Faculty/Staff Profile
Daniel Helminiak
Professor
Phone: 678-839-0615 | Fax: 678-839-0611 | dhelmini@westga.edu
Biography
Daniel grew up in Pittsburgh in a small Polish community, whose center was the local Catholic Church. Despite intensely pious beginnings, he has always been fascinated with science and given to optimistic engagement with the secularized world. He entered the seminary, completed a B.A. in philosophy at St. Vincent College, Latrobe, PA, and an S.T.B. and S.T.L. in Catholic doctrine at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. During his Roman years he lived at the Scots College, spoke Italian on the streets, and passed oral exams in Latin. He served as assistant pastor; and then, making a first self-responsible choice that started the dominos falling, he began a life's pilgrimage that led him to resign from the priesthood and eventually join, leave, and rejoin the faculty at the State University of West Georgia. Along the way he completed a Ph.D. in systematic theology at Boston College and Andover Newton Theological School, an M.A. in personality psychology at Boston University, and a Ph.D. in educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. His theology dissertation dealt with the mystical Christian belief that "we are one in Christ," and his psychology dissertation, with the spiritual implications of the "crisis" of meaning and value in midlife. In addition, he is certified as a Fellow of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors. He was assistant professor for systematic theology and spirituality at Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas, and has published The Same Jesus: A Contemporary Christology, Spiritual Development: An Interdisciplinary Study; The Human Core of Spirituality: Mind as Psyche and Spirit, and Religion and the Human Sciences: An Approach via Spirituality, as well as numerous popular and technical articles. His best-seller, What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality, was republished in an up-dated edition. At Boston College he was teaching assistant to the Jesuit philosopher, theologian, methodologist Bernard Lonergan.
