scholarly journals Transforming Congregational Conflict:  An Integrated Framework for Understanding and Addressing conflict in Christian Faith Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Karen Margaret Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Transformation Theory ◽  
Congregational Conflict ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

<p>Churches have traditionally turned to conflict resolution measures, such as mediation, arbitration, and litigation, rather than conflict transformation approaches, when addressing congregational discord. In so doing, they miss the opportunity for constructive change that conflict presents and set themselves up for cycles of conflict to recur in the future. At the same time they diminish their self-claimed identity as followers of Jesus Christ, whose recorded teaching gives striking priority to peacemaking and reconciliation. Chapter one introduces the context for this thesis. Much work has already been done to explore biblical understandings of conflict, forgiveness and reconciliation, on the one hand, and to apply current conflict resolution practices to congregational settings on the other. However, little has been done to develop a conceptual framework that seeks to integrate biblical understandings with the insights of modern conflict analysis in a practically useful way. Chapter two of this thesis focuses on Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18 and shows why this passage is a key biblical resource for understanding and addressing congregational conflict. Chapter three examines conflict resolution theory and practice and shows why a transformational approach is the most appropriate one for addressing congregational conflict. The fourth chapter brings Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18 into a dialogue with current conflict transformation theory and practice. This conversation integrates theology and practice and clarifies the ways in which Jesus' teaching and transformative approaches to conflict both complement and enrich each other in the quest for lasting answers to the problem of congregational conflict. This thesis concludes by proposing a framework in which the many resources available might be understood and utilised in an integrated way by congregations that seek not only to enhance their capacity to respond to conflict in healthier ways, but also to embody the teachings of Christ in their midst.</p>

scholarly journals Transforming Congregational Conflict:  An Integrated Framework for Understanding and Addressing conflict in Christian Faith Communities

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Karen Margaret Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Conflict Transformation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Transformation Theory ◽  
Congregational Conflict ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

<p>Churches have traditionally turned to conflict resolution measures, such as mediation, arbitration, and litigation, rather than conflict transformation approaches, when addressing congregational discord. In so doing, they miss the opportunity for constructive change that conflict presents and set themselves up for cycles of conflict to recur in the future. At the same time they diminish their self-claimed identity as followers of Jesus Christ, whose recorded teaching gives striking priority to peacemaking and reconciliation. Chapter one introduces the context for this thesis. Much work has already been done to explore biblical understandings of conflict, forgiveness and reconciliation, on the one hand, and to apply current conflict resolution practices to congregational settings on the other. However, little has been done to develop a conceptual framework that seeks to integrate biblical understandings with the insights of modern conflict analysis in a practically useful way. Chapter two of this thesis focuses on Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18 and shows why this passage is a key biblical resource for understanding and addressing congregational conflict. Chapter three examines conflict resolution theory and practice and shows why a transformational approach is the most appropriate one for addressing congregational conflict. The fourth chapter brings Jesus' teaching in Matthew 18 into a dialogue with current conflict transformation theory and practice. This conversation integrates theology and practice and clarifies the ways in which Jesus' teaching and transformative approaches to conflict both complement and enrich each other in the quest for lasting answers to the problem of congregational conflict. This thesis concludes by proposing a framework in which the many resources available might be understood and utilised in an integrated way by congregations that seek not only to enhance their capacity to respond to conflict in healthier ways, but also to embody the teachings of Christ in their midst.</p>

“One in many: Sounding of the heart”: The meaning of divine revelation in the kakure kirishitan land

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 269-284
Author(s):  
Fumitaka Matsuoka
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Civic Discourse ◽  
Special Character ◽  
Historical Identity ◽  
Divine Life ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

The question to be explored is that of how far a Christian identity can be stretched and yet still remain “Christian” and who determines the limits and for what reasons. This question is explored in light of the kakure kirishitan (hidden Christians) studies in Japan. More precisely, the question is that of how the historically singular epistemology embodied in the “one-God” understandings of Christianity has played out in multiple readings of reality, a “many gods” epistemology, in Japan. This is an exploration of the “meaning of divine revelation of Christ” set within the context of ecclesia semper reformanda. I would claim that the “character of love” as defined by Ernst Troeltsch’s notion of the revelation of Christ (“In our earthly experiences the Divine Life is not One, but Many. But to apprehend the One in the Many constitutes the special character of love”), which is a distinct Christian faith paradigm, contrary to the popular paradigm in the academic and civic discourse of “one in many,” takes on the character of “the sounding of the heart.” Even when the historical identity of Christ is extensively eroded, the “sounding” speaks to people beyond the difference of the worlds with a language that is so intimate that it profoundly grasps the heart.

From competition to co-operation: Shifting the “one best model” perspective

2021 ◽  
pp. 095935432199590
Author(s):  
Hannah Hawkins-Elder ◽  
Tony Ward
Keyword(s):  
Mental Disorders ◽  
Mental Distress ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Therapeutic Interventions ◽  
Multiple Model ◽  
Health Practitioners ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Model Approach

Mental disorders are arguably one of the most complex and serious problems facing health practitioners today and yet their causes remain, largely, a mystery. Accordingly, there is frequent and heated debate over which of the many available models of mental disorder and their associated therapeutic interventions are likely to be most useful. The prevailing attitude toward the conceptualization of mental distress appears to be that a single superior model will emerge that neatly accounts for one or more disorder presentations: the “One Best Model” (OBM) perspective. In this article, we argue for a transition away from the OBM perspective toward a multiple model approach to psychopathology that is collaborative and pluralistic. We begin by outlining the particulars of the OBM perspective and elaborating on the problems it presents for psychopathology theory and practice. We then suggest specific ways in which this problem may be ameliorated, by adjusting how we approach the processes of modelling disorder, translating models into interventions, and applying models and interventions in practice.

Praxis and Theology in Recent Debates

1986 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 529-550
Author(s):  
A. K. Min
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Preceding Discussion ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Theology Of Liberation

One Of the many challenges of the theology of liberation of Latin America (TL or LT) has been to rethink the relation between theory (theology) and praxis. A debate, which has been going on for over a century among philosophers and social thinkers since Hegel and Marx has finally hit the serene shores of Christian theology. Are theory and praxis two co-equal dimensions of human existence, or is the one derivative from the other? Is Christian faith primarily a matter of theory, belief and truth, or is it primarily a matter of praxis, action and justice? Is theology only a reflection on faith or a reflection in faith as well? What is the relation between theology and contemporary historical praxis? Does theology have to remain ‘external’ to that praxis in order to preserve its critical objectivity, or is participation of theology in that praxis the very condition of its objectivity? Is the prior commitment of theology— so much insisted on by TL — to the praxis of liberation detrimental or necessary to the integrity of theology? In this essay I propose to deal with these issues in the context of recent debates between Schubert Ogden and the Vatican on the one hand and TL on the other. I shall first review Ogden's and the Vatican's critique of TL, then present the position of TL, and finally evaluate both TL and its critics and reconstruct a theory of the relation between theology and praxis in light of the preceding discussion.

scholarly journals The Two, the One, the Many, the None: Rethinking the Republics of Spaniards and Indians in the Sixteenth-Century Spanish Indies

2021 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36
Author(s):  
Adrian Masters
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

AbstractFor a half-century, the historiography on Spanish Habsburg rule suggested that the crown envisioned Indies society as best divided into two segregated sociolegal groups: the republic of the Spaniards and the republic of the Indians. This model was popularized by the eminent mid twentieth century Swedish historian Magnus Mörner and has since become a foundational concept in the field. However, using extensive archival evidence, this article suggests that the Mörner Thesis of the Two Republics is flawed. Historicizing sixteenth-century uses of the concept of the republic, it finds that contemporaries conceived of a complex social order in which many political communities such as municipalities and groups of petitioners could overlap within larger meta-republics, such as the Indies republic and the Christian faith-republic. It then turns to subjects’ uses of the two republics, noting that this conceptual duality appeared rarely in the petitions of Spanish officials, commoners, Indians, Afro-descendants, and mestizos, and was also rare in royal and viceregal legislation. Moreover, this binary most often served to suggest Spaniards’ and Indians’ common ground. The article then reflects on other approaches to understanding the Indies’ Spanish-Indian binary, the place of non-Spanish, non-Indian vassals within republic-thinking, and the staggering complexity of Indies laws, categories, and social interactions.

Costumes and Choreography from Bodenwieser's Trunk: The Coat as Affective Memory

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Rachel Fensham
Keyword(s):  
Modern Dance ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Creative Thought ◽  
Cain And Abel ◽  
Embodied Research ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Material Evidence ◽  
Selection Of

The Viennese modern choreographer Gertrud Bodenwieser's black coat leads to an analysis of her choreography in four main phases – the early European career; the rise of Nazism; war's brutality; and postwar attempts at reconciliation. Utilising archival and embodied research, the article focuses on a selection of Bodenwieser costumes that survived her journey from Vienna, or were remade in Australia, and their role in the dramaturgy of works such as Swinging Bells (1926), The Masks of Lucifer (1936, 1944), Cain and Abel (1940) and The One and the Many (1946). In addition to dance history, costume studies provides a distinctive way to engage with the question of what remains of performance, and what survives of the historical conditions and experience of modern dance-drama. Throughout, Hannah Arendt's book The Human Condition (1958) provides a critical guide to the acts of reconstruction undertaken by Bodenwieser as an émigré choreographer in the practice of her craft, and its ‘materializing reification’ of creative thought. As a study in affective memory, information regarding Bodenwieser's personal life becomes interwoven with the author's response to the material evidence of costumes, oral histories and documents located in various Australian archives. By resurrecting the ‘dead letters’ of this choreography, the article therefore considers how dance costumes offer the trace of an artistic resistance to totalitarianism.

AFRICAN WOMEN AND FORBIDDEN GROUNDS: FEMALE SEXUALITY AND SELF-DETERMINATION IN AFRICAN LITERATURE

Imbizo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-54
Author(s):  
Oyeh O. Otu
Keyword(s):  
Female Sexuality ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
African Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
African Women ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Sexual Repression

This article examines how female conditioning and sexual repression affect the woman’s sense of self, womanhood, identity and her place in society. It argues that the woman’s body is at the core of the many sites of gender struggles/ politics. Accordingly, the woman’s body must be decolonised for her to attain true emancipation. On the one hand, this study identifies the grave consequences of sexual repression, how it robs women of their freedom to choose whom to love or marry, the freedom to seek legal redress against sexual abuse and terror, and how it hinders their quest for self-determination. On the other hand, it underscores the need to give women sexual freedom that must be respected and enforced by law for the overall good of society.

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