Is Learning About The Second World War Important

Is learning about The Second World War important? The Second World War began in 1940, and ended in 1945. The main reason why the war started was that a man called Adolf Hitler were against all the Jews. He meant that the Jews had good educations, and got all the important and big jobs in the society. It is important that we learn about this happening, in that way we can try to not make it happened again. In this essay, I am going to write more about why we should learn about the Second World War, what the final solution did to the Jews and why we should try to not make it happened again and I’m going to tell about how we can use Anne Frank’s diary to get a view in to the war. It is important that we learn about the Second World War.†¦show more content†¦When we learn about the Second World War, we learn about all the consequences the war gave us. In that way, I hope we have a reason to not make any World War 3. That one man could have so much hate to a kind of people is not okay. If someone thought like this today, I think that we will have enough laws and police to stop them/him, her. â€Å"Who says I am not under the special protection of God?† –Adolf Hitler. (Goodreads) this s a quote Hitler said. If you read it and think, what it could mean. I would probably think that he taught himself that he was sent from God to help the society, and that God always should him. However, all he actually did was destroying the society. But The Second World War did also help us to develop medicines. The final solution was a solution directed to the Jews under the Second World War. SS-general Reinhard Heydrich got an order from Hitler in the ending of 1941 to make the solution. January 20. 1920, he had a plan for the final solution, he had worked together with Adolf Eicmann. They shared their example of the final solution at a conference in Berlin called Wannsee-conference, after 1 hour and 20 minutes, they got a plan for the final solution, or â€Å"die endlà ¸sung† in German. The final solution said that all the Jews should be exterminated. With this solution they decides that they should start the worlds biggest genocide. As a follower from this solution they

Potentially Unethical Free Essays

What is potentially unethical about the situation described in the Daryl scenario is the choice of not informing my superior of the shenanigans my peer, Daryl, is committing. That, basically, is the theft of company time, company equipment and company staff for his own personal benefit. The very fact that I would be fully aware of his deliberate underhanded actions, and that I would continue to be silent about it, I think, would make me almost as culpable as him. We will write a custom essay sample on Potentially Unethical or any similar topic only for you Order Now Close to a co-conspirator, but not quite.Although, I would not be actually participating in this disreputable manner, I would by virtue of not saying anything would make me, at the very least, tacitly giving approval. And, if my boss were to find out in the future for some reason or other that I was fully aware and said nothing, it would not be unfair to say an outright dismissal might be appropriate in the eyes of my employer. At the very least, I would appear to be a not too trustworthy or dependable employee.To know something and not say something because perhaps one did not wish to, but into anyone else’s business is one thing. But to not say something for self serving reasons is another. If I were to keep my mouth shut so that I may do the same thing as Daryl i. e. use company property, use company time and use company personnel for reasons that have nothing to do with the company, is to use an unprofessional word: scandalous.This kind of behavior is outright theft. True, one may feel a bit like a tattletale if one were to choose to inform their higher-uppers. But so what? Better to be that than to be the kind of employee no employer desires to have. And besides that, it would all be Daryl’s fault if he did get busted. After all, he would be the one committing this devious behavior. That does not seem like the kind of person that has any company loyalty. How to cite Potentially Unethical, Papers

Greek Culture free essay sample

Greek culture is a culture that I know little to nothing about. In the Greek culture, family is very important. In their culture it is very important to have a good, trusting relationship with their doctor. Typically a male would see a male doctor and a woman would see a female doctor. In most cases, Greek families like to know of an illness of someone in the family before the ill family member finds out. The family members would like to decide if the diagnosis is worth telling the sick family member. Greeks are very sensitive on death and dying issues so they prefer not to tell a family member because they feel it would only be a burden. (Mitchell) After a death they light a candle that will burn all night. Once buried bones, after 3 years, are unburied and put into a holy box to be placed in church or reburied in the family grave. We will write a custom essay sample on Greek Culture or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Graves are visited daily in this culture as they celebrate a special service on the 40th day after a death. There are specific birth beliefs in the Greek culture as well. To keep away the evil spirits, the mother and new born go to church after 40 days of birth.While in church on the 40th day the baby is blessed and prayers are said to keep away the evil spirits. Charms of white and blue beads are worn on the wrist of the baby to symbolize safety, to protect from the evil eye. An exorcism may be performed if a baby cries excessively. Wrapping a baby in blankets and pinning to sheets is believed to relax an infant. The age two is when children of this culture get baptized. (Mitchell) The Greeks actually had in depth medical knowledge with only the most elementary technology.Today we are so dependent on technology so it is hard to believe the Greeks were so advanced in the medical field. The ancient Greeks had a cure for cholesterol, diabetes, gonorrhea, cholera, leprosy, anemia, allergies, migraines, acne, and plague. The ancient Greek cure for diabetes was to exercise regularly and follow a healthy diet and life style. It was a severe and fatal condition. They used remedies such as mixing dates, raw quinces, gruel and oil of roses as a cure. These remedies were actually ineffective but using condiments like herbs (black cumin) have been successful in treating diabetes.The cure for cholesterol had a lot to do with flaxseeds. Modern research does show the effectiveness in lowering cholesterol levels with flaxseeds. Alum was one of the most commonly recommended forms of treatment in ancient Greece. The Greek physicians actually used alum for the cure of gonorrhea. Bad air or pollution (miasma) was the cause of cholera and good hygiene habits were understood to treat the condition. Leprosy is actually a treatment of the Greek that is unknown. It is known that the Greeks did indeed believe all diseases had a biological cause.Anemia and other conditions like that were treated by the Greeks with beetroot. Beetroot helps to increase red blood count levels as modern research shows. If an individual would become desensitized based on consumption of food they would suggest small doses of that particular food. Mint was an adequate herb used to treat migraines in the culture. Home remedies were used by the Greek to cure acne. Honey, sulfur, vegetable, and herbal preparations were used for acne. Sulfur was extremely popular and eliminated oiliness. The Greeks medical knowledge definitely advanced modern medicine. Spielvogel) The Greeks then were still puzzled by the origins of treatments of mental illness just like we are today. Other people were involved in providing medical treatment besides doctors. Doctoring wasn’t regulated so drug sellers, midwifes and root cutters could help medical treatment. The buildings were the patient lived was mostly where healing practices took place. Sick people could also be treated in the temples where rituals and sacrifices took place. The relationship to religion and the role of prognosis also were important aspects of Greek medicine.The Greeks developed two major medical movements: the cult of Asclepius, god of medicine, and the rational medical theories of the Greek physician Hippocrates. (Osborn) Patients had the right to choose which medical movement they wanted to undertake but both spiritual and rational treatments was used. Asclepius, the god who healed with moving water, had a healing process that was a mixture of religious ceremony and health practices. Treatments included mud baths, special diet, exercise, stress relief, and exposure to the sun. Osborn) Any person that wanted to be healed by Asclepius had to make an offer of devotion on return. In the process of getting healed a patient would have to spend the night in a dormitory. The physician Hippocrates is known as the father of modern medicine. The Hippocratic Oath was developed by him and is still used today. Hippocrates was the first physician to view medicine as a science and not a religion. He was a doctor who actually conducted experiments to show that disease was a natural process. (Osborn) After conducting experiments he proved that medicine was science and not by any means magic or supernatural. He was considered an ideal physician and is remembered today for his oath. The legacy of Hippocrates is what set high ethical standards for the practice of medicine.

The Bridge Between the World and Cognition Essay Example

The Bridge Between the World and Cognition Essay Introduction Language represents humans experiences and different fields hold different ways of language using. The language of science actively constructs scientific reality, I. E. A way of looking at the world, the roles assigned to readers and the way of organizing Information (LINKING-molestation). However, science may be presented diversely according to the different intended audience, purposes and modes. Three texts chosen in this paper are all concerned with the same scientific reality, but their language differs widely. The ways in which science are presented in this three texts argyle depends on their audience, purposes and modes. To put it another way, language of science in the chosen texts changes with changes in audience, purpose and mode. The focus of the present paper Is on how the language of science changes with different audience, purposes and modes from the perspectives of genre, technical language, lexical density, nominal groups and molestation, information organization, writer-reader relationship and the use of visuals. The first section of this paper is a brief introduction of the background and purpose. Part two, the most important one, extensively focuses on the detailed analysis of language changes of science. Then the concluding section sums up the main ideas. 2. Analysis and comment 2. 1 Genre Swales (1990) indicates that genres are a class of communicative events linked by some set of communicative purposes shared by members of a particular community; these purposes are the rationale of the genre and help to shape the ways it is organized and the choices of content and style It makes (LINKING-Genre). We will write a custom essay sample on The Bridge Between the World and Cognition specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on The Bridge Between the World and Cognition specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on The Bridge Between the World and Cognition specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer It can be seen that the communicative purpose of a genre Is realized by highly organized move truce, which In turn Is achieved by rhetorical strategies. Text 1, taken from New Scientist, is a very popular international science magazine aiming at reporting the latest scientific development to the public. As a non-peer- reviewed magazine, the main readers of which are non-scientists. To achieve its communicative purposes, this text moves from the European hunter-gatherer was a blue-eyed boy? to by-line (source and the writer), then to introduction (theme of the whole text), and lastly comes the main body. In the body part, the main idea of An ancient hunter-gather has a genome similar to modern unmans is expanded by presenting more details with two subheadings: Farming genes and Healthy genomes. Whats more, exemplifications and explanations are made full use to illustrate this scientific finding. All In all, as far as the genre is the-minute news from BBC website. BBC News provides the politically impartial news for people around the world, thus the target audience are the public who are interested in the world news or learning English. This text is organized by heading, by-line, and two subheadings. As for the content and style, it repeats the scientific experiment with objective data and experts words. All these features go to the field of pedagogic science. Text 3 is an article published in the Journal Nature, a highly respected scientific Journal in that all the articles are peer-reviewed and maintain high research standards. Accordingly, the primary readers for this Journal are research scientists. This text is much longer and complex with lots of data, tales and figures, which give hints of professional science. To present the process of research, this text follows the formal structure of a research article: introduction, methods, exults and discussion (LINKING-Genre). 2. 2 Technical language Technical language is a typical characteristic of scientific articles. Ways to create technical language include taxonomies, definitions, compositions, naming and so on (LINKING-molestation). By employing the technical language, information can be greatly compacted and restructured. Due to the scientific nature of the three texts, any of them adopt the skill of technical language, but in different degrees. The target readers of Text 1 are the popular audience and it only reports the results of the research rather than doing experiments. So, it uses less technical language. Throughout the whole text, it can be found only one technical language used for definition in paragraph 5: For instance, lactose tolerance the ability to drink milk as an adult probably evolved when farming spread. Text 2, purposed to teach science, utilizes no typical means of creating technical language that mentioned above, but it has many proper names. For example, La Bran 1 and 2 in paragraph 6, UP radiation and vitamin D in paragraph 11 and lactose-intolerant and starch in paragraph 14. Text 3, the professional one, owns the most technical language to ensure its objectivity, authenticity and validity. At the first glance of this text, the technical language with the way of composition can be found: Next-generation sequencing (INS) technologies are revolutionized the field of ancient DNA (DNA), and have enabled the sequencing of complete ancient genomes, such as that of  ¶ditz, a Neolithic human body found in the Alps. Whats more, taking paragraph 5 (a very short one) as an example, there are altogether five proper names, namely, LA Bran genome, allele, lactose intolerance, salivary amylase and starch. 2. Lexical density Vocabulary is a basic feature of language and lexical density is closely related to the choice of vocabulary. Lexical density is a measure of the density of information in any passage of text and it is determined by calculating the ratio between the number of clauses in a text and the number of content words in a clause (LINKING- molestation). The high lexical density of a text gives a sense of being more formal, written and academic, whereas it is felt more spoken and As for the three texts in this paper, they are popular, pedagogic and professional science respectively. Lexical density, therefore, must be very different from one another. The titles of each text present their lexical density. After the lexical items in each headline being underlined, the three titles are presented as Ancient European hunter-gatherer was a blue-eyed boy, Hunter-gatherer European had blue eyes and dark skin and Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7 000-year- old Megalithic European. The title of text 3 possesses the most contents words followed by the title of text 2 and that of text 1 has the least. When looking closely at he three texts, the feature of lexical density become clearer, that is, the lexical density is increasing form text 1, to text 2, then to text. 2. 4 Nominal groups and normalization Both nominal groups and normalization can make it come true that short space contain more information. A nominal group consists of a head noun and various elements placed before and after it which modify its meaning; while molestation is the process by which events, qualities and relationships come to be represented as things and nouns (LINKING-molestation). Here the first sentence of each text is hoses to illustrate the nominal groups and normalization in popular science, pedagogic science and professional science. Text 1: An ancient hunter-gatherer whose remains were found in a Spanish cave has a genome surprisingly similar to modern humans. Text 2: Genetic tests reveal that a hunter-gatherer who lived 7,000 years ago had the unusual combination of dark skin and hair and blue eyes. Text 3: Ancient genomic sequences have started to reveal the origin and the demographic impact of farmers from the Neolithic period spreading into Europe. The above examples show that the nominal groups (underlined parts) in text 3 is anger than those in text 2, which in turn are longer than in text 1. As the nominal groups get longer, more information is packed into the sentence. Hunter-gatherer in the first and second sentence and sequence in the third sentence are examples of normalization. 2. 5 Information organization Based on the different audience and communicative purposes, information organization in popular science differs widely from professional science. Popular science writers focus on the thing being studied rather than the methods used and they do not assume high degree of common knowledge; contrarily, professional scientists focus on the methods by which data was analyzed and assume that reader and writer share specialized knowledge (LINKING- Organizing information). As far as genres of the three texts are considered, information given in them is different, which determines the different ways of information organization. At the beginning of text 1, the main idea/macro-theme is given, which followed by genome surprisingly similar to modern humans. Lexical chains like but and for instance are utilized to enhance its cohesion. Same with the text 1, text 2 starts with the macro-theme and then gives some illustrations. Semantic relations are created by a set of cohesive devices, such as conjunctions (and/as), reference (they/it) and lexical cohesion (genetic/gene/genome). Text 3, as the professional science, keeps the formal information organization of a research article. Firstly, it shows us the macro- theme, and then gives the detailed process of data collection and analysis with hyper-themes. With more nominal groups, normalization, technical language and lexical chains, text 3 possesses a more cohesive argument. Take the first paragraph as an example: Next-generation sequencing (NAGS) technologies are revolutionized he field of ancient DNA (DNA), and have enabled the sequencing of complete ancient genomes, such as that of  ¶ditz, a Neolithic human body found in the Alps. However, very little is known of the genetic composition of earlier hunter-gatherer populations from the Megalithic period. 2. Relationship between writer and readers Writer-reader relationship plays a vital importance in the language of science. The target readers often determine the writing purpose and mode, through which forms the language style. The first text, titled Ancient European hunter-gatherer was a blue-eyed boy, is taken room New Scientist, which intends to report the latest scientific development to the public audience. This kind of relationship between writer and reader lead to the lang uage being popular and easy to understand. Text 2? Hunter-gatherer European had blue eyes and dark skin? is a piece of BBC news that present impartial news for worldwide people. As the news is reported by the announcer, the language of it couldnt be so complex that impede comprehension. Titled as Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7 000-year-old Megalithic European, text 3 is an article chosen from the highly respected Journal Nature. Owing to the fact that the main readers of this Journal are research scientists, the language of it must be very objective, authentic and evidence-oriented. 2. Use of visuals Using proper visuals can not only enhance the reliability and validity of the scientific language, but also nicely draw the readers attention. All the three texts adopt the skills of visuals, like pictures, hyper links, underlined words, etc. However, it still has some differences between the three texts. For instance, the colorful picture of the lee-eyed boy appears in both the first and second text, bu t not in the third one. This colorful picture does well in arousing readers interests, which is very helpful to achieve the texts communicative purposes. Besides, some words in text 1 are typed in different color and text 2 includes marked sentence that extracted from other text. Compared with the first two, the third text uses more figures and tables, which greatly present the data analysis and shows the professional nature of this text. 3. Conclusion From what has been discussed above, weve got to know that the language of science hoses three texts in the light of genre, technical language, lexical density, nominal groups and molestation, information organization, writer-reader relationship and the use of visuals. In general, text 1, aims at reporting the scientific development to the common people, belongs to the popular science with less technical language, nominal groups and mollification, and low lexical density; text 2, purposed to provide the politically impartial news for people around the world, falls into the field of pedagogic science, which has more technical language, nominal groups and implantation, and higher lexical density than text 1; text, being the professional science, aims to present the experiment to research scientists and possess the most technical language, nominal groups and mollification, and the highest lexical density.

German language Essay Example

German language Essay Example German language Essay German language Essay Learning a foreign linguistic communication calls for assorted considerations. The foreign linguistic communication Germanof pick to be learned is of premier importance. for if the chase of this linguistic communication does non give any concrete productive consequences save for personal satisfaction. the class would so be considered superficial. if non at all futile. Some people have admitted that they took a class or two in Gallic and Italian because they are considered the linguistic communications of love affair and. more so. they are the linguistic communications of the nouveau riche and the culturally refined. Take these non as an onslaught on the nature of the Gallic and Italian linguistic communications. but instead as an expounding of how people perceive certain foreign linguistic communications. By comparing. the German linguistic communication would be a less popular option for undergraduates. salvage for those who chose it as their major and for those who have been required to take it under their course of study. Most people would ab initio hold with Mark Twain’s contemplation: German is an atrocious linguistic communication. If a literary mastermind like him had a instead difficult clip learning German. what more an ordinary individual? : Not to oppugn Twain’s posturing. but the times have changed and the encephalon capacity of worlds have really evolved: the German linguistic communication has. over the old ages. earned its ain followers and people have really realized that it is an astonishing linguistic communication to prosecute. So. why learn German? That would be a tough inquiry to reply since it would be similar to inquiring why one would even trouble oneself larning a foreign linguistic communication. In the Philippines. people already have their fill of a foreign linguistic communication. what with English being so ingrained in our cultural subconscious. So. why fuss larning another foreign linguistic communication and why should it be German? Save for some really personal grounds. like desiring to understand a relation in Austria or to work in Germany after college. there are other varied grounds why one should be larning the German linguistic communication. some of which could really be socially. intellectually and economically fulfilling. For starting motors. contrary to what Mark Twain had been stating. German is an easy yet astonishing linguistic communication to larn. If one already knows English. so he already has an advantage. The two linguistic communications portion many similarities in both vocabulary and grammar. owed much to the fact that they portion common lineage with the Germanic linguistic communications. Plus. German is a phonetically interesting linguistic communication. Equally much as one finds it instead disputing to put to death. due to its varied pharynx sounds. German phonetics makes it easy to foretell how the spoken words are written and how the written words are pronounced. One might hold likely heard of the footings German precision and German efficiency . refering to the manner by which merchandises made in Germany have been conceived and constructed. Truly. linguistic communication is brooding of civilization. and. as such. one could safely state that the precise and efficient German linguistic communication is brooding of its precise and efficient people. And it is no admiration that Germans are known worldwide to be great pioneers and profound minds. Gutenberg’s construct of the printing imperativeness. Einstein’s theory of relativity and Brandenburg’s creative activity of the MP3 digital music format are all testaments to German preciseness and efficiency. Marx’s Manifesto. Nietzsche’s Hagiographas and Hegel’s doctrine are all testaments to the reconditeness of the German imaginativeness and mind. Knowledge. if non at all command. of the German linguistic communication allows one to entree the plants of these people in their original linguistic communication. therefore leting one to to the full understand the intrigues of their doctrine or engineering. Anyone interested in the same Fieldss could automatically spread out their cognition and accomplishment by cognizing the linguistic communication. If one wishes to be in the cringle of universe events. one can non be free from the shadow of Germany and its civilization. The influence of German civilization in the universe sphere can non be denied. and they instigate this influence more via the power of their engineering. With 4 of the world’s 10 most advanced companies located in Germany. they hold 12. 7 % of the world’s patent applications. Bing a state committed to research and development. Germany exports more high-technology merchandises than any other state except the United States. Companies like BMW. Daimler. Siemens. Bosch and many others enabled Germany to go the 3rd strongest economic system and the figure one export state in the universe. Surely. companies such as these need competent employees and international spouses. With all other things equal. the occupation campaigner with cognition of the German linguistic communication would already derive an employment advantage. And this would non be limited to Germany. If one is looking for employment in the United States. cognition of the German linguistic communication would be a great border since German companies account for approximately 700. 000 occupations in the state. Bing one of the economically strongest states in the universe. it would non be a surprise to cognize that Germany is besides one of its greater political powers. act uponing the international policies of the European Union and even the United States. Knowledge of the German linguistic communication would let one to understand how their policies are written and how it affects universe events. For rightly. the actions of these political powers affect each and every authorities and economic system in the universe. might every bit good understand where they are coming from and how they are influenced. Truly. cognition of the German linguistic communication brings about the personal satisfaction of cognizing that one speaks in the linguistic communication of great minds and pioneers. But. in this fast paced universe. cognition of the German linguistic communication finally gives one the chance to understand. if non at all participate in. universe events. may it be intellectually. politically or economically. Language has become the primary tool of linking states. therefore unifying the universe one linguistic communication at a clip. So hold your ain say. learn German today.

Culture of FearWhy Barry Glassners Book Matters

Culture of FearWhy Barry Glassner's Book Matters The unsettling news of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was still lingering when another Malaysia Airlines flight was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile over the eastern Ukraine in July  2014. Later that year, an Indonesia AirAsia flight crashed into the ocean, killing all on board. Less than a year later, 150 people were murdered when a pilot intentionally crashed a Germanwings jet into the French Alps. With sensational news stories like these circulating in our media, its no wonder that the dangers of air travel are on the minds of many. Seated on a plane as its engines rev for takeoff, one cant help but think about the possibility of disaster. But truth be told, the risk of flight is actually quite small. The risk of being involved in a crash that results in deaths is just 1 in 3.4 million, and the risk of being killed in a crash a slim 1 in 4.7 million. In other words, you have a 0.0000002 percent chance of dying in a plane crash (this according to data compiled by PlaneCrashInfo.com, covering the years 1993-2012). By comparison, one has a far greater risk of dying in a car crash, while playing American football, canoeing, jogging, cycling, or attending a dance party.  Really. Glassners Culture of Fear Thesis Explains Our Misplaced Concerns So, why do we fear the wildly unlikely while many realistic threats go unnoticed? Sociologist Barry Glassner wrote a book about this very question  and found that by focusing our fear on non-threats, we actually fail to see the very real threats to our health, safety, rights, and economic well-being that ever-present throughout our societies. More than anything, Glassner argues  in The Culture of Fear  that it is our  perception  of the danger of things like crime and plane crashes that has grown, not the actual threats themselves. In fact, in both instances, the risks these pose to us have declined over time, and are lower today than they were in the past. Through a series of compelling case studies, Glassner illustrates how the profit-model of journalism compels media to focus on unusual events, especially bloody ones. As a consequence,  Atypical tragedies grab our attention while widespread problems go unaddressed. Often, as he documents, politicians and heads of corporations fuel these trends, as they stand to benefit politically and economically from them. The costs to us and to society can be great, as Glassner writes,  Emotional reactions to rare but disturbing events also lead to expensive and ineffective public policy. An example of this phenomenon is Jessicas Law, which requires all sex offenders in the state of California, even if they had only offended once as a juvenile, to see a psychologist before being paroled (previously this happened only if they had offended twice). As a result, in 2007 no more offenders were directed to psychiatric help than had been previously, but the state spent $24 million in just one year on this process. News Media Fails to Adequately Cover Real Threats By focusing on unlikely but sensational threats, news media fail to cover actual threats, and thus they tend not to register in public consciousness. Glassner points out the exceptional media coverage that surrounds the kidnapping of toddlers (primarily those who are white), when the widespread  systemic problems of poverty and underfunded, inadequate education, which affect vast numbers of children in our society, go largely ignored. This happens because, as Glassner observes, dangerous trends that have been around for a long time are unappealing to the media they are not new and, so, not considered newsworthy. Despite this, the threats they pose are great. Getting back to plane crashes, Glassner points out that while news media are honest with readers about the low risk of flight, they sensationalize that risk nonetheless, and make it seem much greater than it is. By focusing on this non-story, they divert resources from covering important issues and real threats that deserve our attention and action. In todays world we would be better served by reporting- especially by local news sources- on threats like that to our well-being posed by economic inequality, which is at its highest in nearly a century; the forces that conspire to produce an increasing number of mass-shootings; and the many and varied  threats posed by systemic racism to what will soon be the majority of the U.S. population.

Family genogram progect Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Family genogram progect - Term Paper Example My parents did raise me, however, to believe in the tenants of religion and the teachings that are important in any religious observance. These teachings include the admonition that I must treat everybody with kindness and respect; that I must not judge anybody, as I am not perfect myself; that I must love my neighbor as myself; and that I must not become too enamored of material things, because material things are not what brings true happiness. My parents are very traditionalists, aside from the fact that they are not religious overtly. Their parents were even more traditionalists, and they observed more traditional religion. They believed not only in the Supreme Being, but they also believed in lesser gods, ancestral spirits and magic and medicine. In a way, my grandparents shaped my religious identity more than my parents did. This is because I believe, at least somewhat, in the old ways of my grandparents. I understand that Christianity has some of the same beliefs as what my grandparents ascribed to, which includes the beliefs in guardian angels and the like. I also believe that my ancestors are watching over me, like a kind of guardian angel. My beliefs in magic and medicine are derived from my grandparents, and they are translated into my beliefs in the Tarot and astrology. In other words, I have more of a mystical basis for my overall belief system that does not necessarily comport with Christianity, but is more in line with my grandparents. And, from my parents, come the values that they have taught me, which I have listed above. As far as the sociopolitical foundations of my family, my parents showed the typical exchange theory of labor within the family dynamic, which means that my mother had the role as a homemaker, and she exchanged her labor for my father’s economic provisions. My grandparents have exhibited the same type of exchange. I am different, however, as I am raising my three teenagers on my own, with some

Wk5 Implementation, Strategic Controls, and Contingency Plans Essay

Wk5 Implementation, Strategic Controls, and Contingency Plans - Essay Example One of the noted weaknesses of Apple is its poor relationship with the market than Microsoft (Iftikhar, 2013). This means that for many years, Apple has the consensus of specifying its own standards, rather than the standards of customers. This could mean more of a production-centred management strategy of products, rather than market or customer-centred approach. For this reason, it is necessary to ensure that Apple will take seriously the necessity of ensuring the voices of the customers are constantly heard in its production setting. On the other hand, Iftikhar noted that the products of Apple have very short life cycle, implying that constant maintenance of the research and development department has to be initiated. This prevailing management system has to be changed for good. Thus, the research and development department has to be dynamic, but on the other side, should also be one of the most expensive departments at Apple. Thus, it is necessary to ensure huge capital for this reason. The management therefore, in order to ensure a sustainable competitive advantage should further double its effort in research and development, primarily for the associated expenses of its actual operation. This is to suggest that point that Apple should primarily put the context of adjusting its budget for research and development much more than what is has tried so far from the past until recently. In addition, Apple according to Iftikhar has very low presence in the advertisement. The marketing department should therefore try to improve its strategic approach in communicating its product offerings. This means that in order to ensure a sustainable growth for its offerings and retention in the market, Apple should ensure constant communication and a wide coverage of its message to its market. Finally, Iftikhar also pointed out that Apple has very small market occupation. This issue is one pertaining to organizational

Four hours with the CSPD Essay Example for Free

Four hours with the CSPD Essay I want to express my gratitude and share my ride-a-long experience. The first thing I had to do was contact the Colorado Springs Stetson Hills Area Command to schedule my ride-along. I read the departments ride-along program policy and I received instructions on what I had to do to fulfill the necessary program requirements. Once the initial paperwork was done, a few signatures, a waiver and a criminal background check, I was ready to go. On the day of my ride-along while in the waiting room I met another person who was on a ride-along for class credit as well. After newly hour of waiting I finally met my officer. The officer that was chosen to allow me to ride-along was a female officer. Following her introduction we headed out to the Charger. I was giving a walkie-talkie with an earpiece so that I could listen to the communication from the dispatch. We entered the vehicle, buckled up and started on our way. In the cruiser the officer had logged into her laptop to check her files and looked at any updates on her calls. I was informed that my experience would vary just as much as the calls that the officers went out on from day to day. Some of my responsibilities were that I had to be self-sufficient, be able to think ahead, have the ability to know where I was and most importantly enjoy myself. Our first call was about an attempted shoplifting at a Safeway store. I had the opportunity to drive around the neighborhood and see homes were suspected criminal activity was believed to be. We also responded to a runaway from home. The last thing we did was make a traffic stop for an expired license plate registration. The great thing about the day was that I was able to ask her questions about how police procedures work and how they operate. My hope after this experience is that more people will carry themselves in the manner I observed during my ride-along and recognize what an asset and a delight our officers are to our city. I am now a huge fan of law enforcement because all the officers I saw or had contact with were kind, helpful and efficient. They often work alone, in remote areas. What was interesting to me was the amount of conservation the Officer engaged in. It was revealed through the ride-a-long that Officers do much more than enforce laws. An Officers job is much more than writing tickets. They conduct ongoing public relations. What a wonderful experience for me to see officers respond to incidents involving citizens and watch them handle situations in the same way I believe I would. I now have a completely different outlook and understanding of what our men and women in law enforcement must do every day to keep us safe. I was very impressed with the way they all conducted themselves while performing their duties. They were professional and tactful in the way he interacted with the people they had contact with throughout my ride-along. Each person was treated with the same level of respect. Watching the officer perform her duties made me feel completely safe as she showed complete competence. I found this experience to be informative and I saw a side of law enforcement that most of us never see. I recommend that others in our community spend time with our officers, as I did. My ride alone ended up after four hours and it was certainly eye-opening experience. I sympathize so much with the police officers now. Also I think that everyone should go do a ride-along program at least once in their lifetime, it will change the way you think about them. By the time we finished, I didnt witness any arrests or have the opportunity to blow through any red lights with blaring sirens but I was still impressed. For me it was a pretty fulfilling shift. I got to participate in the Colorado Springs Police Departments Ride-along program and I got to ride shotgun with one of the Springs finest. She even offered to let me stay on until her shift ended if I wanted to. The officer said that this ride-along was a pretty run-of-the-mill shift. Fortunately, there was no major violence during my ride. My hope, after this experience, is that more people will do a ride-along and recognize what an asset and a delight our officers are to our city.

Same Sex Marriage Essay -- Homosexuality, argumentative, persuasive

Many years ago one may have thought that marriage was just between a man and a woman but today that is not always the case. People of this era have now begun to exploring a new aspect of marriage, same sex marriage. Should two people of the same sex be allowed to marry? Throughout the years same sex couples have been pursuing the same rights as heterosexual couples. Since the 1970s homosexual couples have been trying climb this social ladder and gain their civil rights. They have been seeking the government recognition as a domestic partnership since the 1980’s. it wasn’t until the late 1990s when the state of California legalized domestic partnership but very few followed. This allowed extended rights to couples that weren’t married. But the couples’ partnership was only recognized in the state in which they were married. Gay and lesbian couples then began to seek recognition from the government through civil union. Even though it was still only recognized in the state in which the union was performed, civil union gave the unmarried couples even more extended rights. This was first passed by Vermont 2000 and yet again only a few followed. Homosexuals still felt that even though domestic partnerships and civil unions were major break troughs they were not marriage. Neither of domestic partnership nor civil union would have even contributed to the court cases of the Estate of Cooper and Dean v. District of Columbia. In the Estate of Cooper case of 1993, Cooper died and left his belongings to his ex-spouse. His present spouse sued hoping to inherit his belongings as a â€Å"surviving spouse†. The court denied his case and stated that a â€Å"surviving spouse† is considered only as a lawfully recognized husband or wife. In 1995, in the ... ...r marriage to be between one man and one woman, not between two men or two women. Same sex marriage is nothing but detestation. â€Å"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: They shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. Letiviticus 20:13† Works Cited http://www.equalitymaine.org/marriage-civil-unions-and-domestic-partnerships-comparison http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0922609.html http://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/wills-trusts-estates/wills-trusts-estates-keyed-to-dobris/estate-and-trust-administration/in-re-estate-of-cooper-2/ http://www.ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=16430 http://www.mit.edu/~thistle/v13/3/marriage.html http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/dstd/Press_Releases/STDGay2000.htm http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/more-legal-maneuvering-in-dont-ask-dont-tell-repeal/

In class Assignment

The point in the issue is that the common understanding of the idea and language is efferent in different cultures. Thus all the companies should mix up different culture people so people can understand different cultures. In the Bell's example illustrates the different cultural thinking where pantomime tradition and since ancient times in plays leading man is being played by lady and vice-versa wherein American people thought that all these people enjoying are freaks and the play is politically incorrect.As in nonverbal communication is considered in Indian culture while greeting people put their hands together with a slightly bow of their head and saying â€Å"Names† which wows respect amongst each other while in Western culture while greeting people is quite important to shake hands, make an eye contact and kiss on checks is necessary.When a company has definite values of business which would lead to equality amongst employees belonging to different cultures the communicati on would be difficult amongst everybody and people would not be able to reach an expectation of their colleagues but gradually with the time span goes people would know an individual's perspective, values and beliefs which would help them to build an right expectation further it creates respect amongst employees. So according to me yes it is good idea to grow a company with multicultural environment and let people know other people.Businesses with multicultural people have its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, considering it as an advantage it is useful to for increasing knowledge of different cultures and worldwide involvement which leads a strong base of globalization whereas on other side there are also certain disadvantage of getting along with different cultures as in there can be high risk of discrimination.

Agricultural Policy of Bangladesh Essay

Agriculture is the dominant economic activity in Bangladesh and regarded as the lifeline of the Bangladesh economy. Its role is vital in enhancing productivity, profitability and employment in the rural areas for improving the wellbeing of the poor. As the largest private enterprise, agriculture (crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry) contributes about 21% of the GDP, sustains the livelihood of about 52% of the labour force, and remains a major supplier of raw materials for agro-based industries. Agriculture plays an important role in the overall economic development of Bangladesh. Agriculture is also a social sector concerned with issues like food and nutritional security, income generation and poverty reduction. Besides, it is the biggest source of market for a variety of consumer goods, including consumer durables particularly in the rural area. Hence, improvement in agricultural sector performance and acceleration in its growth are critical to reducing rural poverty. 1. 2 Agricuture sector encompasses crops, fisheries, livestock, and forestry sub-sectors. Separate policies on livestock, fisheries and forestry have been formulated by the respective ministries. In this perspective, Ministry of Agriculture has drafted this policy document in order to undertake and guide development activities in the crops sub-sector. As expected, policies aimed at crop production in the areas of reaserch, extension, seeds, fertilisers, minor irrigation, marketing, gender and HRD have prominence in this document. Since crop sector plays a major role in Bangladesh agriculture and gets the utmost importance in various agriculture related programmes of the government, this policy document for the development of crop sector is, therefore, entitled as the National Agriculture Policy. It is estimated that the agricultural land is declining by 1% per year and the land quality is deteriorating owing to degradation of soil fertility (e. g. nutrient imbalance), soil erosion and soil salinity. In addition, water resources are also shrinking. In order to produce more food for an increasing population, and raw materials for agro-industries, there is a need for increasing agricultural growth through higher productivity, including increased yield, agricultural intensification and diversification, and value addition. The overarching goal of the Government of Bangladesh (GoB) matches with Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of achieving 50% reduction in the proportion of population living below the poverty by 2015. In addition to maintaining a sound macro-economic framework, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), entitled Unlocking the Potential National Strategy for Accelerated Poverty Reduction (GoB, 2005), highlights the need for higher growth in rural areas, development of agriculture and rural non-farm economic activities as one of the four priority areas to accelerating pro-poor economic growth. In order to achieve the GDP growth rate of 7% per year, agriculture must grow by at least 4-4. 5% per year (PRSP, 2005). This is presumably possible through an increase in agricultural productivity (for crops, horticulture, livestock, fisheries and forestry) based on modern agricultural technology and a supply chain linking farmers with consumers in the domestic as well as overseas markets. Small farms dominate the agrarian structure of Bangladesh. Therefore, performance of the sector greatly affects economic progress and people s livelihood. To reduce rural poverty 2 and improve rural livelihoods, it is necessary to recognize and to develop existing agricultural production system into a more dynamic and viable commercial sector. Agriculture has the potential to reduce food deficit as well as shortage of industrial raw materials, and also to generate employment opportunities with reasonable income, which will in turn help improve the standard of living of the rural people. The growth potential of most of the crops and other agricultural commodities are substantially higher than present level of production. 1. 7 Sustainable intensification and diversification of agriculture through technological change requires an efficient and productive agricultural technology system comprising agricultural research and extension. This needs to be supported by appropriate value addition and market linkages. Enhancing productivity, resource use efficiency, using cutting age science, experimental facilities and above all productivity and maintaining a reservoir of first-rate human resources to sustain knowledge-intensive agriculture has become critically important. The Bangladesh agriculture demands considerable scientific and technological input. Today s complex national and economic environment requires increase in the effectiveness of the public expenditure in research and extension system. Major challenges for the Bangladesh agriculture are to raising productivity and profitability, reducing instability, increasing resource-use efficiency, ensuring equity, improving quality; and meeting demands for diversification & commercialization of agriculture. 1. 9 The existing National Agricultural Policy was adopted in April, 1999. With the passage of time some issues and concerns have emerged in agriculture, in some cases with new dimension. For instance, dwindling agricultural resources, declining biodiversity, climate change, increasing frequency & intensity of natural disasters, increasing input prices, soaring food prices etc. require transformation of agriculture in such a way that would address challenges to meet demands. This necessitates the revision and updating the earlier document to make it relevant to the present agro-economic context. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of Agriculture Sector For developing of a pragmatic and effective and efficient national agricultural policy, it is a pre-requisite to gauge the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that are associated with the issues of policy interventions.

Free Essays on Gérard, François

Gà ©rard, Franà §ois 1. Life and work. He spent most of his childhood in Rome. His talent as an artist revealed itself early and during this period he acquired a love of Italian painting and music, which he never lost. In 1782 his family returned to Paris, where, through the connections of his father’s employer Louis-Auguste le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil, Minister of the King’s Household, Gà ©rard was admitted to the Pension du Roi, a small teaching establishment for young artists which had been founded by the Marquis de Marigny. After 18 months he entered the studio of the sculptor Augustin Pajou, where he remained for two years, before transferring to that of the painter Nicolas-Guy Brenet. He became a pupil of David in 1786 and quickly found special favour with his master. In 1789 Gà ©rard competed for the Prix de Rome and his entry, Joseph Revealing himself to his Brethren (Angers, Mus. B.-A.), was placed second; the winner was Girodet. He did not submit in 1790, being preoccupied with his father’s illness and death- after which he returned to Italy with his mother and two younger brothers. Back in Paris by mid-1791 he became David’s assistant in the painting of the Death of Le Pelletier de Saint Fargeau (destr.) in 1793 and the following year won first prize in the National Convention’s competition on the theme of its historic session of 10th of August 1792 (prize drawing, Paris, Louvre; unfinished canvas, London, priv. col.). Although the project lapsed, his success secured him lodgings and a studio in the Louvre. The design was much praised by David- its composition was inspired by his own Oath of the Jeu de Paume (never completed) and through his influence Gà ©rard was spared military service, though only at the cost of sitt ing on the Revolutionary Tribunal. (He avoided most, if not all, of its sanguinary sessions by feigning illness.) On the death of his mother in 1793, Gà ©rard married her sister and assumed respon... Free Essays on Gà ©rard, Franà §ois Free Essays on Gà ©rard, Franà §ois Gà ©rard, Franà §ois 1. Life and work. He spent most of his childhood in Rome. His talent as an artist revealed itself early and during this period he acquired a love of Italian painting and music, which he never lost. In 1782 his family returned to Paris, where, through the connections of his father’s employer Louis-Auguste le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil, Minister of the King’s Household, Gà ©rard was admitted to the Pension du Roi, a small teaching establishment for young artists which had been founded by the Marquis de Marigny. After 18 months he entered the studio of the sculptor Augustin Pajou, where he remained for two years, before transferring to that of the painter Nicolas-Guy Brenet. He became a pupil of David in 1786 and quickly found special favour with his master. In 1789 Gà ©rard competed for the Prix de Rome and his entry, Joseph Revealing himself to his Brethren (Angers, Mus. B.-A.), was placed second; the winner was Girodet. He did not submit in 1790, being preoccupied with his father’s illness and death- after which he returned to Italy with his mother and two younger brothers. Back in Paris by mid-1791 he became David’s assistant in the painting of the Death of Le Pelletier de Saint Fargeau (destr.) in 1793 and the following year won first prize in the National Convention’s competition on the theme of its historic session of 10th of August 1792 (prize drawing, Paris, Louvre; unfinished canvas, London, priv. col.). Although the project lapsed, his success secured him lodgings and a studio in the Louvre. The design was much praised by David- its composition was inspired by his own Oath of the Jeu de Paume (never completed) and through his influence Gà ©rard was spared military service, though only at the cost of sitt ing on the Revolutionary Tribunal. (He avoided most, if not all, of its sanguinary sessions by feigning illness.) On the death of his mother in 1793, Gà ©rard married her sister and assumed respon...

Baseball Bats Essay Research Paper In any

Baseball Bats Essay, Research Paper In any game, the equipment participants use determines the manner the game unfolds. Try to conceive of a association football game played with an American football! Or seek playing tennis with the wooden rackets of 30 old ages ago. Change the equipment, and you discover a really different game. As portion of my expression at baseball, I decided to analyze the tool of the baseball trade: Bats. Possibly the most important and seeable tool in baseball is the chiropteran. A chiropteran is the violative arm, the tool with which tallies are scored. To understand the history and scientific discipline of chiropterans, I read a magazine published by Louisville Slugger, in Louisville, Kentucky place of the Hillerich A ; Bradsby Company, Inc. ( besides known as H A ; B ) , the makers of possibly America # 8217 ; s most celebrated chiropteran, the Louisville Slugger. Through the reading I learned how the modern chiropteran came to be, and what it might become. In 1884, John Andrew Bud Hillerich played truancy from his male parent # 8217 ; s woodworking store and went to a baseball game. There he watched a star participant, Pete The Old Gladiator Browning, fighting in a batting slack. After the game, Hillerich invited Browning back to the store, where they picked out a piece of white ash, and Hillerich began doing a chiropteran. They worked tardily into the dark, with Browning giving advice and taking pattern swings from clip to clip. What happened following is legend. The following twenty-four hours, Browning went three-for-three, and shortly the new chiropteran was in demand across the conference. H A ; B flourished from at that place. First called the Falls City Slugger, the new chiropteran was called the Louisville Slugger by 1894. Though Hillerich # 8217 ; s father thought chiropterans were an undistinguished point, and preferred to go on doing more reliable points like bedposts and bowling pins, chiropterans became a quickly turning portion of the household concern. Merely as it was back so, the authoritative Louisville Slugger chiropteran used by today # 8217 ; s professional participants is made from white ash. The wood is specially selected from woods in Pennsylvania and New York. The trees they use must be at least 50 old ages old before they are harvested. After crop, the wood is dried for six to eight months to a precise wet degree. The best quality wood is selected for pro chiropterans ; the other 90 per centum is used for consumer market chiropterans. White ash is used for its combination of hardness, strength, weight, feel, and lastingness. In past old ages, H A ; B have made some chiropterans out of hickory. But hickory lumber is much heavier than ash, and participants today want visible radiation chiropterans because they # 8217 ; ve discovered that they can hit the ball further by singing the chiropteran fast. So they can # 8217 ; t do the chiropterans out of hickory. Though Babe Ruth, one of the all-time great home-run batters, used a 42 or a 44 ounce chiropteran, participants today use chiropterans that weigh around 32 ounces. Even batters like Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey, Jr. merely use 33 ounce chiropterans because they want to bring forth great chiropteran velocity. How do you do a wooden chiropteran you ask. Here? s how. The wood is milled into unit of ammunition, 37 inch spaces, or notes, which are shipped to the H A ; B mill in Louisville. There they are turned on a tracer lathe, utilizing a metal templet that guides the lathe # 8217 ; s blades. These templets are set up to the specifications of each pro participant. Then the chiropterans are fire-branded with the Louisville Slugger grade. This grade is put on the flat of the wood # 8217 ; s grain, where the chiropteran is weakest. Players learn to swing with the label facing either up or down, so that they can strike the ball with the border grain, where the chiropteran is strongest. Hiting on the level grain will more frequently than non ensue in a broken chiropteran. Finally, the chiropterans are dipped into one of several possible water-basedcoatings or varnishes, which gives chiropterans their concluding colour and protective coat. Each participant selects the coating they desire, while a few participants, such as former Kansas City Royals star George Brett, chose to go forth their chiropterans unfinished. Players today may travel through every bit many as six or seven twelve chiropterans in a season. ( In early old ages, participants used merely use 10s or twelve chiropterans. ) In fact, one participant, Joe Sewell, used the same chiropteran for 14 old ages. Joe attributes the increased breakage of chiropterans to the thin-handled, large-barreled design of modern chiropterans, and to the usage of ash alternatively of hickory. A pitch that jams you inside will about ever saw off a modern chiropteran, while an aluminium or antique hickory chiropteran might bring forth a base hit. Though the fabrication procedure for chiropteran has stayed mostly the same, the design of the pro wood chiropteran has changed a great trade since 1884. The early chiropterans had really small taper, ensuing in a chiropteran with a really thick grip and a comparatively little barrel. The early chiropterans about look like person merely took an ax grip and used it for a chiropteran. Modern participants want a thin grip and a big barrel, to concentrate the weight of the chiropteran in the hitting country. By major conference ordinances, chiropterans must be round with a barrel of no more than 2 3/4 inches. They can be up to 42 inches in length ; there is no ordinance about the chiropteran # 8217 ; s weight. One of the few inventions to the design of the wooden chiropteran is cutting acup out of the terminal of a chiropteran. Developed by a pro participant named Jose Cardinal in 1972, this cup can # 8217 ; t be more than 2 inches in breadth, and 1 inch deep. The cupped chiropteran allows the chiropteran shaper to utilize a heavier, denser, stronger lumber, while still keeping the desirable chiropteran weight. Recently, Ted Williams visited the Louisville Slugger Company and he said that if he was playing today, all of his chiropterans would be cupped. About half the pro chiropterans made by H A ; B today are cupped chiropterans. Throughout the history of baseball, participants in hunt of an border have doctored, or altered, chiropterans in many unusual ways. The chief scheme has been corking the chiropteran. Players cut the terminal of the chiropteran away, bore a hole down into the barrel of the chiropteran, and make full the hole with cork, so glue the terminal back on. This is an effort to buoy up the chiropteran, and give it more spring or bounciness. But truly this does nil advantageous to the chiropteran. In fact, the chiropteran gets weaker, because they? ve drilled out the bosom of it. You may retrieve the clip when [ pro participant ] Graig Nettles put a clump of gum elasticsuperballs inside his chiropteran, and the chiropteran broke, and all the balls spilled out. Nettles attributes the continuity of corking more to head games between the participants than to any advantage a corky chiropteran might hold. Players have besides been known to rub their chiropterans with ham castanetss or glass bottles, a procedure called boning, in an effort to indurate the chiropteran. However, this pattern doesn # 8217 ; t seem to bring forth any benefit beyond the psychological either. In early yearss, some batters would illicitly hammer nails into their chiropterans so that the ball would strike Fe. Even if the chiropteran could be made harder, it would merely decrease striking. Solid wood chiropterans give really small in the impact country, and therefore they store really small energy. What small they do store, they give back [ to the ball ] really expeditiously. On the other manus, the ball distorts a batch under impact, and is comparatively inefficient in giving the energy back. So a harder chiropteran merely consequences in more distortion of the ball, and a lesser hit. The inquiry that come to us following was, but what about a metal chiropteran? The most stupefying alteration in baseball chiropterans in the past 30 old ages started in the 1970s, when chiropterans made from tubings of aluminium began to look. These tubings are machined to change the wall thickness and the diameter, and bring forth chiropterans that are light, strong, and hollow, as opposed to the solid wood. At first, the aluminium chiropteran was merely a metal transcript of a wooden chiropteran. They were merely more lasting, so they were cheaper to utilize. But makers and participants shortly discovered that there were other differences every bit good. Aluminum chiropterans are rather different than wooden 1s. They # 8217 ; re much lighter, more than five ounces. The barrels are bigger, and because they are lighter they can be swung faster than a wooden chiropteran. In add-on, the hardness and resiliency of aluminium can ensue in much greater velocities when the ball comes off the chiropteran. Major League Baseball has required that its participants use wooden chiropterans, but the aluminium chiropteran has come to rule the lower degrees of baseball, from Little League to American Legion to the college game. The most important difference between wooden and aluminium chiropterans is that with an aluminium chiropteran, a phenomenon occurs called the # 8216 ; trampoline effect. # 8217 ; The walls of the chiropteran are thin plenty that they deform, or flex when the ball hits the chiropteran. Some of the energy ( of the hit ) is transferred into the chiropteran alternatively of the ball. That energy is about wholly elastic ; it is given back, or bouncinesss back, about 100 per centum. The energy absorbed when the ball is deformed is about 75 per centum lost to heat, and therefore wasted every bit far as impeling the ball. Because of this trampoline consequence, you can hit the ball slightly faster, and slightly farther. In fact, when the NCAA approved the usage of aluminium chiropterans in 1974, H A ; B started comparing statistics and found that the squad batting norms went up about 20 points, and the home-run production about doubled. The primary ground that wooden chiropterans are required in the pros is due to this public presentation difference. The pro conferences want to protect their historical records, and they desire the public presentation of the game to be the consequence of human ability, instead than the engineering of the chiropterans. Ever-increasing public presentation of metal chiropterans has begun to impact the game at the college degree and below. Aluminum chiropteran shapers have been researching stronger and lighter metal metals. The consequences include ever-lighter chiropterans with dilutant walls, and accordingly higher chiropteran velocities and even greater trampoline effects. A ball hit by these chiropterans travels further and faster. In add-on, H A ; B has already made a chiropteran called the AirAttack in which a polyurethane vesica is inserted into the centre hollow, so filled with pressurized N gas. The gas force per unit area in the vesica supports chiropteran walls, forcing them out after they are deformed under impact. This support allows a much dilutant wall and a greater trampoline consequence. H A ; B has a playground ball chiropteran called the Inertia, in which the inside of the chiropteran contains a rolled-up steel spring that does the same thing. Batting norms and home-run production have gone up systematically at the college degree as these progresss have appeared. Titanium was used briefly, but it was rapidly prohibited because that metal # 8217 ; s combination of high strength, light weight, and snap was clearly traveling to consequence in shattering all striking records in all stages of the game. You could really grab the barrel of the chiropteran in your custodies and squeezing, and you could experience the chiropteran spring. The trampoline consequence was tremendous, and though Ti was banned, Louisville Slugger learned a batch about how to do aluminium chiropterans achieve the same consequence. Recently, a het argument has broken out over the widespread usage of aluminium chiropterans in college conferences. Many in baseball fright that modern engineering is making a superbat, which will irrevocably change the game and endanger participants. Indeed, the regulations commissions are diligently looking at the public presentation of chiropterans, and they have already put some bounds on public presentation ; they may good add more. They are non merely concerned about the unity of the game, the balance between discourtesy and defence, but they are besides concerned about safety. The NCAA regulations commission has decreed that many modern metal chiropterans are unsafe to participants and disruptive to the game. The high velocity of the ball coming off the these metal chiropteran has put hurlers in danger, as a line thrust hit at them may be going excessively fast for them to acquire out of the manner. And the energy of a hit ball additions as the square of the speed, so a fast hit can make more harm. As a consequence, the NCAA has ordered late that chiropteran makers alter their designs to do chiropterans heavier, with a smaller barrel. And baseball organisations from college to Little League are sing a return to a wooden chiropterans merely policy, though the disbursal of wooden chiropterans may do such a move impracticable.

Law for Managers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Law for Managers - Essay Example The concept of â€Å"foreseenability† in many cases is correlated with the issue of a reasonable practicability. Anyway, the employer should provide employees with a certain degree of safety, but risk assessment is placed totally on employees only. It is relevant to consider any type of possible risks. Every employer can make a decision and he can also ignore safety issues. In any case, every employer should be assured that he provided his employees with an efficient level of safety and guaranteed their risks avoidance. On the example of the available cases, the implications of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 are considered further on. Moreover, current literature sources are provided for further considerations about flexibility and challenge of the Act. Legal Authorities (Cases) Thus, for example, when a child was injured and took a used hypodermic syringe, the doctor was accused of failing to ensure health and safety issues of the person. A child took a syringe from a shelf, which was further replaced by another higher shelf. In the result of this accident: â€Å"The doctor was fined ?5,000 under Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 for failing to ensure the health and safety of a person not in her employment and was also ordered to pay the full prosecution costs of ?981.68† (Everley,1999). ... An employee could not transport 935 kilograms of LPG and it was very soon ignited by a nearby gas leakage. Consequently, the Managing Director of the company did not follow HSE guidance and failed to follow the minimum distance to be maintained between vehicles and fuel tanks containing LPG (HSE, 2010). This is a resonance case and in many similar cases the responsibility is applied for the employers. Very often a personal responsibility of employees is omitted. Another case, when the Managing Director and managers of the company were prosecuted for offences, which related to an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease. This bacterium was transferred from one employee to another and it was very difficult for the managers of the company to stop the expansion of this disease. The towers were not properly cleaned and in the result of this neglectful attitude the expansion of the disease were motivated. This case illustrated that: â€Å"the HSE will not only prosecute companies but also Managing Directors if they are found to be negligent† (HSE, 2010). Moreover, it is appropriate to appeal for the personal liability issues in terms of this Act. Thus, personal liability for offences under s 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 was issued at almost the same date of the corporate manslaughter Bill received the Royal Assent. It is possible to correlate these two legal regulation Acts. Moreover, a special attention should be paid to ss 7 and 36 of the HSWA 1974. Section 7 is focused on the employees’ responsibility of their safety. In other words, every employee should be responsible for his own actions at work, because the HSWA 1974 is known as â€Å"the primary focus for all health and safety legislation in the UK† (Barnard 1998, p. 1).

ArticleAbstract Assignments 06 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

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Tutoring Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Tutoring - Assignment Example This means that the impact that education has on any one particular individual is so crucial in one’s life. I have been through this education system and therefore am talking from a background of vast experience. It is for this reason I want to teach people in a high-need school that they can achieve a lot despite them being from less fortunate financial backgrounds. I want them to learn to appreciate themselves and not look down on themselves due to their financial circumstances. Having being born and bred within this geographical locality, I believe I understand the educational needs of people from Chicago and therefore I feel that am ready to take up the challenge that there may be. I know that it may be an uphill task delivering as –per the expectations because I know that different students may have different education needs and that I may be required to apply different approaches with different students, but am all prepared for this. My previous job experience as a tutor at the America Reads as a reading and mathematics tutor accorded me enviable expertise in helping learners understand and complete their homework. In addition, my work experience at the Student Opportunities for After-School Resources places me at a better position for the task ahead.

Analysis of Contemporary British Preaching Styles

Analysis of Contemporary British Preaching Styles The concept of preaching Chapter Two Contextual Literature Review 2.1 Establishing a starting point. Sermons are not a kind of discourse given much serious public attention in twenty-first century Britain. The very concept of preaching often brings with it negative connotations. To accuse any contemporary commentator of preaching is to suggest that unsubstantiated opinions are being delivered in a tedious manner. That in such common usage preaching is almost invariably a highly critical or even condemnatory epithet indicates something of the social standing of the practice of preaching. Preaching is not an activity that is generally thought of as either intellectually or emotionally engaging. It is, rather, something that is considered to be at best passà ©, and at worst wholly untrustworthy. If challenged, those who speak of preaching in such pejorative terms will often cite the cultural distance in practice and understanding between contemporary society and the sermon form as the basis of their judgment. Mention will be made of the social irrelevance of the content of typical sermons, the perceived authoritarian position of the preacher, and the strangeness of the environment in which sermons usually occur. It is also likely that the methodology employed will be judged anachronistic, static, long-winded, and overly didactic for people used to the methods and time-frames of electronic media. The implication is that preaching is somehow out of place in modern society and that, therefore, the negative attitudes displayed in the colloquial use of the term preaching is something new. It is fashionably contemporary to adopt a contemptuous or at best a jocular attitude towards preaching. I use the term fashionably to emphasize that preaching is not the only discourse to receiv e such widespread opprobrium: advertising is similarly widely scorned yet, given the vast sums of money spent on it, is evidently effective nonetheless (Kilbourne, 1999: 34). Voiced contempt of preaching as a worthwhile actively is not necessarily to be taken at face value. As has been stated in the introduction, this thesis seeks to present an analysis of contemporary British preaching as a practice of social mnemonics. As the idea of social practice in that terminology refers to the whole of society rather than an interest group or a few like-minded people gathered together, such a perspective may appear to be an oxymoron given that recent poling suggests only just over six per cent of the adult population of the UK are churchgoers (see Brierley, 2008). This literature review will, nevertheless, seek to establish that Christian preachers who have reflected in depth on their practice in recent generations have invariably assumed that homiletics is an aspect of public discourse rather than an institutionally confined and specialized type of communication. In recent times, justifying that assumption has become more and more difficult, as this review will demonstrate. It has to be admitted that preaching no longer has the place in society-wide awareness i t once enjoyed, despite the occasional headline making exceptions, such as Archbishop Robert Runcies sermon at the Falklands War Memorial Service on 26th June 1982 that reportedly so annoyed the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (Brown, 2000). Despite the decline in preachings social status, this study argues that there are always connections between homiletic theory and wider social discourse, and that discovering those connections is a mnemonic skill required of all preachers. That many studies (for example, Ford. (1979); Bausch, (1996); and Day, Astley and Francis, (2005)) have observed that since at least the 1960s the idea of preaching as a worthwhile arena of social discourse has been repeatedly and vigorously questioned is part of the contextualization with which this thesis is concerned. That the very word preaching brings with it negative connotations that touch even regular Christian worshippers, as N.T. Wright observes in his foreword to the Reader on Preaching (Day, 2005: ix), is part of the social understanding this study aims to examine. The colloquial usage that applies the word preaching to the expression of any unsubstantiated opinions, or any speech delivered in a tedious manner, is not a prejudice that serious homiletic theory can simply ignore. That usage is widespread and is, for example, represented in the 1995 edition of the Oxford English Reference Dictionary where the second definition of preach is give moral advice in an obtrusive w ay. Similarly, the use of the word preaching as a highly critical or even condemnatory epithet is too frequent in newspapers to need much supporting elaboration. Andrew Rawnsley writing in The Observer on 13th July 2008 is but one example of a continuing journalistic convention. Rawnsley cited the drawbacks for politicians who preach in their campaigning via a long catalogue of negatives about the idea of preaching which included delivering patronising lectures from a position of immense privilege, wringing their hands about the sins of the world without offering any practical answers to improve society, and simplified to the point of parody. These kinds of associations related to the idea of preaching cannot be simply dismissed if it is to be argued that the practice of preaching within the churches is closely related to wider social trends. Instead, the contemporary bias that associates preaching with that which is intellectually lazy, emotionally sterile, untrustworthy, or simply passà ©, must be treated as a factor that needs to be addressed in considering the mechanisms of collective memory. That said, it must also be acknowledged that the assertion that preachings low social esteem is a modern phenomenon is not wholly true. Like the contemporary negative connotations of preaching, the characterization of preaching as formerly being held in great social esteem, is a generalization that obscures as much as it discloses. In the famous passage concerning preaching in Anthony Trollopes novel Barchester Towers the negativity usually judged as modern is apparent even at the so-called high-point of Victorian religious practice. Written between April 1855 and November 1856, Trollopes words contain the same kind of criticisms and sense of hostility encountered colloquially nowadays. He wrote: There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries, than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent, and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips. No one can rid himself of the preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we Sinbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sundays rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes Gods service distasteful. We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay, we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the house of God, without that anxious longing for escape, which is the common consequence of common sermons. (Trollope, 1995: 43-44) Only the assumption that Sunday worship is the norm and the invariable gender of the preacher signifies Trollopes diatribe as of another age. The notion of a static audience enduring a platitudinous and boring verbal presentation has an altogether familiar ring about it. As Colin Morris (1996: xi) points out, it is significant that the first series of the Lyman-Beecher Lectures on Preaching established at Yale University in the 1870s ended with a lecture entitled, Is Preaching Finished? Needless to say, the lecture firmly declared that preaching had a future; but, put alongside Trollopes criticisms, it demonstrates that negativity about sermons predates the age of mass electronic communication. In recent years, numerous influential homileticians have described preaching as being in crisis (for example, Jensen, (1993); Wilson, (1988); Morris, (1996)), but too often such worried analysis has overstated the contemporaneity of the problem. 2.2 The perception of a crisis in preaching. Three recurring emphases are common to the arguments of those who see the crisis in preaching as something of recent origin, namely: a widespread loss of confidence in institutions; a change in socially learnt communicative skills; and the all-pervasive influence of television and associated vehicles of mass communication. So, to amplify those three aspects, the argument is usually made in the following kinds of terms. First, not only has the severe decline in commitment to religious institutions in recent times resulted in far fewer people actually hearing sermons, even those who do experience preaching at firsthand are much less likely to treat sermons as being particularly significant than did their immediate forebears. Scepticism, and a questioning outlook that constantly raises issues of credibility, is part of the very air of social intercourse, and preaching has no social independence from such an atmosphere. Like every other voice, the preaching voice is one voice amongst a myriad of other voices, and is just as harried by questions of authenticity, doubt and competition as any other voice. Contemporary European society, it is said, has a fundamentally anti-authoritarian aspect to it that will not allow any single voice ultimate authority. Preaching, therefore, which is usually considered to require special and very particular authority being attributed to the preacher, is especially suspec t. This, in turn, has ramifications for those who preach, since as individuals they are just as much influenced by these contextual pressures as anyone else. This means that preachers, whatever they claim in public, almost inevitably have less confidence in the preaching task than even their recent predecessors. Second, in what the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo (2001: 230) has termed a society of generalized communication, the very nature of communication itself has profoundly shifted. It is as if everything in human experience has become an object of communication. This shift is often associated with consumerism because, it is argued, such a process of ever widening objects of communication allows more and more events, things, and relationships to become marketable commodities. This expansion, however, brings with it three difficult consequences: it vastly increases the number and range of communication events each person encounters day by day, with a resulting loss in focus, concentration, and time spent on each one; it so stimulates the psychological and physical experience of each person that peoples boredom thresholds have decreased dramatically; and it makes communication itself part of the constantly changing, consumption dominated, arena of style and fashion. These things are pa rticularly problematic for preaching since they mean hearers have ever shortening attention spans, feel they need to be stimulated by what they hear, and employ fashion-like judgments to both their readiness to listen and their willingness to respond (Rogness, 1994: 27-29). Coupled with these changes comes an emphasis on technique in communication, and a preference for labelling unacceptable ideas or challenges as a failure in communication. As a result preachers face intense pressures to conform, both in terms of the content of sermons and the techniques of presentation, to what is socially acceptable simply to gain a hearing. Accordingly, it is argued that the requirement to attract attention and engagement is of a wholly more onerous intensity than it ever was in past times. In the distracted age that is contemporary society the static commitment and attention required of sermon audiences is so counter-cultural as to be almost unachievable. Third, the argument gives prominence to the absolute dominance of television as the popular medium, and characterizes contemporary culture as televisual and post-literate. It is said that through television, for the first time in the history of humanity, children are being socialized into image use prior to word use (see Warren, 1997). Consequently, the use of words is likely to no longer occupy the pole position in social discourse, but rather to occupy an inherently second order, commentary position. In other words, our culture has shifted from a reading-formed preference towards the ear over the eye, to an image-formed favouring of the eye over the ear, with an obviously detrimental effect on a word dominated form like preaching. Television also appears to be an open and democratized form of communication that offers the prospect of an absolutely free flow of information. It tantalizes with the notion that anything that happens will be almost instantaneously communicable; an impre ssion further reinforced by the Internet. Of course there are serious criticisms to be made of these judgments, but they are nevertheless widely persuasive, at least at face value, both because of the sensory immediacy of the medium and because of the entertainment factors closely allied with it. In comparison preaching seems a highly subjectivized personal choice in which the preacher demands of an audience assent without prior consent and justification, and in which the factor of entertainment does not figure at all. In a televisual world of a seemingly infinite number of stories, preachings insistence, as it is perceived, on the one story of Gods relationship with humanity in Jesus Christ seems partial and even tedious. Those who lived before the development of electronic media lived lives in which stories, colour, and pictures were rare and precious events; people of the televisual age inhabit a world alive with an ever changing array of images, colours and narratives. Is it any wonder then that preaching that developed as a communication technique in that pre-television world is thought of as having become outmoded? Such are the usual parameters of the argument—broadly stated, no doubt, and perhaps caricatured a little—of recent scholarly analysis of the social location of the practice of preaching in contemporary European society. Interestingly, it is apparent that the scholarly commentary not only echoes colloquial opinion about the recentness of the relative decline of the authority afforded preaching, but also the reasons given for that decline. One of questions which this thesis seeks to address is whether such judgments adequately represent what is actually going on in the act of preaching, and whether by an all too easy assumption of preaching as an essentially distinctive activity somehow distanced from other forms of discourse such analysis does not fall prey to the very forces it is trying to counter. After the hiatus caused by World War II, the BBC resumed television broadcasting in 1946, and the commencement of broadcasting by commercial stations in 1955 accelerated the use of the medium. By 1958 the number of British households with a TV exceeded those with only a radio (Mathias, 2006). Given the above discussion of the widely perceived influence of new electronic media and TVs escalating use, the 1950s seem an appropriate starting point for the consideration of publications dealing with preaching. Quite apart from this more commonplace sense of a shift having taking place, scholarly analysis of both Church history and homiletics tends to support the idea that very significant changes relevant to the thesis topic did in fact occur at this period. Those changes were not necessarily recognized at the time; perhaps an indication of the lag that occurs as the memories of one generation gives way to those of a succeeding one. One British preacher, however, was alert to the possibili ty that something profound was happening. That preacher was a R. E. C. Charlie Browne, a Manchester vicar, whose 1950s reflections on the preaching task turned out to be amazingly prescient of things that would become major concerns years later. Browne serves as a marker of change. It is sensible, therefore, to examine Browne in some detail before returning to the more general overview. 2.3 R. E. C. Browne as a marker of the changing social location of preaching. R.E.C. Brownes The Ministry of the Word was first published in 1958 in a series of short works entitled Studies in Ministry and Worship under the overall editorship of Professor Geoffrey Lampe. Lampes editorship lent theological credibility to a series that was notable on two counts. First, it was decidedly ecumenical (for example, two of the studies were by Max Thurian, who later became internationally known as the theological expositor of the ecumenical Taizà © community); and second, it was written from a perspective that only later would be widely termed applied or practical theology. Brownes book is the acknowledged masterpiece of the series and has been reissued three times since its first publication (1976, 1984 and 1994), as well as being published in the United States in 1982. Writing in 1986, Bishop Richard Hanson said of it: This is no little volume of helpful hints about preaching but a profound study of the meaning and use of language in relation to theology and to faith, and one that will outlast all the ephemeral booklets about how to preach. (in Corbett, 1986: v) Just why this work has been so frequently referred to in a wide variety of Christian traditions will be considered later, but for the purposes of the present discussion the crucial point is the historical context of its writing and publication. Browne wrote the book whilst he was Rector of the parish of Saint Chrysostum, Victoria Park, Manchester in the 1950s. Ronald Preston, in a foreword to one edition of The Ministry of the Word, describes Victoria Park as having moved rapidly since the 1920s from the remains of enclosed and privileged nineteenth-century affluence to near disintegration (in Browne, 1976: 10). He notes also, however, that the St Chrysostums relative proximity to the university and the citys main teaching hospital made it a base from which Brownes influence spread widely. Hanson records that it was a parish where the personality and abilities alone of the incumbent cleric could attract worshippers (Corbett, 1986: iv). In other words, several aspects of the social world that historians like Hastings (1986), Welsby (1984), and Hylson-Smith (1998) have characterized as typical of the 1950s were clearly likely to have been there in Brownes experience of the ministerial life. For example, Welsby commenting on t he monthly journal Theology in the two immediately post-war decades notes how it was widely read by parish clergy and acted as a connecting bridge between the concerns of academia and local church life, and concludes: It is significant, however, that fundamental matters, such as belief in God or in Christ were seldom discussed in its pages, as though these theological foundations were secure and might be taken for granted. This could be a symbol of much of the theology of the forties and fifties. There was a self-confidence and security so that even those who did write about God, Christology, of the Church did so as though the basis of belief was unquestionably right. (Welsby, 1984: 67) Elsewhere in the same book Welsby notes that the seeds of radical change were present in the 1950s but went unperceived, and he describes the atmosphere in the Church of England as one of complacency and an apparent unawareness of trends already present which were to burst to the surface in the sixties (1984: 94). Browne most certainly did not share that unawareness and frankly acknowledged the difficulties of communicating the gospel despite the relatively secure social position of theological thought and institutional belief. Far from being in an unassailable authoritative position, he described preachers as living and preaching in an age when there is general perplexity and bewilderment about authority, and as all too unwittingly signifying that perplexity in the language and thought expressed in the pulpit (Browne, 1976: 33). Browne would probably have concurred with Adrian Hastings opinion that in the ebb and flow of the intellectual tide in the twentieth century, the 1950s marked a high water point of sympathy for the Christian faith in contrast to the high point for secularism immediately after World War I (Hastings, 1986: 491), but he nevertheless argued that effective preaching required new symbols because new human knowledge has disabled the old ones (Browne, 1976: 107). Hastings, looking back on the times in which Browne wrote, asserts: There was never a time since the middle of the nineteenth century when Christian faith was either taken so seriously by the generality of the more intelligent or could make such a good case for itself. (Hastings, 1986: 491) Browne himself is rather more querulous in his reflections and quotes approvingly from Emmanuel Mounier: There is a comfortable atheism, as there is a comfortable Christianity. They meet on the same swampy ground, and their collisions are the ruder for their awareness and irritable resentment of the weakening of their profound differences beneath the common kinship of their habits. The prospect of personal annihilation no more disturbs the contented sleep of the average radical-socialist than does horror of the divine transcendence or terror of reprobation disturb the spiritual digestion of the habituà ©s of the midday Mass. Forgetfulness of these truisms is the reason why so many discussions are still hampered by naà ¯ve susceptibilities. Emmanuel Mounier, The Spoil of the Violent, Harvill Press, 1955: 25 (as cited in Browne, 1976: 109) Browne was conscious that amongst the comforts of wide social acknowledgement and respect other more challenging forces were becoming apparent. Browne is wary of any intellectual triumphalism on the part of preachers and insists that in attempting to address the atheist, or the wholly religiously indifferent unperturbed post-atheist, it is always necessary to establish pastoral rapport first (1976: 110). Sometimes, he admits, such rapport will be impossible to establish (1976: 110). Paradoxically, as Hastings notes (1986: 492, 496), the 1950s were at one and the same time an era in which religion was considered seriously by a number of the great cultural and intellectual figures of the day (such as Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), Carl Jung (1875-1961), Graham Sutherland (1903-80), Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), to name just a few) and in which the radical agnosticism and secularism born of earlier times also flourished (for examples see the works of A.J. Ayer (1910-89), C.P. Snow (1905-80), A.J.P. Taylor (1906-90) and Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003)). Perhaps it was that Browne realized i n a way other preachers did not, that although these two worlds of thought existed side by side the competition between them was not in any way equal. As Hylson-Smith observes, by the end of World War II the environmental context of all cultural activity was essentially secular (1998: 212). That point was a matter of essential concern to a preacher like Browne who regarded sermons as an artistic activity requiring similar processes of social understanding and interaction as those necessary to the production of music, poetry or painting (Browne, 1976: 18). Browne writes rather ruefully: Christians have the naà ¯ve idea that the arts, specially drama, could and should be extensively used for the proclamation of the gospel. In the first place Christian artists cannot easily and quickly find a way of expressing Christian doctrine in a community which is not moved by Christian symbols. Indeed at present there is no common symbolism Christian or otherwise and Christian artists are found incomprehensible and disturbing by their fellow Christians who cannot justify the authority of new forms and somehow feel that old forms might be patched and brought up-to-date. In the second place whenever the church tries to use art as a method of propaganda her integrity and authority are severely questioned by just those whose conversion would be most significant. (1976: 35) There is here an early recognition of that social forgetfulness of Christian symbols that would a generation later become a commonplace assessment of religious traditions in contemporary Britain. For Browne the preachers purpose was to seek answers about the most profound aspects of human concern and experience with the single-mindedness and commitment of an honest artist. Easy answers to difficult questions, or formulaic responses to deep questioning, were to Browne a betrayal of preachings very purpose. For him nothing less than the artists earnest wrestling to express the inexpressible was good enough. It is hard to imagine that Browne was untroubled that the things of artistic expression, with one or two notable exceptions, seemed less and less concerned with religious ideas, and that the churches appeared indifferent to the fact (Hylson-Smith, 1998: 212). As favourable to inherited ideas of religious expression as the climate of the 1950s appears viewed from the beginning of the twenty-first century, Browne, as a preacher active during those years, offers an altogether less sanguine appraisal. That his book dwells extensively on the issue of meaning and the use of language in relationship to the expression of faith indicates that he did not share the easy certainties regarding the communication of religious ideas that were still prevalent within the institutional church of his day. Brownes commitment to preaching as a necessary part of Christian community life is absolute, but his insistence that its practice is most like the creation of a work of art or a poem makes plain its inherent limitations: the sermon can no more readily define the truth in absolute terms than can the artist or poet (1976: 18). Such an insistence shifts the authority given to preaching from one of power, described as six foot above contradiction, to the altoge ther different position implied in later years by terms such as Fords communicative expertise which is self-authenticating (Ford, 1979: 235), or Taylors fragile words (Taylor, 1998: 121). Like such later homileticians, Browne believed preachers should not claim too much for their efforts. That reserve, however, should not be mistaken for a hesitation about the necessity or value of preaching. In his work there is no hint of the thought of later theorists who sought to abandon preaching completely. Brownes reserve is a perceptive awareness that, to use the terminology of Adrian Hastings, although the comfortably traditionalist church of his times was undergoing a period of confident revival (1986: 504) it was in fact finding it harder and harder to connect with the generality of people in terms of shared symbols and meanings. Browne was ahead of his time in his recognition that the changing social context of ministry had direct ramifications for the power and authority of the preacher. He wrote: What ministers of the Word say may seem too little to live on, but they must not go beyond their authority in a mistaken attempt to make their authority strong and clear. That going beyond is always the outcome of an atheistic anxiety, or a sign that the man of God has succumbed to the temptation to speak as a god, to come in his own name and to be his own authority. (Browne, 1976: 40) Such sentiments are echoed in the more recent application of contemporary philosophy to preaching by the American scholar John S. McClure (2001). Nevertheless, in terms of homiletic theory in Britain in the twentieth-century, Brownes was a voice that offered a new appreciation of the actual communicative environment in which sermons were placed. His book demonstrates that the radical calling into question of the methodologies of preaching pre-dates both the crisis noted by such commentators as Ford (1979) or Jensen (1993) and the colloquial assumption that in the 1950s, before the widespread use of television, the place of the sermon was assured. This concern about preachings power to engage attention indicates that the shifts that will be analysed when this study returns to the consideration of collective memory must extend wide enough to include responses such as those of Browne. The unease with homiletic methodology that Brownes work expressed provides a justification for this review using his analysis as its historical starting point. Consequently, there now follows an overview of trends in preaching since Brownes book that aims to provide both general orientation and a framework within which works discussed later can be placed. 2.4 Trends in the theory and practice of preaching since the mid 1950s. O.C. Edwards in his A History of Preaching notes that the 25 year period ending in 1955 turned out to be the high-point of the social standing and influence of traditional Protestant churches (2004: 665). Whilst that judgment may seem too effusive and unqualified when applied to the United Kingdom, it does, nevertheless, indicate the reality of the institutional confidence that was prevalent in churches on both sides of the Atlantic at the time. That confidence had direct ramifications for preaching: as Hastings puts it, in the immediate post-war years preaching as both art and edifying was still alive and cherished (1986: 462). The comment comes in a passage in A History of English Christianity 1920 1985 (1986: 436-472) that deals with the Free Churches, in which Hastings cites the influential preaching ministries of Leslie Weatherhead (1893-1975), W.E. Sangster (1900-1960), and Donald Soper (1903-1998)—all of whom drew large numbers to hear them preach. In the same section of his book, however, comes this stark conclusion: The mid-1950s can be dated pretty precisely as the end of the age of preaching: people suddenly ceased to think it worthwhile listening to a special preacher. Whether this was caused by the religious shift produced by the liturgical movement or by the spread of television or by some other alteration in human sensibility is not clear. But the change is clear. (1986: 465) Hastings is perhaps a little too hesitant in his judgement about what prompted this change. Although numerous theological and social factors were obviously significant, the turn towards television as a predominating pastime must surely have been the crucial prompter of change in the way people spent their time. That preaching, at the beginning of the 1950s at least, remained dominated by agendas and styles drawn from previous generations is evident in the fact that a number of books from those earlier times remained in frequent use. Bishop Phillips Brooks had delivered his eight lectures on preaching at Yale Divinity School in the Lyman Beecher Lectureship of January and February 1877, but his advice was still considered pertinent enough to warrant the publication of a British fifth edition in 1957. Similarly, Harry Emerson Fosdicks Lyman Beecher lectures of the winter of 1923-4, entitled The Modern Use of the Bible, were last re-issued in their published form as late as 1961; and Leslie Weatherheads Lyman Beecher lectures of 1948-9, although only published in part in his book Psychology, Religion and Healing in 1957, was re-issued in 1974. Two crucial points are suggested by the longevity of these works: first, although the 1950s do indeed mark a watershed in preachings social location, it is clear that the consequences of that change were not apparent with the same force, nor at the same rate, Analysis of Contemporary British Preaching Styles Analysis of Contemporary British Preaching Styles The concept of preaching Chapter Two Contextual Literature Review 2.1 Establishing a starting point. Sermons are not a kind of discourse given much serious public attention in twenty-first century Britain. The very concept of preaching often brings with it negative connotations. To accuse any contemporary commentator of preaching is to suggest that unsubstantiated opinions are being delivered in a tedious manner. That in such common usage preaching is almost invariably a highly critical or even condemnatory epithet indicates something of the social standing of the practice of preaching. Preaching is not an activity that is generally thought of as either intellectually or emotionally engaging. It is, rather, something that is considered to be at best passà ©, and at worst wholly untrustworthy. If challenged, those who speak of preaching in such pejorative terms will often cite the cultural distance in practice and understanding between contemporary society and the sermon form as the basis of their judgment. Mention will be made of the social irrelevance of the content of typical sermons, the perceived authoritarian position of the preacher, and the strangeness of the environment in which sermons usually occur. It is also likely that the methodology employed will be judged anachronistic, static, long-winded, and overly didactic for people used to the methods and time-frames of electronic media. The implication is that preaching is somehow out of place in modern society and that, therefore, the negative attitudes displayed in the colloquial use of the term preaching is something new. It is fashionably contemporary to adopt a contemptuous or at best a jocular attitude towards preaching. I use the term fashionably to emphasize that preaching is not the only discourse to receiv e such widespread opprobrium: advertising is similarly widely scorned yet, given the vast sums of money spent on it, is evidently effective nonetheless (Kilbourne, 1999: 34). Voiced contempt of preaching as a worthwhile actively is not necessarily to be taken at face value. As has been stated in the introduction, this thesis seeks to present an analysis of contemporary British preaching as a practice of social mnemonics. As the idea of social practice in that terminology refers to the whole of society rather than an interest group or a few like-minded people gathered together, such a perspective may appear to be an oxymoron given that recent poling suggests only just over six per cent of the adult population of the UK are churchgoers (see Brierley, 2008). This literature review will, nevertheless, seek to establish that Christian preachers who have reflected in depth on their practice in recent generations have invariably assumed that homiletics is an aspect of public discourse rather than an institutionally confined and specialized type of communication. In recent times, justifying that assumption has become more and more difficult, as this review will demonstrate. It has to be admitted that preaching no longer has the place in society-wide awareness i t once enjoyed, despite the occasional headline making exceptions, such as Archbishop Robert Runcies sermon at the Falklands War Memorial Service on 26th June 1982 that reportedly so annoyed the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (Brown, 2000). Despite the decline in preachings social status, this study argues that there are always connections between homiletic theory and wider social discourse, and that discovering those connections is a mnemonic skill required of all preachers. That many studies (for example, Ford. (1979); Bausch, (1996); and Day, Astley and Francis, (2005)) have observed that since at least the 1960s the idea of preaching as a worthwhile arena of social discourse has been repeatedly and vigorously questioned is part of the contextualization with which this thesis is concerned. That the very word preaching brings with it negative connotations that touch even regular Christian worshippers, as N.T. Wright observes in his foreword to the Reader on Preaching (Day, 2005: ix), is part of the social understanding this study aims to examine. The colloquial usage that applies the word preaching to the expression of any unsubstantiated opinions, or any speech delivered in a tedious manner, is not a prejudice that serious homiletic theory can simply ignore. That usage is widespread and is, for example, represented in the 1995 edition of the Oxford English Reference Dictionary where the second definition of preach is give moral advice in an obtrusive w ay. Similarly, the use of the word preaching as a highly critical or even condemnatory epithet is too frequent in newspapers to need much supporting elaboration. Andrew Rawnsley writing in The Observer on 13th July 2008 is but one example of a continuing journalistic convention. Rawnsley cited the drawbacks for politicians who preach in their campaigning via a long catalogue of negatives about the idea of preaching which included delivering patronising lectures from a position of immense privilege, wringing their hands about the sins of the world without offering any practical answers to improve society, and simplified to the point of parody. These kinds of associations related to the idea of preaching cannot be simply dismissed if it is to be argued that the practice of preaching within the churches is closely related to wider social trends. Instead, the contemporary bias that associates preaching with that which is intellectually lazy, emotionally sterile, untrustworthy, or simply passà ©, must be treated as a factor that needs to be addressed in considering the mechanisms of collective memory. That said, it must also be acknowledged that the assertion that preachings low social esteem is a modern phenomenon is not wholly true. Like the contemporary negative connotations of preaching, the characterization of preaching as formerly being held in great social esteem, is a generalization that obscures as much as it discloses. In the famous passage concerning preaching in Anthony Trollopes novel Barchester Towers the negativity usually judged as modern is apparent even at the so-called high-point of Victorian religious practice. Written between April 1855 and November 1856, Trollopes words contain the same kind of criticisms and sense of hostility encountered colloquially nowadays. He wrote: There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries, than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent, and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips. No one can rid himself of the preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we Sinbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sundays rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes Gods service distasteful. We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay, we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the house of God, without that anxious longing for escape, which is the common consequence of common sermons. (Trollope, 1995: 43-44) Only the assumption that Sunday worship is the norm and the invariable gender of the preacher signifies Trollopes diatribe as of another age. The notion of a static audience enduring a platitudinous and boring verbal presentation has an altogether familiar ring about it. As Colin Morris (1996: xi) points out, it is significant that the first series of the Lyman-Beecher Lectures on Preaching established at Yale University in the 1870s ended with a lecture entitled, Is Preaching Finished? Needless to say, the lecture firmly declared that preaching had a future; but, put alongside Trollopes criticisms, it demonstrates that negativity about sermons predates the age of mass electronic communication. In recent years, numerous influential homileticians have described preaching as being in crisis (for example, Jensen, (1993); Wilson, (1988); Morris, (1996)), but too often such worried analysis has overstated the contemporaneity of the problem. 2.2 The perception of a crisis in preaching. Three recurring emphases are common to the arguments of those who see the crisis in preaching as something of recent origin, namely: a widespread loss of confidence in institutions; a change in socially learnt communicative skills; and the all-pervasive influence of television and associated vehicles of mass communication. So, to amplify those three aspects, the argument is usually made in the following kinds of terms. First, not only has the severe decline in commitment to religious institutions in recent times resulted in far fewer people actually hearing sermons, even those who do experience preaching at firsthand are much less likely to treat sermons as being particularly significant than did their immediate forebears. Scepticism, and a questioning outlook that constantly raises issues of credibility, is part of the very air of social intercourse, and preaching has no social independence from such an atmosphere. Like every other voice, the preaching voice is one voice amongst a myriad of other voices, and is just as harried by questions of authenticity, doubt and competition as any other voice. Contemporary European society, it is said, has a fundamentally anti-authoritarian aspect to it that will not allow any single voice ultimate authority. Preaching, therefore, which is usually considered to require special and very particular authority being attributed to the preacher, is especially suspec t. This, in turn, has ramifications for those who preach, since as individuals they are just as much influenced by these contextual pressures as anyone else. This means that preachers, whatever they claim in public, almost inevitably have less confidence in the preaching task than even their recent predecessors. Second, in what the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo (2001: 230) has termed a society of generalized communication, the very nature of communication itself has profoundly shifted. It is as if everything in human experience has become an object of communication. This shift is often associated with consumerism because, it is argued, such a process of ever widening objects of communication allows more and more events, things, and relationships to become marketable commodities. This expansion, however, brings with it three difficult consequences: it vastly increases the number and range of communication events each person encounters day by day, with a resulting loss in focus, concentration, and time spent on each one; it so stimulates the psychological and physical experience of each person that peoples boredom thresholds have decreased dramatically; and it makes communication itself part of the constantly changing, consumption dominated, arena of style and fashion. These things are pa rticularly problematic for preaching since they mean hearers have ever shortening attention spans, feel they need to be stimulated by what they hear, and employ fashion-like judgments to both their readiness to listen and their willingness to respond (Rogness, 1994: 27-29). Coupled with these changes comes an emphasis on technique in communication, and a preference for labelling unacceptable ideas or challenges as a failure in communication. As a result preachers face intense pressures to conform, both in terms of the content of sermons and the techniques of presentation, to what is socially acceptable simply to gain a hearing. Accordingly, it is argued that the requirement to attract attention and engagement is of a wholly more onerous intensity than it ever was in past times. In the distracted age that is contemporary society the static commitment and attention required of sermon audiences is so counter-cultural as to be almost unachievable. Third, the argument gives prominence to the absolute dominance of television as the popular medium, and characterizes contemporary culture as televisual and post-literate. It is said that through television, for the first time in the history of humanity, children are being socialized into image use prior to word use (see Warren, 1997). Consequently, the use of words is likely to no longer occupy the pole position in social discourse, but rather to occupy an inherently second order, commentary position. In other words, our culture has shifted from a reading-formed preference towards the ear over the eye, to an image-formed favouring of the eye over the ear, with an obviously detrimental effect on a word dominated form like preaching. Television also appears to be an open and democratized form of communication that offers the prospect of an absolutely free flow of information. It tantalizes with the notion that anything that happens will be almost instantaneously communicable; an impre ssion further reinforced by the Internet. Of course there are serious criticisms to be made of these judgments, but they are nevertheless widely persuasive, at least at face value, both because of the sensory immediacy of the medium and because of the entertainment factors closely allied with it. In comparison preaching seems a highly subjectivized personal choice in which the preacher demands of an audience assent without prior consent and justification, and in which the factor of entertainment does not figure at all. In a televisual world of a seemingly infinite number of stories, preachings insistence, as it is perceived, on the one story of Gods relationship with humanity in Jesus Christ seems partial and even tedious. Those who lived before the development of electronic media lived lives in which stories, colour, and pictures were rare and precious events; people of the televisual age inhabit a world alive with an ever changing array of images, colours and narratives. Is it any wonder then that preaching that developed as a communication technique in that pre-television world is thought of as having become outmoded? Such are the usual parameters of the argument—broadly stated, no doubt, and perhaps caricatured a little—of recent scholarly analysis of the social location of the practice of preaching in contemporary European society. Interestingly, it is apparent that the scholarly commentary not only echoes colloquial opinion about the recentness of the relative decline of the authority afforded preaching, but also the reasons given for that decline. One of questions which this thesis seeks to address is whether such judgments adequately represent what is actually going on in the act of preaching, and whether by an all too easy assumption of preaching as an essentially distinctive activity somehow distanced from other forms of discourse such analysis does not fall prey to the very forces it is trying to counter. After the hiatus caused by World War II, the BBC resumed television broadcasting in 1946, and the commencement of broadcasting by commercial stations in 1955 accelerated the use of the medium. By 1958 the number of British households with a TV exceeded those with only a radio (Mathias, 2006). Given the above discussion of the widely perceived influence of new electronic media and TVs escalating use, the 1950s seem an appropriate starting point for the consideration of publications dealing with preaching. Quite apart from this more commonplace sense of a shift having taking place, scholarly analysis of both Church history and homiletics tends to support the idea that very significant changes relevant to the thesis topic did in fact occur at this period. Those changes were not necessarily recognized at the time; perhaps an indication of the lag that occurs as the memories of one generation gives way to those of a succeeding one. One British preacher, however, was alert to the possibili ty that something profound was happening. That preacher was a R. E. C. Charlie Browne, a Manchester vicar, whose 1950s reflections on the preaching task turned out to be amazingly prescient of things that would become major concerns years later. Browne serves as a marker of change. It is sensible, therefore, to examine Browne in some detail before returning to the more general overview. 2.3 R. E. C. Browne as a marker of the changing social location of preaching. R.E.C. Brownes The Ministry of the Word was first published in 1958 in a series of short works entitled Studies in Ministry and Worship under the overall editorship of Professor Geoffrey Lampe. Lampes editorship lent theological credibility to a series that was notable on two counts. First, it was decidedly ecumenical (for example, two of the studies were by Max Thurian, who later became internationally known as the theological expositor of the ecumenical Taizà © community); and second, it was written from a perspective that only later would be widely termed applied or practical theology. Brownes book is the acknowledged masterpiece of the series and has been reissued three times since its first publication (1976, 1984 and 1994), as well as being published in the United States in 1982. Writing in 1986, Bishop Richard Hanson said of it: This is no little volume of helpful hints about preaching but a profound study of the meaning and use of language in relation to theology and to faith, and one that will outlast all the ephemeral booklets about how to preach. (in Corbett, 1986: v) Just why this work has been so frequently referred to in a wide variety of Christian traditions will be considered later, but for the purposes of the present discussion the crucial point is the historical context of its writing and publication. Browne wrote the book whilst he was Rector of the parish of Saint Chrysostum, Victoria Park, Manchester in the 1950s. Ronald Preston, in a foreword to one edition of The Ministry of the Word, describes Victoria Park as having moved rapidly since the 1920s from the remains of enclosed and privileged nineteenth-century affluence to near disintegration (in Browne, 1976: 10). He notes also, however, that the St Chrysostums relative proximity to the university and the citys main teaching hospital made it a base from which Brownes influence spread widely. Hanson records that it was a parish where the personality and abilities alone of the incumbent cleric could attract worshippers (Corbett, 1986: iv). In other words, several aspects of the social world that historians like Hastings (1986), Welsby (1984), and Hylson-Smith (1998) have characterized as typical of the 1950s were clearly likely to have been there in Brownes experience of the ministerial life. For example, Welsby commenting on t he monthly journal Theology in the two immediately post-war decades notes how it was widely read by parish clergy and acted as a connecting bridge between the concerns of academia and local church life, and concludes: It is significant, however, that fundamental matters, such as belief in God or in Christ were seldom discussed in its pages, as though these theological foundations were secure and might be taken for granted. This could be a symbol of much of the theology of the forties and fifties. There was a self-confidence and security so that even those who did write about God, Christology, of the Church did so as though the basis of belief was unquestionably right. (Welsby, 1984: 67) Elsewhere in the same book Welsby notes that the seeds of radical change were present in the 1950s but went unperceived, and he describes the atmosphere in the Church of England as one of complacency and an apparent unawareness of trends already present which were to burst to the surface in the sixties (1984: 94). Browne most certainly did not share that unawareness and frankly acknowledged the difficulties of communicating the gospel despite the relatively secure social position of theological thought and institutional belief. Far from being in an unassailable authoritative position, he described preachers as living and preaching in an age when there is general perplexity and bewilderment about authority, and as all too unwittingly signifying that perplexity in the language and thought expressed in the pulpit (Browne, 1976: 33). Browne would probably have concurred with Adrian Hastings opinion that in the ebb and flow of the intellectual tide in the twentieth century, the 1950s marked a high water point of sympathy for the Christian faith in contrast to the high point for secularism immediately after World War I (Hastings, 1986: 491), but he nevertheless argued that effective preaching required new symbols because new human knowledge has disabled the old ones (Browne, 1976: 107). Hastings, looking back on the times in which Browne wrote, asserts: There was never a time since the middle of the nineteenth century when Christian faith was either taken so seriously by the generality of the more intelligent or could make such a good case for itself. (Hastings, 1986: 491) Browne himself is rather more querulous in his reflections and quotes approvingly from Emmanuel Mounier: There is a comfortable atheism, as there is a comfortable Christianity. They meet on the same swampy ground, and their collisions are the ruder for their awareness and irritable resentment of the weakening of their profound differences beneath the common kinship of their habits. The prospect of personal annihilation no more disturbs the contented sleep of the average radical-socialist than does horror of the divine transcendence or terror of reprobation disturb the spiritual digestion of the habituà ©s of the midday Mass. Forgetfulness of these truisms is the reason why so many discussions are still hampered by naà ¯ve susceptibilities. Emmanuel Mounier, The Spoil of the Violent, Harvill Press, 1955: 25 (as cited in Browne, 1976: 109) Browne was conscious that amongst the comforts of wide social acknowledgement and respect other more challenging forces were becoming apparent. Browne is wary of any intellectual triumphalism on the part of preachers and insists that in attempting to address the atheist, or the wholly religiously indifferent unperturbed post-atheist, it is always necessary to establish pastoral rapport first (1976: 110). Sometimes, he admits, such rapport will be impossible to establish (1976: 110). Paradoxically, as Hastings notes (1986: 492, 496), the 1950s were at one and the same time an era in which religion was considered seriously by a number of the great cultural and intellectual figures of the day (such as Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), Carl Jung (1875-1961), Graham Sutherland (1903-80), Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), to name just a few) and in which the radical agnosticism and secularism born of earlier times also flourished (for examples see the works of A.J. Ayer (1910-89), C.P. Snow (1905-80), A.J.P. Taylor (1906-90) and Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003)). Perhaps it was that Browne realized i n a way other preachers did not, that although these two worlds of thought existed side by side the competition between them was not in any way equal. As Hylson-Smith observes, by the end of World War II the environmental context of all cultural activity was essentially secular (1998: 212). That point was a matter of essential concern to a preacher like Browne who regarded sermons as an artistic activity requiring similar processes of social understanding and interaction as those necessary to the production of music, poetry or painting (Browne, 1976: 18). Browne writes rather ruefully: Christians have the naà ¯ve idea that the arts, specially drama, could and should be extensively used for the proclamation of the gospel. In the first place Christian artists cannot easily and quickly find a way of expressing Christian doctrine in a community which is not moved by Christian symbols. Indeed at present there is no common symbolism Christian or otherwise and Christian artists are found incomprehensible and disturbing by their fellow Christians who cannot justify the authority of new forms and somehow feel that old forms might be patched and brought up-to-date. In the second place whenever the church tries to use art as a method of propaganda her integrity and authority are severely questioned by just those whose conversion would be most significant. (1976: 35) There is here an early recognition of that social forgetfulness of Christian symbols that would a generation later become a commonplace assessment of religious traditions in contemporary Britain. For Browne the preachers purpose was to seek answers about the most profound aspects of human concern and experience with the single-mindedness and commitment of an honest artist. Easy answers to difficult questions, or formulaic responses to deep questioning, were to Browne a betrayal of preachings very purpose. For him nothing less than the artists earnest wrestling to express the inexpressible was good enough. It is hard to imagine that Browne was untroubled that the things of artistic expression, with one or two notable exceptions, seemed less and less concerned with religious ideas, and that the churches appeared indifferent to the fact (Hylson-Smith, 1998: 212). As favourable to inherited ideas of religious expression as the climate of the 1950s appears viewed from the beginning of the twenty-first century, Browne, as a preacher active during those years, offers an altogether less sanguine appraisal. That his book dwells extensively on the issue of meaning and the use of language in relationship to the expression of faith indicates that he did not share the easy certainties regarding the communication of religious ideas that were still prevalent within the institutional church of his day. Brownes commitment to preaching as a necessary part of Christian community life is absolute, but his insistence that its practice is most like the creation of a work of art or a poem makes plain its inherent limitations: the sermon can no more readily define the truth in absolute terms than can the artist or poet (1976: 18). Such an insistence shifts the authority given to preaching from one of power, described as six foot above contradiction, to the altoge ther different position implied in later years by terms such as Fords communicative expertise which is self-authenticating (Ford, 1979: 235), or Taylors fragile words (Taylor, 1998: 121). Like such later homileticians, Browne believed preachers should not claim too much for their efforts. That reserve, however, should not be mistaken for a hesitation about the necessity or value of preaching. In his work there is no hint of the thought of later theorists who sought to abandon preaching completely. Brownes reserve is a perceptive awareness that, to use the terminology of Adrian Hastings, although the comfortably traditionalist church of his times was undergoing a period of confident revival (1986: 504) it was in fact finding it harder and harder to connect with the generality of people in terms of shared symbols and meanings. Browne was ahead of his time in his recognition that the changing social context of ministry had direct ramifications for the power and authority of the preacher. He wrote: What ministers of the Word say may seem too little to live on, but they must not go beyond their authority in a mistaken attempt to make their authority strong and clear. That going beyond is always the outcome of an atheistic anxiety, or a sign that the man of God has succumbed to the temptation to speak as a god, to come in his own name and to be his own authority. (Browne, 1976: 40) Such sentiments are echoed in the more recent application of contemporary philosophy to preaching by the American scholar John S. McClure (2001). Nevertheless, in terms of homiletic theory in Britain in the twentieth-century, Brownes was a voice that offered a new appreciation of the actual communicative environment in which sermons were placed. His book demonstrates that the radical calling into question of the methodologies of preaching pre-dates both the crisis noted by such commentators as Ford (1979) or Jensen (1993) and the colloquial assumption that in the 1950s, before the widespread use of television, the place of the sermon was assured. This concern about preachings power to engage attention indicates that the shifts that will be analysed when this study returns to the consideration of collective memory must extend wide enough to include responses such as those of Browne. The unease with homiletic methodology that Brownes work expressed provides a justification for this review using his analysis as its historical starting point. Consequently, there now follows an overview of trends in preaching since Brownes book that aims to provide both general orientation and a framework within which works discussed later can be placed. 2.4 Trends in the theory and practice of preaching since the mid 1950s. O.C. Edwards in his A History of Preaching notes that the 25 year period ending in 1955 turned out to be the high-point of the social standing and influence of traditional Protestant churches (2004: 665). Whilst that judgment may seem too effusive and unqualified when applied to the United Kingdom, it does, nevertheless, indicate the reality of the institutional confidence that was prevalent in churches on both sides of the Atlantic at the time. That confidence had direct ramifications for preaching: as Hastings puts it, in the immediate post-war years preaching as both art and edifying was still alive and cherished (1986: 462). The comment comes in a passage in A History of English Christianity 1920 1985 (1986: 436-472) that deals with the Free Churches, in which Hastings cites the influential preaching ministries of Leslie Weatherhead (1893-1975), W.E. Sangster (1900-1960), and Donald Soper (1903-1998)—all of whom drew large numbers to hear them preach. In the same section of his book, however, comes this stark conclusion: The mid-1950s can be dated pretty precisely as the end of the age of preaching: people suddenly ceased to think it worthwhile listening to a special preacher. Whether this was caused by the religious shift produced by the liturgical movement or by the spread of television or by some other alteration in human sensibility is not clear. But the change is clear. (1986: 465) Hastings is perhaps a little too hesitant in his judgement about what prompted this change. Although numerous theological and social factors were obviously significant, the turn towards television as a predominating pastime must surely have been the crucial prompter of change in the way people spent their time. That preaching, at the beginning of the 1950s at least, remained dominated by agendas and styles drawn from previous generations is evident in the fact that a number of books from those earlier times remained in frequent use. Bishop Phillips Brooks had delivered his eight lectures on preaching at Yale Divinity School in the Lyman Beecher Lectureship of January and February 1877, but his advice was still considered pertinent enough to warrant the publication of a British fifth edition in 1957. Similarly, Harry Emerson Fosdicks Lyman Beecher lectures of the winter of 1923-4, entitled The Modern Use of the Bible, were last re-issued in their published form as late as 1961; and Leslie Weatherheads Lyman Beecher lectures of 1948-9, although only published in part in his book Psychology, Religion and Healing in 1957, was re-issued in 1974. Two crucial points are suggested by the longevity of these works: first, although the 1950s do indeed mark a watershed in preachings social location, it is clear that the consequences of that change were not apparent with the same force, nor at the same rate,