Dallas Theological Seminary

Seminaries in the United States have for more than two centuries sought to equip ministerial leaders for service within the community of faith. And yet these institutions have traditionally been the focus of very little quantitative research. This lack of data is particularly noteworthy given the existential crises many seminaries currently face, especially regarding their flagship Master of Divinity (MDiv) programs. Among seminary leadership, a common response to declining MDiv enrollment has been to decrease the length of the program—which historically required at least 90 credit hours—and to increase Master of Arts (MA) offerings. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the extent to which these programmatic changes may be explained by institutional theory. Longitudinal data were analyzed to examine change at Association of Theological Schools member institutions (AMIs) related to enrollment and degree program trends and MDiv credit-hour reductions. The results revealed that AMIs have changed in significant and similar ways over the past twenty years and that these changes appear to be prompted, at least in part, by isomorphic pressures from peer institutions.

Leaders are buckling under the pressure of tremendous hardship. Could you be next? No matter how difficult, daunting, or despairing life gets, it doesn’t have to take you down. In this place of unthinkable hardship, the Lord breaks us to make us better, humbles us to build us up, and burdens us to make us stronger, forming in and through us something more than we could ever imagine. Join me on my journey through hardship as we discover from Scripture how the Lord uses unimaginable adversity to strengthen personal resilience—a resilience that helps us rise above our circumstances, overcome the ensuing darkness, and stay the course to accomplish God’s mission.

Abstract This book traces the history of Bible software and app development, showing the unique and powerful role evangelical entrepreneurs and coders have played in shaping its functionality and how their choices in turn shape the reading habits of millions of people around the world. Though evangelicals are sometimes seen as those who retreat from or reject societal change, this book argues that evangelicals are adept at appropriating new technology—including early computers, the internet, mobile apps, and virtual reality experiences—in service of what they see as their mission in the world. In addition to historical research, this book includes interviews with developers at three of the largest Bible software companies and fieldwork with digital and print Bible readers in several churchs. This creates a comprehensive look at the interconnected ecosystem of publishers, developers, pastors, institutions, and software companies both within and outside of evangelicalism, and demonstrates how it affects the way churchgoers read and interpret the Bible.

Abstract This article addresses the seeming incongruity between supra‐personal accounts of sin and conciliar Christology. Supra‐personal accounts of sin, in their variegated forms, propose that sin is not merely reducible to the human will, but is enmeshed within the societal or social structures that all human beings inhabit. Such accounts become potentially problematic when considered in conjunction with the Christology of the ecumenical councils—especially the affirmation of Christ’s sinlessness. Specifically, if sin is not localized to the individual person and their will, how can we affirm that Christ genuinely participates in a warped society and sinful social structures while remaining sinless? This article articulates the fundamentals of social accounts of sin, defends the requisite sinlessness of Christ from the councils, and establishes guiding principles for properly navigating the relationship between Christology and structural sin. Ultimately it argues that an affirmation of Christ’s sinlessness ought to orient and delineate a Christian understanding of supra‐personal sin.

Abstract A survey of works on the development of nascent trinitarianism, especially in the last several decades, reveals that most treatments cut a wide path around three of the earliest Christian writings: Didache, Barnabas, and Shepherd of Hermas. Because these writings straddle the apostolic/post-apostolic eras (c. AD 50-150), they should be regarded as essential links in any historical account of the development of trinitarian theology. Nevertheless, these writings have sometimes been regarded as having sketchy, scant, or scandalous christologies and pneumatologies. This article argues that the typical critical estimations of these writings as nontrinitarian are under-supported by the textual evidence. Rather, Didache, Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas may very well presuppose a basic christocentric and trinitarian creation-redemption narrative. Far from scandalous, these texts provide a positive link in the continuity from seminal apostolic trinitarian thought to the later trinitarian growth of the second century.

Dirk Philips provides an explanation of how a Christian should interpret Scripture in his Enchiridion. Such chapters as “The Sending of Preachers and Teachers,” “The Tabernacle of Moses,” and “Of Spiritual Restitution” provide the clearest picture for students of this Anabaptist hermeneutic, a hermeneutic which interprets all of Scripture through the dichotomy of the letter and the Spirit, united in their central theme, Christ and the Church, a reading that can only be found through a hermeneutic of obedience.