Journal articles on the topic 'Evangelical counsels'

In the course of history, different forms of consecrated life have emerged in the Church. Two of these, the religious and consecrated seculars, are recognized in the 1983 Code as Institutes of Consecrated life. Although distinct from one another, members of these institutes assume the practice of the evangelical counsels through vows or other sacred bonds. Religious take public vows whereas consecrated seculars have private vows, oaths, promises or consecration binding in conscience. The article compares and contrasts the vows of religious institutes and the vows or other sacred bonds of secular institutes with regard to their juridical nature and juridical effects on the canonical status of a person in the Church, on the status of the person in relation to the Institute and on the practice of the evangelical counsels and then identifies the implications of the distinction. The article concludes with some proposed practical matters for consideration, and some issues for clarification, particularly in relation to the nature of secular consecration.

Życie wspólnotowe obok praktyki rad ewangelicznych na wzór Jezusa Chrystusa należy do zasadniczych elementów życia zakonnego. Artykuł omawia źródła teologiczne wspólnoty zakonnej, ukazując jej podstawy biblijne oraz inspirację, jaką czerpie z wewnętrznego życia Trójcy Przenajświętszej. W drugiej części zostają przedstawione niektóre praktyczne i współczesne elementy wymiaru wspólnotowego. Community dimension of religious life Community life, along with the practice of the evangelical counsels in imitation of Jesus Christ, is one of the essential elements of religious life. The article discusses the theological sources of the religious community, showing its biblical foundations and the inspiration which it draws from the inner life of the Holy Trinity. The second part presents some practical and contemporary elements of the community dimension.

Christological sources of the consecrated life The goal of the article is to present the Christocentric sources of the consecrated life. Jesus Christ is for all the consecrated people their founder and pattern for the chosen by them form of life. The son of God is indeed the model of consecration based on the profession of the evangelical counsels which in the strict sense means to follow the form of life He has chosen and practised himself. The article picked out on the paschal dimension of the consecration, which is deeply rooted in the baptismal consecration, which is the beginning of the God’s life in human as well as in the Eucharist. Following Christ who is chaste, poor and obedient the consecrated people become the witnesses of His presence in the world.

As the subtitle indicates, the article analyzes von Balthasar’s thought on the states of life of christians in light of the creation of the figure of Secular Institutes in 1947 by the Apostolic Constitution Provida Mater Ecclesia. The author highlights the difference between classical thinking on evangelical counsels, based on the search for Christian perfection, and von Balthasar’s view based on the concepts of state of life and form. It underlines the significance of the writings published by von Balthasar in 1948 and 1956 not only to perceive the development of the Swiss theologian’s thought on the states of life, but also to delve -deeper into the consideration of their underlying principles. The author concludes by pointing out the need to arrive at a reflection on holiness in the Church that stems more decisively from the affirmation of the universal call to holiness.

Abstract The charism of the congregation expresses some selected and implemented aspect of the mystery of Christ and the life of the Church, and its specificity is the determinant of the identity of the institute. From it follows a specific pattern of relationship with God and with the environment, the characteristics of spirituality, various forms of the practice of the evangelical counsels, business forms and certificates of members, leading to the formation of a particular tradition. An important dimension in the formation and development of religious congregations are the socio-cultural conditions. In business meetings is visible specific aspect resulting from its own charisma, but its implementation are multiple activities forming an integral approach to the needs of people and the environment. Thanks to the dynamics of dialogue educational activities, organizational and social formed in the nineteenth/twentieth century in Poland, active congregations today continues and is still valid.

The article deals with aspects of Christian Ethics as an integral part of Christian Philosophy. It is a science of the moral good of man based on absolute values, which is filled with Christian Culture. Christian Ethics is based on universal moral law of humankind that is Ten Commandments of God and Two Fundamental Commandments of Christian Love and on Seven Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, Evangelical Counsels and Beatitudes. Christian Ethics calls on respecting of life as the God’s Gift. Christian Ethics complements and ennobles natural Ethics by adding the revealed truths. Christian Ethics is a doctrine common to all Christian denominations in Ukraine. Christian Ethics is a powerful educational tool in the formation of theological, moral and public virtues. Characterized interconfessional problems of teaching Christian Ethics. Christian Ethics is faith, hope and love for good. Education and upbringing in Christian Ethics is carried out on the principle of Christocentrism. In high school, the problem of teaching Christian Ethics touches on issues related to the formation of world outlook, spirituality and morality of youth.

Christian views on the education of man are considered. Christian pedagogy is the science of the formation of the spiritual and bodily life of man on the basis of absolute values, which is filled with Christian culture. It is based on universal moral law of humankind that is Ten Commandments of God and Two Fundamental Commandments of Christian Love and on Seven Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, Evangelical Counsels and Beatitudes. Christian pedagogy helps a person to realize his dignity and value as a person created on the image and likeness of God. A special feature of Christian pedagogy is the close connection between spiritual and moral education. By means of Christian pedagogy moral and theological virtues are formed. The most important virtue in upbringing is love, as a struggle for the good of your neighbors, regardless of yourself. Love to God and to others is the basic law of Christian pedagogy. In the Christian upbringing of youth, the most important tasks are the formation of: the mind in which faith will reign; the will in which love will dominate; feelings in which hope will work. Principles of Christian pedagogy are nonviolence, timeliness, unity of pedagogical influences, the principle of personality, anthropological principle (respect for human dignity). Christian education is an alternative to a society that surrounds our youth. It creates a sensible conscience, calls for the avoidance of sins, and to live according to the commandments of God.

Formation towards the vow of poverty in the Polish Province of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus Formation towards the vow of poverty is one of the elements of the preparation of consecrated persons aimed at living according to evangelical counsels. In the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus all three vows are inscribed in the figure of reparation characteristic for the Institute as well as oblation dimension which underlines total devotion to God through religious consecration. The documents of the Congregation besides the goals and various aspects of formation also set out the essence of the vow of poverty, encouraging life with its spirit. The goal of formation is to shape the heart of a religious person, who supposed to more and more reflect in himself the way of life of the poor which was chosen by Jesus Christ. That formation has also the community dimension, through which the religious community should become a witness of non-remissive goods and thus its prophetic dimension. Abstrakt Formacja do ślubu ubóstwa jest jednym z elementów formacji osób konsekrowanych zmierzającej do życia radami ewangelicznymi. W Zgromadzeniu Księży Najświętszego Serca Jezusowego wszystkie śluby zakonne wpisane są w rys wynagradzający Instytutu oraz otrzymują wymiar oblacyjny, podkreślający całkowite oddanie się Bogu poprzez konsekrację. Dokumenty Zgromadzenia obok celu i różnych aspektów formacji określają również istotę ślubu ubóstwa, zachęcając do życia jego duchem. Celem formacji jest kształtowanie serca zakonnika, który coraz bardziej winien odzwierciedlać w sobie sposób życia ubogiego, jaki obrał Jezus Chrystus. Formacja ta ma także wymiar wspólnotowy, gdyż wspólnota winna stawać się świadkiem dóbr nieprzemijających, w czym wyraża się jej wymiar profetyczny.

This paper examines the issue of religious freedom in the USA during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020–2021, during the presidency of Donald Trump (2017–2021). It contends that the ability of state governors to close religious places of worship illustrates both the limits on the power of the president and that public health can take supremacy over religious freedom in today’s America. The paper is organised as follows: first, we identify the importance of religious freedom for the more than 20 million Americans who self-classify as Christian evangelicals. Second, we assess the transactional importance that President Trump placed on Christian evangelicals’ religious freedom. Third, we look at one kind of Christian evangelicals—that is, Christian nationalists—to see how they regarded restrictions on their religious behaviour caused by COVID-19. Fourth, we briefly examine several recent legal cases brought against the governors of California and Illinois by the Liberty Counsel, the leading Christian evangelical legal firm in the USA. Led by Matthew Staver, Dean of the Liberty University Law School, Liberty Counsel regularly represents Christian nationalists who challenge state-imposed restrictions on religious gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.

The study attempted to investigate the challenges that the monastic religious encounter in the use of information communication technologies with reference to internet, mobile phones, computers/laptops and digital televisions; and their coping strategies, a case of the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing (MBST) in Nairobi Priory, Kenya. The world today is witnessing tremendous changes and development in the information and communication technologies. However, there is scanty literature that addresses the challenges and the strategies that can be used by religious consecrated men and women, to cope up with the modern communication technologies effectively. The study employed sequential explanatory mixed methods. The target population included the perpetually professed sisters, junior sisters in the leadership team (superiors, formators and administrators) of the monastic religious congregation of the MBST Nairobi Priory, Kenya. Questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussion (FGD) were the instruments used to collect data. The findings of the study in which both the challenges and the strategies were presented in a 4-point Likert scale and respondents were asked to indicate their choices from; 4=Strongly agree, 3=Agree, 2=Disagree, 1=Strongly disagree revealed that: With the challenges the use of ICTs pose to the monastic lifestyle (community life and the evangelical counsels); majority of them in all the 14 challenges presented, agreed and strongly agreed to them. Likewise the interviews and FGD had similar experiences with the same challenges. The strategies for coping up with the challenges too showed similar responses to a greater extent in agreement. From the study it is clear that, as monastic religious, the MBST cannot not afford to be alien to the modern means of communication as they are the chief means of information and education, of guidance and inspiration. Since they are unavoidably embedded in daily life, the religious consecrated should use them conscientiously and responsibly to become a factor of humanization, which calls for a proper formation of conscience. Keywords: Information Communication Technology, Challenges, Coping Strategies, Monastic Religious Life, Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing, Kenya

The Church of England Clerical and Lay Association (Western District) for the maintenance of Evangelical Principles was started in 1858 as part of a ‘more comprehensive plan for a general organized association’ of Anglican Evangelicals. The case for such an association was graphically made by an anonymous clerical pamphleteer: Now that the Church of England seems called upon to choose, whether she will give her allegiance to Christ, or to Anti-Christ either as Roman or Neologian or a compromise of both—now that hundreds have actually passed away to Rome, and also that so considerable a number of the younger Clergy are more or less under the seductive influence of her errors so as to render it difficult to meet with like-minded men as fellow-helpers,—now that the State, hitherto bound up with the Church, apparently either contemplates casting her adrift or reducing her to a conation of political servitude,—under these, our present exigencies, the desire for union becomes more intense and irresistible. We want to know each other’s thoughts and feelings. We are in great need of mutual information and counsel. We thirst for sympathy and encouragement. We want to act together as one man.

The unique career counseling needs of traditional evangelical Christian women at midlife are seen as precipitating from two circumstances: (a) children reaching school age and/or (b) husbands undergoing midlife crises which threaten their marriages. The rationale for choosing a Christian versus secular counselor is discussed, along with ways to adapt conventional secular counseling strategies and tools to accommodate evangelical values. Suggestions for motivating clients biblically are offered Problems addressed include phases of counseling, guilt issues, family concerns, and financial considerations. A decision-making model that emphasizes the centrality of values and a “change agent” approach to barriers is advocated.

Some have claimed that the integration project has adopted a lower view of Biblical inspiration. Yet, both Biblical counselors and evangelical integrationists typically hold to a high view of the authority of Scripture and may share the same adherence to Biblical inerrancy. This article argues that difference between how Biblical counseling and integration tends to engage Scripture in their counseling approaches is due less to their doctrines of Biblical authority than to their secondary hermeneutical and related theological views. A review of the author’s model of integration as a form of interpretative activity is provided. Implications for the sufficiency of Scripture doctrine, theological interpretation of Scripture, and integrative interpretative competency in reading Scripture are considered. The evangelical integration movement is fully compatible with a robust embrace of the historic sola scriptura view of Biblical authority but not the innovation represented by a solo scriptura view.

Though clergy often serve as informal helpers and conduits to the formal mental health care system, few researchers have examined whether such clergy maintain the knowledge necessary to complete this mission. In this study, denominational affiliation, educational variables, and demographic characteristics were examined as potential predictors of mental health literacy (MHL). As a measure of MHL, the Mental Health Literacy Scale was completed by a nationwide sample of 238 Christian clergy. The results provided the first parametric measure of denominationally diverse clergy from across the United States. Results indicated that female gender and higher numbers of clinical mental health training courses significantly predicted higher MHL scores. No significant differences in MHL scores emerged among four main denominational groups: Catholic, evangelical Protestant, historically Black Protestant, and mainline Protestant. Findings may inform mental health counselors on how to increase interprofessional dialog and referral partnerships with local clergy.

This article describes the spiritual formation training program for counseling students at Richmont Graduate University, an evangelical institution providing Master’s-level instruction for counselors and ministers. This model of spiritual formation has a dual foundation which includes the centrality of love to the Christian life and the importance of attachment to the development of persons. The training is intentionally designed to invite students to pursue a more secure attachment to God, healthier relationships with others, and a more grace-based self-awareness. Integrative and clinical instruction, and experiences that foster establishment of secure attachment are described. Co-curricular efforts in research and student advisement focus on grace and wellness, as well as opportunities for service, and these serve to further contribute to a supportive environment for spiritual formation.

On New Year's Day 1971 Pasadena, California, basked in its standard smog-tinged sunshine as well over a million people lined the route for the annual Tournament of Roses Parade. That year's grand marshal was America's “Protestant Pope,” evangelist Billy Graham. Consistently voted among America's most admired men and a highly visible spiritual counselor and friend of Richard Nixon, Graham may well have been at the zenith of his national influence. But, as he entered into the gala festivities surrounding the Tournament of Roses, Graham claimed that he was of two minds. Despite the “fanfare, the flag-waving,” Graham wrote later that year, “I have seldom had such mixed emotions as I had that day in Pasadena.” For he claimed he knew “that decadence had settled in. As I savored the grandeur of this great nation I also sensed its sickness.” As the elements of the parade headed down the boulevard, Graham and his wife Ruth waved to the smiling crowds while he, as he said, “watch[ed] the horizon for a cloud of impending revival to restore [America's] spiritual greatness.”

THE INTEGRATION OF PSYCHOLOGY & CHRISTIANITY: A Domain-Based Approach by William L. Hathaway and Mark A. Yarhouse. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2021. 199 pages. ISBN: 9780830841837. *Reading The Integration of Psychology and Christianity brought to mind the lively discussions about integration that I had with my fellow undergraduates at Gordon College some twenty years ago. We were hampered in reaching any agreement by the fact that our assigned text, Psychology and Christianity: Four Views,1 presented four authors who each defined integration in their own idiosyncratic way, which then resulted in us students talking past each other. *If only we'd had this book! Hathaway and Yarhouse resolve these confusions by offering a "domain-based approach." Rather than advocating for a particular integration approach, as has been common in integration scholarship, Hathaway and Yarhouse outline the multiplicity of ways in which the Christian psychologist might choose to integrate faith and psychology. This approach is one I found immediately useful, given my position as chair of psychology at a small Christian liberal arts college where I frequently mentor junior colleagues with less experience in Christian higher education as they learn to integrate faith into their teaching. Hathaway and Yarhouse's categories include the following: worldview integration, theoretical integration, applied integration, role integration, and personal integration. These categories not only offer a shared vocabulary for integration conversations, but they can serve as an inventory of one's comfort level in different types of integration (one may be quite comfortable doing personal integration while finding theoretical integration challenging, for example). Overall, the book is excellent as a catalyst for personal reflection and growth for the Christian psychologist, whether they be researcher, professor, or clinician. *A particular strength of the book is its emphasis on clinical and applied psychological work. The most original contributions are the chapters on applied integration and role integration. The former adapts a secular model for a Christian population or develops Christian interventions from Christian thought and practice while the later describes living out the role expectations of a particular vocation (e.g., counselor) in a way that is consistent with Christian identity. These chapters have many examples from Yarhouse and Hathaway's own experience in navigating these areas. Their clear articulation of the professional duties of the Christian who joins the counseling guild, for example, was extremely useful. I found myself grateful to have their take on role integration to offer to my aspiring therapist students, who often find themselves torn between personal conviction and professional obligations. Yarhouse and Hathaway offer a well-argued Christian perspective that emphasizes the priority of those professional obligations. *A few criticisms. I mentioned that this book reminded me of my integration discussions in the early 2000s. While the integration resources are helpfully updated and the whole book is very well resourced, I found that the core approach to integration had remained largely unchanged. That is to say, this is very much a book written by two fairly conservative white American evangelical men. While the authors are moderates in evangelical terms, Yarhouse's scholarship (in sexual and gender identity) brings him into American culture-wars territory. It is not surprising, then, that they would see the challenges of Christian psychologists to be primarily in dealing with an often-antagonistic secular psychology. To be clear, far from advocating a hostile approach to secular psychology in return, they model a subtle Christian attempt to influence psychology policies to be more compatible with Christian values--and indeed their personal examples of successfully doing this are laudably sensible. *However, the revelations of evangelical complicity during the Trump years and the current rise of American Christian nationalism have left me questioning whether the largely apolitical nature of my Christian training in psychology was sufficiently transformational. I find myself yearning for a post-Trump integration analysis, an approach that grapples with the harms of evangelicals' quest for power. Or to put it another way, I question the idea, as sometimes implied by the authors, that the primary challenge Christians working in psychology face is the problem of too little cultural power. *The book's most obvious limitations in this vein are in the worldview integration chapter. Here we find the conservative nonprofit Heterodox Academy and its idea of "viewpoint diversity" uncritically embraced. The suggestion is that the conservative/Christian worldview should be considered a type of diversity akin to racial or gender diversity, given its minority status in liberal-dominated psychology. Given the very real challenges presented by racism and sexism, this framing seems at best tone deaf and at worst an encouragement to evangelicals to approach psychology with a persecution mindset. Also missing from this picture is the fact that the discipline often aligns itself with powerful interests and is therefore much less concerned with political beliefs per se than with power (to give just one example, the 2015 Hoffman Report documented how, during the Bush era, the American Psychological Association colluded with the US Department of Defence to change the APA ethics code to allow psychologists to participate in "enhanced interrogations" of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay). Perhaps Christian integration efforts might involve an Imago Dei-informed attempt to challenge this status quo. My own graduate training in critical/feminist psychology prompted me to reflect on the harms that even well-meaning psychologists might perpetrate if they allow themselves to be used to enable the capitalist control of people. From Amazon warehouses to counseling practices, our neoliberal world offers many ways in which unwary Christian psychologists can contribute to the dehumanization of people. Counselors teach their clients to understand their mental struggles as caused by individual failings while ignoring the influence of systemic factors; this should be at least as much an ethical concern for Christian psychologists as the more typical hot-button trio of abortion, LGBTQ+, and euthanasia (Hathaway and Yarhouse tend to highlight these three in their examples). *Tellingly, in this book, the topic of social justice is relegated to the personal integration chapter as something that psychologists might choose to embrace as part of their individualistic spiritual development. Missing is the idea that justice or advocacy for the powerless might inform psychological theory from the get-go or even form a core part of the Christian worldview. In fact, the term "worldview" itself can be read as a sign of the static, inward-looking nature of the framing chosen here. Much as James Sire's books on the topic are classics, the fact remains that the term worldview is a distinctively evangelical Christian idea, out of touch with secular psychology. Further, the take on postmodernism that the worldview approach encourages verges on caricature. Although the authors of this book acknowledge some of these weaknesses, their choices in this chapter betray a lack of conversation with postmodern theorists in psychology, whose focus is not generally moral relativism but a critique of dominant power structures. Citing such scholars, many of whom make relevant critiques of psychology's philosophical blind spots, would have strengthened the worldview chapter. *One particularly clarifying move this book makes is to put integration typologies on a continuum with three major categories: assimilation, productive tension, and expanded horizons. The ideal integration work, they argue (riffing on Gadamer), results in an expanded horizon, where the insights of both sides are modified by fusion with the other. This idea is one that they might have taken further. Hathaway and Yarhouse are careful to articulate the privileged nature of scripture in such an encounter of horizons, but this seems to underestimate the cultural knowledge and assumptions that we import into scriptural interpretation. Surely the encounter of horizons is not pure divine revelation meeting pure psychological knowledge, but rather, the encounter is mediated by biased and finite human beings. The authors define worldview integration as "an attempt to reposition psychology within a cognitive frame that is coherently embedded within Christian thought and premised on Christian assumptions." I wish they had been more reflective about whose Christian thought and Christian assumptions they were presenting as normative. Given that this book is published by IVP Academic, this will likely not be a problem for their target audience, who probably share their assumptions. But I would expect a book that champions the expanded horizon as the telos of integration to be more influenced by a diversity of Christian voices and a diversity of psychological approaches. *Perhaps this is more a complaint about psychology integration work as a whole, rather than this book in particular. Overall, I am very appreciative of this contribution, and simply hope that the foundation laid here can be used by readers to build integration efforts that are more self-reflective and outward-looking integration efforts than the book itself models. Hathaway and Yarhouse's main contributions in this book are (1) a comprehensive and sophisticated review of past integration work, (2) the helpful clarifying domain categories, and (3) innovations in the areas of applied integration and role integration, areas that previous integration work has neglected. For those hoping to get up to speed on integration work in psychology or hoping to grow in the sophistication of their integration efforts, this is a valuable resource and very much worth reading. *Note *1Eric L. Johnson and Stanton L. Jones, eds., Psychology and Christianity: Four Views (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000). *Reviewed by Elissa Rodkey, Associate Professor of Psychology, Crandall University, Moncton, NB E1C 9L7.

The following article is a revised and expanded version of lectures delivered by the author at the Victoria University of Wellington School of Law and the Faculty of Law, University of Auckland in October, 2014 as the New Zealand Law Foundation's International Dispute Resolution Visiting Scholar. The author posits that the mounting global preoccupation with mediation, resulting in a proliferating array of institutions, programmes, laws and regulations; an international "evangelical" movement; and growing impetus for an international convention promoting the recognition and enforcement of mediated settlement agreements, should be accompanied by our collective reflection, dialogue and discernment regarding where we have come to and where we are going. He urges active discussion and deliberation on a host of questions and concerns, including (1) our fundamental understanding of the nature and practice of mediation; (2) the impact of lawyers on mediation, and the appropriate interplay between client and counsel in making process choices; (3) the influence of culture and of legal traditions; (4) the interplay between the facilitation of settlement and processes of adjudication; (5) the potential impact of mediation on the rendition of justice. This conversation should be augmented by an assessment of current mega-trends – the challenges and opportunities presented by information technology, neuropsychology, the mining of big data, and initiatives aimed at institutionalising or professionalising mediation. Finally, there should be a new examination of heretofore-unfulfilled opportunities, such as the "upstream" (that is, early and pre-litigation) use of skills and insights gleaned from our experience with mediation for the purpose of sustaining and improving relationships.

Robert Sanderson was a Calvinist, indeed, he was an evangelical Calvinist anxious to impart, through pulpit and press, the central tenets of Calvinism to the laity. He also hated Puritanism and said so loud and often. During the 1630s Sanderson cooperated enthusiastically with the Laudian regime. As a Royalist during the Civil War, he was one of the divines taken by Charles I to the Isle of Wight to provide spiritual counsel as the king struggled to save the church from its Puritan enemies. Nevertheless, during the 1650s Sanderson felt able to take the engagement and to give over the use of the prayer book in order to preserve his place in the ministry. At the Restoration, however, he returned to the establishment as the bishop of Lincoln, in which role he proved himself less than sympathetic to the nonconformists. In short, Sanderson's career is difficult to accommodate within many of the received categories currently in favor in the religious history of the period. As if to prove the point, Sanderson figures prominently both in C. H. George and K. George's attempt to demonstrate the homogeneity of English Protestant opinion before 1640 and J. Sears McGee's assault on precisely that proposition. Sanderson seems to offer particular difficulties to those of us committed to the notion that the English church was dominated by Calvinism down to at least the 1620s and that thereafter the confrontation between Calvinism and Arminianism represented the crucial division in English religious opinion before the early 1640s.

CHRISTOPHER HILL'SEconomic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long parliament’has long been the standard work on the financial composition of the post-Reformation English church. Over the past fifteen years, however, historians have taken a second look at the material covered by Hill and have begun to formulate new questions about it. Historians such as Felicity Heal and Rosemary O'Day have led new investigations into the economic conditions of the English church. Despite this renewed interest, no one has tackled the more difficult subject of recusant finances. Here is a world hidden behind aliases and secret trusts and one that remains almost totally unexplored. In a series of articles to appear in this journal, I shall venture ‘where angels fear to tread’ and attempt to make sense out of the complicated and confusing records of Jesuit financial activity. This article, which will serve as an introduction to the series, will be concerned with the constitutional development of the Society of Jesus, the spiritual exhortations to poverty as an evangelical counsel and a religious vow, and the legal entanglements of the penal laws in England. It is essential to remember that, first and foremost, the English Jesuits were religious bound by vows, specifically the vow of poverty. All financial activities and investments were restricted by that vow as it was then understood throughout the Society. Future articles will examine the income and the investments of the early Jesuit mission and its eventual subdivision into colleges and residences.

The Franciscan doctrine of absolute poverty became one of the most controversial matters under discussion in the 1320s. Even after John XXII's poverty decrees, it did not cease attracting the attention of prominent theorists. This article examines the so-far neglected contribution by the key theologian of the Avignon court and future pope, Jacques Fournier (c.1285–1342). His monumental Matthew commentary contains a lengthy discussion of evangelical poverty. Comparing this text with various counsels drafted for the pope, this article brings to light Fournier's stance on poverty, placing it within the debates held at Avignon during the conflict between John XXII and Ludwig the Bavarian.

In this consciousness-raising climate, religious leaders are confronted with opportunities to counsel on matters of sexuality. A curriculum audit was done for twenty evangelical U.S. seminaries to identify efforts in place to prepare future ministry leaders in addressing pertinent sexuality concerns. Ten institutions had no course listing or description that suggested any training. Further discussion with several seminaries shed more light on current practices. Suggestions are also offered for implementing changes in programs and curricula.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 Restructured Form (MMPI-2-RF) is a briefer revision of the MMPI-2. The archived MMPI-2 profiles of 214 evangelical missionaries were analyzed to explore the relationship among the MMPI-2-RF newly constructed interpersonal scales, the RC scales, and missionary distress. Missionary husbands and wives were placed into two groups based on marital types (conflicted and non-conflicted) and again into three groups based on presenting issues (marital, family, and non-family distress). The results lend support to the use of the MMPI-2-RF Family Problems ( FML), Interpersonal Passivity ( IPP), and Shyness ( SHY) interpersonal scales along with the RC4 scale as a basic screening instrument for post-selection, pre-deployment missionaries with marital distress. Consequently, the MMPI-2-RF may be able to inform us in new ways. Recommendations for counselors and missionary boards are discussed.