Working within the reader perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, a series of empirical studies have tested the theory that the readers’ psychological type preference between sensing and intuition (the two Jungian perceiving functions) shapes distinctive readings of biblical narratives. More recently, closer attention has also been given to differentiation within these two perceiving functions of sensing and intuition with regard to their introverted and extraverted orientation. Against this background, the present study examines the distinctive reading of the Johannine narrative of (...) the wedding at Cana, a passage rich in materials to engage the perceiving functions, by two groups whose dominant or auxiliary functions were introverted sensing and introverted intuition. Contribution: Situated within the reader perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, the sensing, intuition, feeling, thinking (SIFT) method is concerned with identifying the influence of the psychological type of the reader in shaping the interpretation of text. The foundations of the SIFT approach distinguish amongst the four functions of sensing, intuition, feeling and thinking. The present study builds on this foundation by introducing the nuance of the orientation in which the function is expressed, in this case focusing specifically on introverted sensing and introverted intuition. (shrink)

Working within the reader perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, a series of empirical studies have tested the theory that the readers' psychological type preference between sensing and intuition shapes distinctive readings of biblical narratives. More recently, closer attention has also been given to differentiation within these two perceiving functions of sensing and intuition with regard to their introverted and extraverted orientation. Against this background, the present study examines the distinctive reading of the Johannine narrative of the wedding at (...) class='Hi'>Cana, a passage rich in materials to engage the perceiving functions, by two groups whose dominant or auxiliary functions were introverted sensing and introverted intuition.CONTRIBUTION: Situated within the reader perspective approach to biblical hermeneutics, the sensing, intuition, feeling, thinking method is concerned with identifying the influence of the psychological type of the reader in shaping the interpretation of text. The foundations of the SIFT approach distinguish amongst the four functions of sensing, intuition, feeling and thinking. The present study builds on this foundation by introducing the nuance of the orientation in which the function is expressed, in this case focusing specifically on introverted sensing and introverted intuition. (shrink)

Youth materialism excites adolescents’ unethical consumer beliefs (UCB-dishonesty). We develop a second-stage moderated mediation model, investigate the relationships between materialism and Generation Z teenagers’ consumer ethics (UCB-dishonesty), and treat two self-concept mechanisms (power and self-esteem) as dual mediators and culture as a moderator (China vs. France). We theorize that materialism enhances power (public self) and reduces self-esteem (private self). French adolescents’ sense of power increases UCB more than their Chinese counterparts. Chinese teenagers’ self-esteem reduces UCB more than their French counterparts. (...) We challenge the assumption that the interaction effects between consumers’ self-concepts and UCB are the same across cultures. We offer the following discoveries based on 1,005 (409 Chinese and 596 French) adolescents. First, the measurement model of consumer ethics with four subconstructs is superior to the model with one overall construct. Second, a sense of power and self-esteem mediate the relationships between youth materialism and consumer ethics, creating two positive and negative paths for power and self-esteem, respectively. Third, French adolescents display a higher magnitude and positive intensity between adolescents’ power (public self) and UCB-dishonesty than their Chinese counterparts across all four subconstructs. Chinese teenagers illustrate a lower magnitude but a higher negative intensity between self-esteem and UCB than their French counterparts across three subconstructs, with one exception: Adolescents’ self-esteem has no impact on “no harm, no foul” across cultures. Neither buyers nor sellers experience substantial financial gains or losses. Finally, cultures moderate the second-stage mediation effects. Scholars must enhance adolescents’ self-esteem and curb their power to promote honesty. We offer implications for materialism, consumer ethics, self-concepts, and culture for consumers and retailers. (shrink)

Physical activity, body composition and sedentary behavior may affect the health of children. Therefore, this study examined the effect of an educational hybrid physical education program on physical fitness, body composition and sedentary and PA times in adolescents. A 9-month group-randomized controlled trial was conducted in 150 participants allocated into the control group and experimental group. Cardiorespiratory fitness, speed, strength, agility, flexibility and body mass index were assessed through previously validated field tests. Sedentary time, PA at school and afterschool were (...) evaluated with the Youth Activity Profile-Spain questionnaire. Significant differences were observed concerning to the CG in APA-weekend, speed-agility and agility. Regarding the intervention, cardiorespiratory fitness, speed-agility, strength, flexibility, agility, PA in school, APA-weekday, APA-weekend, APA-week, and sedentary time increased significantly in the EG. The use of a hybrid program based on teaching personal and social responsibility and gamification strategies produced enhancements in cardiorespiratory fitness, agility, speed, APA-weekdays and APA-weekends, reducing the sedentary time. (shrink)

In the article, the vocabulary related to the wedding ceremony in the Pamiri languages is discussed. In particular, vocabulary reflecting the wedding ceremony in Ishkashimi language is almost unknown. In the Pamiri languages are still preserved all the traditional wedding ceremonies. The vocabulary associated with them is well-kept in full and is indigenous and sometimes borrowed. For the most, the terminology applied in the ritual is borrowed. Often the term is borrowed from Badakhshan dialect of the Tajik (...) language. At the same time, some Tajik words are used in specific meaning that is typical only to the dialect of Badakhshan and Dari language of Badakhshan in Afghanistan. This is mainly the vocabulary associated with traditional ways and procedures of the wedding ceremony. Some other words, such as sarbьzьrg ’to give respect, attention to mourners’, can be observed only in classical Persian literature. In view of the Islamization of the region the Arab terms are frequently used in rituals; they are associated with official terminology applied during the marriage process and designate its legal aspects. There are also Turkic lexis that was included into the dictionary because of language and cultural contacts in the region. It is significant that in the lexicon predominate metaphorical and descriptive ways of designation of the ceremonies. Remarkable specific vocabulary with original meaning is of particular use in the local minor Iranian languages in comparison with such major written national languages as Tajik language of Tajikistan and Dari Afghanistan. For example, in Ishkashimi language the word dumod is used only in the sense of ‘son-in-law‘, and in the meaning of ‘bridegroom‘ - only Å¡amard. Since the marriage and wedding ceremony has a special place in the spiritual culture of the people, the symbolic function is included into almost all the rites and ritual objects of it. During the ceremony, people wish of fertility, happiness, coming together and family well-being for the whole family and for the newlyweds. Thus, the terminology associated with these rites is preserved for a long time in the language; equally strong are numerous ritual prohibitions related to marriage. (shrink)

The waters part at the Crossing of the Red Sea by the Hebrews. Water is turned into wine by Jesus at the Wedding Feast at Cana. For Christians, these miraculous events have really or truly happened. But aren't miracles rather fictions full of deep meaning? Aren’t Christians invited to pretend (make-believe) that miracles have taken place? Aren’t miracles fictions? Fictionalism answer positively to these questions. This account is sometimes presupposed in the hermeneutics of the biblical narrative. Fictionalism can (...) be theological, that is global: God himself is fiction; it can be partial: only miracles are fictions, not God. The article shows that a Christian may not adhere to fictionalism and must assume the reality of miracles. The Christian may not make them a matter of simple interpretation and deep meaning. He must believe that the waters parted when the Jewish people fled Egypt, that Jesus did indeed turn the water into wine in Cana. (shrink)

Traditionally, research focused on determining the causes of employee pay satisfaction has investigated the influence of job-related inputs, both extrinsic and intrinsic to the job itself. Together with these inputs, pay-related fairness issues have played an important role in explaining the phenomenon. However, few studies consider the factors linked to fairness issues, such as ethical leadership. Because ethical leadership necessarily entails the concept of fairness, it seemingly should have a positive effect. Furthermore, because the presence of supervisor ethical leadership (SEL) (...) offers strong chances for employees to achieve moral accomplishments and excel in the practice of their jobs, SEL should enhance the effects of intrinsic job inputs. Whereas high job motivating potential (JMP) makes it easier for employees be self-actualized, moral fulfillment is necessary for them to obtain authentic self-actualization at work and minimize the impact of pay deficiencies. Along with SEL, JMP should be shaped to increase positive experiences of job meaningfulness, responsibility for job outcomes, and knowledge of results at work, which can lead to enjoyment in doing the job in itself, not just for compensation-related motives. Hierarchical regression analysis with a sample of 151 employees in a diverse set of Spanish organizations supports the direct effects of JMP and SEL and shows that higher levels of SEL increase the positive effects of JMP on pay satisfaction. The practical implications of these findings and further research directions conclude this article. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has identified the modern wedding as a principal site for the construction of heteronormativity. This article examines whether and how the participation of same-sex couples in the wedding ritual can challenge this construction. Photographs from the 2004 San Francisco same-sex weddings were quantitatively content-coded for subjects’ gender presentation and for the extent to which the couple embodied the heteronormative wedding standard of one bride and one groom. I find that all the men in these photographs (...) conformed to gender norms and thus no male couple conformed to the wedding standard. In contrast, approximately one-fifth of the women presented non-normative gender, and more than two-thirds of the formally dressed lesbian couples conformed to the wedding standard of a bride and a groom. In a close reading of four photographs, I argue that these images have the potential to challenge assumptions about normative sex, gender, and sexuality at the level of the symbolic when understood in relation to the institution of marriage. Nonetheless, the enactment of weddings depicted in these images may also reify weddings as heteronormative by conforming to expectations about how individuals and couples present themselves when marrying. These findings point to the importance of distinguishing symbolic and enacted heteronormativity. (shrink)

AtArgon.4.1653–88, Medea steps forward among the Argonauts and asserts that their harbourage on Crete will not be blocked by the bronze giant Talos, who stands menacingly throwing rocks at their ship. She claims that she alone can subdue him, and then steps forward and proceeds to do so. Using a sequence of ‘magical’ ritualistic acts, she causes Talos to scrape his vulnerable heel on a rock and fall down dead, as the ichor pours from his wound. This scene is the (...) last in which Medea appears in the epic, and accordingly it forms the final opportunity to bridge the gap between the Medea of theArgonauticaand the future Medea, one whose actions are already well known from such works as Pindar's fourthPythian Odeand Euripides’Medea. The importance for Apollonius to create a plausible transition between the Medea of earlier myth and the Argonautic Medea is evident. A clear-cut break from tradition would allow Medea to become an alternative Medea, perhaps akin to the alternative portrayal of Helen by Euripides; a continuation would allow corroboration with earlier sources, which would lend authority and validation to Apollonius’ version. It is now the common consensus that Apollonius tried, however successfully, to bridge the gap between a young and an adult Medea and between tradition and innovation in her character. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scaena Feralium Nuptiarum: Wedding Imagery In Apuleius’ Tale Of Charite ( Met. 8.1–14)Stavros FrangoulidisThe implicit presence of wedding imagery in the servant’s narrative regarding the tragic end of Charite in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (8.1–14) 1 has received little scholarly attention. 2 In the tale of Charite, her unsuccessful suitor, Thrasyllus, devises a scheme to kill her husband, Tlepolemus, during a hunt and to marry the widowed Charite. After (...) the ghost of Tlepolemus has exposed to his wife the actual circumstances of his death, the heroine devises a scheme for exacting vengeance on Thrasyllus, both for his cunning in killing her husband in the boar hunt and for his sexual ambitions toward her. The former is revealed in the similarities between Charite’s revenge scheme and Thrasyllus’ plot to bring about Tlepolemus’ death; the latter emerges from Charite’s clever exploitation of aspects of the wedding ritual in her revenge scheme. To be persuasive, the (fictional) marriage ritual, like the hunting scheme before it, requires role playing 3 and a reversal in gender roles such that [End Page 601] the heroine punishes her opponent most appropriately for his actions within the tale’s narrative. This wedding imagery is further sustained in the conclusion of the tale: Charite’s suicide on her husband’s tomb is represented as (re)marriage to her husband in death, since it reenacts several aspects of the wedding ritual from the earlier narrative of Tlepolemus’ liberation of his bride from her captivity in a robbers’ cave, and their subsequent marriage. 4 In the end, Thrasyllus’ suicide by starvation is also represented as a marriage in death, as Charite herself foreshadows in her angry speech as she prepares to attack him in his sleep.Our object here is to explore the ways in which Apuleius artfully designs the narrative of the latter portion of Charite’s story: the wedding imagery enhances her scheme for revenge, which is based both on Thrasyllus’ murderous plot against her husband and on Thrasyllus’ amatory designs upon her, and also intensifies the tragedy of the narrative, as all three marriages, Tlepolemus’, Charite’s, and Thrasyllus’, are fulfilled only in death. 5There are a number of intriguing resonances between the story of Charite and the tale of Cupid and Psyche that features so centrally in the novel as a whole. Space here does not permit much development of comparisons between the two narratives, but particularly striking points of similarity or contrast are indicated in the notes as we proceed.In the servant’s tale, Thrasyllus, the unsuccessful suitor, assumes the persona of a trusted friend in order to gain admission to the house of the married couple. After being forbidden access to Charite, he tricks his rival, Tlepolemus, into going hunting. Their departure on the hunt marks a spatial shift, from the interior of Tlepolemus’ home to the open space of wild nature, where Thrasyllus works his scheme.Charite has forbidden Tlepolemus to hunt horned and tusked animals (except mountain goats), a request that reveals her concern for her husband’s safety. Her apprehensions about his vulnerability also suggest a female aspect to Tlepolemus’ identity, an ambivalence of gender role that adumbrates her later worship of him as Liber/Dionysus, with both male and female characteristics. [End Page 602]For the tale’s authorial audience, Thrasyllus’ invitation to go hunting also recalls his own earlier advice to some robbers, to go on a hunt to collect animals for a sacrifice to their patron deity, Mars the Companion (7.10). In contrast to Tlepolemus’ earlier success in a hunt (which led to Charite’s liberation from captivity in the robbers’ den, and his marriage to her), Thrasyllus’ hunting scheme brings about Tlepolemus’ death, putting a violent end to Charite’s marriage. 6In a wedding context, Tlepolemus’ death may be interpreted as a prenuptial sacrifice for Thrasyllus’ planned marriage to Charite. Thrasyllus’ “sacrifice” here mirrors Tlepolemus’ earlier sacrifices of various animals at temples and public places in connection with the symbolic abduction of his bride from her parental home, at the opening of the Charite complex (4.26, ad nuptias... templis et aedibus publicis victimas [End Page 603] immolabat... (shrink)

Capture unforgettable moments of that special day Professional wedding photographer Glen Johnson knows there's a huge difference between being able to take good pictures and being a good wedding photographer. In this exquisite, full-color book, Glen dispenses sage advice and solutions for taking impressive digital wedding images -- posed or candid, in any weather, in any setting, at any locale. You will also learn the secrets of creating a successful digital wedding photography business, and much more. (...) Whether you're an aspiring professional or an amateur who wants to improve your skills at digital wedding photography, this book will help you succeed. Discover what makes wedding photography a unique specialty * Find out how to make people feel relaxed and comfortable while you're shooting * Explore ways to capture the emotion as well as the moment * Understand different photographic styles and adapt to your client's wishes * Prepare for all types of lighting situations * Learn appropriate etiquette for shooting in dressing rooms and during the ceremony * Know what to take when traveling abroad * Set up the perfect digital studio to process your images * Find out how to price your work realistically * See why your business skills may be more important than your photographic talent Beautifully illustrated with full-color photographs, each showingthe camera settings and other details used to create the image. (shrink)

> What I'm interested in is your response to Tegmark. I haven't yet looked at > the paper you sent me in your email, but one response that I thought of is > this: Tegmark's argument, if cogent, suggests that there can't be neural > indeterminacies based on macro-level superpositions that collapse due to > neural processes. But your view doesn't involve macro-level superpositions; > it involves micro-level superpositions (of presynaptic calcium ions). So > even if Tegmark's argument is sound, (...) it's irrelevant to your view. Does > this sound right to you? (shrink)

The article traces the changes that occurred in the teaching of theoretical medicine at the University of Paris in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, as the Faculty came under the influence of new medical ideas and discoveries. As a result it is essentially a study in the history of the transmission of ideas; the article illustrates how quickly and in what form these new ideas and discoveries became part of the common medical inheritance of one region of Europe. At (...) Paris, it is shown, the Faculty of Medicine was completely under the influence of the theories of Galen and Hippocrates at the beginning of the period, and rival ideas were greeted with hostility for much of the seventeenth century. By the early eighteenth century, however, the Faculty was completely abreast of contemporary developments and no longer wedded to a particular ‘school’. This change, it is emphasised, was associated with and closely influenced by, the growth of a more humble and discerning attitude among the Faculty's doctors with regards to the limits and the objectivity of their medical knowledge. The article is largely based on a hitherto unused source: the collection of abstracts of theses sustained in the period, to be found in the present-day Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Médecine at Paris. (shrink)

Before becoming an internationally renowned sadhu espousing words of wisdom in an Indian forest, Sampath Chawla pulls down his pants. The wedding guests are horrified. His supervisor at the small-town post office fires him on the spot—it is, after all, his daughter's wedding.In Kiran Desai's novel Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, the oafish Sampath probably shouldn't have been invited to the wedding in the first place. At the post office he has been sulking for some time. "The (...) post office. The post office. The post office. It made him want to throw up."1 More troubling, he routinely opens other people's mail and reads their private letters throughout the workday. The letters give Sampath insights into the lives of... (shrink)

Starting from the notion of a structural relation between war and rape in patriarchal systems, this article aims at pointing out how this relation is reflected in the co-occurrence of war and marriage metaphors in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) discourse. Critical Discourse Analysis is combined with cognitive metaphor theory to show how metaphors of marriage and romance ("MERGERS ARE MARRIAGES") tend to co-occur with war and various derived metaphors ("M&As ARE BATTLES FOR TERRITORY"). The significance of these co-occurrences is illustrated (...) through corpus data from genres such as newspaper reports and journal articles. Results of additional qualitative analysis are drawn upon to investigate whether the well-established marriage metaphor functions as an ideologically invested euphemism for rape metaphors. Because the latter are more often than not conspicuously absent, the notion of metaphor gaps is introduced and discussed briefly. (shrink)

It's a presupposition of a very common way of thinking about contextsensitivity in language that the semantic contribution made by a bit of context-sensitive vocabulary is sensitive only to features of the speaker's situation at the time of utterance. I argue that this is false, and that we need a theory of context-dependence that allows for content to depend not just on the features of the utterance's origin, but also on features of its destination. There are cases in which a (...) single utterance semantically conveys different propositions to different members of its audience, which force us to say that what a sentence conveys depends not just on the context in which it is uttered, but also on the context in which it is received. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:January 12, 2013 (10:49 am) C:\WPdata\TYPE3202\russell 32,2 062 red.wpd 1 [For document sources and the pseudonyms used, see the entries in D.4 of the Malleson bibliography in this issue. The Wrst is under “Hemma Hos br”.z—zK.B.] 2 [Russell had given Malleson directions: “Festiniog is 3 miles from Blaenau Festiniog, along the road to Port Madoc; our cottage is a quarter of a mile from Festiniog, towards Port Madoc; the (...) inn, the Pengwern Arms, is at our end of the village. You would not Wnd our cottage on any map, but you might Wnd Bryn Llewelyn, a big house next door. Festiniog is on a ridge between two mountain streams, the Teigl and the Cynval” (24 Aug. 1948, ra3 596.200860). Find it at 52 57N32.17ON, 3 56N29.04OW on Google Earth.] 3 [Russell’s later secretary, Christopher Farley, attended the evacuated school.] russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 32 (winter 2012–13): 161–9 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 ocuments THREE PORTRAITS OF BERTRAND RUSSELL AT HOME1 Constance Malleson i.w“bertrand russell at home” (1949) A ysage in ancient times once said that the best and wisest men love ythe ymountains and the sea. So it is perhaps not surprising to Wnd yEngland’s ygreat philosopher, Bertrand Russell, living in a little grey stone cottage on the side of a mountain and within sight of the sea. At a bend in a steep road, you suddenly come upon it: a typically Welsh looking place, for it is situated not far from the village of Llan Ffestiniogz—zin North Wales. It is small-scale country, this north-western corner of Merioneth: small steep hills; small glistening-green oak woods; small compact purple mountains (about 2,000 feet high). Ffestiniog village stands upon a ridge with a deep valley on either side; and a river, with white churning waterfalls, in each valley. From the grey stone terrace in front of Russell’s cottage, the whole Vale of Ffestiniog opens out to the shining estuary and the sea.2 The terrace has three tall, clipped, very prim looking bay trees; and all the cottage’s eight windows and two doors open out onto it; and Russell will tell you (with a lightly sardonic tone in his voice) that there were originally six trees, but that A.yS. Neill’s small scholars cut down three of them. (A.yS. Neill’s famous “experimental” school was evacuated here during the war.3 ) While Russell is himself an advocate of a very great deal of freedom in education, he thinks it is a pity if small children grow up without any knowledge whatever in their heads. At the western end of the terrace, the cottage has a projecting wing and it is January 12, 2013 (10:49 am) C:\WPdata\TYPE3202\russell 32,2 062 red.wpd 162 constance malleson 4 [B.yH. Liddell Hart (1895–1970). Conrad Russell recalled him visiting in “Shaking OT the Family Curse” (interview), The Independent on Sunday, 13 June 1999, pp. 16–17.] 5 [Edward, Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars of England Begun in the Year 1641, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1704). The copy is still in Russell’s library.] 6 [It was the unique Doves type that T.yJ. Cobden-Sanderson disposed of in this way in 1916. He died in 1923. Many Doves Press publications remain in Russell’s library.] 7 [1817–1857. Finnish book collector.] 8 [The book was on loan to Russell from Malleson. She later sent a wedding oTering of what is probably the same copy to the Editor and his wife.] 9 [One such stone jar, with a screw-on top, is in ra.] there that Russell’s own small son, Conrad, age twelve, has his bedroom. Its walls are covered with delightful, large, coloured, historical maps of the world; and it once happened that, when the famous military expert of The Times, Liddell Hart,4 was visiting Russell and holding forth about some very remote and little known place, Conrad piped up and corrected him... (shrink)

On 27 September 2018 Pope Francis addressed priests, deacons, and lay people at a formation course promoted by the Roman Rota. In the presentation, Francis reaffirmed the need for a permanent catechumenate for the sacrament of matrimony. The Pope noted that the permanent catechumenate for the sacrament of matrimony is a journey that is shared with priests, pastoral workers and Christian spouses. The Pope also stated that in the context of the sacrament of matrimony, a catechumenate concerns marriage preparation, the (...) celebration of the wedding, and the initial period that follows the wedding. (shrink)

Positions taken in the current debate over free will can be seen as responses to the following conditional: -/- If every action is caused solely by another event and a cause necessitates its effect, then there is no action to which there is an alternative (C). -/- The Libertarian, who believes that alternatives are a requirement of free will, responds by denying the right conjunct of C’s antecedent, maintaining that some actions are caused, either mediately or immediately, by events whose (...) effects could be different, even if they were to recur under identical circumstances. We have here a denial of Laplacian Determinism (LD), according to which the condition of the world at any instant makes only one state possible at any other instant. One prominent defender of this view, Robert Kane, holds that unless an agent’s neural mechanisms operated indeterministicly in forming her character she is not responsible for its manifestations. This requirement is entailed by the principle of “ultimate responsibility” (UR) according to which an act is freely willed only if (a) its agent is personally responsible for its performance in the sense of having caused it to occur by voluntarily doing something that was avoidable and (b) there is no sufficient condition for its performance for which its agent is not personally responsible. The orthodox Compatibilist, adducing counterexamples to UR, argues that even if C and its antecedent are true, free will is possible. Ned Markosian has provided the Compatibilist with yet another response to UR-based objections to her view, wedding it to the notion of agent causation: here the deterministic causing of an act by its agent is necessary and sufficient for its being “morally free.” I criticize this view as inconsistent with the agent causalist's belief that moral responsibility precludes causation of a choice by any power other than the maker thereof: he being its efficient cause. (shrink)

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to assess the socio-economic challenges faced by CoG-Kenya in poverty alleviation in Emuhaya District, Western Kenya.Methodology: This study was a cross-sectional research that sought to give an examining and descriptive scrutiny of the CoG-K’s activities in Emuhaya District of Western Kenya. This study sampled a total of 312 respondents (1 Bishop, 1 General Secretary, 1 General Assembly Trustee, 1 General Assembly Treasurer, 16 Directors, 282 Pastors, and 10 Elders) through purposive sampling method. Oral (...) interviews, questionnaire methods and focus group discussion were used to collect data from the respondents. Observation method was used to validate the information obtained through oral interviews and questionnaires. Secondary data was sourced from published and unpublished literature. Data was analyzed using the theological method of induction (TMI).Results: The study concludes that as much as the CoG-K has made concerted attempts towards development in Emuhaya District by influencing the peoples thinking on legitimacy of wealth and education, and on the moral value of saving and investing. However some of its programs and ceremonial functions like ordination, baptism, marriage and weddings tend to retard these efforts of alleviating poverty. Although such programs and celebrations serve the poor at the grassroots level, they delay change in behavioural and institutional transformation capable of sustaining economic growth.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: There is a need to change cultural practises that tend to retard development among the adherents of the CoG-K in Emuhaya District. The study posits that cultural practices surrounding marriage and death that are repugnant and detrimental to change should be discarded if development is to take place. (shrink)

Jamake Highwater is a master storyteller and one of our most visionary writers, hailed as "an eloquent bard, whose words are fire and glory" (Studs Terkel) and "a writer of exceptional vision and power" (Ana"is Nin). Author of more than thirty volumes of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, Highwater--considered by many to be the intellectual heir of Joseph Campbell--has long been intrigued by how our mythological legacies have served as a foundation of modern civilization. Now, in The Mythology of Transgression, he (...) uses his remarkable narrative powers to offer a personal and extraordinarily far-ranging examination of how people who stand outside of society--by dint of their sexual orientation, physical appearance, ideas, artistic inclinations, or ethnic heritage--often achieve lasting, even profound influence upon the culture at large. Drawing from a stunningly rich variety of sources ranging from the arts and literature to biology, physics, psychology, and anthropology, Highwater looks at his own outsider status--as a gay man, an artist, and an orphaned Native American--in an attempt to explore how mythologies from ancient times to the present have shaped the ways we think about social "abnormality" and alienation. Throughout, he points to a paradox at the center of Western values--the competing notions that the outsider is at once sinful and wise, that in everyday life the transgressor is ostracized, while in our most durable folklore and religious legends, heroes must break the rules to achieve greatness. Focusing in particular on homosexuality as a modern metaphor of transgression, Highwater brilliantly mixes personal anecdotes with wide ranging research, leading us on a tour through the history of social conformity and rejection, citing examples that span from Judeo-Christian-Islamic doctrines of good and evil, to the Navajo Nation's ambivalence toward the nature of sexuality, to Carson McCullers's treatment of physical deformity in the novella Member of the Wedding, to Descartes's theories of dualism. He also pays special attention to the debates currently raging in science regarding the biology of homosexuality and provides an engaging discussion of why we are motivated to seek a genetic basis of sexual orientation in the first place. Jamake Highwater has long been celebrated as a writer uniquely suited to give voice to the social outsider. Often provocative, always fascinating, The Mythology of Transgression is a tour de force of eloquent scholarship, a book that will prompt discussion and debate on the subject for years to come. (shrink)

The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen the rise of a new phenomenon - online ordination. It can be accepted that much of this burgeoning industry is a financial scam, but is that the whole story? The very existence of online ordination raises questions. Why do people feel the need for a “minister” to officiate at weddings? If they are sufficiently estranged from the religious sphere that no bona fide minister of religion will marry them, and if secular (...) alternatives are readily available, why make use of this service? This article presents an overview and typology of online ordination services and places them in the context of the development of religion in contemporary society, and the development of society itself. (shrink)

A young woman called me to ask for a referral to a physician who provided hymen reconstruction surgery. She had had premarital intercourse and came from a cultural background in which it was very important to “prove virginity” on the wedding night. This article deals with my internal struggle whether or not to provide the referral. I felt that providing it would have made me complicit in supporting gender inequality, as men are not required to “prove virginity” to get (...) married. At the same time, I was concerned about the repercussions of not being able to “prove virginity” would have on the caller. I had no explicit guidance on what to do in such a situation—it was not covered by the professional responsibilities I had as a research assistant. (shrink)

Ethical questions have traditionally been approached through conceptual analysis. Inspired by the rapid advance of modern brain imaging techniques, however, some ethical questions appear in a new light. For example, hotly debated trolley dilemmas have recently been studied by psychologists and neuroscientists alike, arguing that their findings can support or debunk moral intuitions that underlie those dilemmas. Resulting from the wedding of philosophy and neuroscience, neuroethics has emerged as a novel interdisciplinary field that aims at drawing conclusive relationships between (...) neuroscientific observations and normative ethics. A major goal of neuroethics is to derive normative ethical conclusions from the investigation of neural and psychological mechanisms underlying ethical theories, as well as moral judgments and intuitions. The focus of this article is to shed light on the structure and functioning of neuroethical arguments of this sort, and to reveal particular methodological challenges that lie concealed therein. We discuss the methodological problem of how one can—or, as the case may be, cannot—validly infer normative conclusions from neuroscientific observations. Moreover, we raise the issue of how preexisting normative ethical convictions threaten to invalidate the interpretation of neuroscientific data, and thus arrive at question-begging conclusions. Nonetheless, this is not to deny that current neuroethics rightly presumes that moral considerations about actual human lives demand empirically substantiated answers. Therefore, in conclusion, we offer some preliminary reflections on how the discussed methodological challenges can be met. (shrink)

sirPremarital sex is socially and religiously unacceptable in some cultures, with grave consequences such as shame, rejection, divorce, or even death to “cleanse the shame”. Hymenorrhaphy or hymenoplasty has emerged as a procedure which attempts to restore the ability of the hymen to bleed at intercourse on the wedding night, thus protecting women from violent reprisals.A few articles have recently appeared in the English literature debating whether hymenoplasty is clinically indicated or ethically justified.1, 2 If we review the English (...) literature, we find only one article addressing the success of this operation in a group of 20 patients.1 The authors claim that all 20 were satisfied with the outcome and none had regrets. Long term follow up is available on …. (shrink)

The model-theoretic analysis of the concept of logical consequence has come under heavy criticism in the last couple of decades. The present work looks at an alternative approach to logical consequence where the notion of inference takes center stage. Formally, the model-theoretic framework is exchanged for a proof-theoretic framework. It is argued that contrary to the traditional view, proof-theoretic semantics is not revisionary, and should rather be seen as a formal semantics that can supplement model-theory. Specifically, there are formal resources (...) to provide a proof-theoretic semantics for both intuitionistic and classical logic. We develop a new perspective on proof-theoretic harmony for logical constants which incorporates elements from the substructural era of proof-theory. We show that there is a semantic lacuna in the traditional accounts of harmony. A new theory of how inference rules determine the semantic content of logical constants is developed. The theory weds proof-theoretic and model-theoretic semantics by showing how proof-theoretic rules can induce truth-conditional clauses in Boolean and many-valued settings. It is argued that such a new approach to how rules determine meaning will ultimately assist our understanding of the apriori nature of logic. (shrink)

In our papers on the rationality of magic, we distinghuished, for purposes of analysis, three levels of rationality. First and lowest (rationalitYl) the goal directed action of an agent with given aims and circumstances, where among his circumstances we included his knowledge and opinions. On this level the magician's treatment of illness by incantation is as rational as any traditional doctor's blood-letting or any modern one's use of anti-biotics. At the second level (rationalitY2) we add the element of rational thinking (...) or thinking which obeys some set of explicit rules, a level which is not found in magic in general, though it is sometimes given to specific details of magical thinking within the magical thought-system. It was the late Sir Edward E. Evans-Pritchard who observed that when considering magic in detail the magician may be as consistent or critical as anyone else; but when considering magic in general, or any system of thought in general, the magician could not be critical or even comprehend the criticism. Evans-Pritchard went even further: he was sceptical as to whether it could be done in a truly consistent manner: one cannot be critical of one's own system, he thought. On this level (rationalitY2) of discussion we have explained (earlier) why we prefer to wed Evans Pritchard's view of the magician's capacity for piece-meal rationality to Sir James Frazer's view that magic in general is pseudo-rational because it lacks standards of rational thinking. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hereditary Eloquence Among the Torquati: Catullus 61.209–18S. J. HarrisonTorquatus volo parvulus matris e gremio suae porrigens teneras manus dulce rideat ad patrem semihiante labello.sit suo similis patri Manlio et facile omnibus noscitetur ab insciis et pudicitiam suae matris indicet ore. 1At the close of Catullus’ lyric epithalamium for a Manlius Torquatus, the speaker of the poem wishes for children from the marriage, a standard epithalamial topic in this position; (...) the wish for features in the final prayers of the wedding-speech according to Menander Rhetor (II.411.16, 20–21 Spengel). One interpretational problem here is that lines 215–18 seem to say the same thing twice—a double wish that the son of the marriage be easily recognisable through his physical features as the true offspring of his father. This problem can be solved by a closer consideration of the text and of the identity of the Manlius Torquatus involved.There seems to be general agreement that the most likely candidate for the bridegroom of Catullus’ poem is L. Manlius Torquatus, praetor in 50 or 49 B.C. and killed in the civil war in 47. 2 Cicero knew and admired this Torquatus, making him the Epicurean spokesman in the De Finibus, and giving him a fulsome notice in the Brutus (265). It is clear from the latter that this Torquatus was a leading public speaker of his time: Cicero speaks of his divina memoria, summa verborum et gravitas et elegantia. My contention is that this detail of Torquatus’ eloquence makes sense of Catullus 61.209–18. [End Page 285]The shape of the sentence seems to be as follows: the general idea that the son will resemble his father is put first (sit suo similis patri / Manlio), and then subdivided into two particular elements balanced and linked by et... et. In the usual interpretation, those two elements are identical—Manlius’ son will be easily recognised as his by all through family physical resemblance (ore). This seems unsatisfactory, given the apparent care taken to balance and differentiate them. But if we translate ore not as ‘face’ but as ‘mouth’, i.e., eloquence, a new and appropriate point emerges which is different from that of physical resemblance: as the son of a noted orator, it will be through his hereditary talent for public speaking as well as by his looks that the future Torquatus will be proved his father’s true child. Os is found elsewhere in poetry in this pregnant sense of ‘eloquence’: we may compare Ovid, Pont. 3.5.7 iuvenis patrii non degener oris (a similar context of hereditary eloquence, addressing Cotta Maximus, son of the great orator Messalla Corvinus), Silius, Punica 11.65 cunctis praecellens Virrius ore (the rhetorical skills of a Capuan delegate), and TLL 9.2.1081.54ff.It is interesting to note from two famous poems of Horace that Catullus’ prophecy about the eloquence of Torquatus’ son may have been fulfilled. It has been suggested that the Manlius Torquatus addressed by Horace in Epistles 1.5 and Odes 4.7 is a son of the consul of 65, 3 and therefore perhaps contemporary with or somewhat older than Horace, born in 65 himself. However, it is equally possible that he is a son of Catullus’ bridegroom, the praetor of 50 or 49, and therefore younger than the poet. 4 We should imagine a son of the praetor Torquatus being born in the mid-50s, the approximate date of Catullus 61; this would seem appropriate for the Torquatus addressed in Epistles 1.5, a rising advocate who looks to be in mid-career around 20 B.C., and for the addressee of Odes 4.7, fittingly addressed in around 13 B.C. with thoughts on mortality now he has reached forty and middle age in Horatian terms (cf. Odes 2.4.22–24). Horace’s Torquatus is clearly a prominent orator: the [End Page 286] epistle urges him to leave the law-courts, where he is in demand as an advocate, and come to a party at Horace’s house, while Odes 4.7 refers specifically to his facundia (23). This eloquent Torquatus could be following his father... (shrink)

SUMMARYThis article investigates the Anglo–Dutch scholar and diplomat Isaac Dorislaus's sole published work, Praelium Nuportanum, on the battle of Newport in 1600. After presenting some new or little known information about the work, it discusses PN's intellectual context and concludes that the work is a reminder of successful Anglo–Dutch cooperation in the past, of Dutch indebtedness to English assistance, and the Republic's importance as an ally for England, all relevant to the negotiations running in 1640 for an Orange–Stuart wedding, (...) and their backgrounds in the British Civil Wars and Anglo–Spanish–Dutch relations at the time. After the troubles ensuing from Dorislaus's Cambridge lectures on Tacitus in 1627, PN shows the author reconciled with the Court and the Laudian faction. With respect to style and content, PN appears clearly Tacitist in style, with many direct quotations from Tacitus, but this Tacitism operates more on a literary than a political level. Much of PN's historical content is a reworking of Francis Vere's Commentaries. From the perspective of the Protestant ‘Anglo–Scoto–Dutch public sphere’ recently discussed in the scholarship, PN might perhaps be read as a warning of the gradual emergence of an Anglo–Dutch Calvinist–parliamentarian ‘realm’ as a force opposing the Crown. (shrink)

The first of a promised trilogy, to be followed by studies of Logic and the Theologians, and Philosophy and the Theologians. Professor Holmer is a superb iconoclast, and the idols he loves to smash are metaphysics, theories, big ideas, ideologies, philosophies, and philosophical theologies. The book is very subtle in analyzing the logic of religious language, which language succeeds very well without philosophical interpretations attempting to state or restate its "meaning." The essay is a careful blending of Kierkegaardian motifs with (...) the linguistic methodologies of the later Wittgenstein. There are few books as successful in elaborating the nuances of the Biblical language unencumbered by theories attempting to reinterpret this language. The tendency to reinterpret and translate in order to provide "the meaning" is the constant, unsuccessful, and unnecessary, temptation of the age. Such attempts inevitably conclude by offering another language and another meaning, and seriously distorting, if not losing, the meaning of the original. No such philosophical translation is necessary if one will but heed the logic and grammar of the original language, which has its own inner structure, message, and meaning, deserving of careful attention, and quite sufficient to keep bright young minds busy. Holmer loves the profundity of simplicity, and would call all who are tempted by abstractions and metaphysics, which are surely the core of the devil’s grammar, to return to the simplicity of the original with its own unique depth and challenge. The "old old story" need not be made "new," nor does it require philosophical explanation. The performatory utterances of the Hebrew children and their Christian offspring are sufficient if one will but study their logic. In the Western world’s attempt to wed Jerusalem and Athens, Holmer will remain in Jerusalem, requiring little from Athens. While needing no philosophy or metaphysics, he nevertheless seems to offer a very intricate philosophy of language, meaning, fact, explanation, reason, concepts, and knowledge, traveling upon this Wittgensteinian way as if no serious challenge had been offered to this anti-philosophical philosophy, and to the anti-metaphysical polemic contained therein; and as if these proposals themselves did not border on the edge of their own metaphysical ideology and vision regarding words and thoughts. One hopes that the promised sequels will deal more directly with the suggestion that all metaphysics be eliminated, for it simply will not do to replace one ideology with another in the name of not having any at all. In spite of this nagging problem, the book is worthwhile.—H.A.D. (shrink)

"The Marriage Translation" argues that a Benjaminian account of translation can shed new light on the ways in which contemporary practices of queer alliance transform, and are transformed by, legal and political discourse. In a constellation of readings—of arguments for the French pacs, of Benjamin's essays on translation, and on Goethe's Elective Affinities, as well as of two photos of the illegal weddings celebrated in San Francisco and in Bègles, France—the article emphasizes the ways social contexts are sometimes reinvigorated and (...) at other times ignored by the demand for certain forms of legal recognition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Language of Reciprocity in Euripides' MedeaMelissa MuellerEuripides' Medea is a character who is adept at speaking many languages. To the chorus of Corinthian women, she presents herself as a woman like any other, but with fewer resources; to Jason in the agōn she speaks as if man to man, articulating her claim to the appropriate returns of charis and philia. Even when she addresses herself, in the great (...) monologue, two distinct voices appear, that of the pitiful mother who loves her children and, opposed to this, the voice of the heroic warrior who demands revenge.1 The subject of this article will not be the versatility of Medea's speech, per se. Rather, I will consider the narrower but related issue of how—with what words and weapons—Medea enacts her revenge on Jason.Christopher Gill recently has argued that Medea's revenge is the final episode in the series of exchanges of charis between husband and wife.2 The exchanges began long ago in the mythical past, when Medea first helped Jason obtain the Golden Fleece.3 My argument, building on that of Gill's, is that the language of charis extends in this play to the material medium of the heroine's revenge. The "textiles" given by Medea to Creon's daughter are, I suggest, a significant component in the play's construction of Medea's agency and her participation in relations of philia.4 What can the objects that Medea uses as instruments of vengeance tell us about the identity of this heroine and the active role she [End Page 471] creates for herself?5 Why, more specifically, does Medea use gifts—a crown (plokos) and a robe (peplos)—to kill Creon and his daughter?6 By reading the gifts themselves in relation to the preceding agōn and Aegeus episode we will arrive at a more complete picture of the issues at stake in Medea's revenge.7To do this we will need to take into account several preliminary considerations. First of all, gifts are not given in isolation.8 There is always some reference to past acts of generosity as well as to future obligation when an offer is made. In Medea's case, the plokos and peplos—gifts given to her by her grandfather, Helios—are implicated in her own genealogy and, as I will argue, in her history with Jason. Standing as symbols of the autonomous power that Medea once used to give herself away in marriage, these objects are called upon once again, in this play, in order to punish Jason for his violation of philia.Secondly, the giving of gifts and the revenge take place in the context of two marriages: the marriage of Jason to Medea, and subsequently, his marriage to the princess of Corinth. In the final section of this article I will argue that Medea manipulates wedding gifts and imagery in such a way that the fulfillment of her revenge is conditional upon (and coextensive with) the unraveling of both of these marriages. The approach I am taking toward Medea's revenge therefore raises the important issue of female subjectivity in Greek tragedy, especially in the context of marriage. Recently, Victoria Wohl, Kirk Ormand, and Nancy Rabinowitz have given subtle and thorough consideration to the problems that arise in reading female subjectivity within the constraints of male authorship and the patriarchal systems of exchange of Greek tragedy. [End Page 472] I am for the most part in agreement with their description of marriage in tragedy as a homosocial institution: the exchange of women solidifies social and economic bonds between men—and therefore, should be read from this perspective.9Nevertheless, I believe that the Medea offers an interesting and significant challenge to this generalization. For it is precisely containment by a patriarchal system (and husband) that Medea seems to defy. Medea speaks a language of reciprocity that is usually spoken between men only, and she negotiates an uneasy balance for herself (in the agōn) between the roles of marital and aristocratic philia (as discussed below). When her claims to philia are not heard there, she stages another scene of exchange—this time... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:330 BOOK REVIEWS is the power through which the Holy Spirit creates and nurtures the church, which is the source of all authority in the church, and which is the norm for all that the church teaches and practices. Only then will the use and abuse of power within the contemporary church be addressed in theologically sound and healthy ways. Only then will ecclesiastical divisions be healed and the (...) common mission of the church pursued with faithful commitment. Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Chicago, Illinois KURT K. HENDEL The Church in Latin America 1492-1992. Edited by ENRIQUE DussEL. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1992. Pp. x + 501. $49.95 (cloth). This volume is the result of an exemplary effort to stimulate the study of the history of Latin American churches, to communicate the results of historical scholarship across national lines, and to bring many persons of diverse tendencies and religious backgrounds together in a unified enterprise. Cooperation at the Latin American level has been made difficult at times due to repression, internal wars, and opposition by conservative church leaders. Heroic efforts by Enrique Dussel and the Commission for the Study of Church History in Latin America brought forth an eleven-volume General History of the Church in Latin America. The present volume benefits from this magnanimous enterprise and includes many contributors to the larger series. The result is a singlevolume history of the churches, Catholic and Protestant, with many strengths and weaknesses. The editor structured the work to provide a chronological survey of the region in its first section, one which is succinct and useful for understanding the distant roots of the Catholic church. The middle section takes up regional histories and generally succeeds in conveying well the history up to the contemporary period. Including the treatment of the church in Chile, however, with that in Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay does not work well. Their civic cultures and ecclesiastical histories differ greatly, especially in this century. The final part devotes itself to special topics and becomes less historical than descriptive and evaluative. Here themes such as theology of liberation, Afro-American slavery, and religious orders receive special attention. This section offers much less reliable guidance to Latin American history, in my view. BOOK REVIEWS 331 One of the distinctive marks of the collaboration has been a determined effort (although not uniformally carried out) to recount history from the underside, from the point of view of the poor and oppressed, as well as from the perspective of religious and secular elite members who are thought to make history. This is an admirable and egalitarian ideal, but much basic research from this point of view has not been done. Within this section, Moises Sandoval provides a view of Hispanic Catholicism in the United States. He manages to sustain a view from the grassroots. The chapter, one of the best in the volume, could be required reading for any student of Nor,th American history. A few chapters may be marred by revisionist frameworks. The chapter on Protestantism is one. In my view, Jean Pierre Bastian's ideo· logical simplification does not allow him to give adequate consideration to the contemporary theological iand ecclesiological convictions behind notably diverse Protestant positions. Pentecostals account for 75-90 percent of Protestants in most Latin American countries; yet much of the history of Protestant churches in Latin America, as Bastian has re· counted it, has been irrelevant for explaining Pentecostal growth. This is not a minor consideration, since,the volume lacks a sense that Pentecostal churches are major religious organizations within Latin America. Similar tendencies mar the work of some Catholic writers who are wedded to the discourse of the " historical process of liberation." Such discourse leads to extravagant characterizations, as by Jose Comblin. He writes in the chapter on the church and human rights: "New democracies are totally unstable. Development has stagnated. There is no future in sight " (pp. 452-453). Comblin, a highly regiarded theologian, not a social scientist or historian, does not account for the great expansion (more than 2,000) of human rights organizations in Latin America. Many of these groups are tied to the church and came into existence largely... (shrink)

Building on the landmark O’Regan and Noë (Behav Brain Sci 24:939–973, 2001) that introduced us to the sensorimotor theory of perception, Alva Noë has continued to develop and defend a highly influential enactivist account of perception. Said account takes perceptual experience to be mediated by sensorimotor knowledge (knowledge of the law-like relations that hold between bodily movements and sensory changes). In recent work, Noë has argued that we should construe sensorimotor knowledge as a kind of conceptual knowledge. One significant theoretical (...) advantage of his account, he contends, is that it allows us to better characterize our embodied coping skills by way of showing how they are manifestations of a conceptual-and-yet-not-representational kind of understanding. He argues that both intellectualist and anti-intellectualist accounts of skill alike assume that conceptual understanding must be wedded to explicit judgement, and therefore have failed to correctly characterize the role of understanding in skilled performance. This paper argues against Noë’s contention that skilled action is always permeated with understanding. It argues additionally that Noë’s of unorthodox notion of conceptual understanding is unstable and, if it were adopted, would over-intellectualize the role of perception in action. The paper concludes by arguing that doing so frees us up to take more seriously the enactivist options for understanding skilled performance without introducing notions of conceptual understanding at all. (shrink)

When putting semiotics and phenomenology in juxtaposition, the first task necessarily is to find out what a study of meaning, conceiving of itself as an empirical science, has to do with a philosophical school, the business of which it is to secure the epistemological foundations of all the sciences (broadly understood). Our answer, in short (but we will go at some length to show it), is that since all results of phenomenology also count as contributions to phenomenological psychology, the phenomenological (...) method constitutes a part of the panoply of methods offered to semiotics. Our second task will be to review the fragmentary semiotics proposed, originally employing that term, by Edmund Husserl, to gauge its value for contemporary semiotics. Since our investigation of Husserl’s semiotics will demonstrate that it sometimes concerns the sign in a narrow sense, and sometimes broadens up to a study of meaning in general, our third and final task, in this paper, will be to consider a proposal made by a close follower of Husserl, Alfred Schütz, whose idea of a system of relevancies, wedded to Husserl’s notion of sedimentation, might be amended when considered in connection with Umberto Eco’s idea of the encyclopaedia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dispelling the Myth of the Non-Singer:Embracing Two Aesthetics for SingingLouise M. PascaleI entered the Music Workshop course with trepidation. Of all the courses in my Master's program, I feared this one the most. My experiences with music have always been negative ones. As I entered the classroom, memories surfaced of the time I was told to mouth the words so I would not throw the rest of the class (...) off key and when I was laughed off the stage after a friend and I attempted a rendition of "Rolling O'er the Billows." After that, I was convinced I should not sing.1Maxine Greene reminds us how easy it is to get caught in the "main text of life," one that is "negotiated mostly by convention, routine, habit, duty and one we have very little choice in."2 Our long-held acceptance of the "singer" and "non-singer" provides a perfect example of Greene's metaphor. The traditional meaning of "singing" is created out of convention and habit, perpetuated by the "main text" (white, middle class) values of American society.Singing, as it is understood in today's educational settings, settled into its role in American music education as a result of a number of significant decisions made as early as the 1600s by prominent leaders of the church.3 Each of these decisions added to the growth and strength of the view of singing that became [End Page 165] what I refer to as a "taproot"4 in music education. This taproot continued to settle comfortably into the groundwork of music education and has had major and long-lasting effects on how we generally perceive and experience singing.The Western perspective of singing is wedded to a multitude of assumptions and beliefs and, over a period of time, has taken on complex meaning. It is associated with subtle nuances, such as valuing the high, lilting soprano voice over the alto. It is connected to various philosophies and strongly held convictions, such as improving vocal performance through the mastery of musical literacy, and even exclusionary practices, such as selecting out the "better singers" and suggesting that others refrain from singing at all.Perhaps the most profound consequence of this entrenched taproot is that it has left American society with a very limited perception of "singing." This singular, well-supported root, albeit strong, impenetrable, and closely connected with a number of cultural and societal assumptions, effectively narrows the scope of our perceptions, our language, our philosophy, and our teaching practices in the domain of singing in education. Illustration of the powerful ways music relates to and directly expresses the social attitudes and cognitive processes of a culture are found in the work of John Blacking and John Miller Chernoff.5 Their work provides an opportunity to reflect on the cultural and societal influences of the "taproot" philosophy of music education and the ways these have created limitations on who expresses themselves musically, why, how, and for whom.One of the most critical of those limitations is that we have classroom teachers who rarely, if ever, sing with their students. The gap between those in education who sing and offer musical activities to their students and those who do not is greater than ever. The "non-singer" mentality persists in educational communities and is not being addressed in music education circles. Singing continues to be considered, by most educators, to be a complicated skill that must be learned and requires training in breathing, vocal technique, and diction, and a basic knowledge of note reading.Many have strong feelings about singing; it is not a neutral subject. When the topic of singing is brought up, some involved in the conversation are likely to personalize it and be eager to share stories about their singing ability and to express their opinions about whether or not they qualify as a "singer." Sometimes the reactions can be extreme. Some people shy completely away from singing, to the point of running from the room at the mere suggestion that they might be asked to participate in singing in public. Others have an opposite reaction and experience singing as an enjoyable activity... (shrink)

At a time when agri-food biotechnologies are receiving a surge of investment, innovation, and public interest in the United States, it is common to hear both supporters and critics call for open and inclusive dialogue on the topic. Social scientists have a potentially important role to play in these discursive engagements, but the legacy of the intractable genetically modified (GM) food debate calls for some reflection regarding the best ways to shape the norms of that conversation. This commentary argues that (...) agri-food scholars interested in promoting a more constructive agri-food biotechnology discussion could do so by blending key insights, as well as guarding against key shortcomings, from the fields of science communication and science and technology studies (STS). Science communication’s collaborative and translational approach to the public understanding of science has proven pragmatically valuable to scientists in academia, government, and private industry, but it has too often remained wedded to deficit model approaches and struggled to explore deeper questions of public values and corporate power. STS’s critical approach has highlighted the need for multi-stakeholder power-sharing and the integration of diverse knowledge systems into public engagement, but it has done little to grapple with the prevalence of misinformation in movements against GM foods and other agri-food biotechnologies. Ultimately, a better agri-food biotechnology conversation will require a strong foundation in scientific literacy as well as conceptual grounding in the social studies of science. The paper concludes by describing how, with attention to the structure, content, and style of public engagement in the agri-food biotechnology debates, social scientists can play a productive conversational role across a variety of academic, institutional, community-level, and mediated contexts. (shrink)

This article examines the impact of identity politics on the traditional liberal distinction between public and private spheres, arguing that critical theories associated with identity politics have significantly blurred these boundaries. This blurring is largely due to the portrayal of equality as a non-negotiable value by proponents of identity politics, who are prepared to limit fundamental freedoms to uphold it. Utilizing Francis Fukuyama’s distinction between “lived experience” and “shared experience,” the article proposes a reinterpretation of the anti-discrimination principle aimed at (...) cultivating shared liberal citizenship. It scrutinizes decisions by Supreme Courts around the globe concerning the denial of wedding cake services to gay couples as a case study. These legal battles exemplify how cultural disputes are reshaping the public-private divide and highlight the need for principles that can justly reconcile freedom and equality in an era marked by intense cultural wars and deepening political division. The article suggests several principles that could assist courts in mitigating the political tensions inherent in cases fueled by cultural conflicts. (shrink)

This article investigates the functions of the kōmos-chorus in Menander"s comedies. It first reviews the evidence for the diminished role of the comic chorus in the fourth century and then considers Menander"s practice of deploying a kōmos instead of a chorus. It argues that the performance contexts of the kōmos allowed it to serve multiple functions. The association of the kōmos with symposia and aristocratic violence rendered it a realistic device for clearing the stage after the first act. In addition, (...) the conclusion of the romantic plot with a wedding or pre-wedding celebration created the occasion for receiving a wedding kōmos, suggesting that the kōmos may have finally been greeted or received at the end of the fifth act. (shrink)

The object of the study is the continuous preservation of the multi-genre Cossack folk song, which represents a key purpose in the implementation of the preservation of the traditional mentality at the present stage. The subject of this work is the immanent complexes of traditional song culture in the folklore heritage. The purpose of this study is to structure the issue of the cultural interrelation of the ethnic canvas of the Kuban Cossack folk songs, in the originality of the genesis (...) of the vocal and performing specifics of modern creativity. When discovering the fundamental foundations of the vocal performance of the Cossack song, special attention is paid to the study of the folklore primary sources of the Kuban folklorists, V.G.Zakharchenko, A.D.Bigdai, G.M.Kontsevich. Along with this, an expert assessment of the characteristics of the Kuban Cossack folk song according to the genre classification component is an important feature of the performance of vocal samples today. The theoretical basis is in an analytical approach to the peculiarities of the performance of a local source from the point of view of substantiating the scientific nature of the subject under consideration according to the functionally oriented elements of the report: traditions, traditional manner of performance, interpretation of the text, song melody. Methodological basis: components of the study of the local singing tradition, modernization of folklore song documents, the method of consistency-the genre diversity of Cossack performance. The author's approach to the correlation of musical sources as methodological characteristics of the Kuban Cossack singing traditions has been developed. We test the proposed system when working with archival documents, in the diagnosis of song samples recorded from informants. The key aspect is the musicological analysis of the musical collections of Kuban Cossack folk songs from the point of view of the continuously developing, multifaceted changing performing skills of the soloist and choir. The author takes into account the introduced model of performing Cossack songs since the resettlement of the Black Sea Cossacks, who brought the baggage of multi-genre sources and eventually introduced the Kuban folk singing art. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the author's analytical systematization of authentic song compositions recorded by folklorists, in the analysis of multi-genre Kuban Cossack sources (selectively) for further active performance on stage. The specific directions of performance according to characteristic song genres are determined: historical, military, everyday, marching, lyrical, wedding, ceremonial, round dance, comic. The reproduced orientation of the nature of the continuous preservation of folklore sources in the revised performance interpretation of Cossack vocal works gives rise to significant broadcasting opportunities today. (shrink)

In the middle of the 1960s, Talcott Parsons — undoubtedly the world's most important sociologist in the first decades after the Second World War and at that time at the peak of his influence and reputation — took part in a debate about the relationship between theology and sociology. His contribution, later published in a volume called America and the Future of Theology, was a fervent plea for the significance of sociology in front of a theological audience. But not everybody (...) in this audience seems to have accepted his arguments. The theological commentator at the debate, Oliver Read Whitley, made it abundantly clear in his response that the wedding of the two disciplines which Parsons had suggested should not take place immediately. Its announcement should at least be postponed until certain matters of vital importance for the marriage would have been cleared up. He emphasized that if we assume that one of the crucial conditions of a happy marriage lies in the equal chances of the partners to talk to each other, then the marriage Parsons had proposed would probably not be successful. The dialogue between the partners could, under Parsons's conditions, only be “a conversation in which the social sciences speak and theology listens, afterwards hastening to adapt its views to what the social sciences have stated”. Theology thus would be a mostly `passive' or `dependent' partner and not a `fully participating equal colleague'.John Milbank's writings, particularly his brilliant book Theology and Social Theory, does not offer us the perspective of a happy marriage either. Frustrated and even outraged by a world in which if not sociology, then certainly the sciences or at least `secular reason' have the say, he does not put much effort into an attempt to carefully delineate the possibilities and the limits of communication and cooperation between theology and the social sciences. Instead, he turns the tables and declares theology to be the master discourse of the future. He repudiates the claims of sociology to present an adequate view of reality and thus to define a place even for the sacred, and tries to get beyond what he calls the `false humility' of theologians today. The social sciences, according to Milbank, are bound to a project of secular reason — without being able to self-reflectively understand what the historical conditions for the constitution of this seemingly self-evident notion and sphere of the `secular' were. “Once, there was no `secular'” is the forceful opening sentence of his book. Not only sociology, but also liberal political philosophy, political economy, Hegelian and Marxist philosophy of history, and postmodern philosophy and cultural studies — they all become the object of Milbank's mostly devastating critiques; they all seem to suffer from the same birth defect and to be doomed to perish in view of the revitalized theology or the revitalized Catholic thinking which Milbank so powerfully propagates and which he intends to develop into the `ultimate' social science. (shrink)

The concubines, with whom the sultans lived a family life, were classified according to a certain hierarchy in the Harem. The first wives of the sultan and those who gave birth were called Kadınefendi. The other wives with a lower status than the Kadınefendi wives were called Ikbal Hanımefendi. According to Islamic law, marriage with a concubine is not like a marriage with a free woman. If a marriage is desired, the concubine must be freed. Until the 19th century, sultans (...) did not marry their concubines for a few exceptions. In the 19th century, the legal status of concubines in the Ottoman Empire became controversial. The countries of origine changed when the Ottoman Empire was unable to conquer new territory. Consequently, the enslavement procedure of prisoners of war disappeared. Instead, Caucasian immigrants, who had to leave their homeland mainly due to the Russian attacks, gave their daughters to the Ottoman palace so that they would not suffer misery and could reach important positions in the future. Among these were orphans from poor families as well as those from noble Caucasian dynasties. Even though the young women in the palace were called concubines, at least some of them were free/Muslim persons. This meant, that they could not be enslaved according to Islamic law. Although there was no problem for those who served in the palace, a remarkable situation emerged for the would-be spouses of the sultan. Could a woman from a free and Muslim family be the sultan's wife without a marriage bond? Was the limitation of the Kadınefendi numbers to four (in times of Sultan Abdülaziz) due to the Islamic law principle, that a man could marry maximum four wives? Was there a marriage ceremony (nikāh) for Kadınefendi wives? What was the situation of the Ikbal? Satisfactory answers to these questions have not been given yet. However, there are no official records it was claimed that lately sultans married especially their concubines who were Abkhaz descendants and included them among their wives in this way, because they were free and Muslims. Thus, the matter whether Sultan Abdülhamid II's wives were concubines or wedded became the subject of some research today. Memoires claim that almost all of Sultan Abdülhamid's wives were free and of Muslim origin. According to this, it was said that the wives of Sultan Abdülhamid could not have the status of the concubine and that their relationship should have been by marriage. On the other hand, considering that a maximum of four women can be married according to Islamic law, the marriage of the Sultan, who had thirteen wives, raised juristic questions. This problem was most clearly seen in the inheritance case filed by his heirs after the death of Sultan Abdülhamid. In this case, where it was claimed that Sultan Abdülhamid was married to nine wives, no objection was made to that claim. In this study, information about the wives of Sultan Abdülhamid and their legal status was tried to be determined through the documents related to their salaries during the 2nd Constitutional Era. Besides, the issue of nine wedded women, which emerged in the case of Sultan Abdülhamid's inheritance, was evaluated in terms of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Sultan Abdülhamid was never accused of marriages contrary to Islamic law by his opponents during and after his reign. From this point of view, it can be said that there was no situation contrary to Islamic law regarding the Sultan's harem at that time. This might be due to three possibilities: Firstly, some wives have concealed the truth in the court, which is the weakest possibility according to the data obtained. Secondly, the talaq (divorcement) was hidden by Sultan Abdülhamid and his wives were not aware of it. This possibility has been found to be problematic when evaluated in terms of Hanafi fiqh. Thirdly, the practice of al-nikāh al-tanazzuhī (marriage performed in order to avoid from fornication). Considering the correspondence between the state departments in the period starting with the 2nd Constitutional Monarchy and until the Republic, it is clear that the Kadınefendis were regarded as married wives (their number was limited to four), while the Ikbals were regarded as concubines. From this point of view, it is thought that the most plausible possibility is that the Ikbals were regarded as concubines and their marriages were al-nikāh al-tanazzuhī. (shrink)

The elegy flared into existence, commanded the cultural stage for several decades, then went extinct. This book accounts for the swift rise and sudden decline of a genre whose life span was incredibly brief relative to its impact. Examining every major poet from Catullus to Ovid, Subjecting Verses presents the first comprehensive history of Latin erotic elegy since Georg Luck's. Paul Allen Miller harmoniously weds close readings of the poetry with insights from theoreticians as diverse as Jameson, Foucault, Lacan, and (...) Zizek. In welcome contrast to previous, thematic studies of elegy--efforts that have become bogged down in determining whether particular themes and poets were pro- or anti-Augustan--Miller offers a new, "symptomatic" history. He asks two obvious but rarely posed questions: what historical conditions were necessary to produce elegy, and what provoked its decline? Ultimately, he argues that elegiac poetry arose from a fundamental split in the nature of subjectivity that occurred in the late first century--a split symptomatic of the historical changes taking place at the time. Subjecting Verses is a major interpretive feat whose influence will reach across classics and literary studies. Linking the rise of elegy with changes in how Romans imagined themselves within a rapidly changing society, it offers a new model of literary theory that neither reduces the poems to a reflection of their context nor examines them in a vacuum. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Talmud Meets Church HistoryDaniel Boyarin (bio)Virginia Burrus. Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of the Apocryphal Acts. New York: Edwin Mellen, 1987.———. ‘“Equipped for Victory’: Ambrose and the Gendering of Orthodoxy.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4.4 (1996): 461–75.———. The Making Of A Heretic: Gender, Authority, And The Priscillianist Controversy. Berkeley: U of California P, 1995.———. “Reading Agnes: The Rhetoric of Gender in Ambrose and Prudentius.” Journal (...) of Early Christian Studies 3.1 (1995): 25–46.———. “Word and Flesh: The Bodies and Sexuality of Ascetic Women in Christian Antiquity.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 10.1 (1994): 27–51.[1] Prologue: Morningside Heights, 1941—A Talmudist Meets a Church HistorianIn 1944, my teacher Saul Lieberman published a classic essay in which he treated talmudic martyrology in the context of patristic literature. 1 The article had been written under the inspiration of his meeting and friendship with Henri Gregoire, the great Belgian church historian, then a refugee from the Nazis in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in New York, where Lieberman, the great Lithuanian talmudist, had also found refuge and where the two met. Nearly a half-century later, this student of Lieberman’s met another church historian, Virginia Burrus, in Morningside Heights under happier circumstances, when both of us were participants at a conference on asceticism at Union Theological Seminary, and a similar intellectual interaction began. This paper represents some of the first fruits of that second encounter and aspires to modestly continue the enterprise begun by the first.[2] Intertextuality and InterdisciplinarityAveril Cameron has recently written:The myth of early Christianity as the resort of the poor and underprivileged is precisely that, and a very convenient one it has been. It is a myth that rests, moreover, on the fallacy of an original Christianity uncontaminated by external influences; but its holders then have to explain how this “new” faith could make [End Page 52] the leap to center stage. Thus, we have been told, “the naiveté of the early Christian speech came in the course of time to wed itself to the cultures of the world.” But while much of current New Testament scholarship is directed at the internal (that is, theological) articulation of the texts, there is also a perceptible trend towards a mode of interpretation that balances the external and internal factors operative in the literary texts. It is thus less a question of the degree of “influence” of Greco-Roman or Jewish literary or philosophical elements on early Christian writing than of their integral relationship.[37–38]Judaism also (and Jewish scholarship) has had a stake in inscribing itself as pure and uncontaminated, for reasons that Philip Alexander has articulated: “The attempt to [lay down a norm for Judaism in the first century] barely conceals apologetic motives—in the case of Christianity a desire to prove that Christianity transcended or transformed Judaism, in the case of Jews a desire to suggest that Christianity was an alien form of Judaism which deviated from the true path” [3]. Indeed, the very distinctness of Judaism has been articulated by Jews as precisely its distance from a “syncretistic” Christianity whose defining feature is that it is somehow a composite of Judaism and Hellenism. 2In this essay, in conversation with some of the work of Burrus, I wish to begin to suggest a few of the ways that study of the Talmud can be further enriched through the engagement of talmudic scholars with the recent sophisticated (and especially gender-oriented) work being done on early Christianity. Indeed, I will be hinting (and in future work explicitly arguing) that we have to begin seriously thinking about Judaeo-Christianity as a single cultural system: contentious, dialectical, polemical, and sometimes friendly, but—I hasten to add—not moralistic in the homogenized “family values” sense implied by the modern usage of this term. I put forth here, as a case in point, that the richest contexts for understanding the sets of cultural tensions that gave rise to a particular talmudic text are to be uncovered in contemporary patristic literature. From the point of view of a New Historicist approach to talmudic literature, this suggests that the... (shrink)

One of the ṣaḥābīs of Prophet Muḥammad is ʿUrwa b. Masʿūd from the Ṭāʾif tribe of Thaqīf. He belongs to the Ahlâf part of the Thaqīf tribe and he is the ruler of this part. ʿUrwa’s ancestry is known without any controversy until Kasî (Thaqīf). According to a narrative his epithet was Abū Yaʿfur and another of his epithet was Abū Masʿūd. Father of ʿUrwa an important person too. He is one of the leaders of his tribe and he commanded (...) his part (Aḥlāf) in wars of Fijār. Mother of ʿUrwa is Subay’a bt. ʿAbd Shams from Banū Umayya. In this way ʿUrwa has kinship both with Banū Umayya and Prophet Muḥammad. So ʿUrwa has a very important position because of his lineage, his mother and father. Thefore, his connections with Mecca and Quraysh strengthens his position. In our sources there is no information about his dates of birth and death. It is likely to be over middle age when he became a muslim, considering that he was the leader of his tribe and his son become a muslim after he died. There is too little information about weddings of ʿUrwa. According to narratives, he had ten wives before becoming Muslim. After becoming a Muslim Prophet Muḥammad warned from him to prefer four out of ten wives. One of his four wives is the daughter of Abū Sufyān. Howev-er, there is no information about the names of his wives. Names of his sons: ʿĀṣim, Abū Murra, Abū Mulayḥ, Dāwūd, Hammām and Hishām and names of his daughters: Umm Saʿīd (married with Ḥaẓrat ʿAlī) and Ḥalīma. We could see he served as embassy before the treaty of Hudaybiyah. His embassy duty shows us the superiority of his position. Also, this embassy duty was very effective at peace negotiations. He mentioned kinship relations which connects about Mecca. He said that it could be beneficial to talk to Prophet Muḥammad himself. The Meccans mentioned about their trust in ʿUrwa. During the time of his embassy, he expressed that both sides should be away from war. In this context, he told the Meccans: The people around Prophet Muḥammad are very loyal to him and he told to Prophet Muḥammad: People around him could disintegrate easily. This mission shows us he is intelligent, respectable and had high persuasion skills. ʿUrwa, observed loyalty of ṣaḥābīs to Prophet Muḥammad. He confessed this loyalty can not be for any ruler. This observa-tion probably affected ʿUrwa’s conversion to Islam. Because of the conquest of Meccah and the events that followed, the people of Ṭāʾif were very worried. Because of this reason people of Ṭāʾif took part in the side of Hawāzin’s and they bat-tled with Muslims. In this time they sent ʿUrwa b. Masʿūd and Ghaylān b. Salama to the city of D̲j̲aras̲h̲ of Yemen, to learn about some war machines and techniques. Therefore they did not join wars of Hunayn and Ṭāʾif. Prophet Muḥammad ended the siege of Ṭāʾif and went to Medina. Meanwhile, ʿUrwa and his friend returned from Yemen. According to narratives when the Prophet Muḥammad returned Medina or he was way in Medina ʿUrwa visited him and became Muslim. Some people tell about the date of ʿUrwa’s being Muslim at before or after Abū Bakr’s emirate of Hadj. However, when the narrations are examined, it can be said he became Muslim after four or five months from Prophet’s siege of Ṭāʾif and before three or four months from Tabūk expedition of Rabīʿ al-awwal or “Rabīʿ al-ākhir” (July or August) in the year 9/630. As for the conversion of ʿUrwa, basic sources report that “Allah, inspired Islam to the heart of ʿUrwa and he changed his situation. He went to the Messenger of Allah and he became Muslim.” They do not give a specific reason. But after this period the narratives tell the reason for ʿUrwa’s becoming a Muslim as due to an experience he had while travelling to Najrān for trade. In this travel, two mysterious young girls and the priest in Najrān said the last prophet came and ʿUrwa must be subject to him and ʿUrwa became Muslim after he returned. But this narrative is prob-lematic with regard to evidence and text. After being Muslim, ʿUrwa wanted permission from the Prophet to invite his tribe to accept Islam. The prophet did not want to accept this at first. Because the people of Ṭāʾif had an arro-gant stance against Islam, and he said that the people of Thaqīf could kill ʿUrwa. Eventually ʿUrwa went to his hometown with permission of Prophet and invited people to Islam and they did not accept this invitation and cursed ʿUrwa. The next morning ʿUrwa read adhan of fajr and people of Ṭāʾif killed him. ʿUrwa b. Masʿūd was likened to Prophet Jesus by the Prophet Muḥammad. It is generally accept-ed that ʿUrwa b. Masʿūd el-Thaqafī is “one of the biggest from two cities” expressed in sūra Zukhruf. Only two weak narrations were reported of Urwa who could live as a Muslim for a few days and was matyred by his tribe. (shrink)

Suggesting that much of social science is still wedded to the ‘dogma of the ghost in the machine,’ I discuss my ethnomethodological and conversation analytic approach to the assembly of cognitive objects. It is important to reverse the usual social psychological metalanguage of mind causing behavior, and see how practices in interaction operate to display cognitive states of participants. Two examples are given: one in regard to the assembly of gestalts, including social actions in talk, and the other concerning the (...) production of responses as accountable phenomena in the survey interview. While advances are being made in brain imaging, the connections between the neurobiology of the mind and the practices embedded in human conduct are tenuous at best. For the social scientist, approaching cognition through practices puts ghosts and other ephemera in abeyance and allows for analysis of the detail exhibited in behavior when minds are purportedly at work. (shrink)

Is copyright a property right? Common law and civil law jurists have debated that issue for over three centuries. It remains at the heart of battles over copyright’s scope and duration today, even if its import lies principally in the rhetorical force of labeling a right as "property," not in any doctrinal consequence flowing directly from that label. In parallel to their common law and civil law counterparts, presentday rabbinic jurists engage in lively debate about whether Jewish law recognizes copyright (...) as a property right. And, as in secular law but for different reasons, that issue has significant repercussions in Jewish law. As discussed in rabbinic court decisions and writings, whether Jewish law accords authors a right of ownership in their works impacts such issues as whether it is permissible, without license from the author or publisher, to copy and distribute software and sound recordings, perform music in wedding halls, make copies for private and classroom use, and download songs from the Internet. There are numerous, and at times profound, differences in the terminology, form of argument, doctrinal specifics, and overarching legal framework of Jewish and secular law. Nonetheless, the arguments within the Jewish law debate have some intriguing parallels with those of secular copyright law. In fact, one finds the direct, if largely unstated, influence of secular copyright just below the surface in the debate in Jewish law about whether copyright is property. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SPLUTTERING UP THE BEACH TO NINEVEH... James Alison Rio de Janeiro I. Fleeing from the Word Jonah, ifyou remember, was a most unwilling prophet. The word of God came to him, telling him to go and preach against the great city ofNineveh, for its wickedness had come up before God. Jonah immediately went in the opposite direction. Rather than heading across the fertile crescent to Nineveh, he rushed down (...) to Jaffa and booked passage on a ship. Scripture tells us that he went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord (Jon 1,3) Not only was Tarshish quite the wrong way to go, it was a serious attempt to get away from the presence of the Living God. Why was Jonah so frightened? What was it about Nineveh that scared him? We get a clue later, when Jonah gets cross with Nineveh for repenting on cue. He hated Nineveh. He wanted it to be destroyed. He knew it to be wicked. Why go somewhere which should be destroyed and shout at its inhabitants to change their ways? They will probably give the messenger a rough time! Jonah did not appreciate that he was being sent to Nineveh for the good ofthe people there, yes, but also for his own good. At the end ofthe story he tells God that he hadn't wanted to go because he knew God was a loving God, and was too 'This talk originated as a presentation for the third annual conference ofthe Roman Catholic Caucus of the Gay and Lesbian Christian Movement held in London in March 1999. James Alison109 angry at the thought that the people ofNineveh would get off so lightly. But we're not told that at this stage. Jonah is the son of Amittai, which is to say son of "My Truth." So the whole story is set up from the beginning as one in which someone who is wedded to their own truth comes to learn God's truth the hard way. He knows what is wrong with the gentile world, but was at first able to hear only half of the word of God. He heard it as he was able to receive it: as a stern word of rebuke that he was to pass on to others. That was the state of his soul. Luckily, God had chosen someone who, invincible as he was in his righteousness, knew perfectly well that it is a terrible thing to fall into the presence ofthe living God, and suspected, at some level ofhis being that if, he, Jonah were to obey God, God would certainly break through the carapace ofordered adhesion to true religion, and come into contact with a much more turbulent, stormy world, the world of shame and fear and hatred that is the underside ofall ordered righteousness. Shame is a compulsion which heeds only one command: flee! And Jonah fled. Thank heaven for Jonah's flight! Think how much more damage is caused by those who are not vulnerable to their own shame, who really do manage to fool themselves that their righteousness and God's are cut from the same cloth. Something in Jonah's being was vulnerable to the suspicion that the word ofthe living God would wreak havoc with his own carefully covered hatred and fear, the suspicion that that hatred ofothers and fear of himselfwere aspects ofthe same as yet unredeemed dimension ofhis own life. In that vulnerability was his flight, and through it, ultimately, he was reached so as to be taught how to be a bearer ofGod's word. Andrew Sullivan has a line which catches this dynamic exactly: "Shame forces you prematurely to run away from yourself; pride forces you prematurely to expose yourself. Most gay lives, I'm afraid, are full of an embarassing abundance ofboth."2 Faced with the prospect ofshouting at an incomprehending Nineveh with the hollow pride of those who love neither themselves nor those whom they must convince, Jonah, who knew at the root ofhis heart that he had been giveln something to say, went, as many of us do, into exile. Shame forced him prematurely to... (shrink)