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The goal of this research was to find ways to help churches keep safe from a mass shooter. To do that, I hoped to find common ground among academics, law enforcement, peace churches, and defense churches and then leverage that common ground to find ways the groups could collaborate on church safety. I observed three churches and conducted interviews at 14 churches. I reviewed academic literature about academics and law enforcement officers. The common ground I found between all groups was fear of violence, desire to be safe, and a general belief in metaphysical forces. Other key takeaways were that outsiders cannot make accurate assumptions about religious groups based on denomination and that a religious group's response to the threat of violence might not be internally consistent or make sense to outsiders. I designed a course based on my research results and pedagogical best practices. I limited the target audience to police officers because they were the easiest to identify and contact and because their job was to counter violence. Police officers who complete the course should better understand religious worldviews, know examples of how different Christian groups view violence, know how to effectively interact with religious groups, and know how to leverage common ground between religious groups and law enforcement officers. Future efforts include producing the course, observing law enforcement officers, and creating an undergraduate course on contemporary Christianity. / Doctor of Philosophy / The goal of this research was to find ways to help churches keep safe from a mass shooter. I hoped to connect academics, police, and different Christian churches so they could collaborate on church defense. To learn about Christian churches, I attended three churches and interviewed leaders at 14 churches. I read prior research about academics and police. I found that all groups had in common the desire to stay safe from violence and a general belief in a force greater than themselves. I also learned that outsiders could not make accurate assumptions about religious groups based on denomination and that a religious group's response to the threat of violence might not be internally consistent or make sense to outsiders. To apply my results, I designed a course for police officers because they were the easiest group to identify and contact and because their job was to counter violence. Those who complete the course should learn to better understand religious worldviews, know examples of how different Christian groups view violence, know how to effectively interact with religious groups, and know how to leverage commonalities among religious groups and law enforcement officers. Future efforts include producing the course, observing law enforcement officers, and creating an undergraduate course on contemporary Christianity.

The integration of faith and learning has been the object of study of men and women in the Canadian Calvinistic school movement ever since Dr. Abraham Kuyper pointed out that there could be no dichotomy between the sacred and the secular in the life of a Christian. Acting on the traditions, influences and beliefs these `Reformed' Christians had imbibed in their homeland, the Dutch Calvinistic immigrants who came to British Columbia after WW II built Christian schools as soon as they arrived. As they became more established, they formed curriculum committees of teachers who wrote curriculum for each subject area from a Christian perspective, intentionally planning to integrate their faith and learning in all subject areas. By looking at the history and Bible textbooks of not only the Calvinistic (Reformed) Christian day schools in British Columbia and then branching out to the history and Bible textbooks of three other denominational schools, the Mennonite, the Pentecostal and the Lutheran, I have tried to discover how the faith beliefs of each of these groups are brought to bear on the teaching of Bible. In soliciting the strengths of each of these groups from their history, current practise and teacher comments, I have pitched my own proposal as to how the integration of faith and learning can be enhanced in the teaching of Bible. By blending goals, curricula and best practice, as well combining certain faith belief frameworks in interpreting God's Word, by learning in community, and by listening to the Holy Spirit in the text, I believe the teaching of Bible can become `Spirited teaching'. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D.Th.

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This thesis explores lifespan and intergenerational trauma effects experienced by Russian Mennonite women who fled from Stalinist Russia during WWII and migrated to Canada, and adult sons or daughters of this generation of women. As an adult child of survivors, I employed an autoethnographic methodology, conducting 1-on-1 interviews with eight women aged 78 to 96, and seven adult children aged 50 to 68. Older women demonstrated a lifelong emphasis on mental strength, faith, and resilience; the marginalization of emotions; evidence of insecure attachment styles; and potential for unresolved trauma to resurface in later life. The majority of adult children experienced attachment and identity issues; their life experiences are viewed through the lens of biological, psychological, familial, cultural (religious) transmission of trauma effects. Results highlight the importance of structural and narrative social work approaches that externalize and contextualize trauma and transform service environments that individualize and/or pathologize lifespan outcomes of trauma.

This thesis explores lifespan and intergenerational trauma effects experienced by Russian Mennonite women who fled from Stalinist Russia during WWII and migrated to Canada, and adult sons or daughters of this generation of women. As an adult child of survivors, I employed an autoethnographic methodology, conducting 1-on-1 interviews with eight women aged 78 to 96, and seven adult children aged 50 to 68. Older women demonstrated a lifelong emphasis on mental strength, faith, and resilience; the marginalization of emotions; evidence of insecure attachment styles; and potential for unresolved trauma to resurface in later life. The majority of adult children experienced attachment and identity issues; their life experiences are viewed through the lens of biological, psychological, familial, cultural (religious) transmission of trauma effects. Results highlight the importance of structural and narrative social work approaches that externalize and contextualize trauma and transform service environments that individualize and/or pathologize lifespan outcomes of trauma.

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