Comparison of student and recruiter values

Value priorities of campus employment recruiters and senior liberal arts students were compared using Rokeach's Value Survey. Three hypotheses were confirmed: (1) Significant differences were found between groups' rankings of values. Students ranked idealistic values high, while recruiters ranked values applicable to business near the top. (2) A greater number of significant differences were found among instrumental values than among terminal values. (3) Regardless of the sex of the applicants, recruiters chose applicants expressing masculine rather than feminine values.     

Psychophysiological and cognitive responses to stressful stimuli in subjects practicing progressive relaxation and clinically standardized meditation

Thirty-six volunteer subjects were assigned to one of three conditions: progressive relaxation, clinically standardized meditation, or a waiting list control group asked to relax daily (without specific instruction). Subjects were given paper and pencil tests two times, separated by 5 weeks during which time the two treatment groups received 4 weekly sessions of group training. All subjects were tested in the psychophysiology laboratory at the end of the 5-week period, during which time they were exposed to 5 very loud tones. While relaxing as deeply as possible using the techniques they had learned and anticipating the loud tones, the meditation group exhibited higher heart rates and higher integrated frontalis EMG activity, but they also showed greater cardiac decelerations following each tone, more frontal alpha, and fewer symptoms of cognitive anxiety than the other two groups. The relaxation group reported more sensations of muscular relaxation than the other groups, but also some symptoms of hyperventilation. The results are generally consistent with Davidson and Schwartz's (1976) categorization of meditation as a ‘cognitive’ technique, and suggest that frontal EEG alpha may be a physiological marker for the absence of cognitive anxiety. Physiological findings also support Goleman and Schwartz's (1976) suggestion that meditation prepares people to cope with stress.     

I Love to Tell the Story: Reshaping the Narrative of Adoption

Abstract : This article argues that a Christian theological understanding of adoption can be a helpful corrective to some of the negative interpretations and assumptions around adoption that continue to circulate in secular culture. The article proceeds as follows: First, I argue that the way in which Christians understand and describe the experience of being adopted into God's family counters the idea that one's birth family is one's “real” family. Second, I argue that a Christian understanding of adoption mitigates the tendency to view adoption as a sort of “Plan B.” Finally, I argue that because of the value Christians place on caring for those in need, and the replacement of kin relationships with relationships of love and faith, the metaphor of adoption can and should be used more widely, to create broader networks of family that encompass far more than mere blood ties.     

Recent Theological Interpretations of Evolution

Abstract

In this article I give special attention to recent responses particularly by Roman Catholic scholars to the question, “How should Christian theology take into serious consideration the scientific theory of biological evolution?” To do this I will explore a number of key areas where recent scholarship has made considerable progress in response to this question and at the same time raised new insights into additional questions.     

Finding a Locus for Dialogue between Genetics and Theology

Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, has dismissed Pope John Paul II's position on theology and science as “rather vague and unimportant.” I believe that the Cardinal's analysis of John Paul II's views on evolution and Christian faith deserves a careful and detailed response from all those concerned with the constructive dialogue between science and theology that John Paul II so strongly supported for decades. My ‘bottom line’ is twofold. First, Cardinal Schönborn's concern over evolution is unnecessary: What scientists view as chance in nature Christians can see as God's ongoing and purposeful action in the creation of life and humanity. Second, the Cardinal's concern is also misplaced. When evolutionary theory is co-opted by atheists to serve their agenda the Cardinal should challenge the atheists, not the science they falsely claim proves their views.     

ACTIONS AND AGENTS: NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL RECONSIDERED

Using a process‐oriented understanding of the relation between actions and agents, the author argues that an ontological agent is the ongoing effect or by‐product rather than the antecedent cause of actions. Applied to the relation between natural and supernatural in philosophical cosmology, this allows one to claim, first, that agents (whether natural or supernatural) are not sensibly perceived, but only inferred from the ongoing observation of empirical actions; second, that the distinction between the natural and the supernatural is then conceivably a distinction between interrelated processes rather than between independently existing agents; and third, that a higher order process of supernatural origin could be operative in a lower order empirical process without interference even though its existence and activity could only be established on the basis of a faith commitment, not empirical evidence. What Paul Ricoeur referred to as a “surplus of meaning” over and above the scientific explanation of an event would be in play with the claim of divine guidance for the cosmic process.     

Paul Hinlicky's Critical Dogmatics: Triune Redemption and Hope in the Beloved Community

In a host of recent publications, Paul Hinlicky has offered both methodological and substantive contributions to a constructive Lutheran theology that takes seriously the post‐Christendom context in which the church finds itself. By elaborating a vision of theology as “critical dogmatics,” Hinlicky adapts pragmatist and perspectivalist motifs to outline a trinitarian picture of the redemption of creation as well as the church's role in anticipating the coming of the Beloved Community. Grounded both in Romans 8 and the trinitarian implications of Luther's joyful exchange, Hinlicky's vision interweaves soteriological, eschatological, and ecclesiological themes to demonstrate how critical dogmatics can test the spirits of a given age in order to determine which features of contemporary existence align with God's ongoing redemptive work, and which must be opposed by the church.     

Freud and the Hammerschlag family: a formative relationship

From his obituary of Samuel Hammerschlag, we know of Freud's great veneration for his teacher of Jewish religion. However, not only Hammerschlag himself but his whole family had a formative influence on young Freud, who was deeply impressed by their humanity. This paper describes Freud's relationships with all the family members. In particular, it shows how warmly he felt towards the only daughter, Anna Hammerschlag, who was his patient for a while and whom he chose as a godmother for his youngest daughter Anna. By virtue of the crucial role she played in Freud's 'specimen dream' of July 1895 ('Irma's injection'), she also became as it were the godmother of Freud's magnum opus, The Interpretation of Dreams. All the known extant letters from Freud to members of the Hammerschlag family are published here for the first time in English translation.     

The Assembly as the Body of Christ: A Case Against the Omission of LBW's Offertory Prayers

Abstract : This article examines the offertory prayers in ELW, comparing them to the two prayers found in LBW. The author argues that the prayers in ELW have lost the spirituality of stewardship suggested by the prayers in LBW, and no longer maintain the important connection to Pauline theology, whereby the Christian understands his/her whole life, including time, talents, and money, to be offered back to God as a living sacrifice.