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<p>The thesis examines the relationship between John 20:30-31 and the purpose of the Fourth Gospel. It argues that the passage expresses a purpose which is reflected in both the structure and the content of the Gospel as a whole. This purpose is to convince the reader that faith in Jesus as the Christ, Son of God, can and indeed should be based on the signs as recorded in the Gospel. In order to achieve this purpose, the Gospel uses the following arguments: the reader is seeking salvation; salvation is attained through faith in Jesus; faith in Jesus can be based on his signs; even the reader who has not seen Jesus' signs himself can "witness" them through the agency of the Gospel. The thesis demonstrates where and how the Gospel develops these arguments.</p> <p>The thesis is intended to contribute to the discussion of several issues which are central to Johannine studies. It examines an aspect of the issue of the purpose of the Gospel which has not been the subject of extensive scholarly attention, namely the way in which the author(s) of the Gospel meant their document to function in the lives of its readers. In doing so, it discusses in detail three of the christological titles, "Christ", "Son of God", and "Prophet", and sheds light on the ways in which the Gospel demonstrates the appropriateness of these titles to Jesus. In addition, it argues against the interpretations of the term sēmeion as used in 20:30-31 and of the Gospel's view of a faith based on signs. Finally, the thesis offers some suggestions concerning the identity of the intended reader of the Gospel.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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When college ends and she has no plan, Anna stumbles her way into a convent, the last place she expected to find herself for the rest of her life. But convent life is not the escape she thought it might be, and before long, Anna is harassed by her anxiety and by a mysterious voice that invades her thoughts. Less than a year later, she is back at her childhood home, a place she thought she’d left forever. As she takes a job at her local parish and tries to rebuild a life she thought she had buried for good, Anna must come to terms with abuse in her past, with a family who refuses to acknowledge reality, and—perhaps—with a demonic battle she never asked for.

Yes / Faith-based social work is characterized by the recognition and acknowledgement of faith and faith-based values as significant sources of motivation and guidance. These may enhance professional values, but may also draw practitioners into direct conflict with secular values within the mainstream. This chapter explores the religious or faith-based origins of social work, the nature of faith-based practice, contemporary faith-based issues, and the global spread of social policies aimed at increasing the involvement of faith-based organizations in service delivery. It also seeks to highlight some of the dilemmas involved.

Some Names for Empty Space is a collection of poems that considers how poetry and language operate to define human experience, reconciling the 'empty spaces' between the self and the abstracted variables of all things. The poems here often find their impetus in fatherhood and a parent's efforts to explain the world to a child.

The function of patterns of faith experience and theology in religion and society forms part of the whole complex system of God, life and world views which operate amongst Zambian Presbyterians Christians. The dissertation endeavors to make an assessment of the place of faith and theology within the ambit of a Black Zambian and Presbyterian God-life-world view. This home grown African God-life-world view of Zambian Reformed Presbyterian making, is similar in some respects and differs in others with European and Western God, life and world views of the Reformed and Presbyterian brand. In the first chapter the stage for this dissertation is set. I do not claim to be exhaustive or definitive in discussing the mixture of faith patterns and theories of faith (theologies) from different parts of the Reformed/Presbyterian world. What plays an important operational role in this analysis and synthesis are what can be called a God, life and world pattern or view which is more or less the same as a sense making system, an ideology or a belief system. Therefore quite a number of pages are allotted to this phenomenon in the first chapter. Furthermore a broad outline of the basic points of departure of a contextual-historical approach which operate with a radical, integral and differential view of God, human life, and the physical world is spelled out. The last part of the chapter is devoted to provisional comments on a view of the experience of everyday faith and a theory of faith. The latter is the designation for what is usually called theology. In here I have tackled the problem of theology and human experience of faith from the angle of the traditional double sided or dualistic view of faith as a extraordinary supernatural and ordinary natural support structure for a discipline like theology. Theology is not intrinsically involved in people's faith experience and thus is not a real reflection of their everyday faith experience. When one is however emphasising that a faith (belief) pattern includes belief towards God, belief of the self (self-confidence) and belief towards the many neighbours as well as belief towards the physical-organic environment then one is closer in the neighbourhood of a radical and integral black African faith pattern and what we call a theory of faith. In chapter two the Reformed/Presbyterian legacy is discussed and reflected upon in terms of nine features of a Reformed/Presbyterian sense making system, ethos or God, life and world view which emerged in Reformed history since the days of John Calvin (1509-1564). Reformed-Presbyterian theologies, theories of faith and philosophies are examined as well as the major impact of Calvin on the characteristic features of Reformed God, life and world views or sense making systems. Some of the main features of these Reformed/Presbyterian sense making systems repetitively recur in the majority of Reformed experiential settings, communities and churches. The nine features or characteristics of a Reformed-Presbyterian ethos are the following: the well known soft duality of special and general; the social attitude of accepting every phenomenon and immediately start to criticize it; the tendency of pilgrimage through life; the idea of the extra-calvinisticum; the dual idea of special and general determination, that is the doctrine of election and the doctrine of providence and its strong encapsulation by a very strong theology of covenantal duality; the idea that a Reformed community or church is always in the process of reformation (ecclesia reformanda semper reformata); the doctrine of the dispensation of the gifts of the Spirit; the idea of a presbyter system and the democratic legacy that flows from it; and the regulative principle of the Church or the Kingdom of God? In chapter three the black-African-Zambian-Reformed-Presbyterian heritage is discussed in terms of the nine features discussed in chapter two. The idea in this chapter is to acknowledge the fact that an interchange, exchange and mixed appropriation between Reformed/Presbyterian contextual settings has taken and is taking place and that a Reformed/Presbyterian ethos is already incorporated and accommodated within the African milieu and experience. Our task in this chapter is to deal with the African reflections on faith and theology looking for black African similarities with the nine main features that we have detected as determinative of a Reformed/Presbyterian ethos. The predicament of non-African (European Western, Eastern and others) and Bantu-speaking black African experience manifests their differences in the realness and concreteness of their God-life-world views. Generally speaking, one of the main differences in the experience of faith and theology in the European Western and Black African Southern hemisphere contexts amount to the difference between reflective thinking experience as typically European Western and action directed reflective experience as the main emphasis of Black African experience. This entails that we must identify the foremost traits of European Western Reformed-Presbyterian theology and compare and contrast these with Black African, specifically Zambian Reformed-Presbyterian experience. The comparison and contrasting of these two broad contexts, that is European Western Reformed and Zambian Reformed are caught up in the complexities of a to and fro networking of Reformed ideas, clues and cues all over the world. There is more than one view of faith and theology and more than one God-life-world view in both the European cum Western and African ways of life. The existence of various views of faith, theology and God, life and the world explains the co-existence of these views of faith and theology and God, life and world views amongst African Christians. Africans and African Christians are not only Bantuspeaking and black because even if we take our white African counterparts out of the equation about who and what an African is, the Moroccans, the Egyptians, Algerians, Felani Hausas, Wollofs and others would surely disclaim such a statement. In chapter four theology as a theory of faith is discussed as aware reflection of everyday experiences of faith and belief that is far more important than doctrinal ideas that hover abstractly in the minds of ministers, pastors and theologians and is thus not intrinsically part of people's day to day experiences of faith and belief. A few markers on the way to a theory of faith as a functional paradigm is discussed. In order to do this four things have been touched upon: Firstly themes are compared in the Christian theological and philosophical world from both Eurocentric as well as the Afrocentric worlds. Secondly, theology as theory of faith is discussed as a concrete enterprise of aware reflection in the midst of the experience of a faith community or a church. Thirdly, some issues are highlighted which are analysed and synthesised in an attempt to expand a Reformed ethos and agenda by using clues, cues and hues from both Eurocentric and Afrocentric experiences of faith, belief and trust as well as the written and oral theological and faith theoretical reflections of these experiences. Finally, an attempt is made to interweave theories of faith from both contextual worlds as a functional paradigm. The desire to know God, oneself and other human beings as well as the physical-organic environment in this life in tandem and coterminously has a great bearing as a black African contribution to the ongoing building of a holistic Reformed/Presbyterian ethos or sense making system. / Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics / M.Th. (Systematic Theology)