Thinking socially: why it matters

Theology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 122 (4) ◽  
pp. 276-284
Author(s):  
Sean Cathie

This article argues that a failure to draw on social and contextual perspectives, in both pastoral care and theological reflection, is behind failures in effective practice and theological reflection. This is demonstrated by reference to the clergy’s experience of pastoral care and some recent examples of theological reflection on the state of the Church today. Missing in both cases is reference to the social and contextual consequences of the catastrophic decline in church membership of the ‘long 1960s’. It is suggested that ignoring these factors reflects the impact of the decline.

Author(s):  
T. N. Grudina

The article deals with current problems of the development of stateconfessional relations in modern Russia, as well as analyzes individual historical stages that directly determined the main directions in the interaction between the institutions of the Church and the state. The author highlights the key areas of relations between the Church and the state in modern conditions, and notes the difficulties in spreading the religious worldview. The article identifies the challenges and threats that arise in the conditions of functioning of stateconfessional relations, as well as considers the positive and negative aspects of the impact of religious organizations on various spheres of society. Based on empirical data, it is shown how adherents of various religious doctrines perceive the activities of religious organizations in the framework of cooperation with the state. The influence of religious values and attitudes on the functioning of moral norms in society is analyzed. New prospects and ways of development in the interaction of various public institutions and religious organizations in the modern socio-political space are outlined. As a result, we identified common tasks directed towards transforming the social life of society, which are being solved jointly at the state-Church level in our country.


Author(s):  
Detlef Pollack ◽  
Gergely Rosta

The chapter on Poland focuses on two questions. Why, in contrast to all other state-socialist countries, did the church’s capacity for integration actually increase rather than decrease despite persecution and discrimination during the communist period? And why has this capacity also remained more or less constant (albeit to a lesser extent) in the period since the end of communist rule? The authors have identified four key factors in the remarkable resistance of the Polish Catholic Church during the period of communist persecution: the fusion of religious and national values, the specific conflict dynamics of the church’s struggle with the state, the structural conservatism of agricultural production in Poland, and the actions of Pope John Paul II. Explanations for the surprising stability of religiosity in Poland after 1990 point to the behaviour of the Church itself, to the internal pluralization of Catholicism, and to the impact of a homogeneous religious culture.


2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Van Oudtshoorn

Irrevocably singular: Baptism as a symbol of unity in the church. In this article I conduct a phenomenological analysis of the concept ‘one baptism’ in Ephesians 4:4−6. Such an analysis seeks to reveal the essence of a particular concept by bracketing out the theological and ideological presuppositions usually associated with it. The essential concept is then expanded by linking it to the terms most closely surrounding it in the text. A critical theological reflection on the expanded concept shows that ‘one baptism’ refers to an event by which believers are inducted, once and for all, into the church as the one body of the one Lord, Jesus Christ. The church exists through the presence of the one Spirit who binds believers in an unbreakable bond of love to God and to each other. Because baptism can never be undone or repeated, any liturgical act depicted as a ‘re-baptism’ is, by definition, impossible. This means that churches that baptise the children of believing parents are able to accommodate requests from people who, having been baptised as an infant, in later life wish to celebrate and testify to some significant milestone in their spiritual journey by means of an official church ritual. Such ritualised testimonies, however, refer to the existential lifeworld of believers (their repentance, confession of faith etc.) and are distinct from baptism that refers to the singular eschatological work of Christ and thus cannot be repeated. The church should, however, take pastoral care to ensure that people do not substitute their own spiritual experiences for the reality of salvation that is founded on the singular act of God, for us once and for all in Christ, to which baptism irrevocably refers.


Author(s):  
Beverley Haddad

The field of theology and development is a relatively new sub-discipline within theological studies in Africa. The first formal post-graduate programme was introduced at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa during the mid-1990s. In the early years it was known as the Leadership and Development programme and since 2000, as the Theology and Development programme. Over the past twenty years, this programme has graduated over 160 BTh Honours, 100 MTh, and 15 PhD students. This article outlines the history of the programme, addresses its ideological orientation, its pedagogical commitments and preferences in curriculum design. It further argues that theological reflection on “development” must seek to understand the prophetic role of the church in responding to the complexities of the social issues facing the African continent.  Key to this discussion is the contested nature of “development” and the need for theological perspectives to engage this contestation through a social analysis of the global structures of injustice. This requires an engagement with the social sciences. It is this engagement of the social sciences with theological reflection, the essay argues, that has enabled the students who have graduated from the Theology and Development Programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal to assist the church and faith-based organisations to become effective agents of social transformation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 49-59
Author(s):  
Nataliia Lipovska ◽  
Mykola Malanchii

The article reveals the technology of assessing the professional suitability of officials to perform their functions on the basis of the method of modeling and comparing assessments with the necessary parameters for the position, ie with the model. The term "model" is used as a holistic description of the coordination of the requirements of the social system (SS) with the possibilities of their implementation. The model in this case is a professional standard, which is developed for each position. The professional standard is the agreed standard by which employees should work. This method - the method of evaluation using a professional standard, is the result of the implementation of the principle of consistency in the construction of the model. According to the authors, the method is not only novelty approach, but also versatility. It is possible to estimate by means of a professional standard not only the expert, but also group, potential of collective, it is possible to make comparisons, to define weaknesses and strongnesses of the organizations. The technique developed by authors is offered that allows to carry out various necessary variations with the estimated signs, including visual display of results in various forms.Job modeling refers to ideal or imaginary modeling (as opposed to material, substantive, when modeling physical and mathematical objects) and is based largely on the idealization of the object. In our opinion, at no stage can the model be embodied in an absolutely accurate copy due to the unforeseen influence of many external factors.Modeling of evaluation characteristics in personnel activity is a necessary element in the real assessment of the state of affairs in the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine. That is why their importance is growing in the context of its reform, taking into account the impact on it of both negative and positive factors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (87) ◽  
Author(s):  
Oksana Zahidna ◽  
◽  
Vasylyna Ignatyshyna ◽  
Uliana Skydan ◽  
◽  
...  

A significant place in the social and economic development of each country belongs to the problems of the budget, because the budget belongs to the sphere of public life that directly affects the interests of all members of society. The budget of any country reflects the important economic, social and political problems of the state and each person in particular. At the same time, the successful solution of budget problems is possible only if a proper understanding of its essence, role and place in the system of economic relations. For any country, the state budget is the main link in the financial system. As part of this system, it combines the main financial categories: income and expenditure of the country, the tax system, public credit, public debt in their closest coexistence. The budget as a financial plan of public expenditures and sources of their coverage plays an important role in the activities of the state. It determines its capabilities and development priorities, its role and forms of implementation of the functions assigned to it. It is an effective regulator of that economy reflects the amount of financial resources required by the state, determines specific areas of use of funds, directs the financial activities of the state. The article analyzes and defines the essence of revenues and expenditures of the state budget. The state and dynamics of state budget revenues and budget expenditures are studied. A comparison of state budget revenues and expenditures was made and it was investigated that expenditures significantly exceed revenues, and therefore the state budget is in deficit. The factors of formation of revenues and expenditures of the state budget at the present stage are determined. The dynamics of GDP growth rates and state revenues are analyzed budget, as well as the impact of GDP on the state budget. The peculiarities of the influence of the foreign trade factor on the revenues and expenditures of the state budget are determined. The influence and shares of exports and imports in the state budget revenues are studied. The current problems of imbalance of the state budget and the causes of the state budget deficit are identified. Ways to balance revenues and expenditures at the present stage are proposed. The dynamics of indicators of export and import of Ukraine is analyzed. The problems of Ukraine 's foreign trade at the present stage are investigated and perspective directions of improvement of the existing state of the export – import policy of the state are determined.


2013 ◽  
pp. 226-232
Author(s):  
Igor Isychenko

Mistakes in the assessment of the church situation in Ukraine are most often associated with an irrational decisive influence on the confessional situation of the social realities of the post-communist society. A factor that is indisputable for an American citizen is that religious faith is a personal business in Ukraine can be declared, but not seriously perceived by any political force. Moreover, traditionally atheistic parties reveal unexpected activity in confessional affairs. I do not know if they saw here, in the USA, the election racist video of the party of Progressive Socialists Natalia Vitrenko? There, the devout grandmother in the church turns to the high monk in a hood for blessing. He suddenly returns - he's black! My grandmother scowled back, and on the screen are visible titles: "Let's protect the canonical Orthodoxy!"


1934 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 285-299
Author(s):  
Cyril K. Gloyn

The era of the English Reform Bill of 1832 presented difficulties and dangers to both state and church. For the state it set the task of achieving a social order—of forming a new social mind—in a period when social change had destroyed the basis of custom in English life and thought. The rise and growth of mechanized industry had produced both a new working class separated from the land and the processes of production and with only its labor to sell in return for a meager livelihood, and a new industrial middle class which, finding itself excluded from the rights and privileges of the state, had set about the task of acquiring a political position comparable to its new economic status. Though the latter group secured the passage of the Reform Bill, to secure social stability was a much more difficult task. The industrial society showed itself as a divided society, described by Disraeli as “two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy … as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets,” a society in whose towns a French writer of the period could discover “nothing but masters and operatives.”


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanja Nišić ◽  
Divna Plavšić

Th is paper analyzes the concept of media construction of reality and its impacton society. Recognizing the growing infl uence and importance of themedia in a man’s daily life, it can be said that the media and media cultureitself are an important factor in modern society. Th e media have the abilityto place information and to provide to the citizens-consumers to accept themwithout critical and conscious interpretation and real understanding. An importantfactor in the development of the media is and technological advancesthat contributed to the rapid spread of the media and gave more power to thepresentation of reality and the state of society as it corresponds to the creatorsand the “constructors” of that reality. By understanding Baudrillard and hisunderstanding of the simulation, we will present the impact and role of themedia in constructing the social reality (simulation of reality).


Author(s):  
Ediene Do Amaral Ferreira ◽  
Verônica Gesser

ABSTRACTThis paper aims to identify the Communication course curricular trajectory in Brazil, in order to reflect on possible impacts on teaching and learning processes within the local educational contexts of undergraduate Social Communication courses. The discourses present in curricular public policies towards this area of knowledge have been shaped by neoliberal logic, which features a context governed by the laws of the market and the democratic Social Welfare State mischaracterization, that is, the State reduction and “market and quasi-market” appreciation. The current recommendations of the Brazilian national curricular frameworks for Social Communication exemplify the management of private interests, of large enterprises in the Multinational Educational and Telecommunications area, through the expansion of outsourced educational services and products. The disentanglement of qualifications weakens the area and isolates the knowledge in related areas, massing a speech in favor of the market. Thus, the Brazilian higher education has been suffering the impact of denationalization of the state, which is causing profound changes in how curriculum public policies are being implemented.RESUMOEste trabalho tem como objetivo identificar a trajetória curricular dos cursos de Comunicação no Brasil, visando refletir sobre possíveis impactos nos processos de ensino e de aprendizagem no âmbito dos contextos educacionais locais dos cursos de graduação de Comunicação social. Os discursos presentes nas políticas públicas curriculares dirigidas a esse campo do conhecimento vêm sendo modelados pela lógica neoliberal, a qual caracteriza um contexto governado pelas leis de mercado e pela descaracterização do Estado de Bem-estar Social democrático, ou seja, a redução do Estado e a valorização do “mercado e quase-mercado”. As atuais recomendações dos referenciais curriculares nacionais brasileiros para a Comunicação Social exemplificam a gerência de interesses privados, de grandes empresas do ramo Educacional Multinacional e de Telecomunicações, pela expansão dos serviços e dos produtos educacionais terceirizados. A desarticulação das habilitações enfraquece a área e isola o conhecimento em áreas afins, massificando um discurso que vem para favorecer o mercado. Assim sendo, a educação superior brasileira vem sofrendo o impacto da desnacionalização do Estado, o que está provocando profundas mudanças em como as políticas públicas de currículo vêm sendo implementadas.


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