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No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

This study investigates the dynamic of hope, specifically the Christian hope as it is expressed in the expectation of Christ's return. This belief has a number of implications, and affects the believer's attitude to God, man and the world, the relationship to past, present and future events, and the understanding of meaning and purpose in life. The examination of the belief in the parousia is primarily concerned with the question "why?" The question "Why the parousia?" is basic to this thesis, and the various sections reflect the different modes of answer. Section One examines the belief as it is portrayed in the New Testament by a brief review of its role and importance (with several examples), followed by a more interpretative analysis of the concept of the "God who comes," and the implications of the parousia parables. Section Two provides a wide-ranging summary of the different manifestations of the parousia hope in Christian history, along with some comment and analysis of its influences and consequences. Section Three illustrates the implications and effects of a strong parousia belief through an account of the nineteenth century Millerite movement. Section Four, enters into greater detail with an examination of the role that the parousia belief plays within a group that strongly affirms its importance: the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This examination is both on a personal and community level, and provides considerable material for understanding the factors influencing the adoption and consequent effects of this belief. Section Five reviews the interpretation of the parousia belief in modern theology and comments on the relative attitudes and outlooks that result both from an acceptance of the belief and from its denial. This leads on to a discussion of the concept of the "delay," a major influence on the parousia belief in contemporary thought. Section Six provides some synthesis of the various elements of the parousia belief, and also indicates other more abstract implications and components. The parousia belief is seen as a part of an ordered belief structure; then as a major belief in terms of hope, consummation, termination, purpose, vindication and so on. Yet finally it is the temporal aspect so frequently noted in other Sections that is of greatest importance, and the interaction of time and the parousia provides the conclusion -- the concept of a dynamic, time-related belief that activates the present out of the future.

Lai Mei Fung. / "June 2012." / Thesis (M.Div.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references. / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / Chapter CHAPTER ONE: --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter I. --- Problem Statement and Research Question --- p.1 / Chapter II. --- Statement of Purpose --- p.3 / Chapter III. --- Methodology and Delimitation --- p.4 / Chapter IV. --- "Definition of the Term: Hope, Pastoral Care and Positive Psychology" --- p.4 / Chapter V. --- Significance of this Study --- p.8 / Chapter VI. --- Overview: Structure of this Thesis --- p.8 / Chapter CHAPTER TWO: --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.10 / Chapter I. --- Historical Development of Hope Construct: No Consensus on Hope --- p.10 / Chapter II. --- Theological Approach: Pastoral Literature of Hope --- p.15 / Chapter III. --- Psychological Approach: Positive Psychology of Hope --- p.17 / Chapter IV. --- Literature About the Interdisciplinary Discussion on the Topic of Hope … --- p.19 / Chapter V. --- Summary --- p.20 / Chapter CHAPTER THREE: --- THEORETICAL FOUNDATION --- p.21 / Chapter I. --- Why are Charles Rick Snyder and Andrew D. Lester chosen? --- p.21 / Chapter II. --- Psychological Perspective: Snyder's Hope Theory in Positive Psychology --- p.23 / What is Hope? Looking Hope Through a Psychological Lens --- p.23 / "Context: Making Excuses, Cognitive Influence and Fritz Heider" --- p.24 / "Content: Goal, Pathway and Agency" --- p.26 / Chapter III. --- Theological Perspective: Lester's Notion of Hope in Pastoral Care --- p.29 / What is Hope? Looking Hope Through a Theological Lens --- p.29 / Context: Experience of Struggling and Existential Influence --- p.29 / Content: Future and Transfinite Hope --- p.32 / Chapter IV. --- Summary --- p.35 / Chapter CHAPTER FOUR: --- COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS IN PRACTICE --- p.36 / Chapter I. --- Common Ground: Hope is a Virtue --- p.36 / Positive Psychology: Hope is a Virtue for Human Flourishing --- p.37 / Pastoral Care: Hope as a Theological Virtue --- p.39 / Chapter II. --- Tension in the Practical Life Context: Daily Life and End-of-Life Context --- p.41 / Hope in Daily Life: Empirical Research and Operative Measurement --- p.41 / Hope in the End-of-life Context: Cognitive vs Existential Approach --- p.44 / Chapter CHAPTER FIVE: --- "FINDING, SUGGESTION AND CONCLUSION" --- p.51 / Chapter I. --- Finding and Discussion --- p.51 / "Whether: Yes, Positive Psychology Contributes Hope-nurturing" --- p.51 / How: Pastoral Theology Should Maintain its Indispensable Role --- p.52 / Chapter II. --- Limitation and Suggestion for Further Research --- p.55 / Chapter III. --- Conclusion --- p.56 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.58

This dissertation explores the question of hope in the nuclear age by examining a movement within the North American Christian tradition known as dispensationalism. It concentrates specifically on one author, Hal Lindsey, whose books on the "end-times" are the basis for much of the current Christian apocalyptic thinking on this continent. There are two fundamental questions: (1) What does Lindsey's dispensational interpretation of God and Divine providence do to his understanding of hope?; (2) Does Lindsey's interpretation of the hope contribute anything to an articulation of hope in the nuclear age? In response to the first question, it is determined that Lindsey's Theology is governed by a providentialism which controls both his doctrine of God and his understanding of hope. History is controlled by a providential plan to which everything, even God, is bound. This plan ends with the destruction of the planet. Thus, hope, in Lindsey's terms, can only emerge after the destruction of the present order. In answer to the second question, it is explained that while Lindsey's apocalypticism gives faith a strong motivation and the sense of a limit to human pride, it undermines human responsibility for the planet and diminishes the ethical dimension of the gospel's call to discipleship.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DD (Pastoral Family Therapy))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

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Emil Ludwig Fackenheim became a Rabbi even as the Holocaust was claiming the lives of six million Jews. Further study, first in Scotland and then in Canada, brought him to an impressive academic career in philosophy, to which he committed much of his life and writings. Yet he was also driven to try to respond theologically to the Shoa, so as to offer Judaism a genuine alternative to the nineteenth century tradition of liberal Judaism which had not been able to withstand or fight against National Socialism when Hitler came to political power. By going behind that failed nineteenth century tradition, primarily in dialogue with the thought of Rosenzweig and Buber, Fackenheim thought, by the middle of the sixth decade of the twentieth century, that he had rediscovered a solid core for post-Auschwitz Jewish faith: one rooted in a recovery of supernatural revelation, of God's presence in, and the messianic goal of, history. The Six Day War of June 1967 threw his careful reconstruction of Jewish faith into disarray, however. Facing a second Holocaust in one lifetime; and with an acute awareness that once again the Jewish people stood alone, Fackenheim raised questions about God and history and the Messianic which utterly destroyed his reconstruction. Even as he struggled with the crisis, however, he began to discern that hope had become a commandment. He began a process of even more profound reconstruction (or "destructive recovery") of the faith that radically reshaped the possibility of hope for Jewish faith in a post-Shoa world. And Christian theologians in dialogue with him find it necessary to embark on a destructive recovery of hope for the Christian tradition as an authentically Christian response to Auschwitz. Emerging from that dialogue is a fresh appreciation of the self-critical tradition of the theology of the cross.

Nobody has a safeguard against loss. All people experience loss and the accompanying grief process during their lifetime. Grieving is a complex process. There are many different forms of grief. The grief process is understood in this study as identifiable moments rather than successive stages. The moments of grief are experienced on an unconscious level and vary in intensity. The role of the counsellor is to facilitate the process of bringing the experiences of grief into the conscious. This provides the counselee with the opportunity to work through his or her experience of loss. The contention of this study is that an existential experience of God’s presence can counteract the despair often associated with loss and the grief process. A method of story telling is used to bring hopeless stories into the empathic presence of God. Hope then becomes possible. A person’s experience of God is articulated by means of metaphors. Some of these are shared with the faith community as a whole, whereas other metaphors express the person’s individual experience of God. The different God images function in relation to one another. This study investigates how images of God can be harmful or helpful to the counselee in the grief process. The use of imagery assists in bringing the person’s perceptions of God to conscious awareness. By means of questions asked from a not-knowing position the counsellor helps to facilitate the telling of their story of grief, the story of God’s presence, and eventually their new story of hope for the future. The counselee experiences consolation, healing, liberation and a victory which becomes an existential reality in God’s presence. This pneumatic event is understood as God’s deliverance through Jesus Christ from a situation of hopelessness. This liberation takes place here-and-now. At the same time it is open toward the future. / Thesis (PhD (Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

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