Beyond the classroom lectures, grading of papers, and office hours, Crandall University faculty spend a great deal of time actively contributing towards the further development of their respective fields of expertise. From research papers and books, interviews and speaking engagements, our professors’ work extends beyond the classroom and out into the world at large.

This year, Crandall’s faculty have been busy as ever. Here’s just a small glimpse of what they have been up to this year.

Dr. Tracy Freeze Psychology

Dr. Freeze attended a Research Workshop on Religion, Spirituality and Health led by Dr. Harold Koenig from Duke University. This workshop was held at Coventry University in the UK.

She also presented  “Attachment to God and Health: The Moderating Role of Stress” at the 6th European Conference on Religion, Spirituality and Health and 5th International Conference of the British Association for the Study of Spirituality held at Coventry University. This research was a collaboration with two colleagues at UNB Saint John and two former honours students, and examines how a person’s relationship with God relates to their mental and physical health.

Dr. Stephen Dempster Religious Studies

Dr. Dempster was a speaker at the Christianity and the Death of the Old Testament conference at the College of the Ozarks in Branson, Missouri. In one session on Old Testament theology, Dr. Dempster unpacked the importance of understanding the meaning of the Old Testament that so saturated Jesus’ mind and speech. The second session, “The Old Testament as Christian Scripture: An Ending in Search of a Story,” explored the importance of understanding and embracing the Old Testament as Christian Scripture.

He also presented a paper on Reading the Psalms for Spiritual Formation at the Evangelical Theological Society in Atlanta, GA, and gave a series of Lectures on Biblical Theology and its Relation to Systematic Theology at Gateway Seminary in Los Angeles California.

Dr. Adam Stewart Sociology

Over the summer, Dr. Stewart presented papers on Pentecostalism at two conferences in Europe. The first was the Annual Meeting of the European Pentecostal Theological Association held in Brussels, Belgium, where Dr. Stewart presented a paper titled “Reconciliation, Neoliberalism, and Nimi Wariboko’s Pentecostal Principle.” This paper, along with another presented earlier in the year at the 15th Annual NAIITS Symposium in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, argues that, despite the highly visible efforts at reconciliation made by the Government of Canada such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, the work of reconciliation between Settler Canadians and Indian Residential Schools survivors, has not yet truly begun. Dr. Stewart made the case that Christians have a special moral responsibility to instigate reconciliation with Indigenous Canadians that exceeds whatever efforts are made by our governments.

At the Annual Meeting of the European Conference on Data Analysis held in Paderborn, Germany, Dr. Stewart presented a paper titled, “Sociohistorical Recommendations for the Dewey Decimal Editorial Policy Committee for the Reclassification of Pentecostalism.” In this paper, he developed a number of suggestions for revising the way that works about Pentecostalism are classified by librarians so that library collections would better reflect the research that exists regarding Pentecostalism from outside of Canada and the United States where the vast majority of Pentecostals are found.

Dr. John Stackhouse Religious Studies

While on his half-year research leave, Dr. John Stackhouse produced a review essay that examined 10 recent books on religion in Canada. This 8000-word study will appear in the leading North American journal in the field, Church History—the periodical of the American Society of Church History—in 2019. He also wrote a 13,000-word paper on “The Renaissance of Christian University Education in Canada” for the national conference on Canadian Christian Higher Education held in Toronto in October. He continues to work on the manuscript of his new book, “Can You Believe? An Invitation to the Hesitant,” under contract with the Oxford University Press.

In addition to Dr. Stackhouse’s plenary address, the CHEC Symposium saw other members of Crandall’s faculty leading breakout sessions, including Crandall President Dr. Bruce Fawcett, who presented “Knowing your audience: Tracking discipleship practices of Christian adolescents 2002-2017 and their implications for institutions of Christian higher education,” and Dr. Ted Newell, who shared “George Parkin Grant’s Advice to Twenty-first Century Canadian Christian Higher Education.”