William Brosend, The Preaching of Jesus: Gospel Proclamation, Then and Now

“Jesus was a Galilean Jew who proclaimed a kingdom and resisted a crown. He was a teacher actively reshaping a tradition for a new day, and who probably knew the outcome of his ministry of resistance and transformation, yet did not capitulate to empire, temple, or adversary.” (18) Jesus’ strategy for his mission was preaching, as opposed to “what many would consider more promising approaches.” (1) His preaching exhibits four rhetorical characteristics. It was 1. dialogical, 2. proclamatory, 3. occasionally self-referential, 4. persistently figurative. Brosend has discovered that Jesus’ rhetoric as exhibited in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke has been almost completely ignored by Jesus scholars for the past two generations, with the exception of Amos Wilder’s Early Christian Rhetoric in 1964. To a person, scholars assert only two things about Jesus’ rhetoric: he was a teacher/preacher, and his favorite rhetorical form was the parable. (3-4) Brosend goes beyond this to bring to light the four characteristics enumerated above. An Appendix charts the four features of the teachings of Jesus in each of the Synoptic gospels, and chapters treat each of these rhetorical marks. For each, Brosend first fills in the details of what he catalogues in the Appendix. Then he moves from the teaching of Jesus to contemporary preaching, its weaknesses and temptations and its possibilities. Each discussion concludes with a sermon by a well-known contemporary preacher that exhibits that feature. Brosend wrote this book because since September 11, 2001, contemporary preaching in the formerly mainline churches has lost its public influence. It has nothing to say by way of the resistance to empire, temple, or adversary exhibited by Jesus. Why? Brosend proposes that, in contrast to Jesus’ preaching, it has been 1. unresponsive, 2. indecisive, 3. self-indulgent, and 4. unimaginative. Being dialogical in contrast to being unresponsive means speaking in response to an inquirer, or to a tradition or a culture that shapes people, often unconsciously and unquestioningly. (21) Proclamation is not self-certain, dogmatic pronouncement. It is clarity about one’s convictions stated in such a way that both challenges listeners and demonstrates respect for those who disagree, inviting and giving them space for engagement. For most of us it is a discipline that needs to be learned, honed, and practiced. (77, 82) Self-reference is a delicate subject about which Brosend gives wise counsel. He enumerates both the common pitfalls and the legitimate reasons for self-reference. Preachers will most likely employ self-reference wisely if they approach it with as much caution as most are inclined to use in talking about controversial issues. When it comes to figurative language, on the other hand, preachers need to be much more daring. Fabricating metaphors and stories rooted in our own experience requires constant practice and experimentation because few of us come by this skill naturally. This book is a training manual for preaching that, like the preaching and teaching of Jesus, is daring and powerful, and at the same time respectful of our listeners. Preachers would do well to choose and re-read one chapter after drafting each sermon in order to revise it in the light of Brosend’s exposition. If we improve our ability to speak in ways that are clear and imaginatively provocative while addressing public matters that are of concern to people, we stand a chance of engaging them on those matters from the perspective of their commitment to Jesus. If we don’t reclaim the pulpit as a place to address those concerns, we will abandon our listeners to the influences of the media, unequipped to assess those influences with the help of the deep and rich resources to be found in the teaching and preaching of their Master.

The Effects of Job Demands and Job Insecurity on the Job Satisfaction in Social Enterprise Workers: Focused on the Moderating Effects of Social Mission

The Effective of Convergence Study Programs on Genetics for Highschool Science Gifted Students

The purpose of this study was to analyse gifted students' perceptions about bioengeering, and to find out the effect of convergence study programs on genetics. In this study, 111(3 students 1 group, 37 teams) 10th grader of science highschool students were participated in convergence study programs such as discussion and writings, espacially bioengeering mission, they were investigated in understanding of bioengeering and creativity in science. The results are as follows: The convergence study program on genetics was very effective in promoting creativity especially on flexibility(p<.01) but there was no significant difference in the understanding of science knowledge. The convergence study program positively affected the science gifted high school students in promoting convergence thinking. Most students participated in these programs were satisfied with convergence study programs on genetics. For the convergence thinking, we need more classes in Social Studies, Humanities in the science highschool curriculum.

Domesticating a Philosophical Fiction - Chinese Translations of Immanuel Kant's "Things in Themselves" -

Ever since Chinese scholars began to engage modern European philosophy at the turn of the twentieth century, Immanuel Kant was perceived as a particular challenge. Many Chinese thinkers understood the limits of human knowledge delineated in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason as a threat to the ethical maxims enshrined in classical Chinese texts. If accepted, Kant’s epistemology seemed to negate the possibility of an intelligible moral world order and thus undermine a key tenet of traditional Chinese thought. As a result, quite a few Chinese scholars came to regard no mission as more urgent than to overcome Kant. This essay traces the competing adaptations of a single concept that played a crucial role in Chinese attempts to come to terms with the Kantian challenge: the notion of things in themselves or Dinge an sich. The aim of my review is to assess what we may learn from the intentions with which different Chinese translations of this notion were proposed, and what they can tell us about the contexts in which individual choices were adopted, rejected, criticized or defended. In addition, I hope to clarify the uses and limitations of lexical data for histories of concepts in transcultural perspective.

Between mission and commerciality. Professional journalistic standards in the modern mass media market

Key Facts on Mission Investing

Mission of Industrial Research

O OLHO DO ETNÓGRAFO

The paper proposes a reading of “L’oeil de l’ethnographe (a propos de la Mission ethnographique Dakar-Djibouti)”, published in the journal Documents (1930, 7) and written by the anthropologist Michel Leiris (1901-1990) shortly before his first research expedition to Africa, when he joined the Ethnographic and Linguistic Mission Dacar-Djibouti (1931-1933). It looks at this journey report before the journey happened, examining its benefits for a reflection on the ethnographic journey, on Leiris’ role as one of the editors of Documents in Paris between the wars, and on his work

Evaluation of the altimetry from SRTM-3 and planimetry from high-resolution PALSAR FBD data for semi-detailed topographic mapping in the Amazon Region

The Brazilian Amazon has a deficit of 35% of coverage regarding topographic mapping at semi-detailed (1:100,000) scale. This paper presents an alternative to overcome this scenario using a combination of planialtimetric information from two orbital SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) missions. The altimetry was acquired from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), while the planimetry was provided from Fine Beam Dual (FBD) images of the Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (PALSAR) sensor. The research was carried out in the mountainous area of the Serra dos Carajás (Pará State), located on the Amazon region. The quality of the orbital topographic information was evaluated regarding precise planialtimetric measurements acquired from Global Positioning System (GPS) field campaigns. The evaluations were performed following two approaches: (1) the use of Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and (2) tendency and precision hypothesis tests. The investigation has shown that the planialtimetric quality of the orbital products fulfilled the Brazilian Map Accuracy Standards requirements for 1:100,000 A Class map. Thus, the use of combination of information provided by PALSAR and SRTM-3 data can be considered a promising alternative for production and update of semi-detailed topographic mapping in similar environments of the Amazon region, where topographic information is lacking or presents low quality.

Sistema de salud de Cuba

This paper describes the health conditions in Cuba and the general characteristics of the Cuban health system, including its structure and coverage, its financial sources, its health expenditure, its physical, material and human resources, and its stewardship functions. It also discusses the increasing importance of its research institutions and the role played by its users in the operation and evaluation of the system. Salient among the social actors involved in the health sector are the Cuban Women Federation and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. The paper concludes with the discussion of the most recent innovations implemented in the Cuban health system, including the cardiology networks, the Miracle Mission (Mision Milagro) and the Battle of Ideas (Batalla de Ideas).