Through the lens of the Health Belief Model and Protection Motivation Theory, we analyzed interviews of 36 agricultural advisors in Indiana and Nebraska to understand their appraisals of climate change risk, related decision making processes and subsequent risk management advice to producers. Most advisors interviewed accept that weather events are a risk for US Midwestern agriculture; however, they are more concerned about tangible threats such as crop prices. There is not much concern about climate change among agricultural advisors. Management practices (...) that could help producers adapt to climate change were more likely to be recommended by conservation and Extension advisors, while financial and crop advisors focused more upon season-to-season decision making. We contend that the agricultural community should integrate long-term thinking as part of farm decision making processes and that agricultural advisors are in a prime position to influence producers. In the face of increasing extreme weather events, climatologists and advisors should work more closely to reach a shared understanding of the risks posed to agriculture by climate change. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 10, Page 18-20, October 2012.

Although the historical reputation of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) largely rests on his philosophical and mathematical work, it is widely known that he made important contributions to many of the emerging but still inchoate branches of natural science of his day. Among the many scientific papers Leibniz published during his lifetime are ones on the nascent science we now know as hydrology. While Leibniz’s other scientific work has become of increasing interest to scholars in recent years, his thinking about hydrology (...) has been neglected, despite being relatively broad in extent, including as it does papers on the ‘raising of vapours’ and the formation of ice, as well as the separation of salt and fresh water. That list can now be extended still further following the discovery of a previously unpublished letter of Leibniz’s on the causes of the devastating Lombardy flood of October and November 1705. This letter, which will be the focus of our paper, reveals the depth of Leibniz’s understanding of key hydrological processes. In it, he considers various mechanisms for the flood, such as heavy rains on high ground, underwater earthquakes, and a mountain collapse. Over the course of the paper we examine each of these mechanisms in depth, and show that Leibniz was in the vanguard of hydrological thinking. We also show that the letter contains one of the first scholarly attempts to apply aspects of the still-forming notion of the hydrological cycle to account for a flood event. (shrink)

This article sets out to describe how churches have responded and continue to respond to fast-changing urban environments in Pretoria Central and Mamelodi East, animating Henri Lefebvre’s sociological perspective of citadins or urban inhabitants. We make tentative interpretations and offer critical appreciation. Churches, which were historically separated from the city centre, now directly participate in claiming a right to the city. With necessary fluidity, churches express lived African urbanisms through informality, place-making, spatial innovation and everyday rituals. Though not exhaustive, the (...) article focuses on rituals shared among historic urban Christians and contemporary African urban Christians, namely prayer, listening to the Bible and worship. These rituals, when combined with the churches’ spatial innovation, to a certain degree contribute to place-making. (shrink)

Daniel, Michael E Review of: My door is always open: A conversation on faith, hope and the church in a time of change, by Pope Francis with Antonio Spadaro, trans. Shaun Whiteside, London: Bloomsbury, 2014, pp. 172, $30.00.

Victorian devotional life, both Anglican and Roman Catholic, often focused on the feast days of the Church. Indeed, even the three academic sessions at Oxford University were named after the feast days at the beginning of each term: Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity ; similarly, events on the ecclesiastical calendar often anchored events in Victorian religious novels. This article explores the possible symbolism in the feast days that frame events in Newman’s novel, Loss and Gain.

Church's thesis asserts that a number-theoretic function is intuitively computable if and only if it is recursive. A related thesis asserts that Turing's work yields a conceptual analysis of the intuitive notion of numerical computability. I endorse Church's thesis, but I argue against the related thesis. I argue that purported conceptual analyses based upon Turing's work involve a subtle but persistent circularity. Turing machines manipulate syntactic entities. To specify which number-theoretic function a Turing machine computes, we must correlate (...) these syntactic entities with numbers. I argue that, in providing this correlation, we must demand that the correlation itself be computable. Otherwise, the Turing machine will compute uncomputable functions. But if we presuppose the intuitive notion of a computable relation between syntactic entities and numbers, then our analysis of computability is circular. (shrink)

We sketch proofs of the theorems of Church-Turing and Trachtenbrot using a semi-monomorphic axiomatization.

Michael Novak's eyewitness report on the second and pivotal session of Vatican II in 1964 vividly inter weaves pageantry, politics, and theology. An unusually well-informed lay intellectual, who had earned a theological degree just before the Council, Novak applauded the purposes of Pope John XXIII and his successor Paul VI-"to throw open the windows of the church." In this report, he coined the classic description of the foes of the reforms at Vatican II as the party of "nonhistorical (...) orthodoxy," emphasizing the eternal and unchanging, neglecting history and contingency. The author recounts many moments of high drama-Pope Paul VI's opening speech, the vote on the collegiality of bishops, the plea of Cardinal Bea on behalf of the chapter on Jews, and Bishop De Smedt's defense of religious freedom. His colorful chapter on the American bishops in 1964 serves as a fascinating benchmark, as do his many insights into the new role of the laity. His final chapter is a moving tribute to the Open Church engaging the contemporary world, and his new introduction brings this report up to date. This work will be of compelling interest to those interested in the post-conciliar fall of Communism, under the great John Paul II-who took his name from his two predecessors at Vatican II. The winner of the million-dollar Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, Michael Novak is a theologian, author, and former U.S. ambassador. He currently holds the George Frederick Jewett Chair in Religion and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. where he is director of social and political studies. His writings have appeared in every major Western language, and in Chinese, Bengali, Korean, and Japanese. Also available from Transaction are his Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions, The Experience of Nothingness, The Guns of Lattimer, Unmeltable Ethnics, Belief and Unbelief, and Choosing Presidents. (shrink)

The Knowledge of God turns to consider the knowledge of God revealed in the Word of God, with several essays addressing the doctrine of God, then the person of Christ, and finally the miracle of the church. Michael Allen show the exegetical shape of historical and dogmatic reasoning as well as the significance of thinking about these topics in their interrelationships with a range of other Christian themes, not least the doctrine of the living and true God. In (...) each of these topics, the theme of the promise and nature of God's presence (whether in his own life or then in the economy of the incarnation and of the church) proves to be a unifying thread. The gospel is shown to be rooted backward in God's own life and to have consequence forward for the ongoing life of Christ displayed in his church. This volume explores what it means to learn of and come to know God, who has life in himself and then shares his life with us in the coming of his Son and the ongoing presence amidst his body, the church of Christ. (shrink)

An analysis of the business ethics of the African-American church during and after Reconstruction reveals that it is a conflicted ethic, oscillating between two poles. The first is the sacralization of the business ethic of Booker T. Washington, in which self-help endeavors that valorize American capitalism but are preferentially oriented to the African-American community are advanced as the best and only options for economic uplift. The second is the "Blackwater" tradition, which rejects any racial discrimination and insists upon social (...) justice. The inability of the Washingtonian business ethic to address the needs of the Black underclass are explored. A new business ethic is called for, which would be committed to meeting the basic needs of the mostdisadvantaged members of American society and those of the "international poor.". (shrink)

In _Church-going, Going, Gone!_ Michael Horan argues that although the Christian Church in Britain may be in terminal decline, that is not to be equated with a national decline in spiritual values. Most if not all people have some level of awareness of what he calls the 'Other-than-oneself', even though they have rejected, or never accepted, the Church’s now outdated teaching._ Church-going, Going, Gone!_ is concerned less with teaching than with learning. The book provides atheists, agnostics (...) and believers-in-exile, as well as those who have given little thought to belief, with a framework for collaborating as learners, working toward equality, peace and reconciliation, and dedicated to unselfish and imaginative social action. A new movement of the human spirit is beginning. (shrink)

Almost single-handedly, Ernest L. Fortin resuscitated the study of political philosophy for Catholic theology. Fortin's interests were vast: the Church Fathers, Dante and Aquinas, modern rights, ecumenism. All of these are in Ever Ancient Ever New, the fourth and final volume of Fortin's collected essays. Edited by Michael Foley, the volume contains articles never before published and is for anyone wishing to continue their education from Ernest Fortin or to begin learning from him for the first time.

People's opinions toward polygamy were examined in a study of 1369 adults who were current or former members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Questions addressed several areas: polygamy and the law, respondents' perceptions of polygamous women, the potential link between legalizing gay marriage and legalizing polygamy, polygamists' reliance on social welfare programs, and the ability of teens raised in polygamy to leave that lifestyle. Consistent with the contact hypothesis, multiple regression analyses showed that people who (...) knew a polygamist held more favorable opinions of polygamy. Polygamists, men, infrequent church attenders, and older people also tended to hold more favorable opinions of polygamy. Educational attainment showed weak associations with opinions, while marital status failed to predict opinions toward polygamy. (shrink)

Cameroon’s post-independence era has so far been marked by an upsurge in the number of Christian churches. This proliferation of Catholic, Protestant, and Pentecostal churches is probably the product of the heightened desire for spirituality. These churches, according to public opinion, are expected to be epicenters of good moral values and Christian behavior. Unfortunately, this has not always been the case. The present article seeks to point out that the establishment and growth of some indigenous denominations has been impacted by (...) corruption. The Presbyterian Church in Cameroon is a case in point. This article draws extensively from archival and oral sources and seeks to examine the causes and manifestations of corruption in the PCC. It also examines the effects of corruption on the Church and provides some recommendations to address this. The article concludes that Church elections, Church property, Church management, and integrity in leadership are crucial issues within the PCC around which corruption rotates. Hence, it suggests a multidimensional anti-corruption approach as the way out. (shrink)

The contentious debate over same-sex marriage raises significant questions about the public relevance of theistic ethics in addressing broad social issues beyond the moral boundaries of the Christian community. Using the issue of same-sex marriage as a case study, it is argued that “natural law” kinds of arguments can provide epistemic support as “public reasons” for cogent theological-based arguments against same-sex marriage and can be successfully defended against frequent objections to the use of religious reasons in a pluralistic context.

Crises and shortcomings of various sorts have prompted calls, especially from powerful corporate elites and organizations, for greater managerial expertise and training within the churches. This article examines a few select examples of growing reliance upon managerial techniques in church life and practice in recent years as a prelude to considering whether more areas of pastoral organization should be transformed by ideologies and techniques derived from for-profit corporations. Using examples drawn primarily from contemporary Catholicism in the United States, this (...) article aims to contribute to ecumenical discussions in ecclesiology, ethics and economics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:730 BOOK REVIEWS Yet for all this McDermott does hammer one wedge in between Aristotle and Thomas. Aristotle's God, he claims, differs vastly from Thomas's God. For Aristotle, God is the exemplar and goal of all the universe but not its efficient cause. For Thomas, he is much more than this-God is creator, the source of all being. But this position, which is by no means peculiar to McDermott, (...) seems to be contrary to what Thomas himself said on this matter. For example, in I, q.44, a.I Thomas makes explicit reference to Aristotle as one who saw that there must be an efficient cause of all existence. I was disappointed to see that this article gets short shrift in McDermott's process of con· cision. Apropos of this, McDermott's description of God as the " doing of all being" (p. xxxii), which is meant to stress God's continuous creative act, is probably not the most felicitous. It sounds odd and is difficult to understand, since doing, as opposed to making, is an action the termination of which remains within the agent. Certainly the " doings " of God, for example, to know and love, which necessarily belong to his essence, should never be confused with his " making," that is, creation, an act which he need not have performed. But the most forceful criticism should be directed at nothing less mundane than this book's price. $78.00 is very high to pay for what McDermott himself describes as " a useful translation for first reading " (p. xiv). Since he does not intend this book to replace the Summa, but rather to introduce and entice, he is competing with the much less expensive Tour, Introduction, and, to some extent, selections such as The Pocket Aquinas. If the Concise Translation is not published in a more affordable form, I doubt it will attract the readership it greatly deserves. That will be sorry indeed, for McDermott has written the finest and most faithful tour of Thomas's Summa thus far. Pontifical John Paul ll lnstitute Washington, D.C. GREGORY FROELICH The Church's Bible: Its Contemporary Authority. By DARRELL JoDOCK. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989. Pp. xi + 173. In the Introduction to his book, Darrell Jodock suggests that its vari· ous claims and arguments be approached with an " appropriate sense of humor" (p. 4). This is a delightfully refreshing invitation to which, I suspect, one ought to do one's best to respond. But after reading this book I am firmly convinced, Darrell's self-deprecating suggestion not- BOOK REVIEWS 731 withstanding, that it ought to be taken very seriously indeed... seriously by anyone who cares about the Bible, for purely scholarly reasons or purely religious reasons or for any combination of reasons. It is a thoughtful and challenging book. This review represents my own modest attempt to respond to that challenge. I would recommend The Church's Bible for a number of its virtues. Given the compactness of this book, it is remarkable how much the author actually accomplishes. He surely accomplishes his explicitly stated goals: in Part I of the book describing how the authority of the Bible became problematic in modern times, while also identifying the various strategies that have been executed to rescue its authority; in Part II articulating his own theory about what it means to say that the Bible is authoritative, offering a prescription for how the Bible ought to function for the Christian community in a postmodern culture. Yet the book does more than this, remarkably enough, providing brief but insightful analyses of such fundamental theological issues as revelation, inspiration, miracles, and the concept of God. Moreover, at the end of the book, Jodock moves beyond his account of biblical authority and into the territory of biblical hermeneutics. There he links his theory of authority to its practical implications for the project of "recontextualization," what he regards as the most fruitful way of interpreting and utilizing biblical texts. In the process of achieving these multifarious goals the book reveals something of its author's own complex identity, as Christian teacher, pastor, theologian, and intellectual historian. The first three chapters of the book represent a... (shrink)

Ministry (sharāth/šrt) in the ot is grounded in the nature of God himself. It is grounded in the nature of God’s relationship with Israel, his people. Although the Israelites had many failures, God, with love, elected and called the Israelites—both as individuals and groups—his servants, calling them to serve and to minister to the people, who were themselves ministering, as well as to be servants to the servant people of the Lord. On this basis, this essay exegetically and theologically examines (...) the priestly vocation of the ministering people, or the royal priesthood (mamleket kohănȋm [mt]; hierateuma (lxx]) in Exodus 19:6 and its related texts (Isa 61:6). It demonstrates its theological extension to the nt priestly people basileion hierateuma (1 Pet 2:5, 9–10; cf. Rev 1:6) in order to underline its theological implication for the vocation of the church, the body of Christ, in Africa and beyond. (shrink)

Using relevant encyclicals issued over the last 100 years, the author extracts those principles that constitute the underpinnings of Catholic Social Teaching about the employment relationship and contemplates implications of their incorporation into human resource policy. Respect for worker dignity, for his or her family's economic security, and for the common good of society clearly emerge as the primary guidelines for responsible human resource management. Dovetailing these three Church mandates with the economic objectives of the firm could, in essence, (...) alter the firm's nature because profit motivations would be constrained by consideration for worker and societal welfare. Integration of Church teaching with current corporate goals should therefore impact greatly on a variety of human resource policies. (shrink)

Unlike most Western nations, Israel does not recognize full separation of church and state but seeks instead a gentle fusion of Jewish and democratic values. Inasmuch as important religious norms such as sanctity of life may clash with dignity, privacy, and self-determination, conflicts frequently arise as Israeli lawmakers, ethicists, and healthcare professionals attempt to give substance to the idea of a Jewish-democratic state. Emerging issues in Israeli bioethics—end-of-life treatment, fertility, genetic research, and medical ethics during armed conflict—highlight this conflict (...) vividly. (shrink)