Date
2-2022
Department
Rawlings School of Divinity
Degree
Doctor of Ministry (DMin)
Chair
Dietmar W. Schulze
Keywords
Soteriology, Justification, Calvinism, Arminianism, Semi-Pelagianism
Disciplines
Christianity | Curriculum and Instruction
Recommended Citation
Head, David Shawn, "A Study of Soteriology: A Commentary, Course, and Conclusion of Brown’s Creek Baptist Church’s Soteriological Beliefs" (2022). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 3376.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/3376
Abstract
This thesis identifies a church’s lack of theological awareness of biblical soteriology, investigates the literature for solutions to the ministerial problem, implements the review of literature into a course with curriculum, and the influences on the congregation’s beliefs. The church was a hodgepodge of soteriological beliefs. More specifically, the congregants purported to believe in Calvinism, Arminianism, and Semi-Pelagianism but could not accurately define, adequately describe, or appropriately defend said beliefs. A review of literature led this student to be selective of the soteriological literature known to exist. Simply, the ministerial problem was not because of a lack of literature but because of a lack of application. Surveying the selected literature, this student found several common themes associated with the above soteriological schools. These themes included the historical positions, the theological precepts, the biblical precedents, the exegetical problems, and the contemporary perspectives. These themes, following an exegetical study of Romans 9 for the theological foundation and finding known examples where courses were effective at distributing the information for the theoretical foundation, were implemented with curriculum in a classroom. The course, spanning seven days for an hour each day, presented the review of literature using the themes to distinguish the days. A survey and two identical questionnaires, one given before the course and one given after the course, were used to collect the quantitative and qualitative data. This data revealed that the course was effective at confirming, challenging, and changing the congregation’s soteriological beliefs by bringing theological awareness to biblical soteriology.
