A Historian Looks Ahead; The Future of Christianity in the Light of its Past

1946 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-16
Author(s):  
Kenneth Scott Latourette
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  

What can the past tell us of the future of Christianity? Prophecy is notoriously fallible, especially for far distant years. Historians have seen so many predictions disproved by the event that they are wary of venturing upon the dangerous role of forecasters. Yet trends have a way of continuing. We may not be able to depict with accuracy the details of things to come. We may, however, by observing the directions which movements have been taking in the recent past and by noting the forces which are operating to modify them be able to foretell the main courses which they are to follow for the decades immediately before us. Certainly those who essay to shape policies must attempt such analyses. By their knowledge of the past historians should be of assistance in providing both facts about what has transpired and conjectures to aid in plotting the paths to be pursued.

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pham Van Loi

Vietnam - Laos has more than 2,000 km of common national borders. The coherent relationship between the two nations and the inhabitants of the two countries has been formed and fostered in history and especially developed over the past 7 decades. The Thai ethnic group in Vietnam has over one million people, residing permanently, concentrated in the Northwest region, the region consists of 8 provinces, of which 4 provinces have the Vietnam-Laos border crossing. This paper focuses on clarifying the practical basis for the Thai people to play a role in the traditional Vietnam-Laos friendship and propose some solutions to promote the role of Thai in maintaining, developing the traditional friendship between Vietnam and Laos, now and in the future.


Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Rachel Wagner

Here I build upon Robert Orsi’s work by arguing that we can see presence—and the longing for it—at work beyond the obvious spaces of religious practice. Presence, I propose, is alive and well in mediated apocalypticism, in the intense imagination of the future that preoccupies those who consume its narratives in film, games, and role plays. Presence is a way of bringing worlds beyond into tangible form, of touching them and letting them touch you. It is, in this sense, that Michael Hoelzl and Graham Ward observe the “re-emergence” of religion with a “new visibility” that is much more than “simple re-emergence of something that has been in decline in the past but is now manifesting itself once more.” I propose that the “new awareness of religion” they posit includes the mediated worlds that enchant and empower us via deeply immersive fandoms. Whereas religious institutions today may be suspicious of presence, it lives on in the thick of media fandoms and their material manifestations, especially those forms that make ultimate promises about the world to come.


2002 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Hilary M. Carey

Time, according to medieval theologians and philosophers, was experienced in radically different ways by God and by his creation. Indeed, the obligation to dwell in time, and therefore to have no sure knowledge of what was to come, was seen as one of the primary qualities which marked the post-lapsarian state. When Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden of delights, they entered a world afflicted with the changing of the seasons, in which they were obliged to work and consume themselves with the needs of the present day and the still unknown dangers of the next. Medieval concerns about the use and abuse of time were not merely confined to anxiety about the present, or awareness of seized or missed opportunities in the past. The future was equally worrying, in particular the extent to which this part of time was set aside for God alone, or whether it was permissible to seek to know the future, either through revelation and prophecy, or through science. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the scientific claims of astrology to provide a means to explain the outcome of past and future events, circumventing God’s distant authority, became more and more insistent. This paper begins by examining one skirmish in this larger battle over the control of the future.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-57
Author(s):  
Jamie McKeown

This article reports the findings from a study of discursive representations of the future role of technology in the work of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC). Specifically, it investigates the interplay of ‘techno-optimism’ (a form of ideological bias) and propositional certainty in the NIC’s ‘Future Global Trends Reports’. In doing so, it answers the following questions: To what extent was techno-optimism present in the discourse? What level of propositional certainty was expressed in the discourse? How did the discourse deal with the inherent uncertainty of the future? Overall, the discourse was pronouncedly techno-optimist in its stance towards the future role of technology: high-technological solutions were portrayed as solving a host of problems, despite the readily available presence of low-technology or no-technology solutions. In all, 75.1% of the representations were presented as future categorical certainties, meaning the future was predominantly presented as a known and closed inevitability. The discourse dealt with the inherent uncertainty of the subject matter, that is, the future, by projecting the past and present into the future. This was particularly the case in relation to the idea of technological military dominance as a guarantee of global peace, and the role of technology as an inevitable force free from societal censorship.


2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 671-685 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Drayton

The contemporary historian, as she or he speaks to the public about the origins and meanings of the present, has important ethical responsibilities. ‘Imperial’ historians, in particular, shape how politicians and the public imagine the future of the world. This article examines how British imperial history, as it emerged as an academic subject since about 1900, often lent ideological support to imperialism, while more generally it suppressed or avoided the role of violence and terror in the making and keeping of the Empire. It suggests that after 2001, and during the Iraq War, in particular, a new Whig historiography sought to retail a flattering narrative of the British Empire’s past, and concludes with a call for a post-patriotic imperial history which is sceptical of power and speaks for those on the underside of global processes.


1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1255-1273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joann S. Lighty ◽  
John M. Veranth
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  

2005 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hilda Kruger

<span>The fast and continuous technological change that is characteristic of the information society we find ourselves in has demonstrable impact on the way librarians go about their business. This paper offers a scenario of technological changes already in the pipeline and yet to come, and how those changes will impact the role of librarians in the future. One of the main concerns of this paper is the continued relevance of information professionals as infomediaries in our future society.</span><div><span style="color: #303030; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></div>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Mahr

Human beings regularly 'mentally travel' to past and future times in memory and imagination. In theory, whether an event is remembered or imagined (its ‘mnemicity’) underspecifies whether it is oriented towards the past or the future (its ‘temporality’). However, it remains unclear to what extent the temporal orientation of such episodic simulations is cognitively represented separately from their status as memories or imagination. To address this question, we investigated whether episodic simulations are more easily distinguishable in memory by virtue of their temporal orientation or their mnemicity. In three experiments (N = 360), participants were asked to generate and later recall events differing along the lines of temporal orientation (past/future) and mnemicity (remembered/imagined). Across all of our experiments, we consistently found that participants were more likely to confuse in recall event simulations that shared the same temporal orientation rather than the same mnemicity. These results show that the temporal orientation of episodic representations can be cognitively represented separately from their mnemicity and have implications for debates about the role of temporality in episodic simulation.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 809-833 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Breidbach ◽  
Sunmee Choi ◽  
Benjamin Ellway ◽  
Byron W. Keating ◽  
Katerina Kormusheva ◽  
...  

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the history and future of service operations, with the goal to identify key theoretical and technological advances, as well as fundamental themes that can help to imagine the future of service operations in 2050. Design/methodology/approach A review of the service operations literature was undertaken to inform a discussion regarding the role that technology will play in the future of service operations. Findings The future of service operations is framed in terms of three key themes – complexity, orchestration, and elasticity. The paper makes three contributions to the service science literature by: reviewing key themes underpinning extant service operations research to frame future trajectories of service operations research; elaborating a vision of service operations in 2050 based on history and technology; and outlining a research agenda for future service operations. Practical implications The case of service automation is used to provide an illustration of how the three themes converge to define future service operations, and in particular, to show how technology is recasting the role of the firm. Originality/value Service operations in the next 30 years will be very different from what it was in the past 30 years. This paper differs from other review papers by identifying three key themes that will characterize and instill new insights into the future of service operations research.


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