Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Religion Australia'
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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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Douglas, Steven Murray, and u4093670@alumni anu edu au. "Is 'green' religion the solution to the ecological crisis? A case study of mainstream religion in Australia." The Australian National University. Fenner School of Environment and Society, 2008. http://thesis.anu.edu.au./public/adt-ANU20091111.144835.
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A significant and growing number of authors and commentators have proposed that ecologically enlightened (greened) religion is the solution or at least a major part of the solution to the global ecological crisis. These include Birch, 1965 p90; Brindle, 2000; Callicott, 1994; Gardner, 2002, 2003, 2006; Gore Jr., 1992; Gottlieb, 2006, 2007; Hallman, 2000; Hamilton, 2006b, a, 2007b; Hessel & Ruether, 2000b; Hitchcock, 1999; King, 2002; Lerner, 2006a; McDonagh, 1987; McFague, 2001; McKenzie, 2005; Nasr, 1996; Oelschlaeger, 1994; Palmer, 1992; Randers, 1972; Tucker & Grim, 2000; and White Jr., 1967. Proponents offer a variety of reasons for this view, including that the majority of the worlds and many nations people identify themselves as religious, and that there is a large amount of land and infrastructure controlled by religious organisations worldwide. However, the most important reason is that religion is said to have one or more exceptional qualities that can drive and sustain dramatic personal and societal change. The underlying or sometimes overt suggestion is that as the ecological crisis is ultimately a moral crisis, religion is best placed to address the problem at its root.
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Proponents of the above views are often religious, though there are many who are not. Many proponents are from the USA and write in the context of the powerful role of religion in that country. Others write in a global context. Very few write from or about the Australian context where the role of religion in society is variously argued to be virtually non-existent, soon to be non-existent, or conversely, profound but covert.
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This thesis tests the proposition that religion is the solution to the ecological crisis. It does this using a case study of mainstream religion in Australia, represented by the Catholic, Anglican, and Uniting Churches. The Churches ecological policies and practices are analysed to determine the extent to which these denominations are fulfilling, or might be able to fulfil, the proposition. The primary research method is an Internet-based search for policy and praxis material. The methodology is Critical Human Ecology.
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The research finds that: the greening of these denominations is evident; it is a recent phenomenon in the older Churches; there is a growing wealth of environmentalist sentiment and ecological policy being produced; but little institutional praxis has occurred. Despite the often-strong rhetoric, there is no evidence to suggest that ecological concerns, even linked to broader social concerns (termed ecojustice) are core business for the Churches as institutions. Conventional institutional and anthropocentric welfare concerns remain dominant.
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Overall, the three Churches struggle with organisational, demographic, and cultural problems that impede their ability to convert their official ecological concerns into institutional praxis. Despite these problems, there are some outstanding examples of ecological policy and praxis in institutional and non-institutional forms that at least match those seen in mainstream secular society.
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I conclude that in Australia, mainstream religion is a limited part of the solution to the ecological crisis. It is not the solution to the crisis, at least not in its present institutional form. Institutional Christianity is in decline in Australia and is being replaced by non-institutional Christianity, other religions and non-religious spiritualities (Tacey, 2000, 2003; Bouma, 2006; Tacey, 2007). The ecological crisis is a moral crisis, but in Australia, morality is increasingly outside the domain of institutional religion. The growth of the non-institutional religious and the spiritual but not religious demographic may, if ecologically informed, offer more of a contribution to addressing the ecological crisis in future. This may occur in combination with some of the more progressive movements seen at the periphery of institutional Christianity such as the eco-ministry of Rev. Dr. Jason John in Adelaide, and the Creation Spirituality taught, advocated and practiced by the Mercy Sisters Earth Link project in Queensland.
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Cox, Philip F. "Student beliefs about learning in religion and science in Catholic schools." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2004. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/799.
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The focus of this study is the impact of student perception of the validity of content on student learning. It is proposed that, if the content of a subject is perceived by students as being different to the content of another subject, a result of this perceived difference is that students will treat their learning in these subjects differently. To test this proposal, student beliefs about items from the content of the religious education course are compared with student responses to items of content of their science course. A sample of 1418, year 11 students from nine co-educational Catholic secondary schools were asked to respond to a series of outcome statements from the year 10 religious education and science courses. The questionnaire asks two questions; one, can• the student recall being taught each item; and two, does the student believe that the item is true. If the students believe that the item is true, they are asked to indicate one of three possible reasons for their belief. One, they believe the item because the teacher had provided them with evidence that convinced them that the item is true; two, they believe the item because they trust the teacher to teach them what is true, or three they believe the item for some other reason such as faith. This study does not deal with the issue of faith formation, catechesis, new evangelisation or evangelisation which are significant raison•d'etre of Catholic schools and are closely linked to the study of religious education in Catholic schools. Student and staff responses to a number of open-ended questions, and extensive discussions with students in a Reference Group, provide additional insights into the student beliefs regarding the nature of knowledge particularly for the content of their religious education and science courses.
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Jang, Ki-soo. "The place of human services in the Uniting Church in Western Australia : perceptions of the ministers and some consideration of issues for service delivery." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 1993. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1147.
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This thesis explores the relationship between the provision of human services and the role of the church with special reference to the Uniting Church's role in Western Australia. The church's involvement in human service is examined as an expression of the church's responsibility to practise the religious teachings of compassion and charity. However, such claims as to the church's responsibility were received with degrees of acceptance and resentment by different church denominations. Despite the definite teachings of the Bible about the importance of the church to the world of which it is a part, as this study has explored, they remain as mere speculations. This study is an attempt to examine the extent to which biblical teachings about the church's involvement in human service receive support from the parish ministers. It was assumed that the degree of acceptance will also determine the scope of the church's role in the area of human services. The majority of parish ministers included in the study supported the role and involvement of the church in human service areas. The church's role in human service is universally accepted. The critical issue appears to be whether or not the parish ministers should be expected to assume the major responsibility of the caring role for the church. Ministers did acknowledge the growing demand for their involvement in "human", as against "religious" affairs due to widespread social problems across the parishes. Yet, they see that their theological training is inappropriate to deal with such problems. In contrast to the ministers' positive perception of the church's role in human services, the study shows the limited or declining funding contributions to human services as evidenced by the budget of the Synod of W.A. Along with the trend of declining church funding, all the study subjects (ministers, co-ordinator and agency directors) expressed concern about the decreased church identity in the provision of human services, The parish ministers' view is that it is important for the church to maintain its identity in the area of human services and this cannot occur without improved funding commitment. As the first attempt at a systematic study of the church's role in human service, this study has come up with a number of observations which will contribute to the future planning and implementation of human services by the Uniting Church in Western Australia.
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McEvoy, Francis Joseph, and res cand@acu edu au. "How is Religious Leadership Understood and Practised by Principals in Catholic Secondary Schools in South Australia?" Australian Catholic University. School of Educational Leadership, 2006. http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/digitaltheses/public/adt-acuvp125.25102006.
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This thesis explores the religious dimension of the role of the principal in the Catholic Secondary Schools of South Australia. The study is set in the context of a complex and changing environment. Society is becoming increasingly secular, and religious values are on the wane. The role of the principal has become progressively more encumbered by government regulation and policy and an increased level of accountability for a wide range of school outcomes, many of these outside the core purposes of the school (Fullan, 2003). In Catholic schools, the numbers of the professed religious men and women, traditionally the backbone of those schools, has declined dramatically in the last two decades and lay persons have taken over from members of religious congregations as principals in most Catholic Secondary Schools in South Australia This represents a paradigm shift in leadership in the Catholic schools. It has resulted in an increased focus from within both the Church and the Catholic Education System on the essential Catholic nature of those schools, and the role of the Principal in nurturing and managing this. The study found that principals had a deep sense of the importance of this dimension of their role, but that they felt a real need for more support and formation, especially in the scriptural and theological aspects of leadership. Most felt pressured by the ‘normal’ routine of principalship, and were looking for ways to ‘make time’ for reflection in order to better ground their actions and decisions in the core values of the schools, the System and the Church. As a result of this research, a series of recommendations are offered to Church and System authorities, to principals and to those aspiring to be principals in the Catholic Secondary Schools in South Australia. These relate to professional practice in such areas as defining the nature of the Catholic schools, and recognizing their particular charisms; developing leadership succession strategies and preparation courses for aspiring leaders; exploring alternative approaches to the principal selection process, and developing a mentoring program and professional support networks.
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Delaney, Helen Mary. "The evolution of governance structures of the Sisters of Mercy of Australia, 1846-1990." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 1991. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/7643.
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Bellamy, John. "Why people don't go to church : a study of factors associated with non-participation and participation in church in Australia." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2001. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1071.
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Church-based religion in the western world is considered by many sociologists to be in decline. The causes of this decline have been linked to secularising processes such as institutional differentiation, urbanisation, industrialisation, and the rise of scientific rationalism. The primary research aim of this study is to identify what contribution the religious beliefs of individuals, their demographic characteristics, their work and leisure patterns, their attitudes and experiences of churches and their experience of the urban environment, make towards understanding patterns of non-participation and participation in local churches. A secondary research aim is to identify to what extent theories of secularisation and other theories of religious change receive support from these empirical findings, as well as from other social surveys and historical sources examined in the study. In order to address the primary research aim, a random sample, community survey was carried out. This survey included a wide range of questions covering the issues designated for research~ as well as eliciting stated reasons for non-participation. This survey differs from many others in that it was limited to selected local areas, enabling some assessment to be made of the impact of the physical characteristics of these local areas on church attendance patterns. Initially the data analysis focuses on bivariate relationships between particular characteristics of respondents and their extent of church participation. Thereafter, the data are subjected to multi-variate analysis, in order to identify the contribution of each variable while controlling for the effects of other variables. Path analysis and partial correlations are used to begin to identity the likely causal links between variables in the study. The study concludes that the certainty and salience of traditional religious beliefs and practices make the greatest contribution towards explaining patterns of church participation and non-participation. While the relationship between beliefs and nonparticipation can be shown to conform with secularisation theory, there are doubts about the direction of causality. There is evidence of the significant impact of religious socialisation during childhood on later patterns of participation and nonparticipation, and the likelihood of further declines in church attendance levels due to cohort differences. Many of the variables traditionally associated with conventional secularisation theory such as education, workforce involvement and aspects of urbanisation offer only a partial explanation of non-participation in church. By comparison, variables associated with leisure, material goals and the pursuit of happiness are more strongly related to church participation at the individual level. These provide evidence of other ways in which modernity interacts with religion to produce secularisation, apart from the rising tide of rationality associated with modernity.
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Ellis-Jones, Ian. "Beyond the Scientology case : towards a better definition of what constitutes a religion for legal purposes in Australia having regard to salient judicial authorities from the United States of America as well as important non-judicial authorities /." University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Law, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2100/404.
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The aim of this thesis is to formulate a better definition of religion for legal purposes than the formulation arrived at by the High Court of Australia in the 1983 decision of Church of the New Faith v Commissioner of Pay-roll Tax (Vic). In that case, known in Australia as the Scientology (or Church of the New Faith) case, two of five justices of the High Court of Australia considered belief in a supernatural Being, Thing or Principle to be an essential prerequisite for a belief system being a religion. Two other justices stated that if such belief were absent it was unlikely that one had a religion. There are major problems with the High Court’s formulation in the Scientology case. First, it does not accommodate a number of important belief systems that are generally regarded as being religious belief systems, even though they do not involve any notion of the supernatural in the sense in which that word is ordinarily understood. Secondly, the Court provided little or no guidance as to how one determines whether a particular belief system involves a supernatural view of reality. The guidance that was given is ill-conceived in any event. Thirdly, it is philosophically impossible to postulate a meaningful distinction between the “natural” and the supposedly “supernatural” in a way that would enable the courts and other decision makers to meaningfully apply the “test” enunciated by the Court. The thesis combines a phenomenological approach and the philosophical realism of the late Professor John Anderson with a view to eliciting those things that permit appreciation or recognition of a thing being “religious”. Ultimately, religion is seen to comprise an amalgam of faith-based ideas, beliefs, practices and activities (which include doctrine, dogma, teachings or principles to be accepted on faith and on authority, a set of sanctioned ideals and values in terms of expected ethical standards and behavior and moral obligations, and various experientially based forms, ceremonies, usages and techniques perceived to be of spiritual or transformative power) based upon faith in a Power, Presence, Being or Principle and which are directed towards a celebration of that which is perceived to be not only ultimate but also divine, holy or sacred, manifest in and supported by a body of persons (consisting of one or more faithxvii based communities) established to give practical expression to those ideas, beliefs, practices and activities. The new definition is tested against 3 very different belief systems, Taoism (Daoism), Marxism and Freemasonry.
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Amarasinghe, Amala Dilani. "A comparative analysis of facework strategies of Australians and Sri Lankans working in Australia." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2011. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/45763/1/Amala_Amarasinghe_Thesis.pdf.
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This study investigates facework (communicative) strategies of Sri Lankans working in Australia and compares them with strategies used by Australians of European origin working in Australia. The study also explores the values of those Sri Lankans as a reflection of their facework, and how Sri Lankans have adjusted their facework to the Australian culture. The study used a survey questionnaire and interviewed Sri Lankans working in Australia for this investigation. The survey questionnaire was used to understand the facework similarities and difference between the Sri Lankans and Australians as explained in Oetzel and Ting-Toomey’s Face Negotiation Model. The survey revealed that Sri Lankans are higher in interdependent self construal, self face concern and other face concern than the Australians. Nonetheless, Sri Lankans are similar to the Australians in other facework strategies. The interviews clarified that Sri Lankans do not change their values by living in Australia, yet they make some changes to how they do things.
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Lake, Meredith. "'Such spiritual acres' Protestantism, the land and the colonisation of Australia, 1788-1850 /." Connect to full text, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/3983.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2008.Title from title screen (viewed Apr. 22, 2009) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of History, Faculty of Arts. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.
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Kelleher, Matthew H. "Archaeology of sacred space the spatial nature of religious behaviour in the Blue Mountains National Park Australia /." Connect to full text, 2002. http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/4138.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2003.Title from title screen (viewed April 6, 2009). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 2003; thesis submitted 2002. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.
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Birmingham, Matthew J. "Federalism and spheres of justice: The role of religion in Australian government schools." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2016. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/96479/1/Matthew_Birmingham_Thesis.pdf.
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This thesis examines the role of religion in Australian government schools. Drawing on analysis of frameworks for religion in curriculum and as instruction, and informed by the case of the National School Chaplaincy Program, the research considers how the issue is determined at the state and territory level and, in some cases, by school communities. The thesis found that discourse taking place in the context of contemporary Australian federal arrangements for government schooling gives rise to communities of interest existing at different levels which determine the reach of religion in this public space, as considered appropriate to their needs.
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Kyme, Brian. "Six Archbishops and their ordinands: A study of the leadership provided by successive Archbishops of Perth in the recruitment and formation of clergy in Western Australia 1914-2005." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2005. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/631.
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This thesis seeks to tell the story of the evolution of ordained ministry in the Christian Church, with an emphasis on the work of the ministry in the Anglican Church of Western Australia since the arrival of the first settlers in 1829. After a brief look at the early days, the focus is on the efforts to recruit ordination candidates in Western Australia during the terms of each of the six Archbishops of Perth from 1914 up to the present time. An integral part of the narrative is the histories of the Perth Clergy Training College, later renamed St John's College, from 1899 to 1929 and John Wollaston Theological College, which has served varying roles from 1957 to the present time. Particular attention is given to the period 1972 to 1981, when Wollaston was home to the Interim Course for candidates who, in those years, were sent interstate for their primary theological education. They returned to Perth for a year's training and reflection in pastoral ministry before being ordained and appointed to parishes. The narrative relates how, with the exception of Archbishop Le Fanu, the Archbishops believed that there should be an ordination training programme in Western Australia. The first and third Archbishops believed that the priority was for ordinands to have a liberal education at University, so they could hold their own, as it were, with the leaders of other professions in the community. Archbishop Carnley, in particular, believed that the teaching of theology snould be university based, because it was a fundamental discipline. And so we follow the story to the present time when theological education is based at Murdoch University and is taught in an ecumenical setting with each participating church conducting its own programmes in the areas of pastoral care and ministry formation. The total process for the training of clergy presently in vogue is one in which the Church in Western Australia should have justifiable pride, yet the study does suggest that there are some areas that Church leaders might well consider ripe for further development.
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Ingram, Evan. "Rebuilding Nara’s Tōdaiji on the Foundations of the Chinese Pure Land: A Campaign for Buddhist Social Development." Thesis, Harvard University, 2016. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493371.
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This dissertation considers how Chinese models of Buddhist social organization and Pure Land thought undergirded the Japanese monk Chōgen’s campaign to restore the Great Buddha of Tōdaiji, destroyed in the Gempei civil war at the end of the 12th century. While Chōgen’s activities as chief solicitor of the campaign partially owed to his network of social connections earned through a selective Buddhist education, Chōgen’s three pilgrimages to China were crucial for providing much of the knowledge, methods, and technologies that made possible the largest religious and civil engineering project attempted in Japan to that time.
Though nominally a Buddhist monk, Chōgen embodied the ideal of a polymath. In order to recreate Japan’s foremost Buddhist symbol, he was compelled to assume a wide range of responsibilities: fundraising among aristocrats and warriors; forming a network of lieutenants, donors, and common devotees; managing temple estates that provided revenues; developing transportation infrastructure to carry materials and supplies; casting the Great Buddha statue; overseeing religious rites; and finally, rebuilding Tōdaiji’s halls. These diverse activities required creative forms of religio-social networking and technologies not extant in Japan.
During his travels to the Chinese port city of Ningbo, as well as the religious mountains of Tiantaishan and Ayuwangshan, Chōgen learned of Pure Land halls built by lay confraternities, and adopted them as models for the later sanctuaries he constructed around Japan for proselytization and fundraising purposes. He also borrowed organizational principles from Chinese Pure Land societies from the urban centers of Ningbo and Hangzhou in order to create a massive Pure Land network in his homeland that embraced former militants from the civil war, the imperial family, monastics from a wide range of institutions, and even the common populace – all of whom contributed to the Tōdaiji rebuilding effort.
Ultimately, the fields of religion and technology that Chōgen imported from China not only enabled the reconstruction of Japan’s most important Buddhist temple, but also brought Japan into the fold of an emerging East China Sea religious macroculture of the late 12th and early 13th centuries that expanded with the activities of traders and later Japanese pilgrims who would emulate Chōgen’s voyages.East Asian Languages and Civilizations
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Sunderland, Sophie Monica May. "Representations of the secular : neutrality, spirituality and mourning in Australia and Canadian cultural politics." University of Western Australia. English and Cultural Studies Discipline Group, 2009. http://theses.library.uwa.edu.au/adt-WU2009.0177.
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[Truncated abstract] This thesis explores the ways in which 'the secular' is represented in contemporary Australian participatory art, screen, and print cultures. Secularisms are currently the subject of analysis in a broad range of disciplines within the humanities, and this thesis intervenes upon the field by focusing on the cultural politics of representations of embodied, spatialized secularisms. The secular is commonly defined in opposition to the 'religious,' and can also be extrapolated to the division of public and private spaces. Thus, by considering the occlusions and violences inherent in the ways bodies negotiate and are constructed through space, this thesis argues for the fluidity and porosity of these oppositions. By drawing from Janet Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini's notion of secularisms, understood as specific, situated narratives of the secular, as well as Talal Asad's and William E. Connolly's conceptions of the secular, this thesis identifies 'neutrality' and 'spirituality' as two key narratives of the secular around which questions of language, embodiment, affect, and subjectivity are set in motion. Here, a regime of representation that constructs 'religious' subjects as outsiders to an imagined Australian national identity is critiqued and reconsidered in terms of anxieties about remembering and living with difference and loss. Rather than defining 'the secular,' this thesis seeks to maintain focus on the context and contingencies of enunciation. Thus, firstly the conflation of secularism with 'neutrality' and 'objectivity' is explored through a discussion of 'defining' secularisms, alongside critique of representations of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). By identifying the ways in which this 'everyday' text signals exclusions through the privileging of British Protestant Christianity in its contents, colonial history and usage, I consider how 'neutrality' is made contextually and contingently. ... . Here, secular mourning is a suggestive concept that foregrounds 'affective economies' of loss, grief, and mourning alongside openness to the ways in which identity is made and lived relationally, and differently. Given that the representations of Australian secularisms I identify are made by locating 'the religious' elsewhere, this thesis reflects upon this process by including a contingent comparative study of representations of Canadian secularisms. Participatory art including the Secular Confession Booth (2007) in Toronto and The Booth (2008) in Perth, news media debates about secularism in Ontario and
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WANG, XIAOXUAN. "Saving Deities for the Community: Religion and the Transformation of Associational Life in Southern Zhejiang, 1949-2014." Thesis, Harvard University, 2015. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:23845455.
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My dissertation examines the post-1949 transformation of religious and
organizational culture in rural Ruian County of the Wenzhou region, Zhejiang. It explores
the diversified adaptation patterns adopted by rural religious organizations in order to
preserve, reinvent and even expand themselves in the volatile sociopolitical environment
of post-1949 China. Based on hitherto unexploited government documents collected from
local state archives, memoirs, historical accounts of religious organizations, as well as
extensive oral interviews with Ruian residents, I demonstrate that, rather than following a
linear and uniform decline that conventional wisdom suggests, religious organizations
took divergent paths in Ruian during the Maoist era. The level of religious activities in
Ruian and many regions of Zhejiang exhibited fluctuations over time rather than a linear
downward movement. The Maoist period, I argue, was both destructive and constructive
for religion. By stripping religious organizations of their traditional leadership and
economic foundation, Maoist campaigns inadvertently accelerated the organizational
reinvention of Chinese religions. Even more far-reaching, the Cultural Revolution
dramatically stimulated a quick rise of Protestantism vis-à-vis other religions and
fundamentally reshaped the religious landscape in parts of China, making China no
exception to the global trend of religious resurgence, despite its isolation at the time.
Religion in today’s China and related phenomena, in particular the uneven distribution of
religious revival, the development patterns of rural organizations, and state-religion
relations, cannot be fully explained without reference to the Maoist legacy.East Asian Languages and Civilizations
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Kelleher, Matthew. "Archaeology of sacred space : the spatial nature of religious behaviour in the Blue Mountains National Park Australia." University of Sydney, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/4138.
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Doctor of PhilosophyThis thesis examines the material correlates of religious behaviour. Religion is an important part of every culture, but the impact religion has on structuring material culture is not well understood. Archaeologists are hampered in their reconstructions of the past because they lack comparative methods and universal conventions for identifying religious behaviour. The principal aim of this thesis is to construct an indicator model which can archaeologically identify religious behaviour. The basis for the proposed model stems directly from recurrent religious phenomena. Such phenomena, according to anthropological and cognitive research, relate to a series of spatio-temporally recurrent religious features which relate to a universal foundation for religious concepts. Patterns in material culture which strongly correlate with these recurrent phenomena indicate likely concentrations of religious behaviour. The variations between sacred and mundane places can be expected to yield information regarding the way people organise themselves in relation to how they perceive their cosmos. Using cognitive religious theory, stemming from research in neurophysiology and psychology, it is argued that recurrent religious phenomena owe their replication to the fact that certain physical stimuli and spatial concepts are most easily interpreted by humans in religious ideas. Humans live in a world governed by natural law, and it is logical that the concepts generated by humans will at least partially be similarly governed. Understanding the connection between concept and cause results in a model of behaviour applicable to cross-cultural analysis and strengthens the model’s assumption base. In order to test the model of religious behaviour developed in this thesis it is applied to a regional archaeological matrix from the Blue Mountains National Park in New South Wales, Australia. Archaeological research in the Blue Mountains has tentatively identified ceremonial sites based on untested generalised associations between select artefact types and distinctive geographic features. The method of analysis in this thesis creates a holistic matrix of archaeological and geographic data, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative measures, which generates a statistical norm for the region. Significant liminal deviations from this norm, which are characteristic indicators of religious behaviour are then identified. Confidence in these indicators’ ability to identify ceremonial sites is obtained by using a distance matrix and algorithms to examine the spatial patterns of association between significant variables. This thesis systematically tests the associations between objects and geography and finds that a selective array and formulaic spatiality of material correlates characteristic of religious behaviour does exist at special places within the Blue Mountains. The findings indicate a wide spread if more pocketed distribution of ceremonial sites than is suggested in previous models. The spatial/material relationships for identified religious sites indicates that these places represent specialised extensions of an interdependent socio-economic system where ceremonial activity and subsistence activity operated in balance and were not isolated entities.
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Devenish, Stuart Cranford. "The mind of Christ? A phenomenological explication of personal transformation and cosmic revision in Christian converts in Western Australia." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2001. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/423.
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Religious converts routinely report differences in the way they attribute meaning as a consequence of religious conversion. Previously known objects, events and persons are perceived differently as a result of a new plausibility structure being brought to bear. Converts experience themselves and their lives as fundamentally problematic due to their limitations in the face of seemingly insurmountable physical, moral or spiritual crises, and set out in search of a resolution to their anguished existence. The resolution comes as they encounter God, the one whom-it is thought-holds within his hands the resolution to their problem and the seeds of their transformation into a new life. The stimulus for this research has come from the researcher's experience over 25 years of observing converts' tendencies toward the reattribution of meaning during and subsequent to their conversion experiences. It was clear 'that' changed meanings took place; it was not clear 'how' and 'why' such changes occurred, nor 'where' the impulse for such change came from. This research is concerned to explicate how contemporary Christian converts in Western Australia have experienced conversion as a transformational event. It does so by interacting with the self-reports of converts as they reflect on their experiences of conversion. The primary research question for this inquiry-in its preliminary form-is: what is the experience of acquiring new religious knowing, and what account may be given of the processes of change within the believer's perceptions of God, self and world? Seven converts were interviewed in open interviews in which they were asked to divulge their beliefs about God, the world and themselves, before during and after conversion. Participants' self-reports were explicated phenomenologically through a process of imaginative re-experiencing and deep-listening. The eidetic structures and universal essences of those experiences were allowed to emerge into the foreground to make themselves known. 44 themes were identified from respondents' transcripts and shaped to form the substance of five key chapters whose primary emphases are, the world as the context of meaning change (chapter 5); the self and its crises as the catalyst for new interpretations of reality (chapter 6); the Christian religious tradition and the meanings it holds within its myth-like gospel ( chapter 7); the self in the presence of God (chapter 8); and the place of the mind in Christian conversion (chapter 9). The notion of 'the mind of Christ' is a motif furnished by the Apostle Paul. His experience of scales falling from his eyes and his statement "we have the mind of Christ" portrays the possibility of the reception of a noetic awakening to enlightenment which religious believers participate in through conversion. Through the explication of respondents' experiences of meaning-change, a description has been developed in this research which constitutes new believers as imbibing the Christian 'mind' through contact with the Bible, and a myth-like and Christ-centered metanarrative which is re-told through litany and liturgy in the context of private and public worship. Radical change was found to occur within converts' beliefs, attitudes and actions, in relation to God, themselves and the wider world, during and after the conversion event. It was found that subsequent to conversion converts feel themselves to have become seers of the supernatural, hearers of mysteries, and tasters of divinity, because they have been in contact with God and have imbibed aspects of his character and perspective. Thereafter converts hold a plausibility structure which is deeply influenced by the person of Christ and the Christian 'idea' of history as salvation-history. Converts were found to undergo a personal self-transformation as a result of conversion, in which they moved from an 'end of self to an elevated status in which they both derived life and wisdom from God, and participated in the divine nature. Converts also were found to have undergone a revision of the world as a result of conversion, in which the cosmos became 'new' in the sense that it was created by God for his purposes, and that his presence intrudes into it, making the mundane realm into a sacred temple. This research is generated from within the Christian faith tradition. It seeks to understand the experience of the believing soul in the 'act' of conversion as it encounters and imbibes new meanings and attributions of truth. It will be of interest to scholars, religious practitioners, and most importantly to religious converts themselves.
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Mai, Cuong T. "Visualization apocrypha and the making of Buddhist deity cults in early medieval China with special reference to the cults of Amitabha, Maitreya, and Samantabhadra /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2009. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3380107.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Religious Studies, 2009.Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 14, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-12, Section: A, page: 4722. Adviser: John R. McRae.
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Robinson, Cheryl Dorothy Moodai, of Western Sydney Hawkesbury University, and School of Social Ecology. "Effects of colonisation, cultural and psychological on my family." THESIS_XXX_SEL_Robinson_C.xml, 1997. http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/686.
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This research is a story about the author’s Murri family. It is about rebirthing the author’s identity, history and culture, and concerns the history and consequences that colonisation has rendered on her family. The story divulges the secrets and problems from the past that continue to affect the author and her family today. Aboriginal history concerns each and every person in Australia. Non-indigenous people need to understand that Aborigines’ spirits belong to this land, that they are a part of it. They need to understand what colonisation has done to Aboriginal families. It is only through understanding and accepting the history of what has happened to thousands of Murri families that their identities and place within their environment can become reality in the minds of non-Aboriginal people. Because a written discourse is alien to the Aboriginal culture and to the author’s psyche, she has rebirthed her family’s stories in both visual and oral language, and combined this with the written. The author’s art is a healing vehicle through which she and her family reconnect with their culture. It is connected with the author’s identity, her heritage. She has created images/objects that reflect what she has discovered of herself and her family. Her creations are imbued with all that is natural, her palette is the land and its produce, thus reconnecting herself with her heritage, the land – mother earth.Master of Science (Hons) Social Ecology
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Marinescu, Jocelyn M. N. "Defending Christianity in China : the Jesuit defense of Christianity in the lettres edifiantes et Curieuses & Ruijianlu in relation to the Yongzheng proscription of 1724." Diss., Manhattan, Kan. : Kansas State University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/606.
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Devenish, Anne P. "The meaning of God today: A phenomenographic study of the art and language of a group of senior secondary students." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 1999. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1205.
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Relationship with the Divine is the core of Christianity and the professional concern of a number of ministries, including that of religious education. Knowledge about what God means to children and adolescents would be beneficial to teachers. However, research has provided little useful information in this area. Most research conducted so far has been quantitative in nature and does not uncover the lived experience or the participants' personal understandings of this phenomenon. The qualitative research that has been done focuses mainly on the range of concepts of God held by participants. It is concerned with uncovering some of the elements that lead to the formation of these concepts, and not with determining which concepts are meaningful to respondents. This study sought to discover the nature of the meaning of God for a group of senior secondary students at a metropolitan Catholic high school. It focussed on such issues as what God is to these adolescents, what concepts of God are meaningful to them, what mediates God to them, and what influence God has on their lives. The purpose of this study was to provide teachers with useful information that could help to guide them in their educational endeavours. The theoretical paradigm adopted was that of critical liberal feminist theology. The research methodology was that of phenomenography. The methods used for the collection of data were drawing, journalling, and the in-depth interview.
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Ozkan, Cuma. "A comparative analysis| Buddhist Madhyamaka and Daoist Chongxuan (Twofold Mystery) in the early Tang (618-720)." Thesis, The University of Iowa, 2013. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1540391.
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The interactions between Chinese religions has occupied an enormous amount of scholarly attention in many fields because there have been direct and indirect consequences resulting from the interactions among Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. These religious traditions have obviously influenced each other in many respects such as rituals, doctrines, textual materials, philosophy and so on. Accordingly, I will, in this paper, critically analyze the implications of the interactions between Buddhism and Daoism by examining Twofold Mystery. Since Twofold Mystery is heavily dependent on Madhyamaka Buddhist concepts, this study will, on the one hand, examine the influence of Madhyamaka Buddhism on the development of Twofold Mystery. On the other hand, it will critically survey how Twofold Mystery remained faithful to the Daoist worldview.
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Belcher, Helen Maria. "Resisting the Welfare State: An examination of the response of the Australian Catholic Church to the national health schemes of the 1940s and 1970s." University of Sydney. School of Sociology and Social Policy, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/712.
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This thesis extends and refines a growing body of literature that has highlighted the impact of Catholic social principles on the development of welfare state provision. It suggests that Catholic social teaching is intent on preserving the role of the traditional family, and keeping power out of the hands of the state. Much of this literature, however, is concerned with European experience (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Castles, 1993; van Kersbergen, 1995). More recently Smyth (2003) has augmented this research through an examination of the influence of Catholic social thought on Australian welfare policy. He concludes that the Australian Church, at least up to the 1970s, preferred a �welfare society� over a �welfare state�, an outlook shared by the wider Australian community. Following the lead of Smyth, this thesis extends the insights of the European research through an examination of Catholic Church resistance to ALP proposals to introduce national health schemes in the 1940s and the 1970s. These appeared to satisfy the Church�s commitment to the poorest and most marginalised groups in the community. Why, then, did the Australian Church resist the proposals? The thesis concludes that there are at least two possible ways of interpreting Catholic social teaching � a preconciliar interpretation that minimises the role of the state, and a postconciliar interpretation that allows for an active, albeit limited, state. The adoption of either is informed by socio-political factors. The thesis, then, concludes that the response of the Church in the 1940s and the 1970s was conditioned by socio-political and historical factors that inclined the Australian Catholic Church towards a conservative view of welfare.
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Eroglu, Sager Zeyneb Hale. "Islam in Translation: Muslim Reform and Transnational Networks in Modern China, 1908-1957." Thesis, Harvard University, 2016. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:33493376.
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This dissertation investigates Chinese Muslim (Hui) intellectual currents from the late Qing dynasty to the early years of the Communist Republic, 1908–1957. By analyzing a vast number of Muslim reformist journals, Chinese translations of Islamic sources, and diaries/memoirs of intellectuals who were connected to other zones of the Islamic world, I examine the process by which reformists sought to redefine Chinese Muslim identity and revive “true principles of Islam”—both in negotiation with the Chinese state and in conversation with local and transnational intellectual currents. In particular, this dissertation considers the ways in which intellectuals struggled to “awaken” Chinese Muslims so as to transform their past identity as Muslim subjects of the Qing Empire into “politically conscious and active” citizens of the Chinese Republic. Chinese Muslims were defined either as a religious community or an ethnic group (minzu), and this debate occupied the minds of reformist intellectuals in this period, the topic of the first two chapters. How it was settled would determine the political, social, and religious status of the Muslim community in China, where definitions of nation and ethnicity/race were constantly reassigned. Debates concerning Muslim integration into China hinged on their connection to the global Muslim community (umma). Newly introduced technologies of travel and communication, such as the steamship and print, facilitated Chinese Muslims’ participation within transnational and cross-confessional networks. I argue that it was through the selection, appropriation, and adaptation of ideas from the prominent centers of the Islamic world that these intellectuals navigated a path of integration in the Chinese context that did not put their distinct Muslim identity at risk. From these diverse sources, they were determined to find solutions to the challenges they faced in China—whether posed by the hegemonic discourse of the Nationalist Party or the iconoclastic New Culture Movement. In successive chapters, I focus on the intellectual connection of Chinese Muslims to the Kemalist secularism of Turkey, the Ahmadi movement of India, and Egyptian reformist currents. Thus, I demonstrate how a seemingly “peripheral” Muslim community in the Far East participated in complex transnational networks at a critical moment of transformation.Inner Asian and Altaic Studies
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Ng, Zhiru. "The formation and development of the Dizang cult in medieval China." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/289099.
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This study investigates the medieval Chinese formation of the cult of Dizang (Skt. Kṣitigarbha; Jpn. Jizō), a Buddhist divinity especially popular in connection with East Asian beliefs about the afterlife. It explores why and how Dizang, an obscure figure from the pre-Chinese Buddhist pantheon, became in medieval China an important object of cult worship. A tendency to focus on the popularized characterization of Dizang as " the savior of the damned" has distorted scholarly understanding of this Bodhisattva, obscuring other developments of his personality, including afterlife trends other than the underworld function. To arrive at a more accurate re-construction of the medieval Chinese Dizang cult, this study examines a diverse range of evidences (canonical and non-canonical, textual and visual, as well as Buddhist and non-Buddhist) so as to ferret out threads of Dizang belief not documented in standard sources. Non-canonical sources are particularly highlighted since they frequently capture largely neglected aspects of religious development which must be studied in order to uncover the full complexity of medieval Chinese Buddhism. In particular the formation of the Dizang cult supplies a crucial key to unlocking the larger cross-cultural patterns of religious assimilation operating in medieval Chinese society, which have wider implications for the study of Chinese religion. Previous studies on sinification in Chinese Buddhist history have focused on a particular thinker, a specific text, a single doctrinal concept, or one ritual practice, thus demonstrating the development of only one pattern of assimilation and reducing the complexity of the cross-cultural dynamic in which assimilation really took place. The Dizang cult instead allows one to better contextualize the patterns of cross-cultural assimilation in medieval Chinese religion. What distinguishes the Dizang cult from other examples of sinification is the manner in which the figure of Dizang functions as a religious symbol that integrates diverse religious planes, doctrine, mythology, ritual, and soteriology. The Dizang cult, in short, offers a single but kaleidoscopic lens that encompasses a multivalent religio-cultural assimilation, thus resisting usual bifurcations between doctrine and ritual, as well as between so-called "elite" and "popular" religion.
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Tormey, Anne. "The beatification of Mary MacKillop: What it reveals of experiences of women in the contemporary Australian Catholic Church." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 1998. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/982.
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The Christian faith in its Catholic expression continues to give meaning and direction to the lives of many contemporary Australian women. Nevertheless, for many women conscientised to the reality of patriarchal sexism the experience of belonging in the church is one of recurring struggle, Mary MacKillop in the nineteenth century cofounded the Sisters of St Joseph to address the educational needs of poor children in isolated areas of Australia. Her tenacity in maintaining a degree of autonomy for her institute led to her excommunication a11d to subsequent painful experiences of opposition from male ecclesiastics. In her lifetime she was regarded us a saint. Her beatification in Sydney by Pope John Paul II in January 1995 was a national, as well as a civic and religious event. My thesis is that her beatification mirrors even as it appears to contest the marginalised place of women in the Australian Catholic Church. This study approaches the beatification of Mary MacKillop through the interpretive lens of feminist philosophy and Christian feminist theology. In exploring the ways in which the event reveals both subtle and overt forms of patriarchal sexism operative within the contemporary Australian Catholic Church it utilises qualitative research methods. An analysis of the interview data of Catholic women selected from varied backgrounds, from different parts of Australia is central to the study, because the experience of these women constitutes a key theological resource. Written and visual documentary accounts of the event arc also analysed. This research identifies some of the major sites of struggle for women in the church. It also signals that there is a gap between papal conceptions of Christian womanhood and women's actual experience of what has been and what continues to be influential for them. The evidence reveals that this national, civic and religious event was primarily due to the agency of the Sisters of St Joseph. It raised awareness within their institute of the difficulties and challenges for women in the church and of the wide concern with spiritual issues within Australian society. The public liturgy to celebrate the beatification of Mary MacKillop conveyed powerful but conflicting messages for many women. Women interviewed in this study vary in their interpretation of the beatification. Many have major difficulty with the whole concept of sainthood, the processes of canonisation, the publicity and commercialisation associated with the beatification and the role of the Pope within it, given his theology in relation to women. Their resistance however was restrained by the desire not to diminish in any way Mary MacKillop in the past, nor the Sisters of St Joseph in the present. Most of them concur that overall the promotion of this woman was for the good. For most of the women in this study, their role models are not saints, but contemporary women, or women they have known through mutual relationship. Their awareness that patriarchal sexism constitutes a major distortion of the gospel of Jesus Christ leads some women to question their own forms r collusion. Many women seek new ways to express their faith and to deepen their spiritual search, while continuing to claim their Catholic identity.
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Suggit, Daniel Richard. "A Clever People: Indigenous healing traditions and Australian mental health futures." Thesis, Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/12051.
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Indigenous Australians are currently hospitalised for mental health disorders at significantly higher rates than members of the non-Indigenous population. In this context, the development of effective Indigenous mental health service delivery models in remote, rural and urban areas continues to be a national priority.
Traditional forms of healing are fundamental to Indigenous societies across Australia. Anthropologists, linguists, psychiatrists, psychologists, psycho-analysists and Indigenous healers themselves have recorded and discussed many localised traditions of healing over the last 100 years.
This paper presents an overview of this significant Australian heritage and proposes that the challenges which face mental health service delivery within many Indigenous communities may be addressed in part through the recognition of the intellectual, religious and therapeutic bases of Indigenous healing traditions.
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Smith, Charlotte H. F., and n/a. "The house enshrined: the great man and social history house museums in the United States and Australia." University of Canberra. Resource, Environment & Heritage Sciences, 2002. http://erl.canberra.edu.au./public/adt-AUC20050701.140057.
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This thesis is a study of the origins and rationale of two categories of house
museum - here named "Great Man" and "Social History" - in the United States
and Australia. An examination of cultural, social and historical change provides
the context for the genres' evolution.
The Great Man genre was born in mid nineteenth-century America when two
houses associated with George Washington - Hasbrouck House and Mount
Vernon - were preserved and translated to museum status. Mount Vernon quickly
became the exemplar for house museums.
Civil religion, a secular nationalism that adopted the forms and rituals of church
religion, focusing on hero worship, pilgrimage and contemplation of transcendent
collective purpose, provided the ideology that sustained the new museum type.
Great Man house museums became the shrines at which such rituals could be
practiced.
In the early twentieth-century the specialization of heritage organizations
encouraged a new breed of heritage professional. Largely fabric focused, these
"new museum men" influenced philosophy, management and conservation
practice at house museums throughout the century.
Social history made its impact upon house museums in the latter decades of the
twentieth century. The paradigm encouraged the creation of a new category of
house museum. Existing Great Man house museums adopted some of its
characteristics though never lost their hero worship foundations. In fact, I posit
that the idea of hero worship was transferred to the new genre.
The birth and evolution of the two categories of house museum is demonstrated
through four biographical studies: Vaucluse House in Sydney; Monticello in
Charlottesville VA; the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in New York City;
and Susannah Place Museum in Sydney. I believe the findings demonstrate an
argument that applies at hundreds of house museums in the United States and
Australia.
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Lord, David J. "Priesthood in a ministering community: Towards an ecclesiology for the Third Millennium." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2008. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/214.
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Within the Anglican Communion a Ministering Community is where all the people of God, the baptised in a community of faith that gathers for worship each week, are the ministers. The people are the ministers by virtue of their baptism; each one being gifted by the Holy Spirit for the mission and ministry of the church in that place at that time. God will provide sufficient giftedness for that community at that time. There is no need to look outside of that community for ministry as the entire ministry that is required is present within that community. Some people within the community will be gifted to lead people in worship and prayer, some in pastoral care, some in outreach and mission, some in education and teaching, and others to lead people in whatever other ministry that is required for that community at that time. There are various out-workings of what is a Ministering Community around the Anglican Communion; however, one of the common difficulties is the vexed question of the Theology of Priesthood in a Ministering Community. All the other roles of ministry leadership within a Ministering Community are often supported and encouraged amongst a wide range of theological viewpoints; however, the theology of Priesthood in a Ministering Community opens up a wide range of views and theological beliefs. I believe that the differences in theology stems from a misunderstanding of what priesthood is and how the theology of priesthood has developed over time since the New Testament. It is my contention that the Theology of Priesthood in a Ministering Community is ontologically the same as priesthood in a Christendom model of ministry, gathering, consecrating, breaking, blessing and absolving. There is, however, a difference of function between Ministering Community Priesthood and Christendom Priesthood. Functionally a priest in a Ministering Community is not in charge, unlike a Rector or Vicar of a parish that is in charge of a cure. This thesis will endeavour to show that the difference between Christendom Priesthood and Ministering Community Priesthood is one of function and being in charge, the question of authority plays a large part in the theology of priesthood. Authority within the structures of the Anglican Communion has been under review and question for a number of years, therefore there are still outstanding questions with regard to exactly what are the authorities within an Anglican Church. Authority is not however, merely limited to outside influences; people are also subject to their own internal authorities. Fowler's Stages of Faith (1981) helps crystallise the issues of internal authority for a person in leadership in a Ministering Community. If people have not progressed beyond Stage Three on Fowler's Stages of faith then the best that they can be is a helper as she will always need to defer to a higher external authority, whereas a person who is in stage Four or beyond on Fowler's Stages of Faith will have sufficient internal authority to be involved in leadership. Priesthood in a Ministering Community should never be seen in isolation, but always in the context of their community of faith. Communities of faith who become Ministering Communities do so as a whole, with the community commissioned for their work together which includes all the positions of leadership. The leadership is then not hierarchical in nature but rather dispersed and collegial in style. This thesis will show that the Theology of Priesthood in a Ministering Community is very different from Priesthood in a Christendom model of ministry. It will show that Priesthood in a Ministering Community is closer to the presbyters that we find in the pages of the New Testament than the inherited theology of Christendom Priesthood.
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Stenbäck, Tomas. "Where Life Takes Place, Where Place Makes Life : Theoretical Approaches to the Australian Aboriginal Conceptions of Place." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Religionsvetenskap, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-26156.
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The purpose of this essay has been to relate the Australian Aboriginal conceptions of place to three different theoretical perspectives on place, to find what is relevant in the Aboriginal context, and what is not. The aim has been to find the most useful theoretical approaches for further studies on the Australian Aboriginal conceptions of place. The investigation is a rendering of research and writings on Australian Aboriginal religion, a recording of general views on research on religion and space, a recounting of written material of three theoretical standpoints on place (the Insider standpoint, the Outsider Standpoint and the Meshwork standpoint), and a comparison of the research on the Aboriginal religion to the three different standpoints. The results show that no single standpoint is gratifying for studies of the Aboriginal conceptions of place, but all three standpoints contribute in different ways. There are aspects from all three standpoints revealing the importance of place to the Aboriginal peoples. The most useful theoretical approaches for studies on the Australian Aboriginal conceptions of place are: Place as a living entity, an ancestor and an extension of itself; place as movement, transformation and continuity; place as connection, existential orientation and the paramount focus, and; place as the very foundation of the entire religion.
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Hudson, Wm Clarke. "Spreading the dao, managing mastership, and performing salvation the life and alchemical teachings of Chen Zhixu /." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2007. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3297123.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. Religious Studies, 2008.Title from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 26, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0639. Adviser: Robert F. Campany.
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Steley, Dennis. "Unfinished: The Seventh-day Adventist mission in the South Pacific, excluding Papua New Guinea, 1886-1986. (Volumes I and II)." Thesis, University of Auckland, 1990. http://wwwlib.umi.com/dissertations/fullcit/9100749.
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The Seventh-day Adventist Church, incorporated in the United States in 1863, was driven by the belief that it was God's 'remnant church' with the work of warning the world of the imminent return of Christ. When that mission was finished the second coming would occur. In 1886 following a visit by an elderly layman, John I Tay, the whole population of Pitcairn Island desired to join the SDA church. As a result in 1890 Adventist mission work began in the South Pacific Islands. By 1895 missions had been founded in six island groups. However difficulties, both within and without the mission's control, ensured that membership gains were painfully slow in the first decades of Adventist mission in Polynesia. However before World War II the Solomons became one of the most successful Adventist mission areas in the world. After 1945 Adventism also prospered in such places as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. Education provided the key to the gaining of accessions in a number of countries, while in others a health-medical emphasis proved important in attracting converts. Since World War II public evangelism and the use of various programmes such as welfare, radio evangelism, and the efforts of lay members contributed to sharp membership gains in most countries of the region. Of no small consequence in hindering Adventist growth was the opposition of other churches who regarded them as pariahs because of their theology and 'proselytizing'. Adventist communities tended to be introverted, esoteric and isolationist. Nevertheless Pacific islanders adapted aspects of the usually uncompromising Adventist culture. Unity of faith, practice and procedure was a valuable Adventist asset which was promoted by a centralized administration. After a century in the Pacific region its membership there has a reputation among other Adventists for its continued numeric growth and for the ferver its committment to Adventism. Nevertheless Adventism in the region faces a number of problems and its aim of finishing the Lord's work remains unfinished.Subscription resource available via Digital Dissertations
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Green, Sandra Aili. "Building solidarity: The process for metropolitan ChineseMuslims, 1912-1949." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/284059.
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In the midst of revolution as the Qing Dynasty faded into the twentieth century, metropolitan Chinese Muslim leaders took initiatives in their communities, which shaped change. As a result, a process was set in motion, one that effected the identity of urban Chinese Muslims in more ways than one--within the new political scene nationally, internationally, and in regards to other Muslims in China. The process stimulated a self-awareness among Chinese Muslim urban populations, which promoted new perceptions of their identity as Hui. The process also triggered a debate among Chinese Muslim intellectuals in which ideas of minzu-ness, ethnicity, and religiosity were argued. The process fostered a sense of solidarity among the urban Muslim communities. Chinese Muslim activities paralleled those of other Chinese. Chinese Muslims took part in the New Culture Movement, many joined the army. At the same time they focused attention on improving their communities. This dissertation examines the activities of urban Chinese Muslims: the creation of study groups and associations; the revamping of Muslim schools; and the publishing of books and periodicals. The dissertation is a look at strategies used in adapting to change. The goal has been to illustrate that the Chinese Muslims accepted change, even welcomed it, but in so doing altered perceptions of themselves and their religion. The metropolitan Chinese Muslims got swept up in the enthusiasm of the early republican era. Many influential members of the community endorsed the Nationalists' revolution and the new republic. Chinese Muslim urbanites welcomed modernization and nationalism, seeing them as vehicles that would facilitate their efforts, and protect them. Chinese Muslim motives were nationalistic, as Chinese they wanted a strong China. Their motives were also parochial. They wanted a strong local community, and they actively set out to improve conditions. By strengthening their communities they could insure the survival of Chinese Muslim culture, just as a strong China would insure the survival of Chinese culture.
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Gentry, James Duncan. "Substance and Sense| Objects of Power in the Life, Writings, and Legacy of the Tibetan Ritual Master Sog bzlog pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3626633.
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This thesis is a reflection upon objects of power and their roles in the lives of people through the lens of a single case example: power objects as they appear throughout the narrative, philosophical, and ritual writings of the Tibetan Buddhist ritual specialist Sog bzlog pa Blo gros rgyal mtshan (1552-1624) and his milieu. This study explores their discourse on power objects specifically for what it reveals about how human interactions with certain kinds of objects encourage the flow of power and charisma between them, and what the implications of these person-object transitions were for issues of identity, agency, and authority on the personal, institutional, and state registers in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Tibet.
My investigation of Sog bzlog pa's discourse on power objects shows how the genres of narrative, philosophy, and liturgy are related around such objects, each presenting them from a slightly different perspective. I illustrate how narratives depict power objects as central to the identity of Sog bzlog pa and his circle, mediating relations that are in turn social, political, religious, aesthetic, and economic in tone, and contributing to the authority of the persons involved. This flow of power between persons and objects, I demonstrate further, is connected to tensions over the sources of transformational power as rooted in either objects, or in the people instrumental in their ritual treatment or use. I show how this tension between objective and subjective power plays out in Sog bzlog pa's philosophical speculations about power objects and in his rituals featuring them. I also trace the persistence of this discourse after Sog bzlog pa's death in the seventeenth-century state-building activities of Tibet and Sikkim, and in the present day identity of Sikkim's Buddhist population. Power objects emerge as hybrid subject-object mediators, which variously embody, channel, and direct the flow of power and authority between persons, objects, communities, institutions, and the state, as they flow across boundaries and bind these in their tracks. Finally, I illustrate how this discourse of power objects both complicates and extends contemporary theoretical reflections on the relationships between objects, actions, persons, and meanings.
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Drake, Darren, and mikewood@deakin edu au. "Secularism exhausted?: Non-Indigenous postcolonial discourses and the question of aboriginal religion." Deakin University. School of Communication and Creative Arts, 2002. http://tux.lib.deakin.edu.au./adt-VDU/public/adt-VDU20051017.152649.
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Mills, Christopher J. R. "Bargain or benefice? Understanding the legal relationship between an Australian church and its clergy." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2018. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/122618/1/Christopher_Mills_Thesis.pdf.
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As Australian workplace laws have evolved over the last century, the legal principles applying to the nature of relationships between Australian churches and their clergy have become subject to a degree of uncertainty. In the current political and legal environment it is desirable that this uncertainty be removed and that there be clarity as to the standing and accountability of clergy. This thesis identifies a theoretical framework from which some insight can be drawn that can help Churches adopt appropriate methods of appointing clergy that align with their theological beliefs while anticipating the direction of the law.
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Saric, Ivanka. "Academic gains of students with special needs in an independent religious school." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2002. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/761.
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The number of children who are performing poorly in school-wide tests seems to be increasing in an independent religious school in the metropolitan area. Several children have been identified "at risk" or having special needs but they seem to show little if any improvement as they get promoted to higher grades. The study investigated the instructional and assessment strategies that upper primary school teachers were using in their classrooms to improve the academic and social skills of children defined as having special needs. Teachers' perceptions were examined to determine whether there had been any observable increases in the academic performance of students from years five to seven. Attitudes that teachers displayed towards the school were also studied in relation to the effect that they had on children with special needs. Teachers' reported that the design and implementation of both instruction and tests were found to inhibit full inclusion of children with special needs. Religious and structural restrictions placed on children with special needs were also found to impede their academic success. The discussion focused on the instructional and assessment strategies that teachers perceived would benefit the academic achievement of children with special needs. Ways of overcoming the restrictions placed on teachers' use of instruction and assessment strategies were also examined.
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Armstrong, John Malcolm, and frjohnarmstrong@ozemail com au. "Religious Attendance and Affiliation Patterns in Australia 1966 to 1996 The Dichotomy of Religious Identity and Practice." The Australian National University. Research School of Social Sciences, 2001. http://thesis.anu.edu.au./public/adt-ANU20020729.140410.
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The period between 1966 and 1996 was a period of great change for society in Australia. Two particular aspects of that change have been highlighted in this study. It will examine the changing patterns of attendance at religious services and religious affiliation over this time period. In particular it examines the connection of attendance and belief patterns, which have changed during this period, with particular reference to Christian religious groups. ¶
By examining data from each of the Censuses in the period between 1966 and 1996 it was possible to note three fundamental changes in the patterns of religious affiliation. The first was the movement away from patterns of Christian affiliation to no religious affiliation. The second was the shift of migration patterns which drew substantially from Europe in the period prior to 1971 to a pattern with higher levels of migration from Asia and Oceania. The third saw a decline in Christian affiliation among the 15-24 age group. ¶
After analysing this affiliation data a weekly average religious attendance measure was composed to compare data from each of the social science surveys. This made it possible to examine generational trends by age and sex which resulted from changing patterns of affiliation, immigration, stability of residence and marital status Also a case study of the Canberra parishes in the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn was undertaken to examine the particular impact that these changes had on a particular religious grouping. ¶
In studying these indicators it is believed that the change in patterns of Australian religious attendance and affiliation while influenced by life course events has also been substantially affected by issues of generational change. These changes not only produce lower levels of religious attendance but also have significant impact on aspects of society which have sustained communal life.
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Longobardi, Paul. "Religious education: Outcomes-based integration across the primary curriculum." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2002. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/735.
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This study shows that the integrity of curriculum in Catholic Schools can be demonstrated through an integrated curriculum, with Religious Education (R.E.) as the primary focus, centre point and generator of learning experiences across all subjects or Key Learning Areas (K.L.As). The contemporary, Catholic nature of curriculum is able to be developed via an outcomes-based approach that integrates R.E. with other Key Learning Areas. The "Integrated Religious Education Outcomes Approach" represents a personal belief of the author, developed as a classroom teacher in five Catholic schools and a member of three schools' Executive. The response to this belief is the motivation behind this study. The theoretical response includes an examination of integration and the function and purpose of outcomes- based education. There is relevance and potential for Religious Education curriculum outcomes to be linked to other Key Learning Areas Consequently, the role of Catholic schools in developing courses of work within a Catholic setting, and the religious dimension of the broad curriculum and of each K.L.A., are explored. Findings show that there is validity to the development of an approach that integrates R.E. outcomes when programming courses of work. This practical response IS demonstrated in a uniquely Catholic unit of work that focuses on one of the R.E. themes recurring across the Primary school. The integrated unit used in this study sets out the outcome and content links across and between all K.L.A.s. Findings show that it is a document from which teachers are able to facilitate the teaching and learning process, whilst maintaining course requirements of the N.S.W. Board of Studies' K.L.A. Syllabuses and the Wollongong Diocesan R.E. Curriculum Guidelines. Findings also show that teachers are supported in developing the practice of integration, an increased awareness of the function of outcomes, and the significance of R.E. in the formal curriculum. The study shows that teachers are willing to embrace trends and methodology that assist planning, organise and present learning in new ways and promotes R.E. within the context of the broader curriculum.
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Blakeley-Carroll, Grace. "Illuminating the spiritual : the symbolic art of Christian Waller." Phd thesis, Canberra, ACT : The Australian National University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/1885/146396.
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Australian artist Christian Waller nee Yandell (1894-1954) created artworks that unified her aesthetic and spiritual values. The technical and expressive brilliance of her work across a range of art media - drawing, painting, illustration, printmaking, stained glass and mosaic - makes it worthy of focused scholarly attention. Important influences on her practice included Pre-Raphaelitism, Art Deco and the Celtic Revival. Her spirituality was informed by a range of orthodox and alternative systems of belief, including: Christianity, Theosophy, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the international Peace Mission Movement. Acting as an emissary, she included personal symbols - especially the sun, the moon, stars and flowers - in her artworks to encourage spiritual contemplation. In this thesis, I argue that Waller harnessed the decorative and expressive potential of these movements - along with a commitment to Arts and Crafts values - to develop a personal set of symbols that expressed her sense of the spiritual. This encompassed the harmony of word, image and message, which underscored her work. It is for this reason that I locate Waller within the international discourse of spiritual art. Despite her remarkable talents across media and the distinctive quality of her art, Waller has always occupied a peripheral position within Australian art and art history. Even when she is included in significant books and exhibitions, most often it is in relation to her hand-printed book 'The Great Breath: A Book of Seven Designs' (1932) and her relationship with her husband, fellow artist Napier Waller. Key aims of this thesis are to highlight the breadth and depth of Waller's art practice and to demonstrate that she made important contributions to Australian art and to art that addresses the sacred.This thesis introduces a number of Waller's artworks, stories and personal ephemera into scholarship, making a comprehensive study of the artist possible for the first time. It makes a major contribution to scholarship on the artist, especially in relation to the spiritual values that underpinned her practice, as expressed in the key symbols that are identified. By extension, it contributes a more nuanced understanding of art produced between the First and Second World Wars to Australian art history and to scholarship on art that addresses the sacred.
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Lawson, David Edward. "Indigenous Australians and Islam : spiritual, cultural, and political alliances." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2010. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/41738/1/David_Lawson_Thesis.pdf.
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This thesis examines why and how Indigenous Australians convert to Islam in the New South Wales suburbs of Redfern and Lakemba. It is argued that conventional religious conversion theories inadequately account for religious change in the circumstances outlined in this study. The aim of the thesis is to apply a sociological-historical methodology to document and analyse both Indigenous and Islamic pathways eventuating in Indigenous Islamic alliances. All of the Indigenous men interviewed for this research have had contact with Islam either while incarcerated or involved with the criminal justice system. The consequences of these alliances for the Indigenous men constitute the contribution the study makes to new knowledge. The study employs a socio-historical and sociological focus to account for the underlying issues by a literature review followed by an ethnographic participant observation methodology. In-depth open-ended interviews with key informants provided the rich qualitative data to compliment literature review findings. For the Indigenous people involved in this study, Islamic religious identity combined with resistance politics formed a significant empowering framework. For them it is a symbolic representation of anti-colonialism and the enduring scourge of social dysfunction in some Indigenous communities.
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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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Murray, Eamon. "A comparison between the theological approach of the 1992 Australian Catholic bishops' statement on the distribution of wealth in Australia, Common wealth for the common good, and some selected theological types." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 1995. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1161.
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The Bishops of the Australian Catholic Church have been issuing annual statements on political, economic and social issues since 1940. The focus of this thesis, the 1992 Bishops' Statement, Common Wealth for the Common Good, has as its main theme the distribution of wealth in Australia. It is the culmination of a five year process of consultation and drafting by the Bishops' Committee for Justice, Development and Peace (BCJDP), under the direction of its Executive Secretary, Dr Michael Costigan. This thesis attempts to identify the theological approach, or perhaps approaches. of the Bishops' Statement by comparing it to five selected theological types. Tile instrument used to assist in the comparison is comprised of a number of theological and socio-economic disciplines. Each of the types and the Bishops' Statement are analysed according to their use of the disciplines and then the Bishops' Statement is compared to the types to conclude whether it matches any one type in particular. This thesis concludes that the Bishops' Statement does in fact correlate almost exactly with one of the selected theological types.
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Lane, Jonathon. "Anchorage in Aboriginal affairs A.P. Elkin on religious continuity and civic obligations /." Connect to full text, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2123/3691.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2008.Title from title screen (viewed November, 11, 2008) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of History, University of Sydney. Degree awarded 2008; thesis submitted 2007. Includes bibliographical references.
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Daw, Joan Margaret, and res cand@acu edu au. "The Relationship Between “The Religious” and “The Secular”: The case of Australian Catholics." Australian Catholic University. School of Arts and Sciences, 2008. http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/digitaltheses/public/adt-acuvp228.20012010.
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This thesis seeks to examine the relationship between the religious and the secular as it pertains to Australian Catholics. The main line of enquiry takes the form of investigating the proposition that sociological approaches to religion that are based on the assumption of secular-religious dualism cannot adequately account for the way practising Australian Catholics live and hold their faith. The central theoretical concern of the thesis relates to the sociological construction of the religious and the secular as derived from a “this world-other world” dichotomy. The classical sociological argument that rationalism underpins the binary distinction between “this world” and the “other world” is challenged in terms of its applicability to Catholicism. Any assumption that a religious sensibility precludes rationality is also challenged. The thesis adopts the perspective of symbolic rationality which is regarded as inclusive of instrumental rationality. From this perspective, there is exploration of the extent to which the Catholic incarnational symbol system can accommodate both this-worldly and other-worldly tendencies. More specifically, there is examination of the proposition that a sacramental sensibility can be associated with the co-existence of apparent opposites – faith / reason, grace / nature, transcendence / immanence. The thesis propositions are tested by analysis of data from the 1996 Catholic Church Life Survey and the 2001 National Church Life Survey. The findings indicate that, for Australian Catholics, orthodoxy of belief is compatible with a sense of paradox and contextuality. Australian Catholics are found to have a tendency to engage humanity in both its “grace” and its “sin”. There is no evidence to support any hypothesis of mutual exclusiveness between Catholic religious commitment and openness to the wider “secular” society. Indeed, it is found that Catholic openness to the “secular” appears to be associated with openness to the “Other” – a central element of the “Catholic ethic”. Catholicism is presented as an organic religion that has the capacity to engage the multiplicities of the socio-cultural environment. Moreover, it is argued that the organic nature of Catholic engagement in secular society can be inclusive of engagement at the structural level of society. Overall, it is argued that many practising Australian Catholics have the ability to hold apparent opposites together and that the classical sociological construction of the religious and the secular in terms of dichotomy does not fit the reality of their lived faith. The thesis concludes that, in the case of Australian Catholics, there is an overarching organic relationship between the religious and the secular that can be inclusive of instrumental relationships on the institutional level.
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Daw, Joan Margaret. "The relationship between "the religious" and "the secular": The case of Australian Catholics." Thesis, Australian Catholic University, 2008. https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/download/f952ffa4c5eb4665b2ce32b5feca4d92e644345359bdac50e127279520f31309/1156854/64840_downloaded_stream_65.pdf.
Full textAbstract:
This thesis seeks to examine the relationship between the religious and the secular as it pertains to Australian Catholics. The main line of enquiry takes the form of investigating the proposition that sociological approaches to religion that are based on the assumption of secular-religious dualism cannot adequately account for the way practising Australian Catholics live and hold their faith. The central theoretical concern of the thesis relates to the sociological construction of the religious and the secular as derived from a 'this world-other world' dichotomy. The classical sociological argument that rationalism underpins the binary distinction between 'this world' and the 'other world' is challenged in terms of its applicability to Catholicism. Any assumption that a religious sensibility precludes rationality is also challenged. The thesis adopts the perspective of symbolic rationality which is regarded as inclusive of instrumental rationality. From this perspective, there is exploration of the extent to which the Catholic incarnational symbol system can accommodate both this-worldly and other-worldly tendencies. More specifically, there is examination of the proposition that a sacramental sensibility can be associated with the co-existence of apparent opposites - faith / reason, grace / nature, transcendence / immanence. The thesis propositions are tested by analysis of data from the 1996 Catholic Church Life Survey and the 2001 National Church Life Survey. The findings indicate that, for Australian Catholics, orthodoxy of belief is compatible with a sense of paradox and contextuality. Australian Catholics are found to have a tendency to engage humanity in both its 'grace' and its 'sin'. There is no evidence to support any hypothesis of mutual exclusiveness between Catholic religious commitment and openness to the wider 'secular' society.;Indeed, it is found that Catholic openness to the 'secular' appears to be associated with openness to the 'Other' - a central element of the 'Catholic ethic'. Catholicism is presented as an organic religion that has the capacity to engage the multiplicities of the socio-cultural environment. Moreover, it is argued that the organic nature of Catholic engagement in secular society can be inclusive of engagement at the structural level of society. Overall, it is argued that many practising Australian Catholics have the ability to hold apparent opposites together and that the classical sociological construction of the religious and the secular in terms of dichotomy does not fit the reality of their lived faith. The thesis concludes that, in the case of Australian Catholics, there is an overarching organic relationship between the religious and the secular that can be inclusive of instrumental relationships on the institutional level.
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Engelhart, Monica. "Extending the tracks : A cross-reductionistic approach to Australian Aboriginal male initiation rites." Doctoral thesis, Stockholm : Almqvist & Wiksell international, 1998. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb37702264t.
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Besly, Catherine. "Religious education and South Australia's state schools in the 1970's /." Title page, contents and conclusion only, 1991. http://web4.library.adelaide.edu.au/theses/09AR/09arb555.pdf.
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Saker, Leslie G. "A study of 1st and 2nd year Catholic university students' perceptions of their senior religious education classes in Catholic schools in Western Australia." Thesis, Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia, 2004. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/797.
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The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of 1st and 2nd year university students of their years eleven and twelve religious education classes at a Catholic school. A secondary purpose was to understand students’ acceptance or non-acceptance of official Catholic Church doctrine/dogma and why. Four research questions were asked to direct the study. 1. Are Catholic schools in Western Australia carrying out the mandate for their existence, that is, the Catholic education of their students? 2. Did students perceive their religious education classes as aiding their religious development? 3. Are students accepting or rejecting important doctrinal teachings of the Catholic Church? If so, why is this the case? 4. How do students perceive their lived experience and the Catholic Church's teaching on morality? Catholic students who had spent their senior years (11 and 12) at a Catholic school, who had studied religious education and who are now 1st and 2nd year students in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University constituted the participants for this study. The study centred upon descriptive research using the interpretative paradigm with a variety of methods to build upon the descriptive approach. With the collection of data, there were two stages. Stage one of the study used the quantitative method of research, the questionnaire, which consisted of six constructs and 75 items administered to 133 1st and 2nd year university students. The analysis of the questionnaire allowed the researcher to prepare for stage two, the interview stage (qualitative research). This stage involved one-to-one interviews. The questions for the interview stage were developed from the analysis of the questionnaire data. To enhance the validity and reliability of the study triangulation of the data was undertaken