About the Journal

The Vanguard Journal of Theology and Ministry (VJTM) is an open-access journal dedicated to publishing the scholarly works of students, scholars, and practitioners. It is based out of Vanguard College, an evangelical Bible college affiliated with the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada (PAOC) in Edmonton, Alberta. Issues are published once a year and are peer-reviewed in a double-blind process. The VJTM welcomes original scholarship in the fields of theology and applied ministry.

The goals of the VJTM are to:

provide students the opportunity to contribute their perspective to academic discussion
encourage pastors and practitioners to engage in theological and scholarly discussion
promote the integration of theological study with applied ministry experience

Open Access Policy

Vanguard Journal of Theology & Ministry (VJTM) is a diamond open access journal that provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports the greater global exchange of knowledge. All articles are published under a a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright Policy

Work published in VJTM is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The CC BY 4.0 liscense allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the Work, even commercially, as long as they credit the Author for the original creation. Authors retain copyright of their Work, with first publication rights granted to VJTM.

Authors will never be charged to submit or publish a manuscript through Vanguard Journal of Theology & Ministry.

Author Self-Archiving Policy

Under the terms of the Creative Commons license, authors are permitted to post their work online in institutional/disciplinary repositories or on their own websites. Pre-print versions posted online should include a citation and link to the final published version in VJTM as soon as the issue is available; post-print versions (including the final publisher's PDF) should include a citation and link to the journal's website.

Digital Archiving Policy

This journal is archived with the Public Knowledge Project (PKP) Preservation Network and Scholars Portal Journals. These programs offer a decentralized and distributed preservation, perpetual access, and preservation of the authentic original version of the content.

Appeals Policy

Occasionally, when a submission is rejected from a journal, the author may wish to appeal this decision. This action is most commonly taken in technical and research-based publishing, where it is evident that the rejection was based on a genuine misunderstanding of the article by the reviewer. However, for articles of an opinion or argument-based nature, appeals are unlikely to overturn an editor’s decision. This is because such rejections are often a matter of subjective judgement, and a theological journal such as VJTM could not survive if these subjective assessments are up to debate. VJTM has a small editorial team who are in communication with each other regarding any uncertain acceptance or rejection decisions. As a result, our submission decisions are final and cannot be appealed.

Conflicts of Interest Policy

Peer Reviewers

VJTM only conducts peer review in the circumstance that the peer reviewer(s) assigned to the article have declared that they are free of any conflicts of interest. The major concern is the peer reviewer having a relationship with the author, which would bias their review. To mitigate this risk, VJTM conducts double-blind peer review. In addition, peer reviewers must review and indicate agreement with a conflict of interest statement, which signifies that they lack any conflicts of interest. If they become aware of a conflict of interest while completing the review, they must recuse themselves from the article.

Papers submitted by students of Vanguard College may be especially susceptible to conflicts of interest, as undergraduate and faculty peer reviewers, as well as the editorial team members, may know the author. This risk will be mitigated by conducting a double-blind review process, and by assigning reviewers who have the least likelihood of recognizing the author (i.e. a student from a different program/year). Peer reviewers have been instructed to recuse themselves from the review if they identify the author mid-review.

Authors

VJTM does not procure a guarantee from authors that their submitted articles are free from conflicts of interest. Instead, the editorial team will review the article during the editorial process, and use their judgement to detect any potential conflicts of interest from an article. It is anticipated that conflicts of interest will not happen often for articles submitted to VJTM, as it is difficult for someone to benefit financially from the publication of a theological article. The editorial team will screen for any circumstances wherein a submitted article could produce a financial or other benefit for the author, or any other circumstances which cast suspicion on the bias-free status of the article.

Editorial Team

VJTM editorial team members are able and encouraged to submit articles to the journal. In such cases, the article will be processed by another member of the editorial team, which could present a conflict of interest. Team members will be aware of this dynamic, and take every effort to prevent bias from entering the editorial process. Peer review will be conducted by a non-team member peer reviewer who has no relationship to the author.