Measuring Religiousness Among Older African Americans: Exploring Race-of-Interviewer Effects

In recent years a number of studies have explored possible sources of nonrandom error and response bias in survey data on religion. Building on a longstanding body of work in the social sciences, we examine a neglected issue in this domain: the potential for race-of-interviewer effects, specifically in African Americans’ self-reports of various dimensions of religiousness. After outlining two competing perspectives on this issue—which we term racial deference and racial solidarity—we test relevant hypotheses using data from the African American oversample of a nationwide study of older adults. Results indicate that older blacks tend to report higher levels of non-organizational religious practices and subjective religiousness when interviewed by whites. A number of implications and promising directions for future research are discussed.     

自然分娩与剖宫产的比较研究

剖宫产不是一种分娩方式,而是解决难产的手段.日益增高的剖宫产率成为人们关注的热点话题,自然分娩和剖宫产对母婴的健康和卫生资源的影响,有很多的研究和争议,对于没有医学指征要求剖宫产目前倾向于在知情同意的情况下尊重患者的自主权和选择权,但控制剖宫产率在一个理性的范围之内,是一个系统工程,值得全社会的关注.     

自然分娩与剖宫产的比较研究

剖宫产不是一种分娩方式,而是解决难产的手段。日益增高的剖宫产率成为人们关注的热点话题,自然分娩和剖宫产对母婴的健康和卫生资源的影响,有很多的研究和争议,对于没有医学指征要求剖宫产目前倾向于在知情同意的情况下尊重患者的自主权和选择权,但控制剖宫产率在一个理性的范围之内,是一个系统工程,值得全社会的关注。     

Identification with all humanity—A test of the factorial structure and measurement invariance of the scale in five countries

Identification with all humanity measured as an individual characteristic is an important factor related to social and international relations, such as concern for global issues and human rights, prosocial attitudes, intergroup forgiveness, attitudes toward immigrants, solving global problems, reactions to hate crimes and dehumanisation. We examine the factorial structure, psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the Identification with All Humanity (IWAH) scale in student samples from five countries (the United States, Poland, France, Mexico and Chile; N = 1930). Separate confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) for each country showed a second-order model of one superordinate factor with two subfactors. The cross-country validation of the scale, based on multigroup CFA, confirmed configural and metric invariance between countries for raw scores, and full metric invariance for “pure” scores. This study showed that the IWAH scale can be successfully used for cross-country research and the results from different countries can be compared and integrated.     

Christ, Spirit and Atonement

The Christian doctrine of the atonement is complex, not least in part because it must hold together the integrity of both divine and human being. Too often attempts to expound theologies of atonement have foundered because they have pitted divine and human action in competition one with the other. This article addresses itself to this problematic by suggesting three minimum conditions which must be met if this doctrine is to a give a theologically plausible account of salvation: first, that divine and human activity not be identified; second, that divine and human activity not be co-ordinated so as to complete or complement each other; and third, that neither divine nor human activity be rendered superfluous. The article elaborates upon these conditions by taking as its test case the Christian claim: God was in Christ.     

Sin and the Limits of Theology: A Reflection in Conversation with Julian of Norwich and Martin Luther

While the confession of divine transcendence entails that all theological speech faces intrinsic limits, the problem of sin brings theology’s limits into focus in a very particular way. For while Christians confess that God has been uniquely and unsurpassably revealed in Jesus Christ, insofar as they do not claim that even this revelation explains the place of sin in the divine economy, the ongoing mystery of sin and evil presents the theologian with a stark alternative. On the one hand, if the grace of God revealed in Christ is emphasized, less attention will be given to the mystery of sin that remains hidden in God; on the other, if theologians emphasize what is hidden, the light of Christ will be obscured. This article explores the tension between these two alternatives with reference to the Showings of Julian of Norwich and Martin Luther’s Bondage of the Will.