The aim of this study was to investigate one slice of the multifaceted contribution of Andrew Fuller, namely, his ordination sermons to determine what key theological priorities shaped his understanding of pastoral ministry and what was his exact influence on this Baptist community as it relates to pastoral theology. And to put the theology of his ordination sermons in context, the study examined them in relation to other available Particular Baptist ordination sermons of the era. The study revealed that Fuller’s pastoral priorities as expressed in his ordination sermons concerning the character, qualifications, and duties of a pastor, which represented the chief subject matter of the ordination charge, shows a great deal of continuity with his Particular Baptists theological tradition. There is no doubt that Andrew Fuller is at the heart of a renewal of Particular Baptists in the late eighteenth century which impacted one key element of the pastoral office in offering Christ to all and sundry. But this did not entail a complete revamping of the Particular Baptist perspective on pastoral ministry. The continuity/discontinuity in pastoral theology between Fuller and his brethren of the earlier part of the century especially in connection with the defining characteristic of Fuller’s pastoral theology of eminent spirituality and eminent usefulness, revealed that there was really little change in the sermons prior to when the evangelical revival was thought to have significantly affected the Particular Baptists in 1770. They shared a similar concern as Fuller to communicate that eminent spirituality results in eminent usefulness. This close connection does not argue in favour of a radical redefinition of pastoral theology transformed by the so-called rise of evangelicalism. The main difference in terms of renewal centered on a return to biblical precedent of offering the gospel freely to all. The diversion of this emphasis was connected to the rise of high Calvinist dogma precipitated by a defence of the orthodoxy from the attacks of rationalist age. Still Baptist preaching was consistently plain in style, evangelical in content and affectionate in application. Therefore rather than a radical redefinition forged by the mysterious and powerful forces of Enlightenment thought, these men were influenced, perhaps more so, by a static theological commitment rooted in biblical authority. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Church History and Church Polity / unrestricted

<p> Pioneers of Australia is a vibrant and dynamic mission organisation, entrusted with the privilege of sending mature disciples to share the good news of Jesus Christ among the nations. The purpose of this dissertation is to enable Pioneers of Australia applicants and appointees to proactively grow in the specific area of prayer, ensuring that prayer lies at the very core of their ongoing formation for global mission. </p><p> This research investigates two major sources of prayer. Firstly, prayer as seen in the life of Jesus and the early church in Acts &ndash; voices from Scripture. And secondly, prayer as found in the lives of Pioneers-Africa, another sending entity within Pioneers &ndash; voices from Africa. The findings are then applied to the context of Pioneers of Australia. </p><p> The research utilizes is a combination of literature survey of Scripture (voices from Scripture) and ethnographic methodology (voices from Africa). The latter includes the mutually enhancing methods of Narrative Interview and Participant Observation. After identifying the pofints of intersect between the material, I then establish Biblically-based principles of prayer for application to Pioneers of Australia. I have limited this to five initial principles, which are then creatively expanded through a booklet entitled <i>Shaped by Prayer,</i> found in Appendix E. All of this is to facilitate a greater understanding of and commitment to the role of prayer as a core aspect of the life and ministry of our cross-cultural global mission workers, leading to greater Kingdom impact.</p><p>

This thesis explores journeys of faith and survival in three Jewish graphic novels: A Contract with God by Will Eisner, The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar, and We Are On Our Own by Miriam Katin. In each of these texts, the protagonists struggle with their faith and relationship with God, as they negotiate challenges as Jews living in largely unreceptive spaces. Along their journeys, the protagonists confront God in their own ways to try to make sense of the role that faith and Judaism plays in their lives. Drawing on basic principles of the relationship between Jew and God, as well as terms and concepts concerning the aesthetic construction of comics, this thesis probes into the nature of these journeys and the impact they have on the protagonists' physical and spiritual survival. / Arts, Faculty of / Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS), School of / Graduate

This article examines early twentieth-century British "Uranian" same-sex sexualities as a distinct entity from other labels for homosexuality. British sexologists, feminists, and other radical socialist/anarchist reformers invoked scientized versions of mysticism and Asian religions to conceptualize different, though intersecting, meanings for the Uranian. Historians of sexuality, however, tend to conflate the term "Uranian" with the other various and conflicting medico-scientific concepts circulating at the time, such as "homosexual," "sexual invert," and "intermediate sex." Overstating the slippage between terms, however, obscures the significance of Uranianism in the history of same-sex eroticism, and reinforces a dichotomy between spirituality and modernity. The Uranian discourses examined here epitomize a "progressive" historical moment that elaborated the scientific origins for the spirit, soul, and a divine will in the constitution of modern sexual/spiritual subjects. In many ways, Uranianism challenged the late nineteenth-century medical-sexological discourses that demarcated the homosexual as a pathological "type" by creating a more fluid understanding of sexuality through the interplay of Edwardian critiques of scientific materialism with New Age ideas about the mind, psyche, and spirituality. That is not to suggest that Uranianism offered an "alternative" (homo)sexuality that was disentangled from pathological discourses; on the contrary, the Uranian discourses implicitly consolidated the "homosexual type." Tracing the genealogy of Uranian sexuality through three case studies illuminates a modern moment when reformers attempted to create fluid sexualities. We find that Uranianism complicates our understandings about the supposedly dominant role of medical-scientific discourses in the construction of early twentieth-century British (homo)sexuality. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

One of the most basic human questions is whether there is a divine presence with which we can interact, and, if so, how do we communicate with this presence and how should the results of our communication be manifest in our lives? This study is an exploration of how one community has sought to answer these questions in their practices. The researcher adopts an ethnography of communication perspective, informed by cultural discourse analysis, cultural communication, speech codes theory, and the coordinated management of meaning, to explore the communicative practices of members of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in the United States, with a focus on the practices of participants at a meeting of unprogrammed, liberal Friends. This research seeks to answer questions about these Friends’ practices in their meeting activities, including: When are the phrases “gathered” meeting, “corporate discernment” or “spiritual journey” used by Quakers? What are the forms of communication identified with these terms? and Are there deep cultural meanings about communication, sociality, and personhood active in communication about or during these practices? Data are drawn from approximately a year and a half of participation in the meeting community and include field notes on participation in meetings for worship, articles in a Quaker publication, and recordings of meetings for business, of interviews, and of Friends telling their “spiritual journeys.” This work seeks to contribute to scholarship on cultural communication, religious communication, decision making, silence, narrative, and identity and suggests comparisons with the practices of other religious traditions. Most importantly, it attempts to provide a descriptive and interpretive account of how it is that Quakers understand communication with a spiritual presence to be fundamentally based in expectant group silence, understood as listening together, which in turn is the foundation for the process through which they reach agreement in meetings for business on corporate social action. Findings include the identification of distinctive characteristics of “gathered” meetings for worship, the description of elements of a Quaker style of speaking, and the formulation of a Quaker code of communication, including cultural premises of value and norms for acting in the community.

This dissertation stems from an ethnographic experience, i.e., a course on the Six Healing Sounds of Qigong taught by Dr Yu Zhang, which I and other students attended in 1991 in Los Angeles, California. The course led to the following questions: What is qigong? What are the Six Healing sounds? Are the claims of this healing tradition to ancient origins accurate? These questions led to the following conclusions: Qigong is indeed a practice of ancient origins, albeit one that comes from different streams of Daoist and medical practices. Its name is a recent design by the Chinese government in the early 1950's, with the ulterior goal of creating an effective, low cost health care system rooted in Chinese culture. Apart from the answers provided above, I argue that qigong is a body technology that uses slow, gentle exercises, visualizations and standing and sitting meditations to elicit a state of reverie, a liminal or altered state of consciousness that is conducive to bodily, mental and spiritual experiences and transformation. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2015. / April 29, 2015. / Chi Kung, Daoism, Daoyin, Liminality, Qigong, Traditional Chinese Medicine / Includes bibliographical references. / Benjamin D. Koen, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Kathleen Erndl, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; David Johnson, University Representative; Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, Committee Member; Martin Kavka, Committee Member.

In the history of Architecture, religious structures have always awed people whether a person corresponds to the concerning religion or even he or she is not religious at all. Those structures have been patronized by the riches or the royal highnesses of the time and mostly got the utmost priority regarding planning and construction and the results have been magnificent. By the 16th century when Ottoman Empire (15-20th century) was spreading its dynasty, the world saw the emergence of an overwhelming spread of Islamic architecture as well. Even now one who enters the city of Istanbul or Damascus from the riverside will see series of domes, arches and minarets staggered along the topography. The hierarchical progression of the biggest and most attractive domes among them, which one could hardly miss are of the mosques. Time to time the social and commercial aspects of life started to redefine urban settlements and demanded for a space for spiritual devotion as well as religious learning and practices in groups. Getting together five times a day as instructed or every Friday for the afternoon where the Imam presents lectures not only on religious matters, contemporary matters and better ways to live in harmony with religious and contemporary concerns. It is the communal gathering of people that demanded for a large hall to pray and communicate with each other afterwards. The Intention of this thesis is to dig into some of the core aspects of the evolution of mosques, significance of its different parts and features and most importantly how those features as a whole are contributing to behold social and communal construct.

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In the past few years we have witnessed the exposure of organisations that have exhibited unethical practices and individuals displaying far-reaching unethical behaviour that contributed to the recent economic meltdown. Seemingly paradigms that in the past served and governed organisational ethics have proven themselves inadequate for regulating organisational ethics. As a society witnessing these reprehensible actions we try to understand the logic of these actions and to find out whom we should blame. We also ask ourselves if there are no other approaches or perspectives that can change the contemporary logic governing organisations and ethics. Even new approaches presented seem to offer only a slightly remedying effect regarding the scandalous actions executed by organisational leader-founder(s) in the name of their organisations. Giacalone (2004:415) states that we are deluded as a society if we think that these scandalous actions will go away because organisations and organisational members are becoming more ethics friendly. This is because the root cause of these reprehensible actions has not been adequately dealt with in literature. Also, an alternative change agent that will provide a holistic framework for organisational ethics and will enhance intrinsic ethicality within organisations and individuals has not been sufficiently pursued within research. The purpose of this dissertation is to present organisational spirituality as an emerging construct and recognised phenomenon within organisational theory and ethics. More specifically the purpose of this study is to posit that (a) organisational spirituality is a better-suited construct and phenomenon to provide a holistic framework for governing organisational ethics and (b) applied organisational spirituality has the potential to enhance intrinsic ethicality in organisations and individuals. In order to present organisational spirituality as a transforming agent for organisational ethics, a literature review is conducted on organisational culture and organisational ethical constructs that have until recently been significant in serving and governing organisational ethics. Both organisational culture and organisational ethical constructs are problematised with regards to their relationship with unethical behaviours and organisational ethics. This is done in order to highlight the insufficiencies of current frameworks of organisational ethics and also to point out that organisational culture has proven itself to be inadequate in facilitating and maintaining good organisational ethics amongst individuals and organisations. The construct organisational spirituality is a holistic construct and phenomenon that is applicable to all organisational activities and aspects. Applied organisational spirituality accommodates the physical, emotional, rational and spiritual aspects of the individual. To improve the current organisational ethical situation facing organisations, organisational members, and the discipline of organisational ethics, conceptual ideas such as inner life, meaning at work, community, and higher order personal and organisational ethics that underlie the construct organisational spirituality are used to develop a conceptual framework that could significantly influence organisational ethics. The new framework is used to develop spiritual ethical values that can motivate intrinsic ethicality within the organisation and organisational individuals. The ramification of integrating organisational spirituality within organisational ethics is that through implementing conceptual ideas such as inner life, self-awareness, a sense of community, organisations and individuals have a sense of ethical transcendence that is motivated by awareness of self within a community of others. This dissertation also explores the construct spiritual leadership as a relevant leadership construct to facilitate and maintain organisational spirituality. The construct spiritual leadership embodies many value characteristics that are linked to effective leadership within the organisation. Since spiritual leader-founder(s) are also moral leaders spiritual leader-founder(s) play a significant role in promoting good organisational ethics through spiritual ethical values. Finally this thesis reviews case studies of organisations that have been successful through spiritual leadership. Case studies are reviewed to highlight and augment that organisational spirituality managed through spiritual leadership is a better-suited construct to accommodate the ‘whole’ person at work. Furthermore the case studies reviewed provide evidence that applied spirituality increases organisational and individual organisational potential such as organisational profitability, individual productivity, and that through self-awareness the organisation and individuals realise a higher order of organisational and personal ethics. / Dissertation (MTh)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Dogmatics and Christian Ethics / unrestricted

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