Once we embark on a life of ministry, it is only natural to ask, “How am I doing? And how will I know?” One answer for ministers today is success. Many say that if your church is growing in conversions, members, and giving, your ministry is effective. This view of the ministry is on the rise because the expressive individualism of modern culture has deeply eroded loyalty to institutions and…
In June 2018, in preparation for writing this chapter, I undertook two distinct searches. The first was of Oxford college and faculty libraries (around 40 in all), using the search tool SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online). The second, of local charity shops around Oxford, I undertook on foot. In both I was looking for copies of historical novels by British women writers of the mid-…
Contrary to the widespread perception that the‘spiritual dimension’of health isprimarily related to palliative care and has emerged relatively recently within theWHO, we show in this book that its history is considerably longer and morecomplex. The emergence of a‘spiritual dimension’in WHO discourse wasconnected to aspirations for universal primary healthcare, attempts to delivera more …
At first glance, this book deals with a dry, technical question. The issue of digital records sounds like an unremarkable aspect of our increasingly bureaucratic health-care systems rather than a topic for intriguing discussion. However, our experience of digital records tells a different story. In the academic and pastoral forums in which the issue has been discussed, it h…
This comparative volume advances an argument about the sustained contribu-tion of migrants to Europe’s literatures, social cultures, and arts.Firstly, those named most often by others as “migrants” do not represent a sudden, unprecedented crisis, as pundits and politicians continue to claim, with successive waves of migration. Instead, people arriving in the Spanish enclaves in Morocco, l…
“We need to talk about Hippocrates. Current scholarship attributes none of the works of the ‘Hippocratic corpus’ to him, and the ancient biographical traditions of his life are not only late, but also written for their own promotional purposes. Yet Hippocrates features powerfully in our assumptions about ancient medicine, and our beliefs about what medicine – and the physician himself …
"129 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds in the middle of the night? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier? Repulsive, horrifying notion), alcohol units 4 (excellent), cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow), number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)..." Bridget Jones's Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-ou…
This open access book constitutes an ethnographic mosaic which depicts the contextual complexities of the life and work of seafarers who are employed in the international merchant cargo fleet. The collection is based upon the observations and interviews of researchers in multiple disciplines. It is woven together to offer a richly detailed insight into the ways in which a complex global industr…