This research is conducted within a postmodern and social construction discourse and in context of narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy. It has been influenced by the voices of five contextual theologies: a participatory approach to practical theology, narrative, contextual, feminist and liberation theologies. The participatory action research seeks to highlight how narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy with children at Mary Ward Children’s Home, Kwekwe, Zimbabwe creates an inclusive and caring community. It argues that though residential childcare facilities/children’s homes are considered the last resort in the childcare system, we are witnessing not their demise but their development due to the increased numbers of AIDS-orphans and other vulnerable children in our society. The research aims were:  To develop inclusive narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy practices at the home.  To co-create narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy practices that respect the knowledges of the children involved.  To develop an eco-spirituality as participatory pastoral care and therapy practice.  To explore and co-author creative practices of doing narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy practices which will help the participants integrate into the Home and society. In conclusion, suggestions are made for a narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy practice that is inclusive and caring. In terms of the experience of children living with disability and experiencing loss, as well as those children who have been abused, it is specifically described as therapeutic, empowering and life-giving. Therefore, home managers, caregivers and pastoral therapists are invited into an ethical and passionate practice of pastoral care and therapy that has the potential to transform the lives of children in a residential child care facility. / Thesis (D. Th. (Practical Theology))

Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology

This research is conducted within a postmodern and social construction discourse and in context of narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy. It has been influenced by the voices of five contextual theologies: a participatory approach to practical theology, narrative, contextual, feminist and liberation theologies. The participatory action research seeks to highlight how narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy with children at Mary Ward Children’s Home, Kwekwe, Zimbabwe creates an inclusive and caring community. It argues that though residential childcare facilities/children’s homes are considered the last resort in the childcare system, we are witnessing not their demise but their development due to the increased numbers of AIDS-orphans and other vulnerable children in our society. The research aims were:  To develop inclusive narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy practices at the home.  To co-create narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy practices that respect the knowledges of the children involved.  To develop an eco-spirituality as participatory pastoral care and therapy practice.  To explore and co-author creative practices of doing narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy practices which will help the participants integrate into the Home and society. In conclusion, suggestions are made for a narrative and participatory pastoral care and therapy practice that is inclusive and caring. In terms of the experience of children living with disability and experiencing loss, as well as those children who have been abused, it is specifically described as therapeutic, empowering and life-giving. Therefore, home managers, caregivers and pastoral therapists are invited into an ethical and passionate practice of pastoral care and therapy that has the potential to transform the lives of children in a residential child care facility. / Thesis (D. Th. (Practical Theology))

The study commenced by identifying existing forms of Christian education using top-down education within South African Baptist Convention churches. The research established that current models of education were unsatisfactory, as they were individualist, spiritualised and lacking contextual insight A need for Christian education showing greater sensitivity to context was highlighted. A descriptive study ensued implementing Osmers'descriptive-empirical tasks within the field of Practical Theology. Informed by literature relating to liberation theology, critical pedagogy and South African contextual theology, Groome's Shared Praxis Approach (SPA) to education was selected for exploration as a type of contextual Christian education.The research had two objectives.Firstly it explored the five educational movements of SPA, as they were outworked in the township church. Secondly, it sought to establish whether SPA could potentially serve as a type of contextual Christian education within the South African context. SPA was therefore outworked within a Baptist Convention church in the township of Munsieville. Following a qualitative approach, the research observed two Bible Studies implementing SPA and undertook six semi-structured interviews.These were recorded and analysed. Conceptualisation of the data involved content analysis from which codes and categories emerged, as well as drawing on the literature as a lens to analyse and interpret that data. Inter-linked characteristics of contextual Christian education emerged from the data. These related to:contextual stories told by participants; cultural understandings of the Christian Story, and; critical reflection concerning praxis. The findings highlighted that SPA encouraged participants to engage in a participatory, praxis approach to education. Participants read the Christian Story dialogically; in community 'with' each other, as well as in relation to their context. Accordingly, the Christian education process emerged from the bottom-up, enabling participants and facilitator to co-create knowledge. The consequences of this education process indicated liberativc characteristics. The implications ofthese findings were explored. The study's pra xis cycle concludes by offering recommendations for both implementation and further study. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

This study explores the operations of Sesotho masculinity: its dominant ideas and practices and their effects on Basotho women and men and this latter‟s resistance to a gender-ethical consciousness gaining momentum in Lesotho. It challenges a deep running belief among the Basotho that being born male necessarily means being born into a superior social position and status that is naturally and divinely sanctioned. It investigates how the dominant postcolonial discourse called sekoele (a return to the traditions of the ancestors) and the Christian churches‟ discourses of the “true”/“authentic” Christian life, framed by the classical biblical and confessional dogmatic traditions, actually support and sustain this belief and so reinforce the imbalance of power in favour of men in the order of gender relations in Lesotho. On the contrary, through the principles of the contextual theologies of liberating praxis, social construction theory, a narrative approach to therapy, gender-ethical consciousness and participatory approach, the study argues that masculinity and ways of being and thinking about men are socially constructed through historical and cultural processes and practices. It is in these processes and practices that Basotho men have been and continue to be advantaged and privileged over women. This study has challenged this situation by tracing the existence of alternative, more ethical ways of being and thinking about men in those historical and cultural processes and practices; ways which are more open to women and children and their wellbeing in the everyday life interactions. In this way, the study argues for a gender-ethical consciousness, which, in particular, invites Basotho men to engage in a reflection on their participation in a culture and practices which oppress the other, especially women and children. It invites Basotho men to accountability and responsibility. In this sense a gender-ethical consciousness is understood as watershed of masculinity in Lesotho. The participation of a group of Basotho men who offered to reflect on their relationship with the dominant masculinities, demonstrates how Basotho men are struggling to transform yet they fill us with the hope that change is possible. / Humanities Social Sciences and Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology with specialisation in Pastoral Therapy)

This study explores the operations of Sesotho masculinity: its dominant ideas and practices and their effects on Basotho women and men and this latter‟s resistance to a gender-ethical consciousness gaining momentum in Lesotho. It challenges a deep running belief among the Basotho that being born male necessarily means being born into a superior social position and status that is naturally and divinely sanctioned. It investigates how the dominant postcolonial discourse called sekoele (a return to the traditions of the ancestors) and the Christian churches‟ discourses of the “true”/“authentic” Christian life, framed by the classical biblical and confessional dogmatic traditions, actually support and sustain this belief and so reinforce the imbalance of power in favour of men in the order of gender relations in Lesotho. On the contrary, through the principles of the contextual theologies of liberating praxis, social construction theory, a narrative approach to therapy, gender-ethical consciousness and participatory approach, the study argues that masculinity and ways of being and thinking about men are socially constructed through historical and cultural processes and practices. It is in these processes and practices that Basotho men have been and continue to be advantaged and privileged over women. This study has challenged this situation by tracing the existence of alternative, more ethical ways of being and thinking about men in those historical and cultural processes and practices; ways which are more open to women and children and their wellbeing in the everyday life interactions. In this way, the study argues for a gender-ethical consciousness, which, in particular, invites Basotho men to engage in a reflection on their participation in a culture and practices which oppress the other, especially women and children. It invites Basotho men to accountability and responsibility. In this sense a gender-ethical consciousness is understood as watershed of masculinity in Lesotho. The participation of a group of Basotho men who offered to reflect on their relationship with the dominant masculinities, demonstrates how Basotho men are struggling to transform yet they fill us with the hope that change is possible. / Humanities Social Sciences and Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology with specialisation in Pastoral Therapy)