School of Graduate Research Student Theses

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Browsing School of Graduate Research Student Theses by Subject "C - Practical Theology"

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    All the Rage: A Practical theological study of how local congregations can care for people who experience a tension between faith and habitual patterns of anger
    (2024-02) 'Peck, Albert R.'
    We live in communities where the impact of anger is often experienced. This truism is even more complicated within a local church setting, where anger has traditionally been maligned and silenced. One of the subtle impacts of this view is the silencing of those within local churches who struggle with habitual patterns with anger. They are often marginalised and judged as people of whom to be wary and avoid. It is therefore important that a practical theological study on how local congregations can care for people who experience a tension within their faith and their anger be undertaken. This thesis explores the lives of nine participants from local churches who struggle with habitual patterns with anger, and who volunteered to be involved in a practical theological, qualitative research project. This led to a study on the emotion of anger and its possessive nature, that was then tested through the lens of three selected biblical texts that involve anger.
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    Challenging history and telling herstory: an interdisciplinary exploration of the intersection of claims for equality and women’s lived experiences of officership in The Salvation Army in Australia.
    (2023) Faragher, Christine
    The Salvation Army began with a seemingly clear commitment to the equality of women and men in ministry, however, this narrative is contradicted by women’s lived experience of officership. A significant gap exists between the ideal and the real. This thesis explores the contours of the gap, revealing its historical, theological, cultural, and practical origins. Utilising a feminist hermeneutic of suspicion, it challenges the dominant historical narrative regarding Catherine Mumford-Booth and her written defences of women’s preaching and ministry roles. In doing so, it recovers a more grounded and life-giving image of this important historical figure. Its empirical work also allows the voices of contemporary Australian women officers to be heard, revealing the ways in which gendered inequality has been manifested and experienced in their ministry lives. It suggests theological resources for moving towards reimagined gender relations within the movement and the closure of the gap.
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    Toward Becoming Intercultural Theological Education: Engaging with Calabash Breakers
    (2011) Dewerse, Rosemary
    This thesis explores a conviction that the purpose of theological education is to model and facilitate deep engagement with the o/Other, for transformation comes through relationship and the Christian life is about transformation. In a context like Aotearoa New Zealand that is becoming increasingly multicultural, but where theological education still operates out of an agenda largely dominated by those who are racially white, the argument is made for a kind of deep engagement that would realise truly intercultural theological education. In order to ensure that this conviction is lived as well as discussed, the methodology for this research is shaped by the Buberian-derived idea of dialogical relation and seeks to pay careful attention to I, Thou, and It -- subjective reflection, the voice of the other, and objective analysis. A combination of autoethnography and modified grounded theory is employed alongside semi-structured, reflexive interviews and a research journal to facilitate this. The critical hermeneutic of Jung Young Lee, who claimed that it is "new marginal" people -- those who stand with their feet in two or more cultures and see "in-both," "inbetween," and "in-beyond" -- who hold the key to realising multicultural (or intercultural) theology for a multicultural context, undergirds and informs the choice of interviewees. In total the voices of thirty-seven people are heard, people here named "calabash breakers" because they cross boundaries and break rules. They are drawn largely from Aotearoa New Zealand and the United States, a country that has some history in addressing diversity in theological education. The result of analysis of their interviews reveals that they are advocating formation, more than knowledge acquisition, as being the appropriate educational milieu. Between them, the calabash breakers identify four areas needing particular attention within that: caring for identity; listening to silenced voices; experiencing epistemic ruptures; and dismantling discrimination. A case study of McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, drawing on material collected in September-October 2009, helpfully illustrates the challenges and implications of a commitment to these areas, across structures, curriculum, pedagogy, and community life, for an institution willing to dedicate itself long-term to the journey of becoming intercultural.