The World Council of Churches’ Relationships with Pentecostalism: A Brief Historical Survey and Some Recent Perspectives on Membership Matters

This article approaches the problematic of relationships between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and Pentecostalism, mainly from the perspective of membership of Pentecostal churches in the WCC. It contents a brief presentation of some prejudices regarding Pentecostals in the ecumenical movement and a historical survey of the relationships between the WCC and Pentecostals, as well as a more detailed analysis of the actual status of this relationship from the perspective of membership of Pentecostal churches in the WCC. The last section assesses possible future scenarios in this regard. It is underlined that the Pentecostal movement is already represented in the WCC by a few small Pentecostal churches and that all the debate on whether to accept new Pentecostal member churches in this ecumenical organization should have as its starting point the reality that Pentecostalism is already part of the WCC. After presenting in detail the last debate in the Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration (PCCC) on the issue of the WCC opening the doors to Pentecostal churches, this article concludes that the WCC should follow its previous policy of analyzing individually each application for membership according to its criteria for accepting new members. While most Pentecostal churches would agree with the basis of the WCC and some might increase their ecumenical engagement at all levels, in the near future at least, Pentecostal churches may still have a long way to go to integrate themselves in a genuine ethos and desire for unity.     

自我厌恶与大学生同伴关系：抑郁和社会支持的链式中介作用

为考察自我厌恶对大学生同伴关系的影响机制以及抑郁和社会支持在其中的作用,采用中文版自我厌恶量表、同伴关系量表、抑郁自评量表和青少年社会支持评定量表对443名大学生进行调查。结果发现：(1)自我厌恶与大学生同伴关系呈显著负相关;(2)抑郁和社会支持在自我厌恶对大学生同伴关系的影响过程中起链式中介作用。结果表明,通过降低大学生的自我厌恶和抑郁水平,同时充分发挥社会支持的作用,有助于提升大学生的同伴关系。     

Relationship Dynamics Between Aging Mothers and Caregiving Daughters: Filial Expectations and Responsibilities

Using qualitative analysis, this research examined filial responsibility and the relationship dynamics between aging mothers and their caregiving daughters. In-depth interviews with 11 mother–daughter pairs explored respondents' sense of filial responsibility, filial expectations, the congruence between mothers' and daughters' expectations, and strategies used to negotiate incongruent expectations. Employing grounded theory, seven categorical themes emerged describing the daughters' perceptions and experiences of providing care. Themes were later linked to the mothers' responses concerning filial responsibility and their experiences of receiving care. Three approaches to caregiving emerged: undifferentiated, dispassionate, and mutually balanced. Findings from the present study have important implications for practitioners working with older adults and their family caregivers.     

Critical Incidents in the Professional Lives of First Year MFT Students

First year MFT students engaged in a journaling project, selecting one event daily which captured something about being a student, including the process of therapy, consultation, and supervision, that struck them as important in terms of their professional development. On reflection, the students saw therapeutic success and professional confidence as systemic products of a variety of contextual factors: transient and enduring aspects of the self and the client, faculty, peer, and family influences, and treatment setting and program factors. Students and faculty experienced this formative self study as valuable and believe that it should be done at the beginning, middle, and end of an educational program and the results shared with both faculty and students.     

Evidence‐based practice: Accounting for the importance of the therapeutic relationship in UK National Health Service therapy provision

It is argued that different models of therapy result in broadly similar outcomes and that the therapeutic relationship is the most important factor in relation to outcome. This paper presents some of the main findings from over 30 years of psychotherapy research. We discuss these findings in relation to current provision of therapy within the UK National Health Service (NHS) and express our fears that despite a culture of evidence‐based practice, this evidence is in danger of being ignored. We conclude by discussing some of the implications and challenges that this evidence presents to therapy researchers, policy makers, trainers and practitioners.     

Validity of the Five Minute Speech Sample in families with infants from low-income backgrounds

Caregivers of 169 infants from low-income and multi-ethnic backgrounds completed the Five Minute Speech Sample (FMSS). Validity of the FMSS was supported by demonstrating significant associations among positive and negative affect dimensions of the FMSS and other indices of the caregiving environment.     

MIDWIFERY AS A MODEL FOR ECOLOGICAL ETHICS: EXPANDING ARTHUR PEACOCKE'S MODELS OF “MAN‐IN‐CREATION”

In Creation and the World of Science (1979) scientist‐theologian Arthur Peacocke asks what the role of humanity might be in relation to creation if conceived within the scientific perspective that favors the theological paradigm of the panentheistic God‐world relationship. Deeming roles such as dominion and steward as liable to distortion toward a hierarchical understanding of humanity's relation to the rest of creation, Peacocke proposes seven other roles to express the proper relationship of humanity to the cosmos in panentheistic relation to its Creator. Although each of these models has merit within a panentheistic paradigm, Peacocke and the paradigm itself suggest that the panentheistic model of God in relation to an evolving cosmos may be most effectively imaged through a model of female procreativity. In keeping with this proposal, I develop the understanding of humanity's ecologically ethical role in relation to the evolving cosmos in terms of the midwife to the process of procreation. I evaluate the efficacy of the midwife as a paradigm for ecological ethics by means of several criteria, including the propositions of the Earth Charter, “a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century” (Earth Initiative 2000).     

SPACE AND TIME FROM A NEO‐WHITEHEADIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russell Stannard distinguishes between objective time as measured in theoretical physics and subjective time, or time as experienced by human beings in normal consciousness. Because objective time, or four‐dimensional space‐time for the physicist, does not change but exists all at once, Stannard argues that this is presumably how God views time from eternity which is beyond time. We human beings are limited to experiencing the moments of time successively and thus cannot know the future as already existing in the same way that God does. I argue that Stannard is basically correct in his theological assumptions about God's understanding of time but that his explanation would be more persuasive within the context of a neo‐Whiteheadian metaphysics. The key points in that metaphysics are (1) that creation is contained within the structured field of activity proper to the three divine persons of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and (2) that the spontaneous decisions of creatures are continually ordered and reordered into an ever‐expanding totality already known in its fullness by the divine persons.