RCSA Academic Symposium Papers and Presenters

PAPERS & PRESENTERS

We are so thankful to everyone who submitted a paper this year. Special shout out to our team of reviewers who each read the numerous submissions, discussed the candidates, and selected the final papers to be presented.

Please find the list of the students presenting with an abstract on their papers below:

THE CALL OF A HOLY HOST: HOW LEVITICUS LEADS US TO A GRACE-FILLED HOSPITALITY

What does it mean to both be welcoming and to be welcomed? How do we relate to those we consider “other”? These are questions our western society asks with regards to immigration and foreign relations, though they have deep significance for our personal relationships as well. The Church is called to practice biblical hospitality, but it is a practice we are largely neglecting. By comparing the thought of postmodern philosophers to the Holiness Code in Leviticus, this paper will aim to reveal the essence of biblical hospitality: a grace-filled exchange between host and guest, sustained by Yahweh who is the ultimate host.

BEYOND STORIES OF MIGRATION: PERSPECTIVES OF ASIAN CANADIAN FILMMAKERS

With a burgeoning immigrant population transforming Canada's ethnocultural landscape, understanding the nuanced journey of second and subsequent generations of migrants is a timely and worthwhile endeavour. This essay explores the acculturative experiences and perspectives of Asian Canadian filmmakers who unanimously express a desire to move beyond the stereotypical framework of migration narratives. Through qualitative research methods, including one-on-one interviews with four Asian Canadian filmmakers, this study explores themes of identity negotiation, ethnic heritage, community, and the ongoing challenges faced by visible minorities in Canada. This paper grounds us in the Canadian context (where Regent is providentially situated) and challenges us to think deeply about the expectations and assumptions we can have when interacting with people's experiences of marginality and invites us to listen appreciatively to stories that move us beyond migration narratives.

HOSPITABLE LISTENING: LEARNING FROM AFRO-CANADIAN AND TAIWANESE-AMERICAN SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS

Spiritual direction involves listening and offering hospitality, both of which are practices influenced by cultural values and orientations. This paper explores how minority experiences and cultural values impact the practice of minority spiritual directors, whether consciously or unconsciously. I argue that the distinctive perspectives and life experiences of minorities in North America would helpfully inform spiritual direction training programs, which often lack intercultural awareness training. To ensure that spiritual direction is a truly hospitable experience for all God’s people, challenging White normativity is crucial to enable directees of all backgrounds to attend to God, themselves, and others with freedom and joy.

A HARMONY OF SAPIENTIA: ON PROPERLY READING ST. AUGUSTINE’S DE TRINIATE

There has been much criticism directed at the Augustinian—and thus Western—understanding of the Trinity, that it emphasizes oneness at the cost of the particularity of the Persons. I argue that such criticism stems from an improper historical-theological reading of De Trinitate. Instead, one must pay attention to the nuances of Augustine’s apophatic, cataphatic, and analogical approaches to the Trinitarian Personhood. When done so, the Trinitarian theology that arises from De Trinitate is a highly imaginative interpretation of proper Nicene orthodoxy. Namely, it is a view of persona as the irreducible locus of sapientia and the Trinitarian unity as the complete harmony of sapiential action.

“FROM NOW-AND-NOT-YET TO NOW-BUT-NOT-SEEN”: TRACING THE HISTORY OF ESCHATOLOGICAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE LETTER TO THE COLOSSIANS

Exegesis of Colossians in the late 20th and early 21st centuries often argues that ahistorical eschatology indicates its non-Pauline authorship. This paper traces such an ahistorical reading to Rudolph Bultmann and his pupils, Günther Bornkamm and Ernst Käsemann. The Bultmannian school argues for an ahistorical eschatology by suggesting that Colossians conflates eschatology and soteriology in its baptismal formulae, shifts eschatological hope from temporal to spatial categories, and grounds its ecclesiology in realized eschatology. This paper responds to the Bultmannian position, contextualizing its data to argue that Colossians’ eschatological emphasis is better interpreted as a result of the letter’s occasional nature than as evidence of an ahistorical and non-Pauline eschatological outlook.

DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE WISDOM: PERCEPTIONS OF WISDOM AND BIBLICAL PROVERBS IN A LOCAL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IN VANCOUVER

The Book of Proverbs provides beautiful keys of biblical wisdom for unlocking the intricacies of life. But how does one understand and use such biblical wisdom well? One of North America’s most unique and vibrant communities, the Downtown Eastside, has a wealth of wisdom to offer in the pursuit of understanding, growing, and living out wisdom from the Proverbs. Through in-depth qualitative interviews with members of this impactful community, this paper explores how Wisdom’s school is filled with unlikely teachers, including the suffering and the dead.

ECHOES OF ISAIAH 28 IN MARK 12:1–12: A HYMN OF PRAISE SUNG IN A MINOR KEY

This paper uses Richard B. Hays’ seven criteria to establish Isaiah 28:16 as an “echo” in Mark's Parable of the Tenants (Mk 12:1–12). Reading Isaiah 28:16 as an echo in this passage provides significant explanatory power for a text that has caused much debate in Markan studies. Scholars have devoted a lot of attention to making sense of how the imagery of a vineyard and a cornerstone fit together. This paper considers the context evoked by the echo of Isaiah 28:16 and finds that it offers a compelling combination of vineyard and stone imagery.

FORMING, FILLING, AND NAMING: THE LOST WORDS AS CREATIONAL RE-ENCHANTMENT

“Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children.” So begins the preface to The Lost Words, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris’ creative protest to the 2007 Oxford Junior Dictionary, which had culled “nature words” deemed irrelevant to modern-day childhood. This paper explores the themes of forming, filling, and naming in The Lost Words—themes through which its vision of the natural world proves remarkably consistent with a biblical theology of creation. The Lost Words invites us into a participatory engagement with the natural world which does not claim mastery but marvels at mystery—and thereby compels us to orthopraxy in creation-care.

IGNATIUS OF ANTIOCH AND HIS EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGY: GRAMMATICAL AND THEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON EPHESIANS

On the heels of the last apostle’s death, Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. 117) journeys across Asia Minor led by 'ten leopards' toward his own death in the Roman colosseum. On his way he writes seven letters – notably one to the Christians of Ephesus, “a church famous forever” (Eph. 8.1). This article explores the eucharistic theology of two texts in the letter: Eph. 5.2 and Eph. 20.2. It argues that both passages bear the marks of Johannine influence, and it further frames Ignatius’ medicinal language within the context of early Christian eucharistic practice and theology which linked immortality with participation in the agape meal.

“CALLED INTO THE GENERAL DANCE”: SEX, LONELINESS, AND OUR RELATIONAL GOD

If God has designed humans to find healing and wholeness through loving, sexual intimacy, why is this kind of intimacy available to so few? As I will argue, answering this means recognizing that our triune God is intrinsically relational. Because God is relational he is also invitational, seeking out others whom he calls into the fellowship of the Trinity. Therefore, to be made in God’s image is to be made for others. It also means that we long to be delighted in, just as the Father delights in the Son. Sex thus offers the possibility of what Rowan Williams terms “the body’s grace,” a tangible way of knowing that another delights in us. However, sexual relations alone cannot sustain this grace, as the body’s limitations and human failings make clear. We are not made only for marriage, but for the koinania of the church, a life together centred around the Eucharist.

AN AGE THAT NEEDS PATTERNS: CONVERSING WITH NICHOLAS FERRAR, GEORGE HERBERT, AND EACH OTHER IN THE LOVE OF GOD

As head of the Little Gidding community (an extended family that worked, prayed, and lived together in 17th-century England), Nicholas Ferrar believed that they were providing “a pattern in an age that needs patterns.” His friendship with the poet-priest George Herbert led to the publication of Herbert’s poems, which show us the heart of that pattern: conversing with God. Ferrar and Herbert saw personal spiritual growth as something that could directly shape the social conflicts of their age. In our polarized times, will we allow our conversations with each other to be shaped by our conversations with the God who both listens and speaks?

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD: THE EXPERIENCE OF FOOD INSECURITY AMONG STUDENTS AT REGENT COLLEGE

What is the experience of food insecurity among full-time graduate students at Regent College? This qualitative research project explores that question through interviews with five students who have frequented the AMS food bank during their time at Regent. This study’s findings tell the story of real challenges experienced by Regent students and the impact of these challenges on student wellbeing. The findings equally reveal, however, that there is hope to meaningfully increase the resilience of our student body in the face of these pressures through acts of generosity and mutual support.

QUESTIONS?

Email rcsavpac@regent-college.edu