This thesis seeks to demonstrate that, in failing to take the sacramentality of the Word seriously, the preaching of the Church has suffered negative consequences. In short, preaching has often become, at best, a form of instruction or, at worst, an incantation of sorts, rather than an integral part of deepening our relationship with Christ by functioning sacramentally to bring about divine participation with Jesus' corporeal humanity in his living Word. Moreover, this trouble has had a profoundly negative effect on my own Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod due, in part, to our Reformation heritage as Christians who believe, teach, and confess the sole authority and divine inspiration of Holy Scripture. Yet, what has been lost over the past 500 years since the Reformation began is the reality of Christ's ongoing corporeal presence in and for the Church, particularly as he is present in the viva vox of preaching. In order to recover that reality, I propose that one should consider the annunciation to Mary where, with a sermon of sorts, the corporeal Christ took up residence in the flesh of his hearer. In addition to granting Mary a son, however, this tangible presence of Jesus also delivered to her precisely what was contained within his own flesh: the fullness of the Godhead (Col 2:9). When understood as a biblical paradigm for the Church, it becomes clear that what happened to Mary can, indeed, happen to Christians of the present day. To that end, I propose that preaching today, when understood sacramentally, can deliver the fullness of the person of Christ, who continues to come in corporeality, with humanity and divinity, in the viva vox of preaching.

This thesis examines the relationship between professional practice and professional training of Christian ministers in post-Communist Central Asia. It responds to the call for study of the phenomenon of Protestant theological education in the post-Soviet bloc. Theological education in Central Asia has been developed without any research-led evaluation and is often found unsatisfactory by the emerging church, which calls for a more relevant, field-driven and contextualised training of its leaders. This study also responds to the gap in the literature on attitude development of ministerial students. This is a qualitative inquiry. Its primary emphasis is on in-depth semi-structured interviews of forty graduates of four major theological colleges in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, who had spent several years in pastoral ministry after graduation. This research seeks to identify the most common problems they face in professional practice; to identify the attitudes and capabilities underlying their problem-solving processes; and to analyse how their training enabled or failed to enable them to develop those qualities. This thesis argues that theological education can be viewed as a special case of professional training, with a unique cluster of spiritual qualities that are of paramount importance for the success of ministers. It also argues that, despite the graduates’ generally positive appraisal of their training, there was little connection between the training and the capabilities that the graduates needed to succeed in their current practice. It therefore argues that the institutions in Central Asia have inherited the flaws of the "schooling" paradigm of theological education. A more integrated, context-specific and missional model is needed. By developing a model for investigating the practical knowledge of ministers, this study attempts to provide the training institutions in question with a framework of capabilities and attitudes. This will allow those institutions to have a useful starting point in the reformulation of their curricula.

The following thesis investigates the British punk movement of the mid-late seventies and suggests that, by performing acts of imaginative re-identification, we may gain greater insights into both the phenomenon of punk and aspects of Jesus’ life, ministry, and teaching despite their axiomatic and sometimes problematic differences. To do this we explore the power of the sartorial creations that the movement adopted and the way in which they conveyed an oppositional protest message and stance. We explore punk graphics and the way in which they could offer a targeted critique of the nation. We look at punk performances and how they confrontationally engaged with their audiences and what they wanted to elicit in return. We reflect on women in punk, punk in Northern Ireland and the relationship between punk and the black community and the degree to which punk exhibited a counter-cultural attitude to relationships. Concluding our look at punk we investigate how society, the authorities and commerce reacted to the movement, before investigating punk as a trans-historical essence. Having explored punk and established imaginative connections we then revisit aspects of Jesus’ life and consider him as a subversive who negated some of the national symbols of Israel, collided with Jewish national authority and reversed many of the nation’s perspectives. We look at the more confrontational nature of Jesus, his use of symbolic physical statements and his interaction with women, teaching on enemies and the way he related to the outcast. We then conclude by showing the degree to which the present-day church has been absorbed into the surrounding culture and explore two instances in post-war theology where there has been a recovery of the more seditious pattern within Jesus’ life before seeing whether there is anything that the church may learn from imaginatively identifying with punk.

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. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic 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”. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic 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 and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

L’objet principal de cette étude théologique est le témoignage dans le ministère sacerdotal, analysé à partir du verset Ac 1, 8 . Le milieu antiochien a été privilégié. Il donne l’unité aux textes bibliques et patristiques qui constituent les sources de la thèse. Le témoignage autorisé confié aux apôtres par Jésus Ressuscité s’exprime davantage dans l’enseignement et la liturgie que dans le gouvernement car il ne cesse pas avec la dépossession. De Paul à Ignace et Jean Chrysostome, toujours en référence aux textes prophétiques et à la parole du Christ,on voit s’élaborer une théologie du sacerdoce comme témoignage. / The main purpose of this theological research is to show the testimony in the priestly ministry. Our approach based on the words from Acts 1:8. Biblical and Patristic texts constitutes the sources of the thesis, it is the Antiochian environment that is emphasized and that grants unity to the corpus. The authorized testimony entrusted to the Apostles by Jesus is expressed more in the teaching and the liturgy than in the government because it does not cease with the dispossession. From Paul to Ignatius and John Chrysostom, referring to the prophetic texts and the Word of Christ, we see the development of a theology of the priesthood as testimony.

Kollektives Handeln ist erforderlich um nachhaltige Entwicklungspfade in gekoppelten sozial-ökologischen Systemen zu erschließen, fernab von gefährlichen Kippelementen. Ohne anderen Modellierungsprinzipien ihren Nutzen abzuerkennen, schlägt diese Dissertation die Agent-Umwelt Schnittstelle als die mathematische Grundlage für das Modellieren sozial-ökologischer Systeme vor. Zuerst erweitert diese Arbeit eine Methode aus der Literatur der statistischen Physik über Lerndynamiken, um einen deterministischen Grenzübergang von etablierten Verstärkungslernalgorithmen aus der Forschung zu künstlicher Intelligenz herzuleiten. Die resultierenden Lerndynamiken zeigen eine große Bandbreite verschiedener dynamischer Regime wie z.B. Fixpunkte, Grenzzyklen oder deterministisches Chaos. Zweitens werden die hergeleiteten Lerngleichungen auf eine neu eingeführte Umwelt, das Ökologisches Öffentliches Gut, angewendet,. Sie modelliert ein gekoppeltes sozial-ökologisches Dilemma und erweitert damit etablierte soziale Dilemmaspiele um ein ökologisches Kippelement. Bekannte theoretische und empirische Ergebnisse werden reproduziert und neuartige, qualitativ verschiedene Parameterregime aufgezeigt, darunter eines, in dem diese belohnungsoptimierenden Lern-Agenten es vorziehen, gemeinsam unter einem Kollaps der Umwelt zu leiden, als in einer florierenden Umwelt zu kooperieren. Drittens stellt diese Arbeit das Optimierungsparadigma der Lern-Agenten in Frage. Die drei Entscheidungsparadimen ökonomischen Optimierung, Nachhaltigkeit und Sicherheit werden systematisch miteinander verglichen, während sie auf das Management eines umweltlichen Kippelements angewendet werden. Es wird gezeigt, dass kein Paradigma garantiert, Anforderungen anderer Paradigmen zu erfüllen, sowie dass das Fehlen eines Meisterparadigmas von besonderer Bedeutung für das Klimasystem ist, da dieses sich am Rand zwischen Parameterbereichen befinden kann, wo ökonomische Optimierung weder nachhaltig noch sicher wird. / Collective action is required to enter sustainable development pathways in coupled social-ecological systems, safely away from dangerous tipping elements. Without denying the usefulness of other model design principles, this thesis proposes the agent-environment interface as the mathematical foundation for the design of social-ecological system models. First, this work refines techniques from the statistical physics literature on learning dynamics to derive a deterministic limit of established reinforcement learning algorithms from artificial intelligence research. Illustrations of the resulting learning dynamics reveal a wide range of different dynamical regimes, such as fixed points, periodic orbits and deterministic chaos. Second, the derived multi-state learning equations are applied to a newly introduced environment, the Ecological Public Good. It models a coupled social-ecological dilemma, extending established repeated social dilemma games by an ecological tipping element. Known theoretical and empirical results are reproduced and novel qualitatively different parameter regimes are discovered, including one in which these reward-optimizing agents prefer to collectively suffer in environmental collapse rather than cooperating in a prosperous environment. Third, this thesis challenges the reward optimizing paradigm of the learning equations. It presents a novel formal comparison of the three decision paradigms of economic optimization, sustainability and safety for the governance of an environmental tipping element. It is shown that no paradigm guarantees fulfilling requirements imposed by another paradigm. Further, the absence of a master paradigm is shown to be of special relevance for governing the climate system, since the latter may reside at the edge between parameter regimes where economic welfare optimization becomes neither sustainable nor safe.

Text in German / Over the last 30 years congregational counselling or church consultation has established itself in different manners in Germany. Most institutions of church consultation are methodologi-cally bound to organisational development. After a brief survey of the different kinds of con-gregational counselling the phenomenon itself is investigated. This is done by representation of two very different models of congregational counselling: The ,,Zentrum für Organisation-sentwicklung und Supervision (ZOS)" and the "Natural Church Development (NCD)". These concrete models are especially investigated in view of the missionary relevance of church consultation. In this way theological deficiencies are obvious. Further on both, the ZOS and the NCD, have another aspect in common: The relation between social sciences and theology, which is full of tensions, can be estimated as one of the central aspects of the two institutions. Not before the wider field of Church Development as locus vivendi of congregational coun-selling is analyzed, solutions can be found for this problem. On this total background it is pos-sible to summarize the missionary relevance of congregational counselling and to develop it. The search for a theological model for the theoretical and practical shaping of congregational counselling leads inevitably to "Communicative theology". This approach is processual in all its levels, shows responsibility to social sciences and is in total theologically established. So it fits for both, church and consultation processes. The missiological perspective of contextuali-zation is realised by Communicative theology. Thus the missionary relevance of congrega-tional counselling is supported. The application of Communicative theology is a model that makes it possible to speak of missionary relevance of congregational counselling. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D.Th.