Eucharistic sacrifice and patristic tradition in the theology of Martin Bucer 1534–1546

Abstract

As scholars continue to examine the variety and complexity of religious life in early modern England, we recognize that figures such as George Herbert resist our efforts to place them in convenient categories. However, we can account for this resistance by comparing Herbert's poetry to the Lutheran theologian Johann Gerhard's popular devotions of the same period. An intertextual study of Herbert's poems and Gerhard's devotional classic reveals their shared emphasis on baptism as an essential defining element of the Christian's life within the communion of saints. This emphasis synthesizes the tradition and sacramental piety of the old faith with the emphasis on the efficacy of the biblical word that marks the new faith of the Reformation and, at the same time, provides an irenic foundation for their interaction with the Church in early modern England.     

“You knit me together in my mother’s womb”: a theology of creation and divine action in light of intersex

ABSTRACT

Some Christian theologians and intersex Christians maintain that intersex is part of God’s good and intended creation, in contrast to those who view intersex as a pathological result of fallen nature. The former claim that intersex bodies “are how God made them” and that “God does not make mistakes;” however, these statements risk implying a belief in special creation or divine intervention, two theological positions which have been challenged by evolutionary theory and contemporary natural sciences. This paper provides a more nuanced theology of creation and divine action as a foundation for a positive theology of intersex. Drawing from the work of Thomas Aquinas on primary and secondary causality, the author argues that God, as primary cause, creates the intersex person through the free interplay of secondary causes, in the same way and to the same extent that God acts in the creation of every other person.     

From cover to cover? A critique of Wolterstorff's theory of the Bible as divine discourse

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Extra ecclesiam nulla revelatio?: God’s self-disclosure to non-Christian religions in contemporary Catholic theology

The author explores the conciliar and post-conciliar documents of the Catholic Church in order to draw out the tensions and ambiguities of its position regarding the nature and role of revelation in the origin of non-Christian religions. Within the framework of this position, moderate Catholic theologians have argued that, as other religions have their origins in God’s specific self-disclosure, they differ only in degree from Christianity. Their arguments combined with an in-depth analysis of Church documents yields the conclusion that the position of the Catholic Church is logically amenable to an affirmation of religious pluralism de iure. If the Catholic Church desires to officially reject this conclusion, it must explicitly address the apparent inconsistencies that its own theologians find in this rejection.     

Indonesian politics and a Muslim theology of religions: 1965–1990

In 1945 the Indonesian republic accepted the Pancasila‐ideology as the basis of the independent state. In this ideology the role of religion is clearly defined as one of the five pillars of society. This has caused a more positive perception among Muslims of the major religions of the world (especially Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism). It has also started a series of interreligious encounters, aimed at national development and interreligious harmony. Local and new religions are excluded from this positive appreciation. A small Muslim minority has also expressed its fear of the Pancasila as the new and dominating pseudo‐religion of the country.     

The lesson of the revolution in Russian émigré theology and contemporary Orthodox thought

Abstract

This paper cuts across the whole spectrum of Orthodox thought in Russia today, both clerical and lay, both theological and philosophical, in order to show the different ways in which Orthodox thinkers have reflected (or not reflected) upon the experience of totalitarianism. The point which I want to make here is that many representatives of Russian Orthodoxy – and most casual western observers – overlook ‘the lesson taught by the revolution’. This lesson is expressed in the need to formulate clear standpoints on the totalitarian challenge from within the Orthodox theological tradition. Russian émigré theology and its contemporary heirs have embarked upon this path; the Russian Orthodox Church has not, or has done so to a much lesser extent.     

Feelings of belonging in a congregation: a social–psychological assessment

The purpose of this study is to empirically evaluate a conceptual model that explores the social aspects of congregational life that promote feelings of belonging in a congregation. The following core hypotheses are embedded in this model: (1) individuals who go to church more often will receive more spiritual support from fellow church members; (2) people who get more spiritual support from coreligionists will have more practical wisdom; (3) those with more practical wisdom will be more likely to provide emotional support to the individuals in their congregation; (4) people who provide emotional support to fellow church members will be more highly valued by their coreligionists; and (5) individuals who feel they are valued by their fellow congregants will be more likely to believe that they belong in the place where they worship. Data from a recent nationwide survey (N?=?1154) of Christians provide support for each of these relationships.     

At the root of the left–right asymmetries in spatial–numerical processing: From domestic chicks to human subjects

In this review, we discuss evidence showing that birds (Gallus gallus and Nucifraga columbiana) represent numerical magnitudes as being oriented from left to right. Subjects, trained to identify a target element (i.e. the 4th) in a series of sagittally oriented identical elements, when required to generalise on an identical series oriented spatially from left to right, correctly identified the target element “counting” from the left of the array. Moreover, chicks, when presented with sets of 5 vs. 10 or 6 vs. 9 imprinting objects, which were made to disappear one at a time behind one of two identical screens, spontaneously inspected the screen which occluded the larger set. Interestingly, chicks scored a higher percentage of correct choices when the larger of the two sets was on their right side. Similarities with the phenomenon of the spatially oriented (left to right) number line in humans are discussed. Animal models promise a fresh approach to the understanding of developmental mechanisms underlying the expression of knowledge, offering attractive arguments for doubting the uniqueness of human numerical cognition.     

Coregulation of balance between children's prosocial approaches and acts of compliance: a pathway to mother-child cooperation?

Examined the free-field interaction of 32 mother-child dyads who volunteered to participate in a 1-hr home observation. Observers coded mother instructions, child compliance, and child prosocial approaches plus mothers' social attention as potential reinforcers for the children's compliance and social approaches. Herrnstein's matching law was used to analyze covariations between mothers' attention and the children's 2 responses. This analysis was followed by correlational and sequential probability analyses to determine linkages between these 2 child responses and the children's willingness to obey their mothers' instructions. Results showed consistent matching between mothers' social attention and the children's production of prosocial approaches and acts of compliance. An index of the proportions of these 2 responses also covaried with the children's compliance probabilities, and the prosocial approach component was the direct covariate. These findings are discussed within an interactional synchrony framework in which children's willingness to obey their mothers is influenced by opportunities for the dyad to engage each other in specific forms of social interaction.     

Collective self-legislation as an Actus Impurus: a response to Heidegger’s critique of European nihilism

Heidegger’s critique of European nihilism seeks to expose self-legislation as the governing principle of central manifestations of modernity such as science, technology, and the interpretation of art as aesthetics. Need we accept the conclusion that modern constitutional democracies are intrinsically nihilistic, insofar as they give political and legal form to the principle of collective self-legislation? An answer to this question turns on the concept of power implied in constituent and constituted power. A confrontation of the genealogies of modern subjectivity proposed by Heidegger and Blumenberg suggests that there is indeed a metaphysical core to the concept of constituent power developed by various political theorists, including Schmitt and Habermas. By contrast, closer consideration of the paradoxical relation between constituent and constituted power illuminates the ambiguity of collective self-legislation, which means both enactment of a legal order by a collective self and the enactment of a collective self by a legal order. To the extent that constitutional democracies are a way of preserving rather than dissolving this ambiguity, they imply an interpretation of power and human finitude that parries the charge of nihilism.     

Forward blocking in human learning sometimes reflects the failure to encode a cue–outcome relationship

In two “allergist” causal judgement experiments, participants were trained with a blocking design (A?+?|AB+). The procedure allowed different food cues to be paired with different fictitious allergic reactions. On test, participants were asked to rate the causal efficacy of the target cues and to recall the particular allergic reaction (outcome) that had followed each cue during training. Forward blocking was observed on the causal judgement measure and on the outcome recall measure in both Experiment 1 and Experiment 2. A backward blocking contingency was also trained in Experiment 2 (AB?+?|A+). Backward blocking was not observed either on the causal judgement or on the outcome recall measure. The evidence from the recall measure suggests that forward blocking in this task results from a failure to encode the B–outcome relationship during training. Associative and nonassociative mechanisms of forward blocking are discussed.     

Dog–human social relationship: representation of human face familiarity and emotions in the dog brain

Animal Cognition - This study investigated the behavioral and neural indices of detecting facial familiarity and facial emotions in human faces by dogs. Awake canine fMRI was used to evaluate...     

‘So people know I'm a Sikh’: Narratives of Sikh masculinities in contemporary Britain

This article examines British-born Sikh men's identification to Sikhism. In particular, it focuses on the appropriation and use of Sikh symbols amongst men who define themselves as Sikh. This article suggests that whilst there are multiple ways of ‘being’ a Sikh man in contemporary post-colonial Britain, and marking belonging to the Sikh faith, there is also a collectively understood idea of what an ‘ideal’ Sikh man should be. Drawing upon Connell and Messerschmidt's discussion of locally specific hegemonic masculinities (2005. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender and Society 19 (6): 829–859), it is suggested that an ideal Sikh masculine identity is partly informed by a Khalsa discourse, which informs a particular performance of Sikh male identity, whilst also encouraging the surveillance of young men's activities both by themselves and by others. These Sikh masculinities are complex and multiple, rotating to reaffirm, challenge and redefine contextualised notions of hegemonic masculinity within the Sikh diaspora in post-colonial Britain. Such localised Sikh masculinities may both assert male privilege and reap patriarchal dividends (Connell, W. 1995. Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press), resulting in particular British Sikh hegemonic masculinities which seek to shape the performance of masculinity, yet in another context these very same performances of masculinity may also signify a more marginalised masculinity vis-à-vis other dominant hegemonic forms.     

The importance of gestural communication: a study of human–dog communication using incongruent information

We assessed how water rescue dogs, which were equally accustomed to respond to gestural and verbal requests, weighted gestural versus verbal information when asked by their owner to perform an action. Dogs were asked to perform four different actions (“sit”, “lie down”, “stay”, “come”) providing them with a single source of information (in Phase 1, gestural, and in Phase 2, verbal) or with incongruent information (in Phase 3, gestural and verbal commands referred to two different actions). In Phases 1 and 2, we recorded the frequency of correct responses as 0 or 1, whereas in Phase 3, we computed a ‘preference index’ (percentage of gestural commands followed over the total commands responded). Results showed that dogs followed gestures significantly better than words when these two types of information were used separately. Females were more likely to respond to gestural than verbal commands and males responded to verbal commands significantly better than females. In the incongruent condition, when gestures and words simultaneously indicated two different actions, the dogs overall preferred to execute the action required by the gesture rather than that required verbally, except when the verbal command “come” was paired with the gestural command “stay” with the owner moving away from the dog. Our data suggest that in dogs accustomed to respond to both gestural and verbal requests, gestures are more salient than words. However, dogs’ responses appeared to be dependent also on the contextual situation: dogs’ motivation to maintain proximity with an owner who was moving away could have led them to make the more ‘convenient’ choices between the two incongruent instructions.     

Private events: Do they belong in a science of human behavior?

The role of thinking, feeling, and other private events has received a great deal of attention in mainstream psychology but has been virtually ignored in behavior analysis until recently. This paper introduces a series of papers from a symposium that explored the roles of private events in a science of human behavior. We briefly explore the role private events are assigned in several behavioral orientations. Next, we discuss several positions on how private events might be conceptualized within a behavior-analytic framework. We conclude by noting that the dearth of research and conceptualizations about private events unnecessarily limits the theoretical or conceptual understanding on which applied behavior analysts base their work. With this paper and the papers that follow, we hope to spark research, discussion, and yes, thinking, about the roles of thinking and feeling.     

People vs God: The logic of ‘divine sovereignty' in Islamic democratic discourse

This paper aims at clarifying the role which the concept of 'divine sovereignty' plays in the discussions which are taking place among Islamic thinkers (and others) concerning the possibility of democracy in an Islamic context. It argues that 'sovereignty' has at least two meanings, one 'factual', the other 'normative'. The paper also argues that the second sense of 'sovereignty' allows us to construe talk of 'divine sovereignty' as an attempt by Islamic thinkers to go beyond the merely procedural views of democracy which focus on the familiar procedures of power contestation, election and accountability.