South Africa's post-apartheid National Policy on Religion and Education instituted in 2003 ushered in a new paradigm for the study of religion in the country's schools. It promotes a programme of teaching and learning about religious diversity that constitute the nation. While this revised policy enabled Religion Studies educators to grapple with new ways of thinking about the study of religion, it still demanded them to assume a standardised role that focused more on their duties and responsibilities of promoting a multi-religious approach in an impartial manner. This homogenous policy image neglected the teachers' interpretations and reality of the profession. Consequently, a gap emerged between the policy-imagined role and Religion Studies teachers' perspectives. This thesis explores the gap between what the national policy expects from the teachers and their readiness for teaching Religion Studies. Rahel Jaeggi's concept of alienation is used to critically analyse the alienating effects of the national policy images' failure in recognising the realities of the profession. Jaeggi provides a renewed framework on the concept that entails critically analysing an individual's social role in terms of how s/he succeeds or fails to appropriate and identify with it. A case study research of eleven teachers who taught Religion Studies in high schools in Cape Town, South Africa was conducted. The findings reveal that the gap disrupted their roles, and resulted in a 'double' alienation for them. It also shows educators integrating their religious identities into their teaching methods, which enhanced their proficiency at teaching the subject and alleviating their 'double' alienation. The teachers' methodologies demonstrate that they are open enough to approach the aims of Religion Studies, and to approach diversity that is not from the national policy's perspective of a distant secular approach, but rather one that opens their own religious traditions to new ones. I argue that despite the Religion Studies teachers alleviating their 'double' alienation to some extent by integrating their religious identities into their teaching methods, they still remained in a state of alienation due to the post-apartheid government's top-down education strategy.

Bibliography: leaves 218-230. / This study intends to examine one Kantian problematic that has been often overlooked, especially in recent years. It explores Kant's reactions to so-called occult phenomena and related teachings. Kant's initial and the single most important interlocutor in this respect was Emanuel Swedenborg. Kant refers to his visions and the tone of his writings as Schwärmerei, that is an exaltation or an exalted tone. The problem of explaining the conditions of possibility or impossibility of the knowledge-claims of this type, is apparent in Kant's writings from the late 1760s. The object of the exalted knowledge-claims, it is argued, continued to figure in the critical period as one of the prime s of the unkowable objects, that is, noumena. Therefore, it is claimed that Schwärmerei and the related practices played an intrinsic role in Kant's conception of the Grenze, a limit of the conditions of possibility of human knowledge. For , the demarcation between the phenomena and noumena relies on an assumption of the particular nature of the knowledge-claims, modelled upon the claims of Schwärmerei, pertaining to objects which are beyond our grasp. In addition, Kant's concept of Grenze and the outcome of his demarcation has been put into an historical perspective. Thus, his demarcation criteria are contrasted to modern pre-Kantian attitudes towards the occult practices and the attempts to devise demarcation criteria in science. In this respect special attention has been given to Newton's methodology and research. The study also contains an examination of more recent criteria of demarcation proposed in philosophy of science which draw from Kantian conception of demarcation. Of particualar interest are Popper's and Kuhn's demarcation criteria between the scientific and non-scientific as well as some recent demarcation policies that is argued, can be related to them. The primary sources of this study can be found in an interdisciplinary field: Kantian scholarship, history of science and the occult in the period of Renaissance and early Enlightenment, contemporary philosophy of science, and the recent debates concerning modernity.

Includes bibliographies. / My study investigates the possibility of gender preference for the possible paradigms of reality established in Cumpsty's theory of religion. According to him there are three possible paradigms for the nature of the ultimately-real to which one would belong. These generate three ideal types of religious tradition he has labelled Nature Religion (NR), Withdrawal Religion, and Secular World Affirming Religion (SWAR). These labels reflect the adherents' understanding of and engagement with their immediate 'world-out-there'. Using CUmpsty's general theory of religion and writers on feminine identity, I explored the theoretical relationship between paradigms for reality and gender. This indicated a theoretical preference for NR by women within a SWAR dominated western culture. I then report field studies in which instruments were tested which were themselves intended to test the existence of the relationship between paradigms of reality and gender.

Bibliography: leaves 134-8. / Chapter one introduces the debate in the Ecumenical Movement surrounding problems of poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation. In particular, the argument draws on the sentiment in the Ecumenical Movement that these problems are the result of "classical and neo-classical economic thinking". Having established a global context and a theoretical framework in chapter one, chapters two and three focus on Namibia. Chapter two discusses the policies of the Namibian government in addressing the problems of poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation, and chapter three examines the responses of the Council of Churches in Namibia (CCN) to these problems. In particular, it becomes evident that whereas the state in Namibia is attempting to address the three problems holistically - i.e., as inextricable from each other - the church shows a marked human interest at the expense of environmental concern. Chapter four introduces the Ecumenical Movement's Theology of Sharing as a Christian imperative for addressing threefold, intrinsically related problem of poverty, unemployment and environmental degradation. Chapter five proposes several models for the realization of this theology.

Bibliography: leaves 84-87. / This dissertation primari Iy focuses on the problem of custom or 'urf and its treatment as a marginal source in Muslim legal theory or w

Bibliography: leaves 104-110. / This study examines the role of African traditional religion in the promotion of human rights in Africa generally and among the Shona people of Zimbabwe in particular.

Bibliography: leaves 72-74. / Guided by faith in the love and justice of God for humanity, this paper aims to examine the rhetoric and reality of the question of gender justice in the church in Zambia.

This thesis explores the development of the Doctrine of Sin as personal and social in the thinking of three representative theologians, Irenaeus, Martin Luther and Juan Luis Segundo. We shall show that both their understanding of sin, and their understanding of redemption is at once personal and social. This thesis rejects any individualistic or private conception of sin as unbiblical and contrary to the mainstream of Christian tradition. We shall show how the three theologians we have chosen expose the corporate nature of sin, and therefore show an awareness of a deeper, communal involvement of human persons in sin, thus demonstrating that sin is both personal and social. At the same time each of the theologians approaches the problem in a different way, highlighting that dimension of sin which is most appropriate in his particular context.

Bibliography: p. 95-108. / Land restitution is an inevitable consequence of the new dispensation in South Africa. Restitution aims to return people to land dispossessed because of racial laws corresponding to the Land Act of 1913. An alternative is to compensate the victims in other appropriate mechanisms. In facilitating this aspiration the present study proposes, as a solution, the biblical Jubilee as in (Leviticus 25) reiterated by Jesus in (Luke 4:16-30) and further adopted by the Christian Tradition as a theological submission. The Jubilee concept, from its biblical inception, was designed to resolve the landlessness experienced by deprived Jews in ancient Israel. This model has been adopted by various scholars as a guideline in solving similar problems in modern societies. A theological view is deemed necessary since the legal, political, economic, and agricultural systems have failed to emphasise the moral dimension in reparation and land restitution. The Christian Church in South Africa is identified as the prime facilitator in this country's nation building process. It should therefore assume a leadership role in this process through, in this instance, translating the Jubilee concept in the transformation in our modern society.

Bibliography: pages 749-755. / Six people fitting the above description of "destined human beings" were studied as far as possible from their own work, i.e. writings, paintings, music, speeches, letters, etc. They were studied on two levels, that of their own metier, and then how they retained that holistic quality which enabled them to remain in touch with a greater vision of life and humanity as a whole. They are Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt van Rijn, Johann Sebastian Bach, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, and, as an exception to some things which have been said, Pablo Picasso. It is hoped that this research demonstrates that these people understand humanity and its needs for religion, and that their experiences and interpretations thereof help humanity engage those needs sanely and fruitfully. In other words, they enrich religion as a quest. Different senses of identity, modes of engagement, models of reality, methods of expression are examined, all of which demonstrably fit into Cumpsty's Theory of Religion of Belonging. One of the case studies demonstrates what happens when the sense of belonging is impaired. The thesis takes a very broad view of what constitutes religious experience, but the expressions of the case studies can be considered as religion at its best, or most universal.