The development of the social creed of the Methodist church

This item was digitized by the Internet Archive. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityThe purpose of this Dissertation is to trace in Methodism, with particular reference to the official records of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the rise of social interest and action which led to the formulation and adoption of the Social Creed. The Creed is a comprehensive statement of ideals and purposes for the redemption of society. These principles are grounded in the Christian Gospel, which is in essence a social gospel. The social gospel of Methodism is not to he understood aside from personal salvation. The Church emphasizes personal religion and personal experience as the primary conditions of a changed society, believing that individuals who claim allegiance to Jesus Christ are also accepting a moral imperative to use what they gain in ways beneficial to mankind. This spirit of service had rise in the Holy Club at Oxford, and the work of John Wesley. The first widening of the social field in America came to pass in connection with slavery, an issue which finally brought division in the Church as well as in the Nation. Freeing the black man by law and war did not free him from the slavary of ignorance and white-man's prejudice. The Freedmen's Aid Society came into existence as an agency of rehabilitation. After thirty-five years of effort in behalf of the negro, Methodism succeeded in electing a colored bishop. Larger considerations of race developed along with the black-white issue and the increase of immigration. The Methodist opposed Chinese exclusion, and Japanese exclusion, taking a firm stand against all race discriminations, claims of racial superiority, and rampant nationalism. Paced by widespread illiteracy, the Methodists developed schools, not only for the care of their own, but for all who would come. The Church became a power in education, maintaining that education is second in importance only to religion. It pioneered in industrial education, and early provided facilities for advanced study. The schools of the Church have been prolific in the output of teachers, and their work among negroes has been outstanding. Millions of dollars have been raised for maintenance and endowments, all invested in the youth of the world. Methodism has been an ardent supporter of the public schools, believing that an ignorant suffrage is one of the greatest dangers to democracy. In early years the Methodists adopted strict rules against the use, buying, and selling of spirituous liquors. The pressure of vested and private interests caused these rules against buying and selling to be laid aside, but they were restored in 1848. The Methodist Church now stands opposed to any licensed liquor trade whatsoever, affirming that the traffic endangers the peace and security of individuals, of society, and of government. While in one sense the fight is against sin, the problem is now considered to be social, to be remedied by social action, the program for reform to be determined by enlightened public opinion. When the temperance crusade failed to accomplish desired reforms, the Church turned to legal measures, a procedure which marked a distinct change in thought as well as in method, establishing a precedent in social action. Methodists were chiefly responsible for the Prohibition Amendment. The statute was an evidence of the hitting power of the Church. After giving attention to the servants of the Church relative to wages, living conditions, and opportunities for education, the Methodists reached out into society to claim fairness, equality, and opportunity for all men, and set to work with characteristic spirit to accomplish practical results. Not content with a mere ideology, they devoted their resources to the attainment of social ends. Statutes and institutions do not alone mark the results. Changed attitudes and opinions are of first rank in the accomplishment of reform. The Methodist power of propaganda has been at times tremendous. Starting with the institution of slavery, the Church exercised her forces in the cause of freedom as the natural birthright of the individual, freedom to choose his way of livelihood, to organize, to provide for the security of himself and his family against disease, unemployment, and occupational dangers. In short, Methodism has stood for the transcendance of human rights over the domination of wealth, powers, systems, and machines, for the elevation of personality to god-like character in a Kingdom of God on earth as a premise to the Kingdom of Heaven. Out of an age where wars were not in all instances held to be un-Christian, up from days when the Church insistently gave of her own to fight for cause, Methodism has evolved to the present stand against war, risen out of nationalism to internationalism and considerations of world peace, world tribunals, and a family of nations. Methodism has helped to win wars. Now it stands against all war, declaring that war is not inevitable, refusing to believe that any emergency can arise between nations which cannot be settled by arbitration. The rights of conscientious objectors are recognized, and urged upon the consideration of nations and individuals. The confluence of many avenues of interest and labor is found in the Social Creed, which is the gospel in terms of modern society, and is itself a summary of the growth of social thought and effort, as well as a program for future reform. The roots go deep, to any point where the Methodist enthusiasm for redemption touched society, awakening compassion for man, and desire to improve him and the conditions in which he lives. It rose out of the context of life as social changes caused the Church to develop an adequate social gospel. In giving form to these high principles, and according them prominent place in the life of the Church, Methodism has rendered an important contribution, in the process of which the Church has been true to a well-deserved reputation for leadership in the crusade for social righteousness. The main purpose of this study is to trace the rise of the Creed. Conclusions reached regarding its nature, and effect are as follows: 1. The Creed declares for Christian-Democratic principles and processes for social improvement. 2. It is the product of those same principles and processes, as well as a starting place for future reform. 3. It is a most important witness of the increasing spread of the spirit of the social gospel. 4. The Social Creed of the Methodist Episcopal Church was the basis of the social platform of all American Protestantism. 5. The main authority of the Creed lies in the universal nature of the statements themselves; they strike to the heart of the problems of society.https://archive.org/details/developmentofsoc00bro

Planet Occurrence within 0.25 AU of Solar-type Stars from Kepler

We report the distribution of planets as a function of planet radius (R_p), orbital period (P), and stellar effective temperature (Teff) for P < 50 day orbits around GK stars. These results are based on the 1,235 planets (formally "planet candidates") from the Kepler mission that include a nearly complete set of detected planets as small as 2 Earth radii (Re). For each of the 156,000 target stars we assess the detectability of planets as a function of R_p and P. We also correct for the geometric probability of transit, R*/a. We consider first stars within the "solar subset" having Teff = 4100-6100 K, logg = 4.0-4.9, and Kepler magnitude Kp < 15 mag. We include only those stars having noise low enough to permit detection of planets down to 2 Re. We count planets in small domains of R_p and P and divide by the included target stars to calculate planet occurrence in each domain. Occurrence of planets varies by more than three orders of magnitude and increases substantially down to the smallest radius (2 Re) and out to the longest orbital period (50 days, ~0.25 AU) in our study. For P < 50 days, the radius distribution is given by a power law, df/dlogR= k R^\alpha. This rapid increase in planet occurrence with decreasing planet size agrees with core-accretion, but disagrees with population synthesis models. We fit occurrence as a function of P to a power law model with an exponential cutoff below a critical period P_0. For smaller planets, P_0 has larger values, suggesting that the "parking distance" for migrating planets moves outward with decreasing planet size. We also measured planet occurrence over Teff = 3600-7100 K, spanning M0 to F2 dwarfs. The occurrence of 2-4 Re planets in the Kepler field increases with decreasing Teff, making these small planets seven times more abundant around cool stars than the hottest stars in our sample. [abridged]Comment: Submitted to ApJ, 22 pages, 10 figure

First LIGO search for gravitational wave bursts from cosmic (super)strings

We report on a matched-filter search for gravitational wave bursts from cosmic string cusps using LIGO data from the fourth science run (S4) which took place in February and March 2005. No gravitational waves were detected in 14.9 days of data from times when all three LIGO detectors were operating. We interpret the result in terms of a frequentist upper limit on the rate of gravitational wave bursts and use the limits on the rate to constrain the parameter space (string tension, reconnection probability, and loop sizes) of cosmic string models.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. Replaced with version submitted to PR

Stacked Search for Gravitational Waves from the 2006 SGR 1900+14 Storm

We present the results of a LIGO search for short-duration gravitational waves (GWs) associated with the 2006 March 29 SGR 1900+14 storm. A new search method is used, "stacking'' the GW data around the times of individual soft-gamma bursts in the storm to enhance sensitivity for models in which multiple bursts are accompanied by GW emission. We assume that variation in the time difference between burst electromagnetic emission and potential burst GW emission is small relative to the GW signal duration, and we time-align GW excess power time-frequency tilings containing individual burst triggers to their corresponding electromagnetic emissions. We use two GW emission models in our search: a fluence-weighted model and a flat (unweighted) model for the most electromagnetically energetic bursts. We find no evidence of GWs associated with either model. Model-dependent GW strain, isotropic GW emission energy E_GW, and \gamma = E_GW / E_EM upper limits are estimated using a variety of assumed waveforms. The stacking method allows us to set the most stringent model-dependent limits on transient GW strain published to date. We find E_GW upper limit estimates (at a nominal distance of 10 kpc) of between 2x10^45 erg and 6x10^50 erg depending on waveform type. These limits are an order of magnitude lower than upper limits published previously for this storm and overlap with the range of electromagnetic energies emitted in SGR giant flares.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Sensitivity to Gravitational Waves from Compact Binary Coalescences Achieved during LIGO's Fifth and Virgo's First Science Run

We summarize the sensitivity achieved by the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave detectors for compact binary coalescence (CBC) searches during LIGO's fifth science run and Virgo's first science run. We present noise spectral density curves for each of the four detectors that operated during these science runs which are representative of the typical performance achieved by the detectors for CBC searches. These spectra are intended for release to the public as a summary of detector performance for CBC searches during these science runs.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Directional limits on persistent gravitational waves using LIGO S5 science data

The gravitational-wave (GW) sky may include nearby pointlike sources as well as astrophysical and cosmological stochastic backgrounds. Since the relative strength and angular distribution of the many possible sources of GWs are not well constrained, searches for GW signals must be performed in a model-independent way. To that end we perform two directional searches for persistent GWs using data from the LIGO S5 science run: one optimized for pointlike sources and one for arbitrary extended sources. The latter result is the first of its kind. Finding no evidence to support the detection of GWs, we present 90% confidence level (CL) upper-limit maps of GW strain power with typical values between 2-20x10^-50 strain^2 Hz^-1 and 5-35x10^-49 strain^2 Hz^-1 sr^-1 for pointlike and extended sources respectively. The limits on pointlike sources constitute a factor of 30 improvement over the previous best limits. We also set 90% CL limits on the narrow-band root-mean-square GW strain from interesting targets including Sco X-1, SN1987A and the Galactic Center as low as ~7x10^-25 in the most sensitive frequency range near 160 Hz. These limits are the most constraining to date and constitute a factor of 5 improvement over the previous best limits.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Weak Spatial and Temporal Population Genetic Structure in the Rosy Apple Aphid, Dysaphis plantaginea, in French Apple Orchards

We used eight microsatellite loci and a set of 20 aphid samples to investigate the spatial and temporal genetic structure of rosy apple aphid populations from 13 apple orchards situated in four different regions in France. Genetic variability was very similar between orchard populations and between winged populations collected before sexual reproduction in the fall and populations collected from colonies in the spring. A very small proportion of individuals (∼2%) had identical multilocus genotypes. Genetic differentiation between orchards was low (FST<0.026), with significant differentiation observed only between orchards from different regions, but no isolation by distance was detected. These results are consistent with high levels of genetic mixing in holocyclic Dysaphis plantaginae populations (host alternation through migration and sexual reproduction). These findings concerning the adaptation of the rosy apple aphid have potential consequences for pest management

Calibration of the LIGO gravitational wave detectors in the fifth science run

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a network of three detectors built to detect local perturbations in the space–time metric from astrophysical sources. These detectors, two in Hanford, WA and one in Livingston, LA, are power-recycled Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometers. In their fifth science run (S5), between November 2005 and October 2007, these detectors accumulated one year of triple coincident data while operating at their designed sensitivity. In this paper, we describe the calibration of the instruments in the S5 data set, including measurement techniques and uncertainty estimation.United States. National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationCarnegie TrustLeverhulme TrustDavid & Lucile Packard FoundationResearch CorporationAlfred P. Sloan Foundatio

Search for gravitational-wave bursts in the first year of the fifth LIGO science run

We present the results obtained from an all-sky search for gravitational-wave (GW) bursts in the 64-2000 Hz frequency range in data collected by the LIGO detectors during the first year (November 2005 - November 2006) of their fifth science run. The total analyzed livetime was 268.6 days. Multiple hierarchical data analysis methods were invoked in this search. The overall sensitivity expressed in terms of the root-sum-square (rss) strain amplitude h_{rss} for gravitational-wave bursts with various morphologies was in the range of 6 times 10^{-22} Hz^{-1/2} to a few times 10^{-21} Hz^{-1/2}. No GW signals were observed and a frequentist upper limit of 3.6 events per year on the rate of strong GW bursts was placed at the 90% confidence level. As in our previous searches, we also combined this rate limit with the detection efficiency for selected waveform morphologies to obtain event rate versus strength exclusion curves. In sensitivity, these exclusion curves are the most stringent to date.Comment: v3: various figure and text edits; submitted to PRD; 26 page