An Introduction To Theological Reflection

An Introduction To Theological Reflection Stephen Pattison article entitled Some Straw for the Brick: A Basic Introduction to Theological Reflection introduces a model of theological reflection called critical conversation. In this model the conversation is between three parties, namely the students own faith presuppositions, the particular situation/context being looked at and the Christian tradition. Pattison is by no means suggesting that the critical conversation model is the only model of theological reflection. He has chosen it because its derived from others forms of theological reflection and lists seven advantages to it. ( pg. 139). According to Pattison, purpose of this model of theological reflection according is to help people think through and analyse their own experiences, the issues and the situations that they face and in so doing the practical theology gets underway. As far as Pattison is concerned the critical conversation has more to do with asking the right questions than arriving at the right answers. He also appears to suggest that theological reflection has less to do with academic ability than with inventiveness and imagination, creativity that seeks to discern patterns in a particular situation. Why critical reflection one might ask? Pattisons answer to that question is as follows: a). It helps us to bring about an understanding of human and religious experience in contemporary society whether superficial or complex. He suggests that, more complex the situation, require a depth in the conversation by drawing resources from other secular knowledge base, i.e. or Christian theology. b). It connects belief and practice to everyday life. c). Prevent people from making false assumptions. d). Helps one to grow deeper in faith and appreciation of theology. Theological reflection must become the filter of the ministry of the church. Critical reflection serves as a critical tool for the purposes of practical theology It is active enquiry, .dynamic, deep searching and open ended. Not intended to produce universally acclaimed answers by everyone and in every places in all cases. Theological reflection should not be seen as relevant to all people in all situations because of the different contexts. It is worth pointing out that theological reflection undertaken by individuals may well reveal more about the person and their perspective than it does about a secular situation or Christian theological tradition. To avoid that Pattison recommends that individuals be self-critical when doing theological reflection on their own. Theological reflection should be done as a group exercise instead. Helen Cameron illustrates the importance of this through her group work with TAP. Clearly this important point is articulated by all the other writers whose work form part of this review. Theological reflection in group setting is conducive to a deep and enhanced critical conversation likely to produce à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Any enquiry must aim at enriching the individual but crucially must be for the benefit of the Christian community. Such an outcome is bound to give new meaning and new orientation to the ministry of the church as has been the case throughout the churchs history. The weakness of this model of theological reflection is that it can be too subjective as it appeals to peoples particular theological bias, temperament and cultural leaning. Relativism, idiosyncratic are.. mutually interrogative method can lead to further questions, does not provide eternally valid answers which can be applied to everyday life. Asking questions and engaging in critical conversation is not an adequate way of conceiving theological reflection. Pg. 142 (limitations) Also the conversation may no be academic enough. One other criticism to be said about Pattisons model of theological reflection is that it assumes everyone can do it. The fact of the matter is not everyone has the skill Ballard page 2. Elaine Graham Elaine Graham etal recognises that the subject of theological reflection has been research extensively resulting in the production of numerous publications. However for her and fellow writers their article entitled Method or Mystique in Theological Reflection: Methods offers a challenge to the vague manner theological reflection is viewed. They point to the fact received understanding of theological understanding are largely under- theorised and narrow, and too often fail to connect adequately with biblical, historical and systematic scholarship (pg.1). As such they aim to help the reader engage in patterns of theological reflection that are richer in the source they draw on more rigorous and more imaginative. Their introductory chapter gives a history outline of the discourse. We have an account, of understanding practical/pastoral theology as a discipline concerned with practical training which is broader and understands theology as critical reflection in a variety of settings. Graham etal, sites Donald Scon who argues for a shift from theoretical knowledge, technical rationality and scientific precision which is all theoretically and not practically based consequently eroding public trust of experts. According to them, professional knowledge of expertise is only acquired in a particular context or situation that is implicit and problem based. Furthermore the learning takes place by responding with flexibility to situations, willingness to be a proactive learner and risk taking. (pg. 4) This view that knowledge comes by experience is also shared by Kolb in his book on model of experimental learning. (pg. 5) As such theology ought to be understood as a process rather than product. Christi an practice, alongside systematic biblical and historical theology is crucial to theological reflection. In their view such engagement with these traditional Christian resources is weak. It is to this interrelated problem of traditional Christian resources that Theological Reflection: Methods reverts. My third article for review is entitled Characteristics of Theological Action Research by Helen Cameron etal. The article comes from the book written by her and others called Talking about God in Practice. In it a methodology of research called Theological Action Research is introduced. TAR is a brain child of Action Research Church and Society made up of two teams that are ecumenical and interdisciplinary chosen. The team members are all theological practioners and researchers, made up of a team from Heythrop and the other team from outside. ARCS objectives are realised when dialogue goes on in each team and also across the teams. The teams demonstrate willingness to share good practice and ideas of theological research between teams. As a model TAR has four stages called a cycle of theological reflection and are the following; experience, reflection, learning and action. The methodology require that each stage of the cycle is carefully examined and documented using its action research process and social sciences methods of collecting data. Theology plays a key part in all the stages of the practice right from the beginning to the very end. That also includes the shared reflections of the practitionrs and researchers. We can conclude that the lessons learnt are the following: Theological reflection and theology is directed at life situations in every human experience whether be a believer, church community including those who confess to be atheists. According to Metz, as he made reference to Karl Rahners a critical observation of Vatican II. God is a universal theme, a theme concerning all humanity or it is simple no theme at all. (pg 57 M.K). Rahners ascertion is an attempt to address an abserd belief which was sectarian and excluded others in taking part the faith dialogue/God. It is also true to say that when theology becomes self-absorbed by ignoring the worlds reality of human suffering, poverty injustice etc. it loses its purpose. The theological reflection model looked at in this review appear narrowly focused atà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. with a particular racial group, principally white European and middle class. We live in a diverse à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.. The church is a reflection of society that is multicultural, ethnic Robert Kinast in his article on the subject makes the same point that theological reflection is a threefold movement, which begins with the lived experience,

China and Debt Bomb

Six years ago, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao cautioned that China's economy is â€Å"unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable. † China has since doubled down on the economic model that prompted his concern. Mr. Wen spoke out in an attempt to change the course of an economy dangerously dependent on one lever to generate growth: heavy investment in the roads, factories and other infrastructure that have helped make China a manufacturing superpower. Then along came the 2008 global financial crisis.To keep China's economy growing, panicked officials launched a half-trillion-dollar stimulus and ordered banks to fund a new wave of investment. Investment has risen as a share of gross domestic product to 48%—a record for any large country—from 43%. Even more staggering is the amount of credit that China unleashed to finance this investment boom. Since 2007, the amount of new credit generated annually has more than quadrupled to $2. 75 trillion in the 12 months through January this year. Last year, roughly half of the new loans came from the â€Å"shadow banking system,† private lenders and credit suppliers outside formal lending channels.These outfits lend to borrowers—often local governments pushing increasingly low-quality infrastructure projects—who have run into trouble paying their bank loans. Since 2008, China's total public and private debt has exploded to more than 200% of GDP—an unprecedented level for any developing country. Yet the overwhelming consensus still sees little risk to the financial system or to economic growth in China. That view ignores the strong evidence of studies launched since 2008 in a belated attempt by the major global financial institutions to understand the origin of financial crises.The key, more than the level of debt, is the rate of increase in debt—particularly private debt. (Private debt in China includes all kinds of quasi-state borrowers, such as local governments and state-owned corporations. ) Enlarge Image Corbis On the most important measures of this rate, China is now in the flashing-red zone. The first measure comes from the Bank of International Settlements, which found that if private debt as a share of GDP accelerates to a level 6% higher than its trend over the previous decade, the acceleration is an early warning of serious financial distress.In China, private debt as a share of GDP is now 12% above its previous trend, and above the peak levels seen before credit crises hit Japan in 1989, Korea in 1997, the U. S. in 2007 and Spain in 2008. The second measure comes from the International Monetary Fund, which found that if private credit grows faster than the economy for three to five years, the increasing ratio of private credit to GDP usually signals financial distress.In China, private credit has been growing much faster than the economy since 2008, and the ratio of private credit to GDP has risen by 50 percentage points to 180%, an increase similar to what the U. S. and Japan witnessed before their most recent financial woes. The bullish consensus seems to think these laws of financial gravity don't apply to China. The bulls say that bank crises typically begin when foreign creditors start to demand their money, and China owes very little to foreigners.Yet in an August 2012 National Bureau of Economic Research paper titled â€Å"The Great Leveraging,† University of Virginia economist Alan Taylor examined the 79 major financial crises in advanced economies over the past 140 years and found that they are just as likely in countries that rely on domestic savings and owe little to foreign creditors. The bulls also argue that China can afford to write off bad debts because it sits on more than $3 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves as well as huge domestic savings.However, while some other Asian nations with high savings and few foreign liabilities did avoid bank crises following credit booms, they non etheless saw economic growth slow sharply. Following credit booms in the early 1970s and the late 1980s, Japan used its vast financial resources to put troubled lenders on life support. Debt clogged the system and productivity declined. Once the increase in credit peaked, growth fell sharply over the next five years: to 3% from 8% in the 1970s and to 1% from 4% in the 1980s.In Taiwan, following a similar cycle in the early 1990s, the average annual growth rate fell to 6%. Even if China dodges a financial crisis, then, it is not likely to dodge a slowdown in its increasingly debt-clogged economy. Through 2007, creating a dollar of economic growth in China required just over a dollar of debt. Since then it has taken three dollars of debt to generate a dollar of growth. This is what you normally see in the late stages of a credit binge, as more debt goes to increasingly less productive investments.In China, exports and manufacturing are slowing as more money flows into real-estate spec ulation. About a third of the bank loans in China are now for real estate, or are backed by real estate, roughly similar to U. S. levels in 2007. For China to find a more stable growth model, most experts agree that the country needs to balance its investments by promoting greater consumption. The catch is that consumption has been growing at 8% a year for the past decade—faster than in previous miracle economies like Japan's and as fast as it can grow without triggering inflation.Yet consumption is still falling as a share of GDP because investment has been growing even faster. So rebalancing requires China to cut back on investment and on the rate of increase in debt, which would mean accepting a rate of growth as low as 5% to 6%, well below the current official rate of 8%. In other investment-led, high-growth nations, from Brazil in the 1970s to Malaysia in the 1990s, economic growth typically fell by half in the decade after investment peaked. The alternative is that Chin a tries to sustain an unrealistic growth target, by piling more debt on an already powerful debt bomb.

Violence Involving Weapons

The Board of Education has removed the principal of the troubled Martin Luther King Jr. High School after a spate of violence involving weapons at the school. Most recently, on Friday, a student sneaked a knife into the bustling five-story building and threatened another student. The removal of the principal, Ronald Williams Wells, came almost three weeks after a crush of students, teachers and administrators dashed from the building and for cover in classrooms when a man shot two students in what appeared to be a dispute over a girl. The school is at West 66th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, a block from Lincoln Center. On Friday, two students were arrested after one student displayed a folding knife during an argument. He passed it to a second student after security officers arrived to break up the fight. The first student sneaked the knife into the building by passing it inside a book bag through the school's weapons scanner. Martin Luther King school officials did not call th! e Board of Education until hours later, said Catie Marshall. The Board of Education requires school administrators to call the board's emergency information center immediately after such incidents. During an investigation into the timing of the report, Tony Sawyer, the Manhattan high school superintendent, removed Mr. Wells Ms. Marshall said. The New York Post first reported the dismissal yesterday. Mr. Wells has been replaced by Steve Gutman, a 36-year veteran of the system who retired in September but came back to the board at Mr. Sawyer's request. Mr. Wells's new assignment has not been announced. After the Jan. 5 shootings, Mr. Wells came under criticism for not being at work. He was on duty with the National Guard that day. Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy, who toured the building after the shooting, found that some people who were not enrolled in courses were carrying photo identification cards. The school has had its share of trouble in the nearly three decades since it opened. Efforts to improve the curriculum have faltered, and principals have quit. Next year, the school – which is large, with about 3,000 students – will be divided into two smaller academies. The removal of a principal cannot be seen as having fixed the problem,† said C. Virginia Fields, the Manhattan borough president, who is a member of the task force working to phase out the old school. â€Å"There is much work to be done. We need to address safety and security, as well as other concerns that have been raised, including academics and student selection. † My opinion on the whole thing is that the school made the right decision to remove the princible from the school. For one reason what if something happened again like Columbine. That would not be good.

Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and Hydrogen Biogeochemical Cycles Free Essay Example, 1000 words

According to the research, there is a number of ways through which human have been interfering and disturbing these cycles and has resulted in changes in the climate, global warming, depletion of ozone layer, and an increase in the oxidative capacity of troposphere etc. Keeling Curve by Charles Keeling, an oceanographer at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, found that human alterations are highly affecting the natural carbon cycle. About 150 years ago, with the inception of the industrial alterations, the two major activities of human have paced up and unfortunately had lead to the long-term acceleration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. These are burning of fossil fuels and deforestation. Smoldering of fossil fuels liberates carbon into the atmosphere because of the burning of oil and coal. Its speed of releasing carbon into the air is far greater than any means of eliminating it. Such imbalance thus results in concentrated quantities of carbon dioxide. The process of deforestati on further worsens the scenario because then the ability of forests to remove CO2 from the atmosphere goes down even more, thereby, also resulting in the same result as in case of burning, that is a net increase of CO2.We will write a custom essay sample on Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen and Hydrogen Biogeochemical Cycles or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page Yet another result of such changes is their impact on the growth patterns of plants all over the world. According to scientists, it is likely that shrubby species are going to raise, the reason being they are amongst those plants, which respond favorably to the increased concentration of CO2.