The Fourth Gospel uses space to arrange its narrative and uses its narrative to represent Johannine space and experience. The spaces alluded to in John are full of contestation and serve as identity markers. By Nathanael asking if anything good can come from Nazareth, he represents Nazareth and its inhabitants as insignificant. Yet, by Jesus seeing in Nathanael, not a Galilean but an Israelite, Jesus subverts the regional stereotypes operative in Nathanael and John’s narrative world but maybe reflective of John’s concrete experience. By denying the sacred places of Jerusalem and Samaria, and proposing worship in spirit and truth, the Johannine Jesus is theologically and socially located on the margins of sacred place but at the centre of sacred presence. When the Johannine Jesus sees the arrival of the Greeks as the ‘hour of glory’ he subverts diaspora existence and marginalises the centre, Palestine. If the ultimate place to access God in John is utopia, then this is, no place. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

The topic of this dissertation is to show the meaning and the importance of conversion to the Lutheran Christians including Abalokole in the North Western Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. It critically investigates how the Abalokole and other Lutheran Christians in the area under study understand and practice conversion and revival in their Christian lives. The descriptions and analysis in this research have the importance of challenging Christians about their understanding of conversion and revival. The aim of all this will be to understand conversion as a type of Christian transformation and thus to develop new pastoral understanding of how to assist people in their process of transformation. It is important to understand how and why transformation takes place in the lives of men and women in a Christian context. In understanding conversion in depth, new insight is gained into the process of evangelism and the dynamics of Christian formation. Furthermore, by its very nature, conversion provides a rich topic for investigating the connection between understanding a phenomenon and applying that understanding to the practice of ministry. From this understanding, more educative methods will be needed among Lutheran Christians so that they will not need to be confused when they meet with doctrines of other Christian faiths. This thesis has the following chapters: Chapter One: This chapter deals with the introduction of the study. It introduces: the statement of the problem, the aim of the study, research hypothesis, research questions, scope and limitations, problems encountered during the research and clarification of the basic terminologies used in this study. Chapter two describes research methodology used to obtain data. It seeks to describe and validate the applied method. Inductive methodology has been utilized by beginning with people and their experiences and expertise. Therefore only those trusted key informants who could provide the required information were interviewed. Chapter Three explains the historical background of the advent of Lutheran Christianity and the impact of the Revival Movement or Balokole movement in the North Western Diocese (NWD) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT). This background information is necessary for the reader to grasp how people in the area became Christians and how they are experiencing conversion and revival today. Chapter Four: This chapter is all about data analysis and presentation of the findings. It focuses on what Christians are experiencing and saying about conversion and revival. It seeks to analyse the data reflected from these case studies and interviews. Chapter Five investigates the consequences of the Revival Movement in the North Western Diocese. It shows the strengths and weaknesses of the movement. It argues that in order to be a good disciple of Jesus Christ, one needs to be faithful, to repent and therefore to receive forgiveness from God. Chapter Six: This chapter shows some of the challenges facing the church as an institution. It focuses on the new vision and a way forward by introducing practical implementations on the topic under research. It moves into focusing on what has to be done by the Church. Chapter Seven: This chapter summarises the findings of the research. It deals with summary, conclusions and recommendations. It concludes by suggesting some of the work to be done by the Church (NWD) and some suggestions for further research. This thesis concludes with appendices: names of interviewees, Dioceses of ELCT, interview questions, transcriptions as well as a full bibliography. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005.

This thesis contends that Christian conversion in the African context has been authentic because of the translatability of the event of Christ. The event of Christ is defined as the incarnation, the suffering and death on the cross and the sending of the Holy Spirit. Through these events God made the calling of all humanity including Africans, for transformation unto salvation. God is perceived as the originator and the initiator of Christian conversion while human beings and their culture are perceived as the recipients and channels of God's mission. The combination of the concepts of preparation evangelical, the translatability of the event of Christ and the theology of the cross are the basis of the theological deliberations of this thesis. The thesis contends further that the proclamation of the gospel hence, Christianisation moved together with the wave of modernization. Due to the continuity of translation, Christianity strengthened its influence and became the Word of God in the Hehe vernacular. In that way Christianity was naturally indigenised and continually contextualised in the Hehe culture and belief thus being deeply entrenched in their daily life and could be rightly described as renewed Hehe (African) Religion. Therefore, the Hehe accepted Christianity because God appeared in the human (Hehe) nature through Jesus Christ and dwelt in the Hehe community and shared everything with them. God through Jesus Christ participated in the daily suffering. He was humiliated and became vulnerable and weak. Through the translation of the Word God was no longer the ineffable beyond. Through the manifestations of the spiritual gifts God remained among the Hehe; instructing, comforting and reminding them of the benevolent love and the call of God for the universal salvation through which the Church builds its response to God's mission. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2005

This thesis consists of a detailed study of ntumbuluko (Tsonga life force or worldview) as it emerges from field research which investigated Tsonga traditionalists, academics, artists, Christian practitioners and Bible translators to establish the meaning and use of ntumbuluko. The aim of the thesis is to uncover the impact of ntumbuluko in Tsonga Christianity by assessing its relationship with the gospel and to discern its influence in the apprehension of Christian faith among the Tsonga people of Mozambique; and finally to propose an evangelical perspective on the encounter between gospel and culture in Mozambique. The study demonstrates that ntumbuluko is a very pervasive concept or worldview. It has a highly integrated view of life and reality, thus, resisting a dualistic conception of life, the universe and the reality thereof. It is in ntumbuluko that the Tsonga find the essence of life, reality and humanity in harmonious correlation with the cosmos. Thus, ntumbuluko is a heuristic key for interpreting reality, including Christian faith. It provides a system of meaning for everything. It is at this point that ntumbuluko's relationship with the gospel needs to be examined. Tsonga people see ntumbuluko as the pre-established divine order of things and as a firm foundation of Tsonga existence. Tsonga society can be compared to a house built upon a bridge. Cracking the bridge is labouring towards one's own demise. Therefore, any affront against or disregard for ntumbuluko with modernist or faith argument threatens the centre of gravity of the Tsonga existence. Such an attitude warrants a counter response to maintain cosmic harmony to ensure a harmonious and balance existence. If Christians attempt to use the gospel to alter or disregard this principle, the gospel is viewed as "bad news." The peaceful encounter between and co-existence of ntumbuluko with the gospel is replaced with an antagonistic one. All in all, ntumbuluko is very ambivalent; it can be either positive, negative or neutral. Regardless of the fact that ntumbuluko is so often used negatively in the Bible and in official Christian discourse, most Christians concur with their traditionalists counterparts in perceiving, describing and using ntumbuluko in a more positive and/or neutral sense rather than negative sense. Christian practitioners, although indirectly, join the traditionalist attack on modernity (colonialism), Marxism and Christianity (Western missionary Christianity) for having destroyed ntumbuluko, thus weakening the life force therein. The alleged result has been humanitarian, ecological and environmental disasters (wars, droughts, flooding, disease, infant mortality, short life-span, etc.). Any religion and/or ideology which could be logically acceptable and desirable in Tsonga society would be the one that tunes into the ntumbuluko maintenance system or principle, thus ensuring cosmic harmony and an increase life force, with the subsidiary benefits thereof. This is why Christian faith is either resisted (the Tonga Mission 1560-1562 story) or undermined (as many informants indicated) in its encounter and co-existence (relationship) with ntumbuluko. This researcher argues, therefore, that the depth, complexity and pervasiveness of ntumbuluko require an approach such as "translation" and "interpretation", historically associated with John the Apostle. The gospel of John is the example par excellence. The author (John, for argument's sake), translated the divine truth, revelation and incarnation into Hellenistic cultural thought forms (Arche and Logos) and interpreted his translation with Christian truth, thus giving these age-old known concepts new meanings, Christian meanings. In that way, Arche and Logos mediated a deeper understanding and apprehension of the Christian faith to the Greeks. In so doing, the author bypassed the question of the relationship between Jesus and the above concepts in the Greek thought. Dealing with ntumbuluko from an evangelical perspective will also require translating the divine revelation and incarnation into Tsonga categories of ntumbuluko and interpreting it with new meanings, Christian meanings, to enable or mediate a deeper and profound apprehension and understanding of the Christian faith in the Tsonga cultural milieu, thus producing a vibrant Tsonga evangelical Christianity in Mozambique. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

This study uses a postcolonial feminist analysis to show how a biblical text (1 Cor 11:1-16), because of its patriarchal and imperial background, excludes women from the image of God. It demonstrates how this text has been taken up, developed and appropriated to support the subordination of women throughout the Christian tradition from the Church Fathers to the reformers and right up to the present day postcolonial Kenyan Church context. While this text has been used for a long time to oppress women, this study argues that a critical reading of the text from a postcolonial feminist perspective shows that gender disparity exists in this and in other gender-biased Pauline and post-Pauline texts because they were based on the existing patriarchal and imperial structures, which subordinated women to men. Further the study demonstrates that the texts have continued to subordinate women to men throughout the history of Christian tradition. Most churches, such as the Anglican Church, express belief in the Scriptures. Yet such churches like the Anglican Church of Kenya, which seemingly supports gender equality through its gender inclusive article in its Constitution, does not offer guidance about how such texts are to be read and appropriated by Christians. The study offers a method to fill this gap. It is hoped that the academy and the church will avail themselves of this method in their reading practices of the Bible. It takes into account the history of gender and imperial biases in the construction of texts such as 1 Cor 11:1-16 that exclude women from the image of God. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

Traditionally, the history of Christianity has been written from a white, missionary perspective and in many ways it has portrayed them as the heroes of Africa. Such information has neglected the hard work of their African counterparts, many of who interpreted and organized evangelistic meetings among the indigenous people. Its history has primarily reflected the opinions and interests of Western missionaries. The white missionaries' information relied almost exclusively on written sources. The missing link: Indigenous agents in the development of the Iringa diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (1899-1999), tries to recover the silenced voices of the Christian people particularly the men and women who played a crucial role in the development of the church in the Iringa diocese. The study has attempted to give an historic account of the recovering of the African perspective and counterbalance a presentation dominated by a missionary perspective and bringing to a fore all the actors by drawing attention to the role and importance of the African agents in the development of the church. In this study, oral history methodology has been used in analyzing and interpreting the history of the Iringa diocese from an African perspective, while at the same time bringing into focus the indigenous actors: teachers, evangelists, women and youth. There would have been a serious gap in Christian knowledge if such information were not available. The study has established that from the inception of the planting of the Lutheran church in the Iringa diocese in 1899 both the missionaries, Tanzanian clergy, and agents worked with determination for the church to take roots. From that time, the church gradually expanded by way of increase in the number of stations and converts. What cannot be ignored is the fact the indigenous agents were instrumental in the planting and consolidation of the gains of the Lutheran church in the Iringa diocese in Tanzania. The determination, with which the "fathers" saw to injecting Christianity in Tanzania, has been continued by the generations after them. From the foregoing, the point that Africans have always heard the gospel principally from other Africans in Africa should not be belabored. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002. / Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.

The present study is a critical history of the Catholic Church‟s response to HIV and Aids in South Africa, with a special emphasis on KwaZulu-Natal. It attempts to document and reflect on what the church said and did in responding to HIV and Aids between 1984 and 2005. It relies upon both oral and literary sources which were collected between 2006 and 2009. These comprise of oral testimonies of Catholic clerics, lay leaders, and administrators as well as archival sources in the form of correspondence letters, plenary session minutes, magazine articles, and project reports. The study establishes that between 1984 and 1990 the Catholic Church saw Aids as a disease far removed from its sphere yet deserving certain visionary measures. To a larger extent, Aids was ignored. A moral perspective on the Aids disease prevailed throughout the period. However, isolated visionary leaders conducted awareness workshops. Between 1991 and 1999, however, Aids was seen as immediate, a problem closely related to the mission of the Catholic Church. Here Aids was confronted. The predominant theological response was „missiological,‟ expressed through the new pastoral plan, Community Serving Humanity. As a result, the main Aids related activity by the church was the care of PLWHA. Through home-based care and institutionalised care, Catholic local initiatives in responding to the disease mushroomed in the country with the Archdiocese of Durban taking a leading role. Between 2000 and 2005 Aids was seen as imminent in the church, a concept popularised as the „Church has Aids‟. As a result, the period witnessed a concerted effort by the Catholic Church to integrate Aids response into its mainstream activities. In this period, Aids was seen as a human rights issue. Consequently, the Catholic Church endeavoured to address rights to treatment, Aids related stigma, family violence and gender imbalances. „Responsibility in a Time of Aids‟ became a predominant theological concept. The Catholic Church became a pacesetter in care and treatment after securing oversees funding. However, prevention became the church‟s Achilles heel following an unrelenting condom controversy. The availability of large amounts of money and many financial donors led to the NGO-isation of the Catholic Church‟s Aids projects with regard to their identity, activities, and organization. By and large, HIV and Aids had a large impact on the Catholic Church at all levels, both theologically and organizationally. Therefore, the study argues that for the Catholic Church responding to the Aids epidemic was a complex organizational dilemma. On the one hand, the church‟s teachings compelled it to care for the sick with a compassionate love and uphold a naturalist ethical position on sexuality. On the other hand, the Aids disease was associated with what was perceived to be sinful behaviours such as prostitution, homosexuality and heterosexual acts outside marriage. The infected, therefore, were not only „sick‟ but „sinners‟ at the same time. Moreover, the means of HIV prevention advocated by the government and the better part of the society, the use of condoms, was in sharp contrast with the church‟s official teachings. The hierarchy set itself to defend the teachings while majority of the lay leaders and the medical practitioners called for its revision. Generally speaking, the Catholic Church‟s response to the HIV and Aids epidemic in South Africa was entangled by organizational controversies. In spite of warnings by visionary leaders such as Father Ted Rogers and the exemplary leadership of Archbishop Denis Hurley during the mid 1980s, the Catholic organizational focus on HIV and Aids was delayed until 1990. A concern to respond to HIV and Aids in the church increased considerably in the 1990s as attention shifted from the cry for freedom and democracy to the escalating Aids crisis. However, it was during the 2000s that conditions favoured the much needed integrated Aids response. The Aids crisis had become too obvious to ignore given the acute mortality rate. In conclusion the Catholic Church‟s response to HIV and Aids came relatively early with creative and visionary ideas but it was hindered by organizational and theological barriers. The Catholic Church‟s official HIV prevention policy was contradictory and ambiguous. The Catholic Church innovatively used two models, institutionalised care and home-based care, in the treatment and care of PLWHA and Aids orphans, home based care and Aids hospices. The Catholic Church demonstrated an outstanding ability to raise and disburse large amounts of funds, successfully channelling these to service delivery in its response to HIV and Aids. The Catholic Church Aids projects became NGO-ised following the influx of large foreign funds in the years of the 2000s. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

In the wake of HIV and AIDS in Africa, culture has been identified as central to HIV prevention, care, and support. Therefore, scholars have argued that HIV intervention in communities should focus on cultural practices rather than just individual behaviour. Researchers have also taken note of the interconnectedness between religion and culture in Africa. Therefore the African theologian, Mercy Oduyoye, proposed the term ‘religioculture.’ In the light of this connection, it has become crucial to examine not just cultural practices but the response of religion to cultural practices in the context of HIV. Given that Zambia is a Christian country, this qualitative empirical study sought to examine the response of a church, the United Church of Zambia (UCZ), to traditional marriage practices that I consider to be harmful in the context of HIV. Traditional marriage practices such as child marriage and widowhood inheritance were analysed through gendered theological perspectives. The study was located in the United Church of Zambia in the towns of Mufulira and Kitwe in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. The reason for choosing the practices of widowhood inheritance and child marriage as the areas of focus was twofold: first, throughout history and in the current context, the church and society’s perception of these two practices has been ambiguous. Depending on the time and event in history, the practices were seen as either a norm or a problem. In this study, I have questioned the extent to which this historical ambiguity towards these traditional marriage practices has contributed to the way in which the church today is responding to these culture practices. The second reason for choosing these two marriage practices was to highlight how the institution of marriage has been challenged in the context of HIV and AIDS. When marriage ceases to be a safe practice for couples, how should the church respond to the harmful cultural practices associated with marriage, especially in the context of HIV and AIDS? The question that this study posed, therefore, was: What role has the United Church of Zambia played in either promoting or discouraging harmful marriage practices in the context of HIV and AIDS? The methodology used to answer this question included: semi- structured interviews, openended in-depth interviews, Contextual Bible Study, and focus group discussions as forms of data collection from: church leaders, lay people, widows, girls involved in child marriage, and members of the Marriage Guidance Committee. Thereafter, the data was thematically ii analysed using the theory of African feminist cultural hermeneutics. The study is divided into eight chapters, each chapter answers one of the objectives of the study. Through the use of the tools for data collection stated above, the study drew a number of conclusions. Firstly, it was established that indeed child marriage and widowhood inheritance are contributing factors to the spread of HIV. Secondly, the Marriage Guidance Programme of the United Church of Zambia was identified as a point of entry in re-examining the theology of marriage that is contextual and holistic in the United Church of Zambia. Thirdly, the church’s ambivalence with regard to harmful marriage practices in the context of HIV and AIDS was attributed to people’s belief systems about their cultures which are embedded in their worldviews. Overall, the study has shown that there is a need for an analysis of culture within the church which can enable it to respond to harmful cultural practices in the context of HIV. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

This thesis offers a critical gendered analysis of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE): a programme which was begun when the ANC government came unto power in 1994, to correct the economic imbalances instituted by the Apartheid system. The thesis argues that the programme has not effectively benefited black women in South Africa. Despite the fact that the focus of the programme has recently been changed to benefit a broad base of previously disempowered black people, only a few men who are connected to the ANC government have benefited. The thesis provides an overview of the background that necessitated the implementation of the economic programme. It specifically highlights the economic inequalities that were cornerstones of apartheid and their effects on Black women. It investigates statistics relating to BEE and gender, and reveals that eight key areas inhibit black women’s participation in the BEE programme. These include the fact that the original document did not mention women, women’s lack of capital, the glass ceiling, a sense of inferiority held by women, lack of mentorship and networking groups, family commitments and workload, gender stereotypes, and inadequate education and skills. The thesis argues that these eight key areas result from patriarchal customs and traditions in the South African society. To support this claim, the thesis then examines the responses of women participating in BEE. Women in BEE have voiced their concerns on different platforms but it is not enough to bring about the required transformation in the economy. Therefore, in order to adequately deal with factors that inhibit women’s participation in BEE, the thesis proposes that developmental feminist ethical and cultural tools needs to be engaged with in order for gender justice to be realised in BEE. In the search for solutions to factors inhibiting women’s participation, the thesis proposes the incorporation of the virtues of ubuntu, such as communalism, participation, humanity and solidarity, in BEE. In conclusion, the thesis argues that the South African economy cannot be built on the efforts of male citizens alone. There is the need for the government to ensure the inclusion of women at all levels of the economy, and to “shatter the glass ceiling” which Black women are constantly up against. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

This research proposes a Nigerian indigenous oikotheology to assist the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) better meet the challenges of the “double earth crisis” of poverty and environmental degradation. The thesis begins by arguing that the crisis of poverty and the crisis of ecology are inextricably linked. It does this by examining the situation globally, in Africa and in Nigeria. It argues that for the church to be able to articulate the needed theological paradigm in response to the “double earth crisis”, it is important that it is adequately informed and equipped with environmental knowledge as well as the dynamics of the global capitalist system and its hegemonic influences. This understanding is imperative because these affect the environment and poverty nexus. The thesis then examines the response of the Anglican Church to the environment and poverty by situating this within the wider biblical, Christian and ecumenical history, and the history of the Anglican Church itself. It then looks at the Anglican Church in Nigeria by investigating the engagement of the three Anglican Dioceses in Anambra State (Nigeria) in environment and poverty issues. It also investigates the understanding of the diocesan clergy on these issues. Findings from the research field work indicate that a majority of the clergy exhibited an appreciable level of environmental awareness contrary to the hypothesis of the study. However, this knowledge is a “paper knowledge” because of its heavy reliance on the ‘traditional’ view of understanding of the environment. Thus it creates a huge gap between theoretical knowledge and practical commitment on the part of the dioceses. Collective will and practical commitment which are vital for the church’s engagement in poverty and environment issues are therefore lacking, and this leads to the church’s difficulty in significantly living up to its environmental responsibility in practical ways. In responding to the identified gap, the thesis examines ‘four generations’ of ecological motifs in theology, namely, dominion, stewardship, eco-theology and oikotheology. Oikotheology is an attempt to strengthen the weaknesses in the Christian ecological thoughts (from dominion to ecotheology) and hence provide an eco-theological framework that will engender commitment and action. However, because of the challenges with which Oikotheology grapples (strong eschatological influences and inaccessibility to African culture), it could not achieve this aim in the Nigerian setting. In a continued search for an eco-theological framework that is more African, the study articulates the synthesis of Oikotheology and African indigenous ecological ethics (a fifth generation) as a theological framework which would uniquely appeal to African Christianity in its attempt to collaborate with other disciplines in addressing the challenges of the environment and poverty in Africa and the world. Key to this synthesis is an examination of Nigerian Igbo proverbs-the egbe belu precautionary principle and onye aghana nwa nne ya in particular, and the African cosmology in general. This synthesis, considered in our opinion as Africa’s gift to humanity and Christendom, will no doubt significantly contribute to the global discussion on the current double earth crisis of environment and poverty. The thesis concludes with a series of practical suggestions including among others the formation of a National Commission on the environment by the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) as a way of fostering environmental education. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.