About Thomas
I defended my dissertation in 2025 for the PhD in Intercultural Studies. My wife and I (with our two sons) worked in international development in the former USSR for 16 years. Born in Albany, New York, I grew up in the Himalayas, where my parents were doctors at a rural mission hospital.
My dissertation uses ethnographically grounded discourse analytic methods to study social media interactions in which people use Scripture, theological reasoning, spiritual authority, or ethical reasoning within a broadly Christian framework, to support positions taken on public policy, politics, or social ethics.
Education
Fuller Theological Seminary
2005
MA Intercultural Studies
Cornell University
1986
BA Chemistry
Dissertation
Research Interests
Linguistic Anthropology (Ethnographically Grounded Discourse Analysis), Digital Ethnography ("Netnography") of Social Media Interaction, Public Theology, Christian-Muslim Relations in North America
Publications
"Mission in polarized public social media interaction: Speaking out against injustice, standing up for truth, or loving your neighbor?" Missiology 53 (3):258-69
This study examines polarized US-based public social media interaction in which at least some participants support positions on public policy, politics, or social ethics using scripture, theological reasoning, spiritual authority, or ethical reasoning within a broadly Christian framework. Specifically, it considers social media interaction among commenters on public posts, in which some of the participants manifest a mission of speaking out against injustice, standing up for truth, and/or loving their online neighbors. It finds that speaking out against injustice often includes an argument about the nature of truth, but that standing up for truth can be done on its own. It also finds no incidences of loving one’s neighbor in ways that the neighbor would recognize as love, in interactions studied to date. It concludes that humility and charity are called for, because of disagreements about both justice and truth.
Authentic Lives: Overcoming the Problem of Hidden Identity in Outreach to Restrictive Nations. Pasadena: William Carey Library
2014. “For Those Involved in the Insider Movement Debate: Perspective from Church History and Scripture.” EMQ 50 (1): 66–71.
2019. “Book Review: Michael W. Stroope. Transcending Mission: The Eclipse of a Modern Tradition.” Missiology: An International Review 47 (3): 337. [Note: publisher mistyped the final word of the review.]
2019. “Book Review: Paul J. Pennington. Christian Barriers to Jesus: Conversations and Questions from the Indian Context.” Missiology 47 (2): 211–211.
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