The purpose of this study is to reveal that local churches are in a declining state. It further proves there is a need for strategies to turn around decline in local churches, with an emphasis on a case of Second Bethel, African Methodist Episcopal local church. To address the possible causes of the decline in local church membership, this study was conducted. The participants provided data indicating the causes of local church membership decline. The participants agreed that as per chapter four report what were the cause for this decline in membership This study presented several reasons why churches are declining in membership and possible strategies to curb a decline in membership into growing churches. / MA (Biblical Studies/Theology)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015.

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. / Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)

I have outlined some objections to soteriologies that presume that only some are given a chance of eternal life. Such soteriologies can include or exclude those mentally competent but lacking human evangelisation. Fundamental to evaluating soteriologies I have looked at both what sin is (being and doing) and what salvation consists in, as regards divine and human interaction. On the one side I have considered God's goodness - would such a being act unethically regarding man's eternity? On the other hand I have looked at whether, and if so in what way, man is required to respond - in what way or ways is chance (if at all) given. Finally I have considered views about those who die in infancy. Here I have tentatively suggested my own theory which seeks to presume that before death every human being may choose to accept of reject God, a choice integral (I suggest) to salvation. / Department of Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Systematic Theology)

This paper attempts to evaluate Training for Trainers (T4T) as an aid for developing healthy and sustained church planting movements (CPMs). The thesis is that Training for Trainers (T4T) can enable and sustain (by the Spirit’s power) healthy church planting movements because a discipleship process is built into the methodology that develops believers in their personal and communal growth and equips them to repeat the process with other individuals they reach. The very format of the T4T process provides a context for developing disciples inwardly and training disciples to minister outwardly. The T4T process continues over the course of months and years to systematically move believers through the essential stages of sustained church planting movements: Bridges in conversations with the lost from non-spiritual topics to the gospel in order to find those God is preparing (knowing whom to talk to and how to start) • Reproducible evangelism methods that are effective in the local context and can be learned by any new believer • Reproducible discipleship that addresses both short-term and long-term spiritual growth in a manner appropriate to the local worldview and able to be passed on by a new believer • Reproducible church models appropriate to the local context and able to be led and passed on by new believers • Leadership development and multiplication patterns that develop leaders rapidly in the context of ministry and enable the number of leaders to keep pace with the number of new churches. T4T moves each new generation of disciples (trainers) and churches through this process because it casts vision for and gives loving accountability for disciples to truly become trainers of others. It does this primarily through a three-thirds training process. T4T is training for trainers who will train trainers who will train trainers. T4T attempts to initiate movements of God in which at least four generations of new disciples and churches emerge. This paper evaluates T4T is based on case studies, survey instruments and biblical principles and then offers recommendations for CPM practitioners. / Christian Spirituality, Church History & Missiology / D. Th.(Missiology)

For all but thirteen years of the decades from 1952 to 2017, British Columbia was electorally dominated by the Social Credit Party and its ideological successor, the BC Liberal Party. These organizations represented the interests of business in opposition to the social democratic NDP, which has drawn a core support base from organized labour and the public sector middle class. This thesis frames the Social Credit-BC Liberal political formation as a ruling class bloc that maintained hegemony by switching between distinct rhetorical modes as the political situation required or allowed, with economic austerity, framed as objective necessity, on one hand, and populism, employing overt moralism and down-to-earth posturing, on the other. I posit that both modes operated to mask the class conflict at the heart of the neoliberal project of free markets, public sector reduction, and social atomization that has attained the status of political and economic “common sense” since its policies began to be widely adopted around the world in the late 1970s. After providing a background for the rise of Social Credit in British Columbia under W.A.C. Bennett (premier from 1952-1972), this thesis tracks the continuities and changes of the province’s hegemonic bloc, using welfare policies and poverty discourses as a focus. I consider the party’s transition from a populist one that appealed to the province’s evangelical Christian population to a modernized, neoliberal party under Bill Bennett’s leadership (1975-1986). Exploring the rationales surrounding the cuts to welfare funding enacted under the Social Credit governments of Bill Bennett and Bill Vander Zalm and the BC Liberal government of Gordon Campbell (2001-2011), I analyze how neoliberal and populist styles were employed, what the relationship between the two was, and the extent to which moralism was part of both styles/discourses regarding poverty. I also look at the extent to which the collective solidarity of anti-poverty activists and progressive religious groups was able to push back against neoliberal and populist policies, resisting the individualism that neoliberalism attempts to enforce. In these ways, this thesis seeks to contribute to making neoliberalism a topic of critical political analysis and deliberation at a time when its policies are often framed as non-ideological. / Graduate

La thèse porte sur la poésie de Marguerite de Navarre et Vittoria Colonna. Elle se concentre sur la codification de leurs poésies spirituelles et examine comment des formes littéraires traditionnelles sont combinées avec des idées religieuses nouvelles et transformées. Pour ce faire, la partie théorique de cette thèse développe une conception du code qui est ensuite appliquée aux poèmes des deux poètes. Dans une partie historique, la thèse explore l’évangélisme en Italie. Elle examine s’il existe en Italie un code évangélique comparable au code évangélique français. La thèse examine ensuite les sonnets spirituels de Vittoria Colonna. Ces poèmes sont édités et traduits en annexe. L’étude analyse également le poème "Le Balladin" de Clément Marot. Le corpus des textes analysés de Marguerite de Navarre comprend les rondeaux, les dizains ainsi que les chansons spirituelles. La thèse se focalise sur l’analyse de la codification et de l’interdépendance de la forme littéraire et de la pensée religieuse. / The thesis deals with the poetry of Marguerite of Navarre and Vittoria Colonna. It focuses on the codification of their spiritual poetry and examines how traditional literary forms are combined with new religious ideas and how they are transformed. To do this, the theoretical part of this thesis develops a conception of code that is then applied to the poems of the two poets. In a historical part, the thesis explores evangelism in Italy. It examines whether there is an evangelical code in Italy comparable to the French evangelical code. The thesis then examines the spiritual sonnets of Vittoria Colonna. These poems are edited and translated in an appendix. The study also analyses Clément Marot's poem "Le Balladin". The corpus of texts by Marguerite of Navarre includes the rondeaux, the dizains and the chansons spirituelles. The thesis focuses on the analysis of the codification and of the interdependence of literary form and religious thought.

Detractors of sentimental literature argue that such novels are unoriginal and concerned primarily with emotions. Feminist scholars redeem the reputation of sentimental literature to an extent. At present, a multitude of approaches present sentimental authors as active agents, engaging with public issues. Building upon the scholarship of prominent feminist historians and literary critics, this thesis provides direct evidence that three female authors embrace the responsibilities of being a social critic. The Wide, Wide World (1850) by Susan Warner, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851) by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and The Hidden Hand (1859) by Emma D.E.N. Southworth provide unique commentaries on the separation of the private and public spheres, market revolution, and religion. Decisive differences between the authors’ opinions reveal a high degree of engagement with the public issues.

This dissertation examines the spiritual poetry of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) in light of three distinct but related contexts: Italian Evangelism of the Catholic Reformation, the Italian lauda tradition, and Renaissance Augustinianism. After reviewing the reception and critical history of Michelangelo’s poetry, chapter one presents the anthropological approach of the present study as an effective means of illuminating the poet’s spiritual verses by considering what they may have meant – collectively and individually – to the poet himself. Chapter two analyzes Michelangelo’s lyrics inspired by Vittoria Colonna with respect to the Spirituali of the Ecclesia viterbiensis in general and to the Beneficio di Cristo and personal letters of Vittoria Colonna in particular. It shows that the portrayal of Vittoria Colonna in this poetry as an instrument of grace effecting Michelangelo’s spiritual refashioning, rebirth, and renewal reflects a theology of the Holy Spirit that was dear to the Italian Evangelical community and central to their self-perception. The third chapter presents the Italian lauda tradition and its mystical verses addressing Christ and the Holy Spirit as an inspiration for Michelangelo who, in a later spiritual sonnet, borrowed directly from one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s laude. This chapter shows how Michelangelo’s verse is informed by a long, popular Christian tradition in the vernacular. The discussion in chapter four centres on Dante’s Commedia and on the Augustinian allegoreses that permeate Landino’s Comento to the grand epic. These two works, it is argued, constitute sources as important as Petrarch’s Canzoniere for Michelangelo’s Augustinian vision of a mystico-moral ascent through conversion. This dissertation concludes that for Michelangelo poetry became an instrument of spiritual devotion. His mystical verses reveal a Catholic intellectual versant in Italian rhetoric of the Catholic Reformation and a poet inspired by Paul, Augustine, and the Italian lauda tradition.

This dissertation examines the spiritual poetry of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) in light of three distinct but related contexts: Italian Evangelism of the Catholic Reformation, the Italian lauda tradition, and Renaissance Augustinianism. After reviewing the reception and critical history of Michelangelo’s poetry, chapter one presents the anthropological approach of the present study as an effective means of illuminating the poet’s spiritual verses by considering what they may have meant – collectively and individually – to the poet himself. Chapter two analyzes Michelangelo’s lyrics inspired by Vittoria Colonna with respect to the Spirituali of the Ecclesia viterbiensis in general and to the Beneficio di Cristo and personal letters of Vittoria Colonna in particular. It shows that the portrayal of Vittoria Colonna in this poetry as an instrument of grace effecting Michelangelo’s spiritual refashioning, rebirth, and renewal reflects a theology of the Holy Spirit that was dear to the Italian Evangelical community and central to their self-perception. The third chapter presents the Italian lauda tradition and its mystical verses addressing Christ and the Holy Spirit as an inspiration for Michelangelo who, in a later spiritual sonnet, borrowed directly from one of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s laude. This chapter shows how Michelangelo’s verse is informed by a long, popular Christian tradition in the vernacular. The discussion in chapter four centres on Dante’s Commedia and on the Augustinian allegoreses that permeate Landino’s Comento to the grand epic. These two works, it is argued, constitute sources as important as Petrarch’s Canzoniere for Michelangelo’s Augustinian vision of a mystico-moral ascent through conversion. This dissertation concludes that for Michelangelo poetry became an instrument of spiritual devotion. His mystical verses reveal a Catholic intellectual versant in Italian rhetoric of the Catholic Reformation and a poet inspired by Paul, Augustine, and the Italian lauda tradition.

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)