Monday, August 4, 2008

Longest D.Min. Title Contest

It's that time of the year when we are working on processing the new D.Min. theses. A quick query of our catalog turned up one thesis title from 2001 that was 207 characters long:

Development of an educational program of Christian formation for the Baptist Church of Quintana, Hato Rey, Puerto Rico to deal with the racial and ethnic prejudice in the congregation and the local community

What's the longest thesis title in your library? To be sporting, I'll allow Ph.D. titles as well.

10 comments:

Steve Perisho said...

Walter's Law: the length of the title of a D.Min. (or any) thesis rises in inverse proportion to true insignificance of the work.

Blake Walter said...

Hmm, if it's inverse to the insignificance, that would mean the longer the better, right?

Unknown said...

The African philosophy of life : religious and cultural tolerance in Tanzania : African worldview as a point of dialogue between Christians and Islam : a Bantu case study, or, Dialogue in context : African religion as a dialogue strategy between Christianity and Islam (216 characters, with an alternate title)

jdarlack said...

We have not broken the 200 mark, but this title has 191 characters (not counting spaces or punctuation; 222 characters counting spaces & punctuation):

Religious addiction : mobilizing a congregational response : Comunidade Batista Shalom and its challenge to transform the dysfunctional church and recover authentic Christianity among Brazilians in the New England Context (2007)

My favorite GCTS thesis title is The Bejeweled pig snout : appropriate use of humor in preaching (2007).

The worst part about long DMin thesis titles is that you have to sit through them being read (in full, including subtitles) at the graduation ceremony!

jdarlack said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jdarlack said...

Sorry about that last post - I miscounted. We do have another contender for longest GCTS DMin title in our 2008 batch:

Pioneering and developing a chaplaincy in transportation as a ministry and mission for travelers beginning in the urban environment of New York City with particular involvement in areas of public transportation such as planes trains and buses

243 characters (including spaces & punctuation)
207 characters (without spaces & punctuation)

Blake Walter said...

Yes, spaces and punctuation count. Unless you would like to see us return to the use of uncial scripts!

Anonymous said...

Here are our two longest titles (but we do have others which break the 200 mark):

Equipping a select group of Baptist leaders in interpersonal relationship skills for ministry to serve as mentors for church related vocational students involved in the Baptist Student Union at William Carey College, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
(D.Min., 2005)
206 characters / 241 with spaces & punctuation

An investigation of the roles of the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans, the Louisiana Baptist Convention, and the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention in the planting of selected churches and missions in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods of New Orleans, 1950-1991
(Ph.D., 1993)
240 characters / 287 with spaces & punctuation

Patrick said...

I know I'm late to the game on this, but in my defense, I'm new to the job.

Weighing in at 225 characters (without spaces and punc; 270 with)

The development of the teaching on real presence and on the notion of the "sacrament of the sacrifice" in the eucharistic theology of the Anglican, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic churches and its implication for an ecumenical eucharistic service among these three churches

Balto said...

Just got this today:
Yale University
PhD in Religious Studies
(2009)

Scott Nelson Dolff

Mercy, Human and Divine, or a Short Treatise on the Nature and Necessity of Mercy, both Human and Divine, and the Relationship of the Latter to the Former, with Special Reference to the Christian Scriptures, Consideration Being Given to Human Mercy as an Obligation, but also a Sacramental Moment of Divine Mercy, both for the Beneficiary and the Benefactor, containing as well a Brief Theological Anthropology in Support of the Thesis, All Suggesting that Union with Christ is the Ground and Term of Human Mercy, and, thus, that the Purported Duty to Love in the Mode of Mercy is First a Duty to 'Be loved', as Evidenced by the Writings of Two Theologians in the Christian Mystical Tradition, namely, Bernard of Clairvaux and Jeanne Guyon.

740/616 characters with/out spaces