Come Shouting to Zion and the development of African-American Religious Culture :: Religion Shouting Zion Essays

Come Shouting to Zion and the development of African-American Religious Culture Missing Works Cited In detailing the long process by which African-Americans came to embrace Protestant Christianity and shape their own unique form of it, Frey and Wood emphasize African agency throughout. Their case is better supported by evidence in the 19th century than in the 18th, during which time Christianity had little effect on slave society through the efforts of Anglicans, not so much because Africans rejected the gospel as because whites withheld Christian brotherhood from blacks. As blacks in the American South and in the British Caribbean struggled to develop individual and collective identities from the persistent remnants of African culture and their new conditions of life, the series of efforts by evangelicals to convert slaves eventually gave rise to a distinct African-American form of Christian theology, worship style, and religious community. The importance of religion among African Americans, as among all people, rests on fulfilling the human need for an understanding of one’s place in both the spiritual and temporal world. While it is difficult, as Frey and Wood concede, to know with certainty what lay behind Africans’ confessions of conversion to Christianity, we can understand how religion played a critical role in defining social relationships among slaves and between blacks and whites. Frey and Wood explain the appeal and success of Evangelicalism among slaves when they assert, â€Å"Deprived of their traditional supernatural means of dealing with recurrent life crises, [African-Americans] discovered in evangelical conversion requirements an opportunity to reassert personal authority based on their ability to communicate directly with God and to bring others to recognize the need for personal repentance and acceptance of Jesus† (109). One early example that supports this link between religiou s involvement and a sense of personal identity, if not between conversion and increasing social prestige or power, is found in a slave woman who tells Moravian missionaries that her people have come from across the sea and lost their father and mother, and therefore want to know the Moravians’ Father above. The displacement of Africans, for whom locality was critical to interactions with the spiritual world, did not deprive them of their religious cosmologies, but required them to learn the spiritual landscape of their new home and reshape their practices accordingly. Come Shouting to Zion details the many religious rituals that Africans preserved in the new world, especially those surrounding fundamental life events such as the birth and naming of children, marriage, burial ceremonies, and ritual dancing and singing to communicate with ancestors and deities.

Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory

Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory 1 Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory John Smith Nyack College Life is so busy these days that sometimes we don’t stop to think how we got to this point or realize some of those key factors that played a role. I think it is fair to say that most people take a lot of things for granted but when you pause and analyze life’s events it can be an eye opener and really get you thinking about how certain career decisions have created a pathway for your career and at life-space. Gets a little scary when you think back on how one or two decisions could have really swayed your career. I think we can all think back to an event in our adult development that either went our way or one that didn’t that. I think back to my first few years as a working adult and how some of those early influences really set me on a path forward I spent a good amount of time reviewing Donald Super’s theory of career development and the life-span/life-space theory. I am naturally a skeptic, especially when it comes to most of these types of theory’s I read about but I feel that Super was Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory 2 right on and it is hard to find areas of disagreement. I especially agree with the point that career decisions are not isolated from other aspects of our lives. When you talk about career development it starts off as a very broad subject and people take all kind of different paths to develop their careers. In my case I started working at UPS right out of high school and it was just a â€Å"job† at first and that is all I expected. The word â€Å"career† never entered my thinking, alls I knew is that I had graduated high school and my Mother old me that I had to get a job so off to UPS I went. That decision was the first major influence in my adult life, what I didn’t realize back then was that going to UPS instead of, let’s say getting a job at a small business was a huge factor in my career development. UPS is obviously a very big company and they tend to hold onto the one’s they want to develop which was very important to me. If I decided to work for a small family owned business as my first job things could have been very different. I am always very thankful for that decision I made and the people at UPS who took me under their wing and helped develop my career at UPS. A major factor in one’s career development is to put themselves in a position to grow and or be surrounded by good people or good companies that will help you grow. Easier said then done, when you are young sometimes you don’t realize or are not looking into the future but for me that a critical decision which started my career. My first couple of years with UPS I was still just a kid, but by the time I turned 20 Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory 3 I was what they called a part-time supervisor which was another critical decision/influences in my career. I can remember back to that day when I almost turned down the job because I had long hair and didn’t want to cut it off. UPS had a, no hair past you collar rule for men and I really almost turned down the position because of this. Once got past the long hair issue things really started taking off the next few years as I moved around in different management roles to build my skill set. The most influential director I ever worked for was a lady by the name of Mary Finnigan, I still remember her name, she use to hound me all the time about school and when am going to enroll in college. That is what I mean by good people around you, good companies have good people and they will give you that extra push when you need one. Not sure I ever would have gone to college if she wasn’t all over me about it all the time. Again, she was looking at the big picture regarding developing my career and I was still just looking at it as a job. All of this was happening during Super’s Exploration stage of career development. I was trying to understand what I wanted to do as far as a career. I was part of the union for year which I did not like very much, I was part of management for about four years during this period and really enjoyed the challenges of the job but still had a hard time with the style of management and people telling me what to do all the time, looking over my shoulder all the time, and just the overall â€Å"The beatens will Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory 4 continue until morale improves† management style. UPS use to have something called MBO’s which was â€Å"management by objectives† but the joke was that it was really MBI, â€Å"management by intimidation†. As I moved toward the end of my exploration stage I realized I had to make a career decision/change. Although I very much enjoyed the high pressure atmosphere and the thrill of success I knew that I didn’t respond well to that sort of management style as it was very draining for me and started having a negative effect. As I moved into the establishment phase of Super’s theory I made a bold move and agreed to start college as per Mary’s request. Once I finished my second semester UPS granted my approval to move from the operations to sales which was huge for me and where I excelled. For the first time I started thinking of UPS Sales as a career and not just a job. I also got married, bought a house, and had a child in the first few years of this stage. As my career in sales got going it create a lot of stability in my live, somehow in operations you never had the feeling of security do to the management style but now I did. Career and personal lives are very much integrated together, the feeling of a career and not just a job somehow settles you down and you start looking at live in a different perspective. Although I owe a lot to UPS and people like Mary I made the decision to leave UPS and to join FedEx. That was the hardest but most important career decision I have ever made. With UPS I had 10 years in, I was doing well, had security, things were going well. I Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory 5 I also had a lot of responsibilities including a mortgage and family. Making career changes not only affected me but all affected my family and it was scary leaving something you knew was there for something unknown. But it all worked out very well, FedEx is a much younger company, a sales driven company, which fits my style better. I have not entered the maintenance stage yet and won’t for another 5 years but if I had to disagree with any of Super’s five stages this would be one that I would disagree with somewhat. If your goal is to just holding onto an achieved job I think you are going to fail in today’s world. The world is very different today and if you are past 45 in corporate America sitting still and just holding onto a job that means you are going backwards. Maybe when you hit 60 I could understand that thinking but not in your mid-40’s or 50’s. Corporations are very aggressive these days and wouldn’t allow someone to just to hold onto an achieved job. Maybe this is where a smaller company would think or act differently then a large corporation who has to answer to shareholders each quarter. There are many different roads people travel, for the last twenty years mine has been in corporate America working for Fortune 500 companies, I expect that I would continue down this road hopefully with FedEx. For me personally, I would belief that I will not settle into a holding pattern once I enter my mid-forties. I still feel very young in my career and am still learning new things everyday and I think that will continue for some time to come. With my position there are always larger corporations to sell to or manage Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory 6 and as I continue to move my career forward I will work with larger and more complex corporations which will keep me moving forward and not settling. Understanding and Applying Adult Development Theory 7 References Bjorklund, B. , & Bee, H. (2008). The Journey of Adulthood, Sixth Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall

Evaluation of the Claim that Conscience is a Realiable...

Evaluation of the Claim that Conscience is a Realiable Guide in Ethical Decision Making In order to decide whether or not our consciences can be relied upon, we must first examine what we mean by conscience. In order for conscience to be consistently and absolutely reliable, infallible, it must stem from an infallible source - God. Alternatively, conscience might have a potential of ultimate reliability, if the faculty of conscience was dynamic and capable of solving problems i.e. if it was an innate part of human nature. Conscience could even be totally fallible - an arbitrary by-product of experience and biology. This idea - propagated by such scientist-thinkers as Sigmund Freud and†¦show more content†¦The implication of this is that the law of conscience is not routed in any kind of rational or logical idioms, or any external reality, but rather the fear of castration, or the insecurity which women (supposedly) experience as they have been deprived of the phallus. For Freud, the conscience, or Super-Ego, was an irrational, undynamic and emotional force, of as much consequence as the Id in matters of gravity. The conscience in this case points towards ones responsibilities to ones parents, not to God or any exterior moral laws. Freud, in answer to this essay question, would say that the conscience is completely unreliable, unless you simply wish to rely on it as a barometer of social acceptability. If your view of ethics is restricted to what is inoffensive to people at large, and your parents in particular, then yes, the Super-Ego is a reliable agent of ethical decision-making. But if you wish to consult your super-ego on an issue which your parents never ad an opinion on - be it birth control, capital punishment or forgiveness - then you will find your Super-Ego of little use. Piaget, although often hailed as a pre-eminent child psychologist, and required reading for all trainee teachers, was in fact and epistemologist. He believed that we

The Effects Of Hurricane Katrina And Its Impact On The...

PTSD, Psychological Effects of Hurricane Katrina and its impact on the Mental Health By definition, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), is the †¦ It was not until the 1980’s that the diagnosis of PTSD as we know it today came to be. However, throughout history people have recognized that exposure to combat situations can have profound negative impact on the mind s and bodies of individuals in these situations. But there are other catastrophic events that can have such profound impact on people resulting in PTSD†¦ By Matthew Tull, PhD Updated April 22, 2016 People with mental illness are vulnerable after catastrophes strike Hurricane Katrina came ashore the Gulf Coast and New Orleans and caused not only physical damage but psychological/mental anguish. This was at the end of August 2005. As a result, there was a lot of PTSD cases that were as a result of this catastrophic event. People across the United States witnessed the event unfolding on television and word of mouth but had no idea of the tremendous amount of emotional toll that the people of these communities went through and were going to continue to go through. Understanding the psychological impact of this hurricane has taken place on some minor level of research, but the long lasting implications and effects are still under review. The mental health arena are still trying to get a grasp of the long term effects of the hurricane and more specifically what are the PSTD outcomes are for the inhabitants of theseShow MoreRelatedThe Severity Of People s Ptsd Symptoms Following The Hurricane967 Words   |  4 Pagesthe hurricane was overtly connected to the amount of television coverage they watched of the damage which included the looting of New Orleans, rescue efforts, and evacuations in and around the Superdome and the Convention Center in New Orleans. People fared better in terms of PTSD symptoms if they watched less television coverage overall, especially of the looting. They also benefitted from using prayer as a way of coping with the stress of the hurricane. A natural disaster, such as Hurricane KatrinaRead MoreAssessing the Impacts of Hurricane Katrina and the Macondo Blowout on Human Health1015 Words   |  4 Pagesaccidents. When the Macondo blow out happened, we had to assess the impact that it also had on human health, mental and physical because it had affected a large area. The Macondo spill unfortunately happened less than five years after Hurricane Katrina damaged Louisiana and Mississippi coast. Clearly, a lesson that was learnt from the oil spill was that the nation wasn’t prepared for widespread, poor effects on human health and mental well-being. 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This storm was Hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrina displaced of an estimated 645,000 Louisiana citizens (Cepeda, Valdez, Kaplan, Hill, 2010). This paper will examine†¦ This storm took a grave toll on the city of New Orleans. TheRead MoreThe Second Epoch ( 1980 )1187 Words   |  5 PagesThe Second Epoch (1980 – 2000s) In the second epoch, the emphasis shifted from regulations to coordinating the objectives of the environment with other social and economic priorities, with more attention to human health effects, and to carrying out the environmental policies that were on books, more resourcefully. In a couple of instances, new goals were formed which went beyond the former goals, for example, including dangerous materials and hazardous waste to the environmental policy agenda, theRead MoreThe Disaster Of Hurricane Katrina1206 Words   |  5 PagesSituation On August 29th, 2005 Hurricane Katrina caused catastrophic damage and flooding in Mississippi, Louisiana, New Orleans and areas in between. It destructed the lives and homes of thousands of people, with a total of 1,883 fatalities (Hurricane Katrina Statistics Fast Facts, 2015). Hurricane Katrina left many homeless and hospitals unprepared for the challenges posed to the healthcare system as a whole. Some of these challenges included gaining access to healthcare facilities, providing expeditedRead MoreThe Tragedy Of Hurricane Katrina Essay1599 Words   |  7 Pagesall appear to have a similar effect: deterioration of mental health stability among those involved. Children and adults alike possess the risk of suffering from mental disorders, such as depression and PTSD, following exposure to a traumatic event. However, the circumstances of these events differ, simply because not all mass tragedies are the same. No matter what type of event occurs, a mass tragedy can mentally scar t hose involved, putting a population’s mental stability at risk. Various catastrophesRead MoreHurricane Katrina and The Levee System Essay2280 Words   |  10 Pagesï » ¿ Hurricane Katrina and The Levee System and How Affect Organizational Behavior Mustafa Q. Faisal Southern New Hampshire University Nov. 2014 Abstract Individuals connected with the environment around them, and their behavior is a reflection to the environment variables. In these papers I’ll illustrate how the person’s behavior impacted under critical circumstances. I’ll concentrate on Hurricane Katrina, and what is the side effect on workforce, and organizational behavior. The social behaviorRead MorePost Disaster Response for Hurricane Katrina Government preparation efforts had been in the works1500 Words   |  6 PagesPost Disaster Response for Hurricane Katrina Government preparation efforts had been in the works for years prior to Hurricane Katrina striking the Gulf Coast. In fact a recent as 2004 a hurricane drill was hosted by FEMA simulating a disaster event rivaling that of Hurricane Katrina including the evisceration of the city in also a similar manner. This drill, otherwise known as the â€Å"Hurricane Pam† drill, caused enough of an effect to get additional funding for preventative measures. GovernorRead MoreThe Devastating Effects Of Hurricane Katrina1548 Words   |  7 Pagesalter people’s life by physical destruction and creating mental trauma. One cannot avoid a disaster from occurring but can definitely take measures to overcome it. Government agencies like FEMA can provide information early warnings to the people in disaster prone areas prior to its occurrence. This research paper discusses about the devastating effects of Hurricane Katrina, reasons for failure to communicate information during Hurricane Katrina, the category of people who were more vulnerable to this

The Problem Of Drug Addicts - 1671 Words

Currently, the society is employing a significant amount of money and efforts to deal with the continuous increasing of drug addicts within their roots. In fact, the drug problem can be considered by the majority as the greatest problem of the 21th century. Just look, on how it worsened in the last years. Now, it seems that the range of consumers has expanded, and now is embracing almost all ages and classes. In fact, the teens are making the drugs seem like a fashion trend, in which those who do not follow it will be excluded. Considering this fact, and relating it to the need of the human being to feel accepted by the society or a group, helps to understand why the number of drug addicts is increasing. In the attempt of solving the†¦show more content†¦Considering the criteria cited above, I had two ideas a comic book or a videogame; but, in the attempt of minimizing as much as possible the costs of the proposal, without compromising the effectiveness of the same, I chose the comic book. I- Previous Solution Surely, because of the severity of the drug problem, several solutions were extrapolated and implemented in the attempt to deal with it. However, ones were more efficient than others, but at the same time, none of them represented a real solution for a long time project. For instance, in the article The War On Drugs ..., written by Ewan Hoyle, which is the founder of the Liberal Democrats for Drug Policy Reform, there are several solutions to deal with the drug problem, but each one of them has its constraints (303). One of them, and it was the chosen solution by the author, included a treatment with diamorphine, which is a pharmaceutical drug that changes the neurological system and inhibit the desires of the consumer (303). Even though it seems an extreme measure, the article showed that it carried a high percentage of success on the sample trials. On the other hand, such measure seems to carry a lot of constraints related to the costs. For the costs, even H oyle stated that this treatment was expensive (304). In his attempt, to back up it, Hoyle stated that the government must do a revision of its policies in a way that facilitate the market for this medicine (304). Well, the

Philosophy Paper on St. Augustine free essay sample

Philosophy offers so many possible topics of interest that I would love to write about. For this particular instance I chose to investigate just a sliver of writing from St. Augustine. Augustine wrote numerous books, letters, and sermons about God and religion that are still well known today. One small portion of a particular writing that stood out to me was when he discussed evil in the face of God. First, I will summarize his literature, and then state my argument against his point of view on God’s interference in humans’ lives. To begin with, St. Augustine raised the issue, if God can see the future of every action a person will carry out, then how can that action be free? He explained it as a movie a person has seen over and over again. Once someone has seen the movie enough times they know what each character in a movie will say and do before they say or do it. We will write a custom essay sample on Philosophy Paper on St. Augustine or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page St. Augustine said that is how knowledgeable God is with peoples’ lives. He says if God’s knowledge is so great, then a person’s freedom is merely an illusion, since the story of ones’ life is already contained in the mind of God. Augustine furthered his argument by saying God not only discerns what people will do, he actually predetermines their actions. St. Augustine went on to ask, how can God carry out his own plans by using his knowledge of our motives without violating mans’ freedom? Augustine thought that God not only controls humans’ exterior events but also the decisions in a person’s heart. He thought that God works in the hearts of people and inclines them to do good deeds. Next, Augustine questioned, if God is all-powerful and all good, how can so much suffering and evil infect the world? His answer was that since God created the world everything that exists in it must be good, so evil is an imperfection or alteration of what was created good. Augustine said that while some things may seem evil to us, they are actually contributory ways of attaining the good. He continued by saying that evil is not an independent reality from humans but actually a lack of something necessary in peoples lives. Lastly, St. Augustine said the only thing that comes within reach of genuine evil is moral evil. Moral evil is the product of the human will, which is also a privation or scarcity of something. In the end it is the result of a defective will turning away from God. My argument against the first question, if God can see the future of every action a person will carry out, then how can that action be free, is that although God is all knowing and can see humans thoughts and actions before they know them themselves, he does not control them. People have the freedom to make their own decisions, even though God can foresee them, whether they are bad or good choices, he still lets humans’ control their own fate. I also disagree that God controls our interior motives as well as exterior. People ask God into their hearts because they believe in Him; he does not enter without being asked. People with God in their hearts often make good decisions because they want to please Him, not because God is making them. Secondly, Augustine asked, if God is all-powerful and all good, how can so much suffering and evil infect the world? My argument is not anything God created is imperfect or flawed but that Satin also exists and he is the reason for the corruption and evil in the world. I do not think that evil is contributory to finding good. I think evil is the opposite of good and has no correlation to it. I also think that moral evil is the result of the devil and people giving into his deception. In conclusion, St. Augustine thought that God controls human decisions because he knows peoples actions before they execute them and inevitably that destroys their free will, whereas, I believe God gives people the freedom to make their own decisions, whether He agrees with those choices or not. Lastly, Augustine said the evil in the world is part of Gods creation, that it is merely an imperfection in his masterpiece. By contrast, I say that Gods creation was perfect and Satin was the reason for its distortion.

The Death Penalty Essays (714 words) - English Criminal Law

The Death Penalty Capital punishment has been a cause for debate for many years, and people continue to disagree on the topic. There are many reasons why the death penalty should be used, but the three most important are that it deters potential murderers from committing crimes, it saves our government money in the long run, and most importantly, it guarantees that these convicted murderers will not kill again. Why does the United States need capital punishment? The main purpose of the death penalty is to protect the rights of other Americans to live. In his book, The Law, Federic Bastiat writes, ?humans have inalienable rights that existed outside of and before government. These rights are life, liberty, and property. The only legitimate purpose of government is to protect these rights. When one person infringes on another's rights, he must be punished. To do this, the punishment must be harsh enough to deter potential criminals?(Bastiat). This punishment is of the harshest form, but it is necessary to maintain order. Is capital punishment in fact a deterrent? Studies show that it most definitely is. In fact, of the fourteen states that have at one time or another abolished the death penalty, murder has increased by seven percent. Likewise, a study by Stephen K. Layton at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill showed that each execution in the United States deters an average of eighteen murders(Lowe). If the death penalty were in-acted in a swifter manner, it would most likely deter even better. The average amount of time spent on death row is ten years! John McAdams, a professor of Political Science at Marquette University sums it up best: ?If we execute murderers and there is in fact no deterrent effect, we have killed a bunch of murderers. If we fail to execute murderers, and in so doing would in fact have deterred other murders, we have allowed the killing of a bunch of innocent victims. I would much rather risk the former. This, to me, is not a tough call?(Pro-death penalty.com). The death penalty also saves the government money in the long run. A trial for a capital case (which is a case of first-degree murder) is already time consuming and expensive. This type of case usually takes around six weeks and constitutes between 3,000 and 5,000 pages of court records. When a convicted killer is given life without parole, the appeals made by attorneys on both sides, as well as appeals by the court and the judges involved, add up to millions of dollars our government wastes every year, not to mention money for the convicted murderer's food and clothing, etc.(Jacobs, Landes, and Siegel). Lastly, I feel that capital punishment is the only way of making sure that a murderer will not kill again. Many people refute this argument by saying, ?Well, what about life in prison without parole? Doesn't that do the same thing Sadly, most convicted murderers are not given life prison terms, especially with their first murder. The average prison sentence for murder is less than six years!(Jacobs, Landes, and Siegel) The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that in 1998, thirty-seven states and the federal prison system held 3,452 prisoners under sentence of death, all of which had committed murder. Among the inmates with available criminal histories, two out of three had a prior felony conviction, and even more abhorrent, one in two had a prior homicide conviction(Bureau)! The cold hard truth is that if a convicted murderer is allowed to go free, he/she will most likely murder again. At least six percent of murderers kill again within six years of their release(Sentencing Info.). In conclusion, the death penalty seems to me to be the best course of action in a murder case. As I have said, it is the best deterrent America employs against murder, it saves our country money, and most importantly, it guarantees that a murderer will not have the chance to kill again. America works itself into a frenzy about a convicted murderer's right to life, but seem to have forgotten the rights of the innocent victim who was killed, making their deaths mere numbers on a newspaper page. Social Issues