Reconciliation without violence

Is it possible to solve conflicts without using violence, or is the use of violent retribution necessary to solve problems and restore peace after serious crimes and offences? This is a classical question in the philosophy of law and in all the disciplines dealing with conflict resolution. It is also an important question in theology. The material for this article comes from interviews with sons who have grown up with violent fathers, and from philosophical and theological texts dealing with the theme of conflict resolution. In contemporary theology it is necessary to confront images of God as a violent patriarch and punisher, but still it is important to develop a theology of God as the fair and good judge. The God of reconciliation is not only the forgiver, but also the one who confronts Evil with wrath and resentment.     

Pentecostalism in Brazil: A Brief History

Pentecostalism is a popular, fast-growing and politically active force in Brazilian society. It constitutes the greater part of what is now one of the largest practising Protestant communities in the world. However, there have been virtually no academic histories of the phenomenon. The current article, drawing heavily on the author's doctoral thesis, examines the six most important Pentecostal churches as dynamically evolving institutions. They are studied in terms of three waves of institutional creation, emphasizing the flexibility of Pentecostalism's relationship to Brazilian culture and the historical constraints on the development of each group.     

Notes on the ‘Nova Era’: Rio de Janeiro and Environs

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, On Understanding Islam, selected studies, The Hague, Mouton, 1981, 351 pages. DM 105

Edward Mortimer, Faith and power: The politics of Islam, London, Faber &; Faber (1982), 407 pp., £10.50

David Westerlund, From socialism to Islam? Notes on Islam as a political factor in contemporary Africa, Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Research Report no. 61, Uppsala (1982), 62 pp. Skr 20

W. L. Brenneman, S. O. Yarian, and A. M. Olson, The seeing eye: Hermeneutical phenomenology in the study of religion, Pennsylvania State University Press (1982) x+177 pp. £8.10     

Knowing whether A or B

The paper examines the logic and semantics of knowledge attributions of the form “s knows whether A or B”. We analyze these constructions in an epistemic logic with alternative questions, and propose an account of the context-sensitivity of the corresponding sentences and of their presuppositions.     

The economics of new religious life

James T. Richardson (ed.), Money and power in new religions. Lewiston, New York, and Lampeter, Wales, The Edwin Mellen Press, 1988, Volume 22 of studies in religion and society, pp. 435. $39.95     

Editorial

With the aim of increasing knowledge about processes of change in psychodynamic individual child psychotherapy, sessions that could be called turning points were analysed.     

A meta-analytic review of the Dark Triad–intelligence connection

We conducted a meta-analytic review of the relations between general mental ability (GMA) and the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—to determine if individuals who display socially exploitative social qualities tend to be more intelligent or less intelligent. Across 48 independent samples, GMA showed no consistent relation with any DT trait. These effects were not sufficient to support either the “evil genius” hypothesis (highly intelligent individuals tend to display socially exploitative personality traits) or the “compensatory” hypothesis (less intelligent individuals compensate for their cognitive disadvantages by adopting manipulative behavioral tendencies). However, these relations were moderated, to some extent, by the sex and age of the participants, type of sample studied, and the measure of GMA.     

Associations between cortical thickness and general intelligence in children,adolescents and young adults

Neuroimaging research indicates that human intellectual ability is related to brain structure including the thickness of the cerebral cortex. Most studies indicate that general intelligence is positively associated with cortical thickness in areas of association cortex distributed throughout both brain hemispheres. In this study, we performed a cortical thickness mapping analysis on data from 182 healthy typically developing males and females ages 9 to 24 years to identify correlates of general intelligence (g) scores. To determine if these correlates also mediate associations of specific cognitive abilities with cortical thickness, we regressed specific cognitive test scores on g scores and analyzed the residuals with respect to cortical thickness. The effect of age on the association between cortical thickness and intelligence was examined. We found a widely distributed pattern of positive associations between cortical thickness and g scores, as derived from the first unrotated principal factor of a factor analysis of Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence (WASI) subtest scores. After WASI specific cognitive subtest scores were regressed on g factor scores, the residual score variances did not correlate significantly with cortical thickness in the full sample with age covaried. When participants were grouped at the age median, significant positive associations of cortical thickness were obtained in the older group for g-residualized scores on Block Design (a measure of visual-motor integrative processing) while significant negative associations of cortical thickness were observed in the younger group for g-residualized Vocabulary scores. These results regarding correlates of general intelligence are concordant with the existing literature, while the findings from younger versus older subgroups have implications for future research on brain structural correlates of specific cognitive abilities, as well as the cognitive domain specificity of behavioral performance correlates of normative gray matter thinning during adolescence.