Through the invitation of the then traditional ruler of Bali Nyonga, the missionaries of the Basel Mission arrived there in 1903. They embarked on evangelisation especially through the opening of schools. They studied the mungaka language, translated the Bible into it and made several other publications. However in the process of translation they concluded in strong terms that the Bali had no notion of a Supreme Being who created heaven and earth. Professors, Bolaji Idowu, Kwame Bediako and others argue contrary to such missionary assertion above, that continuity from the old religion is what gives meaning to the understanding of the new. It is in this light that in this work we seek to explore the Bali Nyonga conception of the Supreme Being. We will also investigate Christian understanding of the God of Israel; whether he is understood only in the light of previous understanding or they consider him to be somebody whom they had never known in their worldview. The researcher begins however with the basic assumption that the new can be understood only in the light of the past. This is because the people have a few sayings, which clearly indicate that their past is so much, cherished. They say for example that Bo ma ni ntun mandzi mfi kui tsed I nden beh [one cannot dig a new road without cutting across the existing road], ntan 'wo' ka gha bun nden ma mi be mbe I ti' la' be nto nkwedkwed [the hawk said it is not good for old people to all die, lest one day people would take them for meat]1. There is also the name Dayebga [one cannot forget his homeland or their compound]. After introducing the work in chapter one, the next chapter presents a historical overview of the context of research. Chapter three explores the conception of God among the Bali Nyonga. The findings of Europeans are first presented followed by the understanding of indigenes. Chapter four considers the encounter between two conflicting worldviews and its consequences as the Gospel and missionaries [two different worldviews] came into contact with the Bali worldview. The next chapter investigates Christian practice and their understanding of God. We have done this by analysing some Church hymns and prayers. Chapter six is a summary of the findings and a theological reflection on the results of the findings. 1 The hawk is not eaten. By this proverb it is considered that if there are no old people to pass on old values the next generation may do things that are digressions from esteemed values. This saying emphasizes continuity. Babila Fochang, Wisdom of the Ancients - Some African Proverbs, Witty Sayings and their interpretations drawn mostly from Bali Nyonga in the North West province of Cameroon, Dschang: Dschang University Press, 2001, p.4 / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

This research aims to carry out a historical analysis of "the contribution of Rainisoalambo, the father of revivals, to the indigenization of the Protestant churches in Madagascar" and also to enrich the field of historical research for the Church in Madagascar. The revival movement is rooted in the Protestant Church history, so this research is intended to study the concept of indigenization through the preaching, sermons and teachings of Rainisoalambo. There are two main Protestant churches in Madagascar: the Reformed Church (FJKM) and the Lutheran (FLM). The revival found within these churches inspired me to think about the power behind the Church growth in my country. Rainisoalambo contextualized the Gospel. He used indigenization as a strategy and its principles as a source of vitality for the Malagasy Protestant churches. He did not teach a new doctrine either. He helped the people of God to express their faith in Malagasy culture. In the 20th century, the revival movement shifted from the perception of mass conversion and dramatic social changes to the revitalization of God's people. Therefore, the fundamental question is: "What is the major contribution of Rainisoalambo as the father of revivals, to the indigenization of the Protestant churches in Madagascar?" My hypothesis is that the revival of Rainisoalambo made a major contribution to the indigenization of churches in Madagascar. Since "indigenization" is mainly the key word to be understood for this research, this study adopts a theoretical framework, which is informed by concept of cultural translation and phenomenological approach. Since this research uses a historical perspective, it is important to practice the historical methodology: data collection for primary and secondary sources, potential oral interviews, criticism of data through assessing the genuineness of information sources and the presentation of information in accurate and readable form. The analytical approach is adopted in this theoretical framework. In spite of times, the majority of data collected will be enough to accomplish this work. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

In this regional study of Methodist development and societal influence throughout the period of industrialisation, recent trends in Methodist historiography at a national level are combined with the research and source material accumulated at a local level, to provide a detailed analysis of Methodist growth in Cornwall between the years 1780 and 1870. The thesis is divided loosely into three sections. In the first, four chapters outline the essential background to interpretative analysis by considering, in turn, recent historiographical developments in Methodist studies; social change in Cornwall during industrialisation; the performance of the Anglican Church in the county as represented in the Visitation Returns for 1779, (as well as historical and structural reasons for its 'failure'); and Methodist growth as expressed through available statistical indices, especially the date of formation of Methodist societies, and the 1851 Ecclesiastical Census. In the second section, one long chapter is devoted to an in-depth, county-wide analysis of Methodist growth, which considers the impact of external factors, particularly socio-economic, and internal circumstances, such as the degree of maturity of pastoral and administrative machinery, and the level of Connexional or lay control over chapel and circuit affairs, on the form and function of Methodism in nine distinct socioeconomic regions within the county. In the third section, four chapters concentrate on West Cornwall, where Methodism was strongest, in order to examine the roots of, and reasons for, the distinctively indigenous form of Methodism which developed there. On the one hand, the pastoral and administrative difficulties in exerting adequate Connexional control are considered; while on the other, an interpretation of the 'folk' functionality of revivals and of Methodism as a 'popular religion' is offered.

The thesis covers new ground in several ways. It is over two hundred years ago that Blomefield first published his monumental survey of Norwich. Since then much work has been done on individual aspects of the Church in late medieval Norwich. However, no attempt had been made to synthesize these later researches. This thesis tries to make the synthesis. Blomefield used wills extensively in his survey of the Church in Norwich. He used them, almost exclusively, as evidence that various things happened: for example, as evidence that a certain hermit lived in the city, or that a particular person was buried in one of the friaries. This thesis, too, makes extensive use of the factual information which wills provide, but it also tries to use wills as evidence of thought and of intentions. Thus, Chapter 3 of the thesis analyses how the citizens of late medieval Norwich left their money in their wills, and from this analysis an attempt is made to estimate what the citizens thought about various aspects of their religion. Wills have never been used extensively in this second way in a study of Norwich. Indeed, few other English or Continental towns have been, or can be, the subjects of similar studies. In as much as it uses wills in this second way, Chapter 3 of the thesis parallels the recent work of Mile de Nuce on Toulouse and that of Dr Thomson on London. Dr Thomson's work on London is the only other comparable study of a late medieval English town which has so far been made, and there are only two more English cities - York and Canterbury - for which enough wills survive from the late Middle Ages to permit studies of this kind. As well as trying to fill these specific gaps, the thesis hopes to contribute to the study of the late medieval Church in more general ways. Namely, by throwing a little more light on three inter-connected questions about the late medieval Church which are receiving increasing attention from ecclesiastical historians. First, movement in the Church from below: that is to say, how the mass of the faithful (as distinct from those who were the official rulers and teachers of the Church) affected and were affected by Christianity. Secondly, the impact of new religious movements which were the product of the late Middle Ages. And thirdly, the question of 'lay piety', or the religion of the laity. Two reasons why the Church in late medieval Norwich merits study, have just been mentioned: no synthetic study of the topic has recently been made, and secondly, so many wills of the citizens survive. In addition, Norwich is of intrinsic interest since the records of the subsidies of 1523-7 show that it was then the second most populous and wealthy city in England (after London). Furthermore, the religious institutions of the early and high Middle Ages abounded in the city. Thus, Norwich was an episcopal city, unlike the next most populous city in the 1520's, Bristol; Norwich had a Benedictine monastery and four friaries, and a nunnery nearby, and it had more parish churches than any English city other than London and possibly Lincoln. Yet at the same time Norwich was especially likely to have been in contact with the new religious currents of late medieval Christendom. Thus, Norwich was a major European city, and it was the cities which seem to have been the chief centres of the new religious movements; Norwich was also the provincial capital of one of the most advanced areas of the kingdom; and geographically and through trade Norwich was close to the Low Countries and the lower Rhineland, which were then the most fertile areas for religious movements this side of the Alps. The starting point of the thesis has been the wills of the citizens of late medieval Norwich. These wills survive in large numbers from 1370. Most of them are preserved in the will-registers of the Norwich Consistory Court, though many of the most interesting ones are in the will-registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. As has just been said, these wills are the basis of Chapter 3 of the thesis. They also provide much information for other chapters of the thesis. For example, they provide information about where the citizens wanted to be buried, and about whom they chose as executors and witnesses of their wills as their confessors - points which are discussed in Section (a) of Chapter 1. They provide information about those sons and daughters of the testators in question who were priests or members of religious Orders, and about the books which the secular clergy of the city owned, and about their wealth - points which are discussed in Section (b) of Chapter 1. They also provide information about the books which the laity owned, about the numbers and some of the activities of the guilds and confraternities and the recluses of the city, about Christian names and patron saints, about the shrines to which testators dispatched pilgrims, about the religious objects, such as rosaries and vestments, which the citizens owned, and about the Masses and prayers which the citizens wanted to be said for them when they died - points which are discussed in Chapter 2. After the wills, four collections of records have been of special value. First, the records of the dean and chapter (then the prior and convent) of Norwich. As well as containing the records of visitations of various parishes in the city, these documents provide valuable information about tithe disputes and about other conflicts in which the Benedictine Cathedral Priory was involved; and the obedientiary rolls of the priory record offerings to various shrines in the Cathedral, which are discussed in the section of pilgrimages. Secondly, Norwich City Records. The Private Deeds in these records have provided information about a number of chantries, and the Account Rolls of the Guild of St George have provided considerable knowledge about the guild of St George, as well as about other guilds and confraternities. The other records of the City Government have provided information about a multitude of topics, and they have been specially useful for the section in Chapter 4 which discusses the disputes between the citizens and the Cathedral Priory, Thirdly, the bishops' registers. As well as showing who were the patrons of the parochial benefices in the city, the registers provide valuable information about the careers of the beneficed clergy of the city, and especially about how many of them had university degrees. And fourthly, the record of Bishop Goldwell's visitation of the parishes of Norwich, which is a very full record of how many members of the parish clergy there were in the city in 1492, and of how they were distributed among the parishes. Of the printed sources, Hudson and Tingey's edition of The Records of the City of Norwich stands in a class of its own for its usefulness. It has been especially valuable for Section (a) of Chapter 4, which deals with the disputes between the citizens and the Cathedral Priory, and the editors' introduction to the book has been most useful. The various works in which the 1389 returns of the guilds and confraternities of Norwich are printed, and Miss Grace's edition of the Records of the Gild of St George in Norwich, provided much of the knowledge used in Section (c) of Chapter 2, which discusses the guilds and confraternities of the city. Dr Jessopp's edition of the records of visitations of religious houses in the diocese of Norwich has provided considerable information, especially for the section on the morals and behaviour of the clergy.

The thesis "Tuba: an African eschatology in Islam" adopts afrocentric hypotheses for the study of Islam. First, the thesis demonstrates how certain phenomena specific to Islam in Africa, those usually qualified as products of religious syncretism, are on the contrary indicative of the ongoing process of synthesis and enrichment within Islam, and, secondly, that African spiritual tradition continues today as in the past to participate along with others in this constructive process. In order to demonstrate this hypothesis the spiritual significance of the modern Islamic holy city of Touba in Senegal will be analyzed. / Touba is named for the Tree of Paradise (Tuba) of Islamic tradition and the holy city has been constructed around the singular arboreal image. The spiritual meaning imparted by Touba, a deliberate creation, is expressed in the topography of the holy city, in its geographic configuration. The thesis adapts the methodologies of spatial analysis, and specifically the semiotic reading of landscape, to the study of a religious phenomenon, i.e., the creation of a holy city. / in order to explain the significance of this holy city for Islamic eschatology, the meanings which three distinct religious traditions (Islam, West Africa, Ancient Egypt) have attached to the image of the cosmic tree are inventoried. The tree as archetype here serves to establish the continuity of African religious thought from pharaonic Egypt to modern Muslim Senegal.

Over most of the 20th Century, many educational systems around the world became increasingly secular, notably with lessening involvement of religious institutions. However, what it means to offer secular education to an increasingly diverse student population is emerging as a contemporary international educational issue. The face of immigration, the rights of Aboriginals, and increasingly diverse and individual forms of religiosity and spirituality have implications for secular education today. This qualitative study of Alberta schooling provides an example of a setting that underwent a high degree of secularization in the 1960's-1980's. A litigious but interpretive boundary exists for the extent educationists were to engage students in thinking about religion and spirituality. Yet, teachers operated with a high degree of autonomy. With these contextual factors as a backdrop, this study explored how a hierarchical sample of Alberta policy-makers, administrators, and teachers conceptualized religion and spirituality for secular secondary schools. Results show that Alberta Education conceptualized space for the conservative religious and Aboriginal communities, but not mainstream students. The students operated in a 'leave your faith at the door' secular model, curriculum was rationalized, and the function of schooling was perceived as preparing students for work. Findings show that principals and teachers challenged the lack of space for mainstream students to engage in the concepts of religion and spirituality. They argued the secular model disadvantaged mainstream students in exercising their right to religious freedom and developing religious literacy and sensitivity skills and it also prevented non-religious students from gaining access to religious/spiritual concepts and tools to facilitate wellbeing and resiliency.

Within a few years of the end of World War Two Christianity had spread to every Taiwanese aboriginal group. Nowadays a variety of Christian churches play an important role in aboriginal society. This study is about conversion to Christianity and its aftermath in an aboriginal village. Fieldwork was conducted among the Ami (one of the nine Taiwanese aboriginal groups), in Iwan, a village on the eastern coastal of Taiwan. In this study the individual interests of social actors are emphasised. I suggest that not only political leaders had special motives (i.e. to pursue political power) in conversion, but also ordinary people had their own interests too (i.e. to pursue a better life in the future). In this sense we might say that the meanings, functions, purposes and aims imputed to religion by converts are arrived at through local dialogues. Religious conversion happened against a historical background of long and sustained contact with colonising immigrants (e.g. Japanese and Chinese). During colonial rule. Ami social life expanded radically and mass conversion took place, in the 1950s, when a common dissatisfaction with life was felt. I argue that relative deprivation was an important factor in this conversion and it became significant because of the emphasis put on it by local political leaders. The adoption of different Christian churches is best understood from the perspective of internal political relations and the careers of political leaders. In general I argue that through the articulations of prominent Ami leaders various external phenomena have been integrated into Ami life and successful articulations have also helped certain political leaders to pursue or maintain their authority.

Persephone’s myth is unique, as it was the central narrative of one of the most prominent ancient mystery religions, and remains one of the few (certainly the most prominent) ancient Greek myths to focus on the relationship of a mother and her daughter. This unique focus must have offered her worshippers something important that they perhaps could not find elsewhere, especially as a complex and elaborate cult grew around it, transforming the divine allegory of the changing seasons or the storage of the grain beneath the earth, into a narrative offering hope for a better place in the afterlife. To understand the appeal of this myth, two aspects of her worship and mythic significance require study: the expectations of her worshippers for their own lives, to which the goddess may have been seen as a forerunner; and the mythic frameworks operating which would characterise the goddess for her worshippers. The myth, as described in The Hymn to Demeter, is initially interpreted for its literary meaning, and then set within its cultural milieu to uncover what meaning it may have had for Persephone’s worshippers, particularly in terms of marriage and death, which form the initial motivating action of the myth. From this socio-anthropological study we turn to the mythic patterns and motifs the story offers, particularly the figure of the goddess of the Underworld (primarily in the influential Mesopotamian literature), and the Dying-Rising God figure (similarly derived from the Near East). These figures, when compared to the Greek goddess, may both reveal her unique appeal, and highlight the common attractions that lie in the figures generally. By this two-part investigation, on the particular culture’s expectations and the general mythic framework she exists in, Persephone’s meaning in her native land may be uncovered and understood.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the psycho-cultural dynamics of the interaction between the British community in India in the 19th century and the class of Indians educated in the English school system both in terms of the stress the encounter placed upon individuals of both cultural communities and the response initiated thereby. Although the emphasis of the study is on the impact of Western values and attitudes it is recognized that the source of psychological stress for Indians was the response of the British to the stress of contact with an alien culture. The cultural change induced by the British in India focused upon the Hindu religion, requiring a deep rearrangement of cultural values, motivations and their corresponding institutional structures. But it is seen that this kind of change is not easily accomplished. Indians could not reject their own cultural values and accept the alien ones without destroying their sense of identity which, being derived from the Hindu religion, was incompatible with the value system of the West. Though intellectually they identified with some values and ideas of the West, emotionally and socially they were tied to the culture patterns of traditional Hinduism. This conflict caused some Indians to experience a crisis of identity. In this thesis identity is defined as a function of religion. The religious system of a culture forms the matrix of all cultural values, beliefs, attitudes, and the sense of identity and serves as the organizing, integrating, and stabilizing principle of the social system and the personality. A crisis of identity becomes for the individual a crisis of belief. This was what occurred when the cultural values and beliefs of the Hindus were challenged by the alternate value system of the British which, when defined by the racist ideology and the colonial relationship, destroyed the sense of security and integrity of the native personality. British cultural attitudes are discussed in terms of the changing images of India and of Indians in the 19th century and interpreted in the context of the ideologies that inspired them. It is observed that the images of 19th century Indian culture are uniformly condemning but that the images of India's past and future vary according to the ideological stance of the image makers. The cultural attitude which prevailed throughout most of the century was one of intolerance stemming from the belief in the superiority of the British culture. This attitude created an atmosphere of cultural polarity and manifested itself in an invidious comparison between the two cultural groups. A framework is established for interpreting the Indian response to the impact of British cultural attitudes or, rather, to the crisis of identity and the loss of self-respect that the impact produced. The response was basically a defensive one. It involved a search for a new cultural identity which would relieve the stress of commitment to opposing value systems by effecting a compromise. Indians attempted this realignment via cultural historiography or cultural classicism, a process whereby they interjected 19th century Western values into their own cultural past thereby making those values seem generic to their tradition. Historiography "proved" that present (19th century) moribund values represented a deviation from the true values of the Hindu religion. This interpretive act rendered adjustment to and acceptance of change easier. It produced a cultural identity compatible with the experience of the contemporary Indian and provided a framework for the interpretation of traditional Hinduism according to the 19th century world view. The reinterpretive schemes of Raja Rammohun Roy and Swami Vivekānanda are used to illustrate the Indian response. Their images of India and of Indians are contained in the "myths" of the Indian Golden Age and Indian spirituality which were calculated to regenerate India and Indians to a position of dignity and equality in a world culture. / Arts, Faculty of / Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies, Department of / Graduate

The present study focusses on the description and analysis of the religious beliefs and practices of a central Taiwanese spirit-writing cult or "phoenix hall" (luantang). A phoenix hall is a voluntary religious association of congregational character centring upon communication with the gods by means of the divinatory technique of "spirit-writing" (fuluan). While spirit-writing can be and is used as an oracle for the solving of believers' personal problems, its more high-profile application is for the writing of so-called "morality books" (shanshu), i.e., books of religious instruction and moral exhortation. Spirit-writing cults are nowadays the most important sources of such works. Much attention has been given to morality books as mirrors of the social concerns of their times, but comparatively little work has been done on the groups that produce them and the meaning these works have for them. An adequate understanding of the meanings and functions of morality books, however, is impossible without some knowledge of the religious groups that produce them and the role played by morality books in their beliefs and practices. It is the objective of this thesis to provide a detailed description and analysis of one such group, the "Temple of the Martial Sage, Hall of Enlightened Orthodoxy" (Wumiao Mingzheng Tang), a phoenix hall in the city of Taizhong that was founded in 1976 and has played a significant role in the modern development of the shanshu genre through the active and varied publications programme of its publishing arm, the Phoenix Friend Magazine Society. The study utilizes data extracted from the Hall's published writings as well as interview, observation, and questionnaire data collected during an eight month period of field research in Taizhong. Part I provides a macrohistorical overview of the development of spirit-writing cults on the Chinese mainland (chapter 1) and on Taiwan (chapter 2) since the nineteenth century, leading up to the case-example's microhistory (chapter 3). Part II is devoted to an account of the beliefs and practices of the Wumiao Mingzheng Tang, including descriptions and analyses of its organization, deities, ritual activities, concepts of moral cultivation, and of the body of morality book literature it has produced over the years. The appendix contains samples of the cult's morality book and scriptural literature, as well as of various liturgical texts. / Arts, Faculty of / Asian Studies, Department of / Graduate