The thesis interprets and analysies the results of the explorational survey, which deals how people with intellectual diabilities reflect on sellected religious terms. The targert of this thesis is to chart the opinions, definitions and attituteds of the people with intellectual disabilities to the sellected religious categories. The theoritical part of the thesis deals not only of problems of spiritual life, meetings, dialogues and interwies with people with intellectual disabilities but solves their specific qualities and their role in the catholic community too. The exploration part presents two researches - with worshippers people with intellectual disabilities and worshippers people without disabilities. In the end of the thesis the explorational survey definates differences beetween both groups. The thesis use the method of the qualititive research, concretely the mothod of the semistructured interview and the method of the group discussion.

In this doctoral thesis, The Spirituality and Mysticism of Nature in the Early Franciscan Tradition, I have begun with an attempt to clarify the notions of spirituality and mysticism. The former, was seen as an approach to God embodied in outlook, practice and lifestyle, and the latter, mysticism, was defined as a felt awareness and knowledge of the presence of God. My hypothesis is that nature played a very important part in both the spirituality and mysticism of Saint Francis of Assisi, and in the spirituality of the movement he founded. In a systematic attempt to investigate my theme, I began with a study of the chief places associated with Francis. They present a kind of mirror of his soul and reveal, I believe, a good deal about his outlook and way of living. They tend to be remote and solitary places, often high in the mountains or near water, often desolate and harsh and usually beautiful, and what was later to become known as `romantic'. I turned then to the world of nature, beginning with the celestial bodies, sun, moon and the stars, and the elements of the sub-lunar world. The world of living things, fruits and flowers, animals, wild beasts and tame, fish and birds was examined. Nearly all the evidence here came from that collection of Franciscan stories and anecdotes which forms one of the great treasuries of stories in world literature. The fourth chapter was devoted to the poetry of Francis, above all to the Praises of God and The Canticle of the Creatures. After examining the circumstances of its composition, I took the stanzas one by one and examined them in the light of what they reveal of Francis spirituality and mysticism. The purpose of chapter five was to gather the fruits of my research and evaluate the hypothesis I proposed. I concluded that Francis, incorporated nature into his spirituality and mysticism in a very original way. I hold that Francis was a great nature mystic, and that his nature spirituality is still full of vigor and potential for the future. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / (D.Th. (Christian Spirituality))

The Scriptures, as found in the Old and New Testaments, are foundational to a genuine Christian spirituality. Among the different existing approaches to spirituality, the evangelical and charismatic churches in South Africa today need to rediscover a distinctive biblical approach to spirituality for themselves in order to facilitate the discipleship of their own members. A holistic biblical spirituality can also serve society in practical ways and challenge the perceptions and practices of a South African society which is seeking to advance without religious foundations. / Philosophy and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Christian Spirituality)

“How does one develop an appropriate urban Christian Spirituality?” is the question this study asks. First, I develop a rigorous, yet open, theoretical framework with which to describe Christian Spirituality’s complexity: a description focused primarily on constraining the markers of Biblical Spirituality and City Spirituality. Within the limits placed on the complex system of Christian Spirituality, I begin exploring various, mostly minor, tropes of urban biblical spiritualities in the “Old” and “New” Testament. From these analyses, I evince the implications of these biblical spirituality tropes for the current city theater, and also construe a set of questions evaluating the appropriateness of mitigating urban communities. The study culminates in an imagined ideal mitigating urban community named an ekklesiastes: a wisdom teaching technology of urban meaning, complexity, and resistance. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Christian Spirituality)

The thesis concerns an aspect of poetic imagination in the works of 17th century metaphysical poets and examines the way these poets were influenced by the Church of England. In addition, it identifies elements of Anglican spirituality in their works. The first section analyzes the concept of Christian spirituality and the specifics of Anglican spirituality. Anglican spirituality is closely linked with the historical origins and development of the Anglican Church. In the second section, there is a description of poetic imagination and the relationship between poetics and spirituality. The thesis describes the concept of so-called metaphysical poets. The works of three selected authors are examined to identify poetic expressions of general, theological issues. Theological themes emphasized in Anglican spirituality are compared with those expressed in metaphysical poetic imagination. The aim of this thesis is to find the role of poetics in general, theological discourse.

Research on English Catholic Music after the Reformation has focused almost entirely on a small number of Catholic composers and households in England. The music of the English Catholic colleges, convents, monasteries and seminaries that were established in Continental Europe, however, has been almost entirely overlooked. The chief aim of this thesis is to reconstruct the musical practices of these institutions from the Reformation until 1700, in order to arrive at a clearer understanding of the nature of music in the post-Reformation English Catholic community. To this end, four institutions have been selected to serve as case studies: 1. The Secular English College, Douai. 2. St Alban’s College, Valladolid. 3. The Benedictine Monastery of Our Lady of the Assumption, Brussels. 4. The Augustinian Monastery of Our Lady of Nazareth, Bruges. The music of these institutions is evaluated in two ways: firstly, as a means of constructing, reflecting and forming English Catholic identity, and secondly, in terms of the range of influences (both English and Continental) that shaped its stylistic development. The thesis concludes that as a result of the peculiarly domestic nature of religious practice among Catholics in England, and interactions with Continental Catholicism, the aesthetic and ideological bases for English Catholic music were markedly different from those of its Protestant counterpart. The marked influence of Italianate styles on the sacred music of English Catholic composers and institutions in exile demonstrates a simultaneous process of cultural alignment with the aesthetic and theological principles of the Counter-Reformation, and dissociation from those of English Protestantism. Finally, it is clear that music was an important formational tool in both the seminaries and convents, where it shaped both community and self-identity, and created affinities with the locales in which these institutions were situated – although it is also clear that these uses of music had the potential to conflict.

Repetition has received a bad press in certain streams of theological tradition; this reception has in part been caused by, and has in turn affected, readings of the Letter to the Hebrews, which speaks about repetition in ways unique in the New Testament. The present study addresses the insufficient critical attention paid to repetition in Hebrews, challenging the assumption that it functions uniformly and negatively throughout the letter, and exploring the variety of ways in which Hebrews presents repetition. The plurality of prophetic speech displays God’s manifold kindness in the old covenant; such speech is not opposed to but is fulfilled in Christ’s coming, and its ongoing repetition in the new covenant through citation and exposition serves to promote and explicate that event. Repeated mutual encouragement is essential to persevering in the Christian life and avoiding apostasy. And the regular entry of the Levitical priests into the outer sanctuary of the tabernacle in Heb 9.6 foreshadows the continual access to God achieved through Christ. Where repetition has a negative or contrastive role in the author’s argumentation, it does not cause inefficacy but rather indicates a weakness whose source is elsewhere – and which, moreover, is revealed fully only in the light of the Christ event. The uniqueness of Christ and of his death construed as a sacrifice, developed from concepts of singularity in Day of Atonement and early Christian crucifixion traditions, forms a unifying strand in the letter’s Christology. Rather than functioning in simple opposition to repetition, this singularity corresponds to continuity and eternity, and is developed at times in contrast to, and at times in correspondence with, repetition. The study thus offers a reappraisal of repetition in Hebrews, laying the foundations for renewed appreciation of the importance of repetition for theological discourse and religious life.

This thesis examines the meanings of purification practices and purity concepts in early Christian culture, as they were articulated and formed by Greek Christian authors of the first three centuries, from Paul to Origen. As purity and defilement are especially suited for articulating difference, hierarchy and change, these concepts were essential for early Christians, shaping their understanding of human nature, sin, history, and ritual. In parallel, the major Christian practices embodying difference and change, baptism, abstinence from food or sexual activity, were all understood, emoted and shaped as instances of purification. Two broad motivations, at some tension with each other, were at the basis of Christian purity discourse. The first was a substantive motivation: the creation and maintenance of anthropologies and ritual theories coherent with the theological principles of the new religion, and the integration of purity traditions and concepts into these worldviews and theories. The second was a polemic motivation: construction of Christian identity by laying claim to true purity while marking the purity practices and beliefs of others (Jews, pagan or “heretics”) as false. I trace the interplay of these factors through a close reading of second- and third-century Christian Greek authors discussing food abstentions, death defilement, sexuality and baptism, on the background of Greco-Roman and Jewish purity discourses. This thesis demonstrates three central arguments. First, purity and defilement are central concepts for understanding Christian cultures of the second and third centuries. Second, Christianities developed their own conceptions and practices of purity and purification, distinct from those current in contemporary and earlier Jewish and pagan cultures, though decisively influenced by them. Third, concepts and practices of purity and defilement were shifting and contentious, an arena for boundary-marking between Christians and others and between different Christian groups.

Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th (Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology)

Consecrated life or religious life as it is sometimes called within the Catholic Church is almost as old as Christianity. All baptised persons are consecrated persons by virtue of their baptism, but the consecrated life to which some people feel called, is a special and fruitful deepening of the consecration received in baptism and confirmation.. This dissertation explores Christian spirituality as it is manifested in consecrated life with relation to inculturation and religious life. The scope has been limited to a study of one congregation, the Companions of St Angela as a case study. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th. (Christian Spirituality)