The Kingdom of God is wherever the Triune God is worshipped as Lord. It exists beyond time and place, but breaks into our time and place wherever creation worships the Triune God as Lord. The local church, in its present time and geographical place, is the microcosm of the Kingdom of God. As such, the local church contains within it all the resources necessary for the Kingdom of God to be established. Therefore, the local church is called to lead creation to worship the Triune God as Lord. It does this by fulfilling three specific works as specified in Scripture: the work of evangelism; the work of discipleship and the work of reconciliation. The modern day church must start a revolution to discover afresh these works and become what Scripture describes as the ecclesia of the hodos: the local church extending the Kingdom of God. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)

In the „coloured‟ community of Scottsville in the Western Cape, the historical legacy of political violence and abuse, combined with the current social hierarchies of violence, control and abuse, have serious consequences for Scottsville‟s young people. These traumas and the associated discourses create a culture of fear, distrust, hopelessness, humiliation and silence amongst the majority of the young people. I have employed feminist-poststructuralist analyses in order to grasp the complex nature of the challenges of „coloured‟ poverty. Foucault‟s analyses of power relations also offered this research ways to critique pastoral power. Because of Foucault‟s analyses, I became aware that „coloured‟ people‟s experience of poverty and invisibility could not be separated from my own experience of the power of privilege and visibility. The operation of unjust power relations in the „coloured‟ community therefore compelled me to use my education and privileges to work for the restitution of the voices and of relational and physical possibilities in the lives of „coloured‟ young people. What started out as a research project became a cross-cultural journey of reparation and of my own humanisation. I argue that the praxis of embodied solidarity with the „other‟ is the challenge that poverty ultimately poses to people of privilege and to the ways in which theology defines itself. In doing the work of reparation I was supported by the relational theme of solidarity with the marginalised provided by a feminist theology of praxis. The knowledges of the women in the community in particular served as resources of faith. The research methodologies I used in this research combined the practices of narrative therapy, creative writing, mentoring and drama. The purpose of these methodologies was to invite young people into various meaning-making processes which enabled them to become the agents of their own lives and of a culture of possibility. Derrida‟s work on deconstruction and the aporia provided this research with a framework for the theory of possibility. Through the methodologies of networking and advocacy, other people have joined us in going beyond the physical and relational limitations of poverty to create possibilities for the young people and their schools. / Practical theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

German text / Die vorliegende Arbeit versucht die Bedeutung des Begriffs Autokybernetik im theologischen Umfeld zu ergründen und ihre Auswirkung in Bezug auf die Persönlichkeit junger Leiter im kirchlichen Rahmen. Der Blick fällt besonders auf Leiter in der Entwicklungsstufe der sog. Emerging Adulthood (18 bis 28 Jahren). Durch die zunehmend gesellschaftlich geforderte Selbstorganisation und Selbstorientierung mit vielen Entscheidungszwängen kommt der Selbststeuerung im Leben des jungen Leiters eine besondere Bedeutung zu. Im ersten Teil der Arbeit werden die Grundlagen zur Autokybernetik innerhalb der Praktischen Theologie gelegt. In einem zweiten Teil werden Faktoren der Autokybernetik anhand verschiedener Modelle erfasst und gebündelt. In einem dritten, empirischen Teil, sollen die ermittelten Faktoren in der Praxis überprüft werden. Dabei steht die Relevanz von Autokybernetik in der Praxis junger Leiter im Mittelpunkt. Es soll festgestellt werden, inwieweit junge Leiter diese Selbststeuerung bereits umsetzen und mit welchem Erfolg sie das tun. / The study tries to clarify the meaning of “auto-cybernetics” in the theological environment and to explore its impact in relation to the personality of young leaders in the church context. The view is especially noticeable in the stage of development of the so-called Emerging Adulthood (18-28 years). Due to the increasing self-organization and self-orientation required by the society with many constraints self-regulation becomes more and more important to the life of young leaders. In the first part of the work the fundamentals of auto-cybernetics within the Practical Theology are stated. In a second part factors of the auto-cybernetics are seized and bundled using different models. In a third empirical part the identified factors are to be tested in practice. The relevance of auto-cybernetics in the practice of young leaders is in the centre. It will be determine how young leaders do practice this self-regulation and in which extension. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

Diese Dissertation stellt drei sich ergänzende Fortschritte in der statistischen Modellierung multivariater Daten vor und behandelt Herausforderungen im Bereich des modellbasierten Clusterings für hochdimensionale Daten, der Analyse longitudinaler Daten sowie der multivariaten Verteilungsregression. Der erste Forschungszweig konzentriert sich auf tiefe Gaußsche Mischmodelle, eine leistungsfähige Erweiterung herkömmlicher Gaußscher Mischmodelle. Wir erforschen Bayessche Inferenz mit Sparsamkeitsprioris zur Regularisierung der Schätzung tiefer Mischmodelle und stellen ein innovatives tiefes Mischmodell von Faktormodellen vor, das in der Lage ist, hochdimensionale Probleme zu bewältigen. Der zweite Forschungsstrang erweitert tiefe Mischmodelle von Clustering zu Regression. Unter Verwendung des tiefen Mischmodells von Faktormodellen als Prior für Zufallseffekte stellen wir einen innovativen Ansatz vor: tiefe Mischmodelle von linearen gemischten Modellen, der lineare gemischte Modelle so erweitert, dass er den Komplexitäten longitudinaler Daten mit vielen Beobachtungen pro Subjekt und komplexen zeitlichen Trends gerecht wird. Dieser Forschungszweig überwindet Beschränkungen gegenwärtiger Modelle und präsentiert eine anpassungsfähige Lösung für hochdimensionale Szenarien. Der dritte Forschungszweig setzt sich mit der Herausforderung auseinander, wahrhaft multivariate Verteilungen im Kontext von Generalisierten Additiven Modellen für Ort, Skala und Form zu modellieren. Wir präsentieren einen innovativen Ansatz, der Copula-Regression nutzt, um die Abhängigkeitsstruktur mittels einer Gauß-Copula zu modellieren. Dies ermöglicht die gemeinsame Modellierung hochdimensionaler Vektoren mit flexiblen marginalen Verteilungen. Hier erleichtert bayessche Inferenz die effiziente Schätzung des stark parametrisierten Modells und führt zu einem äußerst flexiblen Ansatz im Vergleich zu bestehenden Modellen. / This thesis introduces three complementary advancements in statistical modeling for multivariate data, addressing challenges in model-based clustering for high-dimensional data, longitudinal data analysis, and multivariate distributional regression. The first research strand focuses on deep Gaussian mixture models, a powerful extension of ordinary Gaussian mixture models. We explore the application of Bayesian inference with sparsity priors to regularize the estimation of deep mixtures, presenting a novel Bayesian deep mixtures of factor analyzers model capable of handling high-dimensional problems. The inclusion of sparsity-inducing priors in the model contributes to improved clustering results. A scalable natural gradient variational inference algorithm is developed to enhance computational efficiency. The second research strand extends deep mixture models from clustering towards regression. Leveraging the deep mixtures of factor analyzers model as a prior for random effects, we introduce a novel framework, deep mixtures of linear mixed models that extends mixtures of linear mixed models to accommodate the complexities of longitudinal data with many observations per subject and intricate temporal trends. We describe an efficient variational inference approach. This research addresses the limitations of current models and provides a flexible solution for high-dimensional settings. The third research strand tackles the challenge of modeling truly multivariate distributions in the context of Generalized Additive Models for Location, Scale, and Shape. We propose a novel approach utilizing copula regression to model the dependence structure through a Gaussian copula, allowing for joint modeling of high-dimensional response vectors with flexible marginal distributions. Here, Bayesian inference facilitates efficient estimation of the highly parameterized model, introducing a highly flexible and complementary approach to existing models.

Polybe, historien grec du IIe siècle a.C, véhiculait dans ses Histoires une certaine conception de l'homme politique grec de la cité hellénistique. En effet, son ouvrage était conçu comme un manuel permettant aux futurs hommes d'État d'acquérir de l'expérience par la lecture. Cet auteur, certes impartial mais non pas neutre, avait un sens critique très développé et faisait reposer son observation éthique sur un système de valeurs intellectuelles et morales semblable à celui d'Aristote. Cependant, aux yeux de Polybe, l'éthique intellectuelle avait plus d'importance que l'éthique morale, ce qui ne l'a pas empêché de jauger ses personnages historiques grâce à des notions intellectuelles et morales en nombre égal. Le premier chapitre présente l'historien et son oeuvre, alors que les deuxième et troisième chapitres ont trait à l'éthique intellectuelle et morale. Il ressort de cette étude que le personnage de Philopoemen est le type d'homme d'Etat idéal et que Polybe est surtout attaché à la personnalité militaire des hommes politiques. / Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2013

Text in German / Church consultation has established itself in different manners in germany over the last 30 years. Most institutions of church consultation are methodologically bound to organisational development. The different kinds of church consultation are shown in a survey. Subsequently the ,,Zentrum für Organisationsentwicklung und Supervision" is investigated in view of the missionary relevance of church consultation. The tensionfull relation between social sciences and theology is found out as one of the central aspects of the estimation and the praxis of church consultation. It is shown, that the missiological perspective of contextualization is able to enrich the missiological relevance of church consultation. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th.

This research regarding power/knowledge abuse within the church was conducted within the postmodern social construction discourse and in the context of narrative therapy, feminist theology and practical theology. It presents a chronicle of five individuals who experienced abuse within their congregations. It reflects on the co-authoring journey of these five individuals personally and within the context of the narrative group. As part of the narrative group they came to re-author their lives around what they had experienced regarding abuse within their churches. Together they challenged those dominant structures that are so often hidden just below `sacred' tradition. In conclusion the five individuals experienced a renaissance within themselves and their personal theology of God and His dealings within the church. This renaissance has led them to seek out others who have experienced this form of abuse and to give them the hope that they discovered together. / Practical Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology - with specialisation in Pastoral Therapy)

The mission over the last few decades, especially of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, has focused on “confessionalism”. In this specific sense of mission growth—numeric growth— has been a priority, and, unfortunately, not caring for “broken” people. The emphasis has been placed on the age-old proclamation of the “truth”, at the expense of social involvement, as it seems that “truth” transcends the needs of people, even of Christians. This has led to the restricting of the scope of pastoral care, and has limited it to an “applied theology”, where the Old Testament and New Testament studies have dictated its structure and methodology. Within Adventism its view and use of Scripture has dominated its ministry, indicating a number of different methods and approaches. These differences in both the conservative and the liberal orientations only represent their own possibilities. These approaches are the result of a basic understanding of Scripture as a body of divine teachings that needs to be accepted, believed, and obeyed. Consequently, this perception has moved the focus away from caring to the “so-called” correct doctrine of “truth” and proclamation. Postmodernism, however, is challenging the assumptions of modernism and is now confronting us with the understanding that there is no “objective truth”, and that there cannot be a completely detached observer. We observe reality, experience and Scripture not objectively, but rather discern them through the eyes of our own context, experience and history. The thesis, therefore, postulates as useful, just and proper that we experience reality in a narrative fashion within a secular postmodern world. It is through stories that we grasp and appreciate the important factors in our lives. Consequently, a narrative approach is appraised as being a more meaningful tool in approaching Scripture and pastoral care. Narratives are like rituals, they preserve the memory of past events in a way that they still have power for us in the present. As Jesus is a servant of everybody His narratives are transposed and they become accounts of our involvement in the lives of our fellow “sufferers”. / Practical Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

The dissertation starts from the premise that we are living in an increasingly individualistic and secular society. The church is seen as a worshipping community, where mutual care emanating from true Christian community could serve as a corrective to current fragmentation. A theory is developed of the church as a caring and worshipping faith community which exists alongside other communities. The church therefore exists to enable people to embody the gospel ideals in their lives. The whole Christian community must thus be seen to be offering the love, compassion and acceptance that is needed today. This role can be enhanced by encouraging training in caring skills. The faith community exercises its nurturing support system through the fusion of horizons as members seek to give expression to their faith. This faith community functions against the background of the myriad of relationships and different communities in which its members find themselves in. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

This thesis looks at Blessed are the Poor?, a document presented to the General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church that sought to outline Liberation Theology to the Church. In response to this the Synod voted £1,000,000 of its resources to be used specifically in projects in the poorest parts of Scotland. The thesis outlines those projects and the way in which they sought to embody the "Option for the Poor". The thesis closes by looking at whether Blessed are the Poor? faithfully represented Liberation Theology and the "Option"; whether the projects represented that theology and concluding that they did not, recognises that it is the nature of both the "Option" and the institutional Church that such a task could never be achieved. In order to understand the pastoral project this thesis outlines the historical development of Liberation Theology after the Second Vatican Council and in Latin America with particular emphasis on the "Option for the Poor". This thesis proceeds to look at the development of an "Option for the Poor" in the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the leading Liberation Theologian. The critiques of that work from the Vatican, Pablo Richard and Hugo Assmann are then considered. Gutiérrez’s works are used to develop a theological matrix that identifies the essential elements of the “Option for the Poor”. Having considered the notion of the "Option for the Poor" the thesis proceeds to look at how the "Option" was taken forward in the Churches in Britain before focussing on the specific response of the Scottish Episcopal Church. The matrix is used as a tool to assess whether the various parts of the response truly reflected the “Option for the Poor”.