Although less institutionally anchored than hitherto, for many people religion remains important in everyday life. This exploratdry study examines the management of sexuality and spirituality by practicing Christians as heterosexuals in relationships prior to marriage, focusing on individuals' lived experience of being sexual in the context of their religious faith. Christian teaching traditionally confines sex to within heterosexual marriage, yet previous research has shown that the majority of self-identifying and practicing Christians are sexually active prior to marriage. Thus the stereotype of the apparently un-sexual unmarried Christian living th~ 'no sex outside marriage' lifestyle is at best deficient, an un-examined 'truth' which merits questioning. Using' Biographical Narrative Interview Methods, this study explores how practicing Christians experience their sexual desires and Christian beliefs around sex and manage any perceived conflicts in the context of their pre-marital relationship. I

In this thesis I argue that despite the post-modernist assertion that we no longer have a shared understanding of humanity we are still driven by the instinctive desire to survive. We have created value-systems that stigmatise disability. I view disability as a community taboo that reduces our capacity to reflect on the nature of human being. If we engineer humans by reflecting the fashions of a particular culture we risk creating community desensitised to difference and diversity. Using liberation theology as a methodological tool, I understand people with disabilities as an oppressed group. I argue that people with disabilities perform a similar function to those who live with poverty. They represent the anawin - God's little ones with a special place in creating the Kingdom of God. I examine Nietzsche's philosophy as the antithesis of this position. Finally, I establish some characteristics of a disabilist hermeneutic through the exegesis of John 9. I conclude that without disability, we become less effective as a community in offering a commentary on life.

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This thesis is a critical examuiation of Karl Rahner's attempt to mediate Christianity to wider secular culture. The basis of this mediation is the human quest for a meaningful and fulfilled life. The first chapter examines some of the methodological issues and the reasons why the previously dominant theological account of what constitutes a meaningibj and ftilfilled life has become marginalized.

The theme that underlies the thesis is the challenge presented by science, as it developed from the time of the Enlightenment through the centuries until the present day, to Christian theology. The consequent conflict of ideas is traced in respect of biological science and the traditions of Protestant Christian doctrine, together with the advances of the developing discipline of prehistoric archaeology since the early nineteenth century. The common ground from which disagreement stemmed was the existence of human beings and the uniqueness of the human species as a group amongst all other creatures. With the conflict arising from this challenge, centring on the origin and history of human uniqueness, a rift became established between the disciplines which widened as they progressed through to the twentieth century. It is this separation that the thesis takes up and endeavours to analyse in the light of the influence of advancing science on the blending of philosophical scientific ideas with the elements of Christian faith of former centuries. A shift in outlook, sparked off by the presentation by certain theologian-scientists of the concept of healing this rift by way of dialogue, is pin-pointed as a move away from conflict and towards compatibility. The possibility of so doing is considered in depth and extended, by the thesis, to something more than forms of agreement and towards the achieving of integration between theology and science by way of the agency of human uniqueness. This endeavour, requiring a new approach to the conflicting issues, is presented by means of two studies, one scientific and one theological, considered separately but in parallel, of a human issue of relevance to each, in the twenty-first century – that of human individuality. With the outcome of this presentation being found to be agreement amounting to no more than compatibility, the thesis proceeds to find a means of furthering the way towards integration. Disciplines having a close association with the scientific view of the individual human being and the theological concept of human individuality, are brought into the enquiry – archaeology to assist science and philosophy to aid theology, the common ground being specified as the uniqueness of the human individual. A narrative style, maintained throughout, is based on ‘key figures’ whose work illuminates the issues discussed and is designed to emphasise the central role of the human individual. The thesis is presented as an original contribution to the science versus theology debate, by virtue of its centring not on conflicting issues but on those of common interest. To this end, the employment of associated disciplines, archaeology in particular, has opened up an approach not previously explored. In its conclusion, the thesis makes a claim for the means suggested for integrating science with theology through the concept of human uniqueness, to be recognised as plausible and worthy of being considered in other fields of confrontation between the two disciplines.

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Bibliography: leaves 223-249. / vi, 249, [9] leaves of plates : ill. ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Demonstrates association between Glu-3 alleles encoding low molecular weight glutenins and the dough properties of wheat flours, as well as the interaction between Glu-3 and Glu-1 (high moilecular weight glutenin) in determing dough properties. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Plant Science, 1998

When we take a step back from the imposing figure of physical violence, it becomes possible to examine other structurally violent forces that constantly shape our cultural and political landscapes. One of the driving interests in the “turn to Paul” in recent continental philosophy stems from wrestling with questions about the real nature of contemporary violence. Paul is positioned as a thinker whose messianic experience began to cut through the violent masquerade of the existing order. The crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah (a slave and a God co-existing in one body) exposed the empty grounding upon which power resided. The Christ-event signifies a moment of violent interruption in the existing order which Paul enjoins the Gentiles to participate in through a dedication of love for the neighbour. This divine violence aims to reveal and subvert the “powers,” epitomised in the Roman Empire, in order to fulfil the labour of the Messianic now-time which had arrived. The impetus behind this research comes from a typically enigmatic and provocative section of text by the Slovene philosopher, cultural critic, and Christian atheist Slavoj Žižek. He claims that 'the notion of love should be given here all its Paulinian weight: the domain of pure violence… is the domain of love' (2008a, 173). In this move he links Paul’s idea of love to that of Walter Benjamin’s divine violence; the sublime and the cataclysmic come together in this seemingly perverse notion. At stake here is the way in which uncovering violent forces in the “zero-level” of our narrative worldviews aids the diagnosis of contemporary political and ethical issues. It is not enough to imagine Paul’s encounter with the Christ-event as non-violent. This Jewish apocalyptic movement was engaged in a violent struggle within an existing order that God’s wrath will soon dismantle. Paul’s weak violence, inspired by his fidelity to the Christ-event, places all responsibility over creation in the role of the individual within the collective body. The centre piece of this re-imagined construction of the Pauline narrative comes in Romans 13: the violent dedication to love understood in the radical nature of the now-time. 3 This research examines the role that narratives play in the creation and diagnosis of these violent forces. In order to construct a new genealogy of violence in Christianity it is crucial to understand the role of the slave of Christ (the revolutionary messianic subject). This turn in the Symbolic is examined through creating a literary structure in which we can approach a radical Nietzschean shift in Pauline thought. The claim here, a claim which is also central to Paul’s letters, is that when the symbolic violence which manipulates our worldviews is undone by a divine violence, if even for a moment, new possibilities are created in the opening for a transvaluation of values. Through this we uncover the nature of original sin: the consequences of the interconnected reality of our actions. The role of literature is vital in the construction of this narrative; starting with Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, and continuing through works such as Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, this thesis draws upon the power of literature in the shaping of our narrative worlds. Typical of the continental philosophy at the heart of this work, a diverse range of illustrations and inspirations from fiction is pulled into its narrative to reflect the symbolic universe that this work was forged through. What this work attempts to do is give this theory a greater grounding in Paul’s letters by demonstrating this radical kenotic power at the heart of the Christ-event. Romans 13 reveals, in a way that has not yet been picked up by Critchley, Žižek, and others, that Paul opposed the biopolitical power of the Roman Empire through the weak violence of love that is the labour of the slaves of Christ on the “now-time” that had arrived.

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