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Zach Spidel

Zach Spidel

Doctoral candidate
Graduate Assistant
Contact Email Zach Spidel

Zach Spidel

Doctoral candidate
Graduate Assistant

Degrees

  • M.Div., Princeton Theological Seminary
  • B.A., Messiah College

Profile

I have been the pastor of a church (now called the East Dayton Fellowship) serving a broken and beautiful neighborhood on Dayton's east side since 2012. While continuing to serve my brothers and sisters there I am working on my dissertation focused on a Wittgensteinian retrieval of Origen's approach to reading biblical depictions of divine violence. As an Anabaptist Christian committed to nonviolence, I find Origen an incredibly compelling figure whose hermeneutics were only unlocked for me by looking at them in conversation with Wittgenstein's philosophy of perception. My wonderful wife and my two small children, along with the hurly burly of ministry in the city, fill my hands with lots of good work while my mind works away at these hermeneutical questions.

Dissertation working title: The Perception of Jesus: Redescribing and Recommending Origen's Approach to Reading Biblical Depictions of Divine Violence

Courses taught

  • REL 103 Introduction to Religious Studies

Selected publications

“Living By a Different Light: The Third Way of Anabaptist Ecclesiology,” in Celebrations and Convictions: Honoring the Life and Legacy of Dr. Luke L. Keefer, Jr. Edited by J. Robert Douglass and Wyndy Corbin Reuschling. Mechanicsburg, Pa.: the Brethren in Christ Historical Society, 2015.

“A Review of The Absent Christ: An Anabaptist Theology of the Empty Tomb,” in Brethren in Christ History and Life 44, no. 2 (August 2021): 241-252.

“From Practices to Methods: Pragmatic Evangelical Utilitarian Ecclesiology and the Mid-Century Transformation of the Brethren in Christ,” in Brethren in Christ History and Life 45, no. 3 (December 2022): 325-354.

“The Recovery of Rhoda Lee: The Role of Historical Recovery in the Conversation Concerning Women’s Ordination Among the Brethren in Christ”, in Brethren in Christ History and Life 46, no. 3 (December 2023): 414-438.