Bibliography: leaves 436-444. / This is a church historical study and critical theological analysis of the Partners in Mission (PIM) process in the Church of the Province of Southern Africa (CPSA), which uses methods appropriate to such a study. Chapter 1 examines the background against which the PIM process and CPSA's PIM 'Vision' must be seen: Anglicanism, its origins, intentions and mission - and the tension between Anglican identity and contemporary relevance. Chapter 2 traces the process of renewal which has been described as the Anglican Communion's 'coming of age', and identifies some of the themes which were later to become 'The Vision'. The Anglican PIM process emerged out of the church's efforts to adjust to the rapidly changing post-colonial world of the nineteen-fifties and sixties, when Anglican provinces within newly-independent nations could no longer be regarded as inferior to and dependent on the Church of England. A watershed in this quest was the Anglican Congress in Toronto in 1963, when for the first time the equal partnership was articulated in the statement Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence in the Body of Christ (MRI). MRI became a Communion-wide programme which evolved into the PIM process, and together they constitute the Anglican Church's programme of contemporary reform and renewal. The CPSA is a full participant in this PIM process and has held three PIM Consultations, the third of which took place in November 1987 when the church was given the vision to engage in the struggle for the eradication of apartheid and the building of new societies of justice and peace in southern Africa. .In Chapter 3 we examine the Provincial 1987 Consultation, the process which led up to it and the making of The Vision. In Chapter 4 we examine publications and records of the CPSA and correspondence with the Bishops of the Province which describe the implementation of The Vision in the life of the CPSA and its contribution to the church's mission. Chapter 5 is a critical evaluation of the CPSA's PIM process, based on the evidence of the previous chapter. Our conclusion is that The Vision has been only partially implemented because of the church's persistent failure to transform words into actions, poor communication, the failure to focus on priorities, a lack of resources, traditionalism and clericalism in the CPSA, the fear of loss of identity, and a spiritual crisis - much of which points to a lack of appropriate leadership. The consequences of ineffective implementation include the failure of the CPSA as a whole to engage relevantly with the crisis in southern Africa, to express appropriate penitence and make restitution for its part in the sin of apartheid, and to engage in effective evangelism. Chapter 6 is an attempt to see how the CPSA could be renewed by means of a revitalised PIM process, in order to be relevant in southern Africa today. We explore a possible pastoral plan and ways in which the CPSA would benefit from engaging more fully in the 'Kairos' process. The CPSA will contribute to the life and future direction of the Anglican Communion insofar as it is true to its ecumenical calling to witness to the kingdom of God as a part of the church in southern Africa, and the Communion will best serve its members and enable them to discover their true identity by setting them free to be faithful to their mission in their various contexts. Throughout this study we have used primary source documents from the Anglican Communion and the CPSA which tell of the birth, progress an implementation of MRI, PIM and The Vision.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Georgetown University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-70).

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-39).

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-70).

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, Johnson City, Tennessee, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-70).

Bibliography: pages 191-212. / This is a study of the National Catholic Federation of Students (NCFS), an organisation that sought to bring together Catholic students on South African university campuses, examining specifically NCFS' political ideas and activities from 1960 to 1987. The underlying supposition of this thesis is that church history ought to be an integral part of the discipline of history, and that there is a need to write church history from "below" from the perspectives of the "people's church", the church that comprises the religious experience of the majority of its members rather than its hierarchy.

Thesis (Doctoral)--Philipps-Universität Marburg/Lahn, 1980. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 275-295).

Moltmann's political theology and Augustine's City of God provide a suitable eschatological basis for a critical approach to the political order. Though separated in time by one thousand five hundred years, a comparative study of their respective approaches to the world makes for a credible critique of final political solution. Eschatology is the key to their analyses of society. Partial realities are evaluated from the fullness of truth unveiled in the eschaton. Augustine's City of God sought to counter the anti-Christian propaganda occasioned by the impending fall of the Roman Empire. Augustine's apologia provides for a church freed from a necessary dependence upon the secular and political milieu. Thus any social theory is provisional and haphazardous. However, Augustine has no constructive social criticism. The Christian is a stranger in a disordered, fallen, earthly city. The social manifestations of sin are not clearly identified for they do not affect man's eternal destiny. So Augustine left the world disordered without a constructive divine redemptive plan that would be partially anticipated within the saeculum. His weakness lay in identifying the "negative" within society with the fall. Moltmann's political theology, however, identifies the "negative" with the Cross. The crucified Jesus reveals what is wrong with the world. He identifies the sinful, Godforsaken forces within creation. The "promise" of God is validated within history in the event of the Resurrection, that is, the anticipation within time of the eschaton towards which history is moving. Although the Resurrection is the eschatological event within history, "creative acts" that are the "negation of the negative" (the "negative" is identified by the Cross) are anticipations of the eschaton. These "creative acts" open up the "closed systems" of the world. Thus history is not a return to the "golden age" of the beginning but an "opening up" to the "promise". This promise is contradicted within the "closed systems" of history by the crucified One. Yet, it is confirmed and anticipated in the resurrection of Jesus. The eschatological nature of Moltmann's theology lays stress on both the distinctiveness of the Christian faith and its relevance as a solution to the problem of "unfree" creation. Eschatological faith is distrustful of any "final solution"; for Moltmann, political theology destroys the idols of contemporary and future society. Society absolutizes partial solutions and thus retards the creative transformation of the world. Moltmann speaks of five "vicious circles of death" that he identifies with political oppression, economic inequality, cultural discrimination, ecological death and personal apathy. In the spirit of Christ and by the believer's missionary outreach, the progressive transformation of the world is achieved. The eschaton is God's gift anticipated within history in the resurrected Christ and foreshadowed by progressive "creative acts" that overcome the "vicious circles of death". Both Moltmann and Augustine's City of God permitted no final secular solution. The secular political order is assessed from beyond not merely from within. Augustine assesses almost exclusively from beyond; Moltmann both from beyond and within. In this respect they provide a valuable critical corrective to the dogmatism of final political solutions. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1985.

A study of Christian interpretations of liberalism is important for social theology for two reasons: first, liberalism is the dominant political ideology of modernity, and (especially in the form "liberal democracy") is the most prominent form of public self-definition in the West, its claims often being taken to be self-evidently true. Second, liberalism is historically indebted to Christianity, and the two are susceptible of mutual confusion. A critical theological analysis of liberalism is necessary to ensure the authentically Christian nature of contemporary political theology. This analysis is conducted principally through a discussion of the criticisms of liberalism made by three Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, the American Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), the French Jacques Maritain (1882-1973), and the Canadian George Grant (1918-1988). After an introductory chapter, chapter two presents an interpretation of liberalism, mapping the historical contours and varieties of liberalism from five liberal writers, and elaborating a loose framework of the conceptual structure of liberal thought. Chapter three examines Reinhold Niebuhr's criticisms of liberalism's alleged facile progressivism and optimistic conceptions of human nature and reason, and chapter four looks at George Grant's claim that John Rawls' liberal theory fails to provide the ontological affirmations necessary to defend human beings and liberal values against the dynamics of technology. Jacques Maritain's account of pluralism and the ideal of the secular state, and the contribution he can make to the current debate between liberals and communitarians, are the subjects of chapter five, while chapter six attempts to secure some theological purchase on the issues of Bills of Rights, judicial review, and the constitutional restraint of democratic majorities, with special reference to the British context. In the concluding chapter it is argued that the liberal account of justice is impossible to realize, and that central insights must be borrowed from the Augustinian tradition.