Congratulations to the 2022 Student Paper Competition Winners!
Michele Arndt
Michele Arndt began seminary at North Park Theological Seminary in the fall of 2017 and graduated this summer with her masters of divinity. She first stepped into vocational ministry as a campus staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in 2010. Her time on campus became the pathway for personal and spiritual growth as well as significant development of gifts in leadership, preaching, and teaching. Throughout Michele’s mid-thirties, she experienced her Christian faith largely within highly reformed and complementation environments. During her studies at North Park Theological Seminary, she was able to more thoroughly explore the history of these positions and became curious about the possible intersection of them. Her paper, “A Medieval Makeover: Women’s Roles Before and After the Reformation,” is the outcome of twelve years of curious questions that became a robust exercise in analyzing history to understand the unseen impact of the Reformation on women in ministry.Amanda Pence
Amanda Pence is a second-year student at Talbot School of Theology, pursuing a master of arts in Bible exposition. She has a BS in business administration and a minor in biblical studies from Biola University. She worked as a CPA and had clients in a variety of industries, including nonprofits and ministries. She has volunteered at her church in numerous capacities, including children’s ministries, small group teaching coordinator, deacon board, business committee, and mission trips. She also served as an intern with SEND International in Central Asia. Her paper, “Vindicating Bathsheba: Correcting Interpretations of 2 Samuel 11:1–5 that Ignore Imbalances of Power, Protect Sexual Predators, and Blame Victims,” argues that speculative interpretations blaming Bathsheba have contributed to sexual abuse and its cover-up in the church. She presents 2 Samuel 11:1–5 in its literary and cultural context.Yu-huei Huang
Yu-huei Huang comes from Taiwan. As the first Christian in her family, she is passionate about testifying to the beauty of Christ in a culturally sensitive way within her Mandarin- and Taiwanese-speaking community. Yu-huei has worked as a full-time campus minister in several art colleges in Taiwan and as a freelance translator. She also co-founded the PeopleMovers Theatre Company with her husband, Vincent Lin, which produces plays in collaboration with Christian and non-Christian theater artists. Currently, Yu-huei is in her third and final year of the master of divinity program at Fuller Theological Seminary. In the future, she wishes to serve churches in Taiwan and in the broader global Chinese-speaking community as a pastor and theologian. Her paper, “Chinese Interpretations of Galatians 3:28: Ambiguities, Insights, and Paths Forward,” examines the interpretations of Galatians 3:28 by nine Chinese pastors/biblical scholars spanning from the twentieth to twenty-first centuries. This paper suggests several areas in which care should be taken when future interpretive and practical work is done in a Chinese-speaking context.
