Luther on Ubiquity and a Theology of the Public

Abstract:  In this article, I contest Milbank's critiques of Luther by underscoring the participatory theme in his treatment of faith. After considering faith's relation to the presence of Christ, I explore Luther's treatment of real presence in his theology of the Lord's Supper. His appeal to ubiquity in this regard functions doxologically to counter the possibility of the orchestration of Christ's presence. The promised nature of that presence, however, emphasizes that God graciously elicits a faith which apprehends absence as a profound mode of presence and so grounds a theology of the public in which the church, by theosis , shares Christ's definitive, rather than ubiquitous, presence.     

The Sign Redeemed: A Study in Christian Fundamental Semiotics

A Christian engagement with the question of the nature of the sign has to begin in a theology of the creation. Signs exhibit features of both reference and address. The meaning of the incarnation is that in a world of God's making the referring signs which constitute the world also implicitly function as divine address. The words of institution of the Lord's Supper, taken as an integral part of the Passion narrative, are the fulfilment of this addressive function of the world and thus also mark the point at which the Church is constituted as the human community who are called to receive the divine address.     

步入涅槃还是走向终结?——对当代医学困境的原点审视和深层反思

当代医学在享受基因时代“圣餐”的同时,也在步入一个危机频发的“问题时代”。从原点审视,造成其危机和困境的“本因”,是其核心价值系统及其动力体系的根本缺陷所致,其基本的生命观、疾病观陷入到诸多哲学困惑和认识误区,其治疗观的“对抗性思维”更是有违自然伦理的法度,这是当代医学走向更高理论平台的战略切入点。     

The Means of Prosperity: The Neo‐Pentecostal Interpretation of the Lord's Supper in Nigeria

This article investigates the Nigerian neo‐Pentecostal reinterpretation of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper using the lens of the prosperity gospel. This article describes the neo‐Pentecostal view of prosperity as an integral part of salvation, and shows how this impacts its hermeneutics of the Lord's Supper as the means of prosperity. The article argues that such neo‐Pentecostal reinterpretation does not distort the traditional significance of the Lord's Supper, but expands and complements it. As a result, Lutherans may have much to learn from the neo‐Pentecostal view of the Lord's Supper.     

John Calvin on the Lord’s Supper: Food,Rest, and Healing for Shivering Souls

This article explores how the Lord’s Supper may contribute to the healing of traumatized persons. Drawing on the 1541 French edition of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and on contemporary literature on trauma, I suggest that individuals who have experienced traumatic events may find in the Lord’s Supper a trustworthy and nourishing relational home, a therapeutic space for truth-telling, and a life-sustaining absolutism.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
Keith Ward, God: A Guide for the Perplexed
A. James Reimer, Paul Tillich: Theologian of Nature, Culture, and Politics
Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts and the End of Slavery
Kenneth N. Stevenson, Abba Father: Understanding and Using the Lord's Prayer
Kenneth N. Stevenson, The Lord's Prayer: A Text Tradition
Clyde Wilcox, Onward Christian Soldiers: The Religious Right in American Politics
Michael Corbett and Julia Mitchell Corbett, Politics and Religion in the United States     

A comparison of generalized and modified sample biserial correlation estimators

In a recent paper, Bedrick derived the asymptotic distribution of Lord's modified sample biserial correlation estimator and studied its efficiency for bivariate normal populations. We present a more detailed examination of the properties of Lord's estimator and several competitors, including Brogden's estimator. We show that Lord's estimator is more efficient for three nonnormal distributions than a generalization of Pearson's sample biserial estimator. In addition, Lord's estimator is reasonably efficient relative to the maximum likelihood estimator for these distributions. These conclusions are consistent with Bedrick's results for the bivariate normal distribution. We also study the small sample bias and variance of Lord's estimator, and the coverage properties of several confidence interval estimates.The author would like to thank the referees for several suggestions that improved the paper.     

‘Naturally More Vehement and Intense’: Vehemence in Calvin's Sermons on the Lord's Supper

This article focuses on the remarks of Conrad Badius – in the preface to his publication of Plusieurs sermons of Calvin's – about the ‘vehemence’ of sermons relating to the Lord's Supper. By comparing two of Badius's prefaces in editions of Calvin's sermons, it becomes clear that he chose his words intentionally. On examining here the rhetorical background of vehementia/véheménce, its use in the final part of Calvin's sermons is clarified. Some contemporary witnesses to Calvin's habit are cited. Moreover, in light of the role of vehemence in Calvin's preaching in general, it is shown that the context of the preparation for the sacrament and its celebration prompted Calvin to preach even more vigorously. The outcome is that Badius's comments on Calvin's preaching underline the vital importance of the Lord's Supper for the Reformer, a sacrament which required intensive and sanctifying preparation.     

Did the early Eucharist ever have a sevenfold shape?

Ever since the publication of Gregory Dix's The Shape of the Liturgy in 1945, it has been commonly assumed that the pattern of the Last Supper (bread ritual–meal–cup ritual) constituted the model which was adopted for the shape of the first-century Christian eucharist, and that this was later modified when the meal eventually disappeared. This article questions that assumption and suggests an alternative hypothesis.     

From body to body: A post‐gender politics for the cosmic homo1

This article engages in establishing some common ground, some human and humane politics for the global Luther, in contradistinction to the focus in much recent scholarship on difference/s as an almost hegemonic way of understanding human life. The aim is to move beyond feminist, poststructuralist, and postcolonial theories to a post‐gender politics by employing Judith Butler's concepts of performativity and “abject” bodies. Homo, the human being, will be the hermeneutical key for examining Luther's understanding of God's creation and incarnation as well as of baptism, the Lord's Supper, and the church. The aim is that of searching out Luther's differing performances of body, from the carnal body of the incarnate Christ and the human body to the spiritual body of church and community, and how these matter, materialize and intersect in the body of Christ as one body/homo.     

Estimating the polyserial correlation coefficient

We develop simple noniterative estimators of the polyserial correlation coefficient. A general relationship between the polyserial correlation and the point polyserial correlation is exploited to give extensions of Pearson's, Brogden's, and Lord's biserial estimators to the multicategory setting. The small sample and asmptotic properties of these estimators are studied in some detail. A comparison with maximum likelihood estimates shows that Lord's polyserial estimator is fairly efficient across three probability models.The authors would like to thank the referees for suggestions that improved the presentation of the paper.     

Luther and the Eucharistic Controversy

Luther wrote That These Words of Christ … Still Stand Firm to teach people what they should believe about the Lord's Supper and to refute the arguments of his opponents. Luther saw the devil as responsible for the rejection of Christ's substantial presence in the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper. The disagreement concerning the eucharist rested on the opposing exegesis of key Scripture texts and had implications for Christology and the understanding of the relationship between theology, science, and human reason. Luther believed that his opponents taught a heretical position that endangered people's souls, and so their ideas could not be tolerated.     

Reliability as a function of the number of item options derived from the “knowledge or random guessing” model

For (0, 1) scored multiple-choice tests, a formula giving test reliability as a function of the number of item options is derived, assuming the knowledge or random guessing model, the parallelism of the new and old tests (apart from the guessing probability), and the assumptions of classical test theory. It is shown that the formula is a more general case of an equation by Lord, and reduces to Lord's equation if the items are effectively parallel. Further, the formula is shown to be closely related to another formula derived from Lord's randomly parallel tests model.     

Assessing differential functioning in a satisfaction scale

In this study, an item response theory-based differential functioning of items and tests (DFIT) framework (N. S. Raju, W. J. van der Linden, & P. F. Fleer, 1995) was applied to a Likert-type scale. Several differential item functioning (DIF) analyses compared the item characteristics of a 10-item satisfaction scale for Black and White examinees and for female and male examinees. F. M. Lord's (1980) chi-square and the extended signed area (SA) measures were also used. The results showed that the DFIT indices consistently performed in the expected manner. The results from Lord's chi-square and the SA procedures were somewhat varied across comparisons. A discussion of these results along with an illustration of an item with significant DIF and suggestions for future DIF research are presented.     

Origen and Gregory of Nyssa on The Lord's Prayer

The aim of this article is twofold. Both Origen and Gregory of Nyssa treat of the Lord's Prayer, the former in his own treatise On Prayer , the latter in the course of five sermons on the same prayer. By means of an analysis of the methods of both writers and of the results at which they arrive I hope to illustrate their respective treatments of the same text and so to show how what began life as an eschatological prayer became in the course of three or four centuries something rather different. A major difficulty faced by both writers is how to understand the coming of the kingdom, if it is already there.
My second intention, beyond that of comparison is to assess what influence, if any, was exercised by Origen on Gregory. The answer arrived at is rather disappointing, above all for those who believe in a strong influence on Gregory of his predecessor, by way of his grandmother, Macrina. Not only are the styles of the two men quite different, but also, apart from a sort of common Platonism, their answers are often quite distinct.     

Bucer as Mediator in the 1532 Kempten Eucharistic Controversy

Abstract

Bucer's intervention in the Kempten eucharistic controversy provides a hitherto little-studied example of the Strasbourg Reformer's understanding of the Lord's Supper in its practical, local implications during the years immediately prior to the Wittenberg Concord of 1536. Only months after being accused of ‘Lutheranism’ by his friends in Constance and Augsburg for having claimed the compatibility of the Augsburg Confession with his own Confessio Tetrapolitana at the Schweinfurt Assembly, Bucer made his influence felt in Kempten in such a way that the ‘Lutheran’ pastors there were forced to leave and the position of the local ‘Zwinglian’ pastor was consolidated, much to the chagrin of Luther's supporters. It would be entirely erroneous, however, to describe the Strasbourg Reformer's eucharistic position at this time as ‘Zwinglian'. Bucer's understanding the Lord's Supper, despite having appropriated certain formal elements of Luther's eucharistic interpretation during the early 1530s, remained distinct from both the Wittenberg Reformer's and Zwingli's position on this issue.     

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy

This article presents acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) as a spiritually integrated therapeutic modality. ACT is a value‐driven therapy that involves facilitating transcendence of physical, mental, and emotional experience to alleviate human suffering; as such, ACT shares common ground with the domain of spirituality. Approached as a spiritually integrated therapy, ACT can help clients to access spiritual resources and create life meaning as well as aid in the resolution or transformation of spiritual struggles. Given that spiritual struggles, in particular, can have a significant impact on mental health and well‐being, this article provides guidance in how ACT can address such struggles.     

Adjusting for differential base rates: Lord's paradox again

When the responses of 2 or more groups to the relative effects of some stimulus are compared, it is often important to adjust statistically the estimates of those effects for baseline differences among those groups. This is often the case in experiments on heart rate for animals of different ages. How should such adjustment be done? Among the competing methodologies are (a) subtract the base rate, (b) divide by the base rate, and (c) covary out the base rate. Because each can give a different answer, the choice is crucial. This article shows that this is an example of Lord's Paradox and that Rubin's Model for the measurement of causal effects allows researchers to understand what the assumptions are underlying the validity of each adjustment strategy. The answer for heart rate data is almost surely Methodology (a).     

On the large sample distributions of modified sample biserial correlation coefficients

The asymptotic distributions of Brogden's and Lord's modified sample biserial correlation coefficients are derived. The asymptotic variances of these estimators are evaluated for bivariate normal populations and compared to the asymptotic variance of the maximum likelihood estimator.The author would like to thank the referees for several suggestions which improved the presentation of the paper.     

Calvin in the Context of Lutheran Consolidation1

Abstract

This study investigates the perception of Calvin and his theology in the polarizing domain of confessional reinforcement, and what image of him was formed and conveyed by the heirs of Wittenberg theology and later Lutheranism respectively. Historical circumstances and associated theological issues are taken into account, with a three-phase model emerging. Its interfaces are marked by the Zurich Consensus (1549) and by the experience of electoral Saxon ‘crypto-Calvinism’ in the 1570s. Drawing on the relevant sources, the article highlights issues specific to Lutherans in the interaction with Calvin and his doctrine. It shows how Calvin, who in the pre-confessional period was regarded as a distant kindred spirit, became increasingly discredited on the issuing of the Zurich Consensus and by the interventions of Joachim Westphal; how, apart from heated discussion between both sides on the doctrine of the Lord's Supper, christology increasingly took centre stage, accentuating the lines of demarcation; and finally how relatively late on admittedly, the person of Calvin himself (if not his personal integrity) also became the focus of polemics and apologetics.