Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / In the aftermath of a disaster, relief agencies rush to assist the affected population. However, lack of coordination between these agencies often results in poor resource management, which undermines efficacy and efficiency. This report facilitates inter-agency collaboration, particularly between military and non-military entities, by conducting a case study of one non-government organization involved in disaster relief. With the second-highest revenue among major non-government organizations in the United States, the Salvation Army in America—and, by extension, its international arm, the Salvation Army World Service Office (SAWSO)—is an ideal candidate for evaluation. This report evaluates SAWSO's disaster response capabilities by analyzing its organizational history, operational competencies, and financial resources. The results of this report offer a foundation for military and other humanitarian relief agencies to pursue collaborative efforts and increase the overall efficiency and efficacy of future disaster response operations. This report's findings indicate that SAWSO is a highly efficient organization from a financial standpoint, and that it offers a variety of relief capabilities that vary by region, with the provision of shelter, settlement, and non-food items among its strongest and most consistent competencies. / Outstanding Thesis / Captain, United States Marine Corps

Thesis advisor: M. Shawn Copeland / Thesis advisor: O. Ernesto Valiente / The title of this essay is deliberately provocative. It aims at drawing attention on the reality of Christian churches full everyday – not only on sundays – with people who everyday die from hunger. In the Congo-Zaire. Behind the image of crowded churches, I see the complex reality of Christianity, and behind the image of empty stomachs, I have in view the complex reality of poverty, oppression, violence and death. It is paradoxical that those two realities grow together. This essay explores the sources of that paradox, going back to the first encounter of the people of the old Kongo Kingdom, and later on Congo-Zaire, with Christianity. It analyzes the relationships between Christianity and the poor throughout the history of the Congo-Zaire. It examines the message of salvation brought by Christianity and how it is related to the people’s conditions of life. The conclusion is tough, but unavoidable. First, Christianity during colonial times – which I call missionary Christianity – in the Congo-Zaire did not side with the poor. It served the interests of the powerful, to safeguard its own interests. It despised the way of life of the autochthonous and destroyed their identity. Second, Christianity today in the Congo-Zaire – which I call postindependence Christianity – struggles with the heritage of the colonial past, but it basically continues to function following the same model. We still live in the colonial settings. Therefore, this for me is the key to resolving the paradox. Following the insights of postcolonial theories, turn the page of colonial Christianity, move towards what I call a “postcolonial Christianity.” That postcolonial Christianity should be informed by the African way of life (hence re-appropriating the values of the autochthonous) and rooted in the preferential option for the poor, which is the main principle at the heart of liberation theology. There lies a great challenge: how to actualize that postcolonial Christianity in the Congo-Zaire? / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

陳美玲. / 論文(神學碩士)--香港中文大學, 1998. / 參考文獻: leaves 96-100. / 中英文摘要. / Chen Meiling. / Chapter 1. --- 導言 --- p.1 / Chapter 2. --- 希克的宗教多元主義如何理解基督宗教 --- p.10 / Chapter 2.1 --- 救贖與宗教傳統 --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.1 --- "希克對""宗教""的理解" --- p.13 / Chapter 2.1.2 --- 宗教經驗與意義 --- p.20 / Chapter 2.1.3 --- 基督宗教與其他宗教傳統 --- p.24 / Chapter 2.2 --- "希克的提案一一 ""哥白尼式神學""" --- p.26 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- """上帝中心""的基督宗教" --- p.26 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- "不可言喻的""實在""" --- p.32 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- "希克的""神話""基督論" --- p.36 / Chapter 3. --- 一元拯救論結構的宗教多元主義假說 --- p.44 / Chapter 3.1 --- 方法論上的問題 --- p.44 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- 基本論題 --- p.45 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- 沒有內容的認信一一進退兩難 --- p.50 / Chapter 3.2 --- ´ؤ元救贖終局與多元救贖終局 --- p.54 / Chapter 3.2.1 --- 只有一種終局的多元論 --- p.54 / Chapter 3.2.2 --- 希克救贖觀的兼容取向 --- p.59 / Chapter 3.2.3 --- 基督中心與上帝中心 --- p.63 / Chapter 4. --- 基督宗教拯救論的多元性 --- p.68 / Chapter 4.1 --- 初期基督教會對拯救論的理解 --- p.69 / Chapter 4.1.1 --- 基督爲照明者 --- p.71 / Chapter 4.1.2 --- 勝利者基督與回歸於一 --- p.74 / Chapter 4.1.3 --- 基督賜予不朽與神化 --- p.77 / Chapter 4.1.4 --- 基督爲我們的犧牲 --- p.81 / Chapter 4.2 --- 在多元實況下維持基督信仰的意義 --- p.86 / Chapter 5. --- 結語 --- p.91 / 參考書目 --- p.96 / 譯名對照表 --- p.101

No description available.

劉卓輝. / "2009年9月". / "2009 nian 9 yue". / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-125). / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / Liu Zhuohui. / 論文摘要 --- p.頁ii / Chapter 第一章 --- 導言 --- p.頁5 / 背景 --- p.5 / 文獻回顧 --- p.12 / 論文主旨 --- p.17 / Chapter 第二章 --- 蒂利希拯救論的框架：上帝與世界的關係 --- p.頁19 / 引言 --- p.19 / 「文化神學」、及宗教與文化的關係 --- p.20 / 上帝與世界的關係、及恩典的內蘊性 --- p.25 / 「新教原則」與「大公實質」的互補及相互重要性 --- p.32 / 小結 --- p.46 / Chapter 第三章 --- 蒂利希論稱義 --- p.頁47 / 引言 --- p.47 / 「因恩典藉信稱義」 --- p.47 / 蒂利希對「信」和「恩典」的理解 --- p.55 / 蒂利希對稱義的理解和信義宗傳統的關係 --- p.61 / 小結 --- p.69 / Chapter 第四章 --- 蒂利希論拯救的多重向度 --- p.頁70 / 引言 --- p.70 / 多重向度的拯救 --- p.70 / 稱義與拯救的關係 --- p.78 / 對信義宗和天主教拯救觀的雙重批判 --- p.86 / 小結 --- p.92 / Chapter 第五章 --- 對信義宗-天主教有關稱義/成義的對話的意義 --- p.頁93 / 引言 --- p.93 / 「恩典」的觀念 --- p.93 / 如何理解稱義/成義？ --- p.100 / 稱義/成義在教義中的地位 --- p.106 / 對蒂利希的一些批判性評價 --- p.113 / 小結 --- p.117 / Chapter 第六草 --- 結論 --- p.頁118 / 參考書目 --- p.頁120

No description available.

This study explores how one highly institutionalised organisation, namely The Salvation Army engages with policy discourses, how it responds and how it is shaped by its engagement with government. The move from a unified public service to the use of third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army to deliver public services represents a major shift in institutional relationships. This study focuses on the introduction of market discourse throughout the contracting process, in particular how this discourse seeks to reconstruct service users as ‘customers’, and the Salvation Army’s response to this reconstruction. By exploring the ways in which this religiously and socially motivated non-profit organisation sought to mediate neo-liberal discourses of competition and consumerism, this study seeks to reveal the processes and pressures affecting faith-based and other non-profit organisations which increasingly find themselves acting as agents of government policy under the principles of New Public Management (NPM). The altered relationships brought about by the shift in institutional relationships depend upon new institutional forms to deliver government services, and these new relationships are manifestly displayed in the Job Network. This study focuses on the ways in which The Salvation Army mediates social policy within this new institutional relationship. The changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as manifested in the development and implementation of employment policy in Australia between 1998 to 2007 is explored in this study. Neo-institutional theory provides the theoretical framework of this study. Neoinstitutional theory addresses the impact of shifts in the relationships between government and third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army via contracting out of government employment services. This changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as played out in the specific institutional field of the employment service through the creation of the Job Network is explored in this study. Within a constructionist approach, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is deployed as the analytical technology. This study uses textual material as its main source of primary data, including extracts from job network contracts, internal and public Salvation Army documents, and utterances by government. The study explores the ways in which The Salvation Army has attempted to mediate social policy and the organisational tensions that arise as the Army seeks to maintain organizational independence. This study reveals that though government as the creator of the new quasi-market and purchaser of services in that market is perhaps the most powerful actor, the new institutional relationships are not completely a master/servant relationship; third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army do have the capacity to influence government. Additionally, this study calls into question the notions that the third sector and the government sector are differentiated realms and suggests that new paradigms should be developed to explore the institutional relationships that are now developing in the provision of welfare services in Australia. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study explores how one highly institutionalised organisation, namely The Salvation Army engages with policy discourses, how it responds and how it is shaped by its engagement with government. The move from a unified public service to the use of third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army to deliver public services represents a major shift in institutional relationships. This study focuses on the introduction of market discourse throughout the contracting process, in particular how this discourse seeks to reconstruct service users as ‘customers’, and the Salvation Army’s response to this reconstruction. By exploring the ways in which this religiously and socially motivated non-profit organisation sought to mediate neo-liberal discourses of competition and consumerism, this study seeks to reveal the processes and pressures affecting faith-based and other non-profit organisations which increasingly find themselves acting as agents of government policy under the principles of New Public Management (NPM). The altered relationships brought about by the shift in institutional relationships depend upon new institutional forms to deliver government services, and these new relationships are manifestly displayed in the Job Network. This study focuses on the ways in which The Salvation Army mediates social policy within this new institutional relationship. The changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as manifested in the development and implementation of employment policy in Australia between 1998 to 2007 is explored in this study. Neo-institutional theory provides the theoretical framework of this study. Neoinstitutional theory addresses the impact of shifts in the relationships between government and third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army via contracting out of government employment services. This changing relationship between government and The Salvation Army, as played out in the specific institutional field of the employment service through the creation of the Job Network is explored in this study. Within a constructionist approach, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is deployed as the analytical technology. This study uses textual material as its main source of primary data, including extracts from job network contracts, internal and public Salvation Army documents, and utterances by government. The study explores the ways in which The Salvation Army has attempted to mediate social policy and the organisational tensions that arise as the Army seeks to maintain organizational independence. This study reveals that though government as the creator of the new quasi-market and purchaser of services in that market is perhaps the most powerful actor, the new institutional relationships are not completely a master/servant relationship; third sector organisations such as The Salvation Army do have the capacity to influence government. Additionally, this study calls into question the notions that the third sector and the government sector are differentiated realms and suggests that new paradigms should be developed to explore the institutional relationships that are now developing in the provision of welfare services in Australia. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Humankind yearns for reconciliation, fulfilment and salvation, and the human heart has always sought deliverance from negative forces. In particular, this yearning for salvation is most apparent when poets envisage such yearning in living situations and in recognisable life circumstances. Reading them shows how the quest for salvation is being achieved in daily steps that incarnate movements of hope and a contesting of despair. This dissertation captures some significant images of salvation expressed in selected Australian poetry. It argues that what is classically called final salvation is imaged in the trope of transcendence in poetry. Because the concept of salvation both indicates the right path and promises a way of liberation and fulfilment, gaining salvation is not an escape from the world, but rather an engagement with it, through just and humane actions. The study’s poetic selections image salvation as redressing wrongs, regenerating the land, seeking new life, and envisaging better states of affairs. This dissertation functions at the interface of theology and poetry. It shows how a reader in the Christian community may identify some key images in public poetry as foreshadowing religious salvation. This is possible because, like the poet engaging in an aesthetic experience, the believer brings a remarkable openness to reality in the exercise of the religious imagination. This analogical imagination identifies images in poetry that do touch the human spirit in deeply spiritual ways. The study employs the competence of methodical hermeneutic interpretation. It proceeds as an aesthetic-theological reading employing critical-analytical scholarship. Rather than attempt a formal explication of authorial intent, the hermeneutic reads in a careful excavation of the poems for those significant “scraps of experience” that coax the imagination towards hope in the mystery of salvation. The dissertation approaches the poetic texts using “Christian literary theory” as its hermeneutical framework. The dissertation presents readings of selected poetry and prose of three celebrated Australian voices, Judith Wright, Les A. Murray and David Malouf. The study’s primary data are their poetic images recognising and affirming the dream of transcendence embodied in human happiness, moments of rescue and relief, events of forgiveness and transformation, and insights for a better life for humans and the planet. The study shows how poetical insights image partial fulfilments in transcendent perceptions, transformed personal destinies and envisaged social reforms. This exercise in contextual theology searches for depth and perennial resonances that sustain Australians in their culture. The discussion is especially concerned with the poetic use of the trope of hope and its effects, and especially with the power of metaphor for accessing the sublime. The study distils ten virtues for salvation from the readings of the selected poems as pathways for implementing salvation in the world. The study presents poetic images of promise, rescue and transformation that refresh discourses regarding salvation.

The importance and richness of 1 Peter�s soteriological language is generally acknowledged by commentators. However, apart from a few scattered and sporadic remarks in commentaries and in articles no full-scale study of 1 Peter�s soteriology has been carried out. This thesis seeks to fill that gap by conducting a detailed theological-critical study of the concept of salvation in the first letter of Peter. Part one of this thesis outlines the presuppositions and approach to theological-critical exegesis taken here. Basic to a theological exegesis of Scripture, it will be noted, is the recognition of its dual authorship as a divine and human communicative action embodied in written discourse. This means that the interpreter must be oriented primarily toward the subject matter of the biblical text and be committed to discerning the meaning placed there by the divine and human authors. This is another way of saying that the theological interpreter must take seriously the literal sense of the text. To do this, I will suggest, involves three things (each of which will be discussed): (1) literal sense exegesis; (2) intercanonical conversation; (2) intercatholic conversation. Part two contains a detailed theological-critical analysis of those passages in 1 Peter that treat the topic of salvation: 1:1-2; 2:4-10 (election); 1:18-21; 2:21-25; 3:18 (atonement); 1:3, 23-25 (regeneration); 1:3-12; 3:18-4:6 (eschatological salvation). We will see that 1 Peter�s soteriological outlook exhibits a salvation-historical framework which locates the initiative for salvation in God�s eternal, sovereign and gracious electing purpose (1:1-2; 2:4-19), decisively inaugurated in the death (1:10-12, 18-21; 2:21-25; 3:18) and subsequent resurrection, ascension, exaltation and vindication of Christ (1:3, 11, 21; 2:4d, 7d; 3:18e, 19, 21d-22; 4:13; 5:1, 4, 10), existentially realized through the proclamation of the message of salvation (1:12, 23) and the experience of the new birth (1:3, 23), and finally consummated at the return of Christ when suffering and death will give way to life, victory and vindication (1:3-12; 3:18-4:6). Peter�s unique presentation of the believers� eschatological salvation in terms of future victory and vindication is designed to engender hope amongst a small minority of believers facing the onslaught of a hostile world against their faith. In part three I seek to bring the results of my exegesis into dialogue with a variety of theological traditions (e.g., Reformed, Neo-orthodox, Lutheran, Arminian, Pelagian, Wesleyan) in order to allow 1 Peter to make its own distinctive contribution to the ongoing discussion (both between the traditions and between the bible and theology) but also to allow that dialogue to shape and sharpen our own understanding of salvation in 1 Peter. Because of the confines of space the discussion here is limited to the doctrines of election, atonement and regeneration. While at a conceptual level this thesis is an investigation of the concepts and presentation of salvation in the first letter of Peter, at a methodological level it further seeks to overcome the present and unfortunate segregation of biblical studies and theological studies and hopes further to open up the way for a more fruitful dialogue between the two.