My name is Don Ray. I have over 20 years' diversified experience as an ordained Pastor; theology and leadership instructor; mixed methods researcher; trauma educator; Police Chaplain Certified in Critical Incident Stress Management (C-CISM); and more.
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My recent U.S. nationwide two-phase study (2025) is the largest-known project ever conducted on trauma, coping, and posttraumatic growth (PTG) among clergy (n = 502), and the only known empirical study to examine PTG from a Lutheran Christian perspective.
M.Div. | Concordia Seminary (St. Louis, MO), Presidential Scholarship
Ph.D. in Education | Biola University, Talbot School of Theology (La Mirada, CA), Aquila full academic scholarship
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As an early-career academic my teaching, research, education, & theological interests of late include:
trauma, suffering, and trials as continuing education;
trauma, coping and religious coping, and posttraumatic growth among clergy and first responders, respectively;
adult continuing education (lifelong experiential learning);
Luther's theology of the cross, and the essential nature of agonizing struggles (Anfechtungen / tentationes) for Christian formation and maturation
Rembrandt (1633). Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee.
As a Pastor, Chaplain, empirical researcher, and interdisciplinary educator, my Scriptural guidepost is the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to Timothy, whom Paul entrusted to teach the people of Ephesus sound doctrine:
“The goal of the instruction is love—from within a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a faith without hypocrisy” (1 Timothy 1:5).