Browsing by Subject "Theology"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    Faith negotiating loyalties: an exploration of South African Christianity through a reading of the theology of H. Richard Niebuhr
    (1999) Martin, Stephen William; de Gruchy, John
    The context of this thesis is Christian faith in South Africa and the question of loyalties in the new, post-apartheid state. It carries out its investigation in two parts. Part one examines Christian faith and loyalty during the first nation-building exercise following the South African War, positing the creation and contestation of three Christianities corresponding to three nationalisms: South African nationalism, Afrikaner nationalism and African nationalism. Each of these nationalisms imagined South Africa in a certain way, and shaped faith accordingly. Hence the idea of South African Christianity gives way to contesting and contested Christianities, in the same way as nationalism gives way to nationalisms. Faith also emerged in tension with and in criticism of these loyalties. Part two reads H. Richard Niebuhr in South Africa. Three kinds of faith in his writings which are distinguishable in the examination of loyalties in South Africa are set forth: social faith, radical faith and reconstructing faith. The emergence of these understandings of faith in his writings is chronicled by examining five of his major writings: The Social, Sources of Denominationalism, The Kingdom of God in America, The Meaning of Revelation, Christ and Culture, and Faith on Earth. Reference is also made to Radical Monotheism and Western Culture, as well as several important transitional works in the 1930s. The interplay between radical faith and social faith is brought out, as is the idea of reconstructing faith which emerges in the 1950s. Reconstructing faith provides the link again with South Africa, and this is made apparent in an extended conclusion to chapter nine which is also a resume of the exposition of Niebuhr's works, and in the conclusion to the thesis. The self and the society is not the unity that Niebuhr held, but rather is constituted by hybridities and suspended in a web of loyalties. The message for faith in a post-apartheid South Africa that this reading suggests is the importance of negotiating covenants which allow for crossings, hybridities and contestations. Hence the title of this thesis: faith negotiating loyalties.
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Open Access
    Religion and interpretations of experience
    (1977) J H, Hofmeyr
    This thesis grows out of a preoccupation with : (a) the status of religious lan~uage and (b) the status of foreign and contrary doctrines to those of th~ writer's culture. Prejudices which informed the writer's approach to his subject were : (a) that people do have what may be called religious experience, that religious language is interpretative of that experience and can be adequate as providing a means to communicate about it; and (b) that foreign doctrines, while false perhaps absurd to non-participants in a culture, can be considered adequate to the expression of what goes into experience in that culture and should therefore be considered true in their own terms .
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access
    The didactic utilization of the Bible and Midrash in the plays of Zalman Aaron Lison
    (2006) Yannay, Tony
    Being a teacher in primary schools for many years made me aware of the power of dramatization as a didactic device. Then I came across Dr. Reisenberger's research project and preservation of all Hebrew Literature written in South Africa, and so I became familiar with the Hebrew plays of Zalman Aaron Uson. These plays were published between 1944 and 1951 in "Barkaal', which was the only Hebrew journal that was published in South Africa at that time. Notwithstanding the fact that Barkaals readership was primarily adults, the plays' target audience was Jewish children in the higher classes of primary school. (early teens). I then discovered that Zalman Aaron Uson was a teacher who taught Jewish studies to South African Jewish children in government primary schools. He wrote the plays in order to familiarize the children with various biblical narratives that he believed had to be taught. The idea behind the dramatization was not only to impart knowledge of the characters and events, but also to force the children to memorize the plays, which are in Hebrew; thus, providing the pupils with knowledge of their Religious Tradition and linguistic Heritage in a vibrant, endearing and effective way. This thesis highlights Lison's inimitable way of selection and utilization of Bible and Midrash as a didactic tool. It sets out the power of literature in general, and drama, as means to induce empathy and identification. This is followed by a detailed literary analysis of the plays with particular attention to the tracing of the Midrash from which Uson drew the dramatic details, the backdrop sets, names of secondary characters etc. The effectiveness of Lison's method is verified through the interviews with his past students, who are currently mature adults. A special note has to be added regarding the use of archival material - from Lison's bequest that the family so kindly allowed access to, as well as semistructured qualitative interviews with Lison's son, Dr. Michael Uson, and two of Lison's past students, who currently live in Israel. All the above concurred my hypothesis of the effectiveness of Lison's method and points out to his exceptional educational astuteness. The thesis includes copies of the plays in the appendix. The language utilized is Hebrew
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Open Access