Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

The purpose of this study is to encourage honest dialogue between the Christian teaching on human sexuality as propounded by the Roman Catholic Church and that advocated by the Zulu traditions and customs. The perceived gap between these two worldviews results in the ineffectiveness ofthe sexual teaching of the Roman Catholic Church in South Africa and the experience of many Zulu Catholics of being tom between their Christian belief and their Zulu cultural roots. This study shows that the dialogue between these woridviews produces a relevant, positive and holistic moral sexual teaching. In order to achieve this end the thesis jlL\.1aposes these worldviews and exposes their compatibility and incompatibility. This dialogue establishes a melting point ofthe Christian sexual teaching on human sexuality and the teaching of the Zulu traditions which produces a Zulu Christian theology of human sexuality. To achieve this end the thesis is divided into si-" chapters. The Introduction outlines the problem and describes the approach that is followed. Chapter Two offers a brief history of the Zulu society. It also deals with the interviews conducted among the senior members of the Kwa-Mzimba village in order to learn ofZulu traditions relating to sexual matters. Chapter Three deals with interviews that were conducted among the young people of Kwa-Mzimba These young people show Zulu traditions and customs in transition in the modem world. Chapter Four outlines the development of the Catholic teaching on human sexuality from the early church to the present day. Chapter Five presents the official teaching of the Catholic Church in Southern Africa, especially in the HIV/AIDS context. Chapter SL"{ brings together the Zulu and the Catholic approaches and practices and gives a Contextualised Moral Sexual Teaching that is both positive and holistic. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

This thesis consists of a detailed exegetical and contextual study of passages that contain the term "to know YHWH" in the book of Jeremiah. The goal of the thesis was to define the meaning of the term "to know YHWH" as Jeremiah understood it and to find out its relevance for the Church in DR Congo. The study demonstrates that the life of Judah as a nation was conditioned by the knowledge of YHWH. According to Jeremiah, to know YHWH is to recognize covenantal traditions as normative and to accept to follow them for a harmonious relationship with YHWH and with one another in the society. These covenantal traditions were rooted in YHWH's mighty acts of liberation of Israel in history, in YHWH's prerogative as the sole God of Israel, and in the necessity for Israel to establish a just society as witness of YHWH's justice, righteousness and steadfast love. Jeremiah demonstrates that it is the abandonment of this knowledge that caused the disintegration of Judah as a nation. This abandonment of the knowledge of YHWH is manifested in two areas. The first is the area of social justice (4:19-22; 5:1-6; 9:1-8; 9:22-23; 22:13-19). Several passages in Jeremiah link the lack of the knowledge of YHWH with the perversion of justice in terms of not encouraging the oppressed, not defending the cause of the fatherless, not pleading the cause of the widow, and not maintaining justice in the court. This lack of social justice is also manifested in terms of falsehood, adultery, abuse of human speech and the abuse of power by those who possess it. The second is the area of idolatry (2:4-13). The prophet Jeremiah accuses the people of Judah (Israel) of not having called upon YHWH during their time of need. Instead, they chose to go after foreign nations and their idols. In this way, they broke the covenant with YHWH and brought judgment upon the nation. For Jeremiah, the blame of the failure to know YHWH is to be placed upon the entire nation, but particularly upon two groups of people: religious and political leaders. These two groups worked for their own interest and failed to maintain a society according to the requirements set in the covenant. YHWH responded to this failure in two different ways (24:4-7; 31:31-34): he punished his people by sending them into exile, and promised to restore them. This restoration will consist of bringing Israelites back to their land, of making a new covenant with them, and of giving them a new heart that will enable them to fully know him. I used my Congolese context to understand the meaning of some passages in Jeremiah where I could not agree (or where I was not sure) with other scholars' interpretation. At the same time, the book of Jeremiah helped me to realize that it is because our Congolese Christianity (or our knowledge of YHWH) is still superficial that it has not yet been able to help us build a coherent and unified nation. This is why the DR Congo has collapsed in spite of its claim to have the largest Roman Catholic community in the continent, the world's most influential francophone Protestant movement and the continent's biggest independent Churches. This researcher argues that the crisis in DR Congo may find a solution if the Church reorganizes her ministries and views her mission as the implementation of Jesus' mission for the world: the announcement 1f the coming of the Kingdom of God with its vision of the new heaven and new earth. This vision of new earth and new heaven would lead the Church to a new understanding of our salvation in Christ as a constant restoration of our relationship with God, with one another and 'a new understandiJOl9 of our life and ministry as responsible citizens, striving to reconcile every aspect of our life as individuals and community with Christ. In this way, the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of each Christian would not be understood only in terms of leading us to heaven but also as the power that enables us to transform our society now and here. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

The dissertation details and analyses an interpretation of the Christian concept of God that emerges through the interactions between the missionaries, post-missionary Christianity and the Raya people in Tanzania. It investigates the nature, implications and possible problems encountered in the processes of interpretation. Four main issues are investigated and addressed. Firstly, each group interacted in its own way and played a significant role in creating an arena for successful communication. The main two challenges facing the missionaries were: delivering the Christian message so that the hearers derive its meaning, and the use of the traditional but nonindigenous concept of God for identifying the Christian concept of God, according to the biblical and the classical doctrine of the Trinity. Secondly, the Raya and the convert's reactions to the missionaries' version of God had taken place in two phases, earlier and later interactions. In the earlier phase, the Raya responded to the missionaries' version of God on the basis of their traditional understanding of God. It led them to an initial acceptance of the missionaries' version of God and conversion. The converts later reacted to the missionaries' version and some asked: what happens after a conversion to Christianity? Challenged by their earlier experience of the Christian concept of God, some converts felt the need for a second paradigm shift. On the basis of an invocation of the Deity in a threefold form at a subjective level, these converts had embarked on a self-interpretation and understanding of the missionaries' version of the Trinity in traditional idiom and terms. It resulted in the construction of the Raya Christian theology of the Trinity. Thirdly, the study also addressed the further impacts and responses to the missionaries' version of God. While the missionaries' interpretative approach laid the foundation for the converts' interpretation, in turn both set the course for the post-missionary Christianity's interpretation. At this point, post-missionary Christianity had reinterpreted the Christian concept of God on the basis of a traditional Raya concept of God. The main question faced them is an application of the Ruhanga model according to its frame of reference, although partially applied it paved the way for a full application in later times. Fourthly, in response to the challenges raised by earlier interpretative approaches, missionaries, converts and post-missionary Christianity, the study embarked on interpreting the Trinity in traditional tenns. It aimed at reaching a higher stage of understanding the Trinity by all Haya converts, even the simplest ones. It demanded an investigation of the hypothesis that a Haya invocation of the Deity in a threefold fonn is a key to understanding both the Haya and the Christian concepts of God. An application of it involved addressing the question of how it could be applied at the church level to interpret and understand the Trinity in Haya idiom. It is proposed that initially this will be achieved through an interpretation and christianisation of the Haya concept of God and a re-interpretation and indigenisation of the Christian concept of God. While biblical, classical and contemporary interpretations of the Trinity are a referral basis for each approach, social and theological models are key methodological instruments. Finally, the need of this study has roots in the fact that, through my pastoral ministry, I have pondered and cross-examined myself on what the Haya and Africans as a whole can contribute to the enrichment of Christian theology. An investigation of the converts' interpretation of the Trinity into their own version of a Haya theology of the Trinity is looked upon as a small part of this contribution. / Thesis (Ph.D. ; School of Theology) - University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

This dissertation presents a descriptive analysis of theological education in the Lesotho Evangelical Church, focussed largely on the work of Morija Theological Seminary. The dissertation provides an historical overview of the Lesotho Evangelical Church‘s work of theological education, and describes analytically various elements of and the roles of participants in preparation for the ordained ministry in the Lesotho Evangelical Church. This project proceeded as an organisational case study, and employed enthographic tools such as participant observation, documentary research, focus group interviews, and semi-structured individual interviews over the course of approximately two years between 2005 and 2007. Specific areas of investigative concentration included Campus Life and General Course of Study; Contextual Applicability of Pastoral Skills and Knowledge; Field Education; Christianity in Culture; Poverty; and HIV and AIDS. This dissertation presents data and discussion related primarily to findings in the first of these areas, and investigates data related to worship life, governance, and interpersonal relationships at Morija Theological Seminary as they relate to the educational task of the institution and its role within and connectedness to the history, life, and organisational structure of the wider Lesotho Evangelical Church. Findings are presented in conversation with Michel Foucault‘s presentation of the development of ―delinquency‖ in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, and within the context of assertions about normative relationships within Christianity and theological education, including Craig Dykstra‘s suggestion that theological seminaries should be "communities of faith and learning." The descriptive analysis and accompanying research data are presented as the first step of what Don Browning has called "fundamental practical theology." / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

This thesis addresses the fundamental problem of whether and how the church's tradition can be understood as revelatory given its patriarchal nature and its implication in relations of power. It is therefore concerned with how feminist Catholics are to be accountable to tradition. In addressing this problem the thesis follows three basic movements. The first juxtaposes contemporary discourses that are concerned with revelation, on the one hand, and rupture, on the other. However, by an investigation of the apophatic tradition in theology and its relation to the cataphatic, it suggests that this juxtaposition is both necessary to theology and that it has a long theological pedigree. Therefore the second movement, in seeking mediating paths with which to respond to this rupture in knowledge, proposes a dual mediation that maintains an unreconcilable tensiveness between a path of transformative interpretation and a path which continues to probe that which is unsaid. The third movement looks at how this is expressed in the theology of tradition and the church. By highlighting the distinction between tradition as the whole life of the church and the Tradition which is ultimately Other, it points to a fundamental tension between that which is witnessed to in discourse and is therefore implicated in relations of power and that which, while witnessed to, is ultimately uncapturable but nevertheless accompanies all discourse. In this context, the thesis concludes, the church is both the privileged witness to the Other, but its witness is a wounded witness. While it is in the church that we encounter the Tradition, the challenge that we face is to find ways to allow that which is Other to break through our limited and necessarily wounded discourse. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.

This thesis is a critical examination of patterns of research in the academic study of Shona traditional religion, with special reference to methodological considerations. I analyse the methods and approaches used so far by prominent writers in the study of Zimbabwe's Shona traditional religion so that we may be able to develop better ways of researching it. I then discuss ways that ought to inform and direct the research methods that are most likely to yield adequate empirical studies of the Shona people. I analyse works of the "early writers", as well as those of Michael Gelfand, Gordon Chavunduka and Michael Bourdillon. Where relevant, I explore the connection between the researchers' religious, cultural, academic or professional "baggage" and how this relates to their research. Discussing methodological issues such as: the "insider-outsider" question, the "emic-etic" issue, value-judgment as well as the questions of reductionism, "subjectivity" and "objectivity" in scholarship, I examine these writers' attitudes to, and the ways they wrote about Shona traditional religion and cultural practices. I assess their approaches and research methods in relation to those from various disciplines such as history, phenomenology, theology, anthropology and participant observation. I analyse the extent to which these writers, for example, utilised the historical approach or presented insider perspectives in an endeavour to reach an adequate and thorough understanding of Shona religion and culture. In view of the fact that Shona traditional religion is a polyvalent and polymorphic community religion, I argue that no one approach and method can be said to be "the" only method so as to attain a comprehensive understanding of the meanings veiled in Shona religion and culture. Furthermore, given the nature of Shona traditional religion, it is essential for researchers to exploit as much of oral history as possible. Thus, researchers also need to learn the Shona language, live in the community for a long period of time, attend and observe every bit of Shona life so as to see, hear and understand how these phenomena fit together. It is suggested that methodological conversion and agnostic restraint need to be forged into a multi-disciplinary and poly-methodic science of religion in the quest of a research model to be used in order to attain a better understanding of Shona religion, culture and society. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1997.

The aim of this study is to examine the communication models with which the church works and if necessary, to create an alternative model. The criticism of the worship service requires that the church rethinks her activities. The target of the study is the Christian worship service as seen in the main stream of Protestant thinking in South Africa. In particular it looks at the Reformed-, Pentecostal- and Neo-pentecostal churchgroups. Church history shows that the church often gets involved with heresy, and that God ever so often brings His church back through specific reformations. In the light of this, the church should ask the right questions now to be able to give the right answers in the twenty first century. The liturgical crisis requires that ministers should lead worship with honesty and enthusiasm. Ministers will have to be careful not to try and produce or imitate God's work, but through the interaction between the people themselves and between God and his people, to be an instrument in God's hand. Therefore this study suggests principles which governs the communication in the worship service. The importance of this study lies in the fact that it tries to understand the very complex situation of communication in the Christian worship service. These peculiar dynamics is both unique and general. Unique, in the sense that the Lord Jesus Christ is present amongst His children, that God through grace intervenes in the lives of people and by this makes the most ideal communication possible. Generally, in the sense that it is through common everyday communication skills, that the worship service is experienced. The individual who attends the service will come to a specific understanding of the situation, through the normal human communication process. This study also designed a measuring device in the form of questionnaires to identify what people experience during the worship service. It comes to the conclusion that ministers must set up the most ideal situation for effective communication during services. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1990.

This dissertation takes up the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) schism in 1946 in Namibia from the Rhenish Mission Society RMS), due to a protest against the inhumane treatment that the Nama leaders were forced to accept from the German missionaries belonging to the Rhenish Mission Society. The agitation movement of 1946 organized a church separated from the RMS which was started in response to the Africans' need for opportunities for self-expression, fuller involvement in the Church of God, and in society as a whole. It was the answer to a cry for social recognition as human beings, and the means through which a group of people started on a programme which gave them a growing sense of dignity and self respect. The underlying and longer term problems of this first schism in Namibia come out above all in the correspondence between the missionary Christiaan Spellmeyer and Petrus Jod, Markus Witbooi and Zacheus Thomas. These documents shed some light on the policy and attitude of the RMS in Namibia and in Gibeon in particular, mainly during the 1930's and early 1940's. This thesis records the significant role played by the Nama leaders to voice their grievances against the RMS. The involvement of the RMS missionaries in colonial politics has contributed to the subjugation of the black people. By concentrating their efforts on pioneering incentives in education, social care and ordination, the Nama leaders made an outstanding contribution to the establishment of AMEC in Namibia, the church which responds closely to the needs of the Nama people. This study should be of interest to those who are doing research on the history of Christian missions in Southern Africa, and in particular in Namibia. It is hoped that the findings of this study will bring a local perspective on the activities of the AMEC in Namibia, as up to the present, much available information has been written by German missionaries. A complete history of the indigenous clergy in Namibia, is unwritten. Much that would be most interesting and valuable went to the grave with those who had no possible means of transmitting it except by the uncertain and unreliable method of tradition. What made Zacheus Thomas, Markus Witbooi and Petrus Jod different from the Rhenish Mission Society's staff was the fact that they were from the IKhobesin clan, who understand and respect the culture of the Nama people. They could see and appreciate the structures of the Nama society and planned a development project from the African perspective. The researcher presents this work as a tribute to these pioneering Nama leaders whose lives and relationships are a true reflection of their Christian faith. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2003.

This study is an attempt to read the Prologue of the Gospel of John using the type of Rhetorical Analysis based on Semitic logic. This Semitic approach shows the chiastic construction of the Prologue demonstrating its centre to be anthropocentric rather than theocentric. Furthermore this Semitic logic makes it possible to identify the central term (pisteu,ousin) in the Prologue and also demonstrates the strategic placing of that term. Modern and post-modern literary approaches are employed to discover what the implied reader knows about the Prologue. The rationale in all this is that the more one engages with the implied reader, the more one gets to know about the text. The construction of the implied reader takes into account the worldview prominent in the first century CE biblical world. The aspects which deal with a retrospective reading of the text make it possible to enter into the Jewish biblical and socio-cultural matrix which has generated themes touched on by the Prologue. The aspects dealing with the prospective reading of the text demonstrate how the Prologue prepares the real reader to engage with the remainder of the Gospel of John. The research in Intertextuality has made it abundantly clear that in reading the Prologue the real reader actually engages with a multiplicity of texts and circumstances to such an extent that s/he is not merely reading Jn 1:1-18 but a vast network of information and codes known to the implied reader. The interpretations produced by such an engagement are both creative and original. For example, the association of the centre piece of the Prologue with the promise God made to Abraham is no mere inferential leap – it derives from literal and thematic intertextual engagements with the two testaments which comprise the Christian Bible. Some epistemological problems have surfaced with respect to the interactionism and relational dynamics associated with the reading process and these are pointed out in the thesis. It must be noted that far from hampering the work, these epistemological issues have actually pointed out new directions for further research. In this regard the General Conclusion to the thesis is relevant. Key terms: Johannine Prologue; the Gospel of John; Exegesis/Exegetical Method; Rhetorical Analysis; Semitic thinking; Intertextuality; Reader Response Criticism; Implied reader; Real reader; Jesus Christ; Moses; Jewish culture; John the Baptist; Qumran community; o` lo,goj; Incarnation; Wisdom traditions; Exodus; Glory of God. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.