School of Graduate Research Student Theses
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Browsing School of Graduate Research Student Theses by Subject "A - Humanities"
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- PublicationCuring and Healing: Vital Elements of Catholic Health Care(2017-11-08) Torres, Eric ManuelIn this research, the significance of curing and healing will be explored with an emphasis on how both are vital to Catholic health care. This essay aims to show that only by embracing both components can health care professionals truly care for the whole person. Moreover, Christian health care professionals ought to follow Christ’s example in order to serve in His mission of caring holistically for those that are ill. As Luke’s account of the Haemorrhoissa (Lk 8:42-48) not only provides a vignette distinguishing between curing and healing, but also an excellent example of how Christ attended to both elements, this essay will interpret this story in order to gain insight into the indispensability of both to whole person Catholic health care. Further, examples extracted form palliative care, an area of health care where curing and healing can be clearly distinguished, will be used to illustrate these elements in practical terms.
- PublicationEducating for democracy in Australian schooling: towards a secular global age through an inquiry into the religious(2014-09) Statham, AudreyThis thesis examines how the Australian Values Framework does not appear to be actualising UNESCO’s call to promote a particular notion of democracy which they consider as necessary in order to pursue world peace. Specific consideration is given to religious groups which do not appear to be included as legitimate participants of values formation in the Australian context through the Australian Values Framework. This inquiry engages with the thought of philosopher and educator, John Dewey, and theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, because these are argued to be highly relevant for evaluating different interpretations of democracy in light of the concerns of a religious perspective. This study finds there is an intrinsic relation between inclusive democracy, secularism and education and that all three of these together necessarily promote participation in political life for all groups, including the religious and the non-religious together, in order that UNESCO’s aspiration for world peace might become actualised.
- PublicationO Le Tofa Liliu A Samoa: A Hermeneutical Critical Analysis of The Cultural-Theological Praxis of the Samoan Context(2011-05-12) Tuisuga, Fa'alepo A.The central question of this study is: ‘How can we understand the Samoan church as an indigenous church of the twenty-first century?’ In the eyes of the adherents of the Ekalesia Fa’apotopotoga Kerisiano Samoa (EFKS) – also known as the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa (CCCS) – the Samoan life-world as it is now has been vigorously shaped and reshaped by the assimilation and integration of Samoan culture and Christianity since the arrival of the latter in 1830. The whole Samoan existential system, the fa’asamoa, which encompasses moral, ethical, cultural, political, economic and social factors, and indeed the spiritual values of Samoan society, has been conditioned by the interface between the two institutions – the EFKS, and Samoan culture. Reciprocally, the Christian faith and practice of the EFKS has been reshaped by the Samoan cultural context. The concrete actions and activities that constitute good Samoan life are what the term praxis denotes in this study. The sum total of actions and activities that derive out of the fine synthesis between Samoan culture and Christianity is described here as the ‘cultural–theological praxis’. This study is an attempt to interpret and understand the dynamics of the integration, interaction, and inter-relationship processes existing between Christianity and Samoan culture within the Samoan context. Thus, the overarching aim of this study is to critically analyse the cultural theological praxis of the EFKS setting; and to explore and establish a philosophical hermeneutic to both appraise and understand such praxis of the indigenous Samoan church context of the twenty-first century. I have developed this contextual philosophical hermeneutical approach from the indigenous notion of ‘O le Tofa Liliu a Samoa’ – ‘objective self-reflective wisdom of Samoa’. From the critical evaluation and analysis of the EFKS some suggestions are made as to further significant elements of possible contextualisation from the fa’asamoa, through which the EFKS may be made more relevant and participatory for its contemporary adherents, especially the younger generation. The hermeneutical approach O le Tofa Liliu a Samoa could establish a solid foundation for a more extensive review of the EFKS.
- PublicationPastoral Gravity in a Metanarrative Vacuum. Australian Father's Attendance at the Birth of their Children Considered as a Spiritual Experience: A Critical Inquiry in Practical Theology(2010-05-12) Apokis, Constantinos FotiosThe focus of this study is the experiences of fathers who have attended the birth of their children and how this is indicative of broader patterns of spirituality in Australia, providing understanding of how fathers in particular, and others in general, approach the role of spirituality in our society. This study presents four theoretical pivots (Self-Authenticating Rituals, Human-Interest Stories, Consumer Identity and Temporary Communal Allegiances). I argue these frame and inform the differing social processes which religious practitioners are required to take into account when they respond to people’s – those who are within the ecclesial community and those who are not – lived experience and deliver their distinctive contribution. The nature of our cultural milieu, insofar as it can be described as postmodern, indicates that pastoral encounters are conducted in what I describe as a metanarrative vacuum. Practical theologians who draw on reflective methods are able to correlate pastoral practice to lived experience in a metanarrative vacuum by utilising my four theoretical pivots as modes of engagement for pastoral encounters.
- PublicationPolitical Economy as Natural Theology: Smith, Malthus and their Followers(2018) Oslington, PaulNatural theology shaped 18th and early 19th century political economy, with continuing significance for the engagement of theology and economics. Theological problems such as the role of divine providence in a market economy, and reconciling economic suffering with divine goodness and power, created tensions that contributed to the demise of natural theology and the separation of economics from theology in mid-19th century Britain.
- PublicationThe Australian Baptist Heritage Collection: Management of a Geographically Distributed Special Collection(2007) Burn, KerrieThis project examined the history, development and current state of Australian Baptist Heritage collections by exploring the contributions of, and relationships between, theological colleges and their libraries, Australian Baptist Historical Societies and Baptist Union Archive collections. An outcome of the project was the compilation of a bibliography of Australian Baptist publications as well as several other valuable resources for collection managers, researchers and historians. A survey was administered to gauge the interest of key individuals and/or institutions in participating in co-operative collection development projects that could advance the purposes of Australian Baptist institutions as a whole. The responses by librarians and archivists responsible for Australian Baptist collections were analysed and possibilities for collaborative collection management of Australian Baptist resources explored. These possibilities include shared collection development policies and preservation strategies, formal sharing of duplicate resources and information about collections, and potentially using digital technology to improve access to collections and to ensure the preservation of nationally significant, and rarely held materials. Australian Baptist library and archive collections are used as a case study with a view to reaching conclusions with implications for the management of similar collections (i.e. geographically distributed special collections). The wider Australian theological community, which includes many other denominational and religious collections, may also be able to participate in some of the proposed co-operative ventures. This research project thereby provides a model for possible emulation by other collections as well as making a contribution to collection management theory and practice.
- PublicationThe Singing Heart: An Analysis of the Morning and Evening Songs of Paul Gerhardt as Exercises in Evangelical Piety.(2014-02-24) Prenzler, MatthiasPaul Gerhardt (1607-1676) was a German Lutheran pastor, and writer of spiritual songs. Gerhardt was strongly influenced by a devotional movement, often referred to as the Neue Frömmigkeit, that was evident within German Lutheranism during the first half of the seventeenth century. The influences of this piety movement are clearly evident in Gerhardt’s songs, especially his three morning and two evening songs that are known today. These five songs can be considered sung devotional meditations with meditational devices woven into their texts that naturally lead those who are singing to meditate upon the scriptures. Many of these devices are able to be examined and explored through textual analysis. This study seeks firstly to examine the background to Gerhardt’s morning and evening songs; and secondly, to engage in the analysis of selected song texts in order to investigate how they may indeed be considered exercises in evangelical piety.
- Publication“Whoever Writes Your Life-Story, I Will Write His Name in The Book of Life.” The Arabic Life of Antony Attributed to Serapion of Thmuis In Manuscripts of the Red Sea Monasteries(2016-12) Agaiby, LisaAntony the Great has had a compelling lure on the imaginations of Christians from Late Antiquity to the present day. The success of his Vita attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria, elevated Antony above his ascetic peers and established him as the “father of monasticism” throughout the Christian world. However, Antony has another Vita attributed to Serapion of Thmuis that has hitherto remained overlooked and unpublished. Originally composed in Arabic around the 13th century, it quickly gained more popularity and influence in Egyptian monasteries than the Athanasian Vita, and from the 14th century to the mid-20th century, it not only won widespread acceptance, but the authority of liturgical texts. The aim of this study is two-fold: (1) to examine how the Life of Antony attributed to Serapion of Thmuis bears witness to the reinterpretation of the religious memory of Antony, exploring the possible origins of this tradition via a first edition and translation of the Arabic Life; and (2) to provide a typology of the manuscripts that contain an Arabic version of the Life of Antony in the Red Sea monasteries, and thus offer new insights into the scribal and liturgical practices of the monks, in particular from the 17th to 20th centuries.