Lutheranism in Russia: Amidst Protestantism,Orthodoxy and Catholicism

When religious confessions that were suppressed or seriously persecuted in Soviet times are regenerating themselves, the result is sometimes quite novel religious movements that have no prerevolutionary precursors. To some extent this applies to all confessions. Even postsoviet Orthodoxy is nothing like the prerevolutionary Russian Orthodox Church. The metamorphosis of Russian Lutheranism, however, goes a good way beyond the norm for novelty in Russian confessions. In Russia today Lutheranism is unexpectedly becoming quite different, doctrinally and psychologically, from what it ever has been anywhere before. It could well play its own unique role on the future Russian religious scene. Until the 1980s virtually the only Lutherans in Russia were communities of Germans, most of which had been deported from European Russia to the Urals and Siberia by Stalin. These were mostly old people with not much education, and their numbers were rapidly declining because of increasing emigration. All the signs were that there was no future for Lutheranism in Russia. Over the last 15 years, however, the situation has changed radically. Most Russian cities now have Lutheran parishes, and most of the parishioners are Russians. In some cities - for example Izhevsk, Vladivostok, Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk - the Lutheran parishes are several hundred strong. In some of these cities the number of practising Lutherans is comparable to the number of practising Orthodox. There has been just as much of a radical change in the social makeup of the Lutheran parishes, with young people, students and people with higher education now playing a prominent role. They are a living refutation of Dostoyevsky's famous dictum that 'Russian means Orthodox': they see themselves as Russian patriots but at the same time faithful followers of Lutheran teachings. There is a widely held conviction among them that they are more faithful disciples of the Wittenberg reformer than today's Germans or Swedes. At the start of the twenty-first century Lutheranism has turned out to be the religious niche most suitable for many Russians who are seeking God but have failed to find him either in Orthodoxy or in more radical forms of Protestantism.     

On Martin Luther's Statement, “Fides Creatrix Divinitatis”

Martin Luther's statement “faith creates divinity” depends upon the antecedent promise of the crucified and triune God. When considered as a theology of gift, this statement illustrates that faith makes divinity by giving God glory.     

Luther's Radical Conception of Faith: God,Christ, and Personhood in a Post‐Metaphysical Age

Luther's exposition of Paul's letter to the Galatians offers a premier window into a deconstruction of the tandem God, ego and symbolic order of the law by proposing a radical “technology of the self,” a new understanding of what it means to be a person in light of God's own becoming in the flesh—a new subjective perspective. This places the event of belief as a displacement of a socially and ecclesiastically constructed ego‐consciousness and the emergence of a new (social) center of subjectivity—Christ consciousness, that is, faith. For Luther the “person” emerges as a radical break with the self‐referentiality of the ego and through the perspectival assimilation of God's own subjective experience in the flesh.     

I like you,I like you not: Understanding the formation of context-dependent automatic attitudes

Previous research has shown that automatic evaluations can be highly context dependent. Expanding on past research demonstrating context effects for existing attitudes toward familiar objects, the present research examined basic principles that guide the formation of context-dependent versus context-independent automatic attitudes. Results from four experiments showed that: (a) newly formed attitudes generalised to novel contexts when prior experiences with the attitude object were evaluatively homogeneous; (b) when prior experiences were evaluatively heterogeneous, automatic evaluations became context sensitive, such that they reflected the contingency between the valence of prior experiences and the context in which these experiences occurred; and (c) when prior experiences were evaluatively heterogeneous across different contexts, novel contexts elicited automatic evaluations that reflected the valence of first experiences with the attitude object. Implications for research on automatic evaluation and attitude change are discussed.     

The effect of object–valence relations on automatic evaluation

Two experiments tested the effect of co-occurrence of a target object with affective stimuli on automatic evaluation of the target when the relation between the target and the affective stimuli suggests that they have opposite valence. Participants learned about targets that ended an unpleasant noise or a pleasant music. The valence of such targets is opposite to the valence of the affective stimuli that co-occur with them. Participants reported preference for targets that ended noise over targets that ended music, but automatic evaluation measures revealed the opposite preference. This suggests that automatic evaluation is sensitive to co-occurrence between stimuli more than to the relation between the stimuli, and that relational information has a stronger influence on deliberate evaluation than on automatic evaluation. These conclusions support the associative-propositional evaluation model (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006), and add evidence regarding the sensitivity of the evaluative-conditioning effect to relational information.     

Associations of Identity Dimensions with Big Five Personality Domains and Facets

Personality is among the most important factors contributing to individual differences in identity formation. However, previous studies mainly focused on broad personality domains and neglected more specific facets. In addition, it has only recently been recognized that identity formation is guided by multiple types of commitment and exploration. The present study aimed to remedy these limitations by relating the 30 personality facets of the NEO‐PI‐3 to five identity dimensions. In general, identity formation was especially facilitated by high levels of Conscientiousness and, to a lesser extent, also by high levels of Extraversion and low levels of Neuroticism. Openness and Agreeableness predicted greater involvement in both the positive side (i.e. exploration in breadth and depth) and negative side (i.e. ruminative exploration) of the exploration process. Personality facets and their overarching domains, as well as facets underlying the same domain, were often differentially associated with identity dimensions. Additionally, we found that some personality facets both have bright and dark sides, as they predicted both proactive identity work and a weakened sense of identity. Overall, the present study underscores the utility of multidimensional models of identity formation and points to the benefits of considering personality facets in addition to broad domains. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Is history important for a historical argument in religious studies?

This review article addresses the historical argument of Norenzayan's Big Gods. It questions the claim that there is enough historical evidence to support the thesis that gods, who are observing human behaviour from high, enable societies to grow beyond the stage of face-to-face groups.     

Buddhist prajÑĀ and Greek sophia

The present review examines five books, one by a non-Baha'i, three by a Baha'i academic, and one by a Baha'i non-academic. The non-Baha'i volume, which is very short, is by a Danish sociologist of religion, Margit Warburg. It forms a solid explanatory text informed by a lengthy experience of the Baha'is both in Denmark and abroad. This review discusses, inter alia, three volumes by a Baha'i sociologist, Peter Smith. While the three titles are very different books, taken together they form an intelligent presentation of the religion from the perspective of a thoughtful insider. Finally, the article looks at a completely different sort of book, an intelligent portrayal of Baha'ism from its spiritual and moral perspectives by Moojan Momen. This last brings readers closest to typical fare for believers and new converts.     

Dream and loss—on triangulation and its implication on the capacity for self-reflection in psychoanalytic work

This paper takes as its starting point Freud's idea that the loss of the object and its inner restoration is an on-going process, which has a crucial influence on the facing of reality. The author's aim is to illustrate that it is by working through the loss of the object that an inner triangulation may be experienced. The idea of triangulation is based on Ronald Brittens definition of it as the image of a mental space in which subjective experiencing can be combined with observing. Via a clinical material, where the distinction between self and object may be endured only with difficulties, the author discusses how phantasizing may serve as an evasion of a notion of an inner catastrophe and how a collapsed triangular space can be restored. In this discussion, the differentiating aspect by negation is touched upon. In connection to another clinical case, the author discusses how the analysand creates what the author calls an illusion about the mutual inter-changeability of the objects. This is used to protect the analysand from experiencing feelings of Oedipal competition, and through that, mourn the illusion of an exclusive place in the Oedipal triad. The conclusion is that the capacity to create meaning comprises the idea of the possibility of together with the subjective experience, internalizing the perspective of ?the other”. Further, that the working through of the Oedipal situation stabilizes the capacity for an observing thinking, since it places the person in a triangular position where he/she is able both to identify with the parties in the Oedipal arena and to observe hislher own contribution to the Oedipal interplay.     

‘Tell me what I want to hear’: Motivated recall and attributions in media regarding asylum seekers

Within Australia, divisive debates regarding the processing of asylum seekers have delivered increasing polarisation rather than convergence on an evidence‐based, humane approach. In order to investigate the role of motivated reasoning (the idea that our judgment is based on our motivations) with respect to attributions of warmth and competence, 186 participants indicated the extent to which they accepted false beliefs regarding asylum seekers. They read an article rebutting such false beliefs and then reported their attitudes towards the author and the extent to which the author possessed warmth and competence traits. They then reported whether they agreed with the information in the article before completing a test of recall. Participants who disagreed with the article recalled less accurate information and rated authors significantly lower on warmth and competence. These findings suggest that motivated reasoning plays an important role in the way stereotypes are applied and in the way information is processed.