Called to Become a Blessing

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-411
Author(s):  
Martin Prudký

The religious traditions and texts of ancient Israel have shaped European civilization and culture in a fundamental way. One of the key motifs that the Hebrew Bible has contributed to the formation of the spiritual traditions of this culture is the conception that faith entails a ‘stepping out’ of the status quo on the new journey to which God calls a person. An archetypal story in this respect is the narrative concerning the call of Abram (Gen. 12:1–3). This paper presents the basic motifs of Abram’s call in the context of the book of Genesis and sketches their impact on subsequent religious traditions. It pursues the question of the relationship of vocation and mission (of ‘stepping out’ and ‘charting a course’), which are two fundamental aspects of Abraham’s role as ‘the father of the faith’. In addition, this paper reflects on these motifs’ potential to impact the public domain.

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Mary Varghese ◽  
Kamila Ghazali

Abstract This article seeks to contribute to the existing body of knowledge about the relationship between political discourse and national identity. 1Malaysia, introduced in 2009 by Malaysia’s then newly appointed 6th Prime Minister Najib Razak, was greeted with expectation and concern by various segments of the Malaysian population. For some, it signalled a new inclusiveness that was to change the discourse on belonging. For others, it raised concerns about changes to the status quo of ethnic issues. Given the varying responses of society to the concept of 1Malaysia, an examination of different texts through the critical paradigm of CDA provide useful insights into how the public sphere has attempted to construct this notion. Therefore, this paper critically examines the Prime Minister’s early speeches as well as relevant chapters of the socioeconomic agenda, the 10th Malaysia Plan, to identify the referential and predicational strategies employed in characterising 1Malaysia. The findings suggest a notion of unity that appears to address varying issues.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 379-402
Author(s):  
ANDREW MCKENZIE-MCHARG

AbstractIn 1789 in Leipzig, a slim pamphlet of 128 pages appeared that sent shock waves through the German republic of letters. The pamphlet, bearing the title Mehr Noten als Text (More notes than text), was an ‘exposure’ whose most sensational element was a list naming numerous members of the North German intelligentsia as initiates of a secret society. This secret society, known as the German Union, aimed to push back against anti-Enlightenment tendencies most obviously manifest in the policies promulgated under the new Prussian king Frederick William II. The German Union was the brainchild of the notorious theologian Carl Friedrich Bahrdt (1741–92). But who was responsible for the ‘exposure’? Using material culled from several archives, this article pieces together for the first time the back story to Mehr Noten als Text and in doing so uncovers a surprisingly heterogeneous network of Freemasons, publishers, and state officials. The findings prompt us to reconsider general questions about the relationship of state and society in the late Enlightenment, the interplay of the public and the arcane spheres and the status of religious heterodoxy at this time.


2010 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 1049-1070
Author(s):  
LUCY BATES

ABSTRACTInterpretations that solely emphasize either continuity or controversy are found wanting. Historians still question how the English became Protestant, what sort of Protestants they were, and why a civil war dominated by religion occurred over a hundred years after the initial Reformation crisis. They utilize many approaches: from above and below, and with fresh perspectives, from within and without. Yet the precise nature of the relationship of the Reformation, the civil war, the interregnum and the Restoration settlement remains controversial. This review of recent Reformation historiography largely validates the current consensus of a balance of continuity and change, pressure for further reform and begrudging conformity. Yet ultimately it argues that continuity must form the foundation for any interpretation of the Reformation, for controversial or dramatic alterations to the status quo only made sense to contemporaries in the context of what had come before. Challenging ideas, like challenging individuals, did not exist in a vacuum devoid of historical context. The practical limits of possibility, constrained largely by the established norms and procedures, shaped the course of English Reformation. As such, practicality seems a unifying and central theme for current and future investigations of England's long Reformation.


Slavic Review ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 762-786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Loukianov

The article analyzes the relationship of conservatives to the political order that arose after the 1905 revolution. It suggests that by the start of World War I, a dissatisfaction with the status quo had become a characteristic feature of Russian conservatism. The archaic formula “orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality” was the quintessential conservative discourse, both for nationalist supporters of conservative reforms and for opponents of any innovation such as Dubrovin’s All-Russian Union of the Russian People. But this formula existed in sharp contradiction to the realities of “renewed Russia.” Conservatives continually underscored the lack of correspondence between reality and their conservative dogma. In conservative circles, the growth of social tensions on the eve of the war was also understood as evidence of the inadequacy of the new political order. Because of this, Russian conservatives did not aspire to preserve the Third of June system and did not try to restore it after February 1917.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward G. Brown ◽  
Patricia K. Howard ◽  
Daniel Moore

AbstractBackgroundThis paper aims to provide a model that can be used to simulate the effect of patient presentation counts on ED boarder counts and investigate strategies that might be used for managing ED boarding levels.MethodsA boarding simulation model is constructed using a random variable and two regressions that are linked together in a difference equation. The simulation is run under varying constraints, including time interval, presentation counts, and boarder count threshold. Bootstrapping is used to run the simulation a large number of times so that mean and medians can be calculated along with confidence intervals.ResultsThe method outlined in this paper can be used to simulate the effect of presentation levels on ED boarder counts. Using these methods one can derive quantifiable estimates of time that an emergency department might meet or exceed a particular boarder count threshold.ConclusionsThese simulation methods can help an emergency department understand the dynamics of the system in the status quo of normal operations and quantify the relationship of presentation counts and throughput to the hospital. We are hopeful that others may use these methods, adapting, developing, and testing for their own institutions.


Author(s):  
Nadejda K Marinova

Utilizing firsthand interviews with activists and Lebanese diaspora leaders, the chapter centers on the active role of a coalition of Lebanese-American organizations who advanced their positions and those of the Bush administration in promoting, before UN diplomats, members of Congress, the public, and the media, the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004). UNSCR 1559 mandated Syrian withdrawal from Lebanese territory and militia disarmament. The chapter also analyzes the involvement of Lebanese-American organizations in lobbying for the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (2003). The novel relationship between US policymakers and their junior Lebanese-American allies was in contrast to the 1990s, when Washington was interested in preserving the status quo with Syria and doors had been closed for the Lebanese diaspora activists. The relationship upholds the theoretical model central to this work, and it traces the interaction between the Bush administration and Lebanese-American organizations from 2001 until 2005, when Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon.


Author(s):  
David Holland

This chapter considers the complex relationship between secularization and the emergence of new religious movements. Drawing from countervailing research, some of which insists that new religious movements abet secularizing processes and some of which sees these movements as disproving the secularization thesis, the chapter presents the relationship as inherently unstable. To the extent that new religious movements maintain a precarious balance of familiarity and foreignness—remaining familiar enough to stretch the definitional boundaries of religion—they contribute to secularization. However, new religious movements frequently lean to one side or other of that median, either promoting religious power in the public square by identifying with the interests of existing religious groups, or emphasizing their distinctiveness from these groups and thus provoking aggressive public action by the antagonized religious mainstream. This chapter centres on an illustrative case from Christian Science history.


Author(s):  
Minh-Tung Tran ◽  
◽  
Tien-Hau Phan ◽  
Ngoc-Huyen Chu ◽  
◽  
...  

Public spaces are designed and managed in many different ways. In Hanoi, after the Doi moi policy in 1986, the transfer of the public spaces creation at the neighborhood-level to the private sector has prospered na-ture of public and added a large amount of public space for the city, directly impacting on citizen's daily life, creating a new trend, new concept of public spaces. This article looks forward to understanding the public spaces-making and operating in KDTMs (Khu Do Thi Moi - new urban areas) in Hanoi to answer the question of whether ‘socialization’/privatization of these public spaces will put an end to the urban public or the new means of public-making trend. Based on the comparison and literature review of studies in the world on public spaces privatization with domestic studies to see the differences in the Vietnamese context leading to differences in definitions and roles and the concept of public spaces in KDTMs of Hanoi. Through adducing and analyzing practical cases, the article also mentions the trends, the issues, the ways and the technologies of public-making and public-spaces-making in KDTMs of Hanoi. Win/loss and the relationship of the three most important influential actors in this process (municipality, KDTM owners, inhabitants/citizens) is also considered to reconceptualize the public spaces of KDTMs in Hanoi.


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