This present thesis has been prudently undertaken how to approach practically and theologically the ethical issues for the effective preaching with Confucian filial piety which has challenged Korean churches. Serious conflicts are arising among Korean families because of Confucianism teachings that filial piety is the highest virtue of all ethical teachings and that ancestor worship is the continuation of filial piety to the dead parents. This issue creates a rigorous religious controversy for Korean Christians and places obstacles in the path of evangelism in Korean society. Chapter one reveals the research orientation which gives general information on how to approach and develop this issue. I approach this issue historically, theologically, practically, and/or biblically. I adopt fundamental practical theology as the main research positioning, which was suggested by Don Browning. I also make use of seven movements proposed by J C Müller in order to present the literary research and six fundamental steps proposed by Lewis and Demarest only for the theological foundation in chapter three. Chapter two reveals the effect of Confucian ancestor worship has on Asian countries and Christians, specifically in China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, which are under the influence of Confucianism, and how Confucian ancestor worship hinders people from receiving and following Jesus Christ and a common barrier to evangelism in these Eastern Asian countries. Chapter three reveals the theological foundations of Confucianism and Christianity. Confucianism has its own specific theologies of worship form, temple, canon, afterlife, and gods like those of Christianity. A comparison with the theological foundations of Confucianism and Christianity is made for a better understanding of Confucian ancestor worship and filial piety. Chapter four reveals the differences between Confucian and biblical teachings on filial piety. Confucian filial piety was taught by Confucius who is a founder of Confucianism, while the origins of biblical filial piety are rooted in the Old and New Testaments. The Bible teaches that filial piety is directed toward living parents, but Confucianism teaches that filial piety is to both living and dead parents; filial piety to the dead parents is ancestor worship. Chapter five reveals the distinctions between Confucian and biblical teachings on ancestor worship. Confucians believe that dead ancestors are able to protect their own families, bring fortunes to their descendants, watch over their own families, and to reward the right and punish the wrong, but the Bible ascribes to ancestor worship as idolatry as taught in the second commandment. Chapter six reveals the ways of practical theological applications of filial piety and ancestor worship. I propose the ways of practical theological applications without compromise in the circumstance of the acceptance of ancestor worship as a custom. Further, I challenge preachers as central to reconciliation how to make an effort to aid the rooting of biblical filial piety into Korean society as a traditional Korean heritage. I hope that this thesis will help non-Christians to understand the Christian perspective of filial piety and ancestor worship and why Christians reject Confucian ancestor worship, and how Christianity emphasizes filial piety. Further, my intent is to help Christians confirm their beliefs, challenge non- Christians by showing what Christians believe, and give wisdom on how to create harmony with non-Christian family members. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

The research literature reveals a number of studies conducted on unethical behavior, including nepotism, within the broader nonprofit sector. However, the effect of faith community leadership nepotism on parishioners has not been studied. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to fill a gap in the literature by exploring parishioner perceptions of leadership nepotism through the lens of servant leadership. Specific to this study, it was unknown whether parishioners of a Protestant church view nepotism as having a positive, negative, or neutral impact related to leadership performance. Specifically, the study explored parishioner impacts related to 5 elements of servant leadership: (a) listening, (b) empathy, (c) healing, (d) stewardship, and (e) building community. Individual interviews were conducted with 9 parishioners from 1 church where nepotism was known to exist. The interviews were digitally recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed to identify and extract patterns and themes. Among the findings, the data revealed the presence of servant leadership characteristics found in leadership, which appeared to mitigate the negative influence of nepotism. The study may provide faith community leadership with information that can be used to create and implement important policies related to nepotism.

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The aim of this thesis is to provide an appropriate evaluation of ecclesiological concept in thinking of Robert Jenson through reading, interpretation and assessment of the text of the book: JENSON, W. Robert. Systematic Theology: The Works of God. Vol. 2., sub-chapter "The Church's Founding", pages 167-188. The focus of his concept is based on presenting multi-dimensional structure of the Church in time-place settings as an intrinsic expression for her catholicity. Term "totus Christus" is an expression for the actual relation of the Head and the Body. Subsequently, author elaborates concept of relation of the Church towards the Church's foundational and within- opened-time-of-delayed-parusia inducing and sustaining realities. In the second part, author elaborates a concept of role of the Spirit as the relational vivifying force of the Christ and the Church; possibility of lack of the Spirit; and indivisible clasp of the Christology, the Pneumatology and the Ecclesiology. Author also deals with concept of the Church as the eschatological detour, which is embedded within a broader framework of the split eschatology (in American theology called "the telescopic eschatology"). The second part of this thesis is based on an idea of the church is a polity of God. Thematically, it is grasped under...

After 1781 there were established several Protestant congregations in Podkrkonoší (North-East Bohemia). Approximately one hundred years later, the whole region was greatly affected by Spiritualism, a belief in communication with spirits of the dead through mediums. My objective is to describe the attitudes of the Protestant congregations in Podkrkonoší towards Spiritualism and analyse their causes and effects. Understanding these attitudes will yield an insight into the character of the present congregations. For this purpose, I studied the congregations in Libštát, Křížlice, and Jičín. In particular I focused on their parish priests because they had the control over their flock in these questions. I went through the archival materials of the respective congregations as well as personal diaries, and I analysed the memories of several interviewed people. These findings were then compared with the attitudes of some congregations in Great Britain. The results revealed three different approaches of the priests. Some were very radical, which led to excommunication of Spiritualists. Others were rather tolerant, which resulted in integration of Spiritualists. Finally, some priests were quite secretive, so their parishioners may not have seen a clear line between Spiritualism and Christianity.

Die Magisterarbeit untersucht die Kirchenpolitik der SED in der ersten Hälfte der sechziger Jahre auf regionaler Ebene. Sie fragt, wie die Staats- und Parteiorgane des Bezirkes Potsdam gegenüber der Evangelischen Kirche Berlin-Brandenburg agierten, wie die zentralen Beschlüsse vor Ort umgesetzt wurden und welche Probleme dabei auftraten. Bei der Durchsetzung des Sozialismus in der DDR und der Sicherung der eigenen Herrschaft, stand der Staatspartei SED die evangelische Kirche als gesellschaftlicher Großverband im Weg. Nach einem harten Repressionskurs in den fünfziger Jahren, änderte die SED um 1960/61 ihre Strategie, um den Einfluss der Kirche auf die Gesellschaft auszuschalten. Die Christen sollten in die Gesellschaft integriert und vom Sozialismus überzeugt werden. Nach der Darstellung der Grundlagen der Kirchenpolitik der SED sowie der Evangelischen Kirche, analysiert die Arbeit die Umsetzung der Überzeugungsstrategie des SED-Staates im Bezirk Potsdam. Kirchenpolitische Strukturen, Akteure sowie Methoden werden anhand von Unterlagen des Rates des Bezirkes Potsdam sowie der SED-Bezirksleitung untersucht. Die Kirchenpolitik in den Bezirken sollte zu Beginn der sechziger Jahre systematischer und kontinuierlicher durchgeführt werden als zuvor. In einem Betreuungssystem wurden alle Pfarrer, kirchliche Mitarbeiter und engagierte Laien erfasst, um sie in regelmäßigen Gesprächen vom Sozialismus zu überzeugen, notfalls mit finanziellen Anreizen. Bei der Umsetzung klafften Anspruch und Realität weit auseinander. Personalmangel, Qualifizierung und mangelnde Bereitschaft der Mitarbeiter, aber auch die Resistenz der Pfarrerschaft ließen den Bezirksorganen meist nur die Beobachtung und Verwaltung kirchlicher Angelegenheiten. Als die Kirche in Berlin-Brandenburg Anfang 1966 den EKD-Ratsvorsitzenden Kurt Scharf zu ihrem Bischof wählte, war offensichtlich, dass die Überzeugungsstrategie erhebliche Mängel aufwies. / The M.A. thesis analyses the church policy of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany on a regional level in the first half of the 1960s. The paper investigates how the administrative body of the state and the party in the Bezirk (district) Potsdam dealt with the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg, how they implemented central decisions and which problems occurred. With implementation of socialism in the GDR and securing their own power the Socialist Unity Party had its adversary in the Protestant church as one of the biggest social organizations. After hard repressions in the 1950s the Socialist Unity Party changed its strategy around 1960/61 to eliminate the influence of the protestant church on society. Christians from now on were supposed to be integrated in society and to be convinced of socialism. The paper focuses on the principles of church policy of the Socialist Unity Party and the Protestant Church, and investigates the implementation of the new persuasion strategy in the Bezirk Potsdam. Structures of church policy, protagonists and methods will be analysed on basis of documents from the Rat des Bezirkes (council) and the party leadership of the Bezirk. At the beginning of the 1960s the church policy of the regional districts in the GDR was meant to be more systematic and continuous as before. In a “mentoring” system all pastors, church staff and committed laypersons were registered in order to convince them of socialism in regular talks, in case of need with financial incentives. However, concerning implementation demands and reality diverged immensely. Staff shortage, lacking willingness and qualification of the staff, but also due to the pastors’ resistance the administrative body of state and party in the Bezirk Potsdam could only deal with administration and the observation of church matters. That the persuasion system had enormous obstacles became obvious when in 1966 the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg elected the leader of the EKD, Kurt Scharf, as their bishop.

Submitted by Vasti Diniz (vastijpa@hotmail.com) on 2017-12-27T13:15:13Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 12940529 bytes, checksum: c98132e650f071cc7ae5d92c8f5f857c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-27T13:15:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 12940529 bytes, checksum: c98132e650f071cc7ae5d92c8f5f857c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-11-11 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This dissertation has as objective describing the acting of the Universal Church of God's Kingdom (IURD) of Recife as representant of the brazilian neopentecostalism in the postmodern society. It is described how the church stands out through the merchandising strategies contained in their theologic speech, having this as the main element of differentiation from the others religious groups. This work seeks to identify, through what was observed in the religious ceremonies and sermons preached by the ecclesiastic leadership, the main theological practices of how the religious speech relates, in this specific case, with the postmodernity, so much in the daily basis as well as in the marketing strategies used in the religious dispute. / Esta dissertação objetiva descrever a atuação em relação a Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (IURD) no Recife como representante do neopentecostalismo brasileiro na sociedade dita pós-moderna. Descreve-se, para isso, como a igreja vem se destacando através das estratégias mercadológicas contidas no seu discurso teológico, tendo nisso seu principal elemento de diferenciação dos demais grupos religiosos. O trabalho procura identificar através do que foi observado nas cerimônias religiosas e nos sermões proferidos pela liderança eclesiástica, as principais práticas teológicas e a forma que o discurso religioso se relaciona, nesse caso específico, com a pós-modernidade, tanto no seu dia-a-dia, como também nas estratégias de mercado utilizadas na disputa religiosa.

Thesis (MTech (Architectural Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2014. / The growth of Cape Town's northern suburbs during the first few decades of the twentieth century is closely related to the socio-economic history of local Afrikaners who, during this time, left the farms to seek employment in Cape Town's industrial areas. Most of them settled in or near these industrial areas, causing the expansion of the northern suburbs. The first railway line in Cape Town, which was inaugurated in 1862, passed through Bellville on its way from Cape Town station to its terminal point in Eersterivier. The first official station at Bellville was only built in 1882, however, and a stop in Parow only followed in 1903The first Bellville town council was established as recently as 1922 (Bergh, 2009: 5-6). This is an indication of how sparsely populated this area was at the time. The Dutch Reformed Church has traditionally played a central role in the cultural and spiritual life of Afrikaners, and consequently the establishment of Dutch Reformed churches in the northern suburbs stands in clear correlation to the growth of Afrikaner populations in these suburbs (see below). Because of the low population of the Parow and Bellville areas, Dutch Reformed Church members living there were initially part of the Cape Town congregation, and, from 1832 onward, part of the newly established Durbanville congregation. It is only in April 1900 when, in the Bellville area, numbers had increased considerably, that monthly services were held in a school building. By 1920 membership had grown so much that weekly services had to be held. In 1922 a church hall with 300 seats was inaugurated (Bergh, 2009: 7-8). Local services in Parow were only instituted in 1905, with the first church building, a Neo-Gothic structure, following in 1907. In 1917 a separate congregation was established in Parow (i.e. separate from the Durbanville mother congregation), with Bellville following suit in 1934. Goodwood congregation became independent in 1926, having separated from Parow (Van Lill, 1992: 6-9; Bergh, 2009: 8). In subsequent years, as numbers increased, numerous other congregations were established after separating from these three mother congregations, most of which built Modernist churches. The first Dutch Reformed church built in the Goodwood-Parow-Bellville area was the old Parow church. This building no longer exists, but it was built in the Neo-Gothic style which had been current throughout the 19th century, and which was still, at the beginning of the 20th century, the accepted traditional style (see Le Raux, 2008: 21). The Rondebosch Dutch Reformed church, for example, was built in this style during the last decade of the 19th century. (The southern suburbs, which include Rondebosch, had developed gradually over the previous three centuries, and by the early 20th century were well established, leaving relatively few prospects for working class Afrikaners to settle there). At the beginning of the 20th century, with the emergence of a nationalistic consciousness in the wake of the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), there was a fervent search for a 'true' Afrikaans church architecture. This search was lead and directed by Gerhard Moerdijk (1890-1958) and Wynand Louw (1883-1967). They emphatically rejected the Gothic style for various reasons. Firstly, because it was designed around the Roman Catholic liturgy and was therefore unsuitable for Protestant worship, and secondly, because it is historically identified with the growth and expansion of the Catholic Church and therefore also with the persecution of Protestants, including that of the Huguenots who fled to the Cape to become ancestors of many Afrikaners (Le Roux, 2008: 22). However, if this style was indeed so offensive to Huguenots because of its Catholic associations, it would possibly not have become so popular during the 19th and zo= centuries. These Neo-Gothic churches are, in fact, unmistakably Protestant in the austerity of their interiors which could not be mistaken for a Catholic Gothic church interior with its abundantly rich ornamentation and sacred imagery. Likewise, the exteriors of these Neo-Gothic churches are distinctly Protestant in their reserved use of ornamentation. Nevertheless, Gothic churches were originally designed around the Catholic liturgy and consequently their layout does not serve the Protestant liturgy well. Here Moerdijk makes a very valid point, and one which would be taken up by subsequent architects as well as writers (see Chapter Seven below). Moerdijk, in his published writings, upholds Classicism and the Renaissance as examples worthy of following (Le Roux, 2008: 22). The resulting new style which he and Louw pursued from the 1920s onwards, and which became enormously popular, is generally referred to as sentraalbou (due to its centralised floor plan) (see Le Roux, 2008: 25-28). Later writers on Afrikaner Protestant church design tend to stress the supposed Byzantine ancestry of this type of church (see below).

The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyze ideas how to deal with the german question after the Second World War which were brought up by one of the largest postwar ecumenical organizations - Christian Peace Conference. Using this example, the author of this thesis wants to describe nature of the organization whose establishment was initiated by the cooperation between theologians and active Christians from the Eastern bloc and their Western counterparts, particularly the ones from the Federal Republic of Germany. Therefore, the thesis presents ideas of Christian Peace Conference and then compares them with the development of international relations during the Cold War and shows potential political implications of these ideas. This issue also illustrates the evolution of negotiations among European actors in the international arena after 1968. Lastly, the thesis addresses the question how could an organization like Christian Peace Conference work in the socialist state the German Democratic Republic was.

This study concluded that the Three Forms of Unity does not give the same meaning to the word “church” all the way through, since the word is used to describe both the visible and invisible sides of the church. When these different uses of the word “church” are left out of consideration in discussions concerning the church and only one of the two sides of the church is emphasised, it leads to the large degree of confusion and indistiction which these days is experienced in ecclesiastical debates. Before there can be any meaningful progress in these discussions, it is therefore necessary to establish which view of the Bible as well as concept of the church, is being taken as starting point of the discussion. Reformed academics have already done many studies concerning the Biblical usage of the word “church”. This study has taken the research a step further and shown that the use of the word “church” in the Three Forms of Unity agrees with the Biblical usage of the word. The Bible and the Three Forms of Unity mean, with the word “church”, both sides of the church of Christ. This church is on the one side invisible, seeing that is spans time and place and in doing so is the sum total of all the elect. On the other side, this church is made visible in a defined place and time and bears the stamp of its own time and culture in which it took its shape. Confusion arises when it is assumed that whatever the Bible and confessions state as indicative of the invisible church is necessarily indicative of the church`s visible side also. This is particularly valid, for example, in the doctrine concerning the attributes and characteristics of the church. This study has brought the old truths about the church from the Bible and confessions freshly to the fore in a time when very little attention is being paid to them. Yet it is precisely these truths concerning the concept of the church that can bring progress in ecclesiastical discussion. It was further demonstrated that the concept of the church held by the Afrikaans Protestant Churches stands on solid Biblical and confessional grounds. / Dissertation (MA (Research in Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Practical Theology / MA / unrestricted