Do Christians and Muslims Believe in the Same God? Reflections on Miroslav Volf's Allah: A Christian Response

Miroslav Volf's Allah: A Christian Response is an important book that advances Christian–Muslim dialogue. This article outlines Volf's thesis, critically evaluates some key claims made in the book, and examines some of the methodological presuppositions in Volf's project. It also seeks to situate Volf's claim about the “same God” within a Christian typology of “revelation” so that the significance of his claims might be better understood.     

Object categorisation,object naming,and viewpoint independence in visual remembering: Evidence from young children's drawings of a novel object

A simple object-drawing task confirms a three-way association between object categorisation, viewpoint independence, and longer-term visual remembering. Young children (5- to 7-year-olds) drew a familiar object or a novel object, immediately after it had been hidden from view or on the following day. Both objects were shown from a full range of viewpoints or from just two viewpoints, from neither of which would either object normally be drawn after unrestricted viewing. When drawing from short-term memory after restricted viewing, both objects were most likely to be depicted from a seen viewpoint. When drawing from longer-term memory after restricted viewing, the novel object continued to be drawn from a seen viewpoint, but the mug was now most likely to be drawn from a preferred viewpoint from which it had not been seen. Naming the novel object with a novel count noun (“Look at this. This is a dax”), to signal that it belonged to an object category, resulted in it being drawn in the same way as the familiar object. The results concur with other evidence indicating that short-term and longer-term visual remembering are differentially associated with viewpoint-dependent representations of individual objects and viewpoint independent representations of object categories, respectively.     

Disorientation inhibits landmark use in 12-18-month-old infants

Recent research has indicated that, particularly under conditions of inertial disorientation, mammals may be sensitive to landmark configuration geometry at the expense of individual featural information when locating hidden goals. The current study sought to establish whether landmark use could be demonstrated in 12-18-month-old infants with and without a disorientation procedure, and with geometrically ambiguous landmark configurations. A peekaboo paradigm was employed in which infants learned to anticipate a peekaboo event after a cue from two locations within a circular arena, followed by a test trial from a novel position in which no peekaboo occurred after the cue. In all conditions, an isosceles triangle arrangement of landmarks was used, with peekaboo occurring between the landmarks of one of the two equal "sides", thus being geometrically ambiguous. In two conditions, the landmarks were distinctive, and in two further conditions, they were identical. In one of the distinctive conditions and one of the identical landmark conditions, infants underwent a disorientation procedure in between training and test trials. Only oriented infants with distinctive landmarks were successful in test trials, thus suggesting that infants are able to use the individual features of landmarks to locate a goal, but can only do so if oriented.     

Book notes

The Divine Matrix: Creativity as Link between East and West Joseph A. Bracken, S. J., 1995 Maryknoll, NY: Orbis 177 pp., US$21.00 (pb) ISBN 1–57075–004–1

Glaubenswelt Islam: Eine Einführung Series: Religionswissenschaftliche Texte und Studien, Vol. 7 UDO SCHAEFER, 1996 Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag 149 pp, DM 24.80 ISBN 3–487–10159–9

Islam: The View from the Edge Richard Bulliet, 1995 New York: Columbia University Press 236 pp., US$16.95, £11.95 ISBN 0–231–08219–3

Living Faiths in South Africa Martin Prozesky & John De Gruchy, eds, 1995 London: Hurst & Company 241 pp., £35.00 (hb), £12.95 (pb) ISBN 1–85065–249‐X (hb), ISBN 1–85065–244–9 (pb)

Signs of the Times: The New Religious Movements in Theological Perspective John A. Sauba, 1996 Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada: Librairie Médiaspaul 119 pp., CDN$13.95, US$10.00 ISBN 2–89420–326–8

The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory Bryan S. Turner, Sage 1996, 2nd edition London 254 pp., £13.95 (pb) ISBN 0–8039–8809–5

Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730–1840 Steven C Bullock, 1996 Chapel Hill, London: University of North Carolina Press. Published for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia 421 pp., US$49.95 (hb) ISBN 0–8078–2282–5

Two Masters: The Buddha and Jesus J. D. M. Derrett, 1995 Yelvertoft Manor, Northamptonshire: Pilkington Press 143 pp., £17.50 ISBN 1–899044–09–4

Autobiography of an Aspiring Saint Cecilia Ferrazzi, 1996 Transcribed, translated & edited by Anne Jacobson Schutte Chicago, El., London: The University of Chicago Press 101 pp., US$30.00 (hb), US$14.95 (pb) ISBN 0–226–24447–4 (pb)

Sacred World: A Guide to Shambhala Waniorship in Daily Life Jeremy Hayward with Karen Hayward, 1995 London: Rider 262 pp., £10.99 (pb) ISBN 0–7126–7240–0     

Organizational tenure,work environment perceptions,and employee mental health

The mediating effect of organizational “time investments” on the relationship between work environment perceptions and mental health was explored in two work settings. Participants were 257 managerial-level employees in a line organization and 214 in a staff setting. Results support the hypothesis of greater “responsivity” to perceived organizational stimuli for longer tenured employees, but only in the line setting. The mixed findings in the staff organization suggest that other characteristics of the environment (e.g., systems function) and of its members (e.g., organizational versus occupational identification) need to be considered. Implications for the social responsibilities of organizations to their members are offered in conclusion.