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Drum, Mary Therese, and mikewood@deakin edu au. "Women, religion and social change in the Philippines: Refractions of the past in urban filipinas' religious practices today." Deakin University. School of Social Inquiry, 2001. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20060825.115435.
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This research is an exploration of the place of religious beliefs and practices in the life of contemporary, predominantly Catholic, Filipinas in a large Quezon City Barangay in Metro Manila. I use an iterative discussion of the present in the light of historical studies, which point to women in pre-Spanish Filipino society having been the custodians of a rich religious heritage and the central performers in a great variety of ritual activities. I contend that although the widespread Catholic evangelisation, which accompanied colonisation, privileged male religious leadership, Filipinos have retained their belief in feminine personages being primary conduits of access to spiritual agency through which the course of life is directed. In continuity with pre-Hispanic practices, religious activities continue to be conceived in popular consciousness as predominantly womens sphere of work in the Philippines. I argue that the reason for this is that power is not conceived as a unitary, undifferentiated entity. There are gendered avenues to prestige and power in the Philippines, one of which directly concerns religious leadership and authority. The legitimacy of religious leadership in the Philippines is heavily dependent on the ability to foster and maintain harmonious social relations. At the local level, this leadership role is largely vested in mature influential women, who are the primary arbiters of social values in their local communities. I hold that Filipinos have appropriated symbols of Catholicism in ways that allow for a continuation and strengthening of their basic indigenous beliefs so that Filipinos religious beliefs and practices are not dichotomous, as has sometimes been argued. Rather, I illustrate from my research that present day urban Filipinos engage in a blend of formal and informal religious practices and that in the rituals associated with both of these forms of religious practice, women exercise important and influential roles. From the position of a feminist perspective I draw on individual womens articulation of their life stories, combined with my observation and participation in the religious practices of Catholic women from different ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, to discuss the role of Filipinas in local level community religious leadership. I make interconnections between womens influence in this sphere, their positioning in family social relations, their role in the celebration of All Saints and All Souls Days in Metro Manilas cemeteries and the ubiquity and importance of Marian devotions. I accompany these discussions with an extensive body of pictorial plates.
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Frith, Tabitha 1975. "Reflexive Islam : the rationalisation and re-enchantment of religious identity in Malaysia." Monash University, School of Political and Social Inquiry, 2001. http://arrow.monash.edu.au/hdl/1959.1/9116.
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Huang, Shiun-Wey. "Religious change and continuity among the Ami of Taiwan." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/14412.
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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.
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Morton, A. "The historical development of Roman religion in Pannonia from AD 9 to 285." Thesis, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.683048.
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Armstrong, John Malcolm. "Religious attendance and affiliation patterns in Australia 1966 to 1996 : the dichotomy of religious identity and practice." View thesis entry in Australian Digital Theses Program, 2001. http://thesis.anu.edu.au/public/adt-ANU20020729.140410/index.html.
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Borman, Patricia D. "Spirituality and religiosity and their relationship to the quality of life in oncology patients." Virtual Press, 1999. http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1159141.
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As the efficacy of cancer treatments has improved and the life span for cancer patients has extended, interest in patients' quality of life has increased. Assessing patients' quality of life continues to gain importance as it impacts numerous facets of oncology. Similarly, interest in spirituality and religiosity have increased as they become recognized as resources for healing in health care. This study examined spirituality and religiosity and their relationship with quality of life in cancer patients. Additional variables such as age, gender, and stage of cancer were also examined for their relationship to quality of life in cancer patients. A stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to determine if spirituality, religiosity, age, gender, and stage of cancer are predictors of cancer patients' quality of life. The analysis indicated that patients with higher levels of spirituality tend to experience better quality of life, and patients with more advanced stages of cancer tend to experience lower quality of life. Religiosity, age, and gender were not predictors of cancer patients' quality of life.Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services
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Kingsbury, Kate. "New Mouride movements in Dakar and the diaspora." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2014. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.669764.
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Harper, Sally. "Medieval English Benedictine liturgy : studies in the formation, structure, and content of the monastic votive office, c. 950-1540." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:639874f5-7097-4ee1-a282-4dd82003c309.
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By comparison with its secular counterpart, the liturgy of English medieval monasteries has received little attention. This thesis explores one aspect of the liturgy of some of the wealthiest and most influential foundations in England - the Benedictine houses. It covers the formation and proliferation of 'votive' observances, recited as additions to or replacements for the major calendar observances. Evidence is drawn from over fifty manuscripts, dating from the Benedictine reform of the tenth century to the eve of the Dissolution in the sixteenth century. Some thirty monasteries are represented, with particular reference to the practices of Winchester, St Albans, Worcester and St Mary's, York. Part One examines the precedent for appended observances in The Rule of St Benedict (c.540), and the interpretation of this document by the Carolingian reformer Benedict of Aniane (c.750-821). Votive practices in the first English monastic customary, Regularis Concordia (c.970), and other devotional sources of a similar date are analysed. Part Two deals with the proliferation of three major observances after the Conquest - the daily votive office, recited as an appendage to the regular hours, the weekly commemorative office, which served as a replacement for the ferial office, and the independent antiphon (in particular Salve regina), recited or sung after Compline. The structure, adoption and devotional characteristics of each observance are examined, with particular reference to the predominantly Marian bias of much of the repertory. The second volume contains liturgical texts and related analytical tables, a descriptive catalogue of sources, transcriptions of Marian antiphons from the Worcester Antiphoner (c. 1230) and a comparison of eight versions of Salve regina.
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Bendlin, Andreas E. "Social complexity and religion at Rome in the second and first centuries BCE." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:5591ee29-9497-4a1a-a1f2-9bbc56af7879.
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This thesis studies the religious system of the city of Rome and its immediate hinterland from the end of the Second Punic War to the emergence of autocratic rule shortly before the turn of the millennium. The Romans lacked a separate word for 'religion'. Scholars therefore hold that modern notions of religion, due to their Christianizing assumptions, cannot be applied to Roman religion, which consisted in public and social religious observance rather than in individual spirituality. The first chapter argues that Roman religion can be conceptualized as a system of social religious behaviour and individual motivational processes. A comparative definition of 'religion', which transcends Christianizing assumptions, is proposed to support this argument. In chapter two, modern interpretations of Roman religion, which view Republican religion as a 'closed system' in which religion is undifferentiated from politics and from public life, are criticized. It is argued that these interpretations start from unwarranted preconceptions concerning the interrelation of religion and society. Instead, I suggest that we should apply the model of an 'open system': the religious system at Rome was interrelated with its environment, but at the same time it could be conceptualized as being differentiated from other realms of social activity at Rome. Chapter three refutes the view that the identity of religion at Rome can be described by models of political or cultural identity. Instead, religious communication in Late Republican Rome was characterized by contextual rather than by substantive meanings. The fluidity of religious meaning in Late Republican Rome, a metropolis of nearly 1,000,000 inhabitants, implies that normative definitions of the constituents of Roman religion fail to convince. In relation to coloniae and municipia it is attempted to show that the religious system of Rome, a local religion geared to the physical city and its immediate hinterland, was not capable of becoming a universal religion. In the fourth chapter, the parameters organizing Roman religion are discussed. My thesis is that Roman religion in the Late Republic was decentralized in that religious authority was diffused and religious responsibilities were divided. In the city of Rome, there existed a market of religious alternatives, which was characterized by the compatibility of different deities and cults in a polytheistic context.
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Fan, HaiYan (LingLing), and University of Lethbridge Faculty of Arts and Science. "Medical encounters in "closed religious communities" : palliative care for Low German-Speaking Mennonite people." Thesis, Lethbridge, Alta. : University of Lethbridge, Dept. of Anthropology and Health Sciences, 2011, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10133/3079.
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This multi-sited ethnography focuses on beliefs and practices associated with death,
dying, and palliative care among the Low German-Speaking (LGS) Mennonites. The
qualitative data, collected through participant-observation fieldwork and interviews
conducted in three LGS Mennonite communities in Mexico and Canada, show a gap
between official definitions of palliative care and its practice in real life. The LGS
Mennonites’ care for their dying members, in reality, is integrated into their community
lives that emphasize or reinforce discipleship by promoting the practices of mutual aid,
social networks, and brotherhood/sisterhood among community members. This study
also offers ethnographic insights into some difficulties that healthcare providers face
while delivering the “holistic” palliative care services to their patients in general, and to
the LGS Mennonites in particular. Finally, it provides some suggestions that may aid
healthcare providers in developing culturally safe and competent health care services
for the LGS Mennonite people living in Canada.xi, 231 leaves ; 29 cm
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Goodwin, Grant. ""Why Persephone?" investigating the unique position of Persephone as a dying god(dess) offering hope for the afterlife." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017896.
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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.
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Berliner, David. ""Nous sommes les derniers bulonic": sur une impossible transmission dans une société d'Afrique de l'Ouest (Guinée-Conakry)." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211423.
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Shange, Nombulelo Tholithemba. "Shembe religion's integration of African traditional religion and Christianity : a sociological case study." Thesis, Rhodes University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011819.
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The Shembe Church's integration of African Traditional Religion and Christianity has been met by many challenges. This merger has been rejected by both African traditionalists and Christians. The Shembe Church has been met by intolerance even though the movement in some ways creates multiculturalism between different people and cultures. This thesis documents the Shembe Church's ideas and practices; it discusses how the Shembe Church combines two ideologies that appear to be at odds with each other. In looking at Shembe ideas and practices, the thesis discusses African religion-inspired rituals like ukusina, ancestral honouring, animal sacrificing and virgin testing. The thesis also discusses the heavy Christian influence within the Shembe Church; this is done by looking at the Shembe Church's use of The Bible and Moses' Laws which play a crucial role in the Church. The challenges the Shembe Church faces are another main theme of the thesis. The thesis looks at cases of intolerance and human rights violations experienced by Shembe members. This is done in part by looking at the living conditions at eBuhleni, located at Inanda, KZN. The thesis also analyses individual Shembe member's experiences and discusses how some members of the Shembe church experience the acceptance of the Shembe religion in South African society. This thesis concludes by trying to make a distinction between intolerance and controversy. I try to highlight the idea that what many Shembe followers see as discrimination and intolerance towards them is sometimes a difference in opinion from other cultural groups. Sometimes these differences are not geared towards criticising other religious groups or perpetuating intolerance.
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McKinnon, Margot. "Conceptualizing religion and spirituality in secular schools : a qualitative study of Albertan schooling." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2016. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:09e062bb-20cc-4edf-af43-a9c06ec5fa44.
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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.
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Slivkoff, Paulina Matvei. "The formation and contestation of Molokan identities and communities : the Australian experience." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2007. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2007.0084.
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[Truncated abstract] Molokans are a Russian sectarian community that has been a transnational diasporic community since their exile from southern Russia in 1839. During the 1839 exodus they were relocated to Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. These countries make up a region referred to by Molokans as Transcaucasia located in and around the Caucasus Mountains. A further migration to Turkmenistan followed in 1889. Since that time, Molokans have settled in Iran, the United States of America, Mexico, Australia and Brazil. The colonies in Brazil and Mexico have disbanded with members re-joining Molokan communities in the United States of America and Australia. The communities remain in contact with one another and with various Molokan communities still existing in the Russian Soviet Socialist Federal Republic. Molokans are characterised by a religious structure of lay ministers and elders in a traditional, patriarchal social community. They are a collectivity of churches (there is no hierarchy between the churches) and sub-groups who practise varying degrees of adherence to Molokan dogma. They are a millenarian, charismatic religious community similar to Pentecostals and Anabaptists with the exception that they have ceased to evangelise and have become ‘closed’ communities practising endogamy. Given their closed structure, relatively little is known about this group in mainstream society . . . Spirituality, in the form of prophecy, healing, and the shared expression of religious ecstasy (rejoicing in the Holy Spirit) provides a sense of communitas that helps to bind the communities. Persecution in Russia and in the United States of America promoted mistrust of outsiders and contributed to the closure of social boundaries. Interventionist and reform activities in both Russia and the United States of America reinforced the belief that social closure was the only way to maintain cultural continuity. Their shared history of migration and persecution contributes to the building of a core community identity.
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Dolley, Daniel. "Manifestations of the dead : investigating ghost encounters among the Tsachila of western Ecuador." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ba33665f-01f3-4a9f-90fb-892f4aa576ab.
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Focusing on the Tsachila, Amerindians of western Ecuador, this thesis examines how competing "common knowledge" accounts of the afterlife (conventional Tsachi, Catholic, and Protestant) are related to experiences of encounters with ghosts. Inspired by conversation analysis it advocates the study of these encounters through close attention to how accounts of them are constructed in conversation, from which they emerge as inherently disruptive and resistant to any definitive interpretation. From this starting point a descriptive account is given of the ways in which these anomalous experiences form the background to everyday life among the Tsachila. Experiential associations are identified linking ghosts with the circadian patterns of sound, light and sociality. Next the thesis examines and compares a selection of myths depicting the dead and animals and it is shown that the boundaries between myth and everyday life and between the living and the dead are uncertain and subject to revision in the light of experience. They cannot be taken for granted but must be constantly reinforced. An example of such reinforcement is provided by the Tsachi celebration of the Catholic Day of the Dead, and it is shown how this intersects with and is inflected by Tsachi attitudes to the dead and their disposal. In the final chapter a selection of accounts of personal encounters with ghosts is examined to reveal ways in which the common knowledge previously discussed is shaped, deployed and contested in the context of these accounts. It is suggested, in conclusion, that personal experience of this kind cannot be treated as simply a cultural expression, but that it exerts a motivating and disruptive force on thought and action.
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Ozdemir, Aygul. "The Policies Of The Roman Emperors In The Process Of Christianisation Between The Fourth And The Sixth Centuries." Master's thesis, METU, 2003. http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/1083260/index.pdf.
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This thesis analyzes the Christianisation process of the Roman Empire from the time of Constantine the Great to that of Justinian. The purposes of the ecumenical councils and the codes on the religious issues will be discussed in the framework of the religious policies of the emperors in that time. Between the time of Constantine and that of Justinian the Roman Empire became Christian Roman Empire. The Christianisation of the Roman Empire will be dealt with both from the religious and political point of view in this thesis.
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Lackner, Dennis Finn. "Humanism and administration in the Camaldolese Order (1480-1513)." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.670209.
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Treacy, Susan. "English Devotional Song of the Seventeenth Century in Printed Collections from 1638 to 1693: A Study of Music and Culture." Thesis, North Texas State University, 1986. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc331253/.
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Seventeenth-century England witnessed profound historical, theological, and musical changes. A king was overthrown and executed; religion was practiced fervently and disputed hotly; and English musicians fell under the influence of the Italian stile nuovo. Many devotional songs were printed, among them those which reveal influences of this style. These English-texted sacred songs for one to three solo voices with continuo--not based upon a previously- composed hymn or psalm tune—are emphasized in this dissertation. Chapter One treats definitions, past neglect of the genre by scholars, and the problem of ambiguous terminology. Chapter Two is an examination of how religion and politics affected musical life, the hiatus from liturgical music from 1644 to 1660 causing composers to contribute to the flourishing of devotional music for home worship and recreation. Different modes of seventeenth-century devotional life are discussed in Chapter Three. Chapter Four provides documentation for use of devotional music, diaries and memoirs of the period revealing the use of several publications considered in this study. Baroque musical aesthetics applied to devotional song and its raising of the affections towards God are discussed in Chapter Five. Chapter Six traces the influence of Italian monody and sacred concerto on English devotional song. The earliest compositions by an Englishman working in the stile nuovo are Henry Lawes' 1638 hymn tunes with continuo. Collections of two- and three-voice compositions by Child, the Lawes brothers, Wilson, and Porter, published from 1639 to 1657, comprise Chapter Seven, as well as early devotional works of Locke. Chapter Eight treats Restoration devotional song-- compositions for one to three voices and continuo, mostly of a more secular and dramatic style than works discussed in earlier. The outstanding English Baroque composers--Locke, Humfrey, Blow, and Purcell--are represented, and the apex of this style is found in the latest seventeenth-century publication of devotional song, Henry Playford's Harmonia sacra, (1688, 1693).
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Risk, Shannon M. "A Search For Sweet Serenity : The Diary Of Sarah Connell Ayer, 1805-1835." Fogler Library, University of Maine, 1996. http://www.library.umaine.edu/theses/pdf/RiskSM1996.pdf.
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Lee, Christine Shen-Chirng. "The power and the glory : belief, sacramentality and native Andean Catholic priests in Talavera, Peru." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/16549.
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In Talavera, a small town in the rural south-central Peruvian Andes, Catholicism is deeply rooted in local institutions, society and history. I explore Talaveran Catholicism primarily through the eyes of the priests and the core parish community, and in doing so seek to contribute to the anthropology of Christianity, including the anthropology of Catholicism, and the anthropology of the Andes. Engaging with dominant models in the anthropology of Christianity of Christianity as a religion of conversion and radical discontinuity, I argue that in Talavera, such models no longer ring true for local Catholics: instead, Christian conversion is long forgotten and taken for granted, while Christianity is an important source of continuity with the past. This is related to the activities of the current generation of Catholic priests in Talavera, who are locally native and who by and large tend to be more sympathetic to local Andean Catholic traditions as a result—but without subscribing to dominant anthropological framings for pro-Andean sentiment. Instead, I draw on David Brown's formulation of Christian tradition to argue for a new anthropological model views the ‘syncretic' aspects of Andean Catholicism as simply part of Catholicism in general. Following the emphasis on incorporating theology, I subsequently argue that we need to take seriously Catholic notions of sacramentality as an ontological transformation—a theme throughout the majority of the thesis. I argue that sacramentality underlies how Catholic priests can be simultaneously divine and human through the sacrament of ordination; structures clerical-lay relations in Catholic parishes by creating the space for lay assistants to carry out the work of priests without becoming priests themselves; and causes membership of the Catholic Church, thereby leaving belief to carry out the work of improving, rather than effecting, one's Catholic-ness.
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Lei, Sao San. "Savoring the hybrid :an ethnographic study of Guan Yin ritual and belief in Macao." Thesis, University of Macau, 2011. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b2568805.
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Chande, Abdin Noor. "Islam, Islamic leadership and community development in Tanga, Tanzania." Thesis, McGill University, 1991. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=39277.
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This study which focusses on a coastal Swahili society, examines the economic, political and social evolution of the Tangan Muslim community through the various phases of its history. The study pays specific attention to the role played by religious leaders, whether as competitors, or simply as madrasa teachers in a community with a tradition of Islamic scholarship. At the macro-level, the relationship between various Muslim organizations and the state also receives our scrutiny. This is done through analysis of the educational system and its structuring of the social order. Finally, we assess the views of the Tangan religious leadership regarding religion and society against a general discussion of intra-religious issues and political developments in the country, thereby achieving a better understanding of Islam in contemporary Tanzania.
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Du, Preez Petrus. "Ikoon en Medium: die toneelpop, masker en akteurmanipuleerder in Afrika-performances." Thesis, Link to the online version, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10019/620.
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Baeke, Viviane. "Le temps des rites: l'univers magico-religieux des Wuli :Mfumte du Cameroun occidental." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/212336.
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Luker, David. "Cornish Methodism, revivalism, and popular belief, c. 1780-1870." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1988. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fe395cb7-7a81-40ee-9aaf-7cc8a5b5b593.
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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.
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Gibson, Ian. "Suffering and Christianity : conversion and ethical change among the Newars of Bhaktapur." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:3eea0dc1-3f8e-4564-887f-f7aae26de57f.
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This thesis argues that conversion to Christianity in the Nepali city of Bhaktapur is closely connected with ethical attitudes towards suffering in Bhaktapurian churches. This argument is situated within broader debates in the anthropology of Christianity. Anthropologists have debated the extent to which Christianity is a force for cultural discontinuity, and have often connected it with modernity and individualism. I contribute to these discussions by showing how distinctively Christian conceptions of suffering may promote cultural change by stimulating new understandings of selfhood and ethics. The first three chapters explore the social life of Bhaktapur's Hindu majority. I describe how the last fifty years have seen a process of cultural unsettlement in Bhaktapur; one aspect of this unsettlement has been a disruption of traditional norms of care and deference. It is in this context that the distinctive ethics of Christianity have proved attractive to some. Those who convert have typically experienced a significant episode of suffering, and have felt themselves to be failed by those around them. They find in churches a framework that emphasises the moral significance of inner experience (I call this 'inwardness') and addresses affliction more in terms of ethics than ritual. I describe these ethics in terms of 'care': they stress presence with the afflicted person, engagement with their experience, and appeal to God in prayer. After two chapters describing Christianity in Nepal and Bhaktapur in general terms, I devote four chapters to examining different categories of Bhaktapurian Christians: those who have experienced healing, women, leaders, and youth. I focus on four conversion narratives, and relate these narratives both to other ethnographic materials and to broader trends in Bhaktapurian and global Christianity. I highlight the significance of the values of inwardness and care, and of narrative itself, in the life-worlds of Bhaktapurian Christians.
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Pyle, Rhonda. "Bad Blood: Impurity and Danger in the Early Modern Spanish Mentality." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2010. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc30504/.
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The current work is an intellectual history of how blood permeated early modern Spaniards' conceptions of morality and purity. This paper examines Spanish intellectuals' references to blood in their medical, theological, demonological, and historical works. Through these excerpts, this thesis demonstrates how this language of blood played a role in buttressing the church's conception of good morals. This, in turn, will show that blood was used as a way to persecute Jews and Muslims, and ultimately define the early modern Spanish identity.
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Peck, Nizaam. "Development of a Service Delivery Framework for South African Pilgrims Travelling to Saudi Arabia." Thesis, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11838/1573.
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Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
Master of Technology: Tourism and Hospitality Management
in the Faculty of Business at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology
2013This thesis is concerned with the service delivery received by pilgrims based in South Africa, especially with regards to services and amenities that were paid for and promised in the contract, but which may not have materialized. The focus on Hajj travelling can be viewed as an aspect of religious tourism (so to speak). Currently there is a dearth of research on this particular spiritual journey in South Africa. For this reason, this research aims to elucidate the service delivery components, processes and challenges. The researcher finds it necessary to research this topic because pilgrimage constitutes part of religious tourism and the policies governing the Hajj industry, as well as the operational aspects of the Hajj industry are unclear. Problems such as poor service standards, lack of business ethics and malpractice exist in the Hajj industry. The main challenges in the South African Hajj industry are: a) Lack of mainstream travel and tourism practices in the South African Hajj industry. b) Absence of a service and quality driven industry. c) Difficulty in acquisition of travel documentation for pilgrims. d) Lack of business ethics and malpractice by service providers. e) Limitations on travel through the newly introduced quota system by the Hajj Ministry of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). In 1994 the South African Government formed the South African Hajj and Umrah Council, (SAHUC) and is a nationally based constituted organisation. This organisation is officially recognised by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the official structure responsible and accountable for facilitating the affairs of the South African pilgrims within South Africa and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (SAHUC, 2005). The researcher intends on addressing the above-mentioned challenges through developing a service delivery framework that will help alleviate the problems in the industry between South African Hajj role players. The framework is aimed at identifying current gaps between supply and demand in the Hajj industry as well as providing recommendations for the future.
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Ross, Eric 1962. "Ṭûbâ : an African eschatology in Islam." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=40435.
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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.
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Hilmy, Masdar. "Islam and Javanese acculturation : textual and contextual analysis of the slametan ritual." Thesis, McGill University, 1998. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=21218.
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This Thesis deals with the cultural encounter between Islam and Javanese culture as represented by the slametan ritual. The major purposes of this thesis are threefold; (1) to give a brief account of the historical backdrop of the encounter between Islam and the Javanese tradition; (2) to discuss the ongoing dispute among scholars over whether the slametan is animistic, syncretistic or Islamic; and (3) to provide a new perspective on the slametan ritual based upon textual (religious) and contextual (socio-cultural) analysis.The hypothesis underlying this work is that the slametan is a prototype of syncretistic ritual, the representative of Islamic elements---as its core---on the one hand, and local traditions---as its periphery---on the other. This work will argue against the theory of the slametan developed both by Geertz and Woodward. The first scholar sees the slametan from a socio-cultural perspective only, while the latter views it on an Islamic theological basis. The current writer argues that one should employ a holistic perspective to see the slametan comprehensively; both from "inside" (religious perspective) and "outside" (cultural perspective).
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Droux, Xavier. "Riverine and desert animals in predynastic Upper Egypt : material culture and faunal remains." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d6d885a7-86f9-4d51-b4d5-bb21b26d2897.
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Animals were given a preponderant position in Egyptian art, symbolism, and cultual practices. This thesis centres on the relationship between humans and animals during the predynastic period in Upper Egypt (Naqada I-IIIB, 4th millennium BCE), focusing on hippopotamus and crocodile as representatives of the Nile environment and antelope species as representatives of the desert environment. Depictions of these animals are analysed and compared with contemporary faunal remains derived from activities such as cult, funerary, or every day consumption. The material analysed covers several centuries: temporal evolutions and changes have been identified. The animals studied in this thesis were first used by the Naqada I-IIB elites as means to visually and practically express their power, which they envisioned in two contrasting and complementary ways. The responsibilities of the leaders were symbolised by the annihilation of negative wild forces primarily embodied by antelope species. In contrast, they symbolically appropriated positive wild forces, chief among them being the hippopotamus, from which they symbolically derived their power. Faunal remains from after mid-Naqada II are few, depictions of hippopotamus disappeared and those of crocodile became rare. Antelope species became preponderant, especially on D-ware vessels, which were accessible to non-elite people. However, toward the end of the predynastic period, antelope species came to be depicted almost exclusively on high elite material; they lost their individuality and became generic representatives of chaotic forces that the leaders and early rulers had to annihilate in order to maintain control and order.
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Newman, Lindsey M. ""Under an Ill Tongue": Witchcraft and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Virginia." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/31667.
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This project analyzes the role of religion, both institutional and private, in Virginiaâ s dealings with witchcraft during the seventeenth century. The witch trials of New England and Europe during the 1600s have tended to overshadow those that simultaneously took place in Virginia, leaving historians to prematurely regard Virginia as an anomaly of rationality in an otherwise superstitious period of witches and demons. Virginiaâ s failure to prosecute those accused of witchcraft was not due to a lack of allegations, my thesis will argue, but can instead be partly attributed to the nature of the colonyâ s religious experience and the theology and practices of Virginiaâ s Anglican Church. While Virginiaâ s seventeenth-century inhabitants migrated to the New World with firmly entrenched English religious values, their relationship with God and their response to the supernatural world were profoundly influenced by New World experiences and peoples. To protect the social fragility of their colony, Virginiaâ s political and religious leaders consciously chose to prosecute offenses that they felt threatened the social cohesion of the colony, such as fornication, gossip, and slander, and dismissed those, such as witchcraft, that threatened to tear it apart.Master of Arts
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Laveleye, Didier de. "Approche ethnologique d'un espace social métissé (région de Cururupú-mirinzal, Maranhao, Brésil." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211490.
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Heffron, Yağmur. "Household ritual in Middle Bronze Age Anatolia : an archaeological-textual study." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2011. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.609540.
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Basson, Danielle. "The Goddess Hathor and the women of ancient Egypt." Thesis, Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/20292.
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Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In studying ancient Egypt researchers have a great advantage, in that there is a multitude of recorded material to draw from. Unfortunately for anyone interested in studying ancient Egyptian women, the recorded material was most often recorded by, commissioned by, and concerned with, men; royal or high-ranking men to be precise (Robins, 1993: 11-12). Thus, we must look into non-textual artefacts and offerings which may have a symbolic meaning. Though, the textual sources should not be neglected, since these may hold clues to the position and perception of women in society: perceptions held by men. This thesis has drawn largely on art and artefacts to investigate the relationship between women in ancient Egypt and the goddess Hathor. Women are traditionally the mothers, caretakers and homemakers of society. But they are not only that. Women are also individuals, capable of individual thought, feelings, anxieties, hopes and dreams; and like their male counterparts, women also experience religion. But, as was clearly displayed in the thesis, Egyptian women not only experienced religion, they lived religion. In the ancient Egyptian context there was no escaping religion. It must also be understood that the ancient Egyptians thought that the man was the seat of creation and that semen was the essence of creation (according to the cosmogony of Heliopolis, cf. Cooney, 2008: 2). A failure to conceive would be placed directly upon the shoulders of the woman, and could be grounds enough for divorce (Robins, 1993: 63). Women in ancient societies served the main function of child-rearing. This may seem backward, but it was an essential function, without which society would cease to function. When a woman failed to conceive, she in essence failed her function as a woman; many women (and men) in this situation turned to religion. This is where this thesis topic comes into play, since Hathor was a goddess of sexuality and fertility, but also had aspects of safeguarding and caretaking. Women were naturally drawn to her and she developed a large cult following, with cult centres scattered throughout Egypt. Not only were many of her followers female, but her priests were also female (Gillam, 1995: 211-212). Hathor might have been the most relatable of the goddesses because of her dual-nature; she is a caretaker and sexual being, but she can also become fierce and even bloodthirsty. Devotion to Hathor was widespread, with cult centres at Deir el-Bahari, Faras, Mirgissa, Serabit el-Khadim, Timna, Gebel Zeit and elsewhere, each with its own large deposit of votive offerings (Pinch, 1993). Hathor is also referenced in letters between females in a family, as one daughter writes to her mother: “May Hathor gladden you for my sake” (Wente, 1990: 63). It is because of this that this thesis investigated to what an extent ancient Egyptian women had a relationship with her.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die ondersoek van ou Egipte, het navorsers `n groot voordeel, deurdat daar `n groot verskeidenheid bronne beskikbaar is om mee te werk. Ongelukkig, vir enigeen wat daarin geïnteresseerd is om die antieke Egiptiese vrou na te vors, is die meerderheid van die bronne deur mans opgeteken, of in opdrag van hulle, en het ook betrekking op mans; koninklike of hooggeplaaste mans, om meer spesifiek te wees (Robins, 1993: 11-12). Daarom, moet ons ook ongeskrewe artefakte en offerandes bestudeer, wat moontlik simboliese betekenisse kan inhou. Dit beteken egter nie dat ons wel geskrewe bronne moet ignoreer nie, aangesien dit tog leidrade oor die posisie van vroue in die samelewing en hoe hulle deur mans beskou is, kan verskaf. Hierdie tesis het grootliks gebruik maak van kuns en artefakte om die verhouding tussen die vroue van antieke Egipte en die godin Hathor na te vors. Volgens tradisie, is vrouens die moeders, oppassers en tuisteskeppers van `n gemeenskap, maar hulle is nie net dit nie. Vroue is ook individue, in staat tot hul eie gedagtes, gevoelens, vrese, hoop en drome; en nes hul manlike eweknieë, kan vroue ook geloof ervaar. Maar, soos duidelik in die tesis uiteengesit is, het Egiptiese vroue nie net geloof ervaar nie, maar geloof geleef. In die antieke Egiptiese konteks was geloof onontkombaar. Die leser moet ook verstaan dat die antieke Egiptenare geglo het dat die man die skeppingsbron was and dat semen die kern van die skepping was (volgens die Heliopolis Kosmogonie, vgl. Cooney, 2008: 2). Indien „n egpaar probleme ondervind het om swanger te raak, het die blaam direk op die vrou se skouers gerus en was ook `n aanvaarde rede vir egskeiding (Robins, 1993: 63). Vroue in antieke gemeenskappe het hoofsaaklik gedien om kinders groot te maak. Dit mag dalk “agterlik” voorkom, maar dit was `n essensiële rol, waarsonder die gemeenskap nie sou kon funksioneer nie. Indien `n vrou nie kon swanger word nie, het sy in essensie in haar doel as `n vrou misluk; daarom het baie vroue (en mans) in hierdie situasie hulle na godsdiens gekeer. Dit is hier waar hierdie tesis aansluit, aangesien Hathor `n godin van seksualiteit en vrugbaarheid was, maar ook aspekte van beskerming en versorging gehad het. Vroue was natuurlik tot haar aangetrokke, `n groot gevolg het om haar kultus versamel en kultus-sentrums het deur Egipte versprei. Nie net was haar navolgers vroulik nie, maar ook haar priesters was vroulik (Gillam, 1995: 211-212). Hathor was moontlik die godin waarmee die mense die maklikste kon identifiseer, omdat sy `n tweeledige natuur gehad het; sy was `n versorger en `n seksuele wese, maar sy kon ook kwaai en bloeddorstig raak. Die aanbidding van Hathor was wydverspreid, met kultus-sentrums by Deir el-Bahari, Faras, Mirgissa, Serabit el-Khadim, Timna, Gebel Zeit en elders, elk met sy eie groot versameling artefakte (Pinch, 1993). Hathor word ook benoem in briewe tussen vroulike familielede, soos een dogter aan haar moeder skryf: “Mag Hathor jou bly maak vir my onthalwe” (Wente, 1990: 63). Dit is hoekom hierdie tesis nagevors het tot wat `n mate daar `n verhouding tussen antieke Egiptiese vroue en Hathor bestaan het.
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Delierneux, Nathalie. "Saintes de corps et d'esprit: la sainteté féminine dans l'hagiographie mésobyzantine (début VIIIe siècle-début XIIe siècle)." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/211228.
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Parkes, Henry Richard Maclay. "Liturgy and music in Ottonian Mainz, 950-1025." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2012. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/283895.
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Depold, Jennifer Rene. "The martial Christ in the sermons of late medieval England." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b7820bbc-d971-4252-95a5-351166102514.
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Current scholarship on the devotional practices of late medieval England has emphasized two representations of Christ. The first, considered the dominant trend, is that of the suffering Christ; the second, a minor, but important trend particularly for female audiences, is the maternal Christ. Both are revealing of the nature of late medieval Christo-centric devotion. This project contributes to the understanding of late medieval Christocentric devotion in England during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by examining the representation of Christ in a martial role, as presented to clerical and lay audiences through the medium of popular sermons. It is a new contribution to the scholarship of late medieval devotion in its demonstration of a multifaceted Christ; the martial Christ echoes, but in many ways also contrasts, the images of the suffering and maternal Christ, in order to provide its audience with a more complex rendering of the human Christ, one which may have been more accessible to a lay populace seeking to form a relationship with him. This project also contributes to the growing field of sermon studies, intended to be comprehensive in nature. It uses a different approach to sermon studies, in that the entire corpus of nearly 4,500 sermons was reviewed. This was done in order to provide the most complete picture of the martial Christ. As a result, this project examines Christ in various martial roles, as well as his modelling of knighthood for kings, knights, preachers, and the laity. These representations were utilised by preachers to instruct their audiences in devotional practice, specifically forms of affective meditation; it was used as a didactic tool to teach the laity the complex doctrines of redemption and atonement; and finally, it was employed as a means to demonstrate the importance of right living in order to fulfill what Christ had promised on the cross, that is eternal salvation.
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Barker, John. "Maisin Christianity : an ethnography of the contemporary religion of a seaboard Melanesian people." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 1985. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/25550.
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This dissertation examines the ways in which a Papua New Guinean people, the Maisin of Collingwood Bay in Oro Province, have over the years responded to and appropriated a version of Christianity brought to them by Anglican missionaries. The Maisin treat Christianity not as a foreign imposition, but as an integral part of their total religious conceptions, activities and experiences.
Almost a century of documented Maisin history reveals a consistency related to what is here called a "social ideology": a complex formed by idioms of asymmetry between senior and junior kin and allies, equivalence in exchanges between a range of social categories of persons, and complementarity between the sexes. Extensions of the social ideology to the developments of the post-contact society are explored in the contexts of a growing dependence on money and commodities, unequal access to education and jobs, large-scale out-migration, the material requirements of the local church, and church regulations concerning social behaviour.
The social ideology is also extended to sorcerers, ancestral ghosts, bush spirits, and Christian divinities. The analysis shows that Maisin experience indigenous and Christian elements as realities that exist within a single religious field.
Working from the premise that religion is an aspect of the people's total experience and not a separate cultural institution or sub-system, the thesis explores the modes by which the Maisin create and discover coherence between the various elements within the religious field. The most important points and occasions of religious coherence are those in which the moral precepts of the social ideology are joined with conceptions of spiritual entities towards the explanation and resolution of problems. Three "religious precipitates", as these moments of coherence are termed, are analysed: the village church, healing practices, and death rites.
A major finding of this study is that Maisin articulate their assumptions about local sorcerers, ghosts, and spirits within idioms of conflict between kin and affinal groupings, but speak of God, Christ and the church as symbols of community solidarity. The village church is analysed as a point of convergence of the social ideology, economic aspirations, memories of past interactions with missionaries, and Christian teachings and forms. The primary religious importance of the church is as a condensed symbol of communitas that transcends the inherited divisions of the social order and the contradictions of present political and economic conditions.Arts, Faculty of
Anthropology, Department of
Graduate
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Idoko, Victoria. "The Christian-Muslim conflict of Jos, Nigeria: causes and impact on development." Thesis, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10948/d1010745.
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The aim of this study is to examine conflict and how it impinges on development. Conflict is an inevitable element of human existence since creation and has always affected human activities and endeavors in several ways. Understanding the dimensions of human conflict therefore provides blueprints on how to manage and resolve conflicts. This makes this study timely. In this research, some relevant related to conflict management approaches were examined. The research adopted a case study approach using the Jos Plateau conflict in the Plateau State of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Data was collected and analyzed using a mixed research methods approach. The findings show several causes of this conflict among which are differences in religious beliefs among the people of the area, socio-economic causes, political tensions and land disputes. The consequences of the conflict identified are: it retards development in the area, creates fear and feelings of insecurity, destruction of property and loss of human lives. This study also examined how the conflict impinges on people-cantered development. In terms of how the conflict can be mitigated, respondents think education, creation of employment opportunities, the administration of justice and the practice of tolerance values is going to promote a spirit of coexistence and eventually result in a more peaceful and stable environment.
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Schueren, Eric Van der. "Les déserts de l'âme: approches sociologiques de la retraite spirituelle dans la France du XVIIe siècle." Doctoral thesis, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/212769.
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Dirodi, Morgan. "Space, monuments, and religion : the Christianisation of urban space in the Late Antique Levant." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2015. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:67edfa1b-532b-4926-b010-6fd878c235c6.
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This thesis investigates the relationship between Christianity and urban monumental space in the late antique Levant. Through the analysis of both textual and archaeological evidence it seeks to clarify both the motives and the stages of the process of Christian takeover of the urban space of Levantine cities from the 4th to the 7th century AD. In doing so Christians were in essence both projecting their growth as the predominant religion and, at the same time, creating an entirely new monumental landscape. The case studies are presented in three separate groups, selected on the basis of the principal strategy that was chosen in the process of Christianisation of urban space. The first section analyses the cases of Gerasa, Jerusalem, Heliopolis, and Petra to illustrate the first of these strategies: the main method for occupying the symbolic space of the city was the construction of a contrast between the surviving ruins of the earlier, Hellenic, temples and the new Christian churches. The second group of case studies includes Scythopolis, Caesarea Maritima, Gaza, and to a certain extent Heliopolis. This section deals with those cities where the main strategy was the physical demolition of all or at least the most pre-eminent Hellenic buildings and their direct replacement with a new, and often grand, church. The third group, and the last, consists of the cities of Bostra, Gadara, Apamea, where rather than having to engage with a major Hellenic monument the main competitor was the secular state whether local or imperial. This is found to have resulted in a search for integration into the landscape rather than active competition.
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Rodd, Robin. "The biocultural ecology of Piaroa shamanic practice." University of Western Australia. School of Social and Cultural Studies, 2005. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2005.0084.
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This thesis presents an analysis of Piaroa shamanic practices that combines elements of symbolic, psychobiological and phenomenological approaches. Theories from, and clinical findings in, neuroscience, pharmacology, psychology and psychoneuroimmunology are integrated with extended participant observation field study involving basic shamanic training to demonstrate how Piaroa shamans learn to understand and effect biopsychosocial adaptation and promote health. It is argued that Piaroa shamanism is a sophisticated means of interpreting ecological forces and emotional processes in the interests of minimising stress across related systems: self, society, ecosystem, and cosmos. Piaroa shamans should be cadres in the promotion of an ethos, the good life of tranquillity, which serves as the basis for low-stress social relations. Piaroa mythology is predicated upon human-animal-god reciprocity and provides the shaman with a series of informationprocessing templates, designed to be invoked with the use of hallucinogens, which assist him to understand inter-systemic relations. I analyse how Piaroa shamans develop the psychic skills to divine and regulate ecological relationships and emotional processes, while highlighting possible relationships among native symbolism, neurology, consciousness and the emotions. It is argued that Piaroa shamanic practices involve conditioning the mind to achieve optimal perceptive capacities that, in association with sensitive biopsychosocial study, facilitate accurate prediction and successful psychosocial prescription. A cultural neurophenomenological approach enables articulation of the psychocultural logic of ethos, epistemology, divination, sorcery, and curing, and a fuller picture of a South American indigenous society’s shamanic practices than less integrative approaches have afforded
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Sadarangani, Monique M. "Modernized Hinduism : domestic religious life and women." Thesis, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/11946.
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"Domestic and communal worship in rural Chinese society: a field study in New Territories, Hong Kong." Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1989. http://library.cuhk.edu.hk/record=b5886195.
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Proctor, Marie-Therese, University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, and School of Psychology. "The God Attachment Interview Schedule : implicit and explicit assessment of attachment to God." 2006. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/12183.
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Set within an attachment theory developmental perspective, the thesis explored attachment to God as a psychological construct, both theoretical and as experienced within individual Christians’ relationships with God. The dual focus of the interview process, conducted between 31 predominantly Australian born individuals, was to identify 1/ whether individual Christians experienced God functioning as an activity as an attachment figure, and 2/ whether aspects of their relationship with God were able to be identified as attachment experiences. Three types of analyses were conducted. Findings suggested that the ‘attachment to God’ construct was more complex than previously understood, suggestive of an underlying developmental progression. Findings are discussed in relation to debates concerning ‘implicit’ versus ‘explicit’ features of attachment to God, and developmental features including ‘correspondence’ and ‘compensatory’ hypotheses.Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
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Maharaj, Vedhant. "Yantra: infrastructures of the sacred and profane in Varanasi, India." Thesis, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10539/20567.
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Thesis (M.Arch (Professional)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, 2016.India is currently undergoing a rapid transformation economically, consciously and spatially. A layout of national infrastructure is happening at a pace which may be ungovernable, in its current state and India’s historical and natural landscapes are in jeopardy. One such ecological resource is the Ganga (colonialised as the Ganges), which through continued pollution is reaching a point of irreversible damage. There is, however, still hope. Accordingly, this thesis moves from an overview of India in the globalised world, through a rephrasing of how “development” is understood and manifests itself to the suggestion of an overall plan to understand and implement it in a way that is co-ordinated in intention but regionally and contextually responsive in application. Through Homi Bhabha’s theoretical perspective of cultural hybridisation the discourse of creating a new infrastructural identity for India is introduced. The current political focus on the Ganga, created by India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, through a renewed and trending agenda for cleaning the holy river, acts as a platform to explore the possibilities of infrastructure within this context . The Ganga River has been a religious symbol for millennia and the life force to approximately 500 million people. Through continued and increased pollution the quality of its water now radically exceeds the minimum requirements for safe drinking, bathing or even agricultural use. The Ganga River symbolises a cosmological relationship between people and the ecological environment, which requires that pollution be approached from a holistic viewpoint responding to the weight of its cultural value. This contextualized approach has the potential to become a catalyst for new innovative approaches to the integration of infrastructure throughout the river network . By using the political momentum created in the city, by the national project, this thesis is realised through a multiplicity of conflicting lenses inherent to Varanasi, one of India’s holiest cities. The city itself is growing economically but at the price of its prized ancient heritage. It possesses a cosmological value unparalleled by any other city in the country thus making it an emotionally powerful tool to mobilise a cleaning project for the river. If infrastructure is not implemented correctly the threat to the city’s unique character becomes real. This challenge created the Meta question for my research: How do you implement infrastructure into the sacred landscape? Through various degrees of research, both intuitive and informed, a system to clean water is designed in a way that truly integrates into a cultural landscape. The proposed design establishes itself as the first intervention in a national network for cleaning the River. By taking into account the infrastructural, ecological and sociological requirements of the city and its daily life the water purification sanctuary mediates the conflicting programmatic requirements between spirituality and science. Through an understanding that purity of water has a number of connotations within the site context the building utilises various treatment methods to reinforce the sanctity ABSTRACT of water through a hybrid mediation of heritage, nature, science and infrastructures (both vernacular and modern). This new typology enables the interaction of people with water cleaning infrastructure at a local scale and offers a way forward in redefining a national identity that is bound up in these currently conflicting imperatives.
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LeFlore, Elizabeth Hawthorne 1972. "The force of devotion : performing a transnational spirituality." 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2152/18447.
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This dissertation explores the role of popular religion in a transnational community by examining the performance of devotion to local patron saints, virgin mothers and sacred crosses. Annually in May, Empalme Escobedo, Guanajuato, Mexico celebrates San Isidro Labrador (the patron saint of farmers), Maria Auxiliadora (the patroness of railroad laborers) and the Santa Cruz de Picacho (Sacred Cross of Picacho). Following the celebrations many of the male participants in the fiestas travel to Texas to work in agriculture or the service industry. Consequently, devotion to the saint(s) moves with migrants back and forth across the Mexican-U.S. border. My thesis is that the force of devotion gives voice to the tension between the desire for solidarity (experienced through fiesta performance) and the erosion of the community by migration (experienced as absence and dissolution). What I call the force of devotion refers to the social processes, expressive culture, continuity and change that make up a transnational community's system of beliefs and practices and enable folks to understand, explain or cope with everyday life. The force of devotion is the key analytic frame through which I interpret the articulations of spirituality and popular religion, impermanence and fragmentation, absence and hope. The central questions posed in this dissertation emerge from the stories folks in Empalme Escobedo tell about their lives. Consultants talk about their devotion as an expression of faith, a necessary guidance through daily life and a symbol of hope. Tracking the force of devotion exposes social relationships, emotional and intimate experiences, desires and fears. Memory of and participation in the fiestas not only symbolize the force of devotion, but also serve as a connection to separated family members and place of origin. The everyday reality of the absence of loved ones and the fragmentation of the community as a result of migration amplifies the human desire for sociability and solidarity. The fiesta performance provides a space in which the consciousness of communal boundaries is heightened, thereby confirming and strengthening the experience of the social and the force of devotion.text
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"An era of reenchantment: a case study of the new religion in Hong Kong." Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. http://library.cuhk.edu.hk/record=b5887226.
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by Cheris, Shun-ching Chan.Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 212-222).
Abstract --- p.i
Acknowledgements --- p.ii
Abbreviations --- p.iii
Introduction --- p.1
Part I - Contexts for the Present Study --- p.1
Disenchantment - Reenchantment Dialogue --- p.2
Reenchantment in Hong Kong? --- p.16
Part II - Methodological Note --- p.23
Chapters
Chapter I --- "Enchantment, Disenchantment and Reenchantment" --- p.30
The Concept of Sacredness and Sacred Order --- p.30
A Review of the Relation between Sacred Order and Secular Reality --- p.33
Sacred Order in the Enchanted World --- p.37
Sacred Order in the Disenchanted World --- p.41
New Religious Movements as a Manifestation of Reenchantment? --- p.48
Chapter II --- Epitome of the New Sacred Order - The Emergence and the Worldview of the Lingsu Exo-Esoterics (靈修顯密宗） --- p.56
The Emergence and Development --- p.56
The Sacred Worldview --- p.65
Chapter III --- Epitome of the New Sacred Order - The Ethos of the Lingsu Exo-Esoterics (靈修顯密宗） --- p.79
Sacred Symbols --- p.79
Sacred and Secular Orders of Life --- p.100
Chapter IV --- Constitution and Location of the New Sacred Order --- p.120
Sacred Basis of the Secular Ethos : Making Sense of the Secular Mode of Life --- p.121
Constitution of the New Sacredness --- p.131
Man as God
Inner-Worldly Eclecticism
Location of the New Sacred Order --- p.136
Subjectivization and Privatization of the Sacred Order
Demagicifying Religious Practices
Sacralization of Secular Way of Life
Chapter V --- Reconstitution of Sacred Order and Social Reality --- p.146
Sacred Order as a Model of Social Reality --- p.147
As a Model of Hierarchy
As a Model of Individualism and Intellectualism
"As a Model of Pluralism, Subjectivism and Relativism"
Aa a Model of Secularism and Materialism
Role of Rationality and Intellect in the Sacred Model
Sacred Order as a Model for Social Reality --- p.167
As a Model for Social Maintenance
As a Model for Social Transformation
As a Drawback to Social Integration
Sacred Order and Social Reality --- p.184
Conclusion --- p.184
New Sacred Order as a Manifestation of Reenchantment --- p.189
Reenchantment in Dialectical Sense --- p.193
Implications --- p.198
Appendix
Chapter I --- The Lingsu Disciples' Attitudes towards My Field Research --- p.201
Chapter II --- Some Personal Details of the Lingsu Disciples --- p.203
Bibliography --- p.212