No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1996.

This study focuses on the issue of Pastoral Care and Counselling to the parishioners under Church discipline in the North Western Diocese (NWD) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT). The dissertation is concerned with the understanding of Church discipline in the Old Testament, New Testament, from the Early Church up to the present day. The study focuses especially on the history and the practice of Church discipline in the North Western Diocese. The main body of this study is in chapters four and five. Chapter four discusses the danger and the blessings for a parishioner who is under Church discipline. Chapter five discusses the avenues by which to care for and counsel parishioners who are under Church discipline. It is the writer's understanding that the methodology used on how to care for and counsel parishioners under Church discipline can be applied to all parishioners in the Diocese. It is the emphasis of the researcher of this dissertation that there is inadequate care of souls due to lack of training and discipline in the Church. We need discipline in order to challenge our defense patterns of behaviour in the understanding ourselves and others and in knowing and learning to be responsible Christian people. The study calls the Church of the North Western Diocese to rethink the whole issue of how to practise Church discipline in such a way that parishioners are not judged, but comforted by caring and counselling. It is the writer's understanding that the Church has kept discipline because it maintains that God's grace is not cheap. Grace is not a licence to sin. The true aim of Church discipline is to help the sinner to restore his or her relationship 11 with Christ and the Church. To do this, parishioners under Church discipline are urged to repent of their sin and live in fellowship with God. If parishioners under Church discipline refuse to repent they have to carry the fate for their sin. There is no mercy without repentance. It is the writer's belief that the healthy practice of pastoral care and counselling in the North Western Diocese will depend upon the regaining of a balance and the interaction between healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling models. Through this understanding, pastoral care becomes a Christian response to humanity's need. Therefore one can conclude that pastoral care and counselling can balance and heal the effect of Church discipline. Although this study focuses on the North Western Diocese (NWD), the questions and problems concerning the issue of Church discipline and the way to approach it might be similar in many Churches in Tanzania and also in Africa. Unless otherwise indicated, scriptural quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW REVISED STANDARD VERSION (NRSV), copyright @ 1989 by the Division of Christians Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

This study is uses reader-response methodology in order to argue: 1) that it is possible through a right understanding and application of this methodology to use it to discover how ordinary readers interpret the Epistle to the Romans and to present a reading of the text by two groups of ordinary readers in Pietermaritzburg. 2) that it is possible to collect the data necessary for the presentation of the interpretation of Romans by ordinary readers using the techniques .that have been developed in ethnographic research. 3) that the interpretation of the letter by ordinary readers shows that they read the text of Romans with a mixture of acceptance and resistance to the rhetoric of the text. 4) that a discussion of the debate on the authorial i intention in Romans can be used to posit the reactions of the original readers/hearers of the letter and that this reaction can then be compared with that of the readers in Pietermaritzburg. To reach the conclusion that in the case of Romans, and by extension in any other text, it is the ordinary readers of the text who, by accepting or rejecting it, determine the success or failure of the author in communicating her intention through the text . / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1996.

G.C. Berkouwer is one of the foremost representatives of the Reformed theological tradition in Europe. His Studies in Dogmatics is a formidable body of work which ranges over the larger part of all Christian doctrine. A lacuna which has however been perceived is the absence of a specific work on the Holy Spirit and consequently, a developed pneumatology. What is evident though, is that Berkouwer's theology is highly trinitarian and that in every saving and gracious action of the Godhead, he demonstrates the life and activity of all the persons of the triune God. Seen from this perspective, the person and work of the Holy Spirit permeates the whole corpus of Berkouwer's writing. Berkouwer is always an authentic and orthodox representative of his own ecclesial tradition as well: commonly a tradition which in keeping with the best of Reformed church genius, has tended to be notable more for its developed Christology than for its pneumatology. Berkouwer's contribution is that he is able to expand and extrapolate on this same tradition without ever deviating from its fundamental teaching. In so doing he has enriched many of its values with new perspectives on the Holy Spirit's active role in salvation. The primary reason why his dogmatical studies have a pertinence for the present is because of the growing influence of other more extreme schools of thought on the flanks of Christianity. There is an active sociopolitical brand of theology on the one extreme that in turn is more than offset by an enthusiastic pentecostal groundswell on the other. In the face of often strident appeals for attention from these wings, Berkouwer counters with an orthodox and highly scholarly analysis of scripture and the traditional doctrinal position of the church. The pneumatology that emerges from his teaching demonstrates the gracious and constant outworking of God in the individual, the church, and the universe. A foundation is laid for encountering and receiving this comprehensive teaching in all its aspects especially in the preached word. The Spirit's activity is especially affirmed in the sanctification of man and in the inspiration of the scriptures. His divine creativity is constantly active not just in the church and its sacraments, but also in His anticipatory work for the future consummation. Whenever Berkouwer has not fully expanded any doctrine, he has nonetheless invariably given sufficient pointers for others to follow and build upon. There remains such that can still be utilized and explored in his writings about the Holy Spirit. / Thesis (M.Th.)--University of Durban-Westville, 1985.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1999.

The relationship between the church and the synagogue has always been complex. Both as religions and as traditions, Christianity and Judaism are related to each other in ways that make it difficult for them to be merely parallel phenomena. On the one hand, Christianity grew out of Judaism with a claim to the fulfilment thereof, and, on the other hand, in the history of ideas they are intertwined beyond disentanglement. Besides the simple fact that Jesus lived and died as a pious Jew, the church and the synagogue share a common scripture and use common language about God. During its history the church has not always known how to understand this close relationship with the synagogue. For the most part it tried to destroy the relationship, theologically and even at times physically. This attitude of theological anti-Judaism is called supercessionism. It understands the church as superior to the synagogue since the church is the heir of the promises of the Old Testament, especially as they are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The question arose after the horror of Hitler's "Final Solution" whether the church's theological relationship with the synagogue expressed in supercessionism was connected in any way to racial anti-Semitism. For some theologians there was absolutely no link, but for others clearly so. Seeing more than a simple link between secular and sacred anti-Judaism, these theologians went one step further by showing that anti-Judaism had a basis in the church's New Testament. Thus it was impossible to preach the gospel without at the same time attacking Judaism. This paper attempts to show the connection between racial and theological anti-Judaism, by examining in some depth the church's teaching of supercessionism and showing how this teaching has contributed to racial anti-Semitism. This connection is made in order to suggest the need for a new model of relationship between church and synagogue, a model called engraftment, an image that expresses the church's and the synagogue's interrelatedness and equality. But our model, instead of rejecting the New Testament scripture as anti-Jewish, seeks to reinterpret it, especially the teaching of Paul, in order to use it as a basis for renewal. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, November, 1995.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2004.

This dissertation critically reviews chilangizo in the Baptist Convention of Malawi (BACOMA) and assesses its impact on Chewa society. Christian History has shown that the Christian attitude towards traditional customs and practices surrounding life cycle rituals has ranged from negative and hostile to positive and acceptance, resulting in offering alternative 'Christian' rituals. The issue of chilangizo and chinamwali have been a real pastoral and missiological problem to the Baptist Convention churches because of the churches' failure to understand the meaning of the traditional rites in the light of the mother tongue Scriptures. This study aims at guiding the Church in Malawi and in Africa to engage with more openness with the cultural issues. This should assist BACOMA to thoroughly understand this cultural phenomenon and the meanings associated with all aspects of the rites. Studying the Scriptures to understand how they reinterpret chinamwali and its associated meanings should lead BACOMA churches into an interactive process of discussion, reflection, teaching and action. This study is therefore an attempt to begin this process and make recommendations for BACOMA. After the introductory chapter, the second chapter gives a survey of the 'religious itinerary' of the Chewa pre-Christian life and thought. The third chapter traces the emergence of BACOMA churches within the American Southern Baptists' religious and Western cultural contexts on one hand, and the African context on the other. The fourth chapter gives a phenomenological description and analysis of chinamwali. It also shows the socio-religious significance of chinamwali within the Chewa culture. The fifth chapter surveys the historical context of chilangizo as the Christian response to the traditional rite. It then analyses the Baptist chilangizo liturgy and its contents. The sixth chapter gives the phenomenological description and analysis of chilangizo at the grassroots level. It also assesses its impact and makes recommendations towards an improved rite. In view of the assessment and recommendations made in chapter six, the final chapter allows the Chewa Scriptures to re-interpret the rite and its meanings. It also presents a proposed Christian chinamwali that maintains the traditional ritual frame and dynamism. The proposal leaves room for creativity and improvement by the individual congregations. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1985.

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 2001.