A letter to Dr. Hancock from the children of a deceased minister of the Society of Friends, on the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ crucified /

Smith I: 224.

Taking a leap of faith : are investors left short changed?

This dissertation examines the compliance and performance of a large sample of faith based (religious) ethical funds - the Shari'ah-compliant equity funds (SEFs), which may be viewed as a form of ethical investing. SEFs screen their investment for compliance with Islamic law, where riba (conventional interest expense), maysir (gambling), gharar (excessive uncertainty), and non-halal (non-ethical) products are prohibited. Using a set of stringent Shari'ah screens similar to those of MSCI Islamic, we first examine the extent to which SEFs comply with the Shari'ah law. Results show that only about 27% of the equities held by SEFs are Shari'ah-compliant. While most of the fund holdings pass the business screens, only about 42% pass the total debt to total assets ratio screen. This finding suggests that, in order to overcome a significant reduction in the investment opportunity, Shari'ah principles are compromised, with SEFs adopting lax screening rules so as to achieve a financial performance. While younger funds and funds that charge higher fees and are domiciled in more Muslim countries are more Shari'ah-compliant, we find little evidence of a positive relationship between fund disclosure of the Shari'ah compliance framework and Shari'ah-compliance. Clearly, Shari'ah compliance remains a major challenge for fund managers and SEF investors should be aware of Shari'ah-compliance risk since the fund managers do not always fulfill their fiduciary obligation, as promised in their prospectus. Employing a matched firm approach for a survivorship free sample of 387 SEFs, we then examine an issue that has been heavily debated in the literature: Does ethical screening reduce investment performance? Results show that it does but only by an average of 0.04% per month if benchmarked against matched conventional funds - this is a relatively small price to pay for religious faith. Cross-sectional regressions show an inverse relationship between Shari'ah compliance and fund performance: every one percentage increase in total compliance decreases fund performance by 0.01% per month. However, compliance fails to explain differences in the performance between SEFs and matched funds. Although SEFs do not generally perform better during crisis periods, further analysis shows evidence of better performance relative to conventional funds only during the recent Global Financial Crisis; the latter is consistent with popular media claims.

The Body in Pain: What do people of faith have to say about torture

An examination of why American Protestant churches have a higher likelihood to support torture

Inductive reasoning in the justification of the result of adding two even numbers

In this paper we present an analysis of the inductive reasoning of twelve secondary students in a mathematical problem-solving context. Students were proposed to justify what is the result of adding two even numbers. Starting from the theoretical framework, which is based on Pólya’s stages of inductive reasoning, and our empirical work, we created a category system that allowed us to make a qualitative data analysis. We show in this paper some of the results obtained in a previous study.

Christianity as a Vocation: The Rostrevor Benedictines and the Renewal of Faith in Ireland

This chapter explores how the Benedictine monks at Holy Cross Monastery in Rostrevor, Northern Ireland, have re-introduced the idea of vocation into the minds of a range of Christians on the island of Ireland. A picture of this new vision of the church in Ireland is painted through sections devoted to 'living ecumenism' and 'creating safe spaces'. The work of the Rostrevor Benedictines may seem limited because of the small scale of the changes among individuals. But Holy Cross is just one of multiple 'extra-institutional' spaces in Ireland's changing religious landscape. From their strategic positions on the margins, extra-institutional expressions of religion may prompt more significant changes in religious practice than initially seem possible.

"Man of science, man of faith" : Lost, consumer agency and the fate/free will binary in the post-9/11 context

In 2004, Lost debuted on ABC and quickly became a cultural phenomenon. Its postmodem take on the classic Robinson Crusoe desert island scenario gestures to a variety of different issues circulating within the post-9II1 cultural consciousness, such as terrorism, leadership, anxieties involving air travel, torture, and globalization. Lost's complex interwoven flashback and flash-forward narrative structure encourages spectators to creatively hypothesize solutions to the central mysteries of the narrative, while also thematically addressing archetypal questions of freedom of choice versus fate. Through an examination of the narrative structure, the significance of technological shifts in television, and fan cultures in Lost, this thesis discusses the tenuous notion of consumer agency within the current cultural context. Furthermore, I also explore these issues in relation to the wider historical post-9/II context.

The christian's manual of faith and devotion...

UANL

Village sermons on the chief articles of faith, &c., on the christian character, and on some of the relative duties...

UANL

Religion, Marketing and Market: An Adjustment in the Language of Faith

O presente trabalho se propõe fazer uma análise de categorias sociais que a primeira vista não tem proximidade, na verdade, podem, inclusive, parecer antagônicas. Trata-se das relações entre Religião, Marketing e Mercado. O trabalho se apóia num referencial teórico mais próximo das ciências sociais, todavia, considera a Religião, em sua expressão institucional –a igreja– como um empreendimento social, uma empresa dos tempos modernos. Procura demonstrar que, para aderir ao mundo moderno, plasmado pela idéia de competição e consumo da sociedade capitalista, a religião reorganizou sua linguagem para atender as exigências desses tempos, já considerados Pós-modernos. A análise é feita a partir do caso brasileiro que, como muitos paises da América Latina, acomodam no seu tecido social, as mais recentes expressões da religião cristã, em especial, os grupos evangélicos que pululam as periferias das grandes cidades desse  continente americano.

The justification of illegal anti-ecological behavior

Resumen tomado de la publicación