Bøger af Paul L. Harris

This collection of essays is written in memory of Roger H. Prentice (1943-2022). Prentice was born in New Brunswick and brought up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A Dalhousie University graduate, he also graduated from Acadia University and then served as a pastor at Amherst, Nova Scotia and St. Stephen, New Brunswick. In 1979, Prentice began his studies in Baptist History at Oxford University under the direction of the late Dr. B.R. White at Regent's Park College. Upon his return in 1983, he became a minister at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. In 1985, Prentice became dean of the Manning Memorial Chapel and served as University Chaplain at Acadia University until he retired in 2007. Throughout his ministry, Prentice had a unique way of combining preaching, leading worship, and pastoral counseling together with involvement in his local community. Included are essays on Baptist theology and identity, spirituality, chaplaincy and ministry, worship and the arts, and engagement with the wider world.

Children's imagination was traditionally seen as a wayward, desire-driven faculty that is eventually constrained by rationality. A more recent, Romantic view claims that young children's fertile imagination is increasingly dulled by schooling. Contrary to both perspectives, this Element argues that, paradoxically, children's imagination draws much inspiration from reality. Hence, when they engage in pretend play, envision the future, or conjure up counterfactual possibilities, children rarely generate fantastical possibilities. Their reality-guided imagination enables children to plan ahead and to engage in informative thought experiments. Nevertheless, when adults present children with less reality-based possibilities - via biblical narratives or the endorsement of special beings - children are receptive. Indeed, such imaginary possibilities can infuse their otherwise commonsensical appraisal of reality. Finally, like adults, young children enjoy being absorbed into a make-believe, fictional world but faced with real-world problems calling for creativity, they often need guidance, given their limited knowledge of prior solutions.

If children were little scientists who learn best through firsthand observations and mini-experiments, how would a child discover that the earth is round-never mind conceive of heaven as a place someone might go after death? Trusting What You're Told begins by reminding us of a basic truth: Most of what we know we learned from others.