This aesthetic theological exploration engages, most fundamentally, with questions at the core of mythologies dating back through history: how do we cope with the reality of chaos? How do we deal with the monsters, within and without? Then鈥攁s individuals and as members of the human community鈥攈ow do our narratives of sin and brokenness impact how we conceptualize divine power and authority, and how do these frameworks influence how we relate to one another and to our world?

Working from the concept of atonement theory in Christian theology, I interrogate the perspectives and assumptions that these frameworks cast on the human condition and upon the redemptive arc of humanity in relationship with the created world and with the divine. I then introduce, as a theological conversation partner, a visual narrative that explores atonement and redemption within the particular frame of Japanese popular culture known as anime. Comparing, questioning, and critiquing across cultural and religious contexts, this project ultimately relies upon aesthetics as the primary lens for metabolizing theologies of atonement and redemption in the pursuit of a creatively- informed theological construction that reflects a way of knowing and relating rooted in the “now” of being present to one’s particularity, as well as the “with” of existing in community.

Interacting with the theological, aesthetic, and ethical challenges in considering theories of atonement and redemption, this project draws upon a selection of characters and story arcs found within the Japanese anime Fullmetal Alchemist, a narrative piece that appropriately and stunningly poses its own questions and responses to the concepts of atonement and the redeeming of the world. Each portion utilizes story and character development to explore how particularity shapes how one internalizes鈥攁nd ultimately lives out鈥攖heological beliefs around guilt and shame, power and agency, and inclusion and exclusion that might otherwise suffer disconnection from personal and communal reality. Through the investigation of how a creative approach to theology challenges and reshapes our assumptions and internalized beliefs, this project celebrates the power of aesthetics and storytelling to hold the chaos and discomfort of open-ended questions, to invite others into a community willing to hold that chaos with and for one another, and to paint a vision of a world redeemed and restored by the strength of compassionate relationship.

Within the modern day American church, music has become a much debated, perhaps even dissonant, subject though in a broader view it appears as a series of extended variations encompassing a number of centuries. In the current century, Protestants have both contemporary and traditional services featuring distinctly different types of music, Catholics have seen many musical changes as a result of Vatican II, while the Orthodox ponder the differences between Byzantine chant and Kievan four part harmony. Beyond debates around style is a deeper question concerning the role of music in worship, which in turn invites questions about music itself. One of the most abstract of the arts, music weaves together a larger sense of place with the intimacy of personal memories. Within a few short measures, music can change the scenery playing in our imaginations. In studying the effects of music on the human brain, Scientists have found that particular musical elements tend to be processed more by the right or left hemispheres. Yet music seems less suited to a dissection of sorts via an academic lens and invites practice, a serious engagement between the depths of the performer and the depths of music. All of this is brought together to illuminate Byzantine chant, a style of music used widely within the Eastern Orthodox Church. Within the life of the Eastern Orthodox church, music cannot be reduced to particular characteristics or the way in which it interacts with the human brain. Instead, the mystery of music reveals both God and ourselves in greater fullness.

Where do we find grounding in shifting sands? My three years at 天美视频 have coincided with pandemic, war and corruption, as well as a civil rights uprising, mutual aid organizing and other experiments in solidarity. Communities worldwide are reconciling our understandings of our worlds alongside individual and collective grief, not only built on generations of compounding trauma but also carried by generations of wisdom and resistance. In this essay project, I insist that grief, mourning and memorial do not inherently detract from thriving, in spite of the ways they’ve been exploited and avoided. Rather, they can be the very things that sustain our humanity and connection in a culture of fracture, commodification and precarity.

Drawing on cultural theory, Catholic theology, as well as personal narrative, I engage three seemingly disparate themes through three Tagalog phrases: kapwa (fellow) and politicization of grief; bayanihan (communal action) and identity formation in diaspora; and utang na loob (debt of gratitude) and the Sacrament of Eucharist. Stitching back and forth between English and Tagalog, intimate and collective narratives, mortality and Trinity, memory and hope, my project moves in paradox to explore how our spaces of loss can be reclaimed as openings for sacred collective power.

All persons long for and are made for connection. This desire and need for attachment is a process that begins at birth, and is reflected in the symbiotic nature of our Trinitarian theology. But far too often these needs go mismanaged or unmet and this leads to shame and protective self-defenses, that further hinder our ability to connect with other human beings and stifle our god-ordained need for attachment, intimacy, and community. This workshop addresses this prevalence of interpersonal disconnection in our culture. We are a people who find it hard to form deep and lasting connections. The epidemic of loneliness is big indicator of such. The decrease in people measuring securely attached is also evidence of less connection. Psychology tells us we don鈥檛 form a self without mirroring another. Neuroscience shows that our brain is made for interpersonal relationship. We suffer when we are not in connecting relationships and we carry these wounds in our body until healed, right through adulthood if it takes that long.

This project takes psychological observation, the theological model, and embodied learning and develops an approachable and accessible workshop, that allows human beings to build the practices that lead to connection with the other. It is designed to span a day and will ideally have 8-10 participants. Ultimately it names five essential elements critical to connection and, through the context of an interpersonal encounter, provides experiences of these elements. Relationship can only be felt, not learned from a book, and therefore it is important that these elements are 鈥榢nown鈥� to the body and the felt brain. There will be some discussion of each of the elements, followed by examples, activities and more discussion of the practice. We will also incorporate what we have learned into each subsequent element in order to provide continuous awareness and experience of connection. This is the main thrust of the workshop and will also include what not being connected to looks like in our current lives, and our guiding principles.

The hope is that participants will go away with the beginning and/or strengthening of brain pathways of felt connection. The goal is that the participants have felt connected to and that they are welcome, enjoyed and belong to a group. More than having knowledge, the hope is that they have felt enough connection to being to seek it out and/or pass it on by attuning, experiencing resonance, co-regulation, joy and vulnerability. We can only create and share connection when we know it ourselves.

This integrative project proposes that humanity is the direct creative force that begets entities referred to in Christian tradition as 鈥減owers and principalities.鈥� Building on the foundation of Walter Wink鈥檚 seminal Powers trilogy, this paper will explore a reciprocal ontology that explains how humanity creates and sustains the Powers while these creatures support, define, and oppress humans. Wink鈥檚 framework for the Powers will be examined alongside the problematic history of Christianity鈥檚 interaction with the theology of these invisible forces. The psychological development of the self through relationships will be explored through object-relations and family systems theory. The Christian concept of humanity reflecting God鈥檚 nature in the imago Dei will also be put in conversation with Martin Buber鈥檚 philosophy of genuine meeting. Together, these insights will form the basis for this alternative ontology. Examples from popular culture reflecting these concepts will also be presented.

This Integrative Project is an exploration of what it means to gather as a Practicing Church. Working with the leadership and congregation of Pathways Church, a local Independent Christian Church in Mill Creek WA, the project will experiment with alternative ways of framing and organizing its Sunday gatherings. The goal is to reimagine and redefine the intention, purpose, and structure of the Church鈥檚 in-person assembly towards new possibilities for spiritual formation inherent in the act of practicing together as a community of faith. Towards this end鈥揳nd aided by research in community building, human growth, and spiritual development鈥搕his project explores reconfiguring gathering spaces, implementing new language, decentralizing the sermon, and prioritizing interactive participation as a means of promoting human agency and relatedness. I claim that greater transformation is invited when church gatherings are centered on practicing together towards new possibilities which better equip people to follow the Way of Jesus in their everyday lives. Through this paper I will demonstrate that the Practicing Church offers new ways of being together which move beyond a commitment to church attendance and knowledge acquisition and towards the intent of participation and integration. The focus of practicing together resources congregants towards greater curiosity, belonging, resilience, hospitality, and growth.

This project explores narcissism in relation to my experience in the American evangelical megachurch community. I argue that narcissism is inherently traumatic by causing disconnection from one鈥檚 authentic self and remains largely misunderstood and unaddressed by its contemporary community. In Mark 8:34 (NRSV), Jesus provides a new image of authenticity to embrace instead of the Imperial image of his time鈥� the cross. The cross, here, represents the consequence of rejecting one鈥檚 imperial identity and embracing one鈥檚 authentic self. Jesus subversively invites those who wish to follow him to do the same. I have attempted to follow Jesus in this way by embracing my desire and identity as an artist.

Food is more than nourishment to the body. Comfort foods are less about caloric and dietary intake but instead remind us of a home, a person, and a smell. Local Hawaii food represents the history of Hawaii and the culture of its people. My presentation of “Local” foods in Hawaii is an amalgamation of the three major immigrant groups in Hawaii: the Native Hawaiians, the American/Western, and the immigrants who came to work the plantations with local recipes in between.

As Chef Sheldon states, 鈥淗awaii food, or what we call local food, tells a story of where we came from.鈥� Food serves as the physical metaphor of our relationship to the land, religion, and different cultures. As the 50th state, Hawaii carries America鈥檚 influences but retains a culture that draws from the Native Hawaiians and Asian cultures. It is essential today as the 鈥渕ainland鈥� America seems to have amnesia toward the history of immigrants, slaves, and Native people today. Ronald Takaki and Jeff Chang’s local childhood experiences led to questions about Hawaii’s unique stance toward race and ethnicity. By including recipes, I give space for the voices of the Native Hawaiians, the working class, and (mostly) Asian immigrants in Hawaii鈥檚 food culture.

The historical section uses several books that involve Native Hawaiian鈥檚 religion and their self-sustaining food system, American capitalism and plantations, and immigrant鈥檚 nostalgia for foods of their homeland. The recipes come from three local cookbooks that also give a sample of influences while creating a distinct cuisine and culture. The final recipe of Hawaii鈥檚 local favorite, Spam Musubi, serves as a conversation of multiculturalism and my hope for mainland America.

Eurocentric churches have attempted programs of racial reconciliation to varying degrees of success, most of which are left wanting. Our task as white Christians seeking appropriate antiracist and anticolonial ally-ship is to listen and to be changed by story. Rather than fit indigenous narratives into our own, for example, how can we be changed 鈥� seriously theologically and systemically changed? This project is an anticolonial project 鈥� one from within the dominating majority seeking to undermine power 鈥� that seeks to unsettle Eurocentric theologies. Decolonial theologians 鈥� theologians from the margins 鈥� are illuminating biblical motifs and theologies in nuanced ways, and these are the voices we need to guide us into a more complete and unfolding ethics of Jesus if we are to advance the broader postcolonial project of dismantling systems of white supremacy. By looking to Rev. Dr. Kaleo Patterson as one example of an indigenous decolonial theologian nuancing Eurocentric theologies, practitioners are invited to consider the ways the Hawaiian demigod Kukailimoku illuminates: 1. God鈥檚 desire to simply be with us; 2. The invitation to re-image the Cross; 3. The shortcomings of atonement theories and the invitation to something new. Drawing upon social anthropology, theology, biblical studies, and history, I excavate Patterson鈥檚 sermons, take us to the biblical motifs Patterson himself highlights, and then explore what indigenously nuanced theologies look like and what this means for anticolonial allies. While I am drawing heavily on the work of Rev. Dr. Patterson as one example of a decolonial indigenous theologian, I am not merely reporting his words and ideas. Rather, I am accepting Patterson鈥檚 invitation 鈥� among other decolonial theologians 鈥� to poke holes in Eurocentric theologies, and modeling ways by which our theological imaginations can play to expand in liberating ways.

This project addresses the question, how can adolescence be reimagined today in the light of the recent, ground-breaking research done in the disciplines of psychology, theology, neuroscience, and biology? At the outset, the project focuses upon the commonly held and highly deleterious myth, in western society, about adolescence today. The myth is deconstructed as context and insights are brought to bear about the young and their behaviors while they are navigating their way through the years within adolescence.

Research will be cited that brings to light much that is new about these years, a crucial time when there is a new intellectual birth within the individual. This is a time of significant biological, psycho-social, neurological change; exploring how new constructive appreciations of this life phase can come from important new research-based knowledge and insights. An anecdote from my awkward teen years is shared. The story presents an experience where my grandfather and I had a moment of deep, life altering connection. In the light of all of the discussions, the story is tied to the current need for absent relationships in the life of the adolescent.

Moving past the myth, capturing the knowledge and understandings recently brought to light, a discussion will conclude the project where the opportunity to introduce beneficial social change might be made possible. Elders, prepared and intentional, can step forward to mentor and bring new experiences and new relationships into the lives of the adolescents.

New mothers must navigate idyllic images that distort an honest experience of mothering. Rather than a single story and static image, I hope to bring complexity to the ineffable shift that occurs through the birth of both mother and child. Mothers intrinsically hold stories within their bodies which have spiritual import. A mother cannot escape the reality of having a body. Her identity and body is literally torn asunder and transfigured. This deeply bodied shift informs a divine in-breaking, however fragmented, to a very human moment. Through the embodied mother-child bond, I hope to reveal its intimate relationship to the divine.

Using the experience of the embodied mother as a lens to re-form divine image, I insist that within the birthing body, the holy tension of distress and delight is held together. My experience with carrying, birthing, and feeding from my body tells me it has knowledge to give and connection to offer. At the very same time it has turned me inward, fragmenting the world I inhabit. Using visual memoir, I will use my own narrative of shifting within my body and identity 鈥� and simultaneously my daughter鈥檚 鈥� of a particular moment in our first year postpartum. I invited her to participate in co-creating in remembering and meaning making. Just as my body and hers are inseparable and yet individual, we explore together in mutual exchange; art becomes the expression of this unnamable experience through the touchable medium of paint and charcoal. By reframing divine image and sacralizing personal memoir I hope to provide a deeply intimate exploration of the relationship between corporeality and divinity through the body of a mother and her child.

Traumatic experience, fractured cultural memory, loss of language in the wake of grief: these wounds are rooted in the depths of humanity鈥檚 laments, both personal and communal. Attending to such fragmentation is particular, laborious, and vulnerable work. Against a type of attention, a type of 鈥榬estoration鈥� which aims to cover over, or even to find wholeness in a return to that which came before the rupture, my focus within this project is on a type of repair that offers witness to these spaces of deepest woundedness, therein discovering radical healing. Through the expressive medium of hand embroidery, I explore this landscape of fragmentation, engaging in quilt repair largely inspired by the aesthetics of Kintsugi, the Japanese craft of mended ceramics. By attending to the fragments, to the open wounds on the body of the quilt through the artistic act of revealing, I ask after the relationship between fragmentation and healing, finding mending and making to be the same movement of the needle. And, more so, I listen for the theological implications of this work, and am met by an enriched understanding of God鈥檚 hopeful and creative attention to and redemption of our most intimate brokenness.

J.R.R Tolkien鈥檚 secondary world of Middle Earth awakens the heart to wonder and imagination, providing a fantasy landscape for exploration of the expansive human experience. In his famous essay, 鈥淥n Fairy Stories,” Tolkien lays out his understanding of the nature of fantasy literature and its uses in the modern age. It has become a primary source for all who read about and build secondary worlds. In his essay, Tolkien claims that fantasy provides recovery of enchantment, worthy escapism, and the consolation of a happy ending. Tolkien鈥檚 fantastical world also enlivens our imagination for a hope which holds the complexity of suffering and the scars that remain with the promise of new beginnings.

Although denouncement was the dominant Christian response, across denominations, to the January 6th white supremacist siege of the US capital building, this paper makes the case that a more appropriate and effective Christian stance toward white supremacists is one of kinship. Drawing on church history, indigenous research methods, and the emerging field of cultural somatics, I offer cross-historical and cultural attachment analysis of the siege of the capital study with the 9th century Frank invasion and forced conversation of the Saxons. I offer this as one example of a cultural trauma in the Christian lineage that severed a key form of land-based / animist Christianity. Such a loss of ancestral tools of resource and resilience by animist Christians at the hand of imperial Christians, I argue, severed cultural, ancestral, and ecological kinship ties, and quickened the rise of insecure cultural attachment patterns in the European Christian 鈥渟oma.鈥� Just one example of many, these insecure cultural attachment patterns of Christianity have profoundly shaped the trajectory of the Western world, including the rise of white supremacy in the United States and its ubiquitous attachment behaviors that show up relationally and bodily across ideological lines. This project is an exploration of the process of restoring healthy ancestral / cultural attachment bonds as a critical process for white Christians to engage responsibly and sustainably in allyship efforts today. Given the dissociative nature of logocentrism in white Christian ancestral memory, I offer somatic trance 鈥� gentle, titrated awareness of bodily sensation and accompanying ecological and spiritual associations 鈥� which I learned through the work of Tada Hozumi and Dare Sohei 鈥� as one form of a non-dominant 鈥榬esearch method鈥� that can connect white Christians with anthropological data lost to Christianity鈥檚 written memory. Such data, I suggest, would support the restoration of secure cultural attachment bonds, restoring healthy culture to the Christian body as a whole, and equipping white Christians to be more sustainable and effective in addressing and healing white supremacy in our churches, communities and in the world at large.

For most of the history of Western theology and philosophy, there has more often than not been a stark dualistic hierarchy of the spiritual over the material, mind over body. Rather than simply reordering this hierarchy, this paper examines the relationship between spirituality and materiality, and the human need for dialogical mutuality between these complementary forces. Not only has the Western cultural mind traditionally placed spirituality at the top of this hierarchy, it has also allowed and incentivized particular categories of materiality to project their own qualities into the role of the universal, spiritual, and transcendent, as exemplified by white supremacy, patriarchy, wealth inequality, anthropocentrism, etc. The projection of any particularity onto universality is the beginning of idolatry, which inevitably leads to systemic violence and oppression. This paper invites its readers to consider a theological frame wherein the transcendence and unknowability of God informs a potential solution to theodicy, a method for understanding systems of violence and oppression as well as strategy for resistance against such powers, and the being and formation of Christians, all by way of an apophatic deconstruction of the projection of human consciousness onto God. This is the starting point for a constructive theology that emphasizes materialism and Christian mysticism in equal measure, going so far as to suggest they are mutually interdependent facets of Christian formation.

In the last decade, there is a growing body of research exploring popular culture fandom communities and what fans gain from participating. Current published research includes examining the difference between fandoms and local community (Chadborn et al., 2018); qualities of fan experience (Chen, 2007; Yamato, 2016; Zsubori & Das, 2018); eudaimonic and hedonic motivations among fans (Taylor, 2019; Vinney & Dill-Shackleford, 2018, Vinny et al., 2019); and the impact of fandom on mental well-being such as creation of self (Hills, 2017), self-empowerment (Nylund, 2007), belonging (Tague et al., 2020), and meaning-making (Vinney et al., 2019). Although researchers are steadily exploring the psychology of fans and fandoms, current research only skims the surface of understanding how the complex structure of fans’ positive valuation and identification with fandoms can be effectively incorporated into individual psychotherapy. This paper is the final product for meeting completion of 天美视频 of Theology and Psychology Integrative Project. Furthermore, as a literature review in preparation for beginning doctoral dissertation research, this paper explores popular culture fandom experience within the intersectionality of the Jungian psychoanalytic framework. This study claims, from a Jungian psychoanalytic perspective, that exploring clients鈥� fandoms in psychotherapy is an effective tool because fandoms tap into innate, universal collective unconscious structures through archetypal representation in modern mythical stories. As the outcome of this literature review, I will theorize how fandom can be used as an effective tool in individual psychotherapy by bringing universal, collective mythology and relational collectiveness into the therapeutic space.

Body Terrorism is a hydra, a monster with many heads. While the body positivity movement is working to cut off the heads of media and diet culture and both external and internal body shame, there is one big mother of a head that no amount of books and social media hashtags can tackle: Christian theology. While many secular resources exist that offer healing and solace for those who have been harmed by this world鈥檚 devaluation of bodies, there are very few that bridge the gap between the secular and Christian world. European and American white Christian Churches are not only complicit in body terrorism, but were also partners in the historical establishment of body supremacies and hierarchies. As such, I assert the necessity of reworking of two doctrines, the Trinity and the imago Dei, into an embodied theology of imago Trini Dei, declaring that humanity, created in God鈥檚 image, is also one in three, with the body, mind, and soul all existing and interpenetrating one another in a sacred perichoretic relationship.

An embodied theology of imago Trini Dei connects the doctrine of the Holy Trinity with the doctrine of imago Dei, answering the question that theologians have been asking for centuries: how does humanity bear the image of God? Many theologians have claimed that only the soul reflects the imago Dei, casting the body in opposition as lowly, base, and vile. The egalitarian Trinity of the Eastern Orthodox tradition asserts that each part of the Holy Trinity is equal, dancing together in an infinite, interpenetrating flow that allows them each to permeate one another, endlessly, inextricably entwined as one God. If perichoresis is applied in the same way to the three parts of a human, the body, the soul, and the mind, then each part of the person is entwined inseparably and also equally divine, equally loved, and equally perfect in the eyes of God.

In the wake of colonialism鈥檚 violence, individuals, communities, and the earth are left battered, beaten, and bruised. Although we are all impacted in different ways, nobody has escaped the harm of colonialism鈥檚 powerful grasp. At times, we have been complicit with colonialism by perpetuating its power and control. This is especially true of white settler-colonists who have seized control of North America, known to indigenous peoples as Turtle Island. The Bible has historically been used by eurocentric theologians as a tool in the hands of colonialism to justify unimaginable harm (both egregious macroaggressions as well as insidious microaggressions) to those who do not comply with its demands. Drawing on multiple disciplines, including Biblical Scholarship and Postcolonial Studies, this paper offers a new hermeneutical tool to white American Christians who long for a way to live out their faith authentically while also actively working to subvert the empire. It exposes the harm of colonialism, particularly as it relates to the way the Bible has been read and applied; it also proposes a new hermeneutic as a step toward reading the Bible in a way that results in the flourishing of all of life and creates the possibility of a different kind of faith community. While eurocentric, kyriarchal readings of the Bible provide the underpinnings and justification for excluding, colonizing, and fragmenting relationships, an inclusive, anticolonial hermeneutic provides the underpinnings and imagination for receiving others, creation, and even ourselves as a Divine gift.

In between text and meaning lies deconstruction 鈥� a methodology arising from Jaques Derrida’s scholarship that argues language is irreducibly complex and indeterminate. When it comes to Church history, the relationship between text and meaning has evolved drastically over time. Throughout history, the language of the Church has been plenty and often wrought with control and power. In an effort to reorient the Christian faith to a well-suited language that is ethical and faithful to the Biblical text and present era, deconstruction, as a current theological movement, seeks to critique Christian institutions and free faith from its problematic language, theology, doctrines, and practices. While utilizing the lenses of theology, psychology, philosophy, and trauma studies, this project discusses language acquisition and usage as it pertains to the Church acting as a deconstruction practice. As a result of this process, this project articulates the inarticulate and unethical language often found in today’s pulpits and churches and its many consequences, such as oppression and manipulation. I claim that a faithful Christian reading, expression, and application requires critical evaluation of text, meaning, and language so as to create ethical, faithful, and legitimate discourse and practice in and out of the pulpit.

America declared success as a 鈥減ost-racial鈥� society following the election of the nation鈥檚 first Black President just 11 short years ago. Since then, America has witnessed a rise in active racial hate and apathy which is perceived as a violent backlash to our alleged racial progress. The simple truth is this: America鈥檚 race problem persists simply because we, as a collective society, are unable to tell the truth about our racially violent past and continually oppressive present. Our rush to declare success as a post-racial society negates the very persistent, systemic, and violent terror inflicted upon African Americans since the founding of this nation. From the reign of slavery, the era of Jim Crow, and now the continued fight for civil rights in the age of mass incarceration and #BlackLivesMatter, America鈥檚 foundational DNA is clear: white supremacy is the vehement backbone of this supposed Christian nation and thus remains the ruling order of our sociopolitical infrastructure.聽

The American sociopolitical landscape of the last century suggest that we are indeed a 鈥渞acially two-faced鈥� society 鈥� craving one utopian racial fantasy all the while refuting the established hyper-racialized reality that we are in. Ultimately, our allegiance to a white supremist ruling order has led to the moral descent of our collective integrity, existence, and legacy as a democratically industrialized nation pioneered upon the ideals of equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Through an analysis of U.S. history through the lens of racial protest, cultural trauma studies, womanist ethics, and Black liberation theology, this project will demonstrate one solution toward the necessary collective awakening, acknowledgement, and renewal of this racially two-faced societal stalemate that we find ourselves in: a revisioning of U.S. public monuments, wherein corporate lament provides the opportunity for the advancement of racial healing, restorative justice, and collective hope.聽

Throughout much of Church history Christian theologies of omnipotence and sovereignty have been discussed and understood primarily in terms of power and control. Simply put, God is all-powerful and in control of all things.聽 This understanding, however, poses significant challenges when considered along with the reality of evil, sin, suffering, and death in the world.聽 Thus, the question of theodicy: how could this be so in light of an all-powerful and all-loving God?聽 This paper seeks to explore the connection between imperial ideology and the aforementioned understanding of God鈥檚 omnipotence and sovereignty, primarily in the context of fear and uncertainty.聽 These theologies will then be revisited in consideration with the Exodus narrative, the prophetic tradition, and ultimately the example of Jesus Christ.聽 In the Christ Hymn found in Philippians 2:5-11, Paul articulates a radically different understanding of omnipotence and sovereignty, in which Jesus reveals that true power is actualized when poured out in dynamic, liberative, creative, and restorative action.聽 Furthermore, looking to the example of God鈥檚 relationality demonstrated throughout the biblical text, we find that God鈥檚 sovereignty is primarily revealed through faithfulness and restoration, rather than dominance and control; for while faithfulness fosters relationship, predicated on trust, freedom, call and response, control negates it by denying the agency and personhood of the other.聽 Finally, this paper will argue that humanity is called to imitate this example by pouring out power for the sake of another and letting go of control in pursuit of relationship.

There is a sort of malaise settled into the bones of Latinxs, beaten in through dominant manifest destiny ideology until it was integrated into thought, emotion, and spirituality. Mainstream thought and media reinforced and still reinforce the need to become white. This underlying requirement to become white, is exemplified by the ideal of manifest destiny. This message of compliance, silence, and erasure was repeated through the differing interpretations in the news media of the racist terror act in El Paso, Texas, on August 3rd, 2019. In the aftermath of this terror, interpretations of Latinx culture were written by white reporters. The news was quickly dominated by other current events and a massacre of Latinxs was quickly erased.聽

The Latinx culture expressed in textbooks and creative arts is often a cheap caricature of the rich culture and ethnic identity of Latinx people. These mythologies allow racist ideologies and oppressive systems to thrive and become concretized within the American social imagination. The act of terror in El Paso, Texas, on August 3rd, 2019 is an explicit concretization of this implicit form of racist dehumanization. White American norms impose compliance upon outsiders to enter as 鈥済uests,鈥� and to remain silent in order to survive. In dominant media, violence within the Latinx community is exaggerated while violence against Latinxs is normalized. Latinxs are looking for justice and voice, but at the heart of the United States is a complex entanglement of Christian faith, racism, and government, which condones this compliance, silence, and erasure.聽

The founders of the United States of America came to these lands in pursuit of opportunity, freedom, and happiness, many of them fleeing hardship and persecution. In the process of establishing a new nation they sought to protect their rights and liberties and seemed to believe that in doing so they served the common good. But in our short history the vision these white, land-owning men established for our nation has excluded and oppressed many. To cope with their participation in an oppressive system and society, members of the dominant culture utilize the dissociative strategies of collective narcissism to avoid pain and mask their privilege generated through our nation鈥檚 dehumanizing practices. This collective narcissism contributes to the traumatization, fragmentation, and fracturing of our society where the oppressed, the oppressors, and the bystanders are unable to flourish in their full humanity with dignity and worth. This project will expose and critique the collective narcissism evidenced in the dominant American culture through the lens of psychologies of liberation and Christian ethics generated from the margins of society, in order to imagine a more inclusive, just, and psychologically integrated America.聽

An inherent aspect of being human is the desire for a place to call one鈥檚 home. For as long as humanity has existed, there have been stories and myths of quests for home. From a Biblical perspective, the first man and woman were cast out of the Garden of Eden, their original home, and all of humanity has ever sought to restore the essence of being at 鈥渉ome鈥�. This project seeks to explore what it means to be at home, through philosophical, theological, and psychological lenses, and examines how an understanding of place has been shaped throughout history. Following a thorough analysis of place, an alternative understanding of home is put forth by queering place and flipping traditional understandings, providing an opportunity for a reclamation of home by those typically marginalized. Finally, the question of how one finds home is answered, with the proposal that home is created through commitment, community, and choice. Framing the examination of space and subsequent proposals is a personal dimension that provides a vulnerable example of what it means to 鈥渃ome home.鈥� The ultimate goal will be a new understanding of what makes a space into a place, and how a place becomes a home, with the enduring hope and desire for a restoration and sustainability of the world, cities, and each one鈥檚 home.聽

Xenophobia is the fear, hatred, and disgust of those who are culturally different (Amodio & Frith 2006; Gutierrez & Giner-Sorolla, 2007; Miller, 2006; Rozin et al., 1999; Tummala-Narra, 2019). Those who are different are defined as 鈥淥ther鈥� (Gaztambide, 2018). This research looks critically at the consequences of xenophobia through the lens of disgust and neurology alongside certain spiritualities/religions (S/R) in the United States that promote disconnection. A particular focus will look at the ethics around the mental health field, clinician鈥檚 world views that affect patients, and history of psychology in the United States. Critical engagement with the United States鈥� historical memory and current events find that there are certain values adhered in the dominant culture. Such values inform socio-moral disgust and occur deeply within social contexts that negatively impact interpersonal and intrapersonal connection. Celtic spirituality offers a contrasting spiritual perspective on connection and recognizing the divinity and goodness in all people and nature, and brings to light ways to promote reconciliation and reverence to difference in a xenophobic culture. Studies found connection to others offers healing to the self, increased imagination, and a sense of genuine belonging. Love is a form of recognizing the humanness of the other and the self, which requires engaging one鈥檚 own implicit disgust to increase tolerance of inner wounds and social reconciliation.

Western culture contains many socio-political constructs built for the sole purpose of maintaining oppressive social systems that are intended to funnel power to the privileged, extract free or cheap labor from the masses, and erect barriers to protect the pure from contamination by the profane. Organized religions, as such a construct, tend to exacerbate areas of perceived inferiority and to enlarge prejudiced blind spots by rewarding normative behaviors and demonizing the marginalized. My research has focused on usurping these socio-political constructs by refocusing our cultural perception on the relationality of the Trinity. In the words of Professor Ron Ruthruff, our shared cultural history 鈥渉as impacted identity formation and our intrapsychic knowing of ourselves, our ability to relate to each other and make meaning.鈥� Therefore, it is my conclusion that we truly must die to our initially formed sense of identity in order to live life to the fullest with complete surrender, dependence upon the grace of God, and mutual reciprocity.聽

This project explores the correlation between abuse and complementarian marriages by looking first at the Biblical narrative in Genesis 3, then by examining the relationship structures of Complementarian marriages, and finally by unpacking the dehumanization process of women which allows for violence. The understood mandate for masculine authority places women in vulnerable situations as they are subjected to a lower status and unable to have full autonomy over their own bodies and lives. This act by conservative evangelical churches and the theology they prescribe- unconsciously or not- creates an atmosphere where violence becomes more likely. The goal of this project is to identify potential places where harm is happening, for churches to be able to identify their potential roles in perpetuating unsafe environments, and to ultimately find ways for the Christian community to build safer environments for everyone.聽

Names are not inconsequential. The names we carry impact us and our being in the world. Why is this? How much impact does the name we carry have on our lives and the lives of those around us? By way of navigating my own narrative around the name I was given at birth, I will look at 鈥渨hat鈥檚 in a name鈥� through a progression of lenses: quantum physics, developmental psychology, the name of God, and Derridean Deconstructionism all in pursuit of building an Ontology of Name.

For a survivor of trauma, the hope of the Gospel message of Jesus can get complicated. Ruptured security from developmental stages can posture one鈥檚 psyche within psychological shame. If harm is unaddressed, a felt sense of unworthiness is carried into adulthood and permeates a relation to self, others, and God. When the Gospel message is situated within a shamed identity, this fragmentation of self affects a person’s interpretation of wholeness. By gathering psychological research and theological discourse around the topic of shame, I offer that re-imagining Jesus鈥檚 call to become like little children can expand our understanding of theological hope for those marked with shame. When trauma is revisited, the hope of Jesus is reconciled with a full story and a whole person. Congruently, I鈥檒l mirror a personal wandering through the implications of desire within a body that actively carries harm.聽 In addition to an academic conversation, I鈥檝e facilitated an imagination towards hope and protest through my own songwriting and storytelling. My goal is to expand the theological category of hope within a deeper understanding of shame and discover a Gospel invitation towards wholeness that lies dormant beneath the suffering of formative years.

The Bible is seen by many as being the authoritative word of God, divinely inspired and inerrant. Those beliefs often go hand in hand with the understanding that the Bible is a cohesive book written for the modern reader. The problem with such readings is that they often miss the fact that the texts are historically and culturally located. Not only that, but the original intent of the texts is often skipped over because it does not apply to us today. This essay highlights the variety of voices within the Biblical texts and argues that their differences should be embraced. The differences between the Biblical texts are often swept aside because they undermine claims of inerrancy and divine inspiration, however, this paper argues that it is through the humanity of the texts that we encounter the divine. That is based upon the understanding that the imago dei shows up in relationship.聽