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The importance of participation for Christian children’s spiritual education
Get PDFThis essay addresses the negative influence that consumerism can have on children’s development and looks in particular at how it impacts their spiritual growth. Using evidence from psychology and educational studies, it makes the case that a ‘learning-by-doing’ approach is more effective than employing a system of exchange in spiritual education (whereby the adult is cast as producer and the child as consumer). This participative approach will not only establish the children in their faith, but also strengthen the faith of the adults and the whole church community in turn.
(This paper was selected as the winning entry in the 2018 Fraser Essay Prize competition.
Introduction: The Westminster Confession in the Church of Scotland today
No full textThe papers that follow originate from a conference held by the Church of Scotland’s Theological Forum at New College, Edinburgh on 8 May 2019. The conference was organised as part of ongoing discussions resulting from the 2018 General Assembly’s instruction to the Forum to revisit issues related to the church’s confessional position
The Relationship Between Physical and Virtual Worlds in Warfare Practices and Representations
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The Geopolitics Of Syria’s Reconstruction: A Case Of Matryoshka
Get PDFThe supply of, and demand for, the reconstruction of Syria is grossly mismatched in both focus and volume. This essay examines whether Russia, the United States, the European Union, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel are likely to close, maintain or increase this gap. Such an examination helps assess the prospects for Syria’s future stability. In the final analysis, the combination of the variable global interests of the US (war on terror, anti-Iran) and Russia (re-establishing great power status, keeping Syria on its side) with the regional conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran makes the reconstruction of Syria hostage to irreconcilable agendas given the country’s association with Iran. Potential intermediaries like Turkey and the EU will not engage in countrywide reconstruction at this point. Turkey suffers from domestic turmoil and radical shifts in its foreign policy that have rendered it ineffective, while the EU’s foreign policy indecisiveness has relegated it to the sidelines. Israel was never going to engage directly in Syria’s reconstruction but also finds itself without political influence other than the one-trick pony of its regular airstrikes. The result is that the reconstruction of Syria will be fragmented, incomplete and focused on the immediate interests of the regime, Russia and Iran, with attendant negative consequences for the livelihood prospects of the average Syrian in the short to medium term. There is an urgent need for detailed scenario-planning that explores the long-term consequences of this state of play – for the Syrian regime, for the Syrian population, for Syria’s neighbours and beyond
Can it be more difficult to know something when there is a great deal at stake?
Get PDFThere are a plethora of highly plausible cases, such as DeRose’s bank cases, in which our intuition very strongly suggests that it can be more difοcult to know something when there is a great deal at stake. Intuitively, though, whether or not an agent knows a proposition should not depend on what is at stake for that agent, but rather on such things as the subject’s evidence, their justiοcation and the truth or falsity of the object of purported knowledge. This paper attempts to provide a survey of the existing literature on this topic and to provide an assessment of the prospects for a coherent account of the stake-sensitivity of knowledge, assuming that such sensitivity obtains. The author begins with an exposition of DeRose’s bank cases, which is followed by arguments for and against the stake-sensitivity of knowledge. After a brief exploration of the experimental literature regarding folk intuitions in cases that purport to demonstrate stake-sensitivity, this paper will consider two accounts of the stake-sensitivity of knowledge—namely epistemic Contextualism and Subject-Sensitive Invariantism (SSI)—examining the beneοts and drawbacks of each in turn. The author will argue that SSI is best-placed to account for the stake-sensitivity of knowledge, mostly because of a strong and largely unresolved linguistic objection levied against the very heart of Contextualism
“Being Saved: Explorations in Human Salvation” edited by Marc Cortez, Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton
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Marc Cortez, Joshua R. Farris and S. Mark Hamilton, eds., Being Saved: Explorations in Human Salvation (London: SCM Press, 2018), pp. xxi + 361, ISBN 978-0334054955. £35.0
A Successful LIfe: Hermanus Contractus and Disability Theology
Get PDFThis study contextualizes the case of the medieval disabled Benedictine monk and scholar Hermanus of the Reichenau with modern theological approaches to disability, resulting in the challenge of several assumptions. Neither Hermanus’ theology nor his identity are defined by his disability. This is both confirmed and contradicted by modern theologians. Liberation from expectations such as virtuous suffering and the importance of mutuality and community emerge as keys to a self-determined successful life fulfilling Shakespeare’s concept of a ‘narrative’. An explicit disability theology is not only not necessary, but may be counterproductive and limiting, both of God and of self