Judas Iscariot has been and remains to this day one of the most hated persons in human history. The goal of this project is to examine the evolution Judas as he appears, first within the pages of the Christian canon, then moving over to literature outside the canon, into Apocrypha. Moreover, consulting ancient and modern sources allows for the ability to raise questions regarding the possibility of redemption for Judas as well as an analysis on whether this person was real or simply a literary construct by ancient authors in order to strengthen the core of the Christian belief system. With the inclusion of a clear and present villain in the narrative, the early Christians or proto-Orthodox were able to separate themselves from the initial Jewish community and labelled Judas as the ultimate example of what not to do when it came to being a “true” Christian. The discovery of the Gospel of Judas and its subsequent publication brought mainstream attention to the early years of Christianity, with its many different structures. The exploration of its pages reveal an entirely different message in which Judas Iscariot is a central figure, amidst a more “gnostic” tradition. The character of Judas Iscariot has since travelled through the centuries and it is this project’s mission to demonstrate the evolution of this character, showing how he first appears as merely one of twelve men who follow Jesus to a personification of evil. The project will also demonstrate how a possible misunderstanding of literature could have created a literary scapegoat, resulting in Judas Iscariot’s use as a tool to foster hatred and animosity towards the Jews. The end result leaves the reader with the question of whether Judas deserves absolution for his actions, who may have been an important part of God’s plan for humanity’s salvation.

This dissertation explores the different ways medieval authors conceived of anchoritism and solitary life by focusing on three important phases of the movement which are represented by Wulfric of Haselbury, Christina of Markyate, and fourteenth-century mystics. It is grounded in the medieval English anchoritic literature that was produced by religious scholars between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. Initially, lacking a tradition of their own and a language to articulate the anchoritic experience, medieval hagiographers borrowed the desert imagery from the story of the early fathers who lived in the Syrian and Egyptian deserts, which they viewed as a place of solitude and physical suffering and in which they sought perfection and salvation. While acts of penitence and the sacrament of penance would never be removed from the economy of salvation, by the eleventh century, the desert was no longer a viable analogue for salvation. I argue that in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, new ideas of what constituted salvation and how it was fulfilled were elaborated. The cell became the place in which devotion to the sacraments was fulfilled, and it was this sacramental devotion, particularly the Eucharist but also marriage and holy orders, not physical isolation that imbued anchorites with exceptional holiness and led them to salvation. A century later a new understanding of the economy of salvation emerged, which deemphasized the physical body and was grounded in mysticism or the inward migration of the spiritual center. This was the final transformation in medieval English anchoritism and the narratives of the reclusive changed to reflect that turn.

Dynamics of spiritual thirst is an expression of the exchange of love between God and human being, which is the basic motivation for any Christian ministry. When a man encounters Jesus' thirst for the salvation of men, a desire to respond to this love is enkindled in his heart, most of all by taking part in collaborating in the salvation of souls. The deeper is the unity of the soul with Christ, the more she takes part in His salvific thirst, i. e. she is consumed by the desire to calm His thirst working at the salvation of souls. Both the intercessory prayer of Theresa of Lisieux, who lived hidden cloistered life, and Mother Theresa's worldwide mission of merciful love came out of the same source. It means that the dynamics of spiritual thirst is the deepest motivation of any Christian apostolic work and ministry. Key words Spiritual thirst, merciful love, Holy Spirit, salvation of souls, apostolic work

The thesis "Taoism in European terms at the beginning of 21st century. Presentation of this phenomenon in Christian perspective." Taoism as the original Chinese philosophical and religious system, which deeply influenced Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism, is presented in this thesis. The main principles of Taoism and Taoist writings are introduced. Taoism penetrates into different areas of contemporary European culture; its influence is evident in science, literature and the contemporary lifestyle. Special emphasis is placed on traditional Chinese medicine and Taoist exercises that are significantly beneficial to Westerners. In contrast, the risk is found in uncritical accepting and simplifying of selected aspects without a deeper understanding of the principles of Taoism and its tradition. These benefits and risks are documented by publications of Christian theologians. The difference in Eastern and Western thinking is the cause of the difficulty of mutual understanding of both cultures. Keywords Taoism, Chinese philosophy, Chinese traditional medicine, healing, Tai Chi, Christianity

In this essay I present the ecclesiology of the Salvation Army as it appears in Sweden today. One thesis that I examined is that the Salvation Army has changed its self-understanding from seeing itself as an Army from the beginning of the movement, to gradually understanding itself as a Church. The essay confirms this assumption and concludes that it is largely due to the challenges of ecumenical theology that developed with the publication of the BEM document in 1982, adopted by the World Council of Churches' Faith and Order Commission. Further, statistics show that 3 out of 4 new members of the Salvation Army in Sweden are what are Adherents, defined as a type of civilian membership, and not uniformed soldiers. The purpose of the essay has therefore been to explore what the change of membership, from soldiers to adherents, has meant for the ecclesiology of the movement. I have captured both of these assumptions, that the Army understands itself more and more as a church and that most new members are Adherents, when I have formulated the overarching research question: How does a growing proportion of Adherents play into the Salvation Army's gradually changing self-understanding from army to church? In the essay, I have used a qualitative research method which includes a hermeneutic approach where I interpret the changes and observe to understand its consequences for the ecclesiology that appears in the Salvation Army. The essay discusses the "army concept" which implies a “mission-oriented” ecclesiology and the "church concept" which implies a "community-oriented" ecclesiology. My source material consists of both written dogmatic material, observations of enrolling of both soldiers and adherents in Corps and interviews with new members. I note that the ecclesiological themes that appear in my materials are somewhat different. The written material has some army rhetoric, which means that in addition to a community-oriented ecclesiology one can also see a mission-oriented ecclesiology, while the observations and especially the interviews give a clearer picture of a communion-oriented ecclesiology where the congregation also appears as a sacramental communion. The likeness of ecclesiology between the Salvation Army to other free-churches in Sweden is so profound that I propose the idea of “free-church salvationists” in the army in Sweden. In the essay, I state that a probable further ecclesiological development may be that the more Adherents who become members, the more communion-oriented ecclesiology will implicitly appear in the Salvation Army in Sweden and at the same time the army rhetoric will gradually disappear. This means that the Salvation Army in Sweden may in the near future be described as "an army without soldiers".

Submitted to the Faculty of Theology and Religion Studies in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology in the Department of Systematic Theology, Ethics and History of Christianity at the University of Zululand, 2005. / The title "A New Creation in Christ" served as the basis for the examination of the definitive theological and Biblical concepts of the doctrines of creation, humanity, sin and salvation. It integrated the foci of these doctrines, in constructing a paradigm for establishing what is meant by the dissertation title, 'a new creation in creation.' To understand a new creation theology requires a composite structuring of these interrelated doctrines, since no doctrine can be understood vacuously. Humanity was not created in an abstract or theoretical world, and neither were they placed in isolation from creation. Instead, they were very much a part of the created order, and were endowed with specific function or purpose. They interacted with a living world and were accorded the responsibility as its stewards. The consideration of the facets of the doctrine of creation enabled an understanding of humanity’s placement in creation, their purpose and how sin affected creation. This informs the doctrine of humanity in highlighting the biblical emphasis on humanity as the special creation of God. God created humanity in his image, and this image is an intrinsic and indispensable part of humanity's uniqueness and existence. The constitutional nature of humanity lies in its conditional unity of the whole person. Man is a unity of the physical, the psychological and the spiritual, all of which are purposed to enable him, in fulfilling the intentions of the Creator. The doctrine of sin clarified how sin affected the conditional unity of man i.e. the physical, the psychological and the spiritual dimensions. It further demonstrated the domino effect on creation. This precarious position which humanity found themselves in, required the intervention of God, through the incarnation of Christ Salvation is the free gift of God in Christ in dealing with the problem of sin, and the consequences thereof This free gift requires that a human being appropriate salvation in Jesus Christ, through the acceptance of him in faith and repentance. This background established a contextual understanding of a new creation in Christ. The definitive text for our discussion was Paul's statement in 2 Corinthians 5:17 "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come." Paul's statement incorporates two elements of salvation. "If anyone is in Christ" is suggestive of the first element, which is the subjective nature of salvation. This involves the believer's conversion through repentance and faith. The second element is the objective nature of salvation. This is suggested in the next part of the statement "he is a new creation", which is accomplished through the redemptive work of God in Christ. The resident implication of the reference 'a new creation in Christ', is the inauguration of a new humanity that has begun in Christ. A cyclic model for the practical outworking of a new creation theology has been advocated in a threefold consideration of person hood, community and discipleship.

The following paper is a study of the history of the Salvation Army White Shield Home of Portland, Oregon with emphasis on the years 1940 through 1976. The White Shield Home is a residential program which provides comprehensive services to school-age parents. A complete description of the setting and the services offered is found in Chapter II. “School-age parents” is the current term used to refer to unmarried pregnant women and women with infants in an effort to eliminate the stigma attached to “unwed mother” or “pregnant teenager”. The purpose of the study is threefold: 1) to familiarize the reader with trends that occurred within the White Shield Home in regard to both agency and client, and allow the reader an appreciation of the various aspects of the Home; 2) to enhance the reader's awareness of the services provided by the Home and how each service came to be, in an effort to suggest the value of the Home to Portland and surrounding areas; and 3) to provide the basis for further study of White Shield Home.

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This thesis examines the thought of the Spanish philosopher-theologian Ignacio Ellacuría, one of the so-called second generation of Latin-American liberation theologians. The focus is on Ellacuría's intention to construct a Christian interpretation of salvation that is conceptually relevant to, and capable of making a practical difference in, our challenging historical and political realities. This intention was formed in the wake of the Vatican's 1984 "Instruction on Certain Aspects of the Theology of Liberation" (Libertatis nuntius), in which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith charged that liberation theology eliminates the transcendent aspects of salvation by falling prey to an exclusively this-worldly (and often Marxist class-struggle) account of liberation. Ellacuría confronted this challenge in a comprehensive way through an analysis of the philosophy of his mentor, philosopher Xavier Zubiri. In this way, Ellacuría interpreted transcendence as being within historical reality not just beyond it. This then forges a direct link between transcendence, understood intra-historically, and the struggle for social justice for the poor majorities in contexts of systemic oppression. For Ellacuría, this struggle is the historical manifestation and proper meaning of the Reign of God. This dissertation begins by locating Ellacuría's intellectual work in the dual context of El Salvador and his own biography. It then expounds Zubiri's philosophy of historical reality before explaining Ellacuría's deployment of it to reinterpret salvation and liberation. It concludes with an analysis of the ethical implications of Ellacuría's approach. The three-fold thesis of the dissertation is that (1) Zubiri's philosophy of historical realism is coherent and relevant to the Christian understanding of salvation and liberation, (2) Ellacuría's adaptation of Zubiri's philosophy is a creative and intellectually compelling solution to an exceptionally difficult conceptual problem, and (3) Ellacuría's theological achievement has precisely the ethical implications that he believed it did, namely, that there can be no separation between the Kingdom of God and this-world liberative movements on behalf of the poor and oppressed.

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