Evangelicalism in western Canada was fuelled by fundamentalist theology and devotion which evolved in this region during the early twentieth century. Generally, Canadian evangelical theologians have focused on the historical and theological implications of evangelicalism within this area. Due to the nature of evangelical theology, which is governed by reason and the defense of truth and dogma, this Christian movement in the west ignored by default concepts connected to mystical theology. This thesis researches a question which has not had an adequate response within evangelical theological tradition, primarily as a result of its disregard for mystical theology. The issue of concern in this thesis is the nature of the process of sanctification of the soul, and particularly, the purpose of the silence of God during this time. Questions to be addressed are: `what is the nature of spiritual transformation?', `what transpires in the soul of the person?' and `what is the role of the `dark night' and the `silence of God' during this experience?' This research responds with an explanation to the underlying cause for the inability of evangelical spirituality in the Canadian west to respond to this issue. It also provides a plausible resolution to the problem which is embedded in the literature of John of the Cross, a sixteenth century Spanish mystic. / CHR SPIRIT, CHURCHIST, MISS / DTH (CHR SPIRIT)

Text in Afrikaans / In this qualitative research study the landscape of the age-old tradition of contemplative spirituality within the context of the reformed tradition was investigated. An empirical study was done to determine the pastoral needs and experiences of Afrikaans speaking believers from the reformed tradition, involved in contemplative spirituality. Questionnaires and qualitative interviews were used for this purpose. The research path has been further shaped by social construction theory as a postmodern approach. This study was born out of my own discovery of the healing qualities of contemplative spirituality and secondly due to the growing demand among Afrikaans speaking reformed believers for exposure to the disciplines of contemplative spirituality. Little research is available on this topic and is it the hope of this research to open new conversations about contemplative spirituality in the Afrikaans reformed tradition. / Practical Theology / M. Th. (Praktiese Teologie)

In transmitting the Gospel, Western missionaries passed on their portrayal of Christ as a European. Conversion to Christianity was aimed more at promoting Western cultural, moral and spiritual issues. Western culture has thus been an obstacle or hindrance to effective cross-cultural communication of the Christian message. Batswana believers are challenged to peel the Western cultural layers off Christianity, in order to reclaim Christ. Batswana Christians will have to dress Christianity in the Tswana cultural heritage if it is to be of any lasting significance to them. Christian spirituality is centred on Jesus Christ, in the worldview of all Christians. Jesus joins faith and culture together. If Christianity is truly universal, then every culture should surrender to Jesus Christ and not to any other culture. Jesus’ question “who do you say that I am?” (Mk 8: 29), challenges Batswana Christians to write their own fifth Gospel. / Christian Spirituality Church History & Missiology / Thesis (M. Th. (Christian Spirituality))

The Kinetic quest of Ashtanga yoga through the lens of pilgrimage : making sense of postmodern questing.

The modern world is experiencing a spiritual and moral cns1s. Associated with this, Christian spirituality and ethics have become separated in the life of the individual Christian and the community of the church. The Christian understanding of human beings and the integrated nature of spirituality and ethics provides a solution to this crisis. Christian spirituality and morality both originate in the character and purposes of God as revealed in the biblical record. The value and effects of the integral relationship between spirituality and morality can be traced throughout scripture and the history of the church. The. encounter and relationship with God, in Jesus Christ and through the presence and power of God's Spirit, transforms the disciple of Christ, which means that spirituality is the basic framework and motivation for morality. Integrated spiritual and moral formation creates moral character and moral communities which enable believers to act with love and justice. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / M.Th. (Christian Spirituality)

This thesis is a comparative study that focuses on the writings of an Oxford-trained Indian Christian theologian, priest and Bishop named A.J. Appasamy (1891-1975), and his theological interaction with the texts and tradition of the Srivaiṣṇava reformer Rāmānuja (1017-1137). For my doctrinal focus I have chosen to explore Appasamy’s four-fold Johannine application of the ‘Body of God’ analogy - the ‘Universe’, ‘Incarnation’, ‘Eucharist’ and ‘Church’ being his four divine embodiments. Post-Independence, Appasamy faced criticisms from expatriate theologians who described his theological project as ‘bold heresies’, a ‘synthesis of Christianity and Vedanta’ that has ‘shifted the axis’ from Christianity to ‘Hindu religion’. By following the leads in Appasamy writings back to his devotional tradition, I argue that such charges are, in fact, baseless and that his application of the analogy is rooted, rather, in the sacramental theology of his own Anglican tradition. To do so I demonstrate how his views on divine embodiment closely reflect the theological developments that took place in the first half of the last century between the time of Charles Gore and William Temple. Methodologically, I am arguing for the need to understand theological discourse as being semiotically and traditionally situated, embedded in mythic narrative and embodied in ritual practice. In doing so, however, I further argue that just as Appasamy’s detractors have failed to read him in the context of his devotional tradition, so, too, has Appasamy done with Rāmānuja. By reading Rāmānuja more as a Vedāntic philosophical theologian than as a sectarian practitioner, he has abstracted the Ācārya from his tradition - a tradition that is undoubtedly temple-based. On this basis I challenge Appasamy’s use of Rāmānuja’s terms and propose what I believe to be a better reading of John’s Gospel for future comparative interaction with the Srivaiṣṇava tradition.

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This practicum is an exploration of the meaning of spirituality in the discourse of landscape architects as a means of understanding how people experience the urban and public realm in a relational and community driven approach. The spiritual is discussed as a relationship between the dualisms of the ordinary and extraordinary and the strange and familiar. Further, multicentered neighbourhoods build attachment to place in diverse and unique ways that build strong communities that embrace difference and seek to embody those at the margins of society. Further communities that strive for plurality create broad openness that is welcoming and inclusive. Finally, the relational city is designed from a place of generosity such that territorial bounds are loosened and communities operate with great empathy. The neighbourhoods of Wolseley, Armstrong’s Point and West Broadway are explored in narrative and imagery to actualize the theory and create cause for five design interventions concluding each chapter. / February 2016

Recent research and popular discourse offers evidence of a significant number of people in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world that self-identify as both "spiritual" and "not religious." Based on the conventional religious paradigm that has previously been supported by western scholarship, spirituality is a factor of religious involvement and such an identity combination should be rare in societies where people overwhelmingly participate in church activities. However, these new empirical data challenge this supposition. This quandary has renewed an interest among academics in understanding the relationship between spirituality and religion and in identifying mechanisms that have an impact on variance on particular combinations of the two. This dissertation explores the antecedent nature of certain combinations of structural conditions across nation states in association with substantial aggregations of "spiritual but not religious" populations in an effort to offer empirical evidence that can be used to support theoretical arguments about the cross-national variation of this population. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative methods and data from 32 nation states, this analysis explores the necessity and sufficiency of individual demographic and economic conditions, church and state relations, and popular attitudes about church involvement in politics while examining the consistency of their presence in paths that lead to "spiritual non-religious" identification. The results suggest that in the midst of an atmosphere of attitudes that oppose the involvement of religious organizations in politics that is related to the size of the institutional religious canopy, a nation's structural economic forces may be driving the variance in religious identification that is associated with spiritual identification. However, a full understanding of this relationship can only be gained through combining tests offered in this work with future qualitative cross-national studies that also consider subjective meaning.