Includes bibliographical references. / The purpose of this dissertation is to upset exclusive and sectarian tendencies in the Seventh-day Adventist Church via an application of Jacques Derrida's notion of hospitality to Adventist soteriology.

Bibliography: leaves 131-134. / The dynamic discourse between religion and public life is illustrated in South Africa in both the pre- and post-apartheid eras. Specifically, this relationship is manifested in the lives of a number of individuals who straddled both facets of society. This thesis centres on a social analysis of the journeys undertaken by thirteen men and women who held Christian faith and political commitment in each hand as the New South Africa emerged from the Old. In-depth interviews were conducted with all subjects using qualitative research methods based on an oral history approach. Subjects were asked to consider their faith identities and the ways in which their faith directed their involvement in the public arena.

Includes bibliographical references ( p. 212-234). / This thesis is in search of "unity in difference" in 'Onjeong' (human being's warm hearted love) biblical hermeneutics on the basis of Korean and South African political and cultural contexts. The theme of difference was, explicitly and implicitly, directed into the stream of discrimination in the dimension of "questing for sameness." Under the motto of "becoming metaphoric Israelites," each group of Korean and South African political Bible readers identified themselves with metaphoric Israelites and explicitly discriminated against metaphoric non-Israelites in the name of imperialism, nationalism, classism, racism, and liberation movement. In addition, each type of Korean and South African cultural Bible readers dissolved the tension of difference on the dialectical dimension of "questing for sameness" towards "becoming Christians." However, under the strong influence of 'dichotomous discriminative Cartesian psyche' and 'the pressure of the discriminative political ideology', cultural Bible readers could not avoid the violence of the imposition of the grand narrative of "becoming metaphoric Israelites."

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-185). / This study seeks to discuss the persistence of religion in colonial and postcolonial narratives of confinement and exclusion. I begin by first exploring the history of religion in relation to colonial representations of Africa(ns) as savage and, situating the narratives of confinement and exclusion in the context of South Africa's colonial history, I set out to demonstrate the temporal and spatial expressions of the sacred as it is invoked/ produced by both the colonized and colonizer. I then proceed to explore such contests of power to produce the sacred in Frantz Fanon's On National Culture and the indigenous authorities in post-apartheid South Africa. In doing so, I draw upon the resources of postcolonial theory, subaltern studies and African/Fanon studies to demonstrate how strategies of containment and exclusion have been employed to mediate the persistence of the sacred in colonial, anti-colonial and African nationalist discourses. A further distinguishing feature of this study is that it seeks demonstrate through the metaphor of infection, the persistence of religion regardless of, and in fact activated by, these strategies that seek to domesticate and disinfect the sacred.

Bibliography: leaves 92-103. / The question of identity is one of the pressing issues for many disciplines, and is a key question in feminist theory. Theorists occupy diverse positions across a spectrum. At one end there are those who believe there is something "essential" which defines us (both as individuals and in groups). At the spectrum’s other end are those who take the view that identity is constructed - whether unconsciously through the practices identified by interactions, through performances of the body. This study seeks to explore some of these understandings of identity, using a specifically post-structuralist feminist lens which, inter alia directly challenges the dualisms upon which western philosophy is founded. Having outline some approaches to the question of identity, the study concludes by examining some of the consequences and possibilities for Christian anthropology in its understanding of what it means to be human and how the human person can be said to constitute the Imago Dei.

Abstract not available

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there are any conditions necessary and/or sufficient to facilitate a transition between Stages Five and Six, as described by Fowler's Faith Developmental theory (1981). This transition is currently of significance because of the widespread interest in mystical experiences, many of which occur after Stage Five. Twelve conditions were selected to be studied. The conditions were investigated through in-depth interviews with 4 men and 8 women in or past midlife who were known to be spiritual leaders in some sense. Fowler's Faith Development Interview was used to ascertain the stages of the interviewees, 5 of whom proved to be at Stage Five, 2 at the 5/6 transition. Other questions focused on the particular conditions under consideration. The results showed that all of the subjects had chosen a path before they came to Stage Five. All but one had worked with a teacher. All had a deep motivation to experience self-transcendence. All had some practice of spiritual discipline and of detached living. In addition, books and solitude were found to be important in most spiritual journeys, while Hardy's "triggers" (1979) were present in several. Openness to spiritual experiencing was found to be universally present. Using Underhill's (1961) criteria, the Dark Night of the Soul, "self-naughting" humility, and the Unitive social activism were all absent. Since no subject was found at Stage 6, the conditions were analyzed for their necessity and/or sufficiency in facilitating movement along the Mystic Way. The conclusions pointed to a "trigger" experience and openness to spiritual experiencing as prerequisites to Awakening, motivation to transcend, choice of a path and teacher as prerequisites to Purgation, spiritual disciplines, detachment and solitude as practices emerging in Purgation. Illumination was usually preceded by a shift to an inner teacher. No condition was deemed to be sufficient to facilitate movement. Most interviewees mentioned a sense of "mystery" or "grace" in their discussion of mystical experiences, pointing to "the initiative of the Transcendent," which Fowler (1974) suggests is central in a stage shift from Five to Six.

Bibliography: leaves 118-122. / Belief in ancestral spirits among the Africans has always aroused a hot debate among scholars of African Religion. To a great number of scholars this belief seems to have been exaggerated. The fact that Africans speak more about their ancestors than about God has led some scholars into thinking that God has no place in African Traditional Religion.They argue that God is not worshipped in African Traditional Religion.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-136). / South Africa has been hard hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This pandemic has had many sectors in society mobilizing and creating awareness around prevention and the effects of HIV/AIDS. One such sector is the religious community, which, with all its diversity, has tried to address the issues that stem from this pandemic. This mmor dissertation looks at the South African situation of HIV I AIDS from a gendered religious perspective, the perspective of South African Christian women's theologies. It further catalogs the research to Anglican women in Cape Town. This study aims to find the participatory levels and status of Christian Anglican women in the church's mobilization activities and decision making. Through this study two main theologies are explored, African women's theology and the theology of Hope.

Bibliography: pages 232-241. / Philosophy and theology combine in Jonathan Edwards in a way that is not usual for either discipline. The field of study is therefore that of historical philosophy and historical theology but only in so far as to give the historical situation and interpretation of Jonathan Edwards' epistemology. The philosophy is Christian, Neo-Platonic and Lockean and the theology is Calvinistic. The author gives the historical background with reference to John Locke,· Isaac Newton and compares Edwards with Kant who was almost contemporary and shows that epistemology is situational and that a philosopher's works can never be studied out of context. He then touches on the massive Puritan heritage of Jonathan Edwards' and shows briefly the epistemological tradition of Calvin but chiefly concentrating on the knowledge of faith. He traces this through the English Puritans to Jonathan Edwards. The author then by means of a detailed commentary from various parts of Edwards' works· places the locus of Edwards' epistemology in the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God. · He shows that each Person of the Triune God, was a permanent emotional, devotional, theological and homiletical feature in Edwards' life. The holistic vision of God working in a consciously epistemological way from eternity to eternity, raises the locus of the epistemology far above Perry Miller's comment that Edwards was extrapolating Lockean psychology into the Godhead. The reverse was true, the vision of God in His eternal sovereignty, omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, places the locus in eternity, in the heavens, so to speak, and the ordinary elements of epistemology usually discussed by philosophers, must be considered in that context if they are to be true to Jonathan Edwards. This locus is most clearly seen when the eschatological development of his epistemology into eternity is systematised. Knowledge is bound up with glory, virtue, joy, beauty and with an existential encounter with God, growing into eternity. Knowledge is viewed as being mediated by Christ the God-man to an hierarchy of created spirits. Knowledge is itself in an hierarchy and must be considered in its full implications. The knowledge of the damned involves Edwards in a contradiction as he sees them growing in knowledge, suffering and pain yet cut off from Christ the mediator of knowledge and also growing in stupor.