Each year, our MDiv and MACS (soon to be MATC!) students are tasked with an integrative project. The integrative project goes beyond a thesis paper and is a capstone to the educational process for these students. Each student writes on their specific passions, calling, and vocational pursuits, and their hard work is exhibited at their presentations.
Jev Forsberg: Participation in Violent Videogaming as Profound Mimetic Discharge
This project strays from the traditional phenomenological analysis of violent videogames, and focuses instead on their telos – or function – in the world. Using Rene Girard’s understanding of ‘mimetic theory’ and the function of the ‘scapegoat mechanism,’ as well as Jacques Ellul’s notion of the ‘necessity’ of violence, I reflect up what a ‘Christian’ response to violent gaming could look like. Over-and-against the the historic ‘Evangelical’ response to violent gaming, I base my conclusions on a framework based on categories of reflection, meditation, and non-violent Christology.
Download Jev’s Integrative Project Paper
Jason Bowker: An Ordinarily Radical Restructuring of Church
In light of our increasingly post-Christian world, the church must re-ground itself in theologically imaginative theory and practice in order to continue its presence as a people of good news, peace, justice, and restoration for the world. My integrative project is my best attempt at re-imagining a new way to do and be church, through a theoretical and practical examination of the five foundational principles that will serve as the core of my future churches.
Download Jason’s Integrative Project Paper
Andy Cheung: The Intersection of Faith and the Self: Re-examining the Christian Identity in the Asian American Context
Complications in identity formation for Asian Americans can be attributed to factors stemming from the multidimensional context in which they live. The paper introduces the particular challenges in identity development for Asian Americans and how the use of Christian identity creates additional fragmentation in the self. The hope is to spark conversations leading Asian American Christians to a re-imagining of faith and the self.
