Captured in Time: Friendship and Aging

This essay explores the general issues of aging—loneliness, vulnerability, dispossession, disempowerment, fear of death—from a Christian perspective. Drawing on Aristotle and Aelred of Rievaulx, we argue first that Christian stories transform these issues such that we see aging as a gift rather than a threat. Second, friendships among the elderly, and between the elderly and the young, are essential to the church; we need the elderly to tell the Christian stories, to embody the church's memory, and to teach the young how to grow old and die. Finally, we make a few suggestions about how churches can approximate more closely Aelred's vision of a community of friendship.     

A Christian for the Christians, a Muslim for the Muslims? Reflections on a Protestant View of Pastoral Care for all Religions

Whereas in the first half of the 20th century, proclamationwas the focal point of pastoral care in Germany, the 1970s witnessedan embracing of the American pastoral care movement. From thenon, pastoral care was increasingly understood as accompanyingpatients whilst adopting the spiritual dimension. Nowadays,Christian chaplains are encountering an increasing number ofpatients from different religious communities. Various modelshave been proposed to help Protestant chaplains find an authenticform of pastoral care suitable for all religions. Until a clearposition is assumed with regard to Christianity's demands ofabsolutism, however, none of these approaches can be satisfactory.     

“Shame: The Misplaced Debt of Structural Sin”

Although sexual violence and economic distress are often understood and responded to as individual problems, they are rooted in and must be understood within the social systems of patriarchy and advanced global capitalism, both of which normalize these traumas. The problem is that social systems divert guilt for structural sin onto individuals in the form of shame, which I argue is the misplaced debt of structural sin. Through narrative and analysis, I demonstrate the problems of silence, judgement, and death associated with the misplaced debt of shame in structural sin. Preliminarily, I suggest that the theology of the cross enables Christians to name structural sin for what it actually is; judge who or what is truly guilty; and remove shame and guilt from survivors to foster flourishing.     

Swapping Gender Traditionalism: Christianity,Buddhism, and Gender Ideology in South Korea

South Korea provides an ideal setting for studying religion and gender because Western and local religions are both prominent, and Confucianist beliefs still shape gender norms. Using the 2018 Korean General Social Survey, this study examines the extent to which two dimensions of gender traditionalism in South Korea–Confucian patriarchal ideology (i.e., belief in the subordination of women for Confucian patriarchy) and separate spheres ideology (i.e., belief that men are better suited to work and women to domestic responsibilities)—vary across Buddhists, Catholics, Protestants, and the nonaffiliated. The findings show that Christians have the lowest endorsement for Confucian patriarchal ideology while supporting separate spheres ideology as much as Buddhists, who are most gender traditional in both dimensions. The results illustrate the dynamics between religion and gender norms in South Korea's context, demonstrating how Christianity combines Western modernization with gender-essentialist traditionalism, while Buddhism maintains Confucian patriarchal values.     

The International Significance of Human Rights

A comparative examination of four alternative ways of understandingwhat human rights are supports an institutional understanding assuggested by Article 28 of the Universal Declaration: Human rightsare weighty moral claims on any coercively imposed institutionalorder, national or international (as Article 28 confirms). Any suchorder must afford the persons on whom it is imposed secure accessto the objects of their human rights. This understanding of humanrights is broadly sharable across cultures and narrows the philosophical and practical differences between the friends ofcivil and political and the champions of social, economic, andcultural human rights. When applied to the global institutionalorder, it provides a new argument for conceiving human rights asuniversal – and a new basis for criticizing this order as tooencouraging of oppression, corruption, and poverty in the developing countries: We have a negative duty not to cooperatein the imposition of this global order if feasible reforms ofit would significantly improve the realization of human rights.     

The Life and Works of a Bottom-Up Thinker

A brief account is given of the author's life as a physicist and then a priest. The twin foundations of the author's theological endeavors have been a respect for traditional Christian thinking, though not exempting it from revision where this is needed, and a style of argument termed bottom-up thinking, which seeks to proceed from experience to understanding. The diversity of the world faith traditions is perceived as a major source of perplexity. A revised and modest natural theology and the issue of divine action have been at the top of a science and theology agenda. A defense is sketched in realist terms of the metaphysical strategy of using an ontological interpretation of the unpredictabilities of chaos theory to support a notion of top-down causality through active information. The success of Christian theology as a resource of total explanation depends on a credible account of eschatological hope. Reference is made to practical experience of ethics in the public square.     

汉字识别早期知觉过程中的整体优先效应

以7画、10画、13画上下、左右结构低字频宋体汉字为材料,以整字或成字部件为检测目标,在0～1.5、0～2.0、0～2.5、0～3.0周/度空间频率条件下探讨整体-局部加工的关系.结果发现,空间频率一定时,整字辨别的正确率更高,反应时更短.汉字识别过程中存在着明显的整体优先效应.作者认为,知觉过程由整体加工水平向局部加工水平的转换使部件辨别时间延长、正确率下降;刺激图像中整体性空间信息比较丰富,细节信息相对不足,进一步促成了知觉辨别的整体优先效应.     

Racial Justice for the Windrush Generation in Great Britain

This article argues that the experience of the “Windrush generation,” Black Caribbean post–Second World War migrants to the UK, has been one of constant struggle for racial justice. Living in Britain has been undertaken against the backdrop of a Mission Christianity that has exuded a distinct anti-Blackness in its relationship with Black bodies across four centuries. This particular dynamic of “Christian Britain” has created a framework that has helped to shape the agency of Black bodies, essentially marking them as “less than.” This theo-cultural framework has led to a racialized existence for Black British people of the Windrush generation and their descendants. The Christianity that has emerged from the Black Caribbean experience constantly challenges White British Christianity to express an anti-racist and more inclusive model of liberative praxis. This paper is written against the backdrop of the Brexit furore in Britain and the xenophobia and rise in racist attacks that have underpinned the rise in White British nationalism.     

Christ's Love as the Basis of the Church's Faith Witness to Muslims

According to the Christian view, the essence of the triune God is revealed in the relational event between God the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The Bible says of this God, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). By way of example, the article explores “God's love” to show that the Qur'an's conception of God is incompatible with key tenets of the New Testament. Thus, when keeping both conceptions of God in view, we cannot speak of one and the same God. Now what does this mean for the pursuit of conciliatory relations between Christians and Muslims? Which relational paradigms need to be kept in mind? After reflecting on the concepts of neighbourliness, companionship, and hospitality, the article goes on to trace the conceptual outlines of Christian mission as a mission of God's love (missio amoris Dei). Its hypothesis is that a characteristically Christian conception of God can supply useful motifs for appreciative and conciliatory actions by Christians toward Muslims. Finally, the author proposes a theology of interreligious relations (which he has elaborated upon elsewhere) as an alternative approach to conventional theologies of religion.     

RELIGION‐AND‐SCIENCE DIALOGUE FROM THE VANTAGE POINT OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Loyal Rue suggests that religion is not about God as such but about the cultivation of personal and social well‐being. Religion may employ cultural resources that include concepts of supernatural agencies, but religion's essential functionalities are not dependent on that particular resource. I largely endorse Rue's view of religion and employ Rue as a guide to thinking through its consequences for the future of Christianity. For Rue, two challenges face Christianity: the erosion of confidence in personal‐god concepts and the ecological crisis engulfing the planet. In the face of these twin momentous changes, I suggest ways in which certain cultural tropes in the Christian matrix will rise to the fore and others will erode.