
About Tom
Tom grew up in Nepal, where his parents were missionary doctors in Gorkha district. After graduating at Woodstock School in Masuri, India, Tom majored in Chemistry at Cornell Univ. From 1993 to 2012, he was in the former Soviet Union as English teacher and in NGO leadership. Tom completed MAICS at Fuller in 2005. Tom wrote Authentic Lives: Overcoming the Problem of Hidden Identity in Outreach to Restrictive Nations (William Carey, 2016). In 2018, he began PhD studies in Intercultural Studies at Fuller. His dissertation, under Dr. Erik Aasland and Dr. Sebastian Kim, with methodological input from Dr. Greg Thompson and Dr. Lydia Catedral, is on polarized public social media interaction on the accounts of US-based Christian leaders, publications, and organizations, in which at least some participants support their positions on public policy, politics, or social ethics with scripture, theological reasoning, spiritual authority, or ethical reasoning in a broadly Christian framework.
Education
Fuller Theological Seminary
2005
MA Intercultural Studies
Cornell University
1986
BA Chemistry
Research Interests
Digital Anthropology, Sociolinguistics/Linguistic Anthropology, Social Media, Polarization, Public Theology
Publications
2024. "Mission in Polarized Public Social Media Interaction: Speaking out against Injustice, Standing up for Truth, or Loving Your Neighbor?" Missiology. doi:10.1177/00918296241261735.
2014. “For Those Involved in the Insider Movement Debate: Perspective from Church History and Scripture.” EMQ 50 (1): 66–71.
2019. “Book Review: Paul J. Pennington. Christian Barriers to Jesus: Conversations and Questions from the Indian Context.” Missiology 47 (2): 211–211.
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.]
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