Papers
By David Golding
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Here are my academic papers in graduate school.
Some Labor to Perform?: Brigham Young’s Theory of Atonement and Assurance
My first paper in grad school.
Prophetic Movements, Theory, and Mission in Postcolonial Congo: Toward a Confession Missiology
My most challenging project to date. This paper represents my negotiation with postcolonialism and missiology, and how I think mission work ought to adjust to contemporary world issues.
Reinterpreting Religious Studies: Derrida, Deconstruction, and Detours
I have grown tired of some of ways atheists and theists quibble with each other. Many times, folks make terrible and all-too-elementary assumptions about science and religion to try to debunk the other. In my mind, science and religion are embedded in many of the same things. This paper examines religious studies as a discipline and how it might benefit from using Derridean deconstruction method to question itself and also how it might move away from modern protocols of knowledge.
2009
A Luxuriant Demonology? The Idea of a Benevolent God in Calvinist Orthodoxy
I’m not altogether sympathetic to John Calvin, but I do get frustrated when I hear folks dismiss his theology due to their own misunderstandings. It’s a lot like how I feel with Joseph Smith; it’s really easy to misunderstand the man, dismiss him, then punish him for it. This paper attempts to understand Calvin’s doctrine of a benevolent God and in a way defend it against accusations that have become standard fare in American culture over the past couple of centuries. Not intended to be exhaustive, mostly opening up a line of inquiry.
Modes of Conversion in American Religious History, 1500–1860
Here I develop a preliminary theory of conversion that I use to examine moments of contact between evangelists and converts in early and colonial American history. I’m thinking of developing this theory further in my thesis, so any and all feedback is welcome.
From Desert to City: Asceticism in Early Christianity and the Appropriation of Authority
This paper explores how early Christian bishops appropriated authority into their office and how others appropriated it to them and to the Desert Fathers. A mix of theory and history, which I hope is creative and enlightening.
Sickles, Swords, and Servants: The Foundations of Joseph Smith’s Mission Theory
A comprehensive look at the pre-Book of Mormon and New York period of Joseph Smith’s life respecting the formation of his missiology, or mission theory. Highlights the similarities between Joseph’s theory and Protestant missionaries of the same time period in America, and points to the move to Kirtland as a significant shift in his approach to mission.
Wanderers in Wandering Societies: Early Medieval Monasticism and the Beginnings of Systematic Prosleytism
Aidan of Lindisfarne first caught my attention when working on a paper for a History of the Middle Ages class. I had been looking for medieval missionaries and discovered in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History how special mention was made of Aidan for his proselytism and establishing a training center at Lindisfarne for other missionaries to expand into northern Europe and build monasteries. I revisited this topic with a little more attention in this paper and argue here that the social environment lent itself toward the development of systematic institutions, one of the more stable and progressive of such in the early Middle Ages I identify as the growth of monasteries and the beginnings of systematic proselytism.
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