This study examines the eschatology of issues related to African folk religion. It argues about the eschatological understanding of time with regard to the afterlife, ancestors and the afterlife, Christ the eschaton and the incarnation of Christ as redeeming of the ancestors. Such a model of local theology can result from a comprehensive reflection based on the Scriptures. As such, this study suggests some principles and praxis that appropriately address mission in the African context. This study also intends to challenge the church in Africa in particular, and cross-cultural workers in general, to redefine their missions and themselves in the face of theological issues, as well as social problems, which occur at all levels of African society. / Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology / Thesis (D. Th. (Missiology))

Ancestor worship is conceived by some to be an outdated primitive custom with no relevance to modern society. However, this study shows that ancestor worship is still alive and well in numerous cultures and countries around the globe and that it is still practised in different forms today. This study focuses on the phenomenon of ancestor worship in Africa, Japan and Korea and specifically deals with the challenges it has posed to Christian missionaries in these contexts. Furthermore, this study examines the strategies which the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Church and Independent Churches have adopted to deal with this problem and the apparent mismatch with Christian theology. Therefore, the analysis of the phenomenon of ancestor worship is situated in the socio-cultural and religious paradigms of each of these countries and is examined in theological, missiological and Biblical terms. Most notably, the thesis attempts to determine whether or not ancestor worship can be considered to be a purely social and cultural phenomenon which carries certain ethical responsibilities in these cultures and whether or not it is congruent with Christian theology. This study has attempted to prove that in spite of the socio-cultural dimensions of ancestor worship and its rituals (with their ensuing ethical responsibilities in the cosmologies of these nations) it is still essentially worship. It is contended that ancestor worship is fundamentally a form of idolatry and contrary to the teachings of the Bible and is therefore does not articulate with Christian theology. The fundamental premise underlying the study is the ultimate authority of the Bible as the inspired word of God. This is a qualitative study which attempts to explore the phenomenon and rituals of ancestor worship on numerous levels. In each case the theological contributions of scholars in the field are evaluated and explored and ultimately benchmarked against the Biblical evidence. In the African context it is necessary therefore to look at African Christology and the attempts of scholars to contextualise the gospel in African terms. As such the continuity and discontinuity between traditional religion and the Bible is explored and the dangers of syncretism are addressed. The ultimate goal was to suggest a suitable approach for the Church to deal with the challenges which ancestor worship poses in these specific contexts. The study will motivate and argue for contextualisation as an appropriate mission principle in this regard. This takes into consideration the social responsibility which missionaries have towards the people to whom they introduce the gospel. The reason is that the close bond which exists between identity, culture and religion is acknowledged. If the religion or cultural practises are rejected because it does not comply with the Gospel’s requirements, then missionaries need to be sensitive to the void which they may create in the identity of the people and take appropriate steps to ameliorate the problem and avoid syncretism. / Thesis (PhD (Science of Religion and Missiology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Science of Religion and Missiology / unrestricted

The full text of this thesis/dissertation is not available online. Please <a href="mailto:upetd@up.ac.za">contact us</a> if you need access. Read the abstract in the section 00front of this document. / Dissertation (MA (Semitic Languages))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Ancient Languages / unrestricted

This dissertation's purpose is to test the hypothesis that beliefs in the possibility of post-mortem survival can be rationally held within the context of the contemporary scientific and philosophical environment. In terms of criteria of rationality, a basic evidentialism is assumed, such that propositions which are sufficiently supported by the available evidence can be rationally held. With regard to the compatibility with contemporary science and philosophy, it follows as a further criterion that the relevant evidence must be satisfactorily anchored within the framework of these traditions. The relevant evidence concerns two levels. First, the basic level of the conceptual coherence of afterlife beliefs is addressed, so that the logical possibility of post-mortem survival can be established. Secondly, the viability of the metaphysics which are implied in the support of the logical possibility (i.e. the metaphysics needed to actualize post-mortem survival) is defended, establishing the metaphysical possibility of post-mortem survival. At this stage, reductive physicalism, which is the only position that effectively undermines post-mortem survival, is criticized, and the problem of interaction which burdens several of the survival-enabling ontologies is addressed. As for the criterion of scientific compatibility, it is further shown that contemporary physics are compatible with the survival-enabling metaphysics, and that contemporary physics can be argued to provide a moderate positive relevance with regard to these positions. The conclusion drawn is that belief in the possibility of post-mortem survival is not only rationally permissible within the framework of contemporary science and philosophy, but also rationally obligatory, i.e. that this possibility cannot rationally be denied with regard to the reviewed evidence.

Mikuláš Dačický of Heslov. Personality, Work and Afterlife Abstract On the basis of archival sources and relevant secondary literature, the thesis explores the life of Mikuláš Dačický of Heslov, one of the best-known Czech historical figures of the latter half of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century. The work focuses on the social, political, economic, administrative, and religious circumstances in the royal city of Kutná Hora, with which Dačický's life was closely related. With a view to preserved period sources, it outlines and recapitulates the accessible information about the famous swashbuckler, rioter, ruffian, killer, and drunkard who was also a prolific chronicler, poet, an ardently religious armorial burgher with unswayable moral views, and an 'eyewitness to the Czech Renaissance'. The found facts are contrasted with the 'second life' (afterlife) of Mikuláš Dačický of Heslov which was provided for him by the novelists and dramatists of the 19th and 20th century. His character, and especially his temperament outraged the citizens of Kutná Hora and inspired many modern authors of plays and TV dramas, novels, film scripts, and musical works for the stage (operetta, opera, and musical). In the field of food industry and restaurant culture, some interesting examples of his name being...

Tracy K. Smith's Pulitzer Prize winning collection of poetry, Life on Mars, has been celebrated and analyzed as an elegy to Smith's father by many reviewers and scholars. And while this reading is valid and has been openly endorsed by Smith herself, our understanding of this collection and Smith's father is incomplete without Smith's treatment of motherhood and religion, two previously unexplored fields in relation to Life on Mars that complete our picture of Smith's father. Smith uses her own new role as a mother and her religious questions about the afterlife and her father's fate to address her father's passing. This paper first discusses the previously hidden role of Smith's unborn daughter Naomi, specifically hearkening to poems in the fourth section of Life on Mars which describe Naomi's conception and the painful process of giving birth. This is followed by an analysis of Smith's father and mother and their interconnected relationship to both Smith and her child. The third section of this paper complicates Smith's more idyllic depictions of her family members with universal examples of violence, specifically violence towards women that can lead to unwanted motherhood like rape. The final section of this paper takes previous discussions of motherhood, parenthood, and violence to describe Smith's interest in the living and the dead and how the poems in Life on Mars tie together these disparate groups through the shared experience of loss and gain. This blurred boundary between life and death culminates in Smith's vision of the future, a future Earth which will be incomplete and "hollow" without children, just as Smith's past would be empty without her familial relationships. This link between the deceased and unborn makes Smith's imagined future meaningful and invites further scholarship on Life on Mars, asking for scholars previously interested in only Smith's father to include Smith's descriptions of motherhood and religion in their analysis of Smith's work.

Early Christian missionaries alienated Shona people from their culture and traditional religion. Essential elements of Shona religion were rejected because they were thought to be entertaining paganism, fetishism and idolatry. More than a century of Christianity in Zimbabwe has passed and some Shona still hold on tenaciously to their ancestral religion. The missionaries did not understand Shona language and may have been ignorant of the significance of the Shona religion to the Shona people. However, with the transfer of power from colonial masters to black rule, one would have expected parallel changes concerning creative integration of indigenous cultural values with the Gospel. But today, forty years after independence, not a single Church denomination in Zimbabwe (Mainline Churches, Evangelical Churches and Pentecostal/Charismatic Churches) seems to have made any ‘meaningful adaption’ of the Shona views on death and afterlife, in the light of the Bible, and in particular, the Gospel. Several elements in Shona traditional beliefs on death and afterlife have been proposed for inculturation. In spite of the proposals put forward by various scholars, even the indigenous Church leaders in Zimbabwe seem to have failed to fully adapt the Shona views into the Christian Gospel message, despite the fact that they fully understand and appreciate the Shona culture and values. A literature review will help to extract information from current and past studies underlying this field. The principles followed on comprehending and solving problems, and the methods and methodology employed in the study, will be made explicit. A detailed examination of the Shona views on death and afterlife which the Zimbabwean Church is expected to possibly incorporate into their worship, and the precepts on the eschatological perspective of Christianity on death, resurrection and afterlife, will be conducted. Definition and analysis of the terms ‘dialogue’ and ‘inculturation’, and the progress achieved on dialogue and inculturation, by the Church in Zimbabwe, will follow. The challenges confronting the Church in Zimbabwe, and the Shona Christians, will be investigated, while theological arguments will be employed to identify gaps in knowledge in the previous literature. The study will suggest possible proposals on the way forward. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / PhD. (Systematic Theology)

This dissertation is a philosophical examination of the concept of reincarnation from an African point of view. It does so, largely, from the cultural perspective of the Akan people of Ghana. In this work, reincarnation is distinguished from such related concepts as metempsychosis and transmigration with which it is conflated by many authors on the subject. In terms of definition, therefore, the belief that a deceased person can be reborn is advanced in this dissertation as referring to only reincarnation, but not to either metempsychosis or transmigration. Many scholars would agree that reincarnation is a pristine concept, yet it is so present in the beliefs and worldviews of several cultures today (including those of Africa). A good appreciation of the concept, it can be seen, will not be possible without some reference to the past. That is why some attempt is first made at the early stages of the dissertation to show how reincarnation was understood in the religious philosophies of ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Indians, Chinese and the Incas. Secondly, some link is then established between the past and present, especially between ancient Egyptian philosophy and those of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. In modern African thought, the doctrine of reincarnation has not been thoroughly researched into. Even so, some of the few who have written on the subject have denied its existence in African thought. The dissertation rejects this denial, and seeks to show nonetheless that reincarnation is generally an irrational concept. In spite of its irrationality, it is acknowledged that the concept, as especially presented in African thought, raises our understanding of the constitution of a person as understood in the African culture. It is also observed that the philosophical problem of personal identity is central to the discussion of reincarnation because that which constitutes a person is presumed to be known whenever a claim of return of a survived person is made. For this reason, the dissertation also pays significant attention to the concept of personal identity in connection, especially, with the African philosophical belief in the return of persons. / Philosophy & Systematic Theology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Philosophy)

The Secret Doctrine is the magnum opus of H.P. Blavatsky and one of the foundation texts of the Theosophical Society. It represents her attempt to appropriate authority in a wide variety of fields, including, science, religion, and philosophy. This study examines H.P. Blavatsky’s engagement with Ancient Egypt in relation to two specific themes, the constitution of the individual and the afterlife, as they are portrayed in this work. It locates Theosophy in its historical context, the late nineteenth century, in relation to various fields of knowledge. It reviews the sources that H.P. Blavatsky drew on in her work and discusses the various interpretive techniques she employed to insert Theosophical content into various world religions. Finally, it contrasts the Theosophical presentation of Ancient Egypt in The Secret Doctrine with that of mainstream modern Egyptology. The fundamental disconnect which is revealed highlights the challenges that the Theosophical perspective faces. / Religious Studies & Arabic / M. A. (Religious Studies)

This thesis examines six factors that helped to shape beliefs and expectations about death among evangelical Nonconformists in England from 1830 down to 1880: the literary conventions associated with the denominational magazine obituaries that were used as primary source material, theology, social background, denominational variations, Romanticism and the last words and experiences of the dying. The research is based on an analysis of 1,200 obituaries divided evenly among four evangelical Nonconformist denominations: the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, the Congregationalists and the Baptists. The study is distinctive in four respects. First, the statistical analysis according to three time periods (the 1830s, 1850s and 1870s), close reading and categorisation of a sample this large are unprecedented and make it possible to observe trends among Nonconformists in mid-nineteenth-century England. Second, it evaluates the literary construct of the obituaries as a four-fold formula consisting of early life, conversion, the living out of the faith and the death narrative as a tool for understanding them as authentic windows into evangelical Nonconformist experience. Third, the study traces two movements that inform the changing Nonconformist experience of death: the social shift towards middle-class respectability and the intellectual shift towards a broader Evangelicalism. Finally, the thesis considers how the varying experiences of the dying person and the observers and recorders of the death provide different perspectives. These features inform the primary argument of the thesis, which is that expectations concerning death and the afterlife among evangelical Nonconformists in England from 1830 down to 1880 changed as reflections of larger shifts in Nonconformity towards middle-class respectability and a broader Evangelicalism. This transformation was found to be clearly revealed when considering the tension in Nonconformist allegiance to both worldly and spiritual matters. While the last words of the dying pointed to a timeless experience that placed hope in the life to come, the obituaries as compiled by the observers of the death and by the obituary authors and editors reflected changing attitudes towards death and the afterlife among nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformists that looked increasingly to earthly existence for the fulfilment of hopes.