Syftet med det här arbetet är att få en insyn i vad förskolebarn har för tankar om de frågor som berör döden. Frågeställningen som besvaras är: ”Vad har förskolebarn för tankar om döden?” Kvalitativa intervjuer har skett med tio förskolebarn i åldrarna fyra till sex år vilka ligger till grund för undersökningen i arbetet. Även teckningar av barnen som förtydligar deras tankar ingår i undersökningen. Förskolebarnen tillhör samma förskola i Värmland. Det som sägs i intervjuerna kan inte generaliseras att gälla alla förskolebarn, utan gäller enbart för de förskolebarn som intervjuerna är utförda med. Undersökningsresultatet påvisar att förskolebarn har en öppen syn på döden. Barnen har haft tankar om det mesta som berör ämnet. Deras teckningar visade också en bred variation av tolkningar av döden. / The purpose of this thesis is to gain an insight into pre-school pupils’ thoughts concerning death. The question at issue is: “What thoughts do pre-school pupils have concerning death”? Qualitative interviews have been done with ten pre-school pupils of four to six years of age which are the foundation of this work. Drawings by the children that clarify their thoughts are also included in the thesis. The pupils all go to the same pre-school in Värmland. Everything that is said in the interviews is only applicable to the pre-school pupils that have been interviewed and can not be generalized to apply to other pre-school children. This thesis proves that pre-school pupils have an open mind regarding death. The children have had a wide range of thoughts on the subject. Their drawings also showed a wide range of interpretations regarding death.

En undersökning av den amerikanska feminist- och befrielseteologen Carter Heywards syn på andlighet och sexualitet. Undersökningen visar att Heyward med utgångspunkt i en relationell teologi ser både andlighet och sexualitet som lika viktiga aspekter av en autentiskt ömsesidig relation mellan människor.

In this essay I plan to mainly write about the Christian church. However, I will shortly mention other parishes. In the first part I will in the first chapter write how the church saw earlier on HBLT (Homo-, Bisexual, Lesbians and Transgender) people. In the second chapter how the situation is today and finally in the third chapter I will try to see how the situation is in the future in both in a positive and negative aspect. In the second part I will write about Troy Perry, the founder of M.C.C. Metropolitan Community Churches). In the first chapter I will write shortly about when he was growing up, in the second about his vocation to become a minister and in the third chapter about his founding of M.C.C. In the third and last part I will in the first chapter write about the first years, in the second chapter about how it is today and in the third and last chapter what the elders in the church sees how the future will look like. My main question is to see if M.C.C. is needed even in the future. / I denna uppsats tänker jag skriva om den framför allt kristna kyrkan. Även om jag kommer att beröra andra församlingar i texten, först och främst islam. I den första delen tänker jag i första avsnittet skriva om hur kyrkan har sett på HBT (Homo-, Bisexuella och Transpersoner). I det andra avsnittet hur det ser ut i dag. I det tredje avsnittet hur det kan komma att se ut i framtiden. Både vad jag tror och vad jag hoppas. Kursivering betyder att ordet finns i ordförklaringarna. I den andra delen tänker jag skriva om Troy Perry (M.C.C.’s grundare). I första delen berättar jag lite om hans uppväxt. Andra avsnittet om hans kallelse till präst och i det tredje när han grundar M.C.C. (Metropolitan Comunity Churches) I den sista och tredje och sista delen tänker jag i första avsnittet skriva om M.C.C. och kyrkans första tid I andra avsnittet hur det ser ut i dag och slutligen i det tredje avsnittet hur kyrkans ledning ser på framtiden. Min frågeställning är om M.C.C. behövs även i framtiden.

The New Evangelism, a term popularized by Paul VI and a primary concern of John Paul II, articulates the Catholic Church's reply to the appeal of the Council Fathers for renewed gospel proclamation in the modern age. Theology observes copious permutations of the New Evangelism, and these competing narratives cover a variety of perspectives. My project explores the question of the New Evangelism's meaning within United States Catholicism amidst its various interpretations by applying Paul Ricoeur's theory of narrative to this multiplicity of configurations. Ricoeur's theory actually anticipated the contemporary situation: as new interpretations challenged sedimentation, multiple reconfigurations of the Church's call to proclaim were the inevitable result, in light of story's power upon human imagination. In the reciprocal dialectic between historical consciousness and personal identity, story informs each and is informed by each--an epistemological circle which allows for multiple reconfigurations when narratives engage imagination. My application of Ricoeur's theory will indicate that theology is not about the New Evangelism so much as it is about New Evangelisms, and that the Church may embrace a breathing room for multiple voices without losing herself to the vacuum of relativism nor to the suffocation of autocracy. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Theology / PhD; / Dissertation;

The premise for this study is the question how we should relate to people with different religious beliefs. The aim is to examine if an existence characterized by a religious diversity should affect the certainty and confidence in our faith. To answer my question I have turned to the philosophers David Basinger, Mikael Stenmark, William Lane Craig and Robert McKims different views on this issue. Using an approach based on a comparative method and argument analysis I have then assessed their different opinions in the matter. Based on my own discussion of these arguments I conclude that a religious diversity should imply a reduction in our own religious confidence and that it should be reduced in relation to the amount of disagreement that exist between conflicting religious perspectives in an specific case and matter. This may also foster a reduction of religious intolerance through a nuanced of our own belief while highlighting the conceptions and values in our own religion that stresses tolerance.

Becoming an effective agent of development in the challenging and complex context of the development NGO in Sub-Saharan Africa necessitates prioritizing learning and adaptation. But NGOs are often not characterized by such a strong learning culture and commitment; and Christian NGOs are no exception. Reforming both the commitment to learning and the structures that support it is a pressing challenge facing Christian NGOs committed to being effective agents of development. Such reform requires careful analysis of the context of Sub-Saharan Africa, special consideration of the complex broader socio-political structure of the NGO world, and systematic research into understanding organizational dynamics that facilitate learning. Data from this research contributes to building an integrated learning model. Applying this model through a case study of specific Christian NGO—World Vision Burundi—leads to both identifying factors that undermine learning and proposing a set of recommendations that will help this NGO become a more effective learning organization.

Modern societies are for the most part pluralistic in their compositions and world views. As such, we are given a variety of possibilities to embrace in our everyday lives and social interactions. The plethora of religious choice is a prime example of societal pluralism. John Hick is an eminent proponent of religious pluralism. His adoption of the religious pluralist stance arises from his experience and observations of various religions and their practices wherein he has noted similarities in the development of moral individuals in spite of vastly different and exclusive truth claims made by their religious systems. Hick, in a huge leap of faith, believes these similarities among such great differences must indicate a unitary source of revelation from a Transcendent Ultimate Reality to humankind sometime during the great Axial Age of human development more than two thousand years ago.<p> Religious pluralism, in its Hickean formulation, is a call for individuals to not only abandon their religions claims to exclusive truth about the Transcendent Ultimate Reality but also to reduce religious dogmas to their essential elements and modify them in order to preclude contradictory assertions that would exclude other religious systems. The benefits would be to reduce or eliminate religious intolerance and claims to superiority; incidents of religious violence should also be expected to decrease.<p> This thesis critically examines Hicks thesis and finds that religion has a greater role to play in individual lives than Hick acknowledges. For those with weakly held religious beliefs, the call to religious pluralism may find appeal. However, for those with strongly held religious views, operating within religious structures that serve their needs and eschatological hopes, the adoption of religious pluralism of the Hickean variety may cause them to abandon something that is working well for them without replacing it with something of equal benefit. In the final analysis, I find Hicks call to embrace religious pluralism to be unpersuasive since it is not in itself a religious system; it is, rather, a philosophical system which attempts to address the epistemological challenges associated with the myriad systems of faith and belief found within the great world religions.

This study investigated the psychological experience of losing faith in God, within the context of fundamentalist Christianity. Nine former fundamentalist Christians were interviewed about their experience of losing faith. Data analysis was guided by principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (Smith, 2004), an inductive qualitative approach that identifies themes to generate a description of an experience's essence. Themes were classified into three domains (Experience of Christianity, Transition out of Christianity, and Experience of Unbelief). Participants' transition was characterized by emotional shifts (associated with a loss of trust in, or loyalty to, God) and intellectual shifts (associated with a loss of belief in God's existence). Two typologies of experience emerged within the Experience of Unbelief, one characterized by a sense of relief and the other by a sense of struggle. The findings are discussed in relation to theories of identity and attachment, and are used to generate recommendations for counselling practice.

This thesis examines the spiritual development of students participating in international study programs. A baseline questionnaire was administered to 64 students traveling to Kenya, Ecuador and Jordan for four to six weeks during the summer of 2010. Fifteen students were then selected to participate in pre-travel and post-travel interviews. Using Fowler’s (1981) theory of faith development, students’ international experiences were analysed for dissonance and new beginnings as an extension of their pre-travel spiritual journeys. Students’ observations and perceptions of their host country’s religion are shown to be filtered through their program curriculum. While the majority of student participants in this study did not adhere to any formal system of beliefs, the narratives of some students suggest that their academic field of study and a related passion to help the world provide a unifying narrative for their ultimate environment.

This thesis examines the spiritual development of students participating in international study programs. A baseline questionnaire was administered to 64 students traveling to Kenya, Ecuador and Jordan for four to six weeks during the summer of 2010. Fifteen students were then selected to participate in pre-travel and post-travel interviews. Using Fowler’s (1981) theory of faith development, students’ international experiences were analysed for dissonance and new beginnings as an extension of their pre-travel spiritual journeys. Students’ observations and perceptions of their host country’s religion are shown to be filtered through their program curriculum. While the majority of student participants in this study did not adhere to any formal system of beliefs, the narratives of some students suggest that their academic field of study and a related passion to help the world provide a unifying narrative for their ultimate environment.