtuous people. The second stage of the research process will consist of interviewing the virtuous people named by the religious leaders, asking such questions as what their goals are, whether they are religious, and what experiences have influenced their goals.

The project will result in several outcomes: a grant proposal for added funding submitted by the end of spring 2003; a theoretical paper about virtue from a hermeneutic perspective submitted b the end of summer 2004; substantial progress on data collection; and a symposium proposal or paper presentation proposal to be submitted to the American Psychological Association. In developing the project, particularly since this group of faculty has never worked together, we will also need to convene several team meetings.

We expect to find that the specific virtues named in different contexts may be similar but that the way in which the virtues are understood and organized differs by cultural and/or religious context. The hermeneutic paradigm provides a powerful way of describing this difference.

Living as Part of God’s Green Earth

John R. Wood
Project Director
Director of Environmental Studies
The King’s University College

Mark Bjelland
Assistant Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies,
Gustavus Adolphus College

Steve Bouma-Prediger
Associate Professor of Religion
Hope College

Susan Bratton
Chair, Environmental Studies Department,
Baylor University

Janel Curry
Dean for Research and Scholarship
Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies
Calvin College

Abstract:

The key question of this proposed working group is this: How can our understanding of self and our moral understanding be deepened to account for our membership in societies that are embedded in particular places, which are, in turn, embedded within environmental systems? This question reflects the challenge of understanding humans as placed simultaneously within societal structures and within nature in a way that neither negates the uniqueness of humans, created in the image of God, nor denigrates the value of God’s earth. Christian thinking on the environment has come a long way from the time of Lynn White’s classic article, “The Historical Roots of Our Environmental Crisis.” Writings on our theological and philosophical understanding of our relationship with creation have grown. Also, our scientific understanding of human impacts and the workings of nature has increased. Thus far, most Christian writings on the environment have tended to be primarily theological. Those that do deal more directly with the earth are limited in that they either take a totally utilitarian or preservationist perspective, or present solutions that remain oriented toward individual lifestyle choices. Careful thinking on the intersection of meaning, nature, and social relations is lacking. We are left with frameworks, provided by secular thinkers, that put humans at the center of meaning.

Christian thinking-and environmental thought, in general-needs a deeper understanding of humanity’s relationship with nature as it is lived out in society and in communities-the link between philosophy/theology and the earth. This area of inquiry falls largely into the realm of the social sciences. In contrast to these Christian responses to the environmental challenge, this working group starts with the assumption of the non-reducibility of morality, social structures, and the Earth.

1. This grant would establish a working group of Christian scholars, who bridge disciplines from theology and philosophy to social science and ecology, that would continue to collaborate over the three-year period of the grant and beyond. Their activities, beyond individual writing projects, deepened by the interaction, include plans to:
   Meet in four working sessions
2. Lead a three-week seminar that incorporates graduate students, practitioners, and other faculty
3. Present our work at the biennial King’s University College Conference on the Environment that is targeted at practitioners
   4) Organize and contribute to a joint conference with the American Scientific Affiliation
   5) Publish in our own disciplines but also begin a book for a Christian audience

Christian Scholars Redeeming Rhetoric for Writers, Classrooms, and Institutions

Elizabeth Vander Lei
Project Director
Assistant Professor of English,
Calvin College

Beth Daniell
Associate Professor of English
Clemson University

Anne Ruggles Gere
Professor of English and Professor of Education
University of Michigan

David Jolliffe
Professor of English
DePaul University

Thomas Amorose
Professor of English and Director of Campus Writing
Department of English
Seattle Pacific University

Abstract:

Recently, scholars in the field of rhetoric and composition have taken intense interest in the relationships between spirituality and writing in general and between Christianity and writing in particular. While Christian scholars may appreciate this new interest in their faith, they also may be troubled by the ways that some of these scholars warp Christian tenets to fit features of current rhetorical theory. The goals of this project are these:

• To foster this interest in Christian rhetoric
  To influence developing ideas about Christian rhetoric and to encourage other scholars to honor the integrity of Christian belief
• To model ways of rhetoric to writers, texts, and contexts for writing
• To accomplish these goals, our working group will read in rhetorical theory, in composition theory, and in primary texts by Christian authors.

We will consider the ways that Christians have addressed rhetorical concerns and explore the ways that Christian theology can frame rhetorical practice. We will discuss how current pressing questions from the field of rhetoric and composition can be answered in Christian terms by applying central tenets of the Christian faith such as the sovereignty of God; the nature of humans, human intelligence, and human language; the importance of human community; and the power of language to create, to convict, to enact.

Because current interest in Christian rhetoric is so intense and because most scholars in secular institutions have few opportunities to discuss the intersections of Christianity and rhetoric, we will disseminate the results of our discussion in three venues:

• A Web Site (to be developed 2002) that offers bibliographies, links, and discussion forums
  A conference (to be held 2004) that offers opportunities for the CCCU team, students (both graduate and undergraduate), and other scholars to read and discuss papers on the intersections of Christianity and rhetoric
• A volume (to be published 2004) of collaboratively written chapters, team member papers, as well as selected papers from the conference
• In addition, we expect that each member of the team, informed and mentored by the collaborative work of the team, will publish individually in the discipline.

New Directions in the Dialogue between Theology and Psychology

Al Dueck
Project Director
Professor of Psychology
Fuller Theological Seminary

Mari Clements
Fuller Theological Seminary

William Hathaway
Associate Professor of Psychology
Regent College

Cynthia Neal Kimball
Associate Professor of Psychology
Wheaton College

Cameron Lee
Professor of Family Studies
School of Psychology
Fuller Theological SeminaryDerek McNeil
Associate Professor of Psychology
Wheaton College

Nancy Murphy
Professor of Christian Philosophy
Fuller Theological Seminary

Kevin Reimer
Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary

Frank Richardson
Professor, Dept. of Educational Psychology
University of Texas, Austin

Robert Roberts
Distinguished Professor of Ethics
Baylor University

Brent Slife
Professor of Psychology
Brigham Young University

Randal Sorenson
Associate Professor of Psychology
Rosemead School of Professional Psychology

Abstract:

This proposal requests funds to network scholars concerned about the dialogue between theology and psychology with the express purpose of exploring new paradigms. Currently, integrative dialogue occurs within commitments to modernist perspectives on research and epistemology, the nature and role of the individual, the nature of interdisciplinary dialogue and the relevance of international perspective on issues such as violence. As a result, we appear to be overly committed to a scientific research program in integrative research with less concern about larger theoretical issues. Both the religious and the psychological communities have neglected the role of church and community in relationship to the individual in understanding both spirituality and emotion. Reductionism has made impossible a genuine dialogue between psychologists and theologians. And finally, such practical and global issues as violence need to be factored into new paradigms we consider. In summary we must address the issues of positivism, individualism, reductionism and provincialism in the new directions we propose.

Dr. Nancy Murphy is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary in the School of Theology. She holds doctorates in both theology and philosophy of science. Dr. Murphy has agreed to present three major papers suggesting new directions. In all, ten scholars have agreed to participate in this colloquium. They represent a diversity of disciplines: theology, ethics, sociology, psychology and philosophy. Team members will be asked to respond to Dr. Murphy’s proposals and to chart new directions themselves. A list-serve will be created where resources and commentary can be shared. After distributing to each other their significant integrative publications and their written presentation, the team members will come together for four days of discussion and dialogue in January, 2003. A course will be organized around the colloquium so as to include students capable and interested in addressing these issues. Also, Murphy’s lectures and portions of the colloquium will be open to the academic community in the area and the larger public. The most important outcomes of this colloquium include the opportunity for a small group of scholars to chart new directions, the publication of an edited collection of the papers presented by the team and the presentation of papers at national conferences.

Gender, Genre, and Faith: Religion and the Nineteenth-Century Woman Writer

Pamela Corpron Parker
Project Director
Assistant Professor of English
Whitworth College

Alexis Easley
Assistant Professor of English
University of Alaska Southeast

Maria LaMonaca
Lilly Fellow & Lecturer in English
Valparaiso University

Julie Straight
Graduate Student and Instructor
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

Kathleen Vejvoda
Assistant Professor of English
Metropolitan State University (St. Paul, MN)

Abstract:

Victorian preoccupations with gender, religion, and national identity permeate the works of a variety of familiar and unfamiliar authors. Gender, Genre, and Faith focuses on Christian women writers of nineteenth-century Britain. Religious beliefs not only shaped the lives and identities of thousands of English women from every economic class, but also were foundational to the ongoing projects of nineteenth-century imperialism and feminism. All too often, existing studies ignore, oversimplify, or distort women’s religious experiences and expressions, representing them as psychological aberrations or mere rhetorical tools. This project seeks to provide a more accurate, amplified account of the literary history of the nineteenth-century by illuminating the broader cultural and religious contexts in which individual women writers worked. Using the theoretical lenses of feminism and cultural criticism, the project will document women authors’ innovations in a variety of literary genres. It will trace their explorations of gender identities and clarify their contributions to the debates over religious dissent, the establishment of the English Empire, and the role of the woman writer. Participants will read recognizable literary works, such as the novels of Charlotte Bronte and poems of Christina Rossetti, alongside non-literary and less canonical texts, such as Harriet Martineau’s political journalism and Hannah More’s biblical treatises. Collaboration is not only desirable, but essential to the success of the project. Questions regarding the intersections of gender, genre, and faith are complex, and they require the ecumenical breadth and combined expertise provided by a group of scholars with varied religious and theoretical training. Initial collaborations promise both a specialized scholarly context as well as a rich spiritual community. With support for extended summer research and collaboration on annual conference panel presentations, such as the British Women Writers Conference, the research should produce significant contributions to the fields of nineteenth-century British literature, religious history, and women’s studies. As the projects get underway, participants will incorporate other interested scholars into the project, invited promising undergraduate and graduate students to assist in research. At the conclusion of the grant, we hope to plan an additional conference entitled, “Gender and Faith in the Christian Liberal Arts College.”

Modes of Design Reasoning

Stephen Meyer
Project Director
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Whitworth College

Robin Collins
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Messiah College

William Dembski
Associate Professor in the Conceptual Foundations of Science
Baylor University

Robert Koons
Professor of Philosophy
University of Texas

Timothy McGrew
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Western Michigan University

Lydia McGrew
Independent Scholar
Kalamazoo, Michigan

Paul Nelson
Senior Fellow
Discovery Institute

Del Ratzsch
Professor of Philosophy
Calvin College

Abstract:

Arguments for design in nature were revered for millennia in the West, and were a long staple of Christian theology and philosophy. With the criticisms of David Hume, however, and especially with the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, these arguments became less and less common, not only in biology, but in philosophy and theology as well. In the last few years, however, design arguments have begun to reemerge in physics, cosmology, and even biology. At the same time, the philosophers have begun attempts to formalize design inferences. These developments are important, since a rigorous and empirically sensitive design argument would create new opportunities for the Christian and theistic view of the world in fields as diverse as philosophy, theology, biology, physics, and psychology. An important recent attempt as such formalization is The Design Inference (Cambridge University Press, 1998) by mathematician and philosopher, William Dembski. His proposal, which depends on a non-Bayesian statistical analysis, has met with both approval and criticism among scientists and philosophers, both within and outside of the academic world. A number of Christian scholars have already begun applying his method in their disciplines. Others share Dembski’s motivation, but profoundly disagree with his proposal. (See, for example, the forthcoming interchange between Dembski and Christian philosopher Robin Collins in Christian Scholars’ Review.) Still, others argue for a different but complementary method to Dembski’s, appealing to such notions as “inference to the best explanation”.

Regrettably, despite the public debate on “intelligent design’, there has not yet been an opportunity for certain Christian scholars to consider and collaborate on different models for inferring design. This project would do just that. First, it will convene a small symposium to interact, and where possible, resolve some of these technical disputes. After a preliminary exchange of papers concerned with the topic: Models of Design Reasoning: How do we infer in the real world?, the group will meet at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, Michigan), on May 22-24, 2001, to interact and respond to each other’s proposals. A number of lines of inquiry are likely to emerge from this meeting. Timothy McGrew will edit and publish the papers and official responses as a single volume entitled Models of Design Reasoning. Before the volume is published, panel presentations on the same topic will be proposed for the annual meetings of the American Philosophical Association, the Society of Christian Philosophers, and the Evangelical Philosophical Society.

Surprising Beauty: The Body Broken/The Body Whole

Bruce Herman
Project Director
Professor of Art
Gordon College

David Goa
Curator Provincial
Museum of Alberta

Eric Grimm-Vance
Assistant Professor of Art
Trinity Western University

Edward Khippers
Artist
Arlington, Virginia
Patricia Jones
Art Patron Director
Ogilvy Public Relations (Cambridge, MA)

Abstract:

We propose an exhibition by Christian artists of national standing to be displayed alongside the works of secular counterparts, and centered upon the human form and its expressive possibilities in the post-culture. The exhibit will bring to the public square powerful examples of art addressing beauty revealed in the human body in diverse circumstances: bodies broken by disease, age, accidents of birth, or martyrdom; bodies presented in the classical mode of wholeness and health; bodies presented as political territory, exploited, sub-divided, humiliated, or exalted. The exhibition will unapologetically address a living religious-art tradition, which directly or indirectly references Christ’s incarnation, passion, and resurrection as a radical critique of human categories of beauty and meaning-especially in its understanding of the physical body. The western tradition of body representation has been thoroughly revisited and critiqued in recent years.

Contemporary artists, particularly feminists, have been referencing the body for more than twenty years now as a battlefield of political and social consciousness. Artists such as Francis Bacon, Alice Kneel, Lucian Freud, and others have given us raw images of the body that would seem to lay the axe to received traditions of the body beautiful. What has been lacking in contemporary body-art (and the critical analysis attending to it) is a careful examination of a crucial subtext to nearly all figurative representation: an underlying shared vision of human beauty and significance. To many this undoubtedly seems too loaded a concept; too fraught with the danger of sentimentality on the one hand, or elitist pretense on the other. To others it might seem hopelessly naïve. We do not think so. Th Christian sacred art tradition may offer an alternative to the polarities of saccharine prettiness (19th Century European realism) or the deadpan, raw representations of the human visage often seen in modernist body-art. This alternative centers upon the passion of Christ and the implicit critique it sets in motion over against typical human understandings of power, success, and beauty. Whereas the Greco-Roman vision postulates an ideal form, exalting youth, strength, and social superiority-the Christian art tradition reveals meaning and beauty in the apparent failure, weakness, and pathos of the Cross. Broken human beings for twenty centuries have discovered an unsentimental hope in this image of a body broken on the wheel of human power. The passion of Christ has always been seen as a point of transcendence in its poignancy; a powerless, innocent man lays down his life in the face of political power and religious bigotry, and ends by becoming the undisputed fulcrum of western history. It goes without saying that Christian theology and church traditions have not always fully understood or honored the implications of this alternative vision-and, in fact, often have been chief antagonists to it. However, it is our contention that the Christian sacred art tradition provides a possible third way: a genuine alternative to the cloying nostalgia of traditionalist concepts of beauty on the one hand, and the endgame despair of the modernist attack on bourgeois sensibility on the other. This tradition of religious art is alive and well though largely ignored by contemporary art culture (and by its own Christian community as well).

Religious art continues to be a vital arena of investigation and expression and our exhibition attempts to prove this to be true. Moreover, it is hoped that fruitful dialogue for the common good can be stimulated by placing contemporary religious art (which utilizes the human form as central) alongside secular and feminist body art, both of which may hold more common ground than is currently imagined. At the very least it is hoped that, by presenting differing visions of the body and its meaning in culture, we can enliven the public square with fruitful discussion, stimulating scholarly attention and leavening public discourse around the issue of human beauty in its full and surprising range of expression.

Aquinas’s Ethics: Metaphysical Foundations, Moral Theory, and Theological Context

Rebecca Konyndyk de Young
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Calvin College
Project Director

Colleen McCluskey
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Saint Louis University

Eleonore Stump
Professor of Philosophy
Saint Louis University

Christian Van Dyke
Visiting Professor of Philosophy
Saint Louis University

Abstract:

Our project aims at putting Aquinas’s ethics back into its proper philosophical and theological context. In particular, we propose 1) to examine the way in which Aquinas’s ethical theory (particularly his account of the virtues) builds on his metaphysics of human beings and his theory of action, and 2) to address these components of his philosophy (ethics, metaphysics, and action theory) from the theological perspective which we as Christians share—a perspective which we believe proves necessary for understanding the richness and value of Aquinas’s philosophy. Our project will break new ground in Aquinas scholarship and will contribute usefully to existing discussions not just in medieval philosophy, but also in contemporary ethics, action theory, and metaphysics.

The ultimate goal of our project is a book-length study addressing these issues, written as a collaborative effort by Drs. Rebecca Konyndyk De Young (Calvin College), a specialist in Aquinas’s ethics and virtue theory, Colleen McCluskey (St. Louis University), a specialist in medieval theories of human action and free will, and Christian Van Dyke (St. Louis University), a specialist in Aquinas’s metaphysics with a special focus on the metaphysis of human persons. Funding provided by the CCCU Initiative Grant will facilitate our collaboration on this book by means of several summer workshops. It will also provide the opportunity for faculty release time and a research support fund, and it will enable us to disseminate our research more broadly in the philosophical and academic Christian community by means of a special session of the SCP/ACPA meeting at the Central APA in 2002 and a conference (sponsored in part by St. Louis University’s Wade Memorial Fund) to be held in the spring of 2003.

Dr. Eleonore Stump (St. Louis University) will take an active role in all aspects of the project, serving as consultant for the summer workshops and as advisor and resource person for the conference; she will also critique the participants’ written work as it progresses.

Responding as Whole Persons in the Face of Life-Threatening Disease: An Evaluation of Interrelationships Between Quality of Life Measures, Spiritual Beliefs, Neuropsychological Functioning, and Immunological Response for Cancer Patients

Michael Boivin
Dept. Of Psychology
Indiana Wesleyan University
Project Director

Steve Passik
Director of Oncology and Symptom Control Research
Community Cancer Care, Inc.

Bruce Giordani
Associate Director of Neuropsychology Program
Psychiatry Department
University of Michigan

Burt Webb
Dept. of Biology
Indiana Wesleyan University
Dept. Of Immunology
Continuing Medical Education Center of Indiana University Medical School, Muncie

Abstract:

The principal purpose of this grant would be to support a collaborative research project to examine the relationship of spiritual beliefs in cancer patients to their emotional and psychological well-being, as well as to neuropsychological functioning. All of these factors will then be related to immunological response measures in the patients using sophisticated statistical modeling techniques so that the role of these factors can be better understood in light of patients’ resiliency in the face of this disease. In assessing and evaluating the interrelationships between the spiritual, emotional, psychological, neuropsychological, and immunological domains, we hope to better understand how these individuals function and respond to the crisis of cancer as whole persons. We feel that such an approach will more effectively predict how well individuals will cope with cancer. This, as opposed to a model based on viewing the person as comprised of compartmentalized soul/body/spirit entities that interact only loosely and in ill-defined ways, as is often assumed within a Platonic dualistic framework that is still the dominant paradigm within the evangelical helping professional community. As such, this study has relevance to the Christian helping professionals and physicians in a practical sense as he/she seeks to address the needs of the whole person in counseling or in medically treating cancer patients. However, this project also has the potential of significant philosophical and theological bearing on the mind/body issue, as it seeks to empirically document and effectively model the inter-relationships among the spiritual, psychological, and physiological domain. This is especially true as we seek to develop a holistic model of the person in psycho-oncology that is robust enough to allow for an integration of a theological perspective of the person (where a consideration of spiritual well-being is significant), with the scientific revolution taking place in face of significant brain/behavior advances within neuroimmunology and behavioral neuroscience (where spiritual well-being acts and is acted upon by brain processes reflected in neuropsychological functioning, which is in turn expressed in emotional and immunological response). Maier and Watkins (1998) provide an excellent review of the overwhelming evidence now emerging as to the immune-to-brain communication for understanding behavior, mood, and cognition. We hope to incorporate spiritual well-being and neuropsychological functioning as well, into the critical factors being considered in such research and the mind/brain models emerging from it.

Cooperative Christianity in Comparative Perspective: Canadian Interdenominational Relations, Past and Present

Daniel Goodwin
Assistant Professor of History
Atlantic Baptist University
Project Director

Dennis Hoover
Resident Fellow
Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life
Trinity College

Richard Loughheed
Professor of Church History and Old Testament
Faculte de Theologie Evangelique (Montreal)

Mark Noll
McManis Chair of Christian Thought
Wheaton College

Samuel Reimer
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Atlantic Baptist University

Abstract:
In contrast to the United States, Canada is internationally reputed to be the more accommodating and peaceable nation. This reputation is also shared by the Christian traditions within Canada. This research project considers the distinctiveness of interdenominational relations among Christian groups in Canada from the nineteenth century to the present. Five scholars with expertise in the diverse fields of religious history, theology, sociology and political science examine the cooperative (and sometimes conflicting) attitudes and practices of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant Christian groups in Canada, using Christianity in the United States as a foil. The proposed research will be disseminated in colloquia in both Canada and the United States, with the final goal of an edited volume, jointly published in both the United States and Canada.

Human Nature and Human Freedom: A Christian Response to Reductionist Versions of Materialism

Kevin Corcoran
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Calvin College
Project Director

William Hasker
Professor of Philosophy
Huntington College

J.P. Moreland
Professor of Philosophy
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University

Michael Murray
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Franklin & Marshall College

Timothy O’Connor
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Indiana University

Dean Zimmerman
Associate Professor of Philosophy
University of Notre Dame

Abstract:
In keeping with the teaching of sacred scripture and the ecumenical creeds, we Christians believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. We also believe in a future judgment which will determine how that resurrection life is spent: whether joyfully in the presence of God or sadly and miserably separated from the source of all joy and human fulfillment. These orthodox Christian beliefs are directly related to important metaphysical topics, topics of interest not just to Christian philosophers and philosophical theologians, but also to philosophers in the broader academic community. The metaphysical topics most intimately involved concern the nature of human persons and free will. This project will bring together faculty from both Christian and secular colleges and universities who have made important contributions to the study of human nature from a Christian perspective. The project will unfold in three installments. A summer conference in 2000 at Gordon College, a workshop on human nature and human freedom at Calvin College, March 8-10, 2001 and a culminating conference TBA in 2002. Our primary intention is to publish the fruit of our labors as self-sustaining articles in high caliber philosophy journals.

Coming Full Circle: Devolution of State Delivery of Human Services to Faith-Based Human Service Organizations

Fred DeJong
Professor of Sociology
Calvin College
Project Director

Diana Garland
Professor of Social Work
Baylor University

Katherine Hemert
Assistant Professor of Social Work
University of Kentucky

Beryl Hugen
Professor of Social Work
Calvin College

Lawrence Ressler
Professor of Social Work
Roberts Wesleyan College

Abstract:
Research attention on the role of faith-based organizations in social welfare has focused on the impact of their social service activities on the community. Virtually no attention has been given to the impact of these activities on the faith-based organizations themselves. This project proposes to conduct a study of the effects on faith-based organizations, as well as on their communities, of their increased collaborative relationships with state and local governments in the delivery of social services. Particular attention will be given to the central role the element of faith plays in these organizations. A typology will be developed to study and research various organizational domains (e.g. Service activities, staff motivation and training, program outcomes, mission) to help identify both specific challenges and new opportunities faith-based organizations encounter in the current devolution of social welfare. The project’s proposed outcomes are as follows: (1) create a network of scholars to study and research the literature related to the role and impact of faith-based organizations in social welfare; (2) produce a scholarly concept paper to suggest a future research agenda and methodological framework; (3) draft a larger research grant proposal based on this concept paper; and (4) make an application to a major charitable funding source for support. Research partners represent the social work faculties of four colleges and universities in four regions of the country; Baylor University (southwest), University of Kentucky (south), Calvin College (upper Midwest), and Robert Wesleyan College (northeast).

Neohumanism and the Ethical Turn in Theological Perspective

Norman Klassen
Assistant Professor of English Literature
Trinity Western University
Project Director

Tony Cummins
Assistant Professor of New Testament and Biblical Studies
Canadian Theological Seminary

Alex Hawkin,
Ph.D. Candidate in Religion
Duke University

Bruce Hindmarsh
Professor of Church History and Historical Theology
Briercrest Biblical Seminary

Jens Zimmerman
Dept. Of English Language and Literature
Trinity Western University

Abstract:
In the spirit of the movement of radical orthodoxy, which reclaims for Christian theology some of the current preoccupations of postmodernism (e.g. the implications of the linguistic turn, as shown by John Milbank’s The Word Made Strange), this project participates in the contemporary critique of humanism. We locate this project in the context of the so-called ethical turn which is presently unfolding in postmodern discourse. Different from existing projects on the topic of humanism (as, for example, The Case for Christian Humanism 1991), what we are calling neohumanism addresses specific current academic issues in order to demonstrate, at a scholarly level, the significance of biblical anthropology for literature, hermeneutics, theology and social theory. This project will have three overarching emphases:

1. a reconsideration of the rise of humanism and its gradual and inexorable dissolution of the links between Christian theology and the humanist enterprise. Within this emphasis, points of interest include late medieval Europe, the Italian Renaissance, the rise of the Enlightenment project, and Evangelicalism;
2. engagement with the critique of humanism (including much of modernist theology) by contemporary postmodern discourse, fueled by theory indebted especially to Marx, Nietzsche and Freud. For even conservative modernist theology found itself indebted to humanism and the Enlightenment project with its rather positivistic ideals. Following such writers as Graham Ward (e.g. The Postmodern God 1997), we will show the necessity of engaging postmodern discourse.
3. an outline of the enduring relevance of notions of humanism in the context of the current ethical turn in literature, hermeneutics, theology and social theory. Current secular scholarship in philosophy and related disciplines (political philosophy, literary theory, cultural studies, hermeneutics, etc.), once dominated by the so-called linguistic turn, is preoccupied with ethical concerns. Spurred on to self-criticism by post-structuralist French philosophy, especially Derrida’s enterprise of deconstruction, the critique of existing institutions of knowledge and human endeavor has led to a crisis to articulate norms for human interaction, a crisis manifest in the recent and current efforts in political philosophy (Charles Taylor), hermeneutics (Hans Georg Gadamer), social theory (Jürgen Habermas), and philosophy (Emmanuel Lévinas). In concert with current postmodern theoretical developments, we view the ethical turn as a rich opportunity for theological neohumanism to address an academy that has grown tired of deconstructive and related approaches to cultural studies. Contrary to postmodern theoretical discourse, we affirm the need to uphold the connection between theology (biblical anthropology) and those “humanistic” disciplines which represent the life of the mind as well as the cherished belief in the ability of humans to cooperate with one another. Neohumanism, as a biblically informed assessment of human nature in light of current academic issues, sees itself as an affirming Christian witness for a renewed understanding of what it means to be human in a culture of suspicion and mistrust. However, contrary to some elements within evangelical and reformed theology, we consider humanism a worthwhile project because it valorizes the individual, the body, creatureliness in relation to God, and the desire to cooperate with each other toward the common social good. Christian humanists have often unwittingly sanctioned a humanist ideal and find themselves vulnerable to the postmodern critique; because they are unaware of the possibilities for a biblically informed neohumanism, they are unwilling to learn from the postmodern critique or to give up their own modernist positions.

In short, this collaborative project explores neohumanism as the awareness of the failures of the humanist project and the opportunity to reclaim intellectual, theological and existential concerns regarding what it means, in N.T. Wright’s phrasing, to “exhibit true and full humanity, reflecting the image of God.”