Johannes Fröh

Johannes Fröh is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of "Practical Theology and Religious Education" at the Protestant Theological Faculty of the University of Bonn. His focus areas are Digital Theology and Church Innovation Research.

About the Person

Since 2024: Doctoral Researcher in the Department of "Practical Theology and Religious Education" at the Protestant Theological Faculty of the University of Bonn and doctoral project with Prof. Dr. Sabrina Müller.
October 2023: Research stay at the Institute for Computational Linguistics UZH University of Zurich.
2023 – 2024: Doctoral Researcher in the project "'Digital Religious Communication' as future field for the faculties' development in the area of digital theology" at the Institute for Systematic Theology and Hermeneutics of the Protestant Theological Faculty of Bonn (in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Heidi Campbell).
2022 – 2023: Doctoral Researcer in the project "The role of transcultural semantics and symbols for resilience during the Corona pandemic – a hermeneutic approach to historical and intercultural expressions of severe crisis" of the “Department under Construction for Intercultural Theology” at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Bonn.
2015 – 2022: Studies in Protestant Theology, Physics, and Educational Sciences at the University of Bonn (degree completed: M.Ed. for secondary education).
2014 – 2015: Scholarship recipient of the Germany Scholarship and studies in Business Informatics at the University of Cologne.

Research Focus

Digital Theology, especially the application of computational methods in theological research
Church Innovation
Strengthening church volunteerism
Exploration of Digital Religious Communication

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Academic Curriculum Vitae

Studies and Degrees

Since 2024: Research Associate in the Department of "Practical Theology and Religious Education" at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Bonn and doctoral project with Prof. Dr. Sabrina Müller.
October 2023: Research stay at the Institute for Computational Linguistics UZH, University of Zurich.
2023 – 2024: Research Associate in the project "'Digital Religious Communication' as a future field for the faculties' development in the area of digital theology" at the Institute for Systematic Theology and Hermeneutics of the Protestant Theological Faculty of Bonn (in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Heidi Campbell).
2022 – 2023: Research Associate in the project "The role of transcultural semantics and symbols for resilience during the Corona pandemic – a hermeneutic approach to historical and intercultural expressions of severe crisis" at the “Department under Construction for Intercultural Theology” of the Protestant Theological Faculty of Bonn.
2022 – 2024: Doctoral project “Social Media’s Bible – Between Digital Religious Communication and the Doctrine of Scripture” with Prof. Dr. Cornelia Richter in Systematic Theology.
2019 – 2022: Student and Research Assistant in New Testament Studies (2019-2020), Systematic Theology (2021), and Intercultural Theology (2021-2022) at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Bonn.
2015 – 2022: Studies in Protestant Theology, Physics, and Educational Sciences at the University of Bonn (degree completed: M.Ed. for secondary education).
2014 – 2015: Scholarship recipient of the Germany Scholarship and studies in Business Informatics at the University of Cologne.
2014: High school diploma at Kardinal-Frings-Gymnasium Bonn-Beuel.

Courses Taught

Winter Semester 2023/24 – Seminar: "What is (Systematic) Theology?"
Summer Semester 2023 – Seminar/Workshop: "Applied digital theology – A hands-on journey through key aspects of digital theology."

Independently Acquired Third-party Funding Support

2023: Research stay for the project "Preaching Hate - Religious Hate Speech in Authoritative Settings" at UZH University of Zurich (URPP Digital Religion(s)) over 800 CHF.
2023 Travel expenses for two hackathons on the topic "Live-mapping Religious Difference Online" at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (ETCBC) over 400€.

Memberships

ISMRC – International Society for Media, Religion, and Culture.
G_NET – Global Network for Excellence in Theology.
AAR – American Academy of Religion.

Publications and Presentations

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Johannes Fröh* & Matthew Ryan Robinson (2023) "Digital Religious Communication and the Facilitation of Social Resilience, Part 1: Theoretical Model and Proposal," Journal of Religious & Theological Information.
Johannes Fröh* & Matthew Ryan Robinson (2023) "Digital Religious Communication and the Facilitation of Social Resilience, Part 2: Empirical Test of the Theoretical Model. A Study of the Twitter Activity of Ecumenical and Social Justice-Oriented Groups during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of Religious & Theological Information.

Presentations

SEP 2024 Ecclesiology and Ethnography
Topic: “Toward a Theology of Church Volunteering – Bridging Motivation to Volunteer and Lived Theology”
MAR 2024 DGfS Annual Conference (Working Group: Computational Linguistics) Topic: "Improved metaphor identification via (contextual) distributional semantic representations," co-presented with: Prof. Gerold Schneider.
AUG 2023 ISMRC Bi-Annual Conference Topic: "Digitization of Traditional Metaphors - How Social Media Communication draws from Sacred Texts' Authority."
JAN 2023 Poster Presentation at TeRAbytes Topic: "Research Data Management and Data Science in (Systematic) Theology – Challenges & Solutions."
NOV 2022 AAR Annual Meeting Topic: "Facilitating Hope Amidst Crisis - Twitter Activity of Christian Groups as a Factor of Social Resilience," co-presented with: Dr. Matthew Robinson.
OCT 2022 URPP Digital Religion(s) Conference Topic: "Digital Religion & Digital Theology – Upcoming Challenges for (Interdisciplinary) Research Groups," co-presented with: Lani Anaya.
NOV 2021 AAR Annual Meeting Topic: "Twitter Data Analysis and the Transcultural Semantics of Religion," co-presented with: Dr. Matthew Robinson.
DEC 2020 SBL Annual Meeting Topic: "The Synoptic Hub: A Database for Synoptic Research," co-presented with: Dr. Andrew Davis, Jr.