Discerning the Spirits, Practicing the Faiths: Why Be Lutheran?

Some spiritual wanderers today are "unstuck" in their faith, therefore, they have many faiths; while others are securely "stuck" in their tradition. Getting stuck is desirable, and the path is through spiritual practice. One's inner life and even perception of reality become transformed through daily habits such as prayer, worship, and discipline. The Lutheran insight that a practicing Christian is simultaneously saint and sinner offers comfort and honest self–understanding.     

Portrait of Promise: Moses and the Journey to Consciousness

Recent literature in psychology suggests that the narcissistic personality has become the most prominent personality type in the Western world. The North American over-valuation of individualism and stress on the development of the isolated self are threatening the human maturation needed to successfully engage the challenges of living in the twenty-first century. This article explores the ways in which a psycho-spiritual analysis of the prophetic figure of the biblical Moses presents an antidote to the epidemic of narcissism defeating our potential toward more mutually satisfying and personally integrated living. When asked if civilization would survive, C.G. Jung replied that it would if only enough people would take responsibility for their own consciousness.     

Spiritual Psychology and Psychotherapy: Is There Theoretical and Empirical Support?

This paper provides a meta-theoretical context for a spiritually oriented psychotherapy, namely Constructivism. It also presents some empirical and theoretical support for this Constructivist position which is consistent with cognitive psychology and concepts from both Western and Eastern traditions. It summarizes the work of Mahoney on Constructivism and integrates it with Personal Construct Psychology. It then provides the perceptual, theoretical, and empirical underpinnings for an integrative, holistically oriented clinical model that focuses on how clients construct their realities. The paper concludes with a discussion of the levels of therapeutic work that clients contract for, placing them in charge of their lives. The goal, for clients who chose the deepest path, is the philosophical understanding that they create the relative realities to which they respond, causing both their suffering and potential liberation. The ultimate choice is theirs, and not the therapist's.     

先天性红-绿色觉异常者的非彩色表色色差辨别研究

该文就先天性红－绿色觉异常者对非彩色系表色色差的辨别展开了研究。结果表明,先天性红－绿色觉异常者色差识别的量值△Ｅ随目视评价的等级不同而异;先天性红－绿色觉异常者与色党正常者在非彩色表色辨别上存在一定的差异;同一明度等级上、下限的变化对先天性红－绿色觉异常者的非彩色表色辨别存在影响,这种影响与明度的级别有关。     

Ralph Burhoe and Teilhard De Chardin: an Affinity in Mysticism?

Religious experience is conditioned and influenced by our understanding of reality, and scientific knowledge contributes to that understanding. Spirituality will be related to knowledge of nature in that experience of God will be mediated in and through a relation to the universe and out of the fulfillment of the creation. Thus a mystical knowledge of God is experienced in and out of a developing evolution of nature, society, and culture. Ralph Burhoe and Teilhard de Chardin share a vision of mystical unity with God as arising out of an integration involving the systems of nature and society.     

Causality and Subjectivity in the Religious Quest

The dynamics of seeking causation and the dynamics of subjectivity are presented and then brought together in a consideration of the three core components of the religious quest: the search for and experience of ultimate explanations, the interiority of religious experience ("spirituality"), and the empathic experience of religious fellowship.     

Prototypes of Faith: Findings with the Faith Q‐Sort

Defining religion and finding ways to assess it in individual lives has long challenged psychologists of religion. At first, open‐ended questionnaires were used, but with the advent of modern statistical methods, a succession of religiosity scales was developed. But these usually brief scales were typically based on the preconceptions of their authors, who were overwhelmingly Protestant Christian and often conservative, much as were those who completed them. To provide a more adequate way of assessing “faith,” a term here encompassing both religious and nonreligious attitudes, a new assessment device was developed that incorporates the singular advantages of Q methodology. The Faith Q‐Sort consists of 101 statements that respondents sort on a nine‐category continuum, indicating the degree to which each statement describes himself or herself. Factor analysis based on correlations of the sorts rather than individual items yielded, for the initial group of participants, three major prototypes and five minor ones, accounting for 67 percent of the variance. Of the 42 participants, 31 proved to be exemplars of one or another of the eight prototypes. Subsequent explorations illustrate the wealth of possibilities the FQS offers, both as a research instrument and a counseling tool.     

Setting the stage for children’s participation in worship practices

How children participate in worship practices is largely determined by adults. Adults set the stage; they shape the physical environment and determine the subject matter. Adults design the format for children’s participation in various forms of worship and the roles adults perform influence the interactions with children. Many different intentions inform these design choices and roles: Intentions revolving around faith, liturgy, community, and experience. The way adults shape worship with children points to the significance of spirituality. When adults perform directing roles, children’s spirituality can find a point of reference in stories and traditions while adults themselves gain from the process of translation this involves. When adults facilitate exploration, this nourishes both children’s and adults’ spirituality. Finally, when adults and children participate in worship practices together, it may contribute to a sense of community in which faith can be lived and shared.