Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-142). / This paper is an assessment of the viability of church-based poverty alleviation strategies. It hypothesises that churches have a valuable and significant role to play in the alleviation of poverty. The research looks at the activities of two churches within South Africa, that is, Jubilee Community Church in Cape Town, and Dihlabeng Christian Church in Clarens. The churches are then scrutinised as case studies in the light of Manfred Max-Neefs Human Scale Development theory. The theory of Human Scale Development is described. It is a radical alternative to mainstream neo-liberal approaches to poverty alleviation and development. There are three tenets of the theory: firstly, that development should involve the satisfaction of multiple needs simultaneously; secondly, that this is best conducted at the small or human scale; and thirdly, that dependency must be countered through the encouragement of self-reliance. Semi-structured interviews with key informants at the two churches provide the fieldwork data for this research. This data is then used to construct a thorough description of the churches' poverty alleviation programmes. Each church is discussed and the ten programmes at each are described in terms of their history and origin, their vision, and their core functions. The analysis of the data then occurs at two levels. Firstly, an assessment of the quantitative impact of the church-based projects is conducted. Secondly, there is a qualitative assessment of the churches as the data is combined with Max-Neefs three tenets of Human Scale Development. This analysis provides overwhelming evidence in support of the hypothesis. Churches are found to have a large impact on their communities. They are found to be building self-reliance as they satisfy multiple needs at the level of the human scale. The churches, therefore, are found to be valuable and significant role players in development.

Bibliography: leaves 65-69. / This thesis traces the influence of Spirituality on the African National Congress (ANC) struggle for liberation in South Africa (1912 - 1996). It therefore demonstrates how God has been operating in the South African conflict situation. Stories about Che Guevara's involvement in the struggle for freedom in Cuba and Bolivia and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's participation in the war against Nazism in Germany have been included in this work in order to expose the universality of spirituality. The main focus of this work is the practice of the ANC struggle for liberation between 1912 and 1996. When the history is read and synthesized from a Christian perspective it relates well to the biblical story about the liberation of the Israelites from the Egyptian bondage. The main source of information has been both primary and secondary documents. Content analysis as a research method has been mainly used in order to identify Christian traits such as selflessness, brotherly love, mercy, ability to forgive, gratuity and compassion as signs of the presence and influence of spirituality in the behaviour of the leadership of the ANC in this struggle for South Africa. Another preoccupation of this thesis is the ANC's need for national reconciliation and reconstruction of people's lives after the war of liberation in 1994.

Bibliography: leaves 224-242. / This thesis examines the role of sacred space in people's attachment to land, analysing the ways in which people create sacred space through labour, ritual, myth, and memory. Three case studies explore the human interpretation of the sacred through the history and politics of land acquisition and dispossession. While providing historical background and legal analysis of forced removals, evictions, and relocations, the thesis calls attention to the role of religion in South African land claims. Although the people in these case studies believe that returning to their original land will materially improve their lives, their main concern is to reconnect with their alienated sacred space. This study explores the changing nature of the sacred and its formulative role in shaping and informing peopIe's identities and memories.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-90). / Is a South African township funeral a 'site of resistance' to HIV which provides communities with a means for achieving a telos of health? Could the funeral embody the leading causes of life (a theory used to develop the analysis) needed to create and sustain life in the midst of illness and death? This study will seek to answer these questions through a close look at the J L Zwane Church and Community Centre, a faith based community in Gugulethu, South Africa. By exploring township funerals of the apartheid past in relation to funerals resulting from the AIDS epidemic, despite what many construe as decay and death, ample evidence of resiliency and life will be demonstrated.

Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis explores gender discourses in elementary Islamic learning institutions in South Africa. Informed by a feminist imperative that recognizes education to be both a site for gender struggle and also a tool for change-making, this thesis adopts a feminist pedagogical approach to examine some of the ways that young Muslim girls in South Africa learn about being gendered. Drawing on theoretical insights from feminist poststructuralism, I analyze the contents of a popular learning text that has been developed for young Muslim girls in contemporary South African Deoband mad'ris (elementary religious schools).

Bibliography: leaves 214-223. / This thesis is a multi-disciplinary inquiry into the nature and functioning of national identity. By interpreting a single text, The Critique of Political Reason, by the French philosopher and activist Regis Debray, a range of new analytical concepts are located and some standard concepts are recast in new terms. The religious nature of social identities, that is, the role of the sacred in society, is identified and explained. Some mainstream theories of ideology, religion, and nationalism are explored in an attempt to determine whether these tools of analysis are practicable and how these theoretical resources might be reworked in the light of Debray's analysis. As Debray shows, the national question is not a problem to be solved but a persisting dilemma to be engaged at the levels of both theory and practice.

Bibliography: leaves 239-280. / This thesis suggests that dream analysis is a crucial theoretical tool, not simply to assist the individuation process, but also to gain understanding of the severing of body from soul that is so linked to addiction. Thus the thesis proposes that dream analysis is a key means to access one's spirituality, not, simply a psychoanalytic technique. It draws on a range of disciplines and discourses, located in a Jungian and ecofeminist framework, to suggest that a growing crisis of ill health - at both individual and ecological levels - is attributable, in essence, to a loss of soul. It focuses on addiction as a reflection of this loss, attempting to show that the relentless craving of the addict is best understood as spiritual hunger. The deep desire which underlies this hunger is expressed in multiple ways in our dreams. A major aspect of the thesis is an attempt to explicate the nature of the loss, and of the hunger which points to it. I suggest that both have their roots in the patriarchal conquest and denigration of women and the feminine, which may be seen inscribed on the ravaged bodies of women and Mother Earth. The first four chapters lay the groundwork for the case study of a woman whose experience illustrates much of the complexity of this theoretical discussion. The value of dream analysis as a theoretical tool which actively assists the individuation process is presented in Chapter 1 within a multi-disciplinary framework. In Chapter 2, the focus details and analyses the Jungian model and approach to dream interpretation in preparation for the concluding 9ase study. Parallels between relevant aspects of the Buddhist and Hindu traditions and Jungian models are also explored. Chapter 3 examines archetypal patterns of addiction seeking to understand the dynamic of wounded desire and displaced spiritual hunger. Postmodern links are made. Chapter 4 suggests that the devaluation and violation of the female body has its roots in the elevation of the patriarchal sky god of the Abrahamic tradition. The need for a rigorous application of a hermeneutic of suspicion towards androcentric constructions of meaning is highlighted and related to the vulnerabilities females experience in relation to embodiment. Foreshadowing key issues of the case study and linked clearly to the thematic of addiction, the impact of sexual abuse on the child's experience of embodiment becomes a theoretical focus. The case study conducted with a 31-year-old bulimic after her release from hospital, attempts to demonstrate the practical relevance of these ideas. A series of dreams recorded by her are analysed thematically and interpreted to support the claim that dreams offer a window on the transformative process of soul recovery. Thus major theoretical issues explored include the nature of the feminine, in various notions of "soul", themes of embodiment in relation to the disembodiment characteristic of the addict, the contemporary relevance of the archetypal imagery contained in myth and folk tales, and convergences between Jungian, ecofeminist, New Age, Eastern and postmodern discourses. Dream work, I suggest, opens the way to healing and empowerment.

Bibliography: leaves 119-124. / This project arises out of an interest in the theology of grace and the theological question of the relationship between nature and grace. It rests on the conviction that a complete theology of grace can only be developed if due account is taken of the different approaches to the theology of grace adopted by the three main Christian traditions, namely Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Protestantism. It is axiomatic to this project that an adequately complete theology of grace which draws on all three traditions has not yet been developed. Another central conviction on which this project rests is that the position adopted on a fundamental theme like nature and grace will determine to a large extent one's position on less fundamental themes. This is an attempt, then, to show how the ideas of three formative theologians on "nature and grace" can benefit the development of a comprehensive doctrine of grace today.

This thesis is an analysis and critique of contemporary research on secular pilgrimage. A trend of dedifferentiation between religious pilgrimage, secular pilgrimage and tourism is identified whereby contemporary academic literature is arguing for a broadening of the definition of pilgrimage to incorporate many disparate forms of travel and the multiple motivations that initiate these journeys. In this this thesis, I acknowledge and elaborate on the development that has occurred by which pilgrimage has expanded and fragmented into various forms, termed the "turn inward". What I am disagreeing with and critiquing is the paradigm shift towards dedifferentiation in contemporary academic research on secular pilgrimage. I use Jonathan Z. Smith to critique the comparativism evident in contemporary pilgrimage literature that focuses on similarities and neglects difference. In this thesis, I argue for a differentiation between religious pilgrimage, secular pilgrimage and tourism, as well as the validity of the concept secular pilgrimage, by looking at the foundational differences between the various phenomena. In order to support this argument, I explore various foundational differences between medieval religious pilgrimage and contemporary secular pilgrimage, while using theorists José Casanova and Charles Taylor and their theories of secularisation in order to bring in a philosophical account of meaning and access deep ontological differences in order to support my argument for the distinction between religious pilgrimage, secular pilgrimage and tourism. In order to focus the study, I use the Camino to Santiago as case study because of its Christian medieval origins as well as its current popularity amongst secular pilgrims.

Includes bibliographical references. / The Kafir College was established as an Industrial Institution for the Instruction of the children of Native Chiefs and their Councillors at Bishop's Court, (1) the home of Bishop Gray in Claremont, in February, 1858. This experiment in education was the realization of the vision of two leading personalities of the time - Bishop Gray, the Metropolitan of the Anglican Church in South Africa (2) and Sir George Grey, Governor and High Commissioner of the Cape Colony. (3) The College was the combined venture of the Church and the British Government. They shared the financial responsibilities and when Zonnebloem, (4) a wine Term on the outskirts of Cape Town, was bought as a permanent site for the Institution in 1859, they both contributed towards the purchase price. Zonnebloem College came into being the following year when the students took up residence in their new quarters. The property, after first being transferred to Sir George Grey, was subsequently received back by Bishop Gray and it has been held in trust by the Lord Bishop of Cape Town ever since. The history of Zonnebloem can be divided into a number of distinct periods. While the College has functioned as an Educational Institution up to the present day, its purpose has changed at intervals over the years. It has altered direction and varied the scope of its work in order to meet the differing educational needs of the time. The student enrolment, too, has changed with time, for the College has of necessity been compelled to comply with the requirements of Government legislation