Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Church of the Abiding Presence'

It has long been assumed that the enthronement of the Gospel-book in the midst of the ecumenical councils was a custom initiated at the First Ecumenical council of Nicaea in 325 and picked up by the ecumenical councils that followed. Similarly, it is assumed that the presence of the Gospel-book in the modern courtrooms on which witnesses swear oaths to testify truthfully originates from ancient Greek and Roman court practice. This thesis puts forward an alternative approach by suggesting that it was Cyril of Alexandria who first enthroned the Gospel-book in the midst of the Third Ecumenical council of Ephesus in 431 (Ch.1) to manifest Christ’s presence and presidency, attribute all conciliar-judicial decisions to Him, thus giving them infallible and irrevocable authority (Ch.2). The book, as Son of God and personification of the Truth, now aims to lead the participants to the revelation of the truth and the safeguarding of the orthodox faith (Ch.3). With the elevation of Ephesus and Cyril to de facto exponents of faith, this innovative practice gained greater authority and was gradually established too. By the time of Chalcedon in 451, the enthronement of the Gospel-book as Christ in the midst of the councils can be seen in even more bishoprics of the East (Ch.4). In these councils the Gospel-book now has supreme authority, as evident by the way people refer to it (Ch.5), their preference for it over any other religious or secular object (Ch.6), as well as its employment to instil the “fear of God”, extract the truth and attribute infallible authority to their conciliar-judicial decisions, as if they were taken by God Himself (Ch.7). As an aftermath of Chalcedon, the Gospel-book is gradually introduced by the Emperors to the secular sphere and the Byzantine courts: a practice that is preserved until today.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTITUIÇÕES COMUNITÁRIAS DE ENSINO PARTICULARES
A presença de Deus se evidencia no mundo de diversas formas. Ela se tornou ainda mais manifesta quando Deus irrompeu na história e selou com Israel uma aliança. Amorosamente escolhido, o povo da antiga aliança pôde experimentar a cuidadosa presença do Senhor através de inúmeros sinais-sacramentos. Segundo o relato das Escrituras e o testemunho das primeiras comunidades cristãs, essa mesma presença se fez carne em Jesus Cristo, o Verbo eterno do Pai. Por meio de gestos e palavras, Jesus revelou aos homens a presença de Deus e, na potência de seu Espírito, lhes tornou membros de seu Corpo, a Igreja. As primeiras gerações cristãs, conscientes de serem herdeiras da fé do antigo Israel, procuravam - sobretudo em suas assembleias litúrgico-cultuais - experimentar e testemunhar, diante do mundo, o Cristo ressuscitado, sinal privilegiado da presença de Deus. Nele, por meio dele e com ele, doravante, o ser humano e o restante da criação carregam em si a potência de serem sacramento da presença do eterno no tempo. Segundo Santo Agostinho, isso se aplica, de modo particular, ao mistério e à missão da Igreja - corpo-presença de Cristo na história. Diz o santo Doutor que, no regime da nova aliança, este no qual vivemos, convém falar na presença e ação de um Cristus totus. Trata-se do Cristo todo inteiro: o Cristo - plenitude e primogênito, por meio do qual todos os seres são reconciliados com Deus - e seu Corpo, a Igreja, cooperadora de Cristo em seu agir reconciliante. O Concílio Vaticano II, por sua vez, reverberando o pensamento do Doutor da Graça, consegue captar e reconhecer que a Igreja tem um importante papel no processo de reconcilação-deificação do criado. A Igreja, sacramento de Cristo, poderia, então, ser chamada de Corpus totum. E tudo em vista do mais profundo e original anelo do Deus-Amor: ser presença geradora de comunhão em tudo o que existe.
The God s presence in the world can be felt in many ways. Thy presence has become more and more evident when God showed in the history and seal an alliance with people from Israel. Chosen with love, the old people could feel the Lord s presence through many sacramentals-signals. According to the Scriptures and the first Christians testaments, the Lord s presence became flesh in Jesus Christ, the God s eternal Word. Through the things Jesus had made and His words, He showed the human been the God s presence and the Power of the Holy Spirit, and made them part of His Body, the Church. The first Christians, knowing been the old Israel faith heritage, tried - mainly in their cultural-liturgical meetings, feel and testimony to the world, the resurrection Christ, real signal of God s presence. In Him, though Him and with Him, from now on, the human been and the rest of the creation bring in the power of the Eternal God forever. According Saint Agostin, this means, in particular way, the mystery and mission of the Church - presence-body of Christ in the history. The Doctor saint said, in the new alliance, that we live, it could be good to say about the presence and action of Christus totus. That is, The whole Christ: The Christ - plenty and firstborn through all of us are reconciliate to God - and His Body, The Church, that helps the reconciliation act. The Second Vatican Council, at a time, reflecting the Doctor of Grace, recognize that the Church has an important hole in the reconciliation - sanctification of the creature. The Church, Christ s sacrament, could be called the Corpus totum. Considering the more profound and original enlace of God-Love: bringing union among everything that exists.

The dissertation offers a new reading of Karl Barth’s hermeneutics in relation to the task of the church in reading the Bible as Scripture. The study argues that the distinctiveness of Barth’s hermeneutics lies in its complex coordination of several doctrinal loci in construing biblical hermeneutics. In this reading, the church’s interpretation of the Bible is theologically located in the reality defined by the Trinitarian decision to be God in Jesus Christ. The relationship between the Word of God and the word of man is decided by God’s election of God’s being in Jesus Christ. As a contribution to Barth studies, the work offers a corrective reading of Barth’s earlier account of biblical hermeneutics in the doctrine of revelation by drawing the insights of Barth’s later theological ontology in the doctrines of election and Christology. The church’s reading of scripture is reformulated in the ontology of being in becoming in which the freedom of God in revelation is coordinated with the history of God in Jesus Christ. As such, it maintains the continuity and the discontinuity between the biblical natural history and the divine address to the church. The practical implication of this approach is not a method of interpretation but an ethics of biblical interpretation as a human response to God’s communicative presence. As an activity of listening to the Word of God, the church’s reading of the Bible is marked by moral freedom in obedience and responsibility to the Word of God. But the divine presence is not only communicative but also commanding, and it remains “a disruptive presence” that challenges the church to be faithful to her calling as a creature of the Word of God.

Interaction is a core element in the design of blended and distance learning environments. The importance of understanding these interactions and what might increase effectiveness of such interactions in education is paramount for meaningful learning. This dissertation consists of two qualitative case studies designed to provide a rich, descriptive look at interactions in a high school distance/blended-learning context in the home-study and technology-meditated seminary program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the study article, Moore's (1989) interaction framework was used as a lens for understanding the learner experience. Thematic narratives were used to highlight themes related to students' perceived learning gains from learner-content interaction and their hesitancy to engage in learner-learner and learner-instructor interactions if they had not met personally. In the second study, Garrison's (2007) Community of Inquiry framework was used to understand the impact that teacher decisions, other than the selection of content, had on the cognitive and social climate of the learning experience. This study describes how a teacher's facilitation of social interaction influences the course learning outcomes. The results highlight the teacher's role in providing the educational and social climate needed to foster learner interactions. This study noted that when the teachers gave learners the opportunity to interact in a live setting, it appeared to foster the relationships needed to interact online. The narratives also highlight how a teacher helped learners interact with one another around content online.

The Russian Orthodox community is a relatively small and little known group in Australian society, however, the history of the Russian presence in Australia goes back to 1809. As the Russian community includes a number of groups, both Christian and non-Christian, it would not be feasible to undertake a complete review of all aspects of the community and consequently, this work limits itself in scope to the Russian Orthodox community. The thesis broadly chronicles the development of the Russian community as it struggles to become a viable partner in Australia’s multicultural society. Many never before published documents have been researched and hitherto closed archives in Russia have been accessed. To facilitate this research the author travelled to Russia, the United States and a number of European centres to study the archives of pre-Soviet Russian communities. Furthermore, the archives and publications of the Australian and New Zealand Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church have been used extensively. The thesis notes the development of Australian-Russian relations as contacts with Imperial Russian naval and scientific ships visiting the colonies increase during the 1800’s and traces this relationship into the twentieth century. With the appearance of a Russian community in the nineteenth century, attempts were made to establish the Russian Orthodox Church on Australian soil. However, this did not eventuate until the arrival of a number of groups of Russian refugees after the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War (1918-1922). As a consequence of Australia’s “Populate or Perish” policy following the Second World War, the numbers of Russian and other Orthodox Slavic displaced persons arriving in this country grew to such an extent that the Russian Church was able to establish a diocese in Australia, and later in New Zealand. The thesis then divides the history of the Russian Orthodox presence into chapters dealing with the administrative epochs of each of the ruling bishops. This has proven to be a suitable matrix for study as each period has its own distinct personalities and issues. The successes, tribulations and challengers of the Church in Australia are chronicled up to the end of the twentieth century. However, a further chapter deals with the issue of the Church’s prospects in Australia and its relevance to future generations of Russian Orthodox people. As the history of the Russians in this country has received little attention in the past, this work gives a broad spectrum of the issues, people and events associated with the Russian community and society at large, whilst opening up new opportunities for further research.

This work is the first of its kind on women in the Book of Mormon. It (1) is an exhaustive treatment of the book's female characters, (2) analyzes how women function in the text, and (3) delineates the text's female-inclusive language. This thesis contains a complete list and discussion of the identifiable women in the Book of Mormon (Chapter 1); provides a compilation and treatment of the book's gender-inclusive language—comprising over 200 words and more than 5,000 references to them—and its bearing on the doctrines and depictions of women in the narrative (Chapter 2); and illustrates the significant influence individual women had on the Nephite-Lamanite-Jaredite civilization (Chapter 3). This study concludes with a chapter that attempts to account for the scarcity of women's stories in the narrative and the minimal knowledge we are provided about them compared to men. Readers will find overwhelming evidence from this thesis that women figure more prominently in the narrative than we often realize. This work offers a compelling argument for the pervasive and powerful presence of women in the Book of Mormon.

This thesis explores and examines the concept of the threefold Word of God in the theology of Karl Barth, particularly the third form of the Word of God, the gospel proclamation, and argues that this tertiary form of the Word of God is central to Barth’s own theology of the church. This thesis argues that Karl Barth revised the concept of the threefold Word of God in the later volumes of the Church Dogmatics, but did not seek to reject the concept nor reject Christ’s presence and God’s speech in the gospel declaration and in the life of the Christian community. This thesis argues that the threefold Word of God is a crucial element in Karl Barth’s vision of the church and an important theme for the whole of his theological project. Disregarded by the field of Barth studies and rejected by modern ecclesiologists, Barth’s description of the gospel declaration and its central role in the life together of the Christian community offers an important ecclesiological alternative to carry forward for both Reformed theology and modern ecclesiology. This dissertation makes three significant contributions. First, this thesis is the first of its kind to engage comprehensively with Karl Barth’s concept of the threefold Word of God and to make clear its later revision. Second, this dissertation offers a review of the contemporary scholarly literature related to Barth’s revision of the threefold Word of God, and addresses the theological and ecclesiological implications of this revision. Third, this dissertation makes a contribution to the fields of Barth studies and contemporary ecclesiology by arguing for the central place of the third form of the Word of God in Karl Barth’s conception of the Christian community.

Cette thèse porte sur l'implantation missionnaire en République démocratique du Congo sous l'administration coloniale belge vers la fin du XIXe siècle. Nous voulons comprendre le phénomène observé de la dépendance financière de cette Église, en situant ses différentes causes ou facteurs exogènes et endogènes notamment son ancrage dans la politique coloniale. Dès le début, elle a bénéficié des subventions de l’État et d'autres avantages importants, dont de vastes étendues de terres. Depuis sa prise en main par la hiérarchie autochtone, période correspondant à la décolonisation, cette Église n'arrive pas à se prendre en charge, obligée de se tourner constamment vers l'extérieur (tes organismes occidentaux de financement) pour assurer ses différents besoins. Or cette politique d'extraversion financière ne rassure plus, vu le contexte socioculturel occidental actuel (diminution des pratiques religieuses, crises financières mondiales, ...). En définitive, il faut à cette Église congolaise longtemps habituée à l'assistance de repenser une nouvelle logique d'action lui permettant de trouver d'autres possibilités pour assurer son autofinancement en vue de sa survie. L'objectif de ce travail est de montrer que des potentialités existent qu'elle peut exploiter: la mobilisation et la gestion rationnelle des ressources humaines et économiques disponibles, la rentabilisation des structures de productions héritées des missionnaires, mais en comptant sur un environnement sociopolitique et économique national favorable et un changement des mentalités des acteurs en présence
This thesis focuses the missionary presence in the Democratic Republic of Congo under the Belgian rule towards the end of the Sixth Century. We seek to understand bow this Church came to be financially dependent by looking at the different causes or exogenous and endogenous as well as the roots of this phenomenon within the context of the colonial policy. From the beginning, it has received State subsidies and enjoyed other significant advantages including large tracts of land. Ever since the native hierarchy has taken over, i.e. as from the decolonization, this Church has been unable to support itself and has been obliged constantly seek external aid from western financial bodies in order to meet its needs. But in the light of the current western sociocultural context (decline of religious practices, financial crises worldwide ... ) such a financial extraversion is no longer comforting. Ali things considered, long accustomed as it was to be assisted, this Congolese Church now needs to develop a new course of action through which it will be able to find other means of self-support for its survival. The objective of this work is to show that there is potential at band, namely the mobilization and the rational management of the human and economic resources available, the cost-effectiveness of the production facilities inherited from the missionaries, but resting on a favourable national sociopolitical and economic environment and a change in the attitude of the parties involved

María de Jesús (1690s-1776) was a white-veiled Discalced Carmelite nun of the San José convent in Santa Fe de Bogotá, founded in 1606. She professed in the year 1714, and her spiritual journal was printed in a chronicle about the convent in the 1940s. The aim of this study is to examine the love of God and of neighbour, as expressed in the spiritual journal of María de Jesús. In this study I will proceed from the understanding of love as charity. In Christian thought God Himself is love, and its source. Charity, the third, and greatest, of the theological virtues, is a state of being in and responding to God’s love and favour. This way of loving consists in loving God wholeheartedly and loving our neighbour as ourselves. Included in loving our neighbour are acts related to his or her spiritual benefit and salvation. These are all present themes in María de Jesús’ text, but my aim is to examine how she incorporates these themes in her spiritual testimony by analyzing the imagery she uses, and the affective language in her spiritual journal. I will also seek to understand her way of writing by analyzing her text against the background of the tradition of women’s spiritual writings. Being a Discalced Carmelite, it will also be interesting to discover the Teresian presence in María de Jesus’ text, i.e. the influence of her predecessor and the reformer of the order, Teresa of Ávila (1515- 1582). I suggest that this can be noticed in certain rhetorical techniques. I also aim to examine if there are any similarities and differences in their expressions of love of God and of neighbour.

This dissertation examines local congregations in Puerto Rico to help articulate a theology of sustainable hope revealed through their outreach practices and ecclesiologies of public and political participation. Nurtured by qualitative research with six Christian congregations in Puerto Rico, the work moves from an articulation of context, hope, practice, and future to reveal its aim of liberation through sustainable hope. Puerto Rico’s continuous colonial history, and most recently its devastation during and after Hurricane María, heightened the socio-economic crisis that continues to hinder the hope of Puerto Ricans inside and outside the island. In this dissertation, I analyze the operations of political systems that suppress hope in Puerto Rico. I weave the theme of a theology of hope, with the fields of ecclesiology, memory studies, postcolonial and decolonial theory, liberation theology, and the study of social movements to build a model that puts hope at the center of our practices and moves toward a recipe for a hope that is sustainable in practice. Along with many other theologians and theorists, I converse with the work of theologians Rubem Alves and Ellen Ott Marshall. Alves shapes the definition of hope in this dissertation by challenging how society is organized and revealing how this organization oppresses imagination and people’s liberative agency. Marshall describes hope as elastic, making room for the expectation of a hopeful future that coexists in tension with the challenges of our daily lives. My writing is framed by an ecclesiological context; an articulation of a hope that does not remain static and responds to the challenges of colonialism, the erasure of memory, and oppression; and a liberation theology of creation. I present a way to articulate a hope that is able to sustain the people of Puerto Rico through their practices of hope.
2021-07-23T00:00:00Z

Thesis (PhD) -- Australian Catholic University, 2005.
Submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Bibliography: p. 423-442. Also available in an electronic format via the internet.

God is ontologically omni-present, yet he is spoken of as being present or even being absent. The presence and the absence of God are relational concepts. His presence generally shows his favor and is for the benefit of his people; and his absence indicates his disfavor. But sometimes his presence was for judgment too. The people of God are his people precisely because he is favorably present with them. God’s presence with his people bestows upon them a special position in relation to him, and a blessed future for them. God is Spirit, and his presence is not limited to visible forms. Many times God’s presence is simply indicated by divine speech. We have seen that God chose at times to reveal himself through theophanies, and these appearances related to humans in different ways. God’s presence in Exodus comes in various ways, and his presence has particular significance. Finally, God revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. For the Christian, Christ dwells with us and within us by his Spirit and through him we have access to the Father (Eph.1:18). The presence of God is redemptive. Israel was redeemed by the present God, Yahweh; and the Christian has been redeemed by the present God, the Lord Jesus Christ. As Evangelicals we believe that they are one and the same person, and the method of redemption is metaphorically equated in the New Testament. The Christian is empowered by the Holy Spirit and a new creation; two inseparable concepts that give us our identity. While Israel was redeemed as a nation, we are a redeemed people who are individually united in the Church of Jesus Christ; and in our local assemblies we are to maintain and reflect our unity by being a community. As Israel was a nation for the nations, so the Church is a community of witnesses to God’s righteousness and rule for the nations. Humans are to relate to God as Creator and as Redeemer, because they are accountable to him according to his creation and redemption (or re-creation) principles. Accountability is meaningful only in an ethical context. Man relates to God by acts of obedience to his creation and redemption principles. The chief duty of the Church is to make known the available person, purpose and power of God. God’s loving expression is his availability for a relationship with man. His self-revelation and gifts are for our benefit. His creation and creative intentions are for our benefit. His redemption and redemptive intentions are for our benefit. More so, we are accountable for the imperative to perpetuate God’s creation and redemption intentions. If they are expressions of love and intended to benefit, then they are ethical in nature. Our response to God and to creation at large must therefore also be ethical in nature. Our concern in this dissertation is to realize the socio-ethical significance of the Presence in redemption for the people of God, and in particular for the Evangelical Church. Having explored the Exodus texts from a synchronic approach, we have used the final canonical Exodus-narrative of Presence through socio-rhetorical exegesis and theological reflection to derive socio-ethical principles for our contemporary application. These principles are applied for specific contemporary contexts and questions in order to posit ethical social proposals, social responsibility, and social action. We are able to see how our Exodus pericopes were employed in the biblical Old and New Testaments. Their use in the Psalms, the Prophets and the New Testament reflected an authoritative theological interpretation of these Exodus texts for Evangelicals, merely because they are in the Bible. These Scriptural theological interpretations were a warrant for us to seek a theological interpretation of the canonical texts as the platform for socio-ethical interaction. Because we are so far removed temporarily, socio-ethical transfer from then to now was by no means cut-and-dried. Only through theological reflection are we able to derive socio-ethical principles for contemporary application, at least within an Evangelical Ecclesiology. Presence is applied theologically under the categories revelation, redemption and relationship. We are able to show how the principles of revelation, redemption and relationship related God and his people in ways that gave them a special identity as a community that must respond in a special and particular way to God and within itself. The people had to be monotheistic. Their response had monotheistic, ethical implications and social implications. Presence is also applied socially under the categories derived naturally from the Exodus narrative:

• Israel’s Self-Consciousness as a Community.
• Yahweh’s Presence and the Community’s Redemption.
• Yahweh’s Agent in the Redemption of the Community.
• Counter Forces to the Creation of the Redeemed Community.
• Covenant and Redemption Undergirds Social Identity.
• The Socio-ethical Response of the Redeemed Community.
• Redemption as Social Dialogue.
• Covenant as Societal Establishment.
• Covenant and Societal Conflict.
• Covenant and Societal Self-conscientiousness.

Each of these categories is discussed under the same sub-categories, namely, revelation, redemption and relationship. We are able to derive socio-ethical principles in this way; principles which could be applied in an Evangelical ecclesiology. Indeed, the Church is the best social context in which these principles are to be applied, and within that context we are able to derive socio-ethical proposals. The Church is posited as a multiplicity of microcosmic communities, all related to God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We are able to make social proposals for the kind of social responsibilities and actions required within the church community. These socio-ethical proposals must emanate from the social vision of the Church, which is theological and eschatological in nature. The Church, as an eschatological community, must serve as an example and vision for society at large, recognizing that society at large also has a different and more complex make-up, and that socio-ethical transfer of Christian principles is not simplistically cut-and-dried. We have to find creative ways to translate the biblical imperative in a contemporary social context. This, we will conclude is only possible because we are able to apply it from and in a narratological context. We can however not simply use the same categories of revelation, redemption and relationship in a socio-ethical application. Ethics in general and social ethics in particular needs to be considered according to categories that were naturally conducive to ethical discourse. But these categories are also to be integrated with the theological categories in such a way that does not strain the ethical discourse. Surprisingly, the ethical categories of God (theological), man (social/political) and land (economic) easily lends itself to be discussed with the sub-categories of revelation, redemption and relationship. In fact, while it is fairly easy to do so under the theological and social/political categories, it is not so easy to distinguish the sub-categories for discussion under economy. We are forced to blur the lines between revelation and redemption on the one hand, and between redemption and relationship on the other. We can obviously not make proposals dealing with every socio-ethical issue. This is not our intention. We are, however, able to provide a socio-ethical vision for the Church, and thus, to a limited extent, for society at large. Because of our socio-ethical vision, it has become necessary for us to sketch the Church as an eschatological people which is a blessing to the world by its functioning in particular roles; as example (salt and light), evangelist, prophetic voice, teacher, agent, facilitator, negotiator, and partner. As example the Church is meant to be a pattern for society. The Church, which founds its indicative and imperative values upon the biblical text, can be a blessed pattern to society. As evangelist, the Church alone has the message of redemption, and it needs to share it with society. The best way for society to change is through regeneration. Our first priority is to extend the Kingdom of God in this world through the message of Jesus Christ and then through our godly influence. As prophetic voice, the Church must make known God’s will and ways. It is mainly a voice that speaks to issues of social justice, social responsibility and social reconstruction. Aspects of oppression, exploitation and other injustices must be condemned, and proposals for redress and reconstruction must be made. The Church must entrench democratic values and be the voice that calls for integrity and accountability. As teacher, the Church’s first place of teaching must be on a theological plane. Theological awareness encourages moral and ethical awareness. In short, they can teach on a whole range of issues that encourages good relationship, both vertically and horizontally. The Church can train leaders of integrity. As agent, the Church can act in society on behalf of Government, business and other organizations who have projects that aim at Christian-likeminded outcomes. Conversely, they can also act as agent for the people and community interests. The Church must be the redemptive agent in society. As facilitators, the Church facilitates important co-operations; with Government, business and other organizations. The Church can facilitate socio-ethical debates, forums, workshops, economic pro-active and ecological and environmental projects. As negotiators and partners, the Church can act on behalf of the poor and the marginalized. The rich and the poor are to act according to the tenets of love and justice. The Church can help inculcate these tenets, and to teach tenets of good work-ethic. The Church must be a redeemed people with redemptive aims; all for the glory of their redeeming God.
Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011.
Old Testament Studies
unrestricted

The purpose of this research is to explore possible ways of making the Eucharistic celebration more meaningful to Catholics in Mutare diocese, Zimbabwe. The reason for this concern is that the Eucharist is the `source and summit' of the Christian life. Since inculturation is a possible means of achieving this aim of a meaningful celebration, it was found necessary in this study to examine how the Eucharist has been taught and inculturated in the Catholic Church over the years. From this It was discovered that inculturation was absent in the writings and catechesis of early Church authors and Fathers during the periods reviewed. Although an observation was made that it was indirectly implied in the Eucharistic prayers of the early Christians, it was only after a new `understanding of culture' emerged, following Vatican II, that permission was given by Rome to use local languages at Eucharistic celebrations. In the course of this study, efforts were made to determine the elements that constitute Eucharistic inculturation in Mutare diocese. These include: symbolic gestures, local languages, proverbs, enthronement, local staple food, invocation of ancestors, and others. In an empirical study to find out the extent of inculturation that has taken place in Mutare diocese, questionnaires were sent to sixteen out of twenty-four parishes in the diocese. Oral interviews were also conducted for this purpose. After analyzing the responses from respondents and those interviewed, it was discovered that some areas of inculturation have been realized, though not fully. Two outstanding areas which have not yet been realized were found to be the use of local staple food and the invocation of ancestors. The conclusion was that inculturation is not fully implemented in Mutare diocese and this impacts negatively on the celebration of the Eucharist. Eucharistic inculturation is an achievable goal in Mutare diocese, however, provided there is intensive catechesis which takes into account Shona-rich cultural values, aided by active involvement of small Christian Communities and the support of the hierarchy.
Systematic Theology and Theological Ethics
M. Th. (Systematic Theology)

The pastoral visitation practice of Continuing Witness Training (CWT) is theoretically intended to cooperate with God to lead individuals to Christian conversion, but reconciles fewer individuals to God than anticipated. This empirical theological study of Praxis 1 analyzed the visited individuals' (1) perception of care-concern by the visitors, (2) post-visit positive mood, (3) satisfaction with the visit, (4) sense of God's presence in the visit, and (5) decision to pray to establish a relationship with Jesus Christ. in association with (a) the amount of the CWT presentation given, (b) the length of the visit, and (c) prior religious involvement. Greater amounts of the CWT presentation given resulted in greater satisfaction and greater conversion prayer. Longer pastoral visits resulted in greater satisfaction among females and males, in greater conversion prayer in females, and in higher post-visit positive mood in males. Lower prior religious involvement resulted in greater amounts of the CWT model presentation being given to females, and in greater conversion prayer in males. Although 60% of Individuals visited reported no or minimal religious involvement, the complete CWT presentation was given to only 19%, and a substantial portion of CWT was given to an additional 17%. Among this 36% of those visited who received the CWT presentation, 55% decided to pray to establish a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. This situational analysis identified four praxis problems: ( 1) inconsistent application of the CWT model with unchurched individuals, (2) dissatisfaction among 25% of individuals visited, (3) lack of sense of God's presence in the visit reported by 23% of individuals visited, and (4) 31% of those visited being outside the stated unchurched target population for CWT visits. These praxis problems and related findings in the descriplive theological research were addressed by formulating a revised practical theology upon which to base Praxis 2. This revised theology of evangelism incorporated a multi-modal model of pastoral role-fulfillment (inYolving ketygma, didache, and paraklesis) as an agogic situation of primary initiation of a person into the kingdom of God, by proposing multiple contacts within a pastoral theology of care and counseling.
Practical Theology
Th. D. (Practical Theology)

Text in German
Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht die christologischen Schwerpunkte im Leben und Denken von Frère Roger Schutz von Taizé und zeigt Querverbindungen zu unterschiedlichen theologischen Ansätzen. Dabei werden dogmatische Berührungspunkte zu den Vätern der alten Kirche, zur lutherischen, katholischen und orthodoxen Christologie dargestellt und untersucht. Als Basis der systematisch-theologischen Forschungsarbeit dienen die theologischen Studien, Tagebücher und erbaulichen Schriften, die Roger Schutz zwischen 1943 und 2005 geschrieben hat, sowie die liturgischen Hefte und Gebetsbücher von Taizé, die auf ihren christologischen Gehalt untersucht werden. Die poetische Sprache von Frère Roger erfordert eine literarische und theologische Interpretation, die mit zwei Brüdern der Gemeinschaft in Taizé besprochen wurde. Die Entwicklung der christologischen Ansichten von Roger Schutz wird durch alle Phasen seines Lebens hindurch untersucht, sodass am Schluss der Arbeit drei wichtige Thesen dargestellt werden können, die für die Zukunft von Taizé und für die christologische Diskussion im ökumenischen Umfeld interessant sind.
This present dissertation researches the christological key factors in the life and thinking of Frère Roger Schutz of Taizé and shows specific connections to different theological theories. We find several points of reference to the church fathers, the lutheran, catholic and orthodox Christology which are categorized and evaluated. As a base of this systematic research, I use the theological reflections, the diaries and the devotional books which Roger Schutz wrote between 1943 and 2005 as well as the liturgical sheets and prayer books in Taizé center. The poetic language of Frère Roger needs a literally and theological interpretation which I discussed with two Brothers of the community. The development of the christological thinking of Roger Schutz is analysed through all phases of his life, so that at the end of my research I conclude with three final observations which are interesting for the future of the community in Taizé as well as for the christological discussion in the ecumenical context.
Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics
M. Th. (Systematic Theology)