Government and information - the limits of law's empire

Article by Patrick Birkinshaw (Professor of Law, Hull University, Barrister) looking at the difficult areas where law - meaning judicial and constitutional control via the courts - has little role to play in government's use of information. Published in Amicus Curiae - Journal of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies. The Journal is produced by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

Broadband in rural and remote areas: the impact of Scottish policy initiatives

The ability to participate in the Internet-based economy that is emerging requires access to broadband. However, in many countries, 'digital divides' occur, with those in geographically remote and rural areas being particularly disadvantaged. Through focusing on rural and remote Scotland, the paper identifies three different categories of policy initiatives that have been adopted and their interaction with broader UK and industry wide developments. Whilst these initiatives have encouraged the adoption of broadband, it is argued that UK initiatives are creating a new series of challenges to the adoption of broadband

Seventh-day Adventists and Original Sin: a Study of the Early Development of the Seventh-day Adventist Understanding of the Effect of Adam\u27s Sin on His Posterity

Problem. In Seventh-day Adventist theology, the doctrine of original sin has received ambivalent treatment. Periodically voices within the church and outside of it have asserted that the doctrine has no part in SDA theology, yet other Christians have insisted that it is a Scriptural doctrine. It was the purpose of the present study to examine the theological roots of Adventism to determine the reasons for and the content of its treatment of the doctrine. Method. Since Biblical and historical perspectives are indispensable to the critical process of theology, a brief developmental survey was done to reveal trends and models relevant to Adventism. In addition, the SDA expression from 1850 to 1900 was examined through church-issued publications. Norman Powell Williams\u27 instrument for analyzing a doctrine of original sin was then applied to the SDA theological presentations. Results. There is a discernible line of development from the English Enlightenment to the Adventist Movement. Through conditionalist views Adventism acquired a hamartiology similar to that of the nineteenth century New Haven theologians. According to this view man\u27s inherited condition is not his responsibility and is not to be properly called sin. Early Adventist concerns were anthropological, but these were superseded by a greater soteriological emphasis in the 1890s. Conclusions. The SDA treatment of original sin was developed along Arminian and conditionalist lines and emphasized actual sin more than ontological sin (as Augustine and certain Reformers had). While SDAs were located geographically, historically, and theologically, in an anti-Catholic, anti-Calvinistic tradition, they initially used the term original sin, though in their own way. However, by the end of thenineteenth century they had virtually dispensed with all employment of the term as useful to convey their understanding of man\u27s fallenness. This undoubtedly contributes to Adventist hesitancy toward usage of the term which persists to the present. Nevertheless, SDAs expressed a doctrine that is definable as a doctrine of original sin by theological and historical models

Marxism and revisionism

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/prism/1396/thumbnail.jp

Church and politics in the theology of José Miguez-Bonino and Allan Boesak

Since the early 1970s, many Christians have come to the realisation that the churches world-wide have a profound impact on the shaping of a nation's socio-economic and political agenda. Issues and debates within the Church are shaped by the interplay between intra-Church theological and ecclesiastical concerns and national/international ideological and institutional patterns to which churches must adapt. Newly emerging socio-political situations, such as the emergence of democracy in South Africa, complicate the Church's continued search for its prophetic voice: What does it mean to have a concern for social justice, peace, and to maintain a "preferential option for the poor" when the world's political order is continually in transition? This thesis explores the debates that surround the Church's relationship to politics by focusing on the contemporary theological movement known as "liberation theology" and objections that have been raised by its more conservative and liberal opponents. It specifically examines and compares the way Jose Miguez-Bonino from Latin America and Allan Boesak from South Africa, have responded to the theological challenges set by their surrounding social realities and how they have answered the criticisms from Europe and North America. We argue that the theology of these two men offers a more adequate understanding of the relationship between Church, theology, and politics than their critics because of the importance Miguez-Bonino and Boesak give to a praxis that reflects the needs of the poor and oppressed

The Power of Ethnicity: the Preservation of Scots -Irish Culture in the Eighteenth-Century American Backcountry.

The character of the Scots-Irish has been shrouded in myth almost from the moment the first Ulster immigrants disembarked at Philadelphia in the 1710s. Contemporaries condemned the Scots-Irish as lazy, illiterate, uncouth, and violent. Later hagiographers, however, praised them as ruggedly individualistic, liberty-loving people who brought civilization to the American wilderness. Recent historians have done little to advance this debate. While re-stating these simplistic stereotypes, modern scholars have failed to ground their arguments in extensive analyses of primary sources. While numerous monographs studying other ethnic and cultural groups in colonial America have appeared over the last thirty years, none as been published on the Scots-Irish. My dissertation fills this gap in the historiography of colonial America. By comparing the cultural maturation of Scots-Irish communities in the Pennsylvania and North Carolina backcountries from 1715 to 1775, this study describes the growth and preservation of a unique Scots-Irish ethnic identity. Following the methods of ethnohistorians, it examines Scots-Irish economic, social, religious, and political values, attitudes, and behavior as a means of examining the continued strength of the group\u27s unique self-image. The Scots-Irish in the eighteenth-century American backcountry illustrate the continuing power of ethnicity better than any other group of people. Although the novel conditions of the American frontier partially undermined Scots-Irish ethnic uniformity and distinctiveness, the settlers struggled to re-create as much of the identity and culture that they had known in northern Ireland as possible. In both colonies, Ulster immigrants preserved their unique institutions, traditions, and beliefs; observed strict ethnic exclusivity in their economic, social, and religious lives; and clashed with other ethnic groups in politics and social affairs. On the eve of the Revolution, ethnicity continued to determine many of the Scots-Irish immigrants\u27 actions in western Pennsylvania and North Carolina. Their sense of themselves as a distinct people within the diverse eighteenth-century American backcountry remained very powerful. They still identified themselves as Scots-Irishmen or Irishmen more than Britons, Americans, Pennsylvanians, or North Carolinians