Relevant and Effective Theological Education in the Context of Twenty‐First Century South Asia

This essay considers Christian theological education in South Asia highlighting pertinent issues in pedagogical content, form, method, and praxis. Debunking the notion of students as “empty bottles” to be filled, and criticizing the top‐down model of education, the paper argues that theological education is an ongoing and interactive process in which students and teachers are participants who share and reflect upon each other's faith and socio‐cultural experiences. Participants reject, test, negotiate, and choose – while remaining open to the variety that is embodied in different human experiences. The paper stresses the relationship between the theological college and the church and calls for mutual responsibility, respect, and accountability. In an increasingly communal and fundamentalist atmosphere that poses a threat to multi‐culturalism, the role of the laity in shaping theological education is highlighted and public debate is encouraged. The paper calls for interactive and dialogic learning. A version of this paper was published in Ministerial Formation 100 (2003): 5–16.     

De‐schooling the Theological Seminary: An Appropriate Paradigm for Effective Ministerial Formation

The most common paradigm of contemporary Protestant theological education for ministerial formation is that of schooling, seen in the institution of the theological seminary/college. This article notes the limitations of the schooling paradigm for educational intervention in the range of domains inherent in effective ministerial formation; recognizes that teaching and learning take different but still legitimate shape when used to describe educational processes in this context; and argues for an integrated, formational, and missional community paradigm modeled especially on the relationship of Jesus with his disciples as being both more consistent with biblical precedents and more effective educationally. The implications of this for the role of faculty of theological institutions are explored.     

Not Only a Messenger: Towards an Attitudinal‐Representational Theory of Pain

The main goal of this paper is to present a theory of the most salient aspect of the phenomenal character of pain – namely, the painfulness of pain or its negative affective quality. This task involves developing an account of the evaluative structure of pain, according to which painfulness is constituted by a (subjectively) frustrated (first‐order) conative attitude that is directed towards the bodily condition the obtaining of which the pain represents. The argument for the proposed Attitudinal‐Representational Theory of Pain proceeds by presenting an explanatory challenge that concerns crucial aspects of the reason‐giving force of pain, and showing that, unlike extant theories of pain, it successfully accounts for them.     

God's Mission as Word Event in an Age of World Christianity: An Asian Linguistic‐Transcultural Model

Christian community lives according to the Word of God, inspiring the church to be in ecumenical fellowship and to be amenable to the act of God's speech in an age of world Christianity. The Word of God is able to be translated transculturally in different times and places, while keeping the transversal, irregular horizon of God's discourse. In view of the rise of world Christianity much has been said about the indigenization of the Christian narrative that challenges the western concept of missio Dei. To renew God's mission in an East Asian configuration, a linguistic‐transcultural model is proposed for a public theology of mission that promotes the full humanity of those on the underside of history and acknowledges religious outsiders. A public mission of God's narrative takes seriously the project of interculturation and emancipation in the post‐western Christian era.     

Improving Children's Attitudes Toward Refugees: An Evaluation of a School‐Based Multicultural Curriculum and an Anti‐Racist Intervention1

We evaluated the impact of the Friendship Project, a program designed to improve elementary school children's attitudes toward refugees. Participants either received 4 weekly lessons based on the program, or they received no lessons. All participants completed attitude measures before and after implementation of the program. Half completed the post‐test 1 week after completion of the program, while the other half completed the post‐test 7 weeks after its completion. The program led to more positive attitudes toward refugees in the short term, but not in the long term. Moreover, although it did not increase empathy, the program increased the proportion of participants who preferred an acculturation strategy of integration and reduced the number of participants who had conflictual acculturative fit.     

The Implementation of Mindfulness‐Based,Trauma‐Informed Parent Education in an Underserved Latino Community: The Emergence of a Community Workforce

In this practice‐oriented program review, a mindfulness‐based, trauma‐informed parent intervention, called Safe, Secure and Loved? (SSL), designed to strengthen nurturing parenting and children's resilience, was implemented in an underserved Latino community. Across 5 years, a volunteer community workforce of promotoras transformed an academic–community research partnership into a community‐led program partnership and established sustainable agency parent education programming. To better understand this transformation, we used a modified implementation science (IS) framework to structure interviews from members of the academic–community research partnership. Findings suggest that the commitment and cultural expertise of the volunteer community workforce acted as the major leadership drivers to create the community‐led program partnership. Employing mindfulness‐based, trauma‐informed parent education designed to promote nurturing parenting and children's resilience may be an effective training model to engage and mobilize a volunteer community workforce from an underserved community.     

Towards a better understanding of the relationship between executive control and theory of mind: an intra‐cultural comparison of three diverse samples

Previous research has consistently indicated that theory of mind (ToM) is associated with executive control in the preschool years. However, interpretation of this literature is limited by the fact that most studies have focused exclusively on urbanized Western cultural samples. Consequently, it is not clear whether the association between ToM and executive control reflects the specific features of this particular cohort or instead reflects a universal pattern. The present study provides the first empirical assessment of these two constructs in three diverse groups of Iranian children. Participants were 142 preschoolers (4–5 years old) from high–socioeconomic status (SES) urban (n = 33), low–SES urban (n = 37) and rural villages (n = 77). The results show that there is a robust association between ToM and executive control in all three groups, and that executive control contributes significant unique variance to ToM understanding, even after controlling for a range of variables that have been proposed as potential confounders of this relationship. However, although the three groups were equated in ToM, significant differences in executive control were evident. Moreover, cluster analysis identified three distinct clusters that were relatively homogeneous with respect to executive control and SES. One of these clusters was characterized by both low SES and low executive functioning, and showed little evidence of ToM understanding. Taken together, these findings provide possibly the clearest evidence to date that the association between ToM and executive control is not dependent on children's previous experiences on the tasks, or their family and cultural background. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxh_-3gCB8o     

An investigation into the possibility of an innovative treatment for weight‐related hyperphagia: Towards a more effective combination of physiological and psychological treatment for clinically obese patients who binge‐eat,category DSM IV EDNOS (Eating Disorders Not Otherwise Specified)

This paper describes Phase One of a five‐phase doctoral research inquiry into hyperphagia (eating beyond requirement) as experienced in Binge Eating Disorder (BED). It is a response to the need for a treatment plan which combines the opportunity to explore psychological reasons for overeating, as well as to understand physiological reasons for uncontrollable cravings. Three participants, recruited through local gyms, received twelve sessions of integrative counselling combining cognitive behavioural therapy and physiological information with a person‐centred approach and psychodynamic theory to help participants discover for themselves the emotional causes of their overeating. The results informed Phase Two in which a small group addressed the same issues. The outcome of both phases will be used to design a treatment programme (Phase Three) for a larger group as a pilot study (Phase Four), all phases being part of an action research project which will be evaluated in Phase Five. The study is aimed at promoting a better understanding on the part of health professionals and counsellors of the need for sufferers of BED to address emotional causes of overeating and providing such treatment in primary care. Participants in Phase One self‐reported a steady decrease in Body Mass Index (BMI) during an interval of one year and achieved an awareness of the way in which their complex relationship with food was underpinned by emotionally painful and avoidant relationships with others.