Asian Stereotypes Essay Example for Free

Asian Stereotypes Essay Stereotypes are everywhere in todays society. The media today such as television, radio, and the internet constantly remind us of the stereotypes for different races, genders, religions, and numerous other categories. Stereotypes of Asians in particular have been around for a fairly decent length of time. In the late 19th century, the term Chinky Chink was used to describe the American fear that a large number of Asians would immigrate to the United States. Americans were afraid that the Asian immigrants would invade the country and take jobs away from Americans. At this time, many anti-Asian feelings were expressed, especially on the West Coast, through headlines such as The Yellow Peril' (Los Angeles Times, 1886). In 1924, the Immigration Act was passed, limiting the number of Asians allowed into the United States because by then they were considered an undesirable race. Racism back then eventually evolved into the stereotype ingrained in todays society. One of the more common Asian stereotypes in our world specifically pertains to East Asians. East Asia as a phrase usually refers to the countries of China and Japan, as the main countries subject to stereotyping. Generally, Asians are portrayed as being smart in subjects such as math or science, hardworking, politically ignorant, and very polite and inoffensive. They are also portrayed as having no peripheral vision, which supposedly leads to bad driving. Common stereotypes are martial artists, geeks, and foreigners. Being foreigners, Asians are attributed to speaking poor English and replacing the letters -l and -r with each other. Muttering random nonsense and using words that rhyme on -ng sounds like ching, chang chong is another depiction commonly associated with Asians. Asians in America are considered to be inadaptable, inherently fixed in their own culture and unable to become truly American. A common stereotype for Asian parents is that they only care about their childrens grades and academic future. They dont allow their kids to go out with their friends, as parents of other ethnicities are wont to do. Instead, sons and daughters of Asian parents are told to stay home, study hard, get into a good prestigious college, and live life with a high-paying, high-status job. Old Chinese and Japanese people are described as being extremely wise with long beards, the image drawn from the Chinese philosopher Confucius. East Asian food is stereotyped as well, the most well-known Chinese food among Westerns being egg rolls, chow mein, and chow fun, and fortune cookies. Surprisingly enough, most of the Chinese food Westerns love to eat is almost 100% a Western adaptation of the original. The fortune cookie we know today was invented in America, not China as most ignorant people believe. Asian stereotypes based on physical appearances also exist. During World War II, efforts were made to distinguish enemy Japanese from friendly Chinese simply through physical appearance therefore leading to further stereotyping and the attribution of physical traits to each group. Such stereotypes include slanted eyes for slits. In the past, Asian men in particular have been thought to be fairly feminine. The main reason for this stereotype lies in the fact that Asians used to do what was considered womens work. These Asian workers were, as a whole, shorter than the average American man, sported long braids, and sometimes wore long silk gowns. Chinese men were seen as an economic threat to the white workforce so laws were passed that prevented the Chinese from working in many different industries. Due to those laws, Asians were forced to do what was deemed womens work by the society at the time. In the media, Asian men were often compared to white women. Two important fictional Asian characters in Americas cultural history are Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan. Both were created by white authors Sax Rohmer and Earl Biggers in the early 1900s. Fu Manchu is an intelligent, evil Chinese murderer with plots of world domination. He is the picture of Americas imagination of a supposedly mysterious and threatening Asian race. On the other hand, Charlie Chan is a submissive Chinese detective who solves cases while politely accepting or ignoring the numerous racist insults thrown at him by the white American characters. Charlie is the picture of Americas view of a good Asian. Both characters found huge popularity in many novels and views. Through these two characters invented by white Americans however, the American consciousness has been disillusioned with these stereotypes of Asians. As Asian men have stereotypes, Asian women also have stereotypes created mainly through the minds of perverted Americans. Asian women have been described as aggressive sexual beings. Western culture has promoted stereotypes of Asian women, calling them Dragon Ladies, China dolls, and Geisha girls. According to UC Berkeley Professor of Asian American Studies Elaine Kim, this stereotype of Asian women being submissive sex objects impedes their economic flexibility and has caused the increase in demand of ethnic pornography. Stereotypical portrayals of Asian women created by sexist white men continue to be a presence in movies despite their now disguised form. Researchers have theorized that the common stereotypes today could possibly be influencing the perception of Asians ability and probability of earning managerial positions. The stereotypes involving Asians as nerds, submissive, and quiet leads to the mindset that Asians are a good labor source. Therefore, this leads to the expectation that Asians are incompetent leaders. Because our society today values individuality, Asians find it extremely hard to fit in with these expectations, due to their original values of close families and groups. This stereotype has sometimes led to Asian employees being taken advantage of and lowers the likelihood for Asian professionals to be considered for a management position. Asians are supposedly highly qualified scientists and engineers, but lacking characteristics for leadership positions. Among all other racial groups, Asians have the least chance of advancing into leadership positions. A pattern has been created of education helping entry into professional fields, over-representation in technical fields, but under-representation in executive positions. The stereotype that Asian students are geniuses prevents them from accepting academic and emotional problems and asking for help. Whether they are excelling or having problems, it is imperative to acknowledge that Asian students may be experiencing school, social, and family stresses in order to uphold their model Asian image. Stereotyping Asians increases peer discrimination such as being threatened, having racist comments said to them, and being excluded from activities. By only focusing on the Asian stereotype of exceptional students and generalizing all Asians with it, this model does not take into consideration the large number of Asian American students and their families who suffer from poverty and illiteracy. WORKS CITED Chen, Tina T. Asian American Empowerment. Model Minority. May 2004. Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University. 15 Dec. 2008 . Kim, Angelea, and Christine J. Yeh. Stereotypes of Asian American Students. ERIC Digest. 15 Dec. 2008 . Stereotype: East Asian stereotypes. Wikipedia. 14 Dec. 2008 . Stereotypes of East and Southeast Asians in the United States. Wikipedia. 14 Dec. 2008 . ? Response By doing this project, I have learned much about stereotypes and essentially racism against Asians. Prior to doing this project, I had already known some stereotypes, even some which were used on me. Among some of those I knew are Asians as smart students, Asian parents as very academic focused, and Asians that have poor English and driving. In reality, I had planned on writing a research paper on stereotypes in general, but there probably wouldve been too many aspects to cover. Therefore, I decided to choose a single stereotype, which was the East Asian stereotype. Through researching, I have learned many different stereotypes for Asians. For example, I now know different stereotypes pertaining to Asian men as well as Asian women. While writing my research paper, I was rather surprised at the number of stereotypes I was unaware of. On the other hand, I already knew some of the stereotypes mentioned. It was just a matter of taking some of the stereotypes in my own life to add details to the stereotypes I found online. By the time I finished researching and writing my paper, I felt like I knew tons more about Asian stereotypes than I had before. It was a bit saddening to see how many completely wrong conceptions there are today of Asians. Although I am Asian myself, I do not find any offense in any of these stereotypes for I know that they are not true. They may apply to a majority of the Asian American population, but I rest in the knowledge that I can be an exception to the stereotypes set by todays society.

Contemporary Styles of Preaching

Contemporary Styles of Preaching Chapter Five Impact, event, and context in contemporary preaching 5.1 Mapping the commonalities. The diversity of the trends identified in the earlier review (sections 2.4 to 2.8) presents a particular challenge to the analysis of justifiable generalizations about homiletic theory and practice in the last half-century. As Edwards observes, there seem to be more forms of preaching today than in all previous Christian centuries put together (2004: 835). Furthermore, Edwards judges that preachers during the late-twentieth century tried to accomplish a greater variety of things through their sermons than any of their predecessors attempted (2004: 663). Allen, Blaisdell and Johnston similarly describe the current homiletical scene as a smorgasboard of approaches and cite no less than eleven identifiable contemporary styles of preaching (1997: 171). According to Edwards two developments account for this diversity: namely, the sheer number of people who designate themselves as Christians (in the 20th century Christianity became the most extensive and universal religion in history (Barratt, 2001: 3)), and the huge proliferation of organizational bodies within which preachers are operative (2004: 835). The work of the statisticians Barratt, Kurian and Johnson supports Edwards judgement; in their World Christian Encyclopedia (2001) they estimate that in the year 2000 Christians of all kinds numbered 2 billion people in 33,820 distinct denominations (2001: 10). They observe that there are today Christians and organized Christian churches in every inhabited country on earth (2001: 3). The impact of this globalization is significant even in the much narrower geographical confines of this thesis, and it is inconceivable that an accurate appraisal of preaching practice and theory could be made apart from a ready acknowledgement of the fo rces and influences that are properly termed global. The indicators of institutional decline apparent in the churches of the Western world have to be set against rapid and continuing growth in other parts of the globe. This shift of numerical strength inevitably has consequences for preaching as for other aspects of church practice and faith. The presence in the UK of Christian personnel from the southern parts of the world, increased congregation to congregation contact made possible by cheap air travel, and the development of Internet usage, all offer new understandings and strategies from elsewhere in the global church in ways much more directly influential than even in the immediate past. The practice of preaching, like most other human endeavours in the early twenty-first century, takes place within a pluriform social environment in which many and diverse influences from the widest possible arenas of human activity have a bearing. That said, preaching, in social terms, remains predominantly a locally-focused activity, and sermon style and content are usually closely related to the specifics of the sub-cultural frames in which the life and self-understanding of the congregation is set. Consequently, the power of the local context is another factor underlying Edwards observation of the immense diversity of contemporary sermon styles. As Edwards puts it, such diversity shows how radically ad hoc all Christian preaching is (2004: 835). That is not to say, however, that such enormous diversity denies the possibility of any sensible generalization. In particular, as was suggested in the earlier review, three aspects are identifiable within contemporary preaching practices that have particular significance for collective memory-namely, awareness of a sermons psychological engagement, communicative salience and contextual pertinence. In other words, those aspects of preaching that deal with a sermons impact on the hearer; its purposefulness as an event in its own terms; and its relationship to the context in which it is delivered and heard. In order to establish an analytical framework that is not too unwieldy three texts that are in some sense representative documents will be analysed closely. Other texts that develop, challenge, or amplify the issues disclosed will be added to the discussion as the argument requires. The representative texts have been selected as indicative of three prominent strands in the ongoing discussion of homiletic practice: firstly, continuity in terms of issues of concern and of practice methodology; secondly, change in practice and the philosophical and technical components that undergird it; and thirdly, reorientation that aims to subtly change the locus of practice itself. The first text will utilize a perspective from prior to the 1955 to 2005 period under review that still has currency, albeit in terms significantly altered from earlier years. The second will analyse a perspective of more recent origin that signifies contemporary concerns with philosophy and communications theory and the technical practice that flows from them. And the third will examine a perspective that sees the local context of preaching as fundamental to homiletic activity rather than just the arena in which it takes place. The first text is Phillips Brooks Lyman Beecher Lectures of 1877, last reissued in book form as recently as 1987, and described by Killinger as one of the most readable and inspiring volumes on preaching ever penned (1985: 207). The version used here will be the 1904 edition, published in London under the title Lectures on Preaching. No attempt will be made to alter the gender specificity of Brooks words since, although this study readily acknowledges that the preaching task belongs as much to women as to men, the assumptions of his text in this area are a clear marker of changes that have taken place even under the cover of longstanding common concerns. David Buttricks 1987 book Homiletic: Moves and Structures is the second focus. At more than 500 pages, this is a monumental work in size, as well as scope and influence. Edwards (2004: 806) describes Buttricks work as being as influential and significant as Fred Craddocks pioneering of the New Homiletic, and Lischer (2002: 337) credits him with the first homiletic in theory and practice geared to our [present day] culture of images. The final representative text is Leonora Tisdales 1997 work Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, which asks preachers to become ethnographers of their congregations in order to understand the human nature of their hearers from the inside as it were. Tisdale is one of a new movement of homiletic practitioners and theoreticians at home with anthropological and sociological models in Christian ministry and alert to cultural-linguistic issues. Her work provides a way into the insights of those who acknowledge that preachings former authority has all but evaporated, but who see a radical social re-encounter as being a real possibility for a reshaped sermon practice. 5.2 Continuities of concerns and practice: Brooks and contemporary preaching. As was noted earlier (Section 2.5), Brooks Lyman Beecher Lectures remained much used as a guide to homiletic practice well into the period under review. Indeed such has been the influence of his insistence on preaching as the bringing of truth through personality (1904: 5) that Brooks expression continues to be repeated in exactly the same terms in contemporary works, such as those of Day (1998: 6) and Killinger (1985: 8). In dwelling on the preachers personality Brooks managed to encapsulate what, in the 1870s, was a new and burgeoning interest in the human psyche. It was hardly coincidence that his lectures were delivered in the same decade in which William James became Americas first professorial-level teacher of psychology (Harvard in 1875) and G. Stanley Hall the countrys first PhD in psychology. Unwittingly no doubt, Brooks reflected on novel intellectual ideas of his own day and, in doing so, identified within preaching practice what was to become a major preoccupation in many areas of discourse in the twentieth-century: namely, the human psyche and its relationship to action and truth. It is pertinent, therefore, to examine what Brooks understood by personality and its relationship to Christian truth in order to appreciate how his ideas were developed by homiletic practitioners in the period under review. What might appropriately be termed personalist (i.e. an emphasis in preaching on the personal religious experience of the hearer somehow addressed very directly by the preacher) has been, and continues to be, a major component in sermon delivery and design. Brooks concept of preaching as truth through personality became a kind of slogan for many preachers in the twentieth-century, and indeed remains a very influential mantra for many practitioners to this day. In Brooks lectures that sloganized thought had a rather more nuanced definition: Preaching is the communication of truth by man to men. It has in it two essential elements, truth and personality. Neither of those can it spare and still be preaching. The truest truth, the most authoritative statement of Gods, communicated in any other way than through the personality of brother man to men is not preached truth. Suppose it written on the sky, suppose it embodied in a book which has been so long held in reverence as the direct utterance of God that the vivid personality of the men who wrote its pages has well-nigh faded out of it; in neither of these cases is there any preaching. And on the other hand, if men speak to other men that which they do not claim for truth, if they use their powers of persuasion or of entertainment to make other men listen to their speculations, or do their will, or applaud their cleverness, that is not preaching either. The first lacks personality. The second lacks truth. And preaching is the bringing of truth through personality. (1904: 5) For Brooks, the two components of truth and personality had to stand together, since their meeting was the point at which the universal and the particular met. It would be an exaggeration to say that Brooks viewed religious truth as essentially something that can only be known in personal experience; but he did believe that truth was at its most effective and powerful when known and expressed in personal terms. He understood the truth of the Christian faith to be universal and invariable, with personality as the site where it was realized through variable and particular understanding and appropriation (1904: 15). Thus although he was clear gospel truth was a message to be transmitted, he insisted that it could only be transmitted via the voice of a witness, i.e. someone for whom it had become an indispensable part of that persons own experience (14). In terms of memory maintenance, Brooks approach assumes that the preacher is deeply cognizant of the Christian tradition and is, as it were, a bearer of it in his or her own person. 5.2.1 The personal characteristics of the preacher. Being such a bearer of the tradition required of the preacher exacting personal characteristics. The rigour Brooks brought to the personal qualities required of the preaching witness continues to be challenging reading for anyone pursuing such a role. Alongside a deep personal piety (1904: 38), Brooks listed mental and spiritual unselfishness (39), hopefulness as against judgmental fear (40), a vigorous commitment to physical health along with the offering of the whole of life in ministerial service (40), and an enthusiasm that made for a keen joy in preaching (42). Brooks saw the task of preaching as always needing an essential grounding in the very personhood of the preacher, by which he meant truth communicated through personality in an absolutely literal sense. The second of his Lyman Beecher Lectures, entitled The Preacher Himself, amplified the point in this enumeration of the qualities necessary for success in preaching: purity and uprightness of character; lack of self-consciousness founded on absolute trust in God; genuine respect for those preached to; thorough enjoyment of the task; gravity of intent in all things; and courage to speak out (1904: 49-60). At first sight the list appears remote from more recent homiletic theorys concern with techniques and philosophical issues, and therefore it might appear as less accessible and relevant to practitioners since the 1950s watershed in preaching identified earlier. Such personal qualities can seem to be more easily related to an era when the person of the preacher was regarded as carrying more authority than nowadays. Although in terms of wider social recognition the preacher is no longer a star of oratory, similar attributes are still sought after-but for rather different reasons. Killinger (1985), for example, stresses the importance of the physical and mental health of the preacher as an aspect of communication, since troubles in those areas are signalled subconsciously to an audience and work towards undermining the intended message. He writes: Suppose we are preaching about wholeness and reconciliation but actually conveying a message about fragmentedness and despondency. The words may sound right, but there is something about the tune, about the look in our eyes, about the tension in our faces, that counters what we are saying. At best, people get a double message. It is very important, therefore, for the preacher to be as healthy and joyous as possible. Anything less impedes his or her message about the life-giving community of God. We are working at our preaching, for this reason, even when we are taking care of ourselves. (1985: 198-199) Although the point is expressed in the idiom of late twentieth-century communications theory the reasoning is clearly akin to that of Brooks. For both, emphasis on the physicality of the preacher is an aspect of how the message will be received in the light of how the hearers perceptions of the speaker. The body of the preacher, as well as his or her mental and spiritual capabilities, is, in this sense, a tool in the preaching witness. Contemporary women homileticians have also emphasized physicality; but from a perspective that radicalizes it by making the woman preachers bodily experience a site of homiletic resource. In Walton and Durber (1994), the negative, indeed destructive, consequences of a profound prejudice in the Christian tradition against womens bodies are highlighted. They note that in the light of this shameful history and despite occasional counter-tradition movements, the advent of more widespread preaching by women with the rise of Nonconformity did not generally challenge the unembodied nature of homiletic practice. Until the rise of the Womens Movement, women preachers, like their male counterparts, stressed a common rationality and a universal human nature that was blind to the particularities of embodied experience (Walton and Durber, 1994: 2). In more recent years, however, some women homileticians have striven to speak from their bodily experience and utilize both the negative and positive aspects of femininity, conception, pregnancy, birth, health and nurture in their theology of preaching (for example, Ward, Wild and Morley, (1995); Gjerding and Kinnamon, (1984); Riley, (1985); By Our Lives, (1985); Maitland, (1995); and Marva Dawn in Graves, (2004)). According to Walton and Durber, such efforts are part of a new emphasis that is fuelling developments across the whole spectrum of theological enquiry. They write: Sexuality and suffering are still rarely named within a Christian tradition that prefers to speak of the spirit rather than the body, light rather than darkness and a God who creates life but bears no responsibility for pain and dying. Women who have begun to preach from their bodies are not merely redressing an existing imbalance and enriching the storehouse of Christian metaphors and symbols but are also provoking new theological debates close to the very heart of the faith. (1994: 4) This emphasis on the body as a resource for preaching content rather than solely the necessary vehicle of delivery as it were, certainly takes Brooks focus on personhood further than he could possibly have imagined. That said, even here there is a certain congruence between what Brooks said and these very contemporary concerns. He did, after all, insist that the needs and preoccupations of no one sex or age should monopolize the life of the congregation, and that ministrations to it must be full at once of vigour and of tenderness, the fathers and the mothers touch at once (1904: 207). Brooks could not have possibly foreseen the Womens Movement and its repercussions for preaching, but his unease with a domineering and authoritarian style in the pulpit-mediated through his lasting influence-at least readied some preachers for a message that needed to be heard. The physical and personal qualities of the practitioner described neither in terms of communication theory nor embodied theology, but in ways even more reminiscent of Brooks own characterization of the preacher, have reasserted themselves through organization theory and the study of leadership. As the authority of the church, in terms of rules and obligations, has ebbed away, and the legitimacy of power based on tradition more and more questioned, it is perhaps the case that authority based on exemplary character has increased in relative importance. Certainly in the world of commerce and business the significance of the personal qualities of leaders and managers has been extensively theorized and debated. In the use of terms such as sapiential authority and referent power, organization theorists have pointed up the crucial importance of a personal knowledge and skill that readily communicates itself to others, and a personality-based ability to influence by attracting loyalty (Rees and Porter, 2001: 82). Other theorists, e.g. Charles Handy, talk in terms of the invisible but felt pull that is described as magnetism (1985: 135). Handy writes: Aspects of magnetism, the unseen drawing-power of one individual, are found all the time. Trust, respect, charm, infectious enthusiasm, these attributes all allow us to influence people without apparently imposing on them. The invisibility of magnetism is a major attraction as is its attachment to one individual. (1985: 136) Brooks himself used the very term magnetism and described it as: the quality that kindles at the sight of men, that feels a keen joy at the meeting of truth and the human mind, and recognizes how God made them for each other. It is the power by which a man loses himself and becomes but the sympathetic atmosphere between the truth on one side of him and the man on the other side of him. (1904: 42) Excluding the gender specificity, Handy might have written in very similar terms. (Comparable thoughts, although using other nomenclature, can also be found, for example in Schein, 1992: 229; Zohar and Marshall, 2000: 259; and Nelson, 1999: 76). The significance of the personal charisma of the preacher is, perhaps, in the process of rehabilitation via business practices that readily recognize the importance of personal as well as systemic qualities in the effective functioning of organizations. With the support of such an appreciation, a contemporary homiletician, such as Day, can assert, without risking suspicion and disapprobation, that the hope of the sermon lies in the authenticity of the preacher (1998: 147). As regards the maintenance of tradition as collective memory, the resurgence of individualized authority raises the question whether organizational structures within the churches are strong enough to prevent intentional or unintentional abuse of that corporate memory bearin g responsibility. 5.2.2 The preacher as learner and as pastor. Before leaving issues associated with personhood, two of Brooks themes regarding the preachers actions are worth considering since, again, they are things that continue to be widely discussed in the literature; namely, the preacher as learner and the preacher as pastor. After considering the dangers to the preachers personality of self-conceit, over-concern with failure, self-indulgence, and narrowness, Brooks brings his second lecture to a close with a vigorous plea for what would now be called lifelong learning. He writes: In [Christian ministry] he who is faithful must go on learning more and more for ever. His growth in learning is all bound up with his growth in character. Nowhere else do the moral and intellectual so sympathize, and lose or gain together. The minister must grow. His true growth is not necessarily a change of views. It is a change of view. It is not revolution. It is progress. It is a continual climbing which opens continually wider prospects. It repeats the experience of Christs disciples, of whom their Lord was always making larger men and then giving them larger truth of which their enlarged natures had become capable. (1904: 70) What Brooks discerned as an essential component of the preachers disposition has nowadays been widened to embrace all who claim to be faithful believers. Discipleship as lifelong learning is a concept in wide contemporary currency in the churches, and is discussed, for example, in documents such as the published strategies of the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church for training, detailed in the reports Formation for Ministry within a Learning Church (2003) and Shaping the Future: New patterns of training for lay and ordained (2006). The notion of Christian leaders needing to be exemplars in this ongoing commitment to learning and personal growth figures in much of the literature on congregations and pastoral ministry, such as Mead (1994), Baumohl (1984), Hawkins (1997), and Anderson (1997); albeit these and numerous other authors, make it plain that the goal of such action is the enhancement of learning in the whole church. In the preaching literatu re, allied perspectives are expressed in such concepts as local theology (Tisdale, 1997), conversational preaching (Rose, 1997), listening to or with sermon preparation (Van Harn, 2005), embodying the scriptures communally (Davis and Hays, 2003), and interactive preaching (Hunter, 2004). Through these and other mechanisms, Brooks call for continuous learning on the part of the preacher finds its contemporary expression in practices that aim to widen that learning to include the whole body of people who are party to the sermon and the preachers and their own wider ministry. As Anderson puts it, every act of ministry teaches something about God (1997: 8). That is a sentiment to which Brooks would have been sympathetic given his emphasis on the absolute core of preaching as the widest of concern for souls. Learning, in collective memory theory, is often associated with the changing of the meanings and understandings of memories, and the processes by which traditions are appropriated by individuals. As aspects of learning clearly related to relationships they echo contemporary concern in the church about whole body learning. In Brooks description of the preacher as pastor this analysis reaches very familiar territory, in that such a description probably remains the pre-eminent designation of the homiletician within the churches. Brooks thought on this matter was absolutely unequivocal: The preacher needs to be pastor, that he may preach to real men. The pastor must be preacher, that he may keep the dignity of his work alive. The preacher, who is not a pastor, grows remote. The pastor, who is not a preacher, grows petty. Never be content to let men truthfully say of you, He is a preacher, but no pastor; or, He is a pastor, but no preacher. Be both; for you cannot really be one unless you also are the other. (1904: 77) The conviction remains no less powerful more than a century after Brooks lectures: for example, Eric Devenport writing in 1986 could assert, without fear that his opinion would be controversial: Preaching and pastoral work go hand in hand. This is one of those truths that has to be proclaimed time after time, for unless it is heard, then most preaching will not only be dull but dead. (in Hunter, 2004: 145) Clearly, at different times and in different church structures, the nature of pastoral practice has been viewed in a variety of ways. Sometimes it has been mutual support in discipleship, and at other times psychotherapeutic intervention. In some circumstances it has been ad hoc care and conversation, and in others programmatic structures of community creation. Amongst these and many other activities, those who would preach have frequently seen such pastoral practice as a fundamental adjunct to the homiletic task. Although the influence of the problem centred preaching method of Henry Emerson Fosdick, mentioned above (section 2.5), has waned in recent decades, the notion that preaching must somehow relate to the felt life-concerns of those in the congregation is still the key to good practice for many preachers. Whether the emphasis is Tisdales (1997) preacher as the caretaker of local theology, Willimons (1979) or Longs (1989) straightforward emphasis on the role of pastor, Pasquare llos (2005) preaching as the development of communal wisdom, Buechners (1977) telling the truth in love, or Van Harns (2005) insistence on listening in preaching, the overarching perspective is that of pastoral care to individuals and groups. The tradition as collective memory must, in these circumstances, serve pastoral needs. Here the link to the presentist character of collective memory appears strong. 5.2.3 Preachings first purpose and the style appropriate to it. Returning to the issue of preaching as art. From Brooks paramount concern with personhood and themes that flow from it, this discussion now turns to two other aspects of his lectures that remain significant concerns in homiletic literature: style of language, and preachings first purpose. In his emphasis on preaching as witness, Brooks made a distinction that continues to figure prominently in homiletic texts to this day: namely, the difference between preaching about Christ and preaching Christ (1904: 20). Preachers, Brooks insisted, should announce Christianity as a message and proclaim Christ as a Saviour not-discuss Christianity as a problem (1904: 21). He asserted: Definers and defenders of the faith are always needed, but it is bad for a church when its ministers count it their true work to define and defend the faith rather than to preach the Gospel. Beware of the tendency to preach about Christianity, and try to preach Christ. (1904: 21) This distinction continues to be vigorously promoted, particularly amongst the New Homiletic advocates of an inductive sermon methodology. From the distinction there comes an emphasis in sermonic style on a demonstrably engaging, emotionally affective, and inclusivist presentation, rather than a detached, analytical or objective stance. Brooks would have undoubtedly concurred with David Bartletts worries about sermon style that appears to make sin more interesting than grace, and evil more lively than goodness (in Graves, 2004: 25). Bartlett suggests that sermons too often misdirect their hearers by putting active or abstract language and thoughts in the wrong places. He writes, For the most part we show evil and then tell about goodness. We show judgment and then talk about the doctrine of mercy (in Graves, 2004: 25). Yet again, Brooks lectures were extraordinary prescient of a concern that has become commonplace these many years later. Likewise, Brooks conviction that a sermon is essentially a tool and not an end in itself is also a perspective that continues to be vigorously debated (Brooks, 1904: 110). Unlike Browne (1958), Brooks was insistent that preaching is not an art form. He wrote: The definition and immediate purpose which a sermon has set before it makes it impossible to consider it as a work of art, and every attempt to consider it so works injury to the purpose for which the sermon was created. Many of the ineffective sermons that are made owe their failure to a blind and fruitless effort to produce something which shall be a work of art, conforming to some type or pattern which is not clearly understood but is supposed to be essential and eternal. (1904: 109) In many ways, Brownes advocacy of the sermon as art-form (1958: 76) was a reaction to those who had taken Brooks evident pragmatism and utilitarianism as regards technique and turned it into a bald instructionalism that claimed too much for itself and was simply tedious. That was not Brooks intention, however, as his aim was an absolute focus on the tumultuous eagerness of earnest purpose (1904: 110). His overriding concern was that sermons should engage and communicate in such a way as to affect and mark personalities at their most profound level. As such, his understanding of the nature of sermonic engagement serves the purposes of collective memory. His objection to preaching as an art-form was the tendency he saw for art to be an end in itself-over concerned with pure forms and the abstractions of principles (see, for example, pages 110 and 267 of the 1904 edition). These many years later, art operates, and is applied within immensely diverse environments wholly unknown when Brooks lectured: so his criticism is, perhaps, no longer apposite. On the other hand, how far and in what ways artistic expression relates to and uses tradition is a question rather more vexed now than in Brooks day. The one aspect of artistic endeavour Brooks was willing to concede was art in the sense of an awesome appreciation of the mysteriousness of life. This was something Brooks regarded as an essential component of the preachers outlook, and was the reason for his advocacy of the preacher as, at least in some measure, a poet (1904: 262). Preaching as art form brings to the forefront of homiletic awareness the sermons place in the imaginative construal of engaging gospel alternatives to commonplace understandings and outlooks. Collective memory theory suggests that affiliation to group identity is an essential element in the continuity of memory. What the emphasis on preaching as art form does is alert the preacher to the need to create in preaching that sense of engagement, creativity and exploration that aims beyond utilitarian instruction. Here, preaching is seen as genuinely performative. Like the repeated performances of a classic drama, a sermon hearer can become intensively engaged again and again with material that, although familiar, becomes in the engagement surprisingly new. Likewise the preacher as performer or artist, works with familiar texts in order to render then creatively new in a sermon. From both sides of the sermon event collective memory is supported via the performative interaction. The discussion of art related issues in contemporary homiletic literature largely supports this assessment. Morris, in his Raising the Dead: The Art of the preacher as Public Performer, makes performance the guiding principle of all homiletics and insists that preaching should delight and enrich in ways similar to other mediums (1996: 19). Gilmore, in his Preaching as Theatre (1996) shares the same concern with performance, and designates preaching as a dramatic event that happens. He writes: As long as preaching is seen as lecturing or teaching, then, in order for it to be effective, listeners have to go away and do something about it. If it is art, they dont. By the time it is over something has happened, or has failed to happen. This is what makes preaching as an art distinctive, more exciting and satisfying when it works, more depressing and worrying when it doesnt. (1996: 7) Other homileticians are a little more reserved and tend to use the idea of art or artistic endeavour as but one tool the preacher can employ. For example, in Allen (1998), the appreciation of works of art and artistic frames for sermons are advocated as ways to create spheres of perception i Contemporary Styles of Preaching Contemporary Styles of Preaching Chapter Five Impact, event, and context in contemporary preaching 5.1 Mapping the commonalities. The diversity of the trends identified in the earlier review (sections 2.4 to 2.8) presents a particular challenge to the analysis of justifiable generalizations about homiletic theory and practice in the last half-century. As Edwards observes, there seem to be more forms of preaching today than in all previous Christian centuries put together (2004: 835). Furthermore, Edwards judges that preachers during the late-twentieth century tried to accomplish a greater variety of things through their sermons than any of their predecessors attempted (2004: 663). Allen, Blaisdell and Johnston similarly describe the current homiletical scene as a smorgasboard of approaches and cite no less than eleven identifiable contemporary styles of preaching (1997: 171). According to Edwards two developments account for this diversity: namely, the sheer number of people who designate themselves as Christians (in the 20th century Christianity became the most extensive and universal religion in history (Barratt, 2001: 3)), and the huge proliferation of organizational bodies within which preachers are operative (2004: 835). The work of the statisticians Barratt, Kurian and Johnson supports Edwards judgement; in their World Christian Encyclopedia (2001) they estimate that in the year 2000 Christians of all kinds numbered 2 billion people in 33,820 distinct denominations (2001: 10). They observe that there are today Christians and organized Christian churches in every inhabited country on earth (2001: 3). The impact of this globalization is significant even in the much narrower geographical confines of this thesis, and it is inconceivable that an accurate appraisal of preaching practice and theory could be made apart from a ready acknowledgement of the fo rces and influences that are properly termed global. The indicators of institutional decline apparent in the churches of the Western world have to be set against rapid and continuing growth in other parts of the globe. This shift of numerical strength inevitably has consequences for preaching as for other aspects of church practice and faith. The presence in the UK of Christian personnel from the southern parts of the world, increased congregation to congregation contact made possible by cheap air travel, and the development of Internet usage, all offer new understandings and strategies from elsewhere in the global church in ways much more directly influential than even in the immediate past. The practice of preaching, like most other human endeavours in the early twenty-first century, takes place within a pluriform social environment in which many and diverse influences from the widest possible arenas of human activity have a bearing. That said, preaching, in social terms, remains predominantly a locally-focused activity, and sermon style and content are usually closely related to the specifics of the sub-cultural frames in which the life and self-understanding of the congregation is set. Consequently, the power of the local context is another factor underlying Edwards observation of the immense diversity of contemporary sermon styles. As Edwards puts it, such diversity shows how radically ad hoc all Christian preaching is (2004: 835). That is not to say, however, that such enormous diversity denies the possibility of any sensible generalization. In particular, as was suggested in the earlier review, three aspects are identifiable within contemporary preaching practices that have particular significance for collective memory-namely, awareness of a sermons psychological engagement, communicative salience and contextual pertinence. In other words, those aspects of preaching that deal with a sermons impact on the hearer; its purposefulness as an event in its own terms; and its relationship to the context in which it is delivered and heard. In order to establish an analytical framework that is not too unwieldy three texts that are in some sense representative documents will be analysed closely. Other texts that develop, challenge, or amplify the issues disclosed will be added to the discussion as the argument requires. The representative texts have been selected as indicative of three prominent strands in the ongoing discussion of homiletic practice: firstly, continuity in terms of issues of concern and of practice methodology; secondly, change in practice and the philosophical and technical components that undergird it; and thirdly, reorientation that aims to subtly change the locus of practice itself. The first text will utilize a perspective from prior to the 1955 to 2005 period under review that still has currency, albeit in terms significantly altered from earlier years. The second will analyse a perspective of more recent origin that signifies contemporary concerns with philosophy and communications theory and the technical practice that flows from them. And the third will examine a perspective that sees the local context of preaching as fundamental to homiletic activity rather than just the arena in which it takes place. The first text is Phillips Brooks Lyman Beecher Lectures of 1877, last reissued in book form as recently as 1987, and described by Killinger as one of the most readable and inspiring volumes on preaching ever penned (1985: 207). The version used here will be the 1904 edition, published in London under the title Lectures on Preaching. No attempt will be made to alter the gender specificity of Brooks words since, although this study readily acknowledges that the preaching task belongs as much to women as to men, the assumptions of his text in this area are a clear marker of changes that have taken place even under the cover of longstanding common concerns. David Buttricks 1987 book Homiletic: Moves and Structures is the second focus. At more than 500 pages, this is a monumental work in size, as well as scope and influence. Edwards (2004: 806) describes Buttricks work as being as influential and significant as Fred Craddocks pioneering of the New Homiletic, and Lischer (2002: 337) credits him with the first homiletic in theory and practice geared to our [present day] culture of images. The final representative text is Leonora Tisdales 1997 work Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art, which asks preachers to become ethnographers of their congregations in order to understand the human nature of their hearers from the inside as it were. Tisdale is one of a new movement of homiletic practitioners and theoreticians at home with anthropological and sociological models in Christian ministry and alert to cultural-linguistic issues. Her work provides a way into the insights of those who acknowledge that preachings former authority has all but evaporated, but who see a radical social re-encounter as being a real possibility for a reshaped sermon practice. 5.2 Continuities of concerns and practice: Brooks and contemporary preaching. As was noted earlier (Section 2.5), Brooks Lyman Beecher Lectures remained much used as a guide to homiletic practice well into the period under review. Indeed such has been the influence of his insistence on preaching as the bringing of truth through personality (1904: 5) that Brooks expression continues to be repeated in exactly the same terms in contemporary works, such as those of Day (1998: 6) and Killinger (1985: 8). In dwelling on the preachers personality Brooks managed to encapsulate what, in the 1870s, was a new and burgeoning interest in the human psyche. It was hardly coincidence that his lectures were delivered in the same decade in which William James became Americas first professorial-level teacher of psychology (Harvard in 1875) and G. Stanley Hall the countrys first PhD in psychology. Unwittingly no doubt, Brooks reflected on novel intellectual ideas of his own day and, in doing so, identified within preaching practice what was to become a major preoccupation in many areas of discourse in the twentieth-century: namely, the human psyche and its relationship to action and truth. It is pertinent, therefore, to examine what Brooks understood by personality and its relationship to Christian truth in order to appreciate how his ideas were developed by homiletic practitioners in the period under review. What might appropriately be termed personalist (i.e. an emphasis in preaching on the personal religious experience of the hearer somehow addressed very directly by the preacher) has been, and continues to be, a major component in sermon delivery and design. Brooks concept of preaching as truth through personality became a kind of slogan for many preachers in the twentieth-century, and indeed remains a very influential mantra for many practitioners to this day. In Brooks lectures that sloganized thought had a rather more nuanced definition: Preaching is the communication of truth by man to men. It has in it two essential elements, truth and personality. Neither of those can it spare and still be preaching. The truest truth, the most authoritative statement of Gods, communicated in any other way than through the personality of brother man to men is not preached truth. Suppose it written on the sky, suppose it embodied in a book which has been so long held in reverence as the direct utterance of God that the vivid personality of the men who wrote its pages has well-nigh faded out of it; in neither of these cases is there any preaching. And on the other hand, if men speak to other men that which they do not claim for truth, if they use their powers of persuasion or of entertainment to make other men listen to their speculations, or do their will, or applaud their cleverness, that is not preaching either. The first lacks personality. The second lacks truth. And preaching is the bringing of truth through personality. (1904: 5) For Brooks, the two components of truth and personality had to stand together, since their meeting was the point at which the universal and the particular met. It would be an exaggeration to say that Brooks viewed religious truth as essentially something that can only be known in personal experience; but he did believe that truth was at its most effective and powerful when known and expressed in personal terms. He understood the truth of the Christian faith to be universal and invariable, with personality as the site where it was realized through variable and particular understanding and appropriation (1904: 15). Thus although he was clear gospel truth was a message to be transmitted, he insisted that it could only be transmitted via the voice of a witness, i.e. someone for whom it had become an indispensable part of that persons own experience (14). In terms of memory maintenance, Brooks approach assumes that the preacher is deeply cognizant of the Christian tradition and is, as it were, a bearer of it in his or her own person. 5.2.1 The personal characteristics of the preacher. Being such a bearer of the tradition required of the preacher exacting personal characteristics. The rigour Brooks brought to the personal qualities required of the preaching witness continues to be challenging reading for anyone pursuing such a role. Alongside a deep personal piety (1904: 38), Brooks listed mental and spiritual unselfishness (39), hopefulness as against judgmental fear (40), a vigorous commitment to physical health along with the offering of the whole of life in ministerial service (40), and an enthusiasm that made for a keen joy in preaching (42). Brooks saw the task of preaching as always needing an essential grounding in the very personhood of the preacher, by which he meant truth communicated through personality in an absolutely literal sense. The second of his Lyman Beecher Lectures, entitled The Preacher Himself, amplified the point in this enumeration of the qualities necessary for success in preaching: purity and uprightness of character; lack of self-consciousness founded on absolute trust in God; genuine respect for those preached to; thorough enjoyment of the task; gravity of intent in all things; and courage to speak out (1904: 49-60). At first sight the list appears remote from more recent homiletic theorys concern with techniques and philosophical issues, and therefore it might appear as less accessible and relevant to practitioners since the 1950s watershed in preaching identified earlier. Such personal qualities can seem to be more easily related to an era when the person of the preacher was regarded as carrying more authority than nowadays. Although in terms of wider social recognition the preacher is no longer a star of oratory, similar attributes are still sought after-but for rather different reasons. Killinger (1985), for example, stresses the importance of the physical and mental health of the preacher as an aspect of communication, since troubles in those areas are signalled subconsciously to an audience and work towards undermining the intended message. He writes: Suppose we are preaching about wholeness and reconciliation but actually conveying a message about fragmentedness and despondency. The words may sound right, but there is something about the tune, about the look in our eyes, about the tension in our faces, that counters what we are saying. At best, people get a double message. It is very important, therefore, for the preacher to be as healthy and joyous as possible. Anything less impedes his or her message about the life-giving community of God. We are working at our preaching, for this reason, even when we are taking care of ourselves. (1985: 198-199) Although the point is expressed in the idiom of late twentieth-century communications theory the reasoning is clearly akin to that of Brooks. For both, emphasis on the physicality of the preacher is an aspect of how the message will be received in the light of how the hearers perceptions of the speaker. The body of the preacher, as well as his or her mental and spiritual capabilities, is, in this sense, a tool in the preaching witness. Contemporary women homileticians have also emphasized physicality; but from a perspective that radicalizes it by making the woman preachers bodily experience a site of homiletic resource. In Walton and Durber (1994), the negative, indeed destructive, consequences of a profound prejudice in the Christian tradition against womens bodies are highlighted. They note that in the light of this shameful history and despite occasional counter-tradition movements, the advent of more widespread preaching by women with the rise of Nonconformity did not generally challenge the unembodied nature of homiletic practice. Until the rise of the Womens Movement, women preachers, like their male counterparts, stressed a common rationality and a universal human nature that was blind to the particularities of embodied experience (Walton and Durber, 1994: 2). In more recent years, however, some women homileticians have striven to speak from their bodily experience and utilize both the negative and positive aspects of femininity, conception, pregnancy, birth, health and nurture in their theology of preaching (for example, Ward, Wild and Morley, (1995); Gjerding and Kinnamon, (1984); Riley, (1985); By Our Lives, (1985); Maitland, (1995); and Marva Dawn in Graves, (2004)). According to Walton and Durber, such efforts are part of a new emphasis that is fuelling developments across the whole spectrum of theological enquiry. They write: Sexuality and suffering are still rarely named within a Christian tradition that prefers to speak of the spirit rather than the body, light rather than darkness and a God who creates life but bears no responsibility for pain and dying. Women who have begun to preach from their bodies are not merely redressing an existing imbalance and enriching the storehouse of Christian metaphors and symbols but are also provoking new theological debates close to the very heart of the faith. (1994: 4) This emphasis on the body as a resource for preaching content rather than solely the necessary vehicle of delivery as it were, certainly takes Brooks focus on personhood further than he could possibly have imagined. That said, even here there is a certain congruence between what Brooks said and these very contemporary concerns. He did, after all, insist that the needs and preoccupations of no one sex or age should monopolize the life of the congregation, and that ministrations to it must be full at once of vigour and of tenderness, the fathers and the mothers touch at once (1904: 207). Brooks could not have possibly foreseen the Womens Movement and its repercussions for preaching, but his unease with a domineering and authoritarian style in the pulpit-mediated through his lasting influence-at least readied some preachers for a message that needed to be heard. The physical and personal qualities of the practitioner described neither in terms of communication theory nor embodied theology, but in ways even more reminiscent of Brooks own characterization of the preacher, have reasserted themselves through organization theory and the study of leadership. As the authority of the church, in terms of rules and obligations, has ebbed away, and the legitimacy of power based on tradition more and more questioned, it is perhaps the case that authority based on exemplary character has increased in relative importance. Certainly in the world of commerce and business the significance of the personal qualities of leaders and managers has been extensively theorized and debated. In the use of terms such as sapiential authority and referent power, organization theorists have pointed up the crucial importance of a personal knowledge and skill that readily communicates itself to others, and a personality-based ability to influence by attracting loyalty (Rees and Porter, 2001: 82). Other theorists, e.g. Charles Handy, talk in terms of the invisible but felt pull that is described as magnetism (1985: 135). Handy writes: Aspects of magnetism, the unseen drawing-power of one individual, are found all the time. Trust, respect, charm, infectious enthusiasm, these attributes all allow us to influence people without apparently imposing on them. The invisibility of magnetism is a major attraction as is its attachment to one individual. (1985: 136) Brooks himself used the very term magnetism and described it as: the quality that kindles at the sight of men, that feels a keen joy at the meeting of truth and the human mind, and recognizes how God made them for each other. It is the power by which a man loses himself and becomes but the sympathetic atmosphere between the truth on one side of him and the man on the other side of him. (1904: 42) Excluding the gender specificity, Handy might have written in very similar terms. (Comparable thoughts, although using other nomenclature, can also be found, for example in Schein, 1992: 229; Zohar and Marshall, 2000: 259; and Nelson, 1999: 76). The significance of the personal charisma of the preacher is, perhaps, in the process of rehabilitation via business practices that readily recognize the importance of personal as well as systemic qualities in the effective functioning of organizations. With the support of such an appreciation, a contemporary homiletician, such as Day, can assert, without risking suspicion and disapprobation, that the hope of the sermon lies in the authenticity of the preacher (1998: 147). As regards the maintenance of tradition as collective memory, the resurgence of individualized authority raises the question whether organizational structures within the churches are strong enough to prevent intentional or unintentional abuse of that corporate memory bearin g responsibility. 5.2.2 The preacher as learner and as pastor. Before leaving issues associated with personhood, two of Brooks themes regarding the preachers actions are worth considering since, again, they are things that continue to be widely discussed in the literature; namely, the preacher as learner and the preacher as pastor. After considering the dangers to the preachers personality of self-conceit, over-concern with failure, self-indulgence, and narrowness, Brooks brings his second lecture to a close with a vigorous plea for what would now be called lifelong learning. He writes: In [Christian ministry] he who is faithful must go on learning more and more for ever. His growth in learning is all bound up with his growth in character. Nowhere else do the moral and intellectual so sympathize, and lose or gain together. The minister must grow. His true growth is not necessarily a change of views. It is a change of view. It is not revolution. It is progress. It is a continual climbing which opens continually wider prospects. It repeats the experience of Christs disciples, of whom their Lord was always making larger men and then giving them larger truth of which their enlarged natures had become capable. (1904: 70) What Brooks discerned as an essential component of the preachers disposition has nowadays been widened to embrace all who claim to be faithful believers. Discipleship as lifelong learning is a concept in wide contemporary currency in the churches, and is discussed, for example, in documents such as the published strategies of the Church of England, the Methodist Church and the United Reformed Church for training, detailed in the reports Formation for Ministry within a Learning Church (2003) and Shaping the Future: New patterns of training for lay and ordained (2006). The notion of Christian leaders needing to be exemplars in this ongoing commitment to learning and personal growth figures in much of the literature on congregations and pastoral ministry, such as Mead (1994), Baumohl (1984), Hawkins (1997), and Anderson (1997); albeit these and numerous other authors, make it plain that the goal of such action is the enhancement of learning in the whole church. In the preaching literatu re, allied perspectives are expressed in such concepts as local theology (Tisdale, 1997), conversational preaching (Rose, 1997), listening to or with sermon preparation (Van Harn, 2005), embodying the scriptures communally (Davis and Hays, 2003), and interactive preaching (Hunter, 2004). Through these and other mechanisms, Brooks call for continuous learning on the part of the preacher finds its contemporary expression in practices that aim to widen that learning to include the whole body of people who are party to the sermon and the preachers and their own wider ministry. As Anderson puts it, every act of ministry teaches something about God (1997: 8). That is a sentiment to which Brooks would have been sympathetic given his emphasis on the absolute core of preaching as the widest of concern for souls. Learning, in collective memory theory, is often associated with the changing of the meanings and understandings of memories, and the processes by which traditions are appropriated by individuals. As aspects of learning clearly related to relationships they echo contemporary concern in the church about whole body learning. In Brooks description of the preacher as pastor this analysis reaches very familiar territory, in that such a description probably remains the pre-eminent designation of the homiletician within the churches. Brooks thought on this matter was absolutely unequivocal: The preacher needs to be pastor, that he may preach to real men. The pastor must be preacher, that he may keep the dignity of his work alive. The preacher, who is not a pastor, grows remote. The pastor, who is not a preacher, grows petty. Never be content to let men truthfully say of you, He is a preacher, but no pastor; or, He is a pastor, but no preacher. Be both; for you cannot really be one unless you also are the other. (1904: 77) The conviction remains no less powerful more than a century after Brooks lectures: for example, Eric Devenport writing in 1986 could assert, without fear that his opinion would be controversial: Preaching and pastoral work go hand in hand. This is one of those truths that has to be proclaimed time after time, for unless it is heard, then most preaching will not only be dull but dead. (in Hunter, 2004: 145) Clearly, at different times and in different church structures, the nature of pastoral practice has been viewed in a variety of ways. Sometimes it has been mutual support in discipleship, and at other times psychotherapeutic intervention. In some circumstances it has been ad hoc care and conversation, and in others programmatic structures of community creation. Amongst these and many other activities, those who would preach have frequently seen such pastoral practice as a fundamental adjunct to the homiletic task. Although the influence of the problem centred preaching method of Henry Emerson Fosdick, mentioned above (section 2.5), has waned in recent decades, the notion that preaching must somehow relate to the felt life-concerns of those in the congregation is still the key to good practice for many preachers. Whether the emphasis is Tisdales (1997) preacher as the caretaker of local theology, Willimons (1979) or Longs (1989) straightforward emphasis on the role of pastor, Pasquare llos (2005) preaching as the development of communal wisdom, Buechners (1977) telling the truth in love, or Van Harns (2005) insistence on listening in preaching, the overarching perspective is that of pastoral care to individuals and groups. The tradition as collective memory must, in these circumstances, serve pastoral needs. Here the link to the presentist character of collective memory appears strong. 5.2.3 Preachings first purpose and the style appropriate to it. Returning to the issue of preaching as art. From Brooks paramount concern with personhood and themes that flow from it, this discussion now turns to two other aspects of his lectures that remain significant concerns in homiletic literature: style of language, and preachings first purpose. In his emphasis on preaching as witness, Brooks made a distinction that continues to figure prominently in homiletic texts to this day: namely, the difference between preaching about Christ and preaching Christ (1904: 20). Preachers, Brooks insisted, should announce Christianity as a message and proclaim Christ as a Saviour not-discuss Christianity as a problem (1904: 21). He asserted: Definers and defenders of the faith are always needed, but it is bad for a church when its ministers count it their true work to define and defend the faith rather than to preach the Gospel. Beware of the tendency to preach about Christianity, and try to preach Christ. (1904: 21) This distinction continues to be vigorously promoted, particularly amongst the New Homiletic advocates of an inductive sermon methodology. From the distinction there comes an emphasis in sermonic style on a demonstrably engaging, emotionally affective, and inclusivist presentation, rather than a detached, analytical or objective stance. Brooks would have undoubtedly concurred with David Bartletts worries about sermon style that appears to make sin more interesting than grace, and evil more lively than goodness (in Graves, 2004: 25). Bartlett suggests that sermons too often misdirect their hearers by putting active or abstract language and thoughts in the wrong places. He writes, For the most part we show evil and then tell about goodness. We show judgment and then talk about the doctrine of mercy (in Graves, 2004: 25). Yet again, Brooks lectures were extraordinary prescient of a concern that has become commonplace these many years later. Likewise, Brooks conviction that a sermon is essentially a tool and not an end in itself is also a perspective that continues to be vigorously debated (Brooks, 1904: 110). Unlike Browne (1958), Brooks was insistent that preaching is not an art form. He wrote: The definition and immediate purpose which a sermon has set before it makes it impossible to consider it as a work of art, and every attempt to consider it so works injury to the purpose for which the sermon was created. Many of the ineffective sermons that are made owe their failure to a blind and fruitless effort to produce something which shall be a work of art, conforming to some type or pattern which is not clearly understood but is supposed to be essential and eternal. (1904: 109) In many ways, Brownes advocacy of the sermon as art-form (1958: 76) was a reaction to those who had taken Brooks evident pragmatism and utilitarianism as regards technique and turned it into a bald instructionalism that claimed too much for itself and was simply tedious. That was not Brooks intention, however, as his aim was an absolute focus on the tumultuous eagerness of earnest purpose (1904: 110). His overriding concern was that sermons should engage and communicate in such a way as to affect and mark personalities at their most profound level. As such, his understanding of the nature of sermonic engagement serves the purposes of collective memory. His objection to preaching as an art-form was the tendency he saw for art to be an end in itself-over concerned with pure forms and the abstractions of principles (see, for example, pages 110 and 267 of the 1904 edition). These many years later, art operates, and is applied within immensely diverse environments wholly unknown when Brooks lectured: so his criticism is, perhaps, no longer apposite. On the other hand, how far and in what ways artistic expression relates to and uses tradition is a question rather more vexed now than in Brooks day. The one aspect of artistic endeavour Brooks was willing to concede was art in the sense of an awesome appreciation of the mysteriousness of life. This was something Brooks regarded as an essential component of the preachers outlook, and was the reason for his advocacy of the preacher as, at least in some measure, a poet (1904: 262). Preaching as art form brings to the forefront of homiletic awareness the sermons place in the imaginative construal of engaging gospel alternatives to commonplace understandings and outlooks. Collective memory theory suggests that affiliation to group identity is an essential element in the continuity of memory. What the emphasis on preaching as art form does is alert the preacher to the need to create in preaching that sense of engagement, creativity and exploration that aims beyond utilitarian instruction. Here, preaching is seen as genuinely performative. Like the repeated performances of a classic drama, a sermon hearer can become intensively engaged again and again with material that, although familiar, becomes in the engagement surprisingly new. Likewise the preacher as performer or artist, works with familiar texts in order to render then creatively new in a sermon. From both sides of the sermon event collective memory is supported via the performative interaction. The discussion of art related issues in contemporary homiletic literature largely supports this assessment. Morris, in his Raising the Dead: The Art of the preacher as Public Performer, makes performance the guiding principle of all homiletics and insists that preaching should delight and enrich in ways similar to other mediums (1996: 19). Gilmore, in his Preaching as Theatre (1996) shares the same concern with performance, and designates preaching as a dramatic event that happens. He writes: As long as preaching is seen as lecturing or teaching, then, in order for it to be effective, listeners have to go away and do something about it. If it is art, they dont. By the time it is over something has happened, or has failed to happen. This is what makes preaching as an art distinctive, more exciting and satisfying when it works, more depressing and worrying when it doesnt. (1996: 7) Other homileticians are a little more reserved and tend to use the idea of art or artistic endeavour as but one tool the preacher can employ. For example, in Allen (1998), the appreciation of works of art and artistic frames for sermons are advocated as ways to create spheres of perception i

Cheese report :: essays research papers

String Cheese Place of Origin: Although snack-size sticks of mozzarella are now sold under this name, true string cheese originated in Syria, and often comes in a braided rope. The flavor is similar to mozzarella, but saltier. Ingredients: String cheese is usually made from Mozzarella cheese. The ingredients used to make Mozzarella cheese consists of: pasteurized part-skimmed cow's milk with starter cultures, enzymes, and salt. It can also come in smoked and unsmoked versions, often with garlic and onion added. Methods of Making: String cheese is mainly made from mozzarella cheese. The only difference is it’s molded rather than extruded, but otherwise the cheeses are very similar. Mozzarella is made with pasteurized part-skimmed cow's milk with starter cultures, enzymes, and salt. Ripening of Curing Time: String cheeses are domestic products, which are sold as fresh cheese without aging. String cheese belongs in the Italian category of ‘pasta filata’, for which the typical procedure involves a heat treatment of a cheddared curd at temperatures between 65-70 °C. Such cheese is often made from un-pasteurized milk with high acidity; the heat treatment of the curd assures that the cheese is safe to eat and generally has a shelf life of several weeks if kept in proper cold storage. Smoked String cheese has prolonged shelf life due to the preservative effect of smoking. Description of Cheese: Sting cheese has is pale yellow/white with a smooth texture. It is roughly cylindrical, about 6 inches long and less than 1 inch in diameter. It has a sweetly mild flavor with almost no odor or aftertaste. Uses: It is nearly always mozzarella but can be another semi-soft cheese instead. String cheese is eaten by pulling "strings" of cheese from the cylinder along its length and eating these strings. It is considered a â€Å"snack food.† It is also known to be added to salads and pizzas. Proper Storage: Soft cheeses spoil quickly and must be refrigerated until used. To prevent drying out, cheese should be carefully covered with a moist cloth, waxed paper or foil. Whenever possible, the original wrapper or cover should be left on the cheese. This cheese may also be frozen, but this may cause the cheese to become dry and crumbly. The cheese should be packaged in small pieces weighing a pound or less and used as soon after thawing as possible. Interesting Information: Cheddar may come in first, but Mozzarella is runner-up when it comes to per capita consumption in the U.

Behavior Changes and Side Effects in LSD Users Essay -- Hallucinogens

Behavior Changes and Side Effects in LSD Users In 1938, Albert Hofmann created lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD- 25) at Sandoz pharmaceutical laboratories in Basel, Switzerland. It was initially created to aid as a circulatory and respiratory stimulant, and it was discovered to stimulate contraction of the uterus. In 1943, it was unintentionally absorbed into Hofmann's skin, and he discovered that it was an extremely potent hallucinogen. Although a true hallucinogen is when a person sees or hears something (without sensory cues) that does not exist, and believes that the perceptions are real, LSD is considered a hallucinogen which merely alters the perception of existing sensory stimuli while most users are aware that their distorted perception is caused by the drug, (Henderson, 37, 45). LSD temporarily alters an individual's normal mode of perception, reasoning, memory, thoughts, and feelings, while producing a flood of intensified sensations. Colors, sounds, and visual imagery become more intense, subjective time is altered, and visual illusions including perceived movement of stationary objects are experienced. "The primary emotional response may be of euphoria and contentment, or less often a side effect of confusion, fear, anxiety, and despair" may result, (Henderson, 2). "Hallucinogens have been used for centuries by various people often in sacred rituals (Henderson, 37). LSD's most profound psychic effect, the sense of contacting some profound universal truth, cosmic consciousness, or transpersonal state, often described as feeling that the mind is transcending the boundaries of the individual self, with space, time, and identity all disarranged, is often the motivation f... ...e oxidase inhibitors or lithium. Behavioral Brain Research, Vol. 73, Issues 1 and 2, p. 229-233, (1995). Daw, Jennifer. Why and how normal people go mad. American Psychological Association, Vol. 33, No. 10 (November 2002). Halpern, J.H., and Pope, H.G., Jr. Do hallucinogens cause residual neuropsychological toxicity? Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Vol. 53: p. 247-256, (1999). Henderson, L.A. and Glass, W.J. LSD: Still With Us After All These Years. New York: Lexington Books, 1994. Kalat, J.W. Biological Psychology. Canada: Wadsworth a division of Thomson Learning Inc., 2004. Ungerleider, J.T., M.D. The Problems and Prospects of LSD. Illinois: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1968. www.drugabuse.com; NIDA Research Report Series: "Why do people take hallucinogens?" www.streetdrugs.org/lsd.htm www.usdoj.gov/dea www.usdoj.gov/ndic

Corporate Bankruptcy Essay -- Business Management

Corporate Bankruptcy Building a successful business is very difficult and when doing so some may encounter financial hardship. The law has established a process that can help rescue businesses. This is called bankruptcy. What is bankruptcy to a company? How does bankruptcy rescue businesses? The reader will understand the meaning of bankruptcy to a corporation, be familiarized with types of proceedings, and identify with businesses that have been rescued by bankruptcy proceedings. Bankruptcy is a federal system of statutes and courts which permits persons and businesses which are unable to pay debtors or in some cases face potential insolvency, to place their financial responsibilities under the control of the bankruptcy court (www.law.com). The way this works is that when the business's debts exceed its assets or is unable to pay, the business can file a petition with the bankruptcy court. This called filing for voluntary bankruptcy. If a business does not file for bankruptcy the unpaid creditors can file an "involuntary" petition to force the business into bankruptcy (www.law.com). It is better and most common for businesses for file voluntary bankruptcy (www.law.com). There are three types of petitions: Chapter 7, Chapter 11 and Chapter 13 (www.law.com). The most popular is for business to petition is under Chapter 7 (www.law.com). In Chapter 7, businesses are appointed a trustee by the court (www.law.com). The trustee is like a financial wizard. The trustee counts up the businesses assets with the plans of keeping them from the bankruptcy, pays debts the business owes with paying taxes first (www.law.com). The trustee then focuses on paying secured debts such as mortgages and lastly unsecured debts (www.law.com). Then the court officially declares the business bankrupt and discharges the unpayable debts, this is a lost for the creditors (www.law.com). Filing a bankruptcy petition will suspend all existing legal actions like foreclosure and other imposition of judgment. Businesses cannot file for bankruptcy again for seven years (www.law.com). Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a business to reorganize and refinance to prevent dislocation of the organization (www.law.com). Most of the time there is no trustee appointed, but the business is given time to present a plan of reorganization (www.law.com). This does not always work well for busines... ...mart.com). This is new recovery and Kmart has a long way to go according to ABC news. In conclusion, bankruptcy is a way for businesses to rescue themselves when in financial hardship. Not every company will make it. Some may be lost, but the law provides every business the opportunity to fight for it's survival. 3M, NationsRent, and Kmart have all made it through and they are looking for a promising future. Work Cited 3M Company web page. Http://www.3m.com Company News; Citing Weak Demand, 3M Says it is Cutting 125 Jobs, New York Times, 2003.Section C. P.4. Http://www.newyorktimes.com Law Dictionary, http://www.law.com Lorrie Grant. Kmart should exit Chapter 11 quietly, expert say. USA Today. April 2004 Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company (3M)" International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 26. St. James Press, 1999. Reproduced in Business and Company Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group. 2006. Http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BCRC NationsRent Company web page. Http://www.nationsrent.com Troy Bryant. NationsRent, Hoover.com, http://www.hovers.com/nationsrent/--ID_57275--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml. retreived July 12, 2006

Foraging and Nutritional Ecology of Primates in SE Asia Essay

There are foods of various kinds that fit the foraging and nutritional needs of primates in SE Asia, these primates in question use the foods to extract carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins, fats and minerals. We look at the impact of the environment on these primates for there foraging and nutritional needs. We also observe systematics, their distribution, their genetics, their anatomy, their physiology, their ecology and conservation. Some of these primates, to observe and study are wood antelope and fossarial leaf rat. Availability of the plant species and their evolutionary history comes in and also cell theory is also looked at, fossil history is also looked at to some extent, and the whole work becomes interesting (Balee, 1998, 25) The foraging needs as well as the nutritional needs of primates are much varied due to the special needs of that particular primate. In most cases they need food to provide them with energy for growth, reproduction, movement and even at rest (the basal metabolic rate). Once the food is ingested it travels inside the body of the organism or in this case the primate and once assimilated into the blood stream it passes through a process called respiration and the energy needed for the body is obtained, Normally, when the primates are still as infants, energy is really needed for their growth and development and as they mature their energy requirement tend to increase and thus the need for more food (Balee, 1998, p. 68) As for the wood antelope and the fossarial leaf rat they normally have a special kind of bacteria in their guts, which helps to digest cellulose. This is because all the types of food the rely on have cellulose as one of the components and since other components are digestible, cellulose is not digestible and so the work of this special kind of bacteria comes in. The wood antelope feeds on the grasses, shrubs and bushes, which contain cellulose, and the fossarial leaf rat feeds mostly, if not exclusively on leaves of certain trees, bushes and shrubs and so they also contain cellulose. So this particular bacteria plays a very important role in the lives of these primates (Govbson, et el, 1998, p. 100) The extraction of carbohydrates, vitamins, fats, proteins and minerals normally occur through some other body metabolisms, which also play a very important role in the growth and energy requirements of these primates. The extracts are also used in the bone formation, in this case proteins are used for this purpose and the minerals and vitamins are used for important functions in the bodies of the organisms (Leyh, 2007,p. 150) In any ecological systems there is competition among organisms for space mates and food. All these things that they compete for depend in one or another with the energy available. For instance, if an organism is to get an adequate space for himself, the organism has to fight for it and unless he is strong enough, it cannot be easy for him to get it. It is more of the survival for the fittest and death for the unfit. Only the fittest is this case can survive. When it comes to competition for mates this one also depends with the idea of having enough energy for mating with as many mates as possible for the male, and having enough energy of bearing the pregnancy and being able to deliver in the case of the female. It is also another case of survival for the fittest Another thing that these primates, especially of the same species must have enough and adequate food for them, those who are capable of getting food survive, while those who do not get die. This is also another good example of survival for the fittest and death for the unfit. Charles Darwin first put this forward in his theory of evolution of species (Kenzey, 1997,p. 15) Migration of the primates in question is one important area to look at. For an organism to migrate like in this case the wood antelope must ensure that they have eaten enough food because of the long distance, which may be required to be covered. Migration normally occurs due to climatic changes, which may lead to scarcity of food, mates and poor or harsh environmental condition as such the organism is forced to migrate and look for a more favorable place to start life a fresh. (Balee, 1998,p. 250) In this case, migration does not make it possible for the primates to start eating different foods, what happens is that they go at a place with similar foods and nutritional needs which suits them. If this idea of starting to eat different foods could be true then it would have been brought through evolution. The primates in question would have evolved a natural mechanism of adapting to different forages and nutritional needs; and it is the only known ways for the different mechanism to have been possible. This idea of evolution is very important in many ways, the first and most important case is this of the availability of the plant species, which provide food for the primates. Another is the cell theory, which gives room for the availability of certain organelles necessary for the type of environmental or ecological situations in which these primates in question find themselves (Caro, 1998,p. 341) These primates have therefore adapted certain special ways through which they use to survive in their environments. One important thing is that they have sight. This importance of sight comes handy to see their food or forages. And also being able to spot their enemies. The adaptation is evolutionary connected; and the nutritive values of the forages of these primates go together with evolution. The influence of forages availability on the primates in question, on their sociality and reproduction is another crucial factor to consider. The fact that these forages are available within the environment of these primates shows that, they are influenced a great deal on their sociality and reproduction. In the first place the population of rats tend to be higher than that of antelopes, because of some factors, which we can consider, for one the rats are smaller in size and thus can occupy a smaller space with just a very large population of them. And secondly their evolutionary mechanism suits them to be many in number than the antelopes. These antelopes consume more food and therefore are naturally fewer in number. Therefore food is a limiting factor in the population of these primates in question (Campbell, 1995,p. 120) Therefore in studying the population of these primates in question the factor of availability of forages is very important in deed. It determines the reproductive tendencies and also their presence in a given environment. Their daily habits are also affected. Their natural anatomy and physiology evolve according to available forages. This factor should always be put into consideration when dealing with systematics of these primates, if one is to be on the safe side (Caro, 1998,p. 350) Apart from the availability of forages for the nutritional needs of these primates one must also consider a depth the evolutionary tendencies. These primates have body structures suitably adapted for their functions. For instance, they have legs, which help them to run, from their enemies or rather predators, and also these legs help them to reach their foods in good time. (Caro, 1998,p. 50) The nature of their energy requirements is such that they function up to the time when they are required to rest, this is where the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) comes in. The bodies of these primates function such that they must relax or have a rest. This is usually at right. It is common at night. As rest remains necessary and so is the regulation of the available food. The leaves are given time and room to grow and mature again. When the food becomes abundant, these primates tend to increase their population, which leads to a very high competition for food, and so there are those who die in the process especially when food becomes scarce (Campbell, 1995,p120) The food available to these primates is also connected to their evolutionary tendencies. One will find that always there will be certain kind of trees shrubs or bushes where certain primates are found. In this case, some species of trees, which tend to produce leaves in plenty, will found where certain primates are found. This is important because it contributes to the importance of the food chain. As such certain animals will also be found there in plenty especially in this case, those animals which feed on wood antelopes like the lions, cheetahs and leopards will always be found in these environments. The case is the same with those who feed on fossarial leaf rats. (Gouldey, 2007, 200) As such the foraging and nutritional ecology of primate in South East Asia recently important and complex as it looks. The fossils found in some places always have evolutionary connections with some primates . The fossarial leaf rats have some bearing of connectivity with the domesticated rats and some animals of lower form. As for the wood antelopes they show some similarities with some animals of both lower form and higher form. The analyzed cases are very important as they contribute a lot of information to those who study the fossils; and the whole field of study becomes interesting. This clearly shows that the evolutionary connection of fossils and the organisms in question is true and reliable. The primates then must have evolved in a special way, where they have teeth for chewing their food or forages; their elementary canals are also highly specialized in performing their functions. Mammologists should come up with better methods of studying the organisms in question, since there is a lot to show and inform those who are interested. In the case of the organelles of the cells, when the energy requirement is high the cell tend to have a lot of mitochondria, which help in the respiration process. But all this is not important if the food is not available. Therefore the special way through which these primates have evolved with time to be where they are and eat what they eat shows a very interesting field of study(Caro, 1998,p. 400) As we consider more about these organisms, more information on theories should be properly compared and observed in the practicals so that the scientists or rather the mammologists should always compare with accurate and reliable information. The mammologists have always shown that the foraging and nutritional ecology of primates is an important field of study. As it provides us with some vital information concerning human beings, since human beings are also primates. Therefore the whole of these primates in question when properly studied, we tend to get some useful tips about us human beings (Balee, 1998,p. 650_. The nutritional needs of these primates may be varied with that of human beings, but they all belong in the same Kingdom and Phylum, as they have a lot of similarities than differences. These similarities are due to evolution. All the same, they play a very important role in the foraging habits of these primates, which are exclusively found in South East Asia. In this case it is important to note that energy and food are both important; one cannot be there without the other, in other words food is energy, and energy is food. The food chain of the primates in question in South East Asia goes on and these primates become healthy and thrive. Their habits are maintained and the value of food remains crucial. Finally, the foraging and nutritional ecology of primates in South East Asia is notably very interesting; therefore a lot of money should be invested in the continuous research in this spectacular part of the world. . Bibliography Balee, W (1998), Advance in Historical Ecology; Columbia University Press. New York Campbell, B (1995); Human Ecology; The Story of our place in Nature form Pre history to the present.Adline de Gruyter New York. Caro, T, (1998); Behavioral Ecology and conservation Biology; Oxford University Press; New York. Gouldey, M & Mahar, I (2007) Floods of fortune; Ecology and Economy along the Amazon Columbia University. New York. Govbson, S, et el (1998); Ecology; Oxford University Press. New York Kinzey, G. W (1997); New World Primates Ecology, Education and Behavior. Aldine de Gryter. New York. Leyh Jr, G (2007); Tropical Forest Ecology. A view from Basso Colorado Island. Oxford University Press. New York.

Financial Literacy in the Philippines Essay

Money. That word enough is enough to turn the heads of almost any one in this world today. It’s not a hidden fact or a myth, or an exaggeration that money indeed makes the world go round today. In legal matters, money is the only reasonable way to amend some matters. In a cynical point of view, you could say that money is the law. In these times of corporate international booming, there’s no exaggeration that money holds your life today. Financial literacy is the knowledge that is the answer to these times of finance emphasized earth. But what is financial literacy? Financial literacy is, according to Wikipedia, â€Å"the ability of a person to understand how money works†. It is basically how one is skilled at handling financial matters, and how one is informed of insurances, investing and over-all money management. Knowing this term, then I am asked, Am I financially literate? As a young adult, it is necessary that one knows how to manage money. Especially that I go to school everyday, riding public transportation, eating out; One can say that isn’t everyone financially literate because they know how to budget their money after all? If it’s that easy, then I could say I am, but it isn’t. I’m not financially literate. As far as my money goes, I only know a little about saving. In fact, I don’t even own a real bank account in this age of 20. I know very little about insurances, investments, let alone the stock market. I only save money so I can spend it on going out with my friends, not for, as they say, the rainy days. Bank accounts are the only thing I know about and as far as I’m concerned it’s just about them keeping my money secured. I’m supposed to be a little embarrassed, but then I look around my community and see I’m not the only one. No, in this country, I’m one of the majority that is not. Why am I not? Why are most of us not financially literate in this world where money is a crucial necessity? I’ve read one article in the internet by Randell Tiongson entitled â€Å"Pinoys and Financial Literacy†. The article tackled how us Filipinos are not as financially literate as we think and the fact that most Filipinos give very little attention to actually be more knowledgeable in handling finances. In contrast though, it states that little by little, we are getting better; but still we have a long way to go to being called a financially stable country. I learned that most Filipinos have the same mind set as I have. We think having a bank account is already financial security. I think I am one of the population that is generally very clueless. Looking at other countries, they have these programs where they actually give seminars and lectures on being financially literate; to them the booming money world can only be survived through education. All I see in our country today are seminars about bank accounts and piggy banks. Where is the education that us Filipinos need in this world of financial dependence? We may turn our eyes from it, but money is a concrete fact of living. All my life I’ve been taught that saving money is the best thing you can do to your money; budget and management. But those are all kids stuff. I’m actually now worried that I am not well informed. One of the reasons I am not financially literate is definitely because of poor education on these matters. No one really taught me the words ‘investing’, or ‘insurance’ or ‘the stock market’ in school. Well maybe in definition, but I never came across how-to’s and guide to how to use these terms in the practical world. I think I would be scolded that I’m asking to be spoon-fed but, to be frank, this country never really made me grow up with concerns about financial literacy. And I am even one of those people with a good education†¦ how about our co-citizens with even less? Another reason is probably how our traditions and culture never really had a chance to understand these legal matters formally. Unlike other countries, we are generally the most traditional ones. We held our religions close, believing that everything happens in God’s time, if it’s safe to say, I think we are relying in Him too much. They didn’t talk about life insurances in the bible. We tend to believe that whatever happens, it happens on God’s will. Religion has been our security for ages. And I think that is why my own parents doesn’t have too much of a clue in investments issues. And as their child, how am I supposed to have a grasp in this area. No matter how I am accused of having enough resources because of the internet, it’s still not enough to carry a curiosity on finance matters. Because as tradition was, in this country, if you have a bank account, you’re saved. My family isn’t really one of those homes where everyone’s so money-savvy. I think it’s also because we’re a young family, with me as the eldest child. So I think I should be the one starting, learning about financial literacy. And this goes, with my last reason: Families with low financial status tend to not to be exposed in these opportunities. We’re not exactly in the higher middle class which many people may think because I’m studying in Mapua. We’re extremely in the middle middle class and as I have observed in television and the internet, those who already have the money are the ones only given the chance to be literate financially. It isn’t a theory that you need money for education, though there are other ways to stay informed but this is the truth. Most people in this country are lower middle class and could you even imagine the opportunities given to their level? It’s just concerning. Money-education for only those who already have money, or the promise of it. And I think that should be the one of the main concerns of this country. In conclusion, the main reason is our own country’s lack of financial literacy education. Resources: https://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Financial_literacy , http://www. investopedia. com/terms/f/financial-literacy. asp ,http://www. randelltiongson. com/? s=financial+literacy+in+the+philippines , http://www. getsmarteraboutmoney. ca/en/managing-your-money/planning/investing-basics/Pages/what-is-financial-literacy. aspx.