Background Health care professionals have to judge the appropriateness of treatment in critical care on a daily basis. There is general consensus that critical care interventions should not be performed when they are inappropriate. It is not yet clear which chances of survival are considered necessary or which risk for serious disabilities is acceptable in quantitative terms for different stakeholders to start intensive care treatment. Methods We performed an anonymous online survey in a random sample of 1,052 participants recruited via (...) email invitation and social media. Age, sex, nationality, education, professional involvement in health care, critical care medicine and treatment decisions in critical care medicine as well as personal experience with critical illness were assessed as potential influencing variables. Participants provided their opinion on the necessary chances of survival and the acceptable risk for serious disabilities to start a high-risk or uncomfortable therapy for themselves, relatives or for their patients on a scale of 0–100%. Results Answers ranged from 0 to 100% for all questions. A three-peak pattern with different distributions of the peaks was observed. Sex, education, being a health care professional, being involved in treatment decisions and religiosity influence these opinions. Male respondents and those with a university education would agree that a risky and uncomfortable treatment should be started even with a low chance of survival for themselves, relatives and patients. More respondents would choose a lower necessary chance of survival when deciding for patients compared to themselves or relatives to start a risky and uncomfortable treatment. On the other hand, the majority of respondents would accept only a low risk of severe disability for both themselves and their patients. Conclusion No cut-off can be identified for the necessary chances of survival or the acceptable risk of disability to help quantify the “inappropriateness” of critical care treatment. Sex and education are the strongest influencing factors on this opinion. The large variation in personal opinions, depending on demographic and personality variables and education needs to be considered in the communication between health care professionals and patients or surrogates. (shrink)

Treatment-resistant symptoms complicate the clinical course of schizophrenia, and a large proportion of patients do not reach functional recovery. In consequence, polypharmacy is frequently used in treatment-refractory cases, addressing psychotic positive, negative and cognitive symptoms, treatment-emergent side effects caused by antipsychotics and comorbid depressive or obsessive-compulsive symptoms. To a large extent, such strategies are not covered by pharmacological guidelines which strongly suggest antipsychotic monotherapy. Add-on strategies comprise combinations of several antipsychotic agents and augmentations with mood stabilizers; moreover, antidepressants and experimental (...) substances are applied. Based on the accumulated evidence of clinical trials and meta-analyses, combinations of clozapine with certain second-generation antipsychotic agents and the augmentation of antipsychotics with antidepressants seem recommendable, while the augmentation with mood stabilizers cannot be considered superior to placebo. Forthcoming investigations will have to focus on innovative pharmacological agents, the clinical spectrum of cognitive deficits and the implementation of cognitive behavioral therapy. (shrink)

Ethics support staff help others to deal with moral challenges. However, they themselves can also experience moral challenges such as issues regarding (breaching) confidentiality when practicing ethics support. Currently there is no insight in these confidentiality issues and also no professional guidance for dealing with them. To gain insight into moral challenges related to Moral Case Deliberation (MCD), we studied a) beliefs and experiences of MCD facilitators regarding breaching confidentiality, b) considerations for (not) breaching confidentiality, and c) needs for an (...) ethics support tool. Data collection consisted of qualitative research methods: six semi-structured interviews; analyses of a) two recorded MCD sessions, and b) a focus group with MCD facilitators. Findings: MCD facilitators mention different conceptions and interpretations of confidentiality and various moral challenges. Questions concerning confidentiality ultimately cause reflections on roles and responsibilities of facilitators. Needs for ethics support vary from seeking advice to procedural and sometimes normative guidance for MCD facilitators. Education for MCD facilitators should focus on developing a concrete tool that stimulates awareness and reflection(skills). (shrink)

This content analysis examines the ways that genocide is included in the high school world history content standards of eleven states with legislative mandates requiring genocide education, as well as if the content standards in those states differ from those of states without mandated genocide education. The null curriculum theorizes that the content that is not taught may be as important as what is taught; this lens allows for a nuanced analysis of the ways that genocide is included and excluded (...) in state standards. The findings suggest that states with legislative mandates requiring genocide education do not necessarily have high school world history content standards that require genocide education. The content standards in states with legislative mandates often omit acts of genocide, refrain from using the term “genocide,” and frame genocides as less important than the Holocaust, perpetuating the null curriculum of genocides. (shrink)

In this introduction to part 3 of the Common Knowledge symposium “Antipolitics,” the journal's editor argues that, apart from sortition, the best guarantees of safety in a democracy are, first, to augment judicial oversight of all political processes and, second, to exclude politicians from the process of selecting judges. “There can never be too much judicial interference,” he writes, “in what politicians regard as their domain.” The author reached this conclusion during attempts by the newly elected Israeli government, in the (...) spring of 2023, to make itself absolute by eliminating checks on its conduct that the Supreme Court had been developing and applying since the 1950s. Traditional Jewry and Judaism being notoriously hypernomian, the resistance to legality on the part of the ruling coalition has conveyed an aura of antinomian heresy. The choice in Israel appears to be between antipolitics and antinomianism, rather than between Left and Right politically—and the antipolitical model in Israel of a superintendent judiciary and an autonomous attorney general is arguably superior to the American prototype, even from the perspective (“all men are created equal..., endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”) that we have come to regard as quintessentially American. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Psychedelic substances have great promise for the treatment of many conditions, and they are the subject of intensive research. As with other medical treatments, both research and clinical use of psychedelics depend on our ability to ensure informed consent by patients and research participants. However, some have argued that informed consent for psychedelic use may be impossible, because psychedelic experiences can be transformative in the sense articulated by L. A. Paul (2014). For Paul, transformative experiences involve either the acquisition of (...) knowledge that cannot be obtained in any other way or changes in the self. Either of these characteristics may appear to undermine informed consent. This article argues, however, that there is limited evidence that psychedelic experiences are transformative in Paul's sense, and that they may not differ in their transformative features from other common medical experiences for which informed consent is clearly possible. Further, even if psychedelic experiences can be transformative, informed consent is still possible. Because psychedelic experiences are importantly different in several respects from other medical experiences, this article closes with recommendations for how these differences should be reflected in informed consent processes. (shrink)

Our new issue brings unlikely philosophers into dialogue (for example, Adorno and Krishnamurti) for the first time as well as reconsiders some of the most important figures (for example, Nietzsche...

Multi-Task Learning tries to improve the learning process of different tasks by solving them simultaneously. A popular Multi-Task Learning formulation for SVM is to combine common and task-specific parts. Other approaches rely on using a Graph Laplacian regularizer. Here we propose a combination of these two approaches that can be applied to L1, L2 and LS-SVMs. We also propose an algorithm to iteratively learn the graph adjacency matrix used in the Laplacian regularization. We test our proposal with synthetic and real (...) problems, both in regression and classification settings. When the task structure is present, we show that our model is able to detect it, which leads to better results, and we also show it to be competitive even when this structure is not present. (shrink)

A vital step to successfully orienting Deleuze with biosemiotics (and theories of biological complexity overall) is to discover a coherent scientific throughline in his work that also accounts for the aesthetic/creative dimension of his philosophy. This requires the heterodox move (from a Deleuzean point of view) of giving priority to the organism. I argue that Deleuze’s treatment of the organism does more than signal a superficial relation to biological complexity theory that, as a result of his nuanced take on the (...) matter, undermines the value of the organic body to his system. Instead, we can recognize a working theory of autopoiesis in the early Deleuze that scaffolds as well as substantiates his later ethological and biosemiotic observations and reveals a definite, albeit minimal, notion of subjectivity in his work. Most importantly, reorienting his logic of sense as a logic of sense-making, or the context-dependent signification between system and environment (Thompson, 2007), allows us to begin the work of mining a scientific throughline in Deleuze’s work akin to biological complexity theory that is of value to both Deleuze studies and biosemiotics. (shrink)

Supporting children to successfully transition from primary to secondary school is of utmost importance for several reasons, including to prevent future emotional and behavioural problems. Level Up is a novel, UK-based intervention consisting of five online group sessions, straddling the summer holidays, and providing at-risk children and their parents/carers with skills to manage their behaviour, emotions, and relationships to support their transition to secondary school. A prior evaluation of Level Up reported a need to better describe the mechanisms of change. (...) This study therefore evaluated the experiences of children and their parents/carers regarding the facilitators and barriers to engagement and change, and the perceived impact. Fourteen children and 17 parents/carers were interviewed. Identified barriers and facilitators were: (1) Having a safe, supportive, and fun space, (2) Learning through connection, (3) A family approach, (4) Problematic group dynamics, and (5) Connecting through video calls. Perceived impact was described as: (1) Empowering children, (2) Supporting children socially, (3) Supporting parents and carers in their parenting role, and (4) Supporting a successful transition to secondary school. Another theme (5) describes some families’ experiences of limited impact. These findings can be used to better understand how to support children in their school transition. (shrink)

Much has been made of the so-called “speculative turn” in contemporary philosophy. For some, this turn marks the “end of phenomenology” and the dawn of a new empiricism in European philosophy. For others, it amounts to nothing more than a renewal of the straw-person accusation of psychologism against phenomenology. In truth, it is neither. Instead, this article argues that while at times mutually critical of one another, speculative materialism and phenomenology are best understood as parallel projects with shared trajectories and (...) aims, common concerns, and even comparable methods. The bene????it of reading these two apparently divergent camps as parallel projects is that it allows phenomenology to understand the diversity of its own history anew and, in light of this, to draw from speculative realism as a resource for rethinking its objectives and methods in its pursuit of a robust post-Kantian realism. (shrink)

This article undertakes a deconstructive reading of astrobiology’s search for extraterrestrial life. Taking its lead from Derrida’s ‘White Mythology’, it explores ‘metaphor in the text of astrobiology’—and includes within the astrobiological ‘text’ not only scientific publications and work on astrobiology in the philosophy of science, but also ‘life detection technologies’. I situate astrobiology in the tradition of a metaphysical analogy that goes back through the enlightenment and early modern astronomy to the ancient Atomists’ notion of the ‘plurality of worlds’. This (...) analogy, which constitutes an identification of life with being and therefore serves as the conceptual basis for the notion that life must exist on other worlds, experiences a mutation in the middle of the twentieth century when molecular biology refigures life in terms of a scriptural metaphor as text. The result is an aporia whose logic Derrida formalised in ‘White Mythology’. (shrink)

The alienation of labour is both classical and contemporary. In its classical form, it speaks to the potential dehumanisation of workers in capitalist societies. In its contemporary form, it manifests itself in the disenfranchisement of the individual because of changes in organised global workplaces. Over the years, Africa’s labour transition from traditional spirituality to contemporary organised global workplaces has fuelled new forms of public labour alienation. Civil servants, in some African countries, experience labour alienation reminiscent of work under capitalism. This (...) is in contradiction to the pre-colonial and traditional view of work as a vocation. Zimbabwe is undergoing negative economic, social, and political growth that has resulted in the alienation of civil servants. The government reneges on its public role of providing space for individual growth and well-being in preference for ‘public capitalism’ and cultural alienation. The potential for an effective public service lies in changing the work culture. Contribution: This article interrogates the impacts of the work culture within the public service in Zimbabwe in an attempt to proffer a return to the African traditional spirituality of work that was founded on the principles of ubuntu. It recognises the traditional symbiotic relationship between being and doing among the indigenous African communities as the panacea for the continent’s human capital development. (shrink)

In their article “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments,” Ray and Cooper (2024) invite us to prioritize environmental health...

While postmodernists have claimed that the failure of the Enlightenment was a failure of philosophical courage, this plenary address explores how its greatest shortcoming actually was its hubris. Paying attention to how Western scholars have centered pride in their elitist purview was their ultimate worldview, this article examines ‘pride’ as the doctrinal dimension of the good life in contemporary Western society and culture. Furthermore, it implores postmodern Christian social ethicists to reform their stewardship to the telos of the field's highest (...) ideals and role, in order to confront the shortcomings of the Enlightenment and help realize its greater capacity for social transformation. Borrowing the Gandhian critique of ‘knowledge without character’, the author surveys how the existential crisis of higher education, the political manipulation of journalism, and the policy practices of politicians, public intellectuals, and pundits operate in addressing post-imperial/postmodern legacies have legitimated implicit biases and dehumanizing projects that pass off stereotypes as scholarship and hate as hermeneutics. (shrink)

Given a rich environment, how do we decide on what information to use? A view of a single entity (e.g., a group of birds) affords many distinct interpretations, including their number, average size, and spatial extent. An enduring challenge for cognition, therefore, is to focus resources on the most relevant evidence for any particular decision. In the present study, subjects completed three tasks—number discrimination, surface area discrimination, and convex hull discrimination—with the same stimulus set, where these three features were orthogonalized. (...) Therefore, only the relevant feature provided consistent evidence for decisions in each task. This allowed us to determine how well humans discriminate each feature dimension and what evidence they relied on to do so. We introduce a novel computational approach that fits both feature precision and feature use. We found that the most relevant feature for each decision is extracted and relied on, with minor contributions from competing features. These results suggest that multiple feature dimensions are separately represented for each attended ensemble of many items and that cognition is efficient at selecting the appropriate evidence for a decision. (shrink)

Prospective memory (PM) is the accurate execution of an intention in the future. PM may be negatively impacted by negative affect, but the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Rumination may increase the frequency of task-irrelevant thoughts, which deplete attentional capacity and reduce performance. To date, no studies have examined state and trait rumination on an online measure of PM. The present study examined the effects of state and trait rumination on an event-based, focal PM task embedded within a one-back task over (...) multiple sessions. 95 non-depressed adults (18–53 years) completed measures of state/trait rumination, mood, and PM on at least two occasions. Using multi-level modelling, we found that a derived measure of trait rumination, but not an established trait rumination survey, nor negative mood, predicted poorer PM accuracy. These novel findings demonstrate that trait rumination may partially underlie the association between negative affect & PM in a non-clinical sample, and highlight the potential of online methods to study PM. (shrink)

In the context of business, interactions between individuals generate social systems that emerge anywhere within a corporation or in its relations with external agents. These systems influence the behaviors of individuals and, as a result, the collective actions we usually attribute to corporations. Social systems thus make a difference in processes of action that are often morally evaluated by internal and external agents to the firm. Despite this relevance, social systems have not yet been the object of specific attention in (...) the literature on moral agency in business. To fill this gap, I construct a theoretical framework based on Luhmann’s ideas on social systems and morality. In particular, I argue that morality is a phenomenon that occurs in communication, and an agent can engage in morality in three different ways (as a _moral factor_, an _expressive moral agent_, or a _reflective moral agent_) depending on the functions it plays in communicative interactions. Based on this framework, I argue that social systems in business can be considered moral agents of those types. (shrink)

This article responds to Dimitris Vardoulakis’s claim that Heidegger’s mistaken reading of phronēsis’s relation to the hou heneka, or that-for-the-sake-of-which, in Nicomachean Ethics VI at 1139a32–33, leads to an evacuation of ends from action. I argue that Heidegger is not wrong in his reading of Aristotle on phronēsis’s relation to the end. I offer a reading of the passage on which Vardoulakis focuses, which I believe is consistent with Heidegger’s, to show how Aristotle’s view of phronēsis’s role in action can (...) enable such judgment. I agree with Vardoulakis that on Heidegger’s reading, Aristotle does not view phronēsis as instrumental, but I show that this reading is borne out by the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole. I argue that the absence of instrumentality does not mean that phronēsis leaves action without an end; rather, the end of action is in the action itself. I argue in agreement with Heidegger [1997: 29, 34] and contra Vardoulakis that technē as a model of instrumentality does not capture the work of phronēsis in Aristotle (neither is it what is under critique when Heidegger criticizes modern technologizing). I argue in conclusion that Aristotle’s conception of phronēsis and the action to which it leads does allow for judgment: what can be judged is the person or the community as it shows itself in the action. (shrink)

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is a complex and continually evolving brain region that remains a primary focus of research due to its multifaceted functions. Various studies and analyses have significantly advanced our understanding of how the ACC participates in a wide spectrum of memory and cognitive processes. However, despite its strong connections to brain areas associated with hippocampal and olfactory neurogenesis, the functions of the ACC in regulating postnatal and adult neurogenesis in these regions are still insufficiently explored. Investigating (...) the intricate involvement of the ACC in neurogenesis could enhance our comprehension of essential aspects of brain plasticity. This involvement stems from its complex circuitry with other relevant brain regions, thereby exerting both direct and indirect impacts on the neurogenesis process. This review sheds light on the promising significance of the ACC in orchestrating postnatal and adult neurogenesis in conditions related to memory, cognitive behavior, and associated disorders. (shrink)

The proposed text develops a number of provisions of N.I. Kuznetsova’s article “Oxymoron of the Vienna Circle”. Special attention is paid to the intellectual heritage of the Vienna Circle, which is in many ways paradoxical – rejected and simultaneously operational.

This article tries to unravel some of the main clues provided by Ortega on his understanding of philosophy. The thesis we defend is that the Spanish philosopher maintains two slightly different answers concerning the question what is philosophy, though Ortega does not acknowledge them in the explicit narrative of his thinking. This, we believe, creates tensions in his late second philosophical model, as he does not fully break away from certain “adherence” or “mannerisms” associated to his early model. In this (...) respect, Ortega would be a thinker who lives between two philosophical worlds, someone who sees, narrates and interprets the philosophical shock wave occurring at his time, but does not quite let go of the old intellectual constructions. To support our thesis, we will compare two texts, his 1929 lectures What is Philosophy?, and his Notes on Thinking, from 1941. In the period between these two works, Ortega seems to move from a more “traditional,” “universalistic,” “transcendental,” in short, Husserlian phenomenological understanding of philosophy, to a more historicist, hermeneutical, and pragmatic one, which lays the emphasis on the plurality of discourses on the sense, the contingency of the philosophical narrative itself, and even the very possibility of its ending, at least in its more “metaphysical” and classical form. (shrink)

The faith in progress that propelled the West for over four centuries is in decline due to its own success. The emergence of capitalism with its novel market imperatives has created both the poverty that causes political crises and the material growth that has destabilized the Earth’s climate. There is a growing sense that we are dominated by the technologies and social organizations that we hoped would liberate us. Individualism and secularity have left people feeling isolated and without a sense (...) of higher purpose, leading some to reject Enlightenment values in favor of traditionalisms and even neofascism. In universities, faculty struggle to prove their utility and relevance, because they cannot guarantee their graduates a decent living in a world of automation and globalized production. As a result of these trends, the West’s ability to produce responsible citizens is in question. Our students are largely inured to appeals to transcendent values because they are urged to be “practical.” Faculty are no longer encouraged to care about the character-building nature of a liberal education. United States universities are in danger of not having an independent voice, as those departments that can consistently get major external funding seek commercial applications for the products of their research. In the United States, ideologically based harassment and censorship of unpopular ideas takes place regularly and is a major deterrent to pursuing a career in higher education. Given these challenges, can intellectuals still make a difference in universities? Many have taken to social media and other ways of getting their ideas around the increasingly steep paywalls of academic publications and the de facto censorship in their institutions. Some of the most vibrant exchanges of ideas are now happening in other places, largely online. These venues draw in people who are trying their best to learn something they are unlikely to learn at universities. But are such alternatives truly sustainable or good enough? Higher education is at a crossroads in which even this “retreat and regroup” strategy is highly problematic. (shrink)

Background Inadequate knowledge among health care providers (HCPs) and parents of affected children limits the understanding and utility of secondary genetic findings (SFs) in under-represented populations in genomics research. SFs arise from deep DNA sequencing done for research or diagnostic purposes and may burden patients and their families despite their potential health importance. This study aims to evaluate the perspective of both groups regarding SFs and their choices in the return of results from genetic testing in the context of orofacial (...) clefts.Methods Using an online survey, we evaluated the experiences of 252 HCPs and 197 parents across participating cleft clinics in Ghana and Nigeria toward the return of SFs across several domains.Results Only 1.6% of the HCPs felt they had an expert understanding of when and how to incorporate genomic medicine into practice, while 50.0% agreed that all SFs should be returned to patients. About 95.4% of parents were willing to receive all the information from genetic testing (including SFs), while the majority cited physicians as their primary information source (64%).Conclusions Overall, parents and providers were aware that genetic testing could help in the clinical management of diseases. However, they cited a lack of knowledge about genomic medicine, uncertain clinical utility, and lack of available learning resources as barriers. The knowledge gained from this study will assist with developing guidelines and policies to guide providers on the return of SFs in sub-Saharan Africa and across the continent. (shrink)

This research explores the contextual approach within Christian-Jewish religious education, addressing a notable gap in existing literature and offering fresh insights into the application of the Contextual Teaching and Learning (CTL) model within Christian contexts. Through a qualitative literature study employing a three-step methodology, including an in-depth analysis of Deuteronomy 11:19–20, this study reveals that this biblical text provides both educational guidance and theological significance, serving as a foundational support for the CTL model in Christian-Jewish religious education. The integration of (...) digital media into biblical sources holds promise for future research, while the central challenge lies in harmonising life experiences and empirical phenomena with biblical reflections to seamlessly integrate inquiry processes and pedagogical phases, with potential avenues for further exploration in scripture models endorsing CTL. This research provides valuable insights for educators, parents and policymakers in Indonesia and beyond, advancing educational research in contextualised teaching models within religious education.Contribution: This article demonstrates that the CTL model in the digital era has the potential to revolutionise religious education and profoundly impact learners, making it a significant scientific contribution in the context of Christian-Jewish religious education. (shrink)

In order to study early human development while avoiding the burdens associated with human embryo research, scientists are redirecting their efforts towards so-called human embryo-like structures (hELS). hELS are created from clusters of human pluripotent stem cells and seem capable of mimicking early human development with increasing accuracy. Notwithstanding, hELS research finds itself at the intersection of historically controversial fields, and the expectation that it might be received as similarly sensitive is prompting proactive law reform in many jurisdictions, including the (...) Netherlands. However, studies on the public perception of hELS research remain scarce. To help guide policymakers and fill this gap in the literature, we conducted an explorative qualitative study aimed at mapping the range of perspectives in the Netherlands on the creation and research use of hELS. This article reports on a subset of our findings, namely those pertaining to (the degrees of and requirements for) confidence in research with hELS and its regulation. Despite commonly found disparities in confidence on emerging biotechnologies, we also found wide consensus regarding the requirements for having (more) confidence in hELS research. We conclude by reflecting on how these findings could be relevant to researchers and (Dutch) policymakers when interpreted within the context of their limitations. (shrink)

It is impossible to deduce the properties of a strongly emergent whole from a complete knowledge of the properties of its constituents, according to C. D. Broad, when those constituents are isolated from the whole or when they are constituents of other wholes. Elanor Taylor proposes the Collapse Problem. Macro-level property p supposedly emerges when its micro-level components combine in relation r. However, each component has the property that it can combine with the others in r to produce p. Broad’s (...) nondeducibility criterion is not met. This article argues that the amount of information required for r is physically impossible. Strong Emergence does not collapse. But the Collapse Problem does. Belief in Strong Emergence is strongly warranted. Strong Emergence occurs whenever it is physically impossible to deduce how components, in a specific relation, would combine to produce a whole with p. Almost always, that is impossible. Strong Emergence is ubiquitous. Word counts. (shrink)

Research suggests that typically developing children begin to understand verbal irony around 5 or 6 years of age. Children's production of verbal irony, however, has not previously been examined. This study was a preliminary investigation of children's irony production, including both verbal and gestural (nonverbal) forms. We coded instances of irony in interactions within 118 family triads, each consisting of 1 parent and 2 children, aged 3 to 15 years. Triads performed an 8-min cooperative task with dominos. In this context, (...) gestural irony was used more frequently than verbal irony: 80% of the families used gestural irony at least once and 32% used verbal irony at least once. Children produced gestural irony as early as 4 years of age, and verbal irony as early as 5 years of age. Children's use of irony was not related to their general cognitive ability or vocabulary, but was related to use of irony by other members of the triad. Results suggest that social context is important to the emergence of irony production. (shrink)

The New Testament presents Jesus as a transformational leader whose ministry had a holistic approach to challenges that were prevalent in his contemporary world. This article is a theological reflection of the role of the church in the public space in Zimbabwe as we draw lessons from servant leadership which is derived from Johannine Jesus’ message in John 21:15–18 with special focus on the Zimbabwean socio-political context (2017–2023). It is imperative for the Zimbabwean church to draw lessons from the socio-historical (...) interpretation of Johannine Jesus’ message in John 21:15–18 because the Bible has to speak to our context in the here and now. The article concludes that the Zimbabwean church is compromised because of divisions among ecumenical Christian organisations on how to deal with socio-political issues in Zimbabwe such that an effective application of Jesus’ political ethics is problematic. The article recommends that church should be more proactive by empowering her members and the community at large on how Jesus’ ethics on servant leadership are useful in socio-political context in Zimbabwe. This will help the church to remain relevant and transformative in the public space. Contribution: The article contributes towards the scope of the special collection on the contextual reading of New Testament in the socio-political landscape in Zimbabwe as it focuses on the lessons drawn from the socio-historical interpretation of the Johannine Jesus’ message in John 21:15–18 towards the role of the church in the public space in Zimbabwe. (shrink)