Early conceptions of humanity’s relationship with God were patterned after human social hierarchies. The original meaning of "worship" is indicative of such conceptions. But these early views don’t do justice to the true greatness of God. The book of Psalms and many of the prophets of Israel insist that God doesn’t require gifts or rituals, but rather moral conduct from humans. This shift in our conception of humanity’s relationship with God requires a corresponding shift in our conception of what worship should be.

Traditionally the different states of matter are described by symmetries that are broken. Typical situations include the freezing of a liquid, which breaks the translational symmetry that the fluid possessed, and the onset of magnetism, where the rotational symmetry is broken by the ordering of the individual magnetic moment vectors. In the early eighties of the previous century a completely new organizational principle of quantum matter was introduced following the discovery of the quantum Hall effect. The robustness of the quantum Hall state was a forerunner of the variety of topologically protected states that forms a large fraction of the condensed matter physics and material science literature at present.

Given the rapid strides that this field has made in the last two decades, it is almost imperative that it should become a part of the senior undergraduate curriculum. This necessitates the existence of a textbook that can address these somewhat esoteric topics at a level which is understandable to those who have not yet decided to specialize in this particular field but very well could, if given a proper exposition. This is a rather difficult task for the author of a textbook of a contemporary topic, and this is where the present book is immensely successful.

I am not a specialist in this subject by any means and found the book to be a comprehensive introduction to the area. I am sure the senior undergraduates and the beginning graduate students will benefit immensely from the book.

Jayanta K. Bhattacharjee

School of Physical Sciences,

Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science

Jadavpur, Kolkata

Physicalist soteriology, which proposes that Christ’s incarnation has a universal effect on the nature of every subsequent human being, rises as a logical and organic fourth-century development of the early Christian commitment to a universal fall combined with reflection on the Adam-Christ parallel. It falls because of the seemingly unrelated rise of the creationist ensoulment model that, in proposing that God directly creates and implants an unfallen soul in each fetus, removes any logical connection between individual souls and the fall of Adam. When humanity was viewed as a corporate whole in early Christianity, physicalist soteriology was a natural theological position that was never either criticized or defended. There are several signs manifesting a renewal of societal and academic openness to corporate understandings of humanity in theology, which suggests that physicalist soteriology is a part of the Christian tradition that may also prove to have contemporary theological value.

Three times in the New Testament we hear the phrase ‘before the foundation of the world’. We find it at John 17:24, Ephesians 1:4 and 1 Peter 1:20. In each case it means the same thing: God chose to be incarnate in Jesus before there was any creation, because in Christ, God willed to be in relationship with us. Which means God’s intention to become incarnate in Jesus was the reason for creation. All of which sounds fittingly Christocentric, until one realises what else it means, but does not actually say. And that is that Jesus could not have come to fix the results of the fall – because God’s decision to become incarnate in Jesus was made before there ever was a fall. So every theory that elaborates upon the conviction that Jesus had to die to fix the problem of evil, sin and death misses the crucial revelation made three times in the New Testament itself: that was not why Jesus came. Jesus came to be with us in time so that we could be with him forever.

This chapter illustrates how the United Kingdom’s distinctive understanding of sovereignty combined with New Labour’s vision of the United Kingdom’s place in the global economy to shape the government’s approach to human trafficking. Targeting trafficking for sexual exploitation, the government cracked down on migrant sex workers and domestic prostitution. It also associated labour trafficking with illegal working and cast society as a victim of exploitation along with individuals who had been trafficked. The chapter describes New Labour’s selective acceptance of European Union and Council of Europe antitrafficking instruments; it adopted those instruments that reinforced the United Kingdom’s borders while avoiding those that gave rights to victims of trafficking. By equating its action plan for tackling human trafficking with the abolition of the slave trade, the government elevated its antitrafficking policies to a moral crusade.

This chapter investigates the securitisation logic of control animating the AKP’s new securitisation technologies by enumerating the impact of four relevant factors on society: authoritarian lateral surveillance; centralised digital politics; shared contingency governance; and extra-legal and religious over-reach into domestic life. By focusing on these four factors in each section, I argue that under the sway of an authoritarian politics of securitisation, the AKP government combines the technologies of lateral surveillance and centralised digital politics to transgress the principle of individual criminal responsibility in favour of ‘shared responsibility’, a familial ‘sharing in the referent object of securitisation,’ and participation in the maintenance of security. I further suggest that this new development marks a shift away from state of emergency rule to an authoritarian securitisation in which Turkey uses peer-to-peer surveillance pervasively and invasively in the service of state protection.

Social interaction with friends and family is pivotal for our cognitive development, mental health, and overall wellbeing. These connections shape our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world around us. Research consistently highlights the positive impact of social engagement on cognition and mental health, from stimulating problem-solving skills to combating loneliness and reducing stress. The brain regions activated during social interactions underscore the significance of social cognition, empathy, and emotional processing. Particularly during adolescence, positive friendships play a crucial role in emotional resilience and healthy development. Studies suggest an optimal number of close friends for mental health benefits, emphasizing quality over quantity in social relationships. Social support networks bolster resilience and aid in recovery from mental health disorders. Conversely, social isolation poses risks to brain health and mental wellbeing, highlighting the importance of maintaining social connections throughout life. Engaging in social activities, whether through clubs, volunteering, or hobbies, fosters social interaction and enhances overall wellbeing. In a world increasingly driven by technology, prioritizing face-to-face social interaction remains essential for brain health, cognition, and mental wellbeing.

The wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible and the Apocrypha offers wise advice on how and when to consume wine. Wine is often used as a metaphor alongside Lady Wisdom as well as in sexual imagery between two lovers in the Song of Songs.

The phenomenon of ‘Ireland’s spiritual empire’, denoting the influence that Irish churches had on the world through lay and clerical migration in the (very) long nineteenth century, has attracted considerable attention from both contemporary commentators and historians. Yet the converse reality that national churches so embroiled in the global growth of their religions must also have undergone far-reaching changes themselves in the process has been much less studied. Focusing on both Catholic and Protestant churches, this chapter will address a number of modes of religious ‘Americanisation’ that can be detected in Ireland between 1841 and 1925. These will include: the backflow of a ‘cosmopolitan clergy’ who frequently spent long periods in North America and returned to Ireland as potential agents of a religiously inflected Americanisation; the visits of Irish-American and ‘Scotch-Irish’ clergy to Ireland; and the material role that a much-vaunted American religious ‘freedom’ played in the imaginaries of both Catholic and Protestant Irish people, enhanced by both media portrayals and discussion in personal correspondence.

While recent scholarship in the Latinx nineteenth century has emphasized the print culture processes informing Spanish-language textual production, the field has also been energized by a focus on prominent authors. This article traces the tension between emphasizing a representative subject (author) versus the way print culture provides insight into lived experiences in sociopolitical contexts. The piece turns to debates over the novel Jicotencal and the attraction of Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton and José Marti as representative figures to trace scholarly developments over the last two decades. Looking toward future directions, the chapter envisions ongoing attention to archival holdings and intersections with critical projects such as queer and Indigenous studies. The last section emphasizes the importance of translation for research in the Latinx nineteenth century.

Empire and Border-Crossings

In the dying years of British India and the first flush of postcolonial Indian statehood, a clear continuity of laws and policy can be read, especially in relation to the registration of aliens. The small-scale strife of the Great Game at these Himalayan borders in the town of Kalimpong was coming to a close even as the registration of Chinese nationals continued under a cloud of suspicion over a period of twenty years at the Foreigners Registration Office. The spectre of spies, the reflux of the Great Game, the Tibet Question and eventually the 1962 Sino-Indian War haunt the distinction between ‘Japanese’, ‘Tibetan’ and ‘Chinese’ nationals and largely remain fuzzy. It is the anxious state's process of separating the ‘Chinese’ from their ‘Japanese’ and then ‘Tibetan’ (also subdivided as Amdowas, Khampas, half-castes, and so on) counterparts that led the charge to register ‘Chinese nationals’ under the British Indian registration of foreigners acts. Marking differences was a way of categorising and classifying in these registration processes such that boundaries could be constructed for the body political and the body social. The nervous nation's and the disciplinary state's rationale for capturing and interning dangerous ‘Chinese’ later is a part of this narrative.