In Mozambique, poverty is pervasive because of factors such as the civil war and its aftermath, political instability, food scarcity and natural disasters. This article elucidates the situation of post-civil war Mozambique from a socio-political perspective with a specific focus on children and the youth as a particularly vulnerable group. Many children and young people have been displaced and are subject to work exploitation and sexual abuse. Female children also fall victim to the cultural practice of child marriage. The absence (...) of comprehensive social measures for the protection of vulnerable young persons has a detrimental effect on their welfare and future prospects. The aim of the article is to explore the role that faith communities and church institutions can play in this context. From an inclusive congregational perspective, the inclusion of youth in all aspects of faith communities as a strategy for development is discussed. From a human rights and theological perspective, participatory action is required for faith communities and church institutions to contribute to making a life of human dignity possible for children and young people. (shrink)

_Learning Communities_ is a groundbreaking book that shows how learning communities can be a flexible and effective approach to enhancing student learning, promoting curricular coherence, and revitalizing faculty. Written by Barbara Leigh Smith, Jean MacGregor, Roberta S. Matthews, and Faith Gabelnick¾acclaimed national leaders in the learning communities movement¾this important book provides the historical, conceptual, and philosophical context for LCs and clearly demonstrates that they can be a key element in institutional transformation.

_Learning Communities_ is a groundbreaking book that shows how learning communities can be a flexible and effective approach to enhancing student learning, promoting curricular coherence, and revitalizing faculty. Written by Barbara Leigh Smith, Jean MacGregor, Roberta S. Matthews, and Faith Gabelnick¾acclaimed national leaders in the learning communities movement¾this important book provides the historical, conceptual, and philosophical context for LCs and clearly demonstrates that they can be a key element in institutional transformation.

In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard outlines and defends a faith-based religious ethic, belief in which justifies transgressing the universal ethical norms of the community. In contrast to certain commentators who maintain that Kierkegaard’s argument is about the individual’s relation to God, I understand that this aspect of Kierkegaard’s argument is only important because he maintains that faith in God is a necessary aspect of authentic being. Thus, I argue that Kierkegaard’s argument is about the role (...) class='Hi'>faith plays in the formation and transformation of individual identity. To defend my argument, I pay particular attention to: 1) why he maintains that authenticity is found in the faith-based religious ethic; 2) what transformative impact the individual's adoption of the faith-based religious ethic can have on his/her existence; and 3) what the structural relation is between the authentic faith-based religious ethic and the universal ethic of the community. I conclude by showing that Kierkegaard’s failure to differentiate between the contents of different faith-based actions leads his faith-based religious ethic to fall into an ethical antinomy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 165 arguments. He meets them head on, on their ground; whether or not he is deemed successful, he presents a challenge not only to the philosophers he adduces but also to anyone in the Thomistic tradition who has judged confrontation with contemporary critics to he fruitless. JANICE L. SCHULTZ Canisius College Buffalo, New York Authority and Leadership in the Church: Past Directions and Future Possibilities. By THOMAS (...) P. RAUSCH, S.J. Wilmington, Del.: Michael Glazier, 1989. Pp. 158. $15.95. Rather than offering a sustained study of the question of authority and leadership in the Church, Rausch presents a collection of essays related to the topic. The format reflects the book's genesis: much of the material was developed for the 23rd Faith and Order Conference of the Texas Conference of Churches on the subject "Authority in the Body of Christ." Although the title does not reflect the hook's ecumenical focus, readers who want a general introduction to the present status of agreement in ecumenical discussion of authority and ministry may find Rausch's hook helpful. In " Authority in the Ecumenical Dialogue " Rausch reviews and summarizes the ARCIC Final Report, the Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue, the WCC Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry text, and the Consultation on Church Union. The emerging consensus on the value of ordained ministry in these documents indicates that this ministry is permanent, although the threefold ministry of bishop, presbyter, and deacon stands in need of reform. Rausch notes that the documents do not limit " valid " ministry to ordained ministry in communion with the historic episcopate. As for the shape of ministry in the church of tomorrow, not surprisingly, he identifies shared responsibility and collegiality as the marks of the future exercise of authority. Among the important issues still unresolved by the churches are Petrine ministry and primacy and the problem of the " reception " of ecumenical documents. The chapter on authority and reception, originally published in Theological Studies, may well be the most original contribution of the book. It broadens the discussion of reception from its historical " classical " understanding as " the acceptance by local churches of particular ecclesiastical or conciliar decisions " to an ecumenical understanding of the concept as " the acceptance by one church of a theo- 166 BOOK REVIEWS logical consensus arrived at with another church, and ultimately, the recognition of the other church's faith and ecclesial life as authentically Christian (p. 103)." He concludes that (1) reception is more properly understood as a process rather than as a juridical determination, (2) it also involves formal decisions on the part of church authorities, (3) it cannot be reduced to the acceptance of doctrinal formulations, and (4) the norm for recognizing a common faith is not agreement with a particular ecclesial position but agreement with the apostolic tradition. Ultimately, reception involves the whole church and is not the sole product of theologians or church authorities. Ecumenical dialogues will only be effective when they enter into the practical life of the churches. In "Imaging Tomorrow's Church: Models of Christian Unity" Rausch summarizes four models of church unity: organic union, conciliar fellowship, reconciled diversity, and communion of Churches. He opts for the fourth model. The chapter does not offer any new information to someone familiar with ecumenical discussions, but it does serve as an introduction for the neophyte. Rausch's image of authority in the future lies somewhere between a strictly hierarchical or institutional model and a more egalitarian model. His final chapter, " Authority in Tomorrow's Church," predicts that the church of the future will be " ordered " in the sense that it will combine an authoritative ordained ministry (based on the church's apostolic office) with a recognition of multiple and diverse charismatic gifts. He retrieves Karl Rahner's suggestion that recognition of charism for leadership in an individual may result in that person's " relative" ordination for a particular local community. Authority of the future will be collegial with a more participatory style of decision-making. The renewed papacy will encourage not only a more participatory style of decision-making but also a broader participation in the formulation of church teaching. He suggests that representatives of particular churches could elect the Bishop... (shrink)

This essay offers a Kierkegaardian analysis of and response to the harmful effects of destabilization that can be caused by engaging with certain technological media. It argues that the intellectual technological ethic that is at work in social media platforms reflects two types of despair discussed in Søren Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death. It advises using a Kierkegaard-inspired Socratic rhetorical strategy of communication that ironically employs technology for depicting this despair and awakening individuals to its presence in their lives. Moreover, this (...) essay suggests that the edifying themes of “misery” and “guilt” can be communicated indirectly and thereby offer one intervention that could possibly help the current technological age move from the immediate aesthetic sphere of existence to the religious sphere. Considering the important role of upbuilding in Kierkegaard's oeuvre, the final portion explores how even someone who does not identify with a religious tradition or community may encounter what Kierkegaard terms the paradox of the eternal in time in ways that foster the development of authentic selfhood. (shrink)

Crisis rarely comes with a warning. When blindsided by trauma, betrayal, or soul-crushing news, it's natural to want to give up. Is it possible to rise above calamity and even thrive despite the turmoil? Britney Ruby Miller, entrepreneur and CEO of a nationally ranked, family-owned restaurant group, says yes, it absolutely is. Having faced family tragedy, peer rejection, infidelity, infertility, and a pandemic that threatened not only to close her family's business but also to decimate the restaurant industry, Britney battled (...) back with the winning combination of faith and fight that has led to her five-star life. Britney demonstrates what it means to live authentically and effectively as a strong woman in leadership. With captivating stories and practical applications to lead you deeper into principles for success, this book will show you how to increase your faith and hope in the midst of challenges, setbacks, and even tragedy as you persevere to attain your own Five-Star Life"--Back cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:690 BOOK REVIEWS Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible. By RICHARD J. BLACKWELL. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1991. Pp. 272. $29.95 {cloth). Although this well-hound, manageable volume, complete with an artistic seventeenth-century dust jacket, has not received an official ecclesiastical "imprimatur," nevertheless, it is (according to this Dominican reviewer) both free from doctrinal error and filled with true and useful historical, philosophical, and theological information. Seemingly no (...) other case in the history of our western intellectual tradition has generated more controversy, more ill feeling, and more mutual misunderstanding across more lines of intellectual, political, and religious division than the "Galileo affair." Few people today are equipped historically, scientifically, philosophically, and theologically to discuss accurately the wide range of issues surrounding this unfortunate incident. A seasoned veteran of the strong historical, philosophical tradition of the Jesuit-run St. Louis University, and himself an active member of the Roman Catholic Church, Richard J. Blackwell, historian of philosophy and philosopher of science, has done a marvelous service to the academic community hy presenting us with this volume. In this well-researched, well-argued, and very readable manuscript, Blackwell helps to place Galileo's intellectual and ecclesiastical struggle within the broader historical, philosophical, religious, and theological context of rthe late 16th and early 17th centuries. Quoting the words of Olaf Pedersen, Blackwell considers the Galileo affair " not only as an episode in the history of science, but also as an important event in the history of theology" {p. 3). His principal purpose in writing this book is " to study the Galileo affair from this perspective " and, in particular, to understand "the role played by the Bible in the Galileo affair" (p. 3). Without attempting to praise, to blame, or to excuse, Blackwell sets out to understand precisely how it was that the historical, religious, and theological factors came to have such a profound effect on the scientific and philosophical questions of Galileo's time. He argues convincingly that the Roman insistence on upholding the traditional interpretation of certain key biblical passages can he understood adequately only within the historical and religious climate of postTridentine theology, Jesuit obedience, and strict adherence to the Thomistic synthesis of philosophy and theology. Toward this end, Blackwell brings together for the first time certain important texts, concepts, and historical arguments that help to alleviate some of the " murkiness " blurring our view of the Galileo affair, and help to make that incident more intelligible to our modern minds. BOOK REVIEWS 691 Blackwell argues that the Roman hierarchy was not so much concerned with the content of the new astronomy as it was determined to reassert itself as the authentic interpreter of Scripture and tradition. According to Blackwell, the new astronomy challenged not only the philosophy of Aristotle and the theology of Thomas Aquinas, but, perhaps more importantly, it challenged the ecclesiastical authority of the Roman hierarchy in its role as interpreter and teacher of the Apostolic faith. How could the new astronomy be anything but a hypothetical model, when it so clearly contradicted the words of Scripture as in· terpreted by the Church Fathers? How could mere mathematicians and astronomers insist on philosophical propositions that seemed to make the Bible false? No single individual was invested with the authority to interpret the Bible for the whole body of believers, as the Church had so painfully learned from the lessons of the Protestant Reformers. That authority lay solely with the "Church," that is, with the Roman hierarchy, the Pope in union with a council, as was clear from the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent. Moreover, strict obedience was the order of the day as many Jesuit thinkers so agonizingly came to realize. Blackwell divides his own text into seven chapters: (1) Trent and Beyond; (2) Bellarmine's Views Before the Galileo Affair; (3) Gali· leo's Detour into Biblical Exegesis; (4) Foscarini's Bombshell; (5) The Bible at Galileo's Trial (6) The Jesuit Dilemma: Truth or Obedience ; and (7) Reflections on Truth in Science and in Religion. In the first two chapters, he establishes a context for the Galileo affair by discussing :the theological interpretation and importance of the Council of Trent... (shrink)

William James’s interest in psychical research is often treated as something of an anomaly. The fact that James took "that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as ’mesmeric,’ ’psychical,’ and ’spiritualistic,’" seriously as a legitimate area of scientific inquiry seems slightly bemusing to our contemporary jaded ears. As a result, his writings collected in Essays in Psychical Research tend to be marginalized, even ignored by most serious James scholars. But American pragmatist communication theorist John Durham Peters, in (...) his innovative philosophical and cultural history of communication, Speaking into the Air, provides the key to a new appreciation of this oft-neglected work by asserting that, for James, "the question of communication was one of our time’s questions of faith." By this Peters means that James’s investigations were not simply about whether communication with the dead via mediums was scientifically possible but also and more fundamentally about the desire for authentic person-to-person or soul-to-soul connection across distances. As Peters reads James, the question of communication is fundamentally a religious one, involving issues of hope, trust, faith, and interpretation; James’s "concern was never to rule out the possibility of contact with the inhuman– beast or God." Why? Because of the difference that it made, the effects that it had. (shrink)

Humble leadership can be described as a positive psychological feature that allows leaders to admit their limitations, be open to new ideas, and give a voice to others while also recognizing their merits. The present study (n = 268 participants) explored the persuasive effects of a female politician communicating a humble stance by considering the role emotional displays at play (joy, calmness, sadness, and anger) when discussing a moral issue (hosting immigrants). The results revealed that the politician elicited positive emotions (...) and evaluations of her competence and benevolence, especially when exhibiting a sad facial display, by contributing to the intention to accept the moral gist of her persuasive message. Overall, these ‘gendered’ effects are discussed in relation to the ‘political authenticity’, which can be perceived as high especially when the humble message is connected with several social reasons, as is the case with gender or social status. (shrink)

The Orthodox Church is one of the largest religious groups in the world. Yet, it remains an enigma in the West, especially among those who mistake it either for a Greek version of Roman Catholicism or for an exotic mixture of Christianity and eastern religion. Many, however, are coming to recognize the Orthodox Church for what it is: a worldwide community of Christian disciples that has been faithful to the apostolic command, “stand fast and hold the traditions which you (...) were taught, whether by word or by our epistle” (2 Thess 2:15). Consequently, growing numbers of people are finding their true home in the Church that has “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). Among these converts are dozens of contemporary philosophers. Some are accomplished, world-renowned, senior scholars. Others are junior scholars in the earliest stages of their careers. As a group, they belong neither to any particular philosophical ‘school’ nor to any particular Orthodox jurisdiction. What they have in common is a desire to enter deeply into an authentic and loving communion with the Living God, with God’s people, and ultimately with all of God’s creation. Turning East is a collection of autobiographical essays in which sixteen of these philosophers describe their personal journeys to the Orthodox Church, explain their reasons for becoming Orthodox Christians, and offer a sense of how their conversions have changed their lives. (shrink)

As the title indicates, Faith and Knowledge deals with the relation between religious faith and cognitive beliefs, between the truth of religion and the truths of philosophy and science. Hegel is guided by his understanding of the historical situation: the individual alienated from God, nature, and community; and he is influenced by the new philosophy of Schelling, the Spinozistic Philosophy of Identity with its superb vision of the inner unity of God, nature, and rational man. Through a (...) brilliant discussion of the philosophies of Kant, Fichte, and other luminaries of the period, Hegel shows that the time has finally come to give philosophy the authentic shape it has always been trying to reach, a shape in which philosophy’s old conflicts with religion on the one hand and with the sciences on the other are suspended once for all. This is the first English translation of this important essay. Professor H. S. Harris offers a historical and analytic commentary to the text and Professor Cerf offers an introduction to the general reader which focuses on the concept of intellectual intuition and on the difference between authentic and inauthentic philosophy. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher brings his own inclusive and liberatory purposes to bear in Preludes to Pragmatism: Toward a Reconstruction of Philosophy, including in several chapters in which he criticizes William James’s defense of religious belief in “The Will to Believe” and Varieties of Religious Experience, while affirming John Dewey’s emphasis on a “religious” orientation toward community and nature in A Common Faith. These chapters in Kitcher’swide-ranging and beautifully written book contain many insights and imaginative proposals for advancing a “post-religion”secular (...) humanism that he hopes may be able to stabilize the evolution and widen the effective reach of a deep and enduring human impulse toward altruism that he.. (shrink)

As the title indicates, Faith and Knowledge deals with the relation between religious faith and cognitive beliefs, between the truth of religion and the truths of philosophy and science. Hegel is guided by his understanding of the historical situation: the individual alienated from God, nature, and community; and he is influenced by the new philosophy of Schelling, the Spinozistic Philosophy of Identity with its superb vision of the inner unity of God, nature, and rational man. Through a (...) brilliant discussion of the philosophies of Kant, Fichte, and other luminaries of the period, Hegel shows that the time has finally come to give philosophy the authentic shape it has always been trying to reach, a shape in which philosophy’s old conflicts with religion on the one hand and with the sciences on the other are suspended once for all. This is the first English translation of this important essay. Professor H. S. Harris offers a historical and analytic commentary to the text and Professor Cerf offers an introduction to the general reader which focuses on the concept of intellectual intuition and on the difference between authentic and inauthentic philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Modernity as Apocalypse: Sacred Nihilism and the Counterfeits of Logos by Thaddeus J. KozinskiMehmet CiftciModernity as Apocalypse: Sacred Nihilism and the Counterfeits of Logos by Thaddeus J. Kozinski (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico, 2019), 231 pp.Whether the names Adrian Vermeule, Fr. Edmund Waldstein, and Sohrab Ahmari provoke anxiety or glee in readers' minds will depend on where they stand on integralism, the brand of Catholic traditionalism that all three have (...) sought to promote through various websites and publications. Presenting themselves as the authentic interpreters of magisterial teachings on church–state relations, the integralists have challenged the long-standing attempt (especially in North America) to combine the Catholic faith with a commitment to political liberalism, natural rights, religious liberty, and state neutrality toward religion. For the integralists, attempting such a combination succeeds only in distorting the Catholic faith and causes us to forget what the Church taught before the Second Vatican Council, which still obliges the assent of Catholics, they claim, and is desperately needed to stand against the onward march of secularism. [End Page 966]Although Thaddeus Kozinski, former professor at Wyoming Catholic College, may not be one of the more well-known integralists, his latest book presents an interesting iteration of Catholic traditionalism that displays both what is valuable and what is most worrying about contemporary traditionalism. Kozinski's previous book was a closely argued critique of John Rawls and Jacques Maritain using the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre. It built up a cumulative case for the impossibility of resolving the political problem of religious pluralism without moving beyond philosophy by making a decision to reject or accept the political importance of the Catholic Church and its teachings.1 Although the author's preference for some sort of confessional state was already clear in that book, he preferred not to defend it, but rather to argue that it is impossible to be agnostic or neutral toward the ideal of church–state union. Now he goes on the offensive, presenting in the twenty brief chapters of Modernity as Apocalypse his "sundry attempts over the past decade to grapple with the question of modernity" (14). More precisely, he is grappling with the questions of what defines modernity, how we arrived at where we are, and what Christians should do while living in it, particularly in the fields of education and politics.The two chapters that form the first part (entitled "Modernity") use Charles Taylor's A Secular Age to argue that modernity's increasingly pluralistic and secular culture creates "an entirely new incapacity to experience the reality of a particular worldview in a naïve way, that is, without the consciousness of there being other viable options" (37). Yet the problem also reveals a blessing. "Encountering reality through the lens of other perennial traditions can serve to expose that false dichotomy in our minds that leads us to interpret other views as nothing more than full-fledged errors and our own personal lenses as nothing less than the whole truth" (21). Anyone who has read what passes for commentary on websites such as Church Militant or Rorate Caeli will find that statement surprising and refreshing.The second part ("Logos") contains four chapters that lucidly discuss contemporary disagreements in ethics between Kantians and virtue-ethicists, between new natural lawyers and MacIntyreans. Chapter 4 makes an effective and moving argument to read Plato "as a precursor to Faith, and a guide along the way home" (50). There are some brief but suggestive remarks drawing on Benedict XVI's Caritas in Veritate in [End Page 967] chapter 6 to argue that an ethics of gift can enable us to express the moral teachings of the New Testament in terms that are potentially convincing to a broader audience. "Metanoia" is the title of the third part, dedicated to education. Chapters 7–8 and 10 give not very original and yet timely arguments for the importance of the liberal arts, the need for Catholic universities to be institutions that can foster, rather than deform, the practice of philosophy, and the need for pedagogy to be rooted in the transmission of a community's tradition.2However, one cannot help but be startled when... (shrink)

For most people on our planet, spiritual values are vital in driving communitarian behaviour. It is becoming increasingly clear that a lasting and effective social commitment must consider cultural, sociological and religious dimensions. In particular, the current environmental crisis has demonstrated how effectively religious communities have mobilised to respond to climate change. With their emphasis on wisdom, social cohesion and interrelationships, religions can be a strategic player in ensuring effective integral human development. The ecological crisis is not just (...) an ethical dilemma but an ontological and theological matter that demands both a new way of thinking and a new way of being. Think differently and act differently! The United Nations (UN) and many governments are increasingly recognising the vital contribution of religious leaders and organisations in political processes, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, hypostasised in the Faith Plans for People and Planet programme, representing the most prominent and boldest environmental initiative to date by the global faith community. -/- Contribution: Today we realise that a combination of science and spirituality can engage and empower an array of stakeholders from different cultural and religious backgrounds. This article addresses the question of an integrated ecology by selecting appropriate and recent literature from mainstream religions and the subsequent interpretation and application. (shrink)

In the era of consumer distrust of corporations, transparency is becoming a must rather than an option. While prior research has explored why businesses should disclose their costs and how consumers may react to such cost transparency, it is still unclear how marketers can best communicate cost transparency. The present research offers a practical examination of how and when cost transparency is effective, specifically, by examining the moderating role of authentic and hubristic pride on the effectiveness of cost (...) transparency. Across two experimental studies, the effectiveness of cost transparency is leveraged using authentic pride, whereas hubristic pride decreases it. Further, we empirically demonstrate the mediating role of moral elevation. Overall, the results demonstrate that marketing messages that elicit authentic pride can increase the effectiveness of cost transparency. Hence, the current research highlights how marketers and brands can effectively combine specific emotional appeals with cost transparency to obtain favorable consumer evaluations. (shrink)

Gender-based Violence is a huge concern in many African countries such as Zimbabwe despite the preventative and mitigatory interventions that have been proposed and implemented by various stakeholders. The interventions applied range from policies and programmes that are government initiated as well as those interventions by social actors such as non-government organisations and Faith-based Organisations like churches. Gender-based violence as a social structural issue is sustained and perpetuated by cultural norms, values and beliefs that are fed by patriarchy, among (...) other things. To effectively respond to the situation, interventions should target multiple social levels, including policy, government officials’ attitudes, individual men and women, families, community leaders and structures and social institutions such as churches. Churches are a critical community social institution that could play a pivotal role in addressing GBV. To position churches as players on public issues such as GBV, the questions that emerge are: ‘What is the role of the church in a public problem such as GBV? How could churches conceive and perform a public ministerial role that addresses GBV?’ To respond to these questions, this article employs the idea of public pastoral care as a nexus that churches could utilise in performing a community and public role function in contributing towards addressing GBV. Firstly, the article sketches the context of GBV in Zimbabwe and the various efforts to address it. Secondly, it outlines the ambivalent role of churches in GBV. Thirdly, it conceptualises the notion of public pastoral care as an approach that could be employed by churches to address GBV. Lastly, it proposes some public practical approaches that could be employed in addressing GBV by churches. (shrink)

An integral method of keeping a non-conforming community functioning is the construction and up keep of networks, as this web of connections provided security and protection with other non-conformists against the persecuting authorities. The non-conforming Catholic community of Elizabethan England established various networks within England and abroad. This article is based on research that examines the network of Catholics in the Elizabethan Midlands in order to understand both its effectiveness and the relationship of the local and extended Catholic (...) community with one another. The construction, function and result of these networks will be surveyed over several categories of networks, such as local, underground, clerical and exile. Members of the Midland Catholic community travelled to others areas of the British Isles and Europe to gather spiritual and material support for their faith, sent their children abroad for religious education, and resettled abroad creating in this wake a larger and complex international network. The main objective of this exercise is to show the dynamic and function of the network, and understand the impact it had at the local level for Midland Catholics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Waiting for a Glacier to Move: Practicing Social Witness by Jennifer R. Ayres, and: Domesticated Glory: How the Politics of America Has Tamed God by Gale Heide, and: Being Faithful: Christian Commitment in Modern Society, Ecclesiological Investigations series by Judith A. MerkleDonna YarriWaiting for a Glacier to Move: Practicing Social Witness Jennifer R. Ayres eugene, or: pickwick publications, 2011. 218 pp. $24.00.Domesticated Glory: How the Politics of America (...) Has Tamed God Gale Heide eugene, or: pickwick publications, 2010. 182 pp. $21.00.Being Faithful: Christian Commitment in Modern Society, Ecclesiological Investigations series Judith A. Merkle london and new york: t&t clark, 2010. 208 pp. $46.95.What it means to be a faithful Christian witness in the contemporary social context is the common thread running through Jennifer R. Ayres’s Waiting for a Glacier to Move, Gale Heide’s Domesticated Glory, and Judith A. Merkle’s Being Faithful. Although written from the perspective of three different Christian religious traditions, the three authors are in general agreement on the seriousness of sin in the world, the need for Christians to develop a theology to address sin, and the importance of being a witness in this world. They argue for the importance of Christian community and for engagement with the world. They all consider God to be the source of all good, which humans, at least to some extent, are capable of reflecting. They view sin as a significant hindrance but not an insurmountable one to effective Christian social witness. All draw upon scripture and tradition to fashion a theology for social witness, although the emphasis of each is unique.Waiting for a Glacier to Move: Practicing Social Witness, written from a Reformed and feminist perspective by Jennifer Ayres, explores the practice of [End Page 207] social witness in light of its shape as Christian practice, impact upon participants’ identity, and connections with theologies of sin and hope. The paradox between these two realities is explored in detail. Sin is understood in terms of a web in which we are all embedded, which thereby goes beyond action: the root of every sin is unfaithfulness in relation to God. Hope includes God’s work in the world and the expectation of changes that will undergird and support the work of social witness. Ayres maintains that religious practices are essentially social witness, different from secular social actions in that the former is grounded in theological reflection. She argues for the importance of ethnographic research as a means to fully understand religious social witness, and she includes interviews with Presbyterian groups involved in social action. A key point in her volume is that social witness needs to be rooted in praxis (in which action and belief are in a dynamic relationship) and draw upon the three strands of experience, theological tradition, and social and political theory.In contrast, Gale Heide’s Domesticated Glory: How the Politics of America Has Tamed God does not fit neatly into one Christian theological tradition. While much of the book is a polemic against fundamentalists and evangelicals with a move toward more moderate Christianity, the book ultimately retains a strong conservative emphasis. The author takes a biblically literalist approach to what it means to be a Christian in the world. She takes issue with those Christians who emphasize America as God’s favored nation and warns against the dangers of nationalism. She argues that the Christian Church has forgotten how to be the church, sometimes treating the US Constitution as a sacred text. Heide encourages an Enlightenment turn to the subject and its attendant emphasis on individual and human reason/rationalism, but she also maintains the centrality of Jesus Christ for the world; the real goal of Christianity is to praise the nature of God and to reflect God’s honor through displaying an honorable character, arguing that even too much emphasis on the common good can obscure this goal.Finally, Judith Merkle’s Being Faithful: Christian Commitment in Modern Society explores how to be a faithful Christian in the modern world, rooted in the Catholic tradition’s emphases on devotions, mediation, communion, and sacramentality. She urges examination of various contexts of modern... (shrink)

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has posed different kinds of challenges to society and churches over the past months. With various ‘normal ministry practices’ not permitted under lockdown regulations, as well as people starting to fear the effect of coronavirus disease 2019, a sense of crisis can easily prevail. However, a small congregation in Bloemfontein, South Africa, responded by engaging their children and teenagers through reflection, content and outreach. Various methods, including virtual and face to face, were utilised to minister to and (...) with children and teenagers. This response can now be analysed to find answers to the following questions: How did the pandemic influence specific methods chosen for faith formation? What made it different from ‘ministry as usual’? What role did the Bible play in the methods and content used? Within the framework of the qualitative research, reflective practice from a hermeneutic perspective was utilised as theoretical approach to analyse the response of the pastors and Sunday school teachers. Reflection occurs on three levels, namely, technical, practical and critical. A literature study was also conducted on the influence of a pandemic on faith formation. Recommendations were made regarding different ways to engage with children and teenagers and involving them in ministry.Contribution: This research contributes to knowledge as to how and why pastors and congregations react the way they do in a pandemic and how this impacts upon faith formation among children and youth in the faith community. (shrink)

Self-tracking devices point to a future in which individuals will be more involved in the management of their health and will generate data that will benefit clinical decision making and research. They have thus attracted enthusiasm from medical and public health professionals as key players in the move toward participatory and personalized healthcare. Critics, however, have begun to articulate a number of broader societal and ethical concerns regarding self-tracking, foregrounding their disciplining, and disempowering effects. This paper has two aims: first, (...) to analyze some of the key promises and concerns that inform this polarized debate. I argue that far from being solely about health outcomes, this debate is very much about fundamental values that are at stake in the move toward personalized healthcare, namely, the values of autonomy, solidarity, and authenticity. The second aim is to provide a framework within which an alternative approach to self-tracking for health can be developed. I suggest that a practice-based approach, which studies how values are enacted in specific practices, can open the way for a new set of theoretical questions. In the last part of the paper, I sketch out how this can work by describing various enactments of autonomy, solidarity, and authenticity among self-trackers in the Quantified Self community. These examples show that shifting attention to practices can render visible alternative and sometimes unexpected enactments of values. Insofar as these may challenge both the promises and concerns in the debate on self-tracking for health, they can lay the groundwork for new conceptual interventions in future research. (shrink)

This is a collection of essays in ethics and the philosophy of religion contributed by former students and colleagues of Professor W. Harry Jellema to honor his 70th birthday and his retirement from Calvin College. The essays are quite diverse but uniformly worthwhile. They are nicely balanced between such traditional approaches as in Veatch's "For a Renewal of an Old Departure in Ethics" and Parker's "Traditional Reason and Modern Reason," contemporary analytic approaches as in Plantinga's "Necessary Being" and Brouwer's "A (...) Restricted Motive Theory of Ethics," and historical studies such as Stob's "The Ethics of Jonathan Edwards" and De Boer's "First Steps in Mysticism." The quality and seriousness of the collection as a whole appropriately honors a man who has been one of the most devoted and effective teachers in the American philosophic community for the past fifty years.—W. G. E. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:REVIEW SYMPOSIUM 327 claims. And both these tasks, perhaps more especially the former, are of urgent importance for the Christian theological community today. University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana PAUL J. GRIFFITHS WII,LIAM CHRISTIAN AND COMMUNITY DOCTRINES W ILLIAM CHRISTIAN'S book Doctrines of Religious Communities * is a vital contribution to the philosophy of religion, for a number of reasons. First, it goes beyond the individualism (...) that secretly underlies much writing in the field, where in effect the reader is invited to make judgments in isolation. Here he consciously addresses the problems raised by supposing realistically that we are dealing for the most part with more or less recognizable traditions and subtraditions embodied in various communities. Second, the logic of doctrinal claims has not been explored systematically before in relation to both their truth (or rightness, where they incorporate practical tenets) and their authenticity, as genuine do.ctrines of a given community. Third, the book raises some vital questions about the present shape of the world. For instance, the way in which the analysis fits non-religious but analogous cases (e.g. Romanian Marxism) is important; as also the question of how modern eclecticism fits into the picture. Moreover, it leads us to reflect on what happens when a community cannot decide whether certain doctrines or claims are authentic. One of the models Christian contemplates is represented as T/R-A, namely "}'or any sentence (s), ifs is true or right, then s is an authentic doctrine of the community": he offers this as a logical possibility though it is quite doubtful if any community holds it. He uses it to illuminate the alternative A-T/R. It is possible of course to make T/R-A more plausible by placing a restriction on the kind of truth or rightness involved, namely if it "New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. 328 REVIEW SYMPOSIUM were in the same class as community doctrines, as defining a worldview and mode of conduct. Most truths of science would not be included, but some generalizations might he, e.g. statements about the srale of the universe or the evolution of homo sapiens which might be held to possess existential impact and a cosmological significance relevant to humanity's "place" in the universe. Christian deals with such problems in treating what he describes as alien secular claims, that is, claims which arise out of secular knowledge, and which may attract a positive evaJuation from the religious community. The evaluation itself would belong to the community 's doctrines and it would (let us suppose) commend the findings of science, for example as aiding a more discriminating worship of the Creator. But I think there is a discomfort in spiritual and intellectual life which arises because we typically belong to more than one community. Let us look upon the most typical primary communities as being four in number-the religious (or ideological) community, the nation, the world of science and practical knowledge, and humanity as a whole. the last is less developed in much human consciousness, but it is at least flickeringly there in most human beings. In modem times loyalties have been sectionalized by the nation State, which is manifested in a mosaic across the planet's surface embracing all human beings. Now it is often the case, and was more so in the past, that nation and religion were made artificially to coincide: to be an English citizen was to be an Anglican: as now you are supposed to be a Marxist if you are a Romanian. At the same time in most countries, through the agency of the State, there is universal education in which to some degree or other a person is inducted into the community of science and practical knowledge. The different communities tend to be in conflict, and so the individual is easily tom. Let me first, before tackling these issues, say a word about the notions of religion and ideology. It appears to me obvious that in many respects ideologies such as Marxism fulfil a function, or set of functions, very similar to those fulfilled by religions. Moreover, Marxisms are often in severe conflict with, and opposition to, religions... (shrink)

Both Novalis and Günderrode provide grounds for a number of different kinds of hope. The first part of this chapter briefly sketches the most obvious of these: the hope for union with loved ones after death. This section also explains Günderrode’s metaphysics, which entails significant differences from Novalis in the other areas of hope that she identifies. Part two explores “epistemological hope”: the hope for knowledge or experience of that which lies outside the limitations of reason. Part three considers Günderrode’s (...) “moral hope,” which emerges from her critique of Kantian morality. Finally, parts four and five consider “political hope” and “ontological hope,” i.e., hope for improvement in the world as a whole and human society in particular. For Novalis, this famously takes the form of “raising,” “Romanticizing” or “cultivating,” effected by human beings. In Günderrode, this kind of improvement is largely beyond human control (although human beings can contribute to it), leaving us in a state of hopeful ambiguity regarding the possibility of the eventual realization of an “immortal ideal” for the earth and the establishment of ideal human communities. (shrink)

Much of the political and public debate about faith-based schooling is conducted at the level of generalised assertion and counterassertion, with little reference to educational scholarship or research. There is a tendency in these debates to draw upon historical images of faith schooling (idealised and critical); to use ideological advocacy (both for and against) and to deploy strong claims about the effects of faith-based schooling upon personal and intellectual autonomy and the wider consequences of such schooling for (...) social harmony, race relations and the common good of society. This paper will attempt to review some of these controversies in the light of recent educational and research studies. Particular attention will be given to research investigations of Catholic schooling systems in various cultural and political contexts, studies which are largely unknown outside the Catholic community. In addition to reviewing educational studies of faith-based schooling, the paper will offer critical appraisal of the main arguments in the debate and it will also outline a possible research agenda for future inquiry in this sector of educational studies. (shrink)

This essay examines the problem of medial specificity in music and sound art, giving particular attention to Seth Kim-Cohen’s call for a non-cochlear sound art based on the notion of “expansion” that has been decisive in visual arts discourses. I argue that Kim-Cohen’s non-cochlear intervention in In the Blink of an Ear might be productively pressured towards the concept of a “sonic effect” that acknowledges the material-discursive particularity of sound without recourse to the phenomenological claims of authenticity that Kim-Cohen correctly (...) abhors. In service of this argument, the essay extensively discusses a sound and media artwork – Exurbia, created by myself and William Brent – that leverages the metaphorics of sound against existing understandings of specific forms of network communication. I argue that the conceptual and material dimensions of the project stridulate in a hum of recursive vectors for considering the constitution and consequences of networked aural interaction. Exurbia can thus be parsed in terms of medial specificity precisely because its digital aural materials are themselves discursive. (shrink)

The importance of the spiritual dimension in the lives of people living in conditions of poverty and social exclusion and the often-critical role of faith-based organisations has gained increasing relevance in development research and practice. A growing line of research focuses on how to integrate the faith dimension into the evaluation of social programmes and on quantifying the effects of faith. The objective of this article is to propose a framework for integrating a spiritual dimension into the (...) design and practice of impact evaluation by using the concept of integral human development. Integral human development emerged within the Catholic social tradition, but is not specific to it. It is a perspective on human development that integrates the material and spiritual, recognises the interdependence between humans and their environment or territory and demands change at both the individual and collective levels. This framework is then applied to the design of an impact evaluation of a faith-based programme that accompanies people with drug and alcohol addictions in Argentina. The article highlights the following characteristics of an integral impact evaluation: the interaction between multiple well-being dimensions; the use of knowledge and methods of analysis from multiple disciplines; the importance of understanding the diverse pathways to improvements in well-being; the assessment of the spiritual dimension through changes in one's relationships with oneself, others and the environment; and the importance of assessing personal change within the context of social and community transformation. (shrink)

The importance of the spiritual dimension in the lives of people living in conditions of poverty and social exclusion and the often-critical role of faith-based organisations has gained increasing relevance in development research and practice. A growing line of research focuses on how to integrate the faith dimension into the evaluation of social programmes and on quantifying the effects of faith. The objective of this article is to propose a framework for integrating a spiritual dimension into the (...) design and practice of impact evaluation by using the concept of integral human development. Integral human development emerged within the Catholic social tradition, but is not specific to it. It is a perspective on human development that integrates the material and spiritual, recognises the interdependence between humans and their environment or territory and demands change at both the individual and collective levels. This framework is then applied to the design of an impact evaluation of a faith-based programme that accompanies people with drug and alcohol addictions in Argentina. The article highlights the following characteristics of an integral impact evaluation: the interaction between multiple well-being dimensions; the use of knowledge and methods of analysis from multiple disciplines; the importance of understanding the diverse pathways to improvements in well-being; the assessment of the spiritual dimension through changes in one's relationships with oneself, others and the environment; and the importance of assessing personal change within the context of social and community transformation. (shrink)

"Faith Made Real" provides an authentic look at what the abstract truths of God look like in the living-faith experiences of his people. It models an awareness of and tuning in to God s work of transformation in our own lives. Stories are edited and organized into weekly topics, examining the challenging and inspiring evidence of God s providence, faithfulness, and calling on the lives of His people. In our current culture, with reality TV shows depicting an (...) every man for himself ethos, the life-changing stories in this book portray a very different model of God-transformed community. ". (shrink)

This paper looks at the prehistory of the foreclosure crisis in Cleveland, Ohio, in order to understand the effectiveness of civil society organizations in mitigating its impact on the city’s neighborhoods. Social theorists and movement activists have often postulated civil society as an authentic and voluntaristic realm in which we constitute and act on shared values. The voluntary nature of civil society organizations also, it is argued, make them more responsive, adaptable, and effective in meeting the needs of (...) the communities they operate in. The question is whether or not this has held true in the contemporary crisis. I find that in the 1970s, Cleveland’s community-based organizations were instrumental in securing resources from government and private philanthropies to deal with the urban crisis. The unintended result of this success was a general rationalization of Cleveland’s civil society around narrow practices and market-based conceptions of value. In the process, civil society was transformed into a political technology that solved various dilemmas of rule, but at the same time it was transformed into a civic monoculture that made the city especially vulnerable to foreclosure. A key implication of this analysis is that civil society has been transformed into an object and stake of urban politics and, as a result, it should not be expected to protect society against neoliberal institutional transformations. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute a design-focused perspective on the ‘alternative paradigm research’ discussion. To clarify the aspect of ‘design-focus’ that we wish to refer to, we will use the term ‘areas of design practice’ to cover those activities that focus on the conception and production of artefacts, in contrast to the activities of theorizing and writing histories. The literature on academic research in areas of design practice encompasses a board range of subjects and terminology -- it refers to the (...) creative and performing arts, the arts, design, etc., however what we take to be common in the literature is an interest in research involving the creation of original artefacts. In this paper, we cluster together the currently academicized, previously vocational areas. -/- We claim that researchers in different disciplines operate in different research paradigms owing to different worldviews. A worldview is determined by a set of foundational beliefs that are taken on faith, and a research paradigm is defined by axioms and assumptions that are a consequence of that worldview. For example, the scientific view of the world is that it exists independently from the individual and the individual’s thoughts about it; and it is possible to find out objective facts about the world by following certain procedures. This worldview conditions a research paradigm with an ontology of a real external world; that methodologically the data that is collected in procedurally appropriate ways will yield objective facts about that world; and that epistemologically the researcher stands in a disengaged relation to the world that is being investigated. The procedures that are regarded as appropriate within a particular research paradigm form the research models that are acceptable in that paradigm, and these research models determine what one should do in order to extend knowledge in a particular subject. Of course, the scientific worldview is not the only one, and this paper will contrast it to the design worldview as indicating the emergence of a unique research paradigm. -/- The relationship between a community’s worldview and the academic models that it adopts may be functional or dysfunctional. We claim that the relationship in the areas of design practice is often dysfunctional. This is because the academic model has not developed authentically in relation to its fundamental beliefs, but has done so in response to external forces for academicization. When pushed into the academy, areas of design practice did not possess their own academic models that were effectively linked to its worldview. We claim that, as a result, these areas simply co-opted research models from other disciplines. -/- The paper proposes a rationalistic approach for investigating the relationship between worldview and research paradigm -- between fundamental beliefs, theoretical concepts and methodology in research models. The rationalistic approach enables a critique, which reveals that there are indeed problematic issues with adopting academic models from other research paradigms in an uncritical way, and concludes that areas of design practice should be investigated as an example of a distinct worldview. (shrink)

There can be little doubt that informatics and communication technologies have transformed, and some would say rendered problematic, not just such ways of thinking about relations and authenticity between human subjects, but also the very question of the possibility of such relations, especially given the global phenomenon of simulation, social media, avatars, and technologically mediated communication at almost every point of our personal, interpersonal and professional relationships in the digital age. The following questions will be explored: What are the changes (...) to and effects of ICTs on our communicative relations in the 21st century? Is it still possible to speak of authentic interpersonal encounters in the light of the emergence of informatics and communication technologies and their proliferation in the digital age, in the paths opened up by thinkers like Buber and Heidegger (for example, 2017, 2016, 2013, 2002A, 2002B, 1998, 1984, 1982, 1976A, 1976B, 1973, 1971, 1967, 1966, 1955, among many others)? And what should one do, given the acceleration and intensification of the advent of technologism in our time? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Painting in Tongues:Faith-Based Languages of Formalist ArtKevin Z. Moore (bio)A philosophical problem is created by the incoherence between the earlier state and the later one.—Ian Hacking, Historical OntologyWhatever is happening to evidence-based treatment? When the facts contravene conventional wisdom, go with the anecdotes?—New York Times, "Science Times," February 14, 2006Cephalopods have a visual language that may be considered artful; humans have written and vocalized languages that are sometimes (...) artful; but it is doubtful that there is such a thing as a "language of art," particularly in the sense that twentieth-century formalists and their critics carelessly speak of one or many. Cephalopods flash color-forms on their hides to communicate intents and emotions, maybe even to project plans. They speak in tattooed tongues through neurologically embossed patterns and color field designs displayed on the skin. The large-eyed sea creatures communicate voicelessly in a visual language of pure color-forms, each species perhaps having its own dialect. Though not a full or official language by any means, their color-forms display the ideal that twentieth-century formalist artists sought to graphically realize (referential and conceptual immediacy, emotional coloring, communication via pure, that is, nonpictorial, form). Formalist inspired artists and their critic-expositors describe abstract pattern-painting as though it were a visual language equal to that of the cephalopod. Yet [End Page 40] although we can reasonably imagine cephalopods getting the correct message by observation, we cannot reasonably imagine observers getting any message at all, let alone the intended message, from abstractionist painting. This casts suspicion on the formalists' claims about visual language. Observers cannot and famously do not get anything "out" of formalist pattern paintings, though they do project quite a lot "into" them. The telling difference between octopus and artist? Cephalopods communicate visually—their survival depends on it. Formalists do not, though the survival and flourishing of their art depends upon the belief that they do.Notably, explanations of what exactly a formalist language of art is goes missing from accounts of sense and reference in the relevant literature, where we learn that this or that painting exhibits this or that language of art but never how this or that painting functions as a language of any sort. The "language of art" phrase, it seems, has the same force as mentioning truth or existence: it explains nothing. Talk of a language of art suggests merely that a painting exhibits a communicative intent; it does not explain how that intent is linguistically mediated. The phrase is ostensive and nominal, not descriptive and expository.Prior to the twentieth century there may have been some justification for this language since art was shaped by objective reference, identifiable codes (sign and symbol systems), and recognizable scenes (compositions) that made painting a language-like public media. Observers could see immediately or "read" paintings by observation as though they were reading a language. Images were shaped by observation; reference was fixed by convention. The formalist revolution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries dismantled the public character of representation in painting. After the revolution, the new art that appeared was a sort of visual humpty-dumptyism, to invoke a language metaphor. Formalist imagery functioned the way words did for Mr. Carroll's Mr. Dumpty: they meant what the artist intended them to mean and not what observation or convention constrained them to mean. Reference and meaning were as arbitrary as the visual forms chosen to bear them. Once a communicative medium, painting became an expressive medium, the values of the latter superseding those of the former wholly or in part. Even when a formalist painting alluded to a conventional arrangement (a landscape or portrait, for example), the composition was as visually parodic of genre as Mr. Carroll's Jabberwocky was verbally parodic of narrative poetry, preserving syntax (form) but not the integrity of the formal agents of communication. Both are forms of nonsense, yet only one intentionally so.Styles of formalism do not facilitate the observation of intended reference; they are not effective forms of communication because they are not languages. If the basic function of a visual art is to communicate a specific... (shrink)

Robert Richards has presented a detailed defense of evolutionary ethics, a revised version of Darwin's views and a major modification of E. O. Wilson's. He contends that humans have evolved to seek the community welfare by acting altruistically. And since the community welfare is the highest moral good, humans ought to act altruistically. Richards asks us to take his empirical premises on faith and aims to show how they can justify an ethical conclusion. He identifies two necessary (...) conditions for a naturalistic justification of morality (NJ): its premises (1) must be empirical and (2) concerned with morally relevant causal factors. I argue that these two conditions are insufficient. An NJ must also appeal to teleogical or teleonomic laws which identify proper effects and reliable causes of these effects. So I supplement biological faith with an NJ that I believe has a better chance of working since faith without works is dead. (shrink)

Dantis, Trudy As a 'definite community of Christian faithful', every parish is called to embody the presence of the church in the wider community. It does this by being a place of living communion and participation that is wholly mission-oriented, an environment conducive to hearing God's word and growing in the Christian life, and one that is engaged in dialogue, proclamation, outreach, worship and celebration. In doing so, a parish becomes 'salt' and 'light' for the community it (...) is located in. Parish vitality can therefore be likened to the 'saltiness' or 'luminosity' of a parish community. It is imperative for every parish community to grow in health and strength if it is to be an effective source of evangelisation and an authentic witness of the Gospel. As Wittberg notes, 'To the extent that their communal "salt" loses its flavor, parishes - are worse than irrelevant, because they no longer image God'. (shrink)

Self-efficacy as applied to language learning encompasses the belief in one’s ability to obtain mastery in a sought-after domain of linguistic competence by committing to goals and maintaining acquired skills. Intercultural communication and effectiveness are of interest to the professional and personal language goals of learners as their progress depends upon a strong motivation to put practical language skills to use when the real-world requires it. Studying or working abroad and engaging in intercultural training are two such contexts that bind (...) research in learner characteristics between applied linguistics and positive psychology as they provide a substrate of concrete interactions through language brokering, transformative experiences characterized by opportunities for changes in self-concept, negotiations with values and authenticity, and forms of interpersonal development underwritten by intercultural communication as an ability. The Self-Efficacy in Intercultural Communication Scale (SEIC) was developed by Peterson et al. (2011) in a sample of educators with overseas sojourning work experience. However, the original study lacked confirmatory analyses of internal and external validity that would provide clarity toward model identification and applicability for research that deals with intercultural communication competence across populations with diverse sample characteristics. A total of 876 teachers (M age = 37.48, SD = 10.81) and 266 university students (M age = 19.48, SD = 0.74) in Japan responded to items from the SEIC instrument. Acceptable model fit was supported for the 8-item short-form as proposed by Peterson et al. (2011). Metric invariance was observed for individuals from a sample of sojourning English language teachers similar to the original validation and a nationwide survey of Japanese teachers of English, offering indications of cross-cultural validity. Degrees of equivalence were also found for the Japanese items as extending fitness for use to students from two universities in Japan. Concurrent validity was supported for self-efficacy in intercultural communication measured by the scale with intercultural effectiveness competencies and speaking and listening self-efficacy constructs used in classroom contexts. Together, this study offers a tool of valid indicators for researchers and practitioners who aim to observe this self-efficacy in positive education or programs that intersect with language learning and intercultural communication. (shrink)

Carroll, Sandra Review of: Intentional faith communities in catholic education: Challenge and response, by Gerald A. Arbuckle, Strathfield, NSW: St Pauls, 2016, pp. 218, $29.95.

The current international healthcare focus on ensuring the perspectives and needs of individual persons, families or communities are met has led to the core tenet of person‐centred care for all. The nurse–patient relationship is central to the provision of care, and enhancing this relationship to ensure trust and respect supports optimal care outcomes for those accessing healthcare services. Engaging authentically is one of the recognised key approaches in person‐centred practice, and this scoping review of the literature aims to gain an (...) understanding of the role this process plays in developing effective relationships between nurses and the people they care for. A systematic search of databases and grey literature was undertaken, and twenty‐one research papers met the inclusion criteria. A thematic analysis revealed four themes: ‘getting to know the patient as a person’, ‘the complexity of relationship building—it takes time’, ‘the nurse: characteristics and behaviours that support the nurse–patient relationship’ and ‘the patient voice’. Nurses and patients both benefit from effective relationships, feeling valued and experiencing greater satisfaction with care. Key elements of engaging authentically were revealed as a nurse–patient relational process through this literature review; however, further research is needed to gain a greater understanding of this concept. (shrink)

The article discusses the forms and ways of the impact of modern digital media on people, groups, and society as a whole. The unilateral communication effect on a person is emphasized. The accent is made on the transmission model of information dissemination, taking into account the formation of its ritualized form. The author pays his particular attention to the status and role of an individual in interaction with mass media; provides arguments about the exclusion of a person from the communication (...) dimension. The activity of modern digital media structures is substantiated as social constructors of reality. The researcher shows the technological and visual possibilities of mass media in the creation of artificial, illusory simulated models of the world perceived by a person as objective, authentic, and real. Mass media are presented as an integral social institution of modern society, operating autonomously, based on its own rules and norms, technological and content principles, conditions of network communication, digitalization, and mediatization of society. The article presents the concepts of theoretical comprehension of mass media as a self-sufficient autopoietic system of N. Luhmann, and consideration of media communication implementation as a non-communication of J. Baudrillard. The author stresses the role of spectacle and visuality in the process of TV influence on the subjects, in the construction of images and models of the world, comparable with the already available information consumers pictures of the world. The contradictory and ambiguous conceptual assessments of the activity and influence of mass media on the modern man are emphasized. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Persuasion and RhetoricThomas M. ConleyPersuasion and Rhetoric. Carlo Michelstaedter. Translated with an introduction and commentary by Russell Scott Valentino, Cinzia Sartini Blum, and David J. Depew : New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Pp. 178. $32.50, hardcover.Readers of this book will not find much in it about the "persuasion" and "rhetoric" they might expect to read about in this journal. Nor will they find in it the Appendici (...) Critiche that appear in the original text, Michelstaedter's thesis entitled I concetti di persuasione e rettorica [sic] in Platone e Aristotele, which he submitted to the Faculty of Letters in Florence in 1910. But the version printed here by the editors (hereafter "VBD," as there is no indication of who did what) will no doubt appeal to those who dislike Plato and Aristotle, have the idea that something better can be found in the Presocratics, and claim allegiance to such philosophers as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and the Heidegger of Being and Time; for this is a book about the problem of attaining a sort of existential "authenticity" and not, in my view, "one of the most trenchant and influential studies in modern rhetoric," as the liner notes claim. To be sure, Persuasione e rettorica has been the subject of decades of contentious scholarship in Italy. But most of that scholarship (and that displayed in the headnotes provided by VBD) concerns the sources of Michelstaedter's ideas and his true debt to the likes of Parmenides and Heraclitus, both of whom figure significantly in his worldview."Persuasione"—and I use the Italian here to avoid confusion—might best be understood to mean a sort of self-possession, being at one with oneself and with the world, or what I called before "authenticity." Michelstaedter himself never makes an effort to define it, for to do that would be to turn it into the sort of abstraction that Michelstaedter opposes. Defining things, as we learn from the Appendici, is the sort of thing philosophers like Aristotle and Hegel do in an act of bad faith or delusion. "Persuasione" is, by contrast, something lived, not understood—or, more precisely, it is a state to which true philosophers (Parmenides and Socrates, for instance) aspire with the full understanding that, like the limit approached asymptotically by an hyperbola (see 48, 109), it can never be attained. That understanding was replaced by the false consciousness represented by the "rettorica" taught by the Sophists and Plato (along with his disciple, Aristotle), and continues to the present day. This account is hinted at in the "Historical Example" allegory of the present text (77–84); but is more fully "documented" in a section of the long Appendix 2, "Note alla triste historia" (107–56 in the 1972 Raschini edition), entitled "La decadenza" (129–35). [End Page 170]"Rettorica," then, is the name Michelstaedter gives to the whole range of ingenious linguistic devices we use to convince ourselves that we are satisfied, fulfilled, secure in our selves and in the world—i.e., "persuaded"—when we are only suffering from a delusion created by language itself. It is rettorica that gives rise to "commonplaces" that masquerade as true understanding, to the impostures of "science" in the name of "objectivity" (see 89–95), to technology and machines, to "education" (110–11, 148–52), and indeed to every manifestation of bourgeois ideology (see the "dialogue" at 104–6, for instance). Rettorica is a kind of hypocrisy, deception, and (self-) flattery; an instrument of "the community of the wicked" (100, 143), a collection of "ornaments of the darkness" (e.g., 137, 139).The problem we face in acknowledging all this is, of course, that the attempt to articulate it has to be done in language; and language, by its very nature in all its semantic and syntactic elements (the point of Appendix 1, Raschini, 103–6), subverts true "persuasione." How can one "speak truth to authenticity," so to speak, when one begins by "giving a name to" its contrary, "rettorica"?"Trenchant," in any event, is hardly the right term to describe Persuasion and Rhetoric. "Mordant" or "plangent" might be closer to the mark. And as for its influence on "modern rhetoric... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"New" Media, Art, and Intercultural CommunicationBart Vandenabeele (bio)It is fairly common — but perhaps not altogether innocent — to avoid addressing new media and intercultural aspects of communication in one and the same essay. Here, however, both issues are treated together. I shall investigate, in a perhaps somewhat unusual way, the phenomenon of "new" artistic media and some related issues such as virtual reality, computer and telecommunications technology, and (...) cyberspace. I offer some philosophical remarks, especially of an epistemological kind, that are important to every debate in which terms like multimedia art, "new" media art, and screen based art occur. I argue that the novelty of some changes in the use of artistic media tends to be overemphasized and dramatized. Furthermore, I shall point to the lack of interest in intercultural aspects of artistic communication and to the relevance an intercultural orientation can have for reflection on the phenomenon of so-called "new" media in art.1It has often been claimed that art is the best possible window into another community. Art would be a universal language and contact with works of art supposedly offers the best direct or immediate internal access to another community. This is purported to be a kind of access that cannot possibly be matched by knowledge about the geography, religion, and history. Even John Dewey believes that "au fond, the aesthetic quality is the same for Greeks, Chinese, Americans."2 This idea is surprisingly reminiscent of Clive Bell's "discovery" of Significant Form in so-called primitive art.3 Dewey says thatbarriers are dissolved, limiting prejudices melt away, when we enter into the spirit of Negro or Polynesian art. This insensible melting is far more efficacious than the change effected by reasoning, because it enters directly into attitude."4To this contention one could object in the following way. Immediate contact with for example, Congolese Nkisi nkondi fetish statues (in the museum of [End Page 1] African Art and History in Tervuren), which are bristling with nails are quite shocking to Europeans — such as Joseph Conrad in the Congo.5 Only by acquaintance with facts that are external to the artwork can one get real access to and understanding of them. One has to know that the nails are meant to seal dispute resolutions and that the statues "were considered so powerful that they were sometimes kept outside the village."6 Only when I know this, will my first perception be seriously altered. It is an objection that is often made against the privilege enjoyed by the immediate contact with the senses: knowledge of the "context" can enhance our appreciation of the art of the foreign community.Both the universalist view and the objection are flawed.7 First of all, we have to ask whether we can make such a sharp distinction between internal and external information and, second, whether it is correct to presuppose a typical proper aesthetics to make artistic communication possible. Is not every form of life already the (not fully definable) outcome of conscious or unconscious influence by other forms of life? What would be the so-called "own" internal aesthetics by which we should judge the famous "Turkish" Iznik tiles that reflect especially the Ottoman rulers' interest in Chinese porcelain, or the "Japanese" aesthetics of Zen Buddhism that is the result of a century-long historical interaction between Japanese culture and the new, foreign religion of Buddhism, which traveled from Japan to India via China and Korea? What would be the "typical" English garden, which was realized on the basis of travel reports from the Far East? And what of the Eastern influence on so-called typical Western painters as Matisse, Whistler, and Degas or composers such as Debussy, Messiaen, Ravel, Rimski-Korsakow and Puccini? What is clear is that it is completely unclear what is "own," "typical," or "authentic." Live communities are never isolated islands developing by themselves. It is as impossible to demarcate strictly the "proper" from the "foreign" as it is to find a universal language that would make artistic communication possible in an absolutely definitive way.Just as it is not necessary to share a language to communicate8 — this holds both for people... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"New" Media, Art, and Intercultural CommunicationBart Vandenabeele (bio)It is fairly common — but perhaps not altogether innocent — to avoid addressing new media and intercultural aspects of communication in one and the same essay. Here, however, both issues are treated together. I shall investigate, in a perhaps somewhat unusual way, the phenomenon of "new" artistic media and some related issues such as virtual reality, computer and telecommunications technology, and (...) cyberspace. I offer some philosophical remarks, especially of an epistemological kind, that are important to every debate in which terms like multimedia art, "new" media art, and screen based art occur. I argue that the novelty of some changes in the use of artistic media tends to be overemphasized and dramatized. Furthermore, I shall point to the lack of interest in intercultural aspects of artistic communication and to the relevance an intercultural orientation can have for reflection on the phenomenon of so-called "new" media in art.1It has often been claimed that art is the best possible window into another community. Art would be a universal language and contact with works of art supposedly offers the best direct or immediate internal access to another community. This is purported to be a kind of access that cannot possibly be matched by knowledge about the geography, religion, and history. Even John Dewey believes that "au fond, the aesthetic quality is the same for Greeks, Chinese, Americans."2 This idea is surprisingly reminiscent of Clive Bell's "discovery" of Significant Form in so-called primitive art.3 Dewey says thatbarriers are dissolved, limiting prejudices melt away, when we enter into the spirit of Negro or Polynesian art. This insensible melting is far more efficacious than the change effected by reasoning, because it enters directly into attitude."4To this contention one could object in the following way. Immediate contact with for example, Congolese Nkisi nkondi fetish statues (in the museum of [End Page 1] African Art and History in Tervuren), which are bristling with nails are quite shocking to Europeans — such as Joseph Conrad in the Congo.5 Only by acquaintance with facts that are external to the artwork can one get real access to and understanding of them. One has to know that the nails are meant to seal dispute resolutions and that the statues "were considered so powerful that they were sometimes kept outside the village."6 Only when I know this, will my first perception be seriously altered. It is an objection that is often made against the privilege enjoyed by the immediate contact with the senses: knowledge of the "context" can enhance our appreciation of the art of the foreign community.Both the universalist view and the objection are flawed.7 First of all, we have to ask whether we can make such a sharp distinction between internal and external information and, second, whether it is correct to presuppose a typical proper aesthetics to make artistic communication possible. Is not every form of life already the (not fully definable) outcome of conscious or unconscious influence by other forms of life? What would be the so-called "own" internal aesthetics by which we should judge the famous "Turkish" Iznik tiles that reflect especially the Ottoman rulers' interest in Chinese porcelain, or the "Japanese" aesthetics of Zen Buddhism that is the result of a century-long historical interaction between Japanese culture and the new, foreign religion of Buddhism, which traveled from Japan to India via China and Korea? What would be the "typical" English garden, which was realized on the basis of travel reports from the Far East? And what of the Eastern influence on so-called typical Western painters as Matisse, Whistler, and Degas or composers such as Debussy, Messiaen, Ravel, Rimski-Korsakow and Puccini? What is clear is that it is completely unclear what is "own," "typical," or "authentic." Live communities are never isolated islands developing by themselves. It is as impossible to demarcate strictly the "proper" from the "foreign" as it is to find a universal language that would make artistic communication possible in an absolutely definitive way.Just as it is not necessary to share a language to communicate8 — this holds both for people... (shrink)

Scientific research is almost always conducted by communities of scientists of varying size and complexity. Such communities are effective, in part, because they divide their cognitive labor: not every scientist works on the same project. Philip Kitcher and Michael Strevens have pioneered efforts to understand this division of cognitive labor by proposing models of how scientists make decisions about which project to work on. For such models to be useful, they must be simple enough for us to understand their (...) dynamics, but faithful enough to reality that we can use them to analyze real scientific communities. To satisfy the first requirement, we must employ idealizations to simplify the model. The second requirement demands that these idealizations not be so extreme that we lose the ability to describe real-world phenomena. This paper investigates the status of the assumptions that Kitcher and Strevens make in their models, by first inquiring whether they are reasonable representations of reality, and then by checking the models' robustness against weakenings of these assumptions. To do this, we first argue against the reality of the assumptions, and then develop a series of agent-based simulations to systematically test their effects on model outcomes. We find that the models are not robust against weakenings of these idealizations. In fact we find that under certain conditions, this can lead to the model predicting outcomes that are qualitatively opposite of the original model outcomes. (shrink)

Materialists argue that there is no place for God in the universe. Chance and contingency are all that structure our world. However, the materialists’ dismissal of subjectivity manifests a flawed metaphysics that invalidates their arguments against God. In this essay I explore the following: (1) How does personal metaphysics affect one's ability to do science? (2) Are the materialist arguments about contingency used to dismiss the importance of our place in the universe valid? (3) What are the implications of subjectivity (...) on belief and science? To answer the first question, I examine the later years of Sir Alfred Russel Wallace, one of the cofounders of evolution through natural selection with Darwin. His belief in nineteenth–century spiritualism profoundly affected his standing in the scientific community. I describe the effect of spiritualism on Wallace's science. To answer the second question, I use my own work in mathematical modeling of evolutionary processes to show that randomness, and contingency at one level, can actually be nearly deterministic at another. I demonstrate how arguments about chance and contingency do not imply anything relevant about whether there is a designer behind the universe. To answer the third question I begin by exploring a paradox of consciousness and show how the existence of subjective truths may provide a paradigm for sustaining a rational belief in God. These questions form the framework of a structured belief in a creator while yet embracing what science has to offer about the development of life on our planet. (shrink)

The paper discusses three aspects of belonging to religious systems of belief within a modern liberal society, namely (1) the sincerity and consistency of belief, (2) the possibility of exteriorization of belief through broader social interactions or transactions, and (3) the relationship between religious belief and the modern concept of affirmative tolerance, or affirmation of differences, which has become a pronounced public policy in multicultural liberal societies. The author argues that, while negative tolerance allows sincere religious belief to flourish in (...) the private sphere and for benevolence to be shown to those who are seen as mistaken in their beliefs, affirmative tolerance opens an array of logical issues. The demand to extend potential substantive validation to opposed beliefs produces the ricochet effect of de-validating one’s own beliefs. This creates difficulties for religious communities when issues at stake are beliefs that, in the respective belief-systems, are definitive of the moral goodness and moral badness. Upon a more careful examination of the logical relations between the soteriological promises characteristic of what is sometimes called the ‘substantive’ layer of religiousness, on the one hand, and the public expectation of a tolerant coexistence of religious communities on a social level, on the other hand, it becomes clear that the tolerance required can only be a negative tolerance. Any expectation of affirmative tolerance de-values the soteriological script of the respective system of religious belief, and is thus likely to lead to serious disturbances in a liberal context of multi-cultural coexistence. The author argues that the recent political announcements of a ‘failure of the multicultural experiment’ are caused by the aggressive pursuit of ‘affirmative tolerance’ rather than by any in-built intolerance of others in any of the large religious belief systems now prevalent in the liberal democratic world. (shrink)

Science has been dazzlingly successful in explaining nature. Scientific advances also have led to certain undesirable, though unintended, side effects, one of which is alienation from the spiritual. Revelation comes from the Divine. But what is the status of authenticity of a particular piece claimed to be revelation? What is its historical validity and current state of preservation? This essay proposes to develop a list of rational criteria, in consultation with all stakeholders, for addressing the subject. The aim is to (...) bring objectivity into this discourse by placing it more on the turf of reason rather than basing it on considerations of faith and prior allegiance. (shrink)

The economic miracle of Mepkin Abbey -- What we all really want -- The end of selfishness -- Goat rodeos and the transformational organization -- Mission -- Selflessness and community -- Excellence for the sake of excellence -- Ethical standards, or, why good things happen for good people -- Faith -- The power of trust -- Self-knowledge -- Living the life.

At the present time, when we are experiencing one of the extraordinary conditions in which the basics of life are shaken, exceptional practices concerning the sources of the meaning of the world of life have become one of the urgent issues for the sociology of religion to consider. This study discusses the reactions of people to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the regularity of social life in the early stages in the framework of Muslim religious groups. Since the (...) forms of social organization reveal reactions in their own specific forms, a research design that considers the differences were preferred. The provision that ‘man is social by nature,’ which is the indispensable principle of social sciences, has been the main feature of important issues to elaborate in the restrictions of today’s pandemic. Religious socialization, which is important for the inquiry, is a phenomenon that is desired to be carried out on a continuous basis. Its performative dimension draws attention to important elements that affect the formation and the social ontology of the group, such as consciousness and solidarity. While some religious groups insist on face-to-face interaction and rituals, some of them prefer to use effectively digital tools and channels. This differing approach has become a public issue, especially during the pandemic process. On the other hand, there is a discussion in the context of the digital world of new media tools and the travel possibilities of transportation technology. The theoretical basis of this study, which deals with the insistence of religious groups on face-to-face interaction and rituals is represented from the scope of Erving Goffman. His analyzes face-to-face communication and his comments emphasizing the ritualistic nature of daily life are operationalized through two basic case studies: the first case is the persistence and practice of Tablīghī Djamā‘at, in its annual meetings in the early days of the pandemic. The discussion started with the practice of the religious group in Delhi (Nizamuddin Markaz), since they did not cancel their annual meeting despite the diagnosis of the disease. The second case is based on the ritual insistence of pilgrims in visiting shrines in the Iranian city of Qom. The insistence of the Shiite Islamic understanding on ritual and pilgrimage and the solidarity built with the consciousness based on it is a well-known phenomenon. In the Covid-19 pandemic, the risk of contamination caused by the mobility of the pilgrims coming to the city of Qom from countries such as Pakistan was discussed, as well as the contact and social distance during the Hajj. Two cases were handled with a qualitative design including case analysis method and descriptive analysis technique. The main purpose and intended contribution of the article are to reveal the insistence of face-to-face interaction through the performative based on rituals as an analytical explanatory on the social level. Inferences based on the analysis of religious groups’ response to restrictions in times of emergency build the importance of the issue. Case information identified in the context of the case study shows that groups with traditional interaction forms insist on their own practice in the field of uncertainty and initiative. Unless necessity eliminates the initiative, the determination of this insistence of traditional religious groups is not only theological but also ontological confirmation. It is understood that the members of the group took the initiative to represent their reputation within the group and their extent to dedicate to the group. The fact that Tablīghī Djamā‘at, the largest group of the transnational Islamic da‘wa (call), did not give up on a method based on demographic mobility, has been a matter of discussion. The insistence of the group is because of the methods that require every ordinary believer to accept to convey the da‘wa as his primary duty. On the other hand, Shiism, which stands out with its traditional structure and ritual intensity in the Islamic world, insisted on the initiative process in the pilgrimage phenomenon, on which it attached special importance and built its solidarity and identity on this phenomenon. This insistence aims preserving the dynamics and social ontology of the religious group in the performance of the membership system. Essentially, the individual in the group insists on his position in face-to-face interaction because having a role in a group also means having a face. Thus, this insistence performance by religious groups should also be read as a reflection of self-technologies. In the final analysis, the insistence put forward should be considered essentially in relation to the insistence on the position in social ontology. (shrink)