Psychoanalytic approaches to biblical religion

A brief look at four studies of biblical religion from a psychoanalytic point of view (spanning the time from Freud'sMoses and Monotheism to the present) alerts us to the many ways biblical religion both reflects and mediates the dawning realization that for the well-being of humanity it is of decisive importance that sons do (in spite of all emotional obstacles) identify with their fathers and fathers do find ways of loving and caring for their sons (the eldest son in particular).     

Parapsychology and religion: The case for the paranormal

Pastoral Psychology -     

病态科学、灵学和骗术

从1980年以来在英国出现的麦田圈现象,我们可以看出病态科学的天真可笑、灵学向社会各方面的渗透和骗局的社会承受力.……     

Existential faith and biblical philosophy

In this article, I present a case for a kind of existential theology which would be philosophical and metaphysical, though not broadly Platonic and classical, and biblical though not illogical. What I present will be an attempt to clarify and justify what I call ??existential hayatological theism??. In so doing I will draw on insights from what Edmond La B Cherbonnier and Claude Tresmontant designated as ??biblical philosophy?? and ??biblical metaphysics?? as well as from the neo-classical philosophies of Charles Hartshorne and Alfred North Whitehead, especially that of Whitehead.     

莱茵与莱茵后的超心理学研究

莱茵的贡献 　　莱茵1927年来到杜克大学后,就在麦独狐教授创立的心理学系进行超心理学研究.莱因一生的研究活动可分为三个阶段.……     

Critique of the Premises and Statistical Methodology of Parapsychology

A city-wide campaign involving various channels of communication was conducted to obtain high school seniors for a survey. Of the 102 seniors who telephoned to make appointments, 56 later attended their assigned questionnaire session. The rate of attendance differed for the communication channels. Newspaper advertisements attracted the most telephone calls but had the lowest attendance rate; notices on bulletin boards in city recreation centers produced the fewest telephone calls but had the highest attendance rate. Other channels, including personal contact, were intermediate in effectiveness. Additional findings were that nonpersonal channels differed in influence, and that exposure through multiple channels resulted in more influence than exposure through only one. The implications of the findings, especially for conceptualizations of channel influence, were noted.     

A biblical and historical study of homosexuality

This study is a synthesis of biblical and historical material regarding the place of homosexuality in the Christian churches. The author argues that all sexual activity, both heterosexual and homosexual in orientation, should be judged appropriate for Christians when it is a responsible, mutually respectful and loving act between adult persons that is intended to enhance the building and maintaining of whole persons. Therefore, if a person is in all other ways qualified for membership and its contingent responsibilities in the Christian community (or any other community), his or her sexual orientation and behavior should not be a barrier.This study was initially prepared for the Human Sexuality Task Force of the Diocese of Western North Carolina.     

Coleridge and the 'master-key' of biblical interpretation

Claude Welch, the distinguished historian of nineteenth‐century religious thought, once declared that Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) ‘may be seen as the real turning point into the theology of the nineteenth century’ and that he ‘was as important for British and American thought as were Schleiermacher and Hegel’.² Still, Coleridge remains largely marginalized in the annals of church history and theology despite his unwavering prominence throughout much of the nineteenth century. Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that Coleridge's posthumously published Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit (1840), with its rejection of the verbal infallibility of Scripture and elevation of the importance of the individual in rightly discerning the truths of the Christian faith, has often been misread as an attestation of the primacy of the individual subject over the biblical text. It has been treated alternately as a document that signals the emergence of German higher criticism in England,³ a Romantic appeal to the fundamental importance of the subjective in religion,⁴ and an early form of reader‐oriented literary criticism.⁵ In this article I suggest that the attention devoted to Coleridge's denial of the verbal inspiration of Scripture, epitomized by the phrase that biblical inspiration is constituted by ‘whatever finds me’, has overshadowed his equally significant attention to the authority of church tradition in that same document. More specifically, rather than arguing for subjectivism in biblical interpretation, Coleridge equally emphasizes the objective sources of revelation expressed in Scripture and the church traditions handed over from the apostles. Rather than proposing a model of biblical inspiration that is wholly individualistic, Coleridge maintains a vision of Christianity that affirms the vitality of both the authority of the church and that of the believer. Thus, Coleridge's theological contribution to religious history is not that of an aberrant, absent‐minded poet, but rather that of a central participant engaged in an ongoing and pivotal debate in the history of England: the relationship between Scripture and church traditions. In order to draw out this important, though neglected, strand of thought in those ‘Letters on the Scriptures’, the name by which the Confessions is sometimes identified,⁶ I begin by briefly clarifying the nature of the idea of tradition both in relation to Coleridge and English theology in the nineteenth century. I then summarize the argument of the Confessions as a whole and turn more particularly to those sections of the Confessions that suggest the role Coleridge assigns to church tradition in relation to Scripture. Finally, after assessing the authority of the church in relationship to the divine Word, I turn to Coleridge's earlier works and his notes on the Works of William Chillingworth (1602–1644) in order to demonstrate that his views on the respective authority of both the individual and the church were consistently held since near the time of his conversion to Trinitarian Christianity. I conclude that Coleridge's conception of the relationship between Scripture and church traditions calls for a reevaluation of his place in the history of religious thought in England.     

Help-seeking and paranormal beliefs in adherents of mainstream religion,alternative religion,and no religion

This study explored the relationship between help-seeking and adherence to mainstream religion (Christianity, Judaism and Islam), alternative religion (for example, New Age spiritual belief and Paganism) and no religion (including agnosticism and atheism). Four-hundred and fourteen participants completed an online survey which included questions on demographics, help-seeking beliefs and paranormal beliefs (a modified form of the Paranormal Beliefs Scale was used). Previous research had explored adherence to various religions and compared aspects of help-seeking and paranormal beliefs separately. Comparisons were made between basic theoretical differences in belief (e.g., monotheism vs. polytheism vs. rationalism) and help-seeking beliefs. Implications of this research for therapeutic practice are discussed.