Two theology majors in Southern’s School of Religion were recently published in the online Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists (ESDA). Dan Catangay and Ryan Walker began the work — researching and writing the historic biographies of two influential church pioneers — while taking a church history class from Kevin Burton, instructor in the History and Political Studies Department at Southern, in Spring 2020.
Catangay wrote about J.L. Tucker (1895-1989), pastor and founder of the international evangelistic broadcast ministry the Quiet Hour. Walker focused on medical missionary nurse and educator Esther Bergman (1894-1935) and her work in the United States and Ethiopia. Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the spring semester, both students were undeterred in completing their assignments.
“Shortly after I assigned the project, Southern’s campus shut down as we shifted to online learning to help ensure the health and safety of our students and employees,” Burton said. “Dan and Ryan found ways to persevere through the chaos of the pandemic while researching and drafting thorough and impressive papers that will impact church members and scholars for years to come.”
With minimal editing by their history professors and ESDA historians, the works of Catangay, a junior from Apopka, Fla., and Walker, a senior from Nine Mile Falls, Wash., are now publicly available, marking the first time either student has been published in a peer-reviewed format.
Launched this past July as the Church’s first online reference site, encyclopedia.adventist.org includes thousands of articles, plus accompanying photos, media, and original documents. This ongoing project is funded by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.
“Additional writing assignments are already underway with other Southern students, so I fully expect that the university’s contributions to ESDA will be ongoing,” Burton said.
Southern Adventist University | February 2021
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