Comment on "personality organization as an aspect of back pain in a medical setting".

The methodology and results of a recent investigation by Louks, Freeman, and Calsyn (1978) are reviewed. It is demonstrated that the results may have been confounded by inappropriate experimental procedures. Regardless of the methodological deficiencies associated with the experimental procedures, the results do not provide adequate support for the continued differentiation of individual low back pain patients with respect to the etiology of their pain. It is suggested that psychologists may best contribute to the assessment and treatment of individual pain patients by developing actuarial rules regarding the pain-related behavioral characteristics shared by members of various patient subgroups and the specific treatments to which subgroup members best respond.     

“Together towards a Banquet”: The Feast as Promise and Resistance in Together Towards Life and Contemporary Theological Discourse

This article explores the symbol of the feast, as proposed by the 2012 World Council of Churches’ affirmation Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (TTL). The feast is introduced as an appropriate hermeneutic tool to account for the multi-layered and dynamic reality of human life in the presence of others and in the presence of God. Interpreting the feast, together with TTL, as a symbol of the liberation and reconciliation of the whole creation and of the celebration of life in response to the outreaching love of God, the article reflects on some contemporary theological voices arguing that God’s invitation to the feast of God’s kingdom is a central element of Christian existence. Such feasting is, among other things, characterized by the dynamics of facing, the presence of the other, the awareness of human corporeality, and the particularization of the other that can overcome the idolatrous power of death. Entering this conversation, the present article will argue that the symbol of the feast can helpfully be understood in its two-fold dynamics of promise and resistance. While giving assurance about the transformation of all reality in the coming reign of justice and peace, the symbol of the feast, with its emphasis on inclusiveness and equality, also empowers people to resist all life-denying forces. Walking with the rest of the creation “together towards a banquet,” Christians are thus enabled, it will be asserted, to discern and actively live their vocation.     

Employment,Wages, and Religious Revivals in Postcommunist Countries

The fall of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe has profoundly changed the religious landscape in many countries. Sociologists have studied the rise and decline of religious beliefs and participation in the post‐communist region, but economic approaches have been rare. This article suggests supplementing the dominant theories—the demand‐side explanation of secularization and the supply‐side explanation of religious revivals—with a model of individual time allocation. The model presented in the article predicts both the initial growth and the subsequent decline of religious participation in postcommunist countries. The empirical portion of the article focuses on six central European countries with different levels of religiosity. Data from the three waves of the ISSP survey support the model.     

Cross‐cultural comparison of seven morningness and sleep–wake measures from Germany,India and Slovakia

Morningness–eveningness or circadian typology can be viewed as an interesting aspect of individual differences. Morningness–eveningness is a preference for a given time of day for physical or mental performance, but also reflects aspects of affect. Here, we used seven different measures to assess differences in morningness–eveningness between Germany, Slovakia and India. The hypothesis was that Indians should be earliest chronotypes, followed by Slovakia and then Germany, because of higher temperatures in India, and the fact that Slovakia is located farther east compared to Germany. We applied the Composite Scale of Morningness (CSM), the Circadian Energy Scale (CIRENS), the CAEN Chronotype Questionnaire (CCQ), and habitual sleep–wake variables to calculate sleep duration, midpoint of sleep and social jetlag. Sample sizes were N = 300 (Germany), N = 482 (Slovakia) and N = 409 (India). Country had the strongest influence on morningness–eveningness. Germans were latest chronotypes and differed in all seven measures from Indians but differed from Slovakians only in the energy level at the evening and midpoint of sleep. Slovakians and Indians differed in all measures but the energy level (CIRENS). Women scored higher on the CSM, lower on CIRENS, lower on the morningness–eveningness (ME) scale, but higher on distinctness (DI) scale. Women slept longer and had an earlier midpoint of sleep.     

Health Is Associated With Antiparasite Behavior and Fear of Disease-Relevant Animals in Humans

Evolutionary arms races between humans and parasites resulted in a set of behavioral adaptations that serve as parasite-avoidance mechanisms. We investigated associations among reported health of the respondent, antiparasite behavior, and sensitivity to disgust and fear of disease-relevant and irrelevant animals. Ninety-seven participants (15–19 years old) rated their fear and disgust at 25 colorful pictures of disease-relevant and disease-irrelevant invertebrates. Consistent with previous work, we found that participants reported greater fear and disgust of disease-relevant invertebrates relative to disease-irrelevant invertebrates. Better perceived health correlated with lower fear of disease-relevant invertebrates. Sensitivity to disgust correlated with reported antiparasite behaviors. Contrary to expectations, we found a positive correlation between antiparasite behavior and reported health, which suggests that antiparasite behavior influences perceived health (but not vice versa), and we found that males perform more antiparasite behaviors than females. These results support the idea that disgust and fear of disease-relevant objects are adaptive emotions that prevent contact with contagious objects, especially in individuals with low perceived health.     

Pondering “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World”: A Protestant Missiological Reflection

The article explores “The Mission of the Orthodox Church in Today's World” (MOCT), one of the six official documents issued by the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church that took place on the island of Crete in 2016. It is the first official Orthodox statement on mission ever published. The aim of the present article is to offer a reflection of MOCT from a Protestant missiological perspective. The article argues that MOCT interprets mission as the service of the church to the world, motivated by love. It goes on to discuss six major thematic areas of the statement, namely, the dignity of the human person; freedom and responsibility; peace and justice; peace and the aversion of war; the attitude of the church toward discrimination; and the mission of the Orthodox Church as a witness of love through service. The article seeks to provide a constructive critique of MOCT, assessing both its weaknesses and its assets. It concludes by saying that despite certain theological question marks, the new Orthodox mission document represents an invaluable contribution to the ecumenical discussion on mission and evangelism.     

Learning about Spirituality Together with “Seekers”

The present era, often referred to as post‐secular, has in many places seen a resurgence in spirituality. Nevertheless, the contemporary quest for spirituality is unique in the sense that many people do not expect to have their spiritual needs fulfilled within the structures of organized religion, starting on a journey of their own explorations instead. Sociologists of religion, therefore, tend to employ the “dwellers” and “seekers” paradigm to account for this phenomenon. This paper will explore this phenomenon in the context of the Czech Republic, whose citizens are frequently characterized as distrustful toward institutional religiosity, through the lens of the recent World Council of Churches' affirmation on mission and evangelism, Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (TTL). For our purpose, the statement's emphasis on both “transformative spirituality” and “mission from the margins” will be of central importance. Using the notion of transformative spirituality as the energy engendered by the Spirit for the transformation of life and creation, it will be suggested that “seekers” can be agents in God's mission of liberation, reconciliation, and transformation, despite their inability or unwillingness to identify themselves with the church as institution. Keeping in mind ethical considerations, the paper will not seek to make a case for a forced “christening” of the seekers. Rather, it will argue that they can become partners in missio Dei, thus giving the notion of “mission from the margins” a new, contextually relevant dimension.     

Talking About Behaviors in the Passive Voice Increases Task Performance

Self‐talk can help people redirect their attention focused on themselves to the tasks they are working on with important consequences for their task performance. Across four experiments and two different types of languages, Turkish and Slovak, people describing their own behaviors to themselves, as well as merely reading or writing sentences depicting some fictitious events, in the passive (vs. the active) voice performed better on various tasks of motor and verbal performance. The effect was present to the extent that people maintained their control over task‐distracting thoughts or felt more responsible for their task success/failure. In sum, talking about task behaviors in the passive voice may increase the perceived role of task‐related factors while decreasing the role of agent‐related factors in achieving task success, whereby the task focus, hence performance, increases. The results are important for understanding the role of self‐talk in performance with implications for changing important outcomes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“Blessed Are You Who Are Poor”: The Poor in Together towards Life,The Cape Town Commitment,and Evangelii Gaudium

The present article explores the issue of the poor in three recent major documents on mission and evangelism/evangelization – Together towards Life (TTL), The Cape Town Commitment (CCT), and Evangelii Gaudium (EG) – arguing that they have several commonalities, as well as differences, with regard to mission and the poor. In convergence, they acknowledge a central place of the poor in Christian mission; address personal and structural aspects of poverty; and perceive the poor in close relation to other disadvantaged groups. But they diverge in emphases: TTL focuses on the role of the Spirit of God in empowering the poor/marginalized, acknowledges the agency of the poor/marginalized, and sees them in close relation to the earth/creation in their cry for justice; CTC introduces the issue of poverty in the framework of the spiritual warfare discourse, addresses the challenging topic of the prosperity gospel, and reasons biblically for the cause of the poor; and EG critiques contemporary socio‐economic realities, emphasizes that the church as a whole must champion the poor, and warns against peace efforts becoming a pretext for neglecting the poor. This article argues that a “synoptic” reading of the three documents on the topic allows us to benefit from the rich ecclesial and theological traditions behind the texts, and can engender more appropriate responses for both missiology and mission on this important issue.