The Political Activity of Evangelical Clergy in the Election of 2000: A Case Study of Five Denominations

This article focuses on the political participation of ministers from five evangelical Protestant denominations that differ in theology, polity, and history. Despite such differences, these clergy respond to political influences in much the same fashion. We find that the standard theories of political participation have varying success in accounting for their political involvement. Sociodemographic explanations provide little help, but psychological engagement with politics has more explanatory power. Professional role orientations are the best predictors of actual participation. And the clergy who see moral reform issues as the most important confronting the country—and who hold conservative views on such issues—are most likely to become engaged. Finally, membership in Christian Right organizations serves to elicit more activity than might occur if ministers were left to internally motivated participation. Despite the emphasis on other contextual variables in some work on clerical politics, we find that communications exposures, congregational influences, and even the support of clerical colleagues have very limited independent effects on political involvement.     

A Typology of the Use of Technology in Theological Education

Abstract. This essay explores the terrain of technology in theological education and offers a typology for how technology is used in seminary contexts. The author surveys 43 seminaries in North America to gain insight into the attitudes of faculty toward the use of technology in their teaching and for use in the preparation of ministers. Reflections on the typology in the concluding section offer fuel for subsequent work on the topic.     

Test-retest reliability of psychophysiological assessment

Thirty subjects participated in a study of the test-retest reliability of five psychophysiological assessment procedures: habituation. Quiz Electrocardiogram, anger imagery, aversive slides and startle. The procedures were presented in identical fashion, 2 weeks apart. Skin conductance level and response, heart rate, vasomotor response, skin temperature, frontalis and forearm electromyogram, respiration rate. and systolic and diastolic blood pressure were recorded continuously. The following analyses were performed on Test-Retest data: correlations, baseline changes, profile similarity, and stability of ranked standardized physiological scores. Significant but modest Test-Retest correlations were found for skin conductance level and response, skin temperature, respiration rate, heart rate and systolic blood pressure. Absolute scores were more often stable than change scores. All baselines were stable from Test to Retest. Four baselines and four test procedures had Test-Retest Profile Similarity Index scores indicating reliability. Chi-square analyses of Retest ranks of standardized physiological scores showed that the two most and least responsive measures accounted for Test-Retest stability. Conclusions were: (a) Psychophysiological response patterns are reliable for baselines and procedures, and single psychophysiological measures (especially absolute scores) are moderately stable; (b) Traditional (correlational) estimates of the reliability of single psychophysiological responses are limited by individual-response stereotypy, but multivariate analysis of response pattern provides a better index of reliability.     

What's the Point?*

We present a theory of conversation comprehension in which a line of the conversation is “understood” by relating it to one of seven possible “points”. We define these points, and present examples where it seems plausible that the failure to “get the point” would indeed constitute a failure to understand the conversation. We argue that the recognition of such points must proceed in both a top down and bottom up fashion, and thus is likely to be quite complicated. Finally, we see the processing of information in the conversation to be dependent upon which point classification the user decides upon.