On Earth and as It Is in Heaven—There Is No Sex Trafficking in Heaven: A Qualitative Study Bringing Christian Church Leaders’ Anti-Trafficking Viewpoints to Trafficking Discourse

There is a lack of contributions in sex trafficking the academic literature from Christian evangelical leaders despite their prominence in global counter-trafficking activism. Given that the academic literature influences professional and pedagogical discourse, the lack of evangelical Christian representation could diminish the complexity of trafficking discourses, limit balanced views of the flaws and strengths of evangelical counter-trafficking, and limit the opportunities for academia to understand and address problematic areas in evangelical counter-trafficking through an emic understanding of evangelical paradigms. Using a phenomenological lens to engage evangelical Christian pastors (n = 17) in the midwestern United States, this study examined the meaning faith leaders attach to counter-trafficking initiatives. Four themes emerged: (1) God cares about survivors of sex trafficking, giving Christians a moral obligation to intervene; (2) God, the Christian, and the survivor all have essential roles in tackling sex trafficking as part of helping humanity; (3) congregations’ faith-inspired but imperfect efforts to help an imperfect and complex world create many complexities; and (4) managing complexity involves applying the truths that underpin the Christian worldview, namely that God is good and people are valuable. These findings underscore the need to create an inclusive knowledge-producing forum that allows for a pragmatic exchange of ideas to expand the discourse between multiple counter trafficking actors.

Этикетные формулы как этнолингвистические компоненты оригинальных и переводных калмыцких деловых текстов XVIII в. (на материале писем хана Аюки и их русских переводов 1714–1715 гг.)

Introduction. Kalmyk official texts of the 18th century and their parallel translations into Russian are, in the author’s opinion, ethnolinguistic sources, rich in culturally marked linguistic means. So far, initial formulas in Kalmyk official letters of the period and their Russian translations have not been studied in a comparative mode. The article aims to analyze etiquette formulas of Khan Ayuka’s letters as ethnolinguistic components, comparing them with their Russian translations. Materials and methods. The sources for the research were Kalmyk Khan’s letters of 1714–1715, kept in the Russian State Archives of Ancient Acts and in the National Archives of the Republic of Kalmykia. To identify translation strategies, both simultaneous and diachronic Russian translations of the material are used. The research involves descriptive, comparative-contrastive methods, as well as the method of contextual analysis. Conclusions. Comparative analysis of the original and translated texts indicated some differences in the traditions of greeting in the cultures in question, which are reflected in official writing. The translated texts are characterized by greater variability of linguistic means influencing the modality of etiquette statements: e. g. the addressee’s and addresser’s names may be added or deleted, ethnolinguistically marked language may be introduced, when components associated with the traditions of Buddhism were excluded or replaced with those associated with the Christian worldview. Depending on the addressee, his status, and the nature of official relationship of correspondents, the character of the etiquette formulas and greetings changes, too: the higher is the addressee’s status, the more complex is the syntactic aspect of etiquette formulas and the greater is the portion of lexical items of an elevated, loftier style used in translations. Of relevance is also the sequence of etiquette formulas in official correspondence, changes in the sequence marking the status of the addressee as well.

Christian early childhood leaders: Management challenges and responses

This study investigated the management challenges that Christian early childhood leaders, from four different Christian denominations, encountered in their responsibilities, and in particular, the approaches they used in resolving them. A research design of grounded theory using data collected from survey questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis enabled themes to emerge. A Christian worldview underpinned and framed the leaders’ thoughts, actions, communication, and relationships with students, staff, parents, and the community. For these leaders, their close, reciprocal connection with God sustained, guided and even at times impelled their approach to their daily practice and especially in managing challenges.

Die behoefte aan apologetiese toerusting reeds by voorskoolse kategese

The need for apologetic equipment already in preschool catechesis. From a young age, children are busy making sense of the world around them. Their worldview is formed by influences and/or guidance and their own intrinsic participation. With the availability of information provided by the media in the 21st century, Christian children are exposed to not only a Christian worldview, but also to other dominating worldviews. This exposure can have a negative effect on the formation of a Christian worldview if not treated correctly. When leading Christian researchers assume the prerequisite that pre-school children do not have the ability to grasp aspects of faith due to their so-called inability for Abstrak thoughts, the results will be the underemphasis, neglect and even disapproval of equipment in terms of a Christian biblical worldview. The result of this view is that non-biblical worldviews will dominate and shape Christian children’s thoughts from an early age, while there is little to no equipment guiding them. This occurs notwithstanding that the Word of God demands believers to educate their children and to equip them from an early age with the necessary foundational tools and resources. Apologetical equipment in the understanding of God, man and the world ought to be part of this education in faith that leads to a biblical and Christian worldview from a young age.Contribution: In their first six years, children form important concepts and presuppositions that could influence and affect the rest of their lives. Especially also through the stories they watch and listen to, they are confronted with conflicting ideas and concepts from which they must make sense. Sufficient apologetic and catechetical resources on the cognitive level of pre-school children should be provided to parents and educators of these children. These materials of which worldviews should be an integral part of, can and should guide these young believers in the consideration of conflicting ideas and even the defence of what they believe.

The Societal Relevance of the “Rheinischer Merkur”

At present, there is no societally relevant political newspaper in Germany that is based on a Christian worldview. The Rheinischer Merkur, founded in 1946 shortly after the end of the Second World War and shut down by the German Bishops’ Conference in 2010, was a newspaper of this kind. It went beyond the Christian milieu in the fulfilment of its mission in the public arena. The closure of the Rheinischer Merkur obscures even today the decisive role it played in the elaboration of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Germany and the substantial quality of the paper. This essay sketches the history of the Rheinischer Merkur and its self-understanding, as well as its decline, locating these in the context of the journalistic autonomies and media-ethical tensions to which every journalistic medium is subject.

Knowledge and the Fall in American Neo-Calvinism: Toward a Van Til–Plantinga Synthesis

Cornelius Van Til and Alvin Plantinga represent two strands of American Protestant philosophical thought influenced by Dutch neo-Calvinism. This paper compares and synthetizes their models of knowledge in non-Christians given the noetic effects of sin and non-Christian worldview commitments. The paper argues that Van Til’s distinction between the partial realization of the antithesis in practice and its absolute nature in principle correlates with Plantinga’s insistence on prima facie–warranted common-sense beliefs and their ultimate defeasibility given certain metaphysical commitments. Van Til endorsed more radical claims than Plantinga on epistemic defeat in non-Christian worldviews, the status of the sensus divinitatis, and conceptual accuracy in knowledge of the world. Finally, an approach to the use of evidence in apologetics is developed based on the proposed synthesis. This approach seeks to make more room for evidence than is generally recognized in Van Tilianism, while remaining consistent with the founder’s principles.

Slavery, the Hebrew Bible and the Development of Racial Theories in the Nineteenth Century

Racial ideas which developed in the modern west were forged with reference to a Christian worldview and informed by the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Up until Darwin’s scientific reframing of the origins debate, European and American race scientists were fundamentally Christian in their orientation. This paper outlines how interpretations of the Hebrew Bible within this Christian Weltanschauung facilitated the development and articulation of racial theories which burgeoned in western intellectual discourse up to and during the 19th century. The book of Genesis was a particular seedbed for identity politics as the origin stories of the Hebrew Bible were plundered in service of articulating a racial hierarchy which justified both the place of Europeans at the pinnacle of divine creation and the denigration, bestialization, and enslavement of Africans as the worst of human filiation. That the racial ethos of the period dictated both the questions exegetes posed and the conclusions they derived from the text demonstrates that biblical interpretation within this climate was never an innocuous pursuit, but rather reflected the values and beliefs current in the social context of the exegete.

Was Saint Bishop Nicholai a Fascist? A Review of His Addresses from March 1935 to April 1941

The author addresses the issue of Nicholai Velimirovich’s attitude towards fascism, responding to the criticism of Bishop Nicholai as a sympathizer of Adolph Hitler’s policy and the interpretation of Velimirovich’s thoughts that enabled such constructions. In the present article, special attention is paid to the public addresses of Nicholai Velimirovich during the period of the rise of the Nazi state, i.e. from 1935 to 1941. The main topic of this article is to deconstruct the great myth of Bishop Nicholai’s critics, which reads: Saint Bishop Nicholai is a fascist because he received a decoration from Hitler in 1934, and in 1935 he gave a lecture at Kolarac called “Nationalism of Saint Sava” where he praised Hitler as few people did during the life of the Reich leader, comparing him with Saint Sava, “whereby Hitler turned out to be bigger than Saint Sava.” This accusation comes from the critics of Bishop Nicholai from Peščanik, whose pamphlets are adopted and passed on by a part of the Serbian intelligentsia in which there are historians, linguists, political scientists, and even theologians. However, such constructions are possible only if we ignore the legacy of Bishop Nicholai and his thought. For instance, it is interesting that in the same year, namely in 1926, Hitler and Velimirovich published two completely opposite works — Hitler the second part of his Mein Kampf in which he revealed his racial theory to the world, and Nicholai a short article entitled “The Problem of Races,” in which he explained that the problem of race can not solve anthropologists, nor historians and psychologists, but only Christianity, urging Serbian youth not to make a value difference between races, but to consider whether a black earthen pot with honey or a white porcelain pot with vinegar is better. In his later works, there are much more references to the issues of racism, nationalism, chauvinism, etc., where he clearly holds moderated and balanced Christian worldview.

Cultural Linguistics and Religion: Human Anatomical Terms in the Holy Bible

This study investigates, within the scope of Cultural Linguistics, underlying cultural conceptualisations of human anatomical (body part) terms in the Holy Bible linked to the Christian worldview. It comes as a response to the call for further research on the reciprocal relationship between language and religion from other sub-disciplines. In recent years, the analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics has shown how religious language can embody the specific worldview that lies at the core of the religion through analysis of the language and conceptualisations associated with the religion and its belief systems. This study applies corpus-linguistics and the analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics to unpack cultural metaphors, cultural categories and cultural schemas associated with body part terms in the Bible. This approach, referred to as Corpus-Cultural analysis, was used to collect data and analyse conceptualisations drawn from the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, Bible concordance, Bible encyclopedia and dictionary, as well as scripture commentaries. The findings reveal that body part terms in biblical texts play an important role in providing a significant conceptual base for representing the Christian worldview of the specified body parts. For example, the term ‘heart’ is conceptualised as the seat of, emotions, determination or courage, intellect, understanding and conscience in the Bible. In addition, it was found that various conceptualisations derive from several sources, including ancient Hebrew and Greek worldviews, Jewish religion and customs, translation of original text into English, biblical commentaries, and religious literature. Overall, the study concludes that the Corpus-Cultural approach contributes to the in-depth understanding of Holy texts.