Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

Spring 2025

Abstract

This project compares sermons from three Christian traditions: Evangelical, Charismatic, and Reformed. Using data scraped from church youtube channels based in the Columbus, Ohio area, I ran thousands of sermons through Topic Modeling to evaluate the differing emphases of each tradition. Many of the topics corresponded with what we might expect from their respective tradition. But others were surprising. Most significantly, there was a strong emphasis within the Charismatic tradition on tithing and finances, concerns with resisting sexual temptation among the Evangelicals, and a focus on ecclesiology within the Reformed tradition. This project also indicates that further topic modeling on Christian traditions may advance our understanding of a church’s primary theological concerns on a weekly, casual basis.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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