Methodist Theological School in Ohio

About: Methodist Theological School in Ohio is a education organization based out in Delaware, Ohio, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: The Internet & Rhetorical question. The organization has 22 authors who have published 33 publications receiving 126 citations. The organization is also known as: MTSO.

Christianity and Human Trafficking

Abstract: Christian involvement with advocacy and activism on human trafficking, an umbrella category that refers to the variety of processes by which individuals become enslaved, has proliferated during the last 15 years. This essay briefly introduces the topic of human trafficking, and provides an overview of three social movements that set important historical precedents for Christian anti-trafficking activism in the present: 19th century abolitionist movements, late 19th- and early 20th-century social purity movements, and the late 20th century religious freedom movement. Next, I explore two of the anti-trafficking frameworks that underlie much Christian anti-trafficking activism and advocacy in the U.S., noting their different assumptions about freedom and slavery. While Christians are largely of one mind that human trafficking is wrong, the strategies that they use and the ends they hope to accomplish are varied and even conflicting.

Cultivating ubuntu: an african postcolonial pastoral theological engagement with positive psychology

Abstract: This paper engages positive psychology in intercultural dialogue with the African tradition of ubuntu, with a focus on examining understandings of the good life and well-being found in both areas of knowledge and practice. The comparison and contrast of the two spheres of knowledge and practice shows the need to engage positive psychology from a postcolonial perspective in order to promote a globally relevant view of human well-being and flourishing in our postcolonial and globalizing world. The paper concludes with some postcolonial pastoral theological reflections and ideas for pastoral care practices informed by postcolonial analysis, positive psychology insights, and the African tradition of ubuntu.

The Problem with Sex According to Buddhism

Abstract: This essay offers a primer for readers unfamiliar with Buddhist sexual ethics. Sex is a problem for Buddhism because it epitomizes the human predicament and the difficulty of its resolution. The essay begins with religious views of the human predicament and its resolution, and how these views shape religious ethical systems. Next follows a brief section on the Buddha and his teachings about human existence and ethical living, focusing particularly on the ultimate goal of liberation from the unsatisfactoriness of a life driven by desire. Given Buddhism's historic emphasis on a renunciatory ideal modeled by a monastic community, a substantial portion of the essay examines the disciplinary rules and sexual behaviors of Buddhist monks and nuns. Sexual ethics for lay Buddhists and non-conventional sexual categories round out the essay.

Interpretative modes of yin-yang dynamics as an asian hermeneutics

Abstract: This study attempts to explore and exemplify several hermeneutical modes of biblical interpretation in light of Asian philosophical systems, especially the concept of the dynamic relationship between yin and yang . By applying some key aspects of the yin-yang dynamics and by utilizing relevant biblical cases, the writer aims to suggest the productivity of reading the biblical texts in dialogue with Asian stories, traditions, and worldviews. The study delineates four major aspects of the yin-yang concepts: (1) duality and plurality, (2) both-and in contradiction and paradox, (3) reciprocity and change, and (4) harmony and balance. Each aspect is defined from various ancient Chinese philosophical resources. The one prominent feature of yin-yang dynamics is the idea of duality and plurality, in that one source has two aspects and those bipolar entities together construct a multi-dimensional whole. Within this complex structure, the opposite components exist together in a "both-and" mutuality rather than "either-or" reduction. In265.p65 stead of repelling against or reducing to one, the two contradictory ideas are often placed together in a dynamic correlation. This dynamic correlation is not static but fluid, constantly changing and flowing within the mutual reciprocity. Two opposite entities not only stand side-by-side but also coerce, challenge, and correct each other in a constant mutual interaction. This mutual interaction does not occur at a random accident but rather for the dynamic retrieval, retaining, and return to the centrality of balance. After defining each of these aspects, selected biblical exemplifications are discussed, in order to present a case that there are many parallel—both similar and opposite—ideas, traditions, and worldviews between the biblical texts and the yin-yang concepts. The biblical exemplifications mainly focus on Genesis 1 and 2, though cases from some other places are also discussed. Several prospects for the possible potentialities and limitations of utilizing this yin-yang dynamics are suggested at the conclusion.

Politics in the Order of Salvation: Transforming Wesleyan Political Ethics . By Theodore R. Weber. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon, Kingswood Books, 2001. 483 pp. $35.00 paper.

Abstract: Space permits only a brief rehearsal of the author's important conclusions and confirmations or rejections of earlier views. Usher rejects Sir John Neale's view that the reactionary Queen was at best a reluctant Protestant, Christopher Haigh's contention that she was a mere \"politique,\" and Christopher Hill's view that she was an avaricious exploiter of a toadying episcopate. Elizabeth did not plunder the church. William Haugaard's account of the settlement is dismissed as \"impossibly rosy\" (6), and Winthrop Hudson's development of a \"Cambridge connection\" is seen as exaggerating the influence of the Cambridge group and Elizabeth's commitment to it. The Elizabethan episcopate is seen as generally Calvinist, Calvinist theology being shared by those who governed the Church of England and those more radical Protestants who sought to subvert it. Usher says interesting things about individual bishops. He stresses Jewel's importance as intellectual leader of the early episcopate, and Edmund Guest and Richard Cheyney stand out as anomalous. Archbishop Parker does not fare well: dragging his feet on reform, his insistence on ritual conformity self-defeating, he is described as \"morose and self-isolating\" (122). Archbishop Grindal on the other hand, though perhaps sometimes inept, was handled unwisely by a Queen who ignored better advice: since the ultimate task of her episcopate was to root out residual \"popery\" and promote Reformation religion, and preaching was a principal way of doing this, the suspension of Grindal over the \"prophesyings\" was \"the single most irresponsible decision that she ever took\" (152), undermining the Queen's own goals and sowing needless division. Anticipating something he promises to develop more fully in his next volume, the author rejects the notion that later in her reign Elizabeth entirely agreed with Archbishop John Whitgift and accordingly delegated her role in church policy to him. Usher's careful and impressive book confirms the trajectory of much recent scholarship on the Elizabethan church by mining underused financial records, adding this to the other evidence that has been drawn upon to establish that church as thoroughly Protestant and largely Calvinist, however much elements of an older medieval fabric and structure survived. And as for William Cecil, he concludes that \"it was Burghley's vigilance, and his alone, that saved Elizabeth from the worst consequences of her own actions as Supreme Governor of the Church of England\" (186).