Faith and democracy

The Fact of Sacrifice and Necessity of Faith: Dewey and the Ethics of Democracy

Melvin L. Rogers Abstract1 John Dewey’s underappreciated 1888 essay, “The Ethics of Democracy,” attempts to answer the following question: How do I consider myself a member of “the people” that rule in a democracy, and yet belong to the political minority? In challenging the prevailing view of this essay, I argue that Dewey defends a fundamental indeterminacy in the idea of “the people” that im...

dEfininG faitH and faitH PraCtiCES

recent studies demonstrate an overlapping relationship between faith practices of individuals, family functioning, and the corporate faith of congregations. this study reports on the psychometric properties of the Christian faith Practices Scale (CfPS), which was created to empirically measure dykstra’s faith behaviors or “practices.” analysis of a large purposive sample (n=7,403) indicates ini...

Faith, Hope and Doubt

Online Community and Democracy

The debate over the contribution of the Internet to democracy is farfrom settled. Some point to the empowering effects of online discussionand fund raising on recent electoral campaigns in the US to argue thatthe Internet will restore the public sphere. Others claim that the Internetis just a virtual mall, a final extension of global capitalism into everycorner of our lives. This paper argues f...

Faith healing and faith in healing.

Sarkar and Seshadri have presented an interesting paper in this issue on the ethical approach that a physician should take when faced with requests for faith healing (1). The paper describes four approaches that the physician can take. These are rejecting the request, keeping oneself detached from the issue, endorsing the request and trying to understand the practices concerned so as to make a ...