Managerial Work in a Practice-Embodying Institution - The role of calling, the virtue of constancy

What can be learned from a small scale study of managerial work in a highly marginal and under-researched working community? This paper uses the ‘goods-virtues-practices-institutions’ framework to examine the managerial work of owner-directors of traditional circuses. Inspired by MacIntyre’s arguments for the necessity of a narrative understanding of the virtues, interviews explored how British and Irish circus directors accounted for their working lives. A purposive sample was used to select subjects who had owned and managed traditional touring circuses for at least 15 years, a period in which the economic and reputational fortunes of traditional circuses have suffered badly. This sample enabled the research to examine the self-understanding of people who had, at least on the face of it, exhibited the virtue of constancy. The research contributes to our understanding of the role of the virtues in organizations by presenting evidence of an intimate relationship between the virtue of constancy and a ‘calling’ work orientation. This enhances our understanding of the virtues that are required if management is exercised as a domain-related practice

How to speak of God? Toward a postsecular apologetics

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Practical Theology on 11/04/2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1756073X.2018.1460522Against most expectations religion has not vanished from Western culture. If anything, it exercises a greater fascination than ever before. Broadly, we might think of ourselves as occupying a new, 'postsecular' space between a renewed visibility of religion in public life, and a corresponding acknowledgement of the importance of religious values and actors; and persistent and widespread disillusion and scepticism towards religion, and objections to religion as a source of legitimate public discourse. In a world that is more sensitive than ever to religious belief and practice, yet often struggles to accommodate it into secular discourse, how do religious institutions justify their position in a contested and volatile public square? This article argues that the contemporary postsecular context requires a recovery of the ancient practices of Christian apologetics as a form of public, theological witness to the practical value of faith, articulated in both deed and word

The product of a Petrine circle? A reassessment of the origin and character of 1 Peter

© 2002 SAGE PublicationsRecent studies of 1 Peter, especially by John Elliott, have sought to rescue the letter from its assimilation to the Pauline tradition and to establish the view, now widely held, that 1 Peter is the distinctive product of a Petrine circle. After examining the traditions in 1 Peter, both Pauline and non-Pauline, and the names in the letter (Silvanus, Mark and Peter), this essay argues that there is no substantial evidence, either inside or outside the letter, to support the view of 1 Peter as originating from a specifically Petrine group. It is much more plausibly seen as reflecting the consolidation of early Christian traditions in Roman Christianity. Despite the scholarly majority currently in its favour, the view of 1 Peter as the distinctive product of a Petrine tradition from a Petrine circle should therefore be rejected

Fuels and Fire Behavior in Chipped and Unchipped Plots: Implications for Land Management Near the Wildland/Urban Interface

Fire behavior was measured and modeled from eight 1 ha experimental plots located in the Francis Marion National Forest, South Carolina, during prescribed burns on February 12 and February 20, 2003. Four of the plots had been subjected to mechanical chipping during 2002 to remove woody understory growth and to reduce large downed woody debris from the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo in 1989. The remaining four (control) plots were left untreated. The burns were low intensity (mean flame length = 36.2 cm) and slow moving (mean spread rate = 1.18 m min�1). Neither flame length nor rate of spread differed significantly between treatments (ANOVA F’s \u3c 0.5, P \u3e 0.7, d.f. = 1,4). Post-burn observations provided somewhat more convincing evidence of treatment effects on fire behavior. According to transect data, only slightly more than half the area in the chip plots burned as compared to upwards of 80% in the burn-only plots. BehavePlus and Hough–Albini (HA) fire models correctly predicted the low intensity, slow moving fires given the observed wind and fuel moisture conditions. Accuracy of BehavePlus predictions depended on the value for fuel height entered in the model. Use of mean fuel height for the fuel depth parameter, as is typically recommended, somewhat overestimated fire hazard in the burn-only plots. However, limiting fuel height to the observed litter depth resulted in roughly accurate predictions. HA predictions for untreated fuels were close to correct even without adjusting fuel depth. When provided with two ‘‘high-risk’’ fuel and fire weather scenarios both models predicted more extreme fire behavior in the untreated fuels. In contrast, chipping appeared to protect against dangerous wildfires as long as fuel heights remained low. Smoke monitoring data from a companion study carried out in the same plots indicated a 60% reduction in smoke particulate production from chipped areas, roughly consistent with predictions of the fire effects model FOFEM. Mechanical chipping is apparently a useful method for limiting fire-hazard and smoke production in long-unburned fuels. However, questions remain concerning the long-term fate of heavy chip fuels and resultant effects on fire and smoke during severe drought