Major Christian Research Articles

Comprehensive personal witness: a model to enlarge missional involvement of the local church

In the The Split-Level Fellowship, Wesley Baker analysed the role of individual members in the Church. He gave a name to a tragic phenomenon with which Church leaders are familiar. Although true of society in general it is especially true of the church. Baker called the difference between the committed few and the uninvolved many, Factor Beta. This reality triggers the question: Why are the majority of Christians in the world not missionally involved through personal witness and which factors consequently influence personal witness and missional involvement? This article explains how the range of personal witness and missional involvement found in local churches are rooted in certain fundamental factors and conditions which are mutually influencing each other and ultimately contribute towards forming a certain paradigm. This paradigm acts as the basis from which certain behavioural patterns (witness) will manifest. The factors influencing witness are either described as accelerators or decelerators and their relativity and mutual relationships are considered. Factors acting as decelerators can severely hamper or even annul witness, while accelerators on the other hand, can have an immensely positive effect to enlarge the transformational influence of witness. In conclusion a transformational model is developed through which paradigms can be influenced and eventually changed. This model fulfils a diagnostic and remedial function and will support local churches to enlarge the individual and corporate missional involvement of believers.

Civic Engagement in Britain: The Role of Religion and Inclusive Values

The relationship between religion and volunteering is well documented (Putnam and Campbell, 2010; Ruiter and De Graaf, 2006), and a prevalent hypothesis for the association is that the effect of religion is mediated through religious social networks. However, research on this relationship has largely been conducted on majority Christian populations in the United States and Europe. In this study, we use two data sets, the European Values Study (1999–2008) and the Ethnic Minority British Election Survey (2010) to examine this relationship in Britain on the general population and ethnic minority population, respectively. The results suggest that religion increases volunteering primarily through bonding rather than bridging social networks. We also find that in non-Christian religions, solitary and collective religious rituals may both have an effect on civic participation, but whereas the effect of service attendance is mediated through bonding social networks, the effect of prayer is mediated more through bridging networks. Finally, values of individual autonomy and generalized trust are associated with non-religious, but not religious, participation, suggesting an alternative secular ethos of civic engagement.

Tolerance and coexistence in early modern Spain: the Moriscos of the Campo De Calatrava

There has been a widely-held consensus among historians that the Moriscos of Spain made little or no attempt to assimilate to the majority Christian culture around them, and that this apparent obduracy made their expulsion between1609 and 1614 both necessary and inevitable. This book challenges that view. Assimilation, coexistence, and tolerance between Old and New Christians in early modern Spain were not a fiction or a fantasy, but could be a reality, made possible by the thousands of ordinary individuals who did not subscribe to the negative vision of the Moriscos put around by the propagandists of the government, and who had lived in peace and harmony side by side for generations. For some, this may be a new and surprising vision of early modern Spain, which for too long, and thanks in large part to the Black Legend, has been characterized as a land of intolerance and fanaticism. This book will help to rebalance the picture and show sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain in a new, infinitely richer and more rewarding light. Trevor J. Dadson FBA is Professor of Hispanic Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, andis currently President of the Association of Hispanists of Great Britain & Ireland. In 2008 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.

Are we wasting theology in our continent?

The 2014 conference theme of the society for Practical Theology in South Africa was ‘Practical Theology in Africa and human waste’. The article asks the question whether we can do theology in Africa in such a way that the kingdom of God is realised, notwithstanding the feeling that the seed that is sown is often wasted. The growth of Christianity and southern shift of the majority of Christians to amongst others Africa, is described, discussed and questioned: Is this seed falling on fertile ground or is it wasted if one considers all the calamities of the African continent? Taking its cues from the parable of the sower the epistemological revolution and paradigm shift are outlined stating that unless doing theology within a new paradigm the kingdom of God cannot be served. It calls for new paradigm labourers who are trained to be on the marketplace, who reach out to where people are suffering and struggling and serve their needs thus following the example set by Christ in training his disciples.

Christian–Muslim differences in child survival in Egypt

Ethnic and religious inequalities in child survival have been documented in many countries. In Egypt, during the 1980s and 1990s, Christians had higher childhood mortality than Muslims despite their higher socio-economic status (SES) and concentration in urban areas. This paper explores reasons for this Christian–Muslim mortality gap. Data for this study are drawn from Egypt’s 1988, 1992, 1995, 2005 and 2008 Demographic and Health Surveys, which recorded the respondents’ religious affiliation. The main analysis compares children of Christian and Muslim mothers in survival to age five using proportional hazards Cox regression models. Results indicate that differences in the regional distributions of Christians and Muslims positively contributed to the mortality gap during the 1980s–1990s. The majority of Christians resided in Upper Egypt where childhood mortality rates were considerably higher than in other regions. However, only part of higher Christian mortality can be explained by their regional concentration. In Upper Egypt, despite their higher SES, as well as greater urban residence, Christians had higher mortality than Muslims. These findings are at odds with research demonstrating the significance of SES and urban concentration in explaining ethnic–religious mortality gaps.

Theological Implications of Young Earth Creationism and Intelligent Design: Emerging Tendencies of Scientism and Agnosticism

Creationism is a worldview that does not accept the undirected formation and development of life but requires intelligent (supernatural) intervention. We analyzed texts representing Young Earth creationism (YEC) and intelligent design (ID) for their theological content and implications by assessing their position in central issues of systematic theology. YEC proponents emphasize the young age of the Earth and the necessity of literal interpretation of Genesis as prerequisites for the Fall and redemption. ID accepts the geological age of the planet, but requires intervention during evolution. YEC maintained the traditional characteristics of the Christian God (omnipotence, omniscience, benevolence), while some ID authors refused to speculate on the nature of the alleged designer. YEC authors utilized reinterpretation of scientific data as evidence for creation and to legitimize their belief in the historicity of Genesis. This could be regarded a form of scientism. YEC theodicy concentrated on the Fall as the cause of evil and the eschatological resolution of suffering. In contrast, ID proponents attempted to solve theodicy by compensated benefits of, e.g., pain. ID did not take a clear stand regarding salvation and ecclesiology, but YEC authors considered the acceptance of evolutionary theory and Christian faith to be mostly inconsistent. YEC doctrine differed from major Christian denominations by accepting scientific evidence as a proof for the historicity of Genesis and showed signs of exclusivity regarding evolutionary proponents. In ID, no satisfactory theodicy could be observed and some ID theorists could be classified as agnostics because of doubting the identity of the designer and by limiting God's omnipotence and benevolence. Both YEC and ID demonized evolutionary theory and its proponents. Creationism seems to be on its way to becoming a new kind of denomination or an emerging novel religion.

An Evolutionary Adaptation of the Fall

AbstractAccording to John Polkinghorne, the Fall is the major Christian doctrine that is the most difficult to reconcile with contemporary science. Like him, however, I believe it is vitally important, even in this regard, to try to pinpoint the extent to which taking science seriously requires us to modify traditionally held beliefs. In this paper I focus on two problematic ideas associated with the Fall: (i) the idea of a primordial human couple (Adam and Eve), and (ii) the idea that this couple was subjected to bodily death as a result of their original misdeed. I argue that, contrary to appearances, it is possible to harmonize these beliefs with contemporary science – at least if one presupposes some kind of soul-body dualism. I also try to show that this dualism, although philosophically non-fashionable nowadays, is yet to be refuted or made redundant by current evolutionary theory or neurophysiology.

The art of listening in the early church

The Art of Listening in the Early Church. By Carol Harrison. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 336. $ 125.00.Many students and scholars mine the primary and secondary literature of early Christianity in an attempt at retrieving the various theological assumptions and conclusions of the church fathers. Those of us who do this quite often-unwittingly-operate in a manner in which we receive, assess, and explain early Christianity in almost exclusively visual terms. The writings of the church fathers arrive in our mailboxes in neatly bound volumes and are read in the relative silence of our offices or homes. Of course, we have never seen or met the author of these works. But we also seldom meet the authors of the secondary literature. When we have completed these works, we often put the volumes down without engaging their authors. When we actually produce assessments of these works (much like what you are currently reading!), they are usually found in academic journals or monographs, to be read by other academics, silently. While we are, in some sense, learning how early Christian authors thought about the Christian faith, we are not hearing these thoughts. So much of our existence and activity is lived and done in silence. Therefore, ironically, an important, perhaps essential, element of early Christian experience is lost on the modern reader: the art of Carol Harrison wants to challenge this modern tendency by making our account of early Christianity more robust and holistic.The recently appointed Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford, Harrison is a noted church historian and theologian best known for her work on Augustine of Hippo. Not surprisingly, her reading of Augustine plays an integral role in the present work. There are two central questions her book seeks to answer. How did early Christians think about listening? What evidence we have of it? The answers provided to these important questions are wide-ranging and often quite intriguing. Her approach utilizes insights from fields ranging from cognitive science to theology. She also exhibits a nimble touch in dealing with various Patristic and Late Antique ecclesial and social realities. This is an ambitious attempt at giving today's reader a sense of how Christians in the ancient world listened, and what this meant in terms of identity and formation.Early in the book Harrison establishes her methodological basis by challenging the post-Enlightenment bias toward the visual. The culture of the ancient world was profoundly oral and aural. The role preaching played thus becomes a central focus of her work. Harrison makes the assertion that around two-thirds of what we now possess of early Christian were originally intended for hearers rather than readers. This, of course, begs the question of how these texts were received. Early Christians distrusted the senses and this presented a significant challenge to Since an aural culture is by nature fleeting and unstable, one can see how the challenges begin to mount. On the other hand, such a culture presented great opportunities for early Christians. With literacy rates hovering around 10% in the ancient world, the vast majority of Christians found themselves necessarily engaged in regular participatory activities. These activities created a certain facility for literate listening. Such literacy was not formal nor was nourished within the class of the educated elite. It was nevertheless embraced and nurtured in the ancient world among the masses. Its importance is obvious when one thinks about the individual's journey from first hearing the Gospel, to catechesis, to baptism and beyond. It would probably be difficult to overstate the importance of listening in the early Christian understanding of salvation.Harrison's book is divided into three parts. In the first part Harrison situates the reader within the context of the ancient world of rhetoric. …

Old Testament spirituality in the gospel of John

The majority of early Christian documents are saturated with Jewish thought. Although Second-Temple Judaism did include a certain amount of diversity, when the Gospel of John was written in different phases during the latter half of the 1st century, the written Torah was a fixed part of Jewish Scripture. In this research, I endeavour to point out how Torah themes saturate the Prologue of the Gospel of John and also how these themes create a certain spirituality amongst its readers. A positive feature of Old Testament imagery and themes is that they are polysemantic, which made it easy for the writers of New Testament documents to reinterpret the Old Testament in the light of Jesus Christ. The author of the Gospel of John also made use of significant characters, themes and imagery, all taken from the Torah. In doing so, he created new spiritualities amongst the readers of the Gospel of John to endorse the identity, reality and a certain image and experience of the unseen God (1:18) of the Old Testament through Jesus Christ. The spirituality in the Gospel of John is bound up with a real God interacting with real people in real situations.

The Faces of the Other: Religious Rivalry and Ethnic Encounters in the Later Roman World ed. by Maijastina Kahlos (review)

Reviewed by: The Faces of the Other: Religious Rivalry and Ethnic Encounters in the Later Roman Worlded. by Maijastina Kahlos David James Griffiths Kahlos, Maijastina, ed., The Faces of the Other: Religious Rivalry and Ethnic Encounters in the Later Roman World( Cursor Mundi, 10), Turnhout, Brepols, 2012; hardback; pp. viii, 324; R.R.P. €80.00; ISBN 9782503539997. The concept of ‘Othering’ is particularly useful and interesting across the late Roman period, when, as Maijastina Kahlos’s Introduction suggests, ideas of identity were themselves so mutable. Kahlos describes the process of Othering as defining ourselves in the negative. By saying our opponents are weak, for instance, we imply that we are strong, and so come to know ourselves through the contrast. But still, those who were ‘true’ can claim the rhetorical high ground by pointing at the Other, at the flaws of the outsider, and in doing so, reduce the diversity among an external group to a faceless band of homogenised barbarians, pagans, or atheists, not only unknowable but not even worth attempting to know. The late Roman world especially was one of incredible political and cultural flux and Kahlos highlights the ways in which the flexibility of Othering was itself key to its success – it did not really matter who ‘us’ were, as long as ‘us’ was not like ‘them’. Each paper in the collection is fairly meaty: the shortest are just under twenty pages and the longest around forty. Divided into two parts, the first half of the collection considers religious difference, while the second looks [End Page 225]at ethnic. Unfortunately, the most verbose paper starts off the collection: a close reading of Paul by Anders Klostergaard Petersen, which examines Othering in ii Corinthians and only manages to produce one concrete case. Perhaps the case study approach was not as fruitful as intended and something more contextual could have been used to identify Othering in Paul and other early apostolic writings. Despite this paper, however, this is overall a very interesting collection of essays. The paper by Marika Rauhala on the Cult of Cybele and its changing depictions by Romans and Christians is a good reminder of how appeals to masculinity (the cult involved ritual castration) complicated just how ‘Roman’ its antecedence and prestige was. In this case, the Others were the castrated priests, rejected by the pagan Roman elite while their goddess was embraced. The depiction of Cybele even changed as pagan apologists sought to reaffirm the need for ritual under a growing Christian majority. Similarly, solid papers by Päivi Vähäkangas and Kahlos examine the ways in which, through rhetorical effects and binary comparisons, Christians depicted heretics and pagans as an unformed mass. It is clear that Othering occurred, even though the Christian mainstream was still undefined. It was easier to work out what they were not (‘immoral’, ‘stupid’, ‘barbarous’, ‘provincial’, etc.), although Kahlos also observes how the figure of the good Pagan could be used as a moral incentive to spur Christian adoption of moral norms. Othering could be used reflectively rather than negatively: the constructed figure of the Other invites questions as to how and why it was constructed, not whether it had any basis in reality. Anders-Christian Jacobsen’s article on ‘Images of the Other in Tertullian’ is most comprehensive, although it, like the Kahlos article, exhibits a tendency to veer into lists of examples from primary sources. What keeps both scholars focused is the clear theoretical framework from the Introduction, a framework that underpins and brings together the whole collection robustly. Turning to the second part, Antti Lampinen ably demonstrates the ways in which Gauls were constructed as a barbarous, ferocious Other, and how the same traits were then transferred to Germans. The images persisted, however, as Gaul broke into rebellion and dissent in the third century. The use of the same imagery to describe both Gauls and Germans reaffirms both the use of Othering as a purely cultural device of rhetoric and stigma – everyone outside was Other in all the same ways, the same non-Roman ways – and hints perhaps at lingering social stratification well after the integration of Gaul into the Empire proper. Benjamin Issac...

Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE by Éric Rebillard (review)

Reviewed by: Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE by Éric Rebillard Graeme Clarke Christians and Their Many Identities in Late Antiquity, North Africa, 200–450 CE. By Éric Rebillard. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2012, Pp. x, 134. $49.95. ISBN 978-0-8014-5142-3.) We know we all have multiple identities. Éric Rebillard explores the possibility of looking at early Christians not as bounded, one-dimensional characters with a single defining identity, but as persons with normal fluid (and sometimes conflicting) identities in which their Christianity was only one of a plurality of identities. To explore this thesis, he selects as a sample the testimony of writers from North Africa ranging from the late-second to the early-fifth century—namely, Tertullian, St. Cyprian of Carthage, and St. Augustine. [End Page 770] Some will be repelled by the sociological jargon that this exercise seems (unnecessarily) to entail—“groupness,” “deactivate” or “activate,” or “give salience to Christianness,” and so forth—and the analysis seems to work best in the period of Augustine, where we have fuller material and more ambiguously aligned social and religious figures and obligations. In the case of Tertullian, Rebillard is obliged to “read against the grain” (p. 6) and … to resist Tertullian’s selective focus on Christianness. When he evokes everyday situations he consistently decontextualizes them in order to force on them his own agenda about what Christianness should entail. However, the numerous objections he feels compelled to refute show that his point of view was not shared, or at least not shared by all Christians. It would be naïve to see “real” objections behind all the objections mentioned by Tertullian, but … Tertullian’s rhetorical strategy could not be effective without somehow relating to his audience’s experience. (p. 31) This leads Rebillard to be cautiously selective in Tertullian’s testimony on Christians’ behavior in their social context of the late-second and early-third century North Africa. The difficulty of this re-description of a Christian’s individual behavior in neutral sociological terms is that it is just that: a re-description. It cannot legitimately lead to the deduction of an individual’s subjective motivation. But that slippage is what Rebillard is inclined to make. A case from Cyprian is illustrative. It is clear that the majority of Christians in Carthage complied with orders of the Emperor Decius to offer sacrifice, or by bribery or other means obtained a certificate which certified that they had so offered sacrifice. They became the lapsi. In Rebillard’s terms they “did not activate their Christian membership in the context of their participation in this civic ceremony” (p. 51). But it does not follow that we can deduce from this re-description what were their personal motivations. We cannot say “the majority of Christians complied, as it was a requirement of their membership in the imperial commonwealth” (p. 60, emphasis added); or “the majority of Christians did not consider the sacrifice relevant to their [Christian] membership and accordingly performed it freely and willingly” (p. 53, emphasis added); or “the majority of Christians complied with the edict under no compulsion whatsoever” (p. 50, emphasis added). This knowingly (p. 50) rejects the testimony that we do have from Cyprian on their motivations—fear of the penalties for noncompliance, which could include the grim horrors of imprisonment prevailing in Roman conditions and deadly tortures (De lapsis 13, cp.epp.10, 11, 21); the rigors of exile (e.g., ep.24); or at least the very real prospect of utter destitution with the legal confiscation of all one’s worldly goods and personal property, expatiated at considerable length by Cyprian in De lapsis 10–12. Rebillard summarily dismisses Cyprian’s testimony (p. 50, p. 103n30) to which the reply is, to quote Rebillard’s own words, that Cyprian’s “rhetorical strategy [in De lapsis] could not be effective without somehow relating to his audience’s experience.” It is certainly refreshing to have to consider “the intermittency … of Christianness” (p. 93) in the everyday lived experience of individual Christians during the vastly [End Page 771] changing religious and social conditions prevailing in North Africa over...

God, Salvation, Terrorism: Deconstructing Christian-Muslim Narratives to Market Peace

'I do not like thee Dr. Fell, the reason why I cannot tell'. Most people do not understand why they hate those that belong to the 'other' religion, as the drivers of such feelings dwell in the subconscious realm of human mind. With Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET), we attempt to unearth the subconscious frames of grievances of faith-groups that have a long history of conflict. Religious conflicts tend to be longer and bloodier than non-religious ones. So people-groups that feel historically wronged, try to intensify the political pressure on rivals by fanning religious sentiments. Since terrorists are generally revered as freedom-fighters in their communities, terror organizations rely upon this favorable public perception to recruit cadres and raise finances. Consequently, if the causes of community grievances may be discovered and addressed, it could cut short terrorism before it raises its ugly head. In this paper, we identify the metaphorical lens utilized by Christians for Muslims in US, and vice versa. Our findings indicate that although the theme metaphors for Christian majority differ significantly from Muslim minority, both groups see each other through identical mirror-like Deep Metaphor (DM) lenses of Force, Knowledge plus Container, Connection and Journey. Peace-building procedures are prescribed to address the sub-conscious frames that communities employ to view each other. The proposed web-based intervention seeks Knowledge about the culture of 'other', thereby bypassing the psychological fear of breaking the comforting fence-walls of one's own-religion Container. The Connection that is forged through the prescribed intervention is likely to lay out strong foundation structures for deprovincialization (Pettigrew, 2011) and 'realistic empathy', as advocated by White (1984). The paper contributes to peace psychology literature on peace-building procedure and fundamentally alters the mechanism of 'contact' between rival groups by addressing the sub-conscious frames used by majority and minority religious groups in conflict.

Key Findings of Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020

July 2013 Gina A. Bellofatto is a doctoral student at Boston University School of Theology, studying international religious demography. She is a Research Associate at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts, as well as at Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs. —gbello@bu.edu C around the world today find themselves in contexts that are very different from those of forty years ago. Since 1970, many societies have experienced dramatic social upheavals and severe environmental catastrophes, yet the period from 1970 to 2010 was also a time of great technological advancement and increased connections between people around the world. Such changes challenge Christians to think differently about the people among whom they live and work, the ways in which they interact with them, and the potential for future cooperation. Christianity in Its Global Context, 1970–2020: Society, Religion, and Mission, a report produced in 2013 by researchers at the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts, offers a timely overview of the changing demographics of Christianity and Christians’ activities over the past forty years while looking forward to the next ten. If current trends continue, what will be the state of the world in 2020? Who will be the neighbors of Christians, and what issues will they be facing together? Here we summarize the key findings from the full report, which is available for PDF download at www.globalchristianity.org/globalcontext. Christianity in Its Global Context presents global data on the demographics of world religions, providing evidence for the continued resurgence of religion into the twenty-first century. It covers global Christianity, including Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism, and offers projections for where growth of all major Christian traditions is most likely to occur in the future. The bulk of the report details the Christian, religious, and social contexts of each of the twenty-one United Nations (UN) regions and what changes have occurred or will occur from 1970 to 2020, with discussions of key social issues that are putting pressure on all residents in each region. The “Mission and Society” section of the report details the status of the worldwide missionary movement, including personal contact between Christians and other religionists around the globe, the status of unreached people groups, and the religious demographics of international migrants. The report also highlights the most pressing social issues in each of the UN regions, particularly those currently being addressed by the UN Millennium Development Goals.

Developments in Christianity in Southwestern Nigeria Immediately after the First World War

Immediately after the First World War, the effect of such a massive war was already biting hard on the world populace. Nigeria as a nation shared in the problem through diseases and economic depression. This paper identifies the existing major Christian Mission organizations in Southwestern Nigeria before 1918. Their names and dates of arrival are as follows: the Wesleyan Missionary Society (September 1842), Church Missionary Society (December 1842), the Baptist Mission (February 1849), and the Catholic Mission (as from 1860). It further examines the advent of Nationalism in Christianity in Southwestern Nigeria, the occasion for it and the foremost nationalistic churches founded between the late 19th and the Early 20th Centuries. It also observes the events that happened in Southwester Nigeria vis-à-vis the aftermath of the war on Christianity and Christians in Southwestern Nigeria and how they responded to it. Some relevant literatures were consulted to dig out the facts pertaining to the study. Logical reasoning and historical method were used in treating findings and in reconciling the information and evidence in the literature. After the war, there was massive repatriation of the foreign missionary expatriates because of insufficient fund to maintain them and outbreak of diseases (prominent was the Bubonic Epidemic in Southwestern Nigeria) which resulted in the death of many people. Gates of churches founded by the missionaries were closed since they felt Africans could not administer churches independently. African Christians were grossly abandoned to their fates. Christians gathered at the gates of the secured churches to pray and fast for a divine solution to the problems. A praying society thereafter emerged. The economic depression at the time was interpreted as the aftermath of the sins of man. Solution to the Bubonic plague was found through Cura Divina (Divine Cure) by the drinking of consecrated water. The Precious Stone Society which later blossomed into the Faith Tabernacle Nigeria disproved the earlier assertion of the foreign missionaries that Africans could not oversee churches. African personnel were important in the founding of a self sustaining, self funding and self governing Christianity that addresses the myriad African existential challenges. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2013.v4n6p619

NOTE FOR EDITOR: Use Of Distance Education By Christian Religion To Train, Edify And Educate Adherents

Distance Education has been growing fast, in a marvelously diverse fashion. The efficiency, effectiveness, validity and utility of distance teaching-learning are on increase. All communities and religious groups are making use of distance learning methodology to upgrade their knowledge, skills and attitudes. Christina educational institutions in all the parts of the world are being benefitted by the Christian distance education programme. Christian websites make up more than 80 percent of the websites of the world’s five major religions. Globalisation is facilitating many Christian pioneers of multiple denominations to adopt distance teaching-learning beyond all frontiers and barriers. Baker’s guide to Christian Distance Education profiles upto 150 Christian degree programmes. Some of the popular programmes are indicated here. Christians who constitute 2.33 percent of Indian population are educationally benefitted by Christian distance education programmes. A major Christian distance education programme is offered by Andhra Christian Theological College. Its four distance courses attract students all over the country.

Religion in Newspapers in The Nordic Countries in 1988–2008

This article examines the coverage of religion in Nordic newspapers during 1988, 1998 and 2008. Through quantitative analyses of 5,000 articles in 14 newspapers, we examine the differences between the five Nordic countries and changes from 1988 to 2008. The results show that the coverage of the Lutheran majority churches in newspapers is generally declining, especially in Sweden. This is the case also during major Christian holidays. Newspapers present religion differently, in the sense that regional papers present a more traditional view of religion and religion is least covered in the tabloid press. There are differences between the five Nordic countries. The newspaper media seems to serve both as a secularising force in society, contesting the role of the majority churches – especially in Sweden and Denmark – and as support for a greater visibility of religion in the public sphere.

Through the eye of a needle: wealth, the fall of Rome, and the making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD

Jesus taught his followers that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. Yet by the fall of Rome, the church was becoming rich beyond measure. Through the Eye of a Needle is a sweeping intellectual and social history of the vexing problem of wealth in Christianity in the waning days of the Roman Empire, written by the world's foremost scholar of late antiquity. Peter Brown examines the rise of the church through the lens of money and the challenges it posed to an institution that espoused the virtue of poverty and called avarice the root of all evil. Drawing on the writings of major Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, Brown examines the controversies and changing attitudes toward money caused by the influx of new wealth into church coffers, and describes the spectacular acts of divestment by rich donors and their growing influence in an empire beset with crisis. He shows how the use of wealth for the care of the poor competed with older forms of philanthropy deeply rooted in the Roman world, and sheds light on the ordinary people who gave away their money in hopes of treasure in heaven. Through the Eye of a Needle challenges the widely held notion that Christianity's growing wealth sapped Rome of its ability to resist the barbarian invasions, and offers a fresh perspective on the social history of the church in late antiquity.

Christians and Christianity in Halachic Literature from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Middle of the Nineteenth Century

In his book Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times, Jacob Katz outlined Ashkenazi rabbinic attitudes and conduct toward Christians from the time of Rabbeinu Gershom Me’or Ha-Golah until and including Moses Mendelssohn. In this article, we will try to fill in the gaps that we believe exist in Katz’s treatment of the subject. As a rule, the Jews in the Middle Ages related to the Christians on the theoretical level as idolaters, while they were forced on the practical level to adopt a more moderate attitude toward the Christians for economic reasons. The generalization of viewing Christianity as an idolatrous religion went through a process of qualification within the context of the practical needs of the Jewish community during the Middle Ages, such as the permissibility of transacting business with Christians on their holy days. These qualifications were based on the position of Rav Yochanan that ‘‘Gentiles in the Diaspora are not actually idolaters, but merely maintain the practices of their ancestors’’, or as alternatively formulated by Rashi and other halachic authorities in the Middle Ages: ‘‘Gentiles in our times are not well versed in the nature of idolatry.’’ Another qualification voiced by the Tosafists, and reiterated in the 17th and 18th centuries, indicated that ‘‘The sons of Noah are not prohibited regarding ‘shittuf’ (i.e., belief in the Trinity).’’ In other words, only the Jews are required to believe in absolute monotheism, in contrast to others, such as the Christians, whose belief in the Trinity does not constitute a violation of the prohibition of idolatry. These qualifications, which already appeared in rabbinic literature in the Middle Ages, did not flow from a principled approach but were designed to create leniencies in matters of business relationships with idolaters that were forbidden to Jews by Talmudic law, and that were untenable for the conditions within which the Jews lived in the Middle Ages as a minority group within a Christian majority. Thus, already in the Middle Ages, the halachic authorities excluded

Are Christian/religious people poor tippers?

AbstractA web‐based survey was used to assess the relationships of religious faith and frequency of church attendance with tipping under conditions of good and bad service. Results indicated that Jews and those with no religion tipped more than Christians and members of other religions, but that the vast majority of Christians tipped at or above the normative 15% of bill size. Worship frequency also significantly interacted with service quality such that the tips of those who frequently worship vary with service quality less than the tips of those who worship less frequently. The practical implications of these results for service workers and restaurants or other service businesses with a large religious clientele are discussed.

Managing Student Protest in Republican China: Yenching and St. John’s Compared

Although similar in many respects, the two major Christian universities in Republican China adopted markedly different approaches to the common challenge of student nationalism. Case studies of the May Thirtieth Movement at St. John’s University and the December Ninth Movement at Yenching University illustrate the consequences of these sharply contrasting experiences. Whereas St. John’s was crippled by May Thirtieth, Yenching escaped December Ninth relatively unscathed. The explanation for the contrast, this paper suggests, lies not in any fundamental disagreement in the mission of the two universities or the philosophies of their famous and forceful presidents. It must be sought instead in the different campus cultures in which the student protests originated, and in the urban micro-environments in which the two universities were located: treaty-port Shanghai and post-imperial Peking.