The University Wales, Lampeter
God willing, I shall be in Wales, Lampeter in October for my PhD defence.
This is my first posting with my new computer.
I am recovering from either food poisoning (fish), or stomach flue. This article is short and sweet and edited from my PhD. If you would like to make me feel better, please comment.
Please do not get fishy with me.;)
Russ:)
Religious Labels
From my PhD questionnaire, I asked respondents that attended Christian churches to choose from a list of provided religious labels. I purposely sampled many mainline Protestants, and so not only conservative evangelicals.
The label ‘Evangelical’ has 69 (32.4%) respondents for primary label, for the secondary label it has 54 (25.4%) respondents. As a tertiary religious label it features 12 (5.6%) respondents. Overall 63.4% of respondents chose evangelical as an option. ‘Conservative’ is the primary preference of 45 (21.1%) respondents, 45 (21.1%) respondents for a secondary preference with a leading frequency for tertiary preference at 25 (11.7%) respondents. The conservative label was chosen by 53.9% of respondents and this is an indicator of my efforts to have those within liberal, progressive Christianity specifically in my project, since although a majority of respondents chose conservative as a label, it is not an overwhelming majority. ‘Charismatic’ is the primary preference of 18 (8.5%) respondents, a secondary preference of 12 (5.6%) respondents, and 10 (4.7%) respondents as a tertiary preference. So 18.8% of respondents chose this as a religious label. ‘Catholic’ is the primary religious label of 16 (7.5%) respondents, secondary preference frequency of 12 (5.6%), and tertiary preference of 10 (4.7%).
Bishop James Judd (2003) explains within ‘Short History of the Old Catholic Church’ that the term ‘catholic’ equates with the term ‘universal.’ Judd (2003: 1). The term catholic literally means ‘universal’ or ‘worldwide.’ Grenz, Guretski and Nordling (1999: 24). Since the term ‘catholic’ is not defined in my questionnaire, some respondents who state they are catholic are not necessarily Roman Catholic. Thirty-eight respondents state they are catholic for religious label, but only 9 respondents at 4.2% are part of the Roman Catholic denomination. A total of 17.8% chose the catholic option. This is not necessarily an indicator that they are members of the Roman Catholic Church, but they consider themselves catholic Christians. Judd (2003: 1).
A quick note, concerning my previous article on causation:
I would like to add, that I understand we are discussing human choices and actions and morally significant choices and actions. My heart pumping or not is in a sense a human action, but does not require my choice to work. If I was foolish I could choose to try and terminate my heart, and would perhaps die. I suppose one could argue that involuntary human actions are a form of hard determinism, but it is not morally significant or very relevant to the previous discussion on causality, but I admit that within compatibilism it is possible that some human actions could possibly in a sense fall outside of the category.
GRENZ, STANLEY J., DAVID GURETZKI and CHERITH FEE NORDLING (1999) Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms, Downers Grove, Ill., InterVarsity Press.
JUDD, BISHOP JAMES (2003) ‘Short History of the Old Catholic Church’, in American Apostolic Catholic Church, Diocese of Michigan-Georgia-Minnesota, Greenville, Michigan. American Apostolic Catholic Church, Diocese of Michigan-Georgia-Minnesota, An Old Catholic Jurisdiction.
http://www.americanchurch.org/history.htm
http://satireandtheology.blogspot.com/2008/08/i-told-you-so.html
