DJS as “populist” theologian – On Dirkie Smit’s newspaper column

On newspaper headlines as relevance optimizers

This paper suggests an explanatory functional characterization of newspaper headlines. Couched within Sperber and Wilson’s (1986) relevance theory, the paper makes the claim that headlines are designed to optimize the relevance of their stories for their readers: Headlines provide the readers with the optimal ratio between contextual effect and processing effort, and direct readers to construct...

Charles Raven. Naturalist, historian, theologian

centuries (C.B. Schmitt); science in the early Royal Society (M.D. Hall); science and religion in the seventeenth century (P.M. Rattansi); the growth of Netherlands science in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (W. D. Hackmann); the rise and fall of Scottish science (J. R. R. Christie); scientific careers in eighteenth-century France (R. Hahn); the development of a professional care...

Pannenberg: A Post-Enlightenment Theologian

WHEN AN IMPORTANT new name appears on the theological horizon thinking Christians experience a natural though probably an unwise urge to classify the newcomer in terms of established labels, so that his contribution might the more readily be assimilated into current church thinking. In the case of Wolfhart Pannenberg this would seem to be a mistake. Not only is his theology still only roughly s...

The Future of Populist Parallelism

Searching for solutions: health concerns expressed in letters to an east African newspaper column.

This study examined health care questions from an unusual data set: 1252 unsolicited letters written over a three-year period to an advice column in an East African newspaper. Analysis of the letters was a non-intrusive method of ascertaining prevalent health questions and opinions. People wrote seeking information, advice, solutions, and reassurance about health problems. Emotions expressed in...