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La Razón de ser de los metodistas hoy: Una lectura del sermón “La Gracia Libre” de Juan Wesley para nuestros tiempos
No full textAlmost three hundred years have passed since John Wesley began the Methodist movement in England, and some may question its relevant to our current context. This article explores the role of Methodism through a contemporary re-reading of John Wesley\u27s sermon Free Grace. In dialogue with the current state of social, economic, and spiritual crises, the author compares the Wesleyan doctrine of universal grace and free will with the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and affirms the live-giving doctrine of free grace, which offers hope and social responsibility in the face of inequality and social injustice. By affirming these Wesleyan doctrines, Methodism returns to its original mission to reform the nation, particularly the Church; and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.”
Han pasado casi trescientos años desde que Juan Wesley inició el movimiento metodista en Inglaterra y algunos pueden cuestionar su eficacia para nuestro contexto actual. El artículo explora la relevancia contemporánea del metodismo a través de una relectura desde nuestros tiempos del sermón “La Gracia Libre” de Juan Wesley. En diálogo con el estado de las crisis sociales, económicas y espirituales, el autor examina la doctrina wesleyana de la gracia universal y el libre albedrío con la doctrina calvinista de la predestinación y concluye con la afirmación de la gracia libre que ofrece esperanza y responsabilidad social ante la desigualdad y el fatalismo de la sociedad. Afirmando estas doctrinas originales el metodismo retoma su misión original de “reformar la nación y esparcir la santidad escritural sobre la tierra”
The Theology of Home: Cultivating Faith and Belonging Through Community and Hospitality as a Reflection of God’s Presence in the Community and Church
No full textThis dissertation examines the essential human need for belonging and its theological significance in shaping faith, identity, and community. Drawing on biblical texts, historical theological perspectives, and contemporary ecclesiological discourse, this study explores the church as a spiritual home—a sacred space of belonging where relationships foster deeper engagement with God and one another. This study contends that the modern church is in decline, and to revitalize it, we must reclaim the ecclesial essence of home. Rather than relying on institutional structures or programming strategies, churches must prioritize relational engagement and radical hospitality and cultivate authentic communities. Organizations like Mission Waco exemplify this transformative approach, alleviating homelessness through the incarnational presence of Christ in intentional community and service. By integrating theological reflection with practical insights for church renewal, this dissertation contends gathering and hospitality are not merely components of the church’s mission but central to its identity. Faith communities flourish when they embody God’s love through radical welcome and genuine fellowship, inviting individuals to experience spiritual transformation and communal belonging. Ultimately, this study calls for a renewed ecclesiology that values relational depth over institutional formality, reclaiming the church as a living, welcoming home for all. While this study aims to develop a comprehensive theological vision of the church as a spiritual home, its primary focus is on the essence and characteristics of such a faith community rather than offering a detailed practical guide for implementation
Democratization of the Private Markets?
No full textU.S. initial public offerings are declining and the amount of private market assets under management are exploding. Simultaneously, the number of retail investors opening taxable brokerage accounts is increasing. Private market assets are hot. Everyone–both institutional and retail investors–wants in on the action. Yet considerations such as financial resources and U.S. securities laws make such investment less accessible for many retail investors. In this short article, we explore this changing investment landscape and, specifically, one development within this craze: retail investments in private company shares via closed-end funds (or CEFs).
Recently, CEFs like ARK Venture Fund and Destiny Tech100, Inc. have been developed with the explicit goal of democratizing equity investment in private companies. ARK and Destiny cater to retail investors, who want to direct their own investments via commission-free trading apps. Many of these retail investors have long been foreclosed from investing in private company shares because they do not qualify as “accredited investors” based on their wealth or income. However, CEFs like ARK and Destiny are changing this longstanding status quo.
Our goal is to begin a scholarly focus on this time of “democratization of private markets.” Accordingly, we explore several considerations with respect to CEFs. These include the lack of voting rights afforded to retail investors in the underlying securities of the fund; the diversification offered to investors; the risk of increasing institutionalization of the private markets; the liquidity of fund shares; and the need for investor education to facilitate retail investor inclusion. We also touch upon proposed legislation which suggests a burgeoning national focus on facilitating more widespread investment in private market assets
Household Bargaining, Healthcare Access, and Insurance Decisions: Understanding Health Disparities in the U.S.
No full textHealth outcomes and access to healthcare are shaped by household decision-making, structural barriers, and individual behavior. This dissertation examines three key dimensions of health equity in the United States: maternal bargaining power in child health, vaccination disparities between immigrants and U.S.-born individuals, and predictors of health insurance enrollment. The first study uses National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data to examine how maternal bargaining power—proxied by the sex ratio in the marriage market—affects child health outcomes. The findings show that greater maternal influence leads to increased investment in children’s well-being and, consequently, improved health outcomes. By integrating household bargaining and health capital theory, the study highlights how intra-family decision-making shapes intergenerational health. The second study applies Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to NHIS data and finds that insurance coverage differences explain about 70% of the flu vaccination gap between immigrants and natives, with cultural beliefs modestly narrowing the gap. The third study compares predictive models and shows that XGBoost, enhanced by data balancing and feature engineering, outperforms traditional methods in identifying individuals at risk of being uninsured. Together, these studies offer data-driven insights into improving healthcare access and equity
The Surface Water And Ocean Topography (SWOT) Mission For River And Lake Ice Application
No full textThe Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission, launched in December 2022, is designed for global survey of Earth’s surface water. However, the seasonal freezing of lakes and rivers combined with SWOT’s unique interferometric radar characteristics presents a valuable opportunity to assess its potential for river and lake ice applications. In this dissertation, I first compare backscatter characteristics over open water and frozen lakes and rivers. I demonstrate strong contrast in backscatter between water and ice while accounting for incidence angle, highlighting SWOT’s capability to discriminate between surface cover types. However, overlapping backscatter signatures suggest further investigation of drivers of these variations such as ice and snow conditions. I then evaluate SWOT’s ice surface height with in-situ GNSS data collected from rivers and lakes near Fairbanks, Alaska. Results demonstrate varying agreement with root-mean-square errors of approximately 0.66m for rivers and 0.23m for lakes. Varying agreement emphasize the need for continued assessment of SWOT’s elevation products across a broader range of water bodies and through diverse validation approaches. Overall, SWOT demonstrates promising capabilities for both ice detection and ice surface height retrieval, positioning it as an exciting tool for sub-Arctic hydrology and broader cryosphere application
The Texas Two-Step: Rewriting the Rules in the Battle for Corporate Domicile
No full textThis paper examines the evolution of jurisdictional dominance in corporate chartering, tracing the pivotal transition from New Jersey to Delaware and its relevance to the emerging challenge of Texas today. In the early twentieth century, Delaware seized corporate supremacy by offering a permissive legal code, a stable statutory regime, and a specialized Court of Chancery—laying the institutional foundation for a century of dominance in corporate law.Today, Texas is executing its own strategic “two-step”: combining legislative reform with the creation of a specialized Business Court to directly compete with Delaware’s model. Through Senate Bill 29 and House Bill 15, Texas has codified robust director protections, reformed shareholder litigation procedures, and established a dedicated forum for complex business disputes designed to deliver efficiency and legal sophistication.Crucially, Texas\u27s early business court decisions, including the landmark ruling in Primexx Energy Opportunity Fund, LP v. Primexx Energy Corp., provide compelling proof of concept. In Primexx, the Texas Business Court decisively upheld contractual freedom within the statutory framework of the Texas Business Organizations Code, signaling the court\u27s commitment to enforce negotiated agreements swiftly and predictably.By analyzing historical precedent, legislative innovation, and emerging case law, this article argues that Texas is not merely positioning itself to compete—but may soon disrupt Delaware’s preeminence in corporate governance. Success will depend on more than statutory reform: it requires sustained investment in judicial expertise, procedural predictability, and institutional credibility, which historically proved decisive in Delaware’s ascent. In doing so, this paper offers a dynamic framework for understanding corporate jurisdictional competition in the modern era
Illiquidity Meets Intelligence: AI-Driven Price Discovery in Corporate Bonds
No full textWe study the contribution of AI-generated reference prices to intraday price discovery in markets with infrequent trading. Using corporate bond transactions and MarketAxess CP+ quotes, we find that CP+ is more informative about future trade prices than the last trade. Regression analysis shows that CP+ quote updates are systematically related to market-wide movements in bond, equity, and options markets, as well as bond-specific non-public information from the RFQ process. CP+ provides broad coverage across bonds and trading days. Its contribution to price discovery exhibits a bell-shaped relationship with liquidity and increases under market uncertainty. Following a trade report, CP+ updates quickly in the direction of the trade. We show that this can limit its contribution during periods driven by large transitory price shocks
Voice of My People: An Expression of Welcome and Liturgical Justice for Afrodiasporic People in North American Catholicism
No full textMusic has always been central to the lives of Black people. The Black religious experience is even more profound when expressed through music. It is therefore no happenstance that music is of great import as pertains to the spiritual lives of Black people, including Black Catholics. Faith is expressed through culture. It is through culture that the faith is realized and known. In this, is the essence of inculturation.
Anscar Chupungco states that if not inculturated, the liturgy of the local Church will remain at the periphery of people’s cultural experience. For this reason, it is imperative that Afrodiasporic music be included in the liturgy for the faith formation of Black Catholics, as an act of hospitality and liturgical justice. In this thesis, I use my recent Mass setting, Voice of My People, to support various assertions made in this thesis. Multiple methodologies—including musicological, historical, ethnographic, and artist intervention—are used to support various hypotheses pertaining to inculturation, multiculturalism, and liturgical justice. Ethnographic research was conducted at six parishes across the United States yielding quantitative and qualitative data. As the United States becomes more ethnically diverse, so too, must the American Catholic Church respond by becoming more welcoming to people of various cultures.
This thesis situates Black Catholic music as an important facet of Black sacred music more broadly in a nuanced conversation about Black theology and spirituality within a Catholic context