This study was set up to determine how the concept of biblical salvation is understood within liberation theology and how the concept is perceived from Pentecostal standpoint with the aim of developing a theological framework to challenge the dehumanising influences in contemporary society. The central argument of this thesis is that, there are irreconcilable differences between the salvation espoused by liberation theology's praxeological epistemology and the Pentecostal understanding of the concept etymologically and hermeneutically speaking. The study further probes whether Pentecostalism can provide the necessary theological framework that can be used to challenge the perceived dehumanising influences in contemporary society. The study achieved its purpose by setting meaningful objectives and following the appropriate research methodologies. Firstly, the study employed in-depth textual analysis, historiography, lexicology, and hermeneutic principles to understand the etymology of salvation from previous scholarship. This effort helped to elucidate differences that exist between liberation theology and Pentecostal renderings of the concept. Secondly, the concerns of existing contributors on the subject were evaluated by researching historical, linguistic and textual materials as well as exegetical analysis of relevant texts of Scripture. Thirdly, an in-depth literature analysis was undertaken to ascertain liberation theology's hermeneutic methodologies. This is necessary to establish whether the movement is more interested in promoting its ideologies and preunderstandings rather than biblical salvation. Fourthly, it was necessary to review the deep concerns expressed by liberation theology epistemology without compromising the message of the Gospel. This was achieved by a thorough analysis of social ministries undertaken by Progressive Pentecostals across the globe. Fifthly, the study evaluated the Pentecostal criticisms of liberation theology to see if there is any justification for that. This was achieved through an in-depth exegetical and hermeneutic analysis using word studies, theological dictionaries, bible commentaries, and by reviewing scholarly articles on the subject matter. Lastly, by analysing the difference between Pentecostal and liberation theologies, it was clear that their methods of operations are different. This goes to explain why Pentecostalism is growing exponentially while liberation theology is declining. The outcome of this analysis also explains why Pentecostalism is a better alternative in addressing the challenges facing our global community. / PhD (Dogmatics), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Text in Afrikaans / The hypothesis debated here is that a critical reading process leads to a responsible use of the Bible. The metaphor of birth and growth is used autobiographically in order to illustrate the mastering of a critical reading process. Fundamentalism as condition before the birth indicates a pre-critical reading and understanding of the Bible. The transition to a critical reading and understanding contains certain psychological effects for the reader. In some instances it may even be called a painful birth process. The growing process progresses slowly. Concepts like inspiration, canon, Scriptural authority, the Bible as Word of God are once more scrutinised in the light of a critical reading process. Aspects that need to be settled with any critical reading are surveyed and may be seen as proposed directives for the mastering of the process: the strangeness of the world of the Bible, the evolution of the Bible, the Bible as literature and the critical Bible reader and objectivity. A critical reading process has certain implications for the traditional understanding of certain Bible themes. This, for example, is illustrated in view of the relation between the two testaments, prophecy, human thinking about God in the Bible and the liberating energy of justification through faith. New insights also establish the necessity for contact with believers within and outside the Christian tradition. With regard to the New Testament and the Jesus movement, a critical reading also leads to new insights. Historical Jesus research is handled and settled in earnest in an attempt to reflect new insights in the Christian tradition. In conclusion, the role of the church is surveyed through a critical reading process. A few personal contentions and conceptions of faith are presented as a survey of the growing process up till the present time. The Divine image of a critical reader is argued in the light of the knowledge of science and the provisional nature of human knowledge about God. That the baby is not thrown out with the bath-water, implies that a critical reader's faith in God need not be sacrificed. On the contrary, it can lead to an enriching spiritual experience. / Religious Studies & Arabic / D. Litt. et Phil. (Bybelkunde)

The successful transition to motherhood can be associated with the experience of infant feeding, and women’s views of whether that experience has been positive or negative can shape the mothering experience. However, nurses’ engagement with best practice breastfeeding promotion may elicit negative responses from women who are either unsuccessful in their attempts to breastfeed, or do not breastfeed for other reasons. Are nurses adequately prepared or supported to deal with the variety of infant feeding challenges that inevitably arise in perinatal practice settings? For example, Canadian perinatal nurses are expected to conform to WHO-conceived Baby Friendly expectations to disseminate evidence that pertains to the health risks of introducing formula to infants. However, in some circumstances, infant formula is recommended by practitioners in order to provide crucial hydration and/or nourishment, which destabilizes the discourse of risk, and creates confusion for mothers. Questions also arise about the appropriateness of nurses applying WHO guidelines to every woman without first considering intersectional realities which may not align with BF recommendations to breastfeed for six months and beyond. These questions, and others, informed the research question: “What is nurses’ experience of infant feeding support?” Eleven perinatal nurses from across Canada were interviewed. The conversations were interpreted using Gadamerian hermeneutic methodology. Participants described a variety of practices and dilemmas that they associate with infant feeding “support,” highlighting that complex and contradictory forces are at play for nurses involved in infant feeding support as well as the unintended and negative consequences of following BF best practice guidelines. / Graduate / humphriesj@camosun.bc.ca

Both France and the U.S. have witnessed extensive immigration in the twentieth century, and today, more than ever since World War II, the world's population is in dramatic flux. Currently almost fifty-four million people worldwide are identified by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as displaced people. If and how France and the U.S. should accommodate displaced peoples has agitated political debate in France and the U.S. with conservatively aligned political parties in both countries rejecting calls to resettle displaced peoples in France and the U.S. At the center of this dissertation is the following research question: how are immigrants rhetorically constructed in high school French and U.S. history textbooks? Rhetoric is not just about persuading an audience; it is about using identifications that program the audience not to think, but to automatically believe that one thing is associated with another. In this dissertation I use Kenneth Burke’s rhetoric as identification to examine how immigrants are rhetorically constructed in four high school French history textbooks and two high school American history textbooks, all of which are widely distributed in their respective countries. I disarticulate rhetorical constructions of immigrants in these history textbooks by interrogating the interactions of their political, economic, social, and cultural structures. In Burke’s rhetoric as identification "social cohesion and control" are realized through apposition and opposition. In the following quotation Burke explains a salient element of his rhetoric as identification: “A is not identical with his colleague, B. But insofar as their interests are joined, A is identified with B. Or he may identify himself with B even when their interests are not joined, if he assumes that they are, or is persuaded to believe so.” Why are so many people in France and the U.S. persuaded that peoples displaced by war and poverty should be locked outside their borders? Through a Burkean analysis, I locate answers to this question in the historical master narrative evidenced in the high school French and U.S. history textbooks selected for this study--a narrative that rhetorically constructs skewed characterizations of immigrants.

Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard published fourteen discourses, across four collections, on Matthew 6:24-34. The repeated readings of the biblical text, whose themes include the choice between God and mammon, worry, what it means to consider the birds and lilies, and how to seek first the kingdom of God, converge with Kierkegaard's interest in anxiety, despair, worry, subjectivity, indirect communication, choice, the moment, and life before God. Accordingly, the discourses make connections with his larger works, elucidate frequently explored Kierkegaardian themes in recent scholarship, and contribute to his critique of nineteenth-century Copenhagen. Additionally, the collections present an interpretation of each verse and phrase of Matthew's text and, held up against modern Matthew scholarship, they correlate with and contribute to Sermon on the Mount and New Testament studies. Kierkegaard's reading of Matthew also holds implications for the practice of biblical interpretation as it promotes the importance of awareness of sin, interestedness, and appropriation as central to proper reading. His emphasis on Christ as the primary exemplar of Matthew's text adds an additional Christological element to his hermeneutic. Furthermore, the discourses serve as spiritual treatises which provide the reader with theological terminology to help confront the problem of worry and suffering. In light of a human being's distinctiveness as imago Dei, Kierkegaard elucidates ways an individual may respond artfully to the ongoing possibility of worry, a possibility which the discourses connect with Christian anthropology and external labels associated with possessions and status. The Matthew 6 discourses intimate Kierkegaard's sympathy with classic Christian spirituality and, in combination with the cultural-ecclesiastical critique, the creative exegesis, and the in-depth analysis of the cause of and cure for worry, his work emerges as an excellent example of spiritual theology.

This thesis seeks to understand how and if the popular claims that hockey is an integral part of the culture in Toronto and Montreal are referenced, oriented to, and/or negotiated in everyday life. Taking the cases of the moves of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens from Maple Leaf Gardens and the Montreal Forum, respectively, the thesis asks: What can these similar cases tell us about the culture of the cities in which they occurred and, if it is possible, in what ways can the culture of the cities (as a shaping force) be made recognizable in the discourse generated in, around, and by the moves? The perspective taken is a 'radical interpretive' approach, involving a critical blend of interpretive theories and methodologies - including semiology, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and dialectical analysis - that aim to reflexively question the themes that the cases themselves bring to light. The thesis thus concerns itself with issues of cosmopolitanism, globalization, and modernity as well as the concomitant questions of identify, commitment to place, and practical social action in the modern city.

This thesis attempts a paradigmatic shift in the focus of ballad study towards embodiment, moving from ‘representation’ towards ‘experience’ and with an emphasis on ‘process,’ as opposed to ‘product.’ The originality lies in the development of a new approach which explores words, music and embodied aesthetic experience as they come together and create meaning in performance, conceived of as ‘presence’ (Porter 2009). Ideas from philosophy are connected with concepts from ethnomusicology and folklore and brought to bear upon broad issues in the study of expressive culture. While the focus here is on the ballad experience in a Scottish context, ultimately the questions asked attend to dimensions of experience that do not emphasise cultural-boundedness. The emphasis is not on my experience as a fieldworker, nor on fieldwork descriptions, but rather on the development of new theoretical methodologies that can be extended and applied to other cultural forms. To that end, I am little concerned with texts, variants and versions, transcriptions and collections which traditionally constitute the subject matter of ballad studies. What is presented is a convergence of contemporary disciplinary approaches, pushing the boundaries of the existing framework of ballad and folksong studies to include dimensions of cultural experience rarely considered in this field. Working within the wider interpretative framework of hermeneutic phenomenology, theories of embodiment are used as a means to introduce ideas from embodied cognition. The development of ideas is concerned with describing how our embodied experience of the world informs the processes of meaning-making, how human cognitive capacities are at work in the experience of ballad singing and how the structure of the ballad reflects and shapes these capacities. Embodied philosophy and contemporary theories of metaphor are central in this endeavour. Ultimately, this work seeks to find a legitimate way of talking about the ephemeral, intangible yet real quality of embodied aesthetic experience—the shivers and chills of the Maysie—that avoids metaphysical explanations and that makes sense in a secular, humanistic framework. The aim is not to demystify experience in a reductionist sense, but to offer an interpretation that is less about ‘transcendence’ and more about the creative processes present.

The thesis presented consists of three main sections: 1. Section A includes comprehensive and detailed critical analyses of Buber's monographs on the Old Testament, "Konigtum Gottes", "Der Gesalbte", "Der Glaube der Propheten", "Abraham der Seher", "Moses", "Recht und Unrecht. Deutung einiger Psalmen"; furthermore the translation of the Hebrew Bible into German is studied, a work Buber had carried out with the aid of Franz Rosenzweig. Buber's statements and interpretation are elaborated and compared with those of recent and contemporary scholars. This investigation brings to light Buber's peculiar and very often individualistic view. He rejects literary criticism which assumes written sources such as J, E, P in the Pentateuch; correspondingly he tries to trace strands of orally and then literarily transmitted traditions which were ingeniously combined by the Redactor(s). This redactional achievement is regarded by Buber as of great importance and of high quality. Modern research has made evident that Buber frequently perceives the proper relations and facts, more, however, through intuition than through convincing arguments (the details of the ancient traditions being usually far more complicated than Buber thinks them to be). His idea of Yahweh as Melekh of the wandering Israelite tribes e.g. has been proved to be wrong, but the conception of the leading and wayfaring God was expounded by Buber earlier and more clearly than in the studies of other scholars. Peculiar to Buber is the idea of an essential uUity of the Hebrew Bible to which so called "guiding words" ("Leitworte") make reference. In his translation (which shows a masterly command and sympathetic understanding of both Hebrew and German) he makes use of such "guiding words" and of the sensuous basic meaning of the individual verbal roots. The fundamental and predominant principle of Buber's hermeneutics appears in all his books on the Bible. It is the principle of dialogue between God and Man; and it is here that Buber finds the essence both of prophecy and of Israel's faith as a whole. 2. Section B tries to elucidate the theological, philosophical, and biographical background of Buber's hermeneutics. It comes out in his view of myth, saga, and historical reality. There is a clearly rationalistic approach to biblical miracle stories, but besides this an irrational intuition leads him to deeper understanding. Dilthey's influence becomes evident. Buber cannot be understood apart from the role that mysticism and chassidism played in his life; it was, however, the Hebrew Bible which helped him to overcome self-sufficient mysticism and chassidic gnosticism. Knowing about the relation of dialogue between God and Man, Buber can remain neither a pure mystic nor a pure existentialist (in the sense of modern existential philosophy). He is "atypical". His interpretation of the Bible is critical, not orthodox or fundamentalist in its approach, although he cannot deny the Jewish and rabbinical background of his learning. Personal religious experience goes hand in hand with scholarly methods of criticism. The principles of dialogue and existential commitment make him strictly discriminate between prophecy and apocalyptic. God speaks to Man in the present historical situation and claims a personal decision. There is no room for any speculations or taking a peep into an already certain and immutable future. The directness of the eternal revelation at every time and the continuous possibility of dialogue between God and Man are theological conceptions that exclude a particular salvation history ("Heilsgesohichte"). Buber is primarily interested in God's speaking, not in God's acting in oertain historical events. Buber's understanding of divine revelation cannot but regard every religion on earth as a sphere of God's disclosure. In opposition to the religion of the Bible, however, the pagan religions misunderstand God and his disclosure. But even for those living with biblical traditions God Himself may disappear for a time as the sun disappears in eclipse. Yet an eclipse is no extinction, and Buber demonstrates, by reference to Job and Deutero-Isaiah, the relevance of the Old Testament as a source of hope in a dark age. Section C summarizes the conclusions of the thesis and appreciates the work of Buber as an outstanding scholar - a work that is fascinating and stimulating even where we have to reject not a few of its results.

The aim of the research was to generate a cyclonic model for understanding the influences and processes of continuously improving management education in an environment rich in online learning technologies. The research questions were: 1. What is the nature of the cyclonic interactions observed in the transactions of a team of online management educators? 2. How might an understanding of cyclonic interactions, a. help refine action research, and, b. generate rich insight for online management education? The methodology was an action research project. The research team worked in an online Master of Business Administration (MBA) to continuously develop teaching practice in one unit of the MBA. The methodology matched the objectives of the project, and the appropriate rigour associated with qualitative, interpretive research. The results showed that theories of systems and relational dynamics, adapted to hermeneutics and aligned with other learning theories, can be framed by the metaphor of a cyclone to conduct research into teaching practice and build upon the theory base in the field of online education. Online management education is subject to reinterpretations. The cyclonic framework explains some of the changes. The project showed that a chaotic but organised cyclonic program development process in one particular MBA course was informative for and informed by the chaotic and cyclonic globalized business world. For the education of managers the cyclonic view was relevant. The approach was metaphorical and, therefore, opened new ways of seeing and speaking. Findings pertained to the nature of the cyclonic interactions, how an understanding of cyclonic interactions helped to refine action research, and how an understanding of cyclonic interactions helped generate rich insight for online management education. It was found that it was the asymmetrical impetus of imperfection that created the examples of cyclonic learning spirals formed as double feedback loops for improved understanding. Online education in the action research required cyclical enhancement of connectedness by teachers, stronger emphasis on relational considerations in learning, and heightened expectations of collaboration by educators. It became possible to correlate earlier conceptions of action research with cyclonic categories and analyse the parallels with events in this action research project. Models were developed and presented to explain cyclonic connections with hermeneutics, collaborative teaching, online resource development, and the environment of online management education.

This thesis reports the findings of research conducted with Irish primary teachers who had recently completed probation. The study employed semi-structured interviews to examine the teachers’ perceptions of beneficial influences on the development of their teaching identity. The principals of the two schools involved were also interviewed. The interviews were designed to allow me to explore influences that had been identified in the literature as important in the formation of teacher identity. In the interviews, themes that have been identified in the literature on teacher identity were explored with participants. The teachers identified incidents and persons whom they perceived as having inspired them to become teachers. Their perceptions of how their interactions with pupils and parents had influenced their identities were examined, as were their experiences of school cultures and of working in collaboration with colleagues. Finally, their awareness of theoretical literature as a tool to help their further development was examined. The findings of the study confirm that teachers’ identities are formed by a combination of factors and add a more detailed understanding of those factors in the Irish context. Beginning teachers are influenced strongly by their own biographies, and by their experiences as students prior to and during their pre-service teacher education. They are sensitive to the perceptions of them by parents and pupils. Their willingness to engage collaboratively with other colleagues, including their principals and mentors, features strongly in their own perceptions of how their identities have been formed. The importance of the school culture in helping to shape the teacher’s identity is highlighted as a phenomenon which both shapes and is reshaped in turn by teachers and their colleagues. Literature is generally not considered relevant by the Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) in this study, although the principals’ responses indicate their familiarity with themes common in the literature concerning teacher induction, and with concepts of teachers as reflective practitioners who need to continuously examine their practice and experience in order to promote the ongoing shaping of their identity as teachers. The thesis argues for a conception of teacher professionalism which respects the identity of teachers and the agency of teachers as individuals in a world of individuals who are engaged in the constructionist creation of knowledge. This understanding prioritises practical wisdom, phronesis, over the technical knowledge, techne, and knowledge of subject, episteme, which teachers also require. This is at odds with widespread competency-based conceptions of teacher professionalism. The findings of the research indicate that the development of teacher identity is complex and is affected by a broader range of influences than the imperative to develop competencies. It calls for an alternative approach to teacher induction which acknowledges the importance of these factors.