This article explores Eric Mascall’s contribution to theodicy and (possibly) providence. It offers a taxonomy of Christian responses to the problem of evil: those which see suffering as instrumental to the purposes of God, those which see suffering as inevitable within the purposes of God, and those which see suffering as inimical to the purposes of God. It offers a critique of all three families of such responses. It then locates Mascall’s theodicy on that ‘map’. It argues that Mascall’s proposal, if accepted, removes the main argument against the inimical family of responses, which it sees as fitting best with the healing ministry of Jesus, as being most unambiguously committed to the goodness of God, and as being the most pastorally sensitive of the three categories. It also raises, without advocating, the possibility that all divine action may be indirect, thus safeguarding the non-coerciveness of God without compromising eschatological hope.

This article discusses recent work on cross-cultural interactions between missionaries and Central Africans, including Images on a Mission by Cécile Fromont, Religious Entanglements by David Maxwell, and “What Is Religion in Africa?” by Birgit Meyer. These works adopt an entangled approach, examining how Christianisation engendered interconnections between Central Africans and missionaries and between Central Africa and Europe. In this way, the works paint a nuanced image of the cross-cultural interactions that occurred in the framework of the Christianisation of Central Africa, showing us how an entangled approach can help examine such interactions afresh. By contextualising the manifold ways in which Westerners and non-Westerners, the West and the non-West were entangled, we can better understand the (power) dynamics and outcomes of cross-cultural interactions. By reading sources in an entangled manner, we can get a completer view of the wide array of interactions between Westerners and non-Westerners. By acknowledging how historical entanglements shaped the analytical concepts we use, we can decolonise our scholarly practice. This article shows how the study of a fundamentally cross-cultural phenomenon—Christianity in the non-Western world—can inspire global and imperial historians to study cross-cultural interactions in a truly cross-cultural manner.

The central argument of this article is that within the discourse around the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), many scholars have insufficiently applied the concept of an indigenous African worldview in their analysis of the TRC’s work, leading them at times to describe the process as coerced, contradictory, and politically manipulated. Using the different stages of my research as well as the different texts that “lit up” every phase, I argue that through a focus on language and translation, the pervasiveness of a particular worldview of interconnectedness can be traced that enabled the commission to execute its mandate creatively and without incidences of revenge. The acknowledgement of an indigenous interconnectedness has wide implications for the concept of transitional justice as it rejuvenates the main concepts of healing, amnesty, and reconciliation. As a journalist who reported on the daily activities of the commission, I move in this piece between the different epistemic communities of journalism, writing, and academia in order to understand the way in which language and its underlying epistemology provides an important access route to understanding the workings of the TRC and the testimonies provided by witnesses.

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.

The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate.

In today's financial system, complex financial institutions are connected through an opaque network of financial exposures. These connections contribute to financial deepening and greater savings allocation efficiency, but are also unstable channels of contagion. Basel III and Solvency II should improve the stability of these connections, but could have unintended consequences for cost of capital, funding patterns, interconnectedness, and risk migration.

The prediction of future disasters drives the priorities, urgencies, and perceived adequacies of disaster management, public policy, and government funding. Disasters always arise from some fundamental dysequilibrium between hazards in the environment and the vulnerabilities of human communities. Understanding the major factors that will tend to produce hazards and vulnerabilities in the future plays a key role in disaster risk assessment.

The factors tending to produce hazards in the 21st Century include population growth, environmental degradation, infectious agents (including biological warfare agents), hazardous materials (industrial chemicals, chemical warfare agents, nuclear materials, and hazardous waste), economic imbalance (usually within countries), and cultural tribalism. The factors tending to generate vulnerabilities to hazardous events include population growth, aging populations, poverty, maldistribution of populations to disaster-prone areas, urbanization, marginalization of populations to informal settlements within urban areas, and structural vulnerability.

An increasing global interconnectedness also will bring hazards and vulnerabilities together in unique ways to produce familiar disasters in unfamiliar forms and unfamiliar disasters in forms not yet imagined. Despite concerns about novel disasters, many of the disasters common today also will be common tomorrow.

The risk of any given disaster is modifiable through its manageability. Effective disaster management has the potential to counter many of the factors tending to produce future hazards and vulnerabilities. Hazard mitigation and vulnerability reduction based on a clear understanding of the complex causal chains that comprise disasters will be critical in the complex world of the 21st Century.