Text in Afrikaans / Hoe kan die kerk, spesifiek ook die NG Kerk in Namibie, gestruktureer word om werklik relevant te wees in 'n samelewing waarin soveel veranderinge plaasvind? Eers word gekyk na die Praktiese Teologie as navorsing random die kommunikatiewe handelinge in diens van die evangelie; 'n definisie wat werk met 'n bepaalde verhouding tussen kerk en wereld. Daarna word die groot sosiale, staatkundige en godsdienstige veranderinge in die samelewing bespreek waarin die kerk hom bevind. As antwoord op die vraag: "watter kommunikatiewe handelinge in diens van die evangelie kan van die kerk 'n wesenlike faktor vir die evangelie in die wereld laat wees?", bespreek hoof stuk 3 dan die moontlikhede wat die model van die kerk as dienskneg inhou vir die kerk se invloed en rol in die samelewing. Die laaste hoofstuk wys veral op die belangrike rol van lidmate en kleingroepe in die strukturering van die kerk om so 'n dienskneg-kerk te wees. / How can the church, particularly the Dutch Reformed Church in Namibia, be structured to be truly relevant in a society where so many changes occur? Chapter 1 concerns Practical Theology researching communicative acts in the service of the gospel; defining a specific relationship between the church and the outside world. This is followed in Chapter 2 by a discussion of the churches' role regarding the enormous social, political and religious changes in society. In reply to the question: "which actions of communication in service of the gospel can assist the church to be a substantial factor to promote the gospel in the world?", chapter 3 looks at the possibilities that the model of the church as servant has for the influence of the church in the society. The last chapter refers particularly to the important role of laity and small groups in the structuring of the church to serve the community. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)

It was certainly a primary concern of the Second Vatican Council, facing the Third World in a post-colonial era, to show a maximum respect for humanity's invincible cultural pluralism (GS, 44, 58). Hence the emphasis on the primordial and unique missionary principle of incarnation, is derived directly from the scandalous belief that God became one of us in everything except sin (cf Heb. 2:14-18; 4:15). The Christian understanding of the relationship between God and humankind is dominated by this incarnationcd theme, which takes seriously the meaning of finitude, flesh and history. The incarnational self-donation, through which humanity is embraced from within, involved an incomprehensible self-emptying (cf. Phil 2:6-8). In giving himself to us in this intrinsic manner the divine Logos discounts his divinity and humbles himself that he might become truly one of us. Jesus of Nazareth is not a disguise used by God, not a human outer garment covering the divinity, not something foreign to what we are. / Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)

The community development challenge faced by the Baptist Church of Ngoubagara in Central African Republic was the topic of this work. Due to multiple insecurity and political instability causes, it has created many negatives effects and especially on the poor population. Ideally, the mission of the Ngoubagara Baptist Church when faced with CAR tragic and successive socio-politic wars should have been to promote community development, peace, social justice, education, health, reconciliation, respect for human rights and to denounce all harm and discrimination against the human being. The church has a sacred mission to announce the gospel to all humanity and to assist the people towards the positive transformation of CAR. This study will be of help to missiological scholars and to the church so that it may better carry out its prophetic and holistic missions according to God’s vision and with the purpose of positively transforming CAR society. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

Text in German / Zusammenfassung Die vorliegende Untersuchung geht von der Beobachtung aus, dass die postmoderne Gesellschaft tendenziell isolierend auf die Menschen wirkt. Demgegenüber wohnt der Kirche ein Gemeinschaftspotential inne, das eine greifbare Alternative für vereinsamte Menschen anbieten kann. Diese Untersuchung stellt nun die zentrale Frage, wie die Kirche ihr gemeinschaftsförderndes Potential effektiver in die Gesellschaft einbringen kann. Hierzu werden zunächst die soziologischen und theologischen Voraussetzungen geklärt, denen dann, anhand einer begrenzten empirischen Studie, praktische Erfahrungen von Menschen mit kirchlicher Gemeinschaft an die Seite gestellt werden. Zuletzt wird die zeitgenössische Gemeindebauliteratur vergleichend herangezogen, um schlussendlich die zentrale Frage dieser Untersuchung mit einigen praktischen Vorgehensvorschlägen zu beantworten. Summary of Dissertation This study has its roots in the observation, that the postmodern society has a tendency to isolate the people. In contrast to this, the church has an inherent potential of community, which can offer a concrete alternative for isolated people. This study now asks the central question, how the church can be enabled to bring their community-promoting potential more effectively into the society. For this, firstly the sociological and theological conditions are clarified, to which then, on the basis of a limited empirical study, practical experiences of people with church community are placed beside. At last, the contemporary literature of church growth is consulted comparatively, in order to finally answer the central question of this study by some practical procedure suggestions. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Practical Theology)

This thesis reassesses the nature and importance of the Scottish Episcopal Church in Edinburgh and more widely. Based on a microstudy of one chapel community over a twenty-four year period, it addresses a series of questions of religion, identity, gender, culture and civic society in late Enlightenment Edinburgh, Scotland, and Britain, combining ecclesiastical, social and economic history. The study examines the congregation of Charlotte Episcopal Chapel, Rose Street, Edinburgh, from its foundation by English clergyman Daniel Sandford in 1794 to its move to the new Gothic chapel of St John's in 1818. Initially an independent chapel, Daniel Sandford's congregation joined the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1805 and the following year he was made Bishop of Edinburgh, although he contined to combine this role with that of rector to the chapel until his death in 1830. Methodologically, the thesis combines a detailed reassessment of Daniel Sandford's thought and ministry (Chapter Two) with a prosopographical study of 431 individuals connected with the congregation as officials or in the in the chapel registers (Chapter Three). Biography of the leader and prosopography of the community are brought to illuminate and enrich one another to understand the wealth and business networks of the congregation (Chapter Four) and their attitudes to politics, piety and gender (Chapter Five). The thesis argues that Daniel Sandford's Evangelical Episcopalianism was both original in Scotland, and one of the most successful in appealing to educated and influential members of Edinburgh society. The congregation, drawn largely from the newly-built West End of Edinburgh, were bourgeois and British in their composition. The core membership of privileged Scots, rooted in land and law, led, but were also challenged by and forced to adapt to a broad social spread who brought new wealth and influence into the West End through India and the consumer boom. The discussion opens up many avenues for further research including the connections between Scottish Episcopalianism and romanticism, the importance of India and social mobility within the consumer economy in the development of Edinburgh, and Scottish female intellectual culture and its engagement with religion and enlightenment. Understanding the role of enlightened, evangelical Episcopalianism, which is the contribution of this study, will form an important context for these enquiries.

The purpose of this study was to present an analysis of the belief systems of the worldviews behind the religions of Christianity and African Traditional Religion with a view toward aiding the Christian church in African help its converts from African Traditional Religion to hold a biblical worldview in the areas where the biblical and traditional African worldviews conflict. The two worldviews were analyzed, and compared using the philosophical elements of a worldview and the religious dimensions of how a worldview is lived out in culture. Genesis 1-11 of the Christian Bible was used as the basis for the biblical or Christian worldview. The Christian believes that the Bible is God's inspired word to mankind and that what is recorded in Genesis 1-11 gives God's answers to the basic philosophical questions that make up a worldview. Therefore, Christian philosophy and the Christian worldview are postulated on God's special revelation as recorded in the Bible. The African worldview is based upon the sayings and traditions of the elders as received from the ancestors. The traditional African believes in the trustworthiness of the ancestors as strongly as the Christian believes in the trustworthiness of the Bible. When an African converts from African Traditional Religion to Christianity he encounters a conflict of beliefs in certain philosophical elements of his worldview. Upon the conviction that beliefs determine practice, unless the African convert to Christianity changes his beliefs he will not change his practice, and syncretism will be the result. After analyzing the two worldviews, the areas of conflict in beliefs were presented with recommendations for bringing the African Christian's worldview beliefs into conformity with the Christian worldview. / Religious Studies and Arabic / D.Litt. et Phil. (Religious Studies)

As the century and millennium draw to a close, radical changes affect all areas of human life. Such changes challenge the church to respond to new developments in the secular world. One such development (a long time in the making) is that the everyday life of every human being on the planet is being affected more and more profoundly by a kind of generic capitalism that prefers to remain faceless and anonymous but which prosecutes it interests with a brutality and ruthlessness that take no account of human beings who are themselves neither powerful nor influential - but who may reside on land replete with the kind of natural resources which constitute the essential raw materials necessary for capitalist expansion. It is not only human life that suffers in this rapidly changing world: forms of planetary life suffer. In the context of what we have said about global market dynamics, we are compelled to ask ourselves searching questions about the relationship between God and humans, humans and other human beings, and hnmans and other forms of planetary life. This will partly be an historical investigation into what Korean churches and South Africau churches might share with each other on the basis of experiences of suffering caused by past structures and systems. By understanding the past, historians hope to be able to understand the present and to make predictions and preparations for the future of suffering people. Solidarity is one of the most effective weapons in the struggle against the oppression of the poor. Suffering creates an absolute necessity for solidarity. By examining what the Korean church and the South Africa church did and said in their struggle against military dictatorship and racial discrimination, we shall find the basis for solidarity as a political, social and spiritual weapon. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / D. Th. (Missiology)

Either relational contact with God is seen to be existentially attainable or God will become increasingly irrelevant to contemporary society. For Church identity and effectiveness as she serves the world, it is vital that God's initiating power can be seen to impact on this world. As response to fourteen symptoms the Church faces as 'crises,' an inclusive hermeneutic seeks fresh categories for a foundational spirituality capable of catalysing reform and transformation. This comprehensive foundational hermeneutic hypothesised is grounded on three foundational categories of experience, relationality and spiritual intuition. Any reception of such transcendence has to occur subjectively ‘in experience.’ Evasive as it is, experience is posited as a foundational category that needs to be rehabilitated through fundamental philosophy and theology, as well as interdisciplinary explorations. It will be shown that the challenges facing the contemporary Church are rooted in lost experience of transcendence. However the entry point experience provides is never to become narcissistically selfreferential but aims to establish a reciprocal relationship in faith. As an overarching category, dynamic relationality will need to be socially transformative. The deep 'God-person' relational mode, as it synthesises both human capacities and spiritual faculties, is experienced interiorly and as such is called spiritual intuition. It is argued that the notion of, and capacity for, intuition has been widely ignored and eroded. It is demonstrated that a 'reasonable intuition' is a more synthetic faculty 'naturally' open to illumination and infusion by the Spirit than an excessive traditional Church reliance on the workings of reason-intellect. Here the witness of the life of St Francis of Assisi allows simpler and accessible entry into the categories of affective experience and spiritual intuition under overarching relationality. Francis as model, when compared to other Saints, substantiates the three foundational categories. The conclusion chapter tests the foundational theory as it is applied to the fourteen challenges the Church faces. The results of this study, and its applications, offer a promising, fruitful humble metaphysic as 'solution' for the ‘Church in the world’ much in line with Pope Francis' recent approaches. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / D. Th. (Christian Spirituality)

Das Thema „Gastfreundschaft“ hat in den vergangenen Jahren neu das Interesse der Missionstheologie geweckt. Diese Masterarbeit setzt sich zum Ziel, herauszufinden, ob und inwieweit Gastfreundschaft eine Dimension für den missionalen Gemeindebau sein kann. Sie untersucht dazu biblisch-exegetische, missionstheologische, systematisch-theologische und Gemeindebauliteratur, ob sie in ihren Konzepten explizite oder implizite Merkmale oder Begriffe der Gastfreundschaft gebrauchen. Aus der Literaturanalyse werden Wortfelder ermittelt, wie beispielsweise Gottesbezug, Auftragsorien-tierung, Bedürfnisorientierung, Lern- und Veränderungsprozesse, Räume, Miteinander und auch Gren-zen, die Gastfreundschaft in ihrer Wesensart ausmachen. In einem zweiten Untersuchungsdurchgang wird aus diesen Zwischenerträgen eine Gastfreundschaftskultur entwickelt, die entlang des Kulturmo-dells von Geert Hofstede in vier Kategorien angelegt ist: Werte, Rituale, Symbole und Helden der Gastfreundschaft. Demnach legt Gastfreundschaft in ihrer Art u.a. viel Wert auf Großzügigkeit, Be-dürfnisorientierung, Integration und Gottesbezug. Daraus resultieren Rituale, wie z.B. das Einladen, die hohe Bedeutung, die Freundschaften und Beziehungen beigemessen wird, wie gefeiert wird, meist in Verbindung mit einer gemeinsamen Mahlzeit, bei der Dankbarkeit, Gotteslob und die Lebensfreude nicht zu kurz kommen. Die Kultur der Gastfreundschaft drückt sich insbesondere in Symbolen aus, wie beispielsweise in der Raumgestaltung, in Umarmung, im Essen und Trinken, dem Begriff Heimat oder Zuhause und durch praktische Hilfen u.a.. Helden der Gastfreundschaft sind Modelle, die zum Nachahmen einladen, wie z.B. Gott der Ursprung aller Gastfreundschaft selbst, Jesus Christus, bibli-sche Personen und Beispiele unserer Zeit, die im Kontext von Gemeindebau das Leitmotiv der Gast-freundschaft verfolgen. Diese Gastfreundschaftskultur wird der Qualität und Zielsetzung des „Missio-nalseins“ von Gemeinde gegenübergestellt, um zu erkunden, wie sich diese Lebenskultur dazu eignet, eine im missionalen Sinne einladende, gastfreundliche Gemeinde zu entwickeln. Die vorliegende Stu-die will am Ende nicht bei der theoretischen Ermittlung des Themas stehen bleiben. Dazu setzt sie ihre Ergebnisse an einem Beispiel in Bezug zur systemischen Organisationsentwicklung für die Gestaltung von Lern- und Veränderungsprozessen bei der Transformation einer Gemeindekultur hin zur Gast-freundschaft / In recent years, researchers in the field of missiology have re-discovered hospitality as a topic of inter-est. It is the purpose of this master thesis to ascertain if and to what extent hospitality can be a dimen-sion of missional church planting. This is achieved by examining literature on biblical exegesis, mis-sional theology, systematic theology and church planting for its explicit or implicit use of concepts and/or terminology related to hospitality. Literary analysis is used to identify word fields that define the nature of hospitality such as God focus, mission focus, focus on needs, learning and change pro-cesses, spaces, fellowship and limits. In a second step the results of the literary analysis are used for developing a culture of hospitality based on the four categories of Geert Hofstede's cultural model: values, rituals, symbols, and heroes of hospitality. According to this model, the key elements of hospi-tality are generosity, the focus on needs, integration, and God focus. These lead to rituals such as invi-tations, the high value placed on friendship and relationships, but also the way people celebrate, most-ly with a shared meal expressing gratitude, praise to God and the joy of living. Above all, the culture of hospitality is expressed through symbols such as decoration, embracing each other, sharing food and drink, the concept of home, practical help, etc. Heroes of hospitality are role models who inspire to be emulated such as God, the source of all hospitality, Jesus Christ, biblical characters, and those of our contemporaries who follow the leitmotif of hospitality in the church planting context. This culture of hospitality is compared to the quality and the purpose of the missional church in order to determine how this core culture can be useful for developing a missionally inviting and hospitable church. Final-ly, this thesis aims to go beyond the purely theoretical research into the topic. In order to achieve this, its results are applied to an example of the systemic organisational development to transform the cul-ture of a church for hospitality by shaping learning and change processes / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M. Th. (Missiology)

German text / Ausgehend von dem konkreten mehrdimensionalen missionalen Kirchenprojekt REFOmoabit ist es Ziel dieser Masterarbeit, eine Antwort auf die Frage zu geben, wie eine fruchtbare Integration von (1) gemeinschaftlichem Leben, (2) gesellschaftsrelevantem Gemeindebau und (3) Immobilienmanagement gelingen kann. Die aktuelle ekklesiologische Praxis und Erfahrung zeigt jedoch, dass es zu Spannungen zwischen dem Prinzip des gaben- und konsensbasierten Miteinanders, einerseits und der Entwicklung eines gesellschaftsrelevanten Gemeindebaus und einem die ersten beiden Bereiche unterstützenden Immobilienmanagements andererseits kommt. Infolgedessen soll im Rahmen dieser Arbeit die Frage nach der genauen Art und Ausprägung dieser Spannungen, ihren Ursachen und möglichen Lösungen, die eine wirklich fruchtbare Integration dieser drei Bereiche ermöglichen, untersucht und beantwortet werden. Dies erfolgt mit einem interdisziplinären Dreischritt, indem (a) soziologisch Art, Ausprägung und Ursache der vorfindlichen Spannungen analysiert werden, diese (b) theologisch reflektiert werden und abschließend (c) praktisch-theologische Handlungsmöglichkeiten als ekklesiologische Hilfestellungen für eine fruchtbare Integration entwickelt werden. / Based on the multidimensional church planting project REFOmoabit this dissertation aims to answer the question how a fruitful integration of (1) communal life, (2) societal relevant congregational development and (3) property estate management is possible. Current ecclesiological practice and experience has shown that tensions arise between the principle of gift- and consensus-based cooperation and transformative church planting as well as the real estate management that is supposed to support the other two areas. Therefore this dissertation aims to examine and answer questions about the exact nature and extent of these tensions, their causes and possible solutions that make a truly fruitful integration of these three areas possible. This takes place within an interdisciplinary approach by (a) analyzing the nature, extent and reason of the tensions sociologically, (b) examining them from a theological viewpoint and (c) offering practical theological courses of action as an ecclesiological aid for a fruitful integration. / Practical Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)