Dax William Crocker—a Religious Studies major and Honors College student—has been accepted into the Master of Divinity program at Yale Divinity School. Founded in 1701, Yale Divinity School is one the nation’s leading institutes for graduate-level theological study. Dax will start graduate studies there in the fall of 2014, and also plans to later pursue a Doctorate in Theology in order to teach at the university level or to serve as a chaplain in either the United States military or Congress.
Dax served as a pastor for over 20 years in the United States, Italy, Spain, and Sweden before enrolling in the University of Arizona’s Religious Studies program. His senior thesis is a comparative analysis of Pentecostalism, Sufi mysticism, and Shugendō Buddhism. Dax will also graduate with a minor in Spanish Linguistics, and has completed research about the effects of bilingualism on public policy and education. What Dax found most valuable about his time in the Religious Studies program was “learning to study sacred texts using academic criticism. This means to study them not only as inspired books but as books that also reveal the culture, language, world events of the time, and the socioeconomic status of the writers.” Last year, Dax was a recipient of the Religious Studies Program’s Ora Bretall Scholarship, awarded annually to Religious Studies majors.