Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Department

Seminary

First Advisor

Jay Anderson, DMin

Second Advisor

Douglas Balzer, DMin

Third Advisor

MaryKate Morse, PhD

Abstract

This dissertation addresses a problem in contemporary Christianity, particularly among Evangelical Friends: many hold an incomplete and fragmented understanding of holiness. Holiness has become either a private glow, a legalistic burden, or a vague aspiration. In a culture marked by relativism, anxiety, and institutional fatigue, many believers lack a clear, communal way of speaking about and living out holiness as “the good life through Christ,” shared within a meeting rather than confined to individual hearts.

This dissertation proposes that holiness can be recovered as a distinctive Friends’ witness when it is reframed as a grace-shaped, communal, faithful presence. By bringing together Wesleyan categories of grace—prevenient, justifying, sanctifying, and missional— along with Friends’ testimonies and practices, and Family Systems Theory. This study argues that holiness is best understood as relational fidelity: God’s steadfast presence with us in Christ and our responsive presence with one another within anxious systems, whether churches, families, or communities.

Section 1 names and substantiates the problem through cultural analysis and research on contemporary confusion about holiness. Section 2 surveys other Quaker approaches—Liberal Friends, Conservative Friends, Pastoral/Orthodox Friends, and the Central Yearly Meeting Holiness stream—and evaluates their strengths and limitations. Section 3 develops the proposed Friends–Wesley–Bowen synthesis and presents the Flow of Holiness model as a theological and practical framework. Section 4 describes the Track 02 artifact, Holiness Embodied: Recovering a Communal Way of Grace, a practical theology book that translates this framework into congregational tools. Section 5 specifies the artifact’s goals, audiences, scope, evaluation measures, budget, and action plan for writing, piloting, and publication. Section 6 reflects on the project’s execution, including the “400 Years of Silence” and “Listen to the Land” congregational labs, it also evaluates the integrative approach in light of other proposed solutions, and outlines future directions for research and ministry among Friends and the wider Holiness family.

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