The Ecumenical Movement and 1968

The year 1968 is remembered as a turning point in ecumenical history: the 4th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Uppsala appeared to mark the end of the era of early ecumenism and the beginning of a new era. This article questions this understanding of “Uppsala” and examines the reasons for such a mythologization of the assembly through analyzing its themes and conflicts in a twofold way. First, the analysis shows the connection between the students' revolts of 1968 and the assembly. Second, the article draws on the assembly's main theme, “Behold, I make all things new,” and the key aspects of ecumenical renewal discussed at the assembly: the new relationship between the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church, the WCC's commitment to development issues, liberation from racism, and the churches' role in political conflicts. While these themes became a symbol for identifying the assembly with a groundbreaking ecumenical change, the article argues that this change had already begun in the early 1960s, and that the assembly at Uppsala was more the medial and visible expression of this continuing ecumenical turbulence than its source.     

Konrad Raiser: The Challenge of Transformation

This article discusses the role played by Konrad Raiser in the World Council of Churches (WCC), from 1969, when he joined the staff as a study secretary, to his time as general secretary from 1993 to 2003, and especially his role in the conciliar process for Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation. As general secretary, Raiser played a key role in supporting and encouraging the churches' witness for peace and nonviolence, strengthening the fellowship of churches within the WCC through the process to develop a “Common Understanding and Vision” and the Special Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC.     

Making All Things New

The relationship between the civil rights movement and the World Council of Churches was personified in the links between Martin Luther King Jr and Eugene Carson Blake, both of whom were known for heightening the spirit of prophetic Christianity through their involvements in the ecumenical movement and the mounting struggles against global poverty and the Vietnam War. As 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the Uppsala assembly and King's assassination, this article focuses on the contributions of King and Blake to the kind of ecumenical movement that united peoples of faith in cooperative, concrete efforts to eliminate racism, poverty, and war. The central argument is that these joint efforts were still unfolding at the time of King's untimely death.     

Changing the System by Changing the Workforce: Employing Consumers to Increase Access, Cultural Diversity, and Engagement

Services to families have traditionally been delivered in a medical model. This presents challenges including workforce shortages, lack of cultural diversity, lack of training in strength-based work, and difficulty in successfully engaging and retaining families in the therapy process. The system of care (SOC) effort has worked to establish formal roles for caregivers in SOC to improve services. This paper provides an example of one community's efforts to change the SOC by expanding the roles available to caregivers in creating systems change. It describes the model developed by Communities of Care (CoC), a SOC in Central Massachusetts, and its evolution over a 10 year period. First person accounts by system partners, caregivers hired into professional roles as well as a family receiving services, demonstrate how hiring caregivers at all levels can change systems and change lives, not only for those being served but for the caregiver/professionals doing the work. It also demonstrates, however, that change at the system level is incremental, takes time, and can be fleeting unless an ongoing effort is made to support and sustain those changes.     

The effects of behavioral inhibition/approach system as predictors of Internet addiction in adolescents

This study aimed to determine how the Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) and the Behavioral Approach System (BAS) affect Internet addiction in adolescents. Two hundred and eleven high school students participated in this study and completed the Young’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT), BIS/BAS scales, and several self-administered questionnaires about depression, anxiety, and impulsivity. Hierarchical regressions showed that BIS and BAS × BIS emerged as significant predictors of IAT; however, only BAS-fun seeking subscale predicted IAT among BAS related subscales. In further analyses, the BAS-fun seeking subscale was mediated by impulsivity and anxiety, and BIS was mediated by anxiety and depression. The current findings imply that BIS and BAS interdependently influence vulnerability to Internet addiction through both shared (anxiety) and different (depression and impulsivity, respectively) pathways.     

The Future Models of Arab Political Economy

Three distinct models of political economy are articulated in this article to chart out the possible politico-economic futures of the Arab World. Of these, the present predicaments of the revolutionizing Arab populace are argued to have been caused by the continuance of the wrong social choices. It depended for a long time now on the alienating model of differentiation and alienation of the Arab nations by their rulers, and by their uncritical immersing in the equally debilitating globalization agenda. Two models of the alienating and unfeasible types are formulated as the prevailing ones today. The arguments and empirical study of limited socioeconomic data with the examples of Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, which are considered as exemplary of the revolutionary Arab World, point out that social factors based on the demand for participation and representation, self-reliant social change, and opportunities are the overwhelming factors of politico-economic change. These factors, as opposed to the purely economic factors, must be embedded in a synergistic way with the rest in a distinctive future model of Arab political economy. Three formal models of possible political economy of the future Arab World with their evolutionary futures are formalized. Necessary social and policy implications are drawn in reference to these three evolutionary Arab futures in political economy.     

Introduction

There are very significant conceptual links between theories of social macroevolution and theories of the World System development. It is shown that the growth of the World System complexity and integrity can be traced through a system of phase transitions of macroevolution. The first set of phase transition is connected with the agrarian, industrial, and information-scientific revolutions (that are interpreted as changes of “production principles”). The second set consists of phase transitions within one production principle. These phase transitions are analyzed on the basis of the World System urbanization dynamics, but they can be traced with respect to the other (cultural, economic, technological, demographic, political, etc.) dimensions of the World System development.     

Much Ado About Something: An Ethic of the Common Good for Information Technology

As the culture of information technology grows and with it the exacerbation of associated problems, so does the body of literature that seeks to reflect on its impact and prospects. The advancements in information technology tend to be outpacing critical reflection and solid ethical analysis. The quality of the foundational ethical work done in information technology ethics has been inadequate, consisting of applied ethics or an appeal to law. This article considers how the richer perspective—the common good, as expressed through the lens of the Roman Catholic Church—can serve as a hermeneutic in the field of information technology ethics, offering a more substantial foundation to address pressing controversial issues associated with this burgeoning field and function as a guide for future developments in this industry. The common good can supplement the operative ways of appealing to law and business ethics to address crime and abuse associated with the World Wide Web with a specifically Roman Catholic paradigm and, in turn, offer a broader and richer appreciation of the societal-wide context that information technology impacts.     

Francisco López de Gómara's Humanist Reframing of the Missionary Project on Cozumel

Abstract

This article examines the rhetorical strategy and discursive practices employed by Francisco Lopez de Gomara in his Conquest of Mexico. It focuses specifically on the historian's treatment of events on the Island of Cozumel prior to Cortes' invasion of the mainland. The article interprets Gomara's Cozumel story, “the first encounter,” as a typological figure of speech. The political goals of empire, conversion and material gain are subsumed in a rhetorical vision of the New World. Cozumel is the promise. The historian frames the conquest of Mexico, the fulfillment that Cozumel heralded as a humanist project, and the New World as a work of Renaissance lay culture. The principal weapon of conquest and reconstruction is language. Wielded by Cortes and his historian, it functions to construct and communicate a rhetorical vision of a New World that incorporates the best of Europe and America even while it decries human rights abuses on both sides.     

Supplementary Study of Superstitious Belief Among College Students

A brief, reliable measure of sexual knowledge would be of obvious value in studies of family planning, population, and related issues. A 49-item test of sexual information was created by Miller and Fisk in 1969. Analysis of this device on a sample of 104 Ss suggested that a shorter and more convenient version could be developed. Deletion of 25 questions with weak or unacceptable statistical properties left 24 items for retention in a revised questionnaire. This 24-item version was then administered to new samples including 287 males and 246 females, permitting specification of provisional normative and interpretational data.