Doctor Theologiae / This research project is situated in the history of Christianity in Zambia with specific reference to the relationship between the United Church of Zambia and the New Jerusalem Church, one of the so-called African Instituted Churches (AICs). Since the 1950s numerous members of the UCZ have become attracted to the New Jerusalem Church. Why is this case? One may identify several factors in this regard, including the administration of sacraments such as Baptism and Holy Communion also the ministry of faith healing, the ministry of pastoral care the confession of sins and the assurance of pardon. In this research project I have investigated one such factor namely the role of the ministry of music in these two churches. The term ministry of music in this context refers to praise and worship in the liturgy, to the significance of church choirs, the role of music leaders, the appropriation of melodies from various sources, the use of musical instruments and then of course to the actual text of the hymns that are sung. In this research project the focus has been on a description and analysis of the lyrics of selected hymns. This is based on the observation that the hymns that are frequently sung constitute the “theology of laity”. This project has first identified those hymns that are frequently sung in selected congregations of the United Church of Zambia and the New Jerusalem Church. For this study five urban and five rural congregations of both churches were selected. The identification of such hymns was done through interviews with the local pastors and the musical leadership of the selected congregation. On the basis of this process of identification ten of these hymns in each of the four categories mentioned above were subjected to closer analysis. The question that was addressed is this: What similarities and differences may be identified in the text of hymns sung frequently in urban and rural congregations of the United Church of Zambia and the New Jerusalem Church? The point of comparison that was used in this regard is the soteriologies embedded in the text of the selected hymns, that is, the notions of salvation expressed through these hymns. The study therefore sought to identify, describe and analyse the underlying soteriologies in the ministry of music in these two churches. It also assessed the significance of the similarities and differences identified in this way. The assumption was that there may be different images of salvation embedded in such hymns and that these may partially account for attracting people to a particular church.

There exists a gender distortion in the United Church of Zambia (UCZ) concerning the participation of women in the ministry, mainly because of the biased patriarchal images about women and their role in church and society. To achieve the goal of women participation, the UCZ has to re-image their understanding of women from a historical bias to that of a fair, balanced, and historical inclusion of both genders. Consequently, this thesis called for the initiation of such a paradigm shift within the church. To achieve this, the UCZ Theological Seminary needed to realign its programmes and curricula in order to be more gender sensitive and thereby include more women scholars as partners in theological education. Such a theology of partnership between women and men was explored through the feminist discourse using ecclesiology and gender partnership theories. This study is located within the United Church of Zambia (UCZ). It set out to explore the unequal partnership between the ordained women and men in the United Church of Zambia from a gendered perspective. Its focus was to address the praxis of partnership between women and men as reflected in the following areas: first, in the church policies on the ordination of women; second, in the experiences of patriarchy by the ordained women; and third, in the theological curriculum at the UCZ Theological Seminary. In view of the above, the UCZ needed to work out interventions to control those leadership structures that are dominated by men and which only represent male interests. Even the theological curriculum offered at the UCZ Theological Seminary was not gender mainstreamed to assist both the clergy and laity to fully embrace the ordination and service of women. Consequently, the study addressed the key question as to how the church had promoted the unequal partnership between women and men in its policies and practices. This was guided by the hypothesis that although the UCZ had encouraged the ordination of women, yet there were no clear policies and practices that supported the partnership of women and men in the church structures and in the theological curriculum. The data analysed in this study was obtained through in-depth interviews with representatives of Synod officers as policy-makers and ordained women. A survey questionnaire was used to generate a mixture of qualitative data with members of staff and students resident at the UCZ Theological Seminary. While previous studies on gender justice theory and praxis had been based upon rhetoric in addressing the gender justice issue in the UCZ, this present study availed a body of knowledge based on the recorded patriarchy experiences by women ordained ministers because of lack of a clear gender policy and gender mainstreaming of the theological education at the UCZ Theological Seminary. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2014.

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.

The study on the role of preaching within the United Church of Zambia in Kitwe, with a purpose of finding out and documenting the role of preaching in three case study congregations of the United Church of Zambia in the city of Kitwe, and to underscore the point that the study has focused on how members of the three case study congregations described and justified the superiority of preaching. It includes the analysis of data from the three case study congregations of the United Church of Zambia and applying the methodology of Richard Osmer’s (2008) practical theological interpretation. The literature was from books, and data was collected from the participants by using their experiences in a research perspective. The researcher used unstructured interviews from thirty-one participants drawn from the three congregations of the United Church of Zambia within the city of Kitwe, employing qualitative methods in the collection and analysis of data. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Practical Theology)