Masters Theses

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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13057/7

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Children and the Church- Jesus brings the child to a place in the middle
(2014-03-17) Mountain, Vivienne
This thesis investigates the relevance of aspects of the Child Theology Movement in selected churches in Melbourne Australia. Semi-structured interviews and Focus Groups were conducted with Children’s Pastors and Ministers. The research pays due regard to the extensive writing in various theologies of the child from which this new movement has grown.
Christian Faith: Help or Hindrance for Chronically IllPatients in their Experience of Suffering?
(2010-04-22) Hope, Marilyn
This thesis will address some key questions of and approaches to spirituality and health care in the Australian context from the perspective of chaplaincy. It will explore the specific Christian religious experience of ten patients who suffer chronic, life-threatening illness, and then relate their experience to some writings of allied health practitioners. These strains of thought will be explored for congruencies and incongruence in their materials and their relevance to the patients' experience. The hypothesis for the research was that patients' belief in the human sufferings of Jesus and their Christian relationship with him would have some impact on their experience of illness. It is also hypothesised that the presence and support of church as expressed in the chaplain would have some significance for their experience of suffering. Finally the findings will be related to the current and furure practice of chplaincy in the healthcare setting and some reflections will be made in regard to current practice and recommendations made for both church and healthcare organisations for future directions.
Cybergnosticism? A Study of Contemporary Christian Faith Communities in Cyberspace
(2004-12-12) Hill, Graham
This dissertation explores the research question ‘What gnostic-like elements are present within contemporary Christian faith communities in cyberspace?’ The research methodology is qualitative. It involves the examination of Gnostic documents and secondary scholarly sources on Gnosticism, and the detailed analysis of primary source written texts presented at the seventeen designated online contemporary Christian faith communities. The two chapters immediately following the introduction examine the important foundational and specific issues relevant to a study of Christian Gnosticism of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. They serve not as a detailed study of these forms of Gnosticism, but rather as a distillation of its principal characteristics. These characteristics are used as benchmarks in the Content Analysis of the contemporary Cyber faith communities. The following three chapters use these benchmarks in the detailed examination of the online Christian faith communities’ particular perspectives on human personhood, community, and engagement with the world and social behaviour. This dissertation concludes that human beings need some bodily engagement and gathering with others in order to experience authentic Christianity, that God is present within Christian communities in Cyberspace demonstrating his grace and redemption, and that while the Christian communities in Cyberspace manifest some Gnostic tendencies, they also contradict the core values of early Gnosticism. It is an overstatement, then, to label them as ‘cyber-Gnostic’.
Faith-based leadership development for young Cambodians for the purpose of building up communities of solidarity
(2020) Park, Jin Hyuk
This thesis aimed to lay the foundation for a faith-based integrative response to the invitation of a personal and communal journey of young Cambodians into full human liberation. To bring about full human liberation, the building of communities of solidarity is a fundamental task for all, especially for the oppressed and marginalised. This thesis has argued that a faith-based leadership development for young Cambodians is intended for the integrative development of the whole person through personal and communal transformation and that such leadership development is an effective and urgent response to the need to build up communities of solidarity. This thesis has maintained that the purpose of leadership development is to enable young Cambodians to work for the service of the Kingdom of God which can be realised through working together for this community-building commitment. Accordingly, this thesis has explored factors that cultivate agents capable of building communities of solidarity.
Making Theology Accessible: Empowering Christians to do their own Theology
(2011-03-02) Hunter, Nathan
Noting a gap between the understandings of the ecclesia and academia, this thesis explores how ‘good theological process’ can become widely accessible to the church community at large. It surveys some significant ways in which theology has been defined in the past to create a framework for evaluating helpful theological processes, defined in this thesis as ‘working theology’. Having drawn some conclusions regarding what such processes might look like, it explores why such processes are seemingly scarce in the everyday activity of the church community. It seeks opinions about theology from six members of an Australian evangelical church through semi-structured interviews, using a central allegory as a key discussion point. Interviewees offer perspectives on the challenges of theology from a non-academic viewpoint. The interviews identify that transparent leadership, humble teaching, companionship, accessible resources and theological translators all have vital roles to play in Making Theology Accessible.
Personhood, Human Brokenness and the Therapeutic Calling of the Eastern Orthodox Church: A Pastoral Approach To Mental Health Issues and Disability.
(2009-05-08) Cagnoni, Clare
Orthodox theology proposes an ontology of complete personhood, experienced through loving relationships with others and with God through the Church, mediated through the doxological experience of the Trinity. This thesis suggests that the Orthodox Church thus has a unique and therapeutic calling with rich possibilities for pastoral and practical application.
Spiritual Direction for Adults with Asperger's Syndrome.
(2011-05-12) Naughtin, Peter J.
This thesis investigates the topic of providing spiritual direction within the Catholic tradition for adults with the disability Asperger‟s Syndrome who seek help from people ministering in the field of spiritual direction. The writer undertook a literature search to establish the key findings of the investigation. The focus of this literature search was in the following fields: studies in theology of disability; psychological studies in the disability, Asperger‟s Syndrome; studies of the Catholic tradition of spiritual direction and Christian meditation; some recent literature that investigates the spirituality of people with Asperger‟s Syndrome. The investigation from this literature search enabled the writer to develop a set of key findings to establish a framework for spiritual direction for people who live with the disability Asperger‟s Syndrome. The author believes that from his research, little has been written on this area and the findings are therefore exploratory in nature, and it is hoped they will lead to further investigation in the future.
The Contribution of a Spiritual Director to the Spiritual Journey of a Person Diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder
(2010) Twining, Kaye J.
Foundational to the topic of this thesis is the question, "Can major depression be a true spiritual dryness through which we may take steps toward God?" The question is posed by Madeleine Kelly in 'Life on a Roller-Coaster: Living Well With Depression and Manic Depression.' Kelly lives with a form of manic depressive illness. Manic depressive illness, currently known as bi-polar disorder, belongs to the family of mental disorders. The nature of bipolar disorder is that it affects a person's moods, thoughts and behaviour. Consequently, the experience of bipolar disorder is such that it can disorientate a person's sense of self, thus triggering existential questions around identity, meaning, belonging and religious expression. These are significant spiritual questions. However, due to the complex nature of bipolar disorder these spiritual questions often go unheeded. While the Christian church offers pastoral care in the mental health field, is this enough? Or could it be that a spiritual director also has a contribution to make in the spiritual journey of a person diagnosed with bipolar disorder? The thesis examines this question in light of a response to Kelly's question.

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Browsing Masters Theses by Subject "D - Pastoral Studies"

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