Diverse identities in Christ according to Paul: the enduring influence of the work of William S. Campbell

Abstract

Unlike previous scholarship that asserted that in places where Jewish and gentile identities conflicted, Jewish traditions and practices had to give way to gentile ones, Campbell’s work sets forth the proposition that Paul envisioned side-by-side, diverse identities expressing themselves in unity. Thus, in Campbell’s reading Paul made room for missional activity to both Jews and gentiles, affirming Peter’s work as well as his own. Furthermore, Campbell shifted the conversation from an opposition between Jews and gentiles in the early church to the challenges of forming early Christ-followers’ identity in the face of the pervasive influence of the Roman empire. Although Campbell’s emphasis on Paul’s Jewish identity seems to place him among the New Perspective on Paul scholars, he recognises that Paul’s own identity was not his primary focus in his letters – the in-Christ gentile identities of the new communities was. This emphasis of Campbell’s work moves him beyond the less nuanced approaches of scholars such as Sanders and Dunn. A significant part of Campbell’s work has been to discuss the relationship between Israel and the emerging Christ movement. He concludes that neither Jewish nor gentile identities are obliterated, nor is gentile Christianity absorbed into or a replacement for Israel. Instead, gentile Christ followers are accepted into God’s people as gentiles, alongside Jews and Jewish Christ followers. William Campbell has been instrumental both within the Paul within Judaism movement, but also in pushing for nuanced and innovative developments stemming from that body of work. His past work commands respect and his future work is highly anticipated.     

Conversation with 2016 American Academy of Religion Excellence in Teaching Award Winner Joanne Maguire Robinson

This conversation between the editors of Teaching Theology and Religion and Joanne Maguire Robinson continues an occasional series of interviews that has previously featured Jonathan Z. Smith, Stephen Prothero, Mary Pierce Brosmer, and Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore. The exchange takes as its point of departure the teaching statement that Professor Robinson produced in support of her candidacy for the American Academy of Religion's Excellence in Teaching Award. Issues addressed include the impact of institutional context on one's teaching, teaching the humanities in universities that are ever more focused on job training, making the transition from a graduate program focused on research to teaching undergraduates who are unlikely to take even a second course in the study of religion, and ways in which women are challenged to navigate multiple responsibilities while striving to make their way in a male‐dominated academy.     

Psychiatry and religion: consensus reached!

ABSTRACT

In December 2015 the Executive Committee of the World Psychiatric Association accepted a position statement on spirituality and religion in psychiatry. In this contribution the author will (briefly) sketch the background of the development of this position statement, and the criteria it needs to fulfil. The aim of the final result will be explained, and some desiderata with regard to its future will be expressed. The full text of the Position Statement as it has been published in World Psychiatry (February 2016) is added as appendix (permission granted by the editor).     

Characterization of controlled gamblers and pathological gamblers using the social representation theory

Introduction

In industrialized countries, gambling disorder tends to become a major issue. The use of the social representation theory provides clues for a better understanding of pathological gamblers.

Supervisor undermining and driving errors in truck drivers: A moderated mediation model

The present study focuses on the detrimental impact of supervisor undermining behaviors at work on driving errors for truck drivers, arguing for the mediating role of burnout. Moreover, this research highlights the moderating role of general self-efficacy in the relationships between supervisor undermining and burnout, and between burnout and driving errors, respectively. The data collected from a sample of 190 Romanian drivers supported a moderated mediation model in which burnout partially mediates the relation between supervisor undermining and driving errors, while self-efficacy moderates both aforementioned relationships. The conditional indirect effect of supervisor undermining on driving errors was significant when self-efficacy was low and non-significant when self-efficacy was high. Overall, our results emphasize the negative impact that supervisor undermining and burnout have on driving errors, while also highlighting the buffering effect of self-efficacy.     

Integrating a cognitive computational model of planning and decision-making considering affective information

Planning and decision-making are two of the cognitive functions involved in the solution of problems. These functions, among others, have been studied from the point of view of a new field known as cognitive informatics focused on the development of cognitive architectures, autonomous agents, and human robots that are capable of showing human-like behavior. We present an exhaustive study of current biological and computational models proposed in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive informatics. Also, we present a deep review of the brain areas involved in planning, decision-making, and affection. However, the majority of the proposed computational models are seeking to mimic human external behavior. This paper aims to contribute to the cognitive informatics field with an innovative cognitive computational model of planning and decision-making. The two main differences of our model with respect to the current models in the literature are: (i) our model considers affective and motivational information as a basic and essential trigger in planning and decision-making processes; (ii) our model attempts to mimic both the internal human brain as well as the external human behavior. We developed a computational model capable of offering a direct mapping from human brain areas to computational modules of our model. Thus, in this paper we present our model from a conceptual, formal, and computational approach in order to show how our proposal must be implemented. Finally, a set of tests were conducted in order to validate our proposal. These tests show an interesting comparison between the behavior of our prototype and the behavior exhibited by some people involved in a case study.     

Contribution d’une catégorisation des RPS à la prédiction du stress et du burnout (ou du mal-être au travail) des soignants

Health-care professionals are strongly affected by distress at work. Our goal is to study the usefulness of a psychosocial risk measure, compared to a measure of psychosocial and organizational work constraints, on the prediction of distress among a population of caregivers. This measure is based on the categorization of psychosocial risk factors issued from the College of experts chaired by Gollac. Seven hundred and fifty-seven health-care professionals filled out a questionnaire composed of measures of psychosocial risks, psychosocial and organizational work constraints specific to caregivers, as well as stress and burnout. Results indicate that the measure of psychosocial risk better predicted the levels of stress and burnout than the measure of psychosocial and organizational work constraints.