While recent decades have shown interest in early Christian hermeneutics for scripture, application – and even understanding of – those hermeneutics has been complicated by a pattern of suspicion characterizing the modern world when it considers its ancient counterpart, notably the prejudice that ancient Christian interpretation is relatively unconcerned for history and the (putative) literal sense. This dissertation proposes that that modern legacy deserves to be revised for a postmodern environment both out of concern for properly historical concerns and as a theolegoumenon for the postmodern scene. Specifically, once the ethos and theology of reading in the early Church is explored as the backdrop against which ancient interpretations were regarded as plausible and compelling, its interpretive priorities turn out to be less implausible to the modern world than they have seemed to be. Related to this, once the emerging, postmodern world is, also, explored, it seems possible and productive to translate or recontextualize into our setting the pre-understandings of early Christians regarding books generally and holy writ specifically, particularly their ontology of scripture that related it dialectically to the Church's consciousness of its Rule of Faith and discernment of God's ongoing epic of salvation. A conclusion suggests ways in which this “translation” might be pursued.

This thesis examines the narrative and non-narrative interpretive approaches to Jesus’ parables employed in early Christian Gospels (Thomas, Matthew, Mark, and Luke) in order to understand some of the inherent tendencies of these hermeneutical approaches. Chapter One outlines the narrative and non-narrative interpretations, what I call ‘mural’ and ‘data’ approaches, with special reference to the works of Hans Frei and Rudolf Bultmann as their modern representatives. In his form criticism and hermeneutical approach, Bultmann aptly represents a ‘data’ approach to the Jesus tradition, analogous to the Gospel of Thomas. Conversely, Hans Frei represents the ‘mural’ approaches of the narrative gospels by understanding the narrative unfolding of Jesus’ life to be constitutive of his identity. Through an investigation of Thomas’ compositional history, Chapter Two justifies a comparison between Thomas and Mt/Mk/Lk by placing Thomas next to these texts as a fourth synoptic witness. As a textual tradition in constant motion, Thomas cannot be located outside of the synoptic tradition as either an early, pristine testimony to a non-narrative Jesus tradition, or a late deviation from a prior narrative trajectory. Consequently, the employment of either a ‘mural’ or ‘data’ approach by these early Christian Gospels is a hermeneutical choice reflecting these texts’ interpretive aims. Chapter Three investigates the understanding of history espoused by the ‘mural’ and ‘data’ approaches through a comparison of Matthew, Thomas, and Luke’s interpretations of the parable of the lost sheep. Existing along a common spectrum in their understandings of the relationship between the past of Jesus’ ministry and its present-day significance, Luke’s biographical hermeneutic exclusively articulates the parable’s past meaning without reference to the present, Thomas’ de-historicizing hermeneutic sacrifices the past in favor of the present, while Matthew resides between the two, narrating the past of Jesus’ ministry in an exemplary fashion with an eye toward its present-day significance. Chapter Four takes up the issue of Christology entailed by the ‘data’ and ‘mural’ approaches to the parable of the tenants. In their renderings of the parable, it is the narrative contexts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke which enable vivid Christological readings as the narrative of the parable interfaces with the narrative world of Jesus’ ministry. Without such an anchoring in a narrative of Jesus’ life, Thomas’ ‘data’ interpretation fails to assume Christological significance and reflects a wider indifference to Jesus’ particular personhood. In these ways, narrative preserves Jesus’ history, thereby providing a more fertile ground for Christological reflection, while a non-narrative approach intrinsically expresses little interest in either Jesus’ history or his identity.

The Fresh Expressions of Church are a new form of Anglican church planting that emphasises an incarnational or encultured methodology which recognises that simply repeating existing patterns fails to connect to the majority of society. However, within both the Church of England and the Anglican Church of Australia, the Fresh Expressions movement has been attacked as being illegitimate owing to its extra-parochial nature. This thesis argues that the parochial system is not the defining feature of Anglicanism, and that the debate should be refocused on the Anglican Formularies as the normative expression of the Church’s theology and practice. Central to these Formularies is the authority and use of Scripture. So this thesis argues that in considering the legitimacy of the Fresh Expressions movement attention needs instead to be given to the Anglican Church of Australia’s espoused theology and practice regarding the Bible. These beliefs are then to be brought into dialogue with practices of the Fresh Expression churches. While due weight is given to the academic debate around Anglican identity, this research focuses instead on practice; espoused belief is an insufficient measure of ecclesial identity and churches need to be considered through what they do. This research was carried out in three Fresh Expression churches and one Inherited church, all of which belong to the Anglican Church of Australia. Field research was conducted through a questionnaire followed by participant-observer work. The Fresh Expression churches considered in this thesis express positive Anglican identity through their use of the Bible and through another core feature of Anglican identity and practice – that is, the ordination injunction from the Church of England ‘to proclaim the gospel afresh to each generation’. ‘Afresh’ does not simply mean repeating the message, but rather is a process that can only be done through giving due weight to the social, economic, and educational factors that inform each individual church’s area or network of ministry. The contention of this thesis is that the Fresh Expression churches considered individually display some aspects of Anglican identity through their practices and thus encourage the movement as a whole to reflect on how to more fully express their place in the Anglican family. This thesis also argues for the central importance of the authorised leadership in maintaining Anglican identity through practice while engaging in enculturated mission and ministry.

The aim of this thesis is to present a case for the importance of typology, both in the relationship between Scripture and sacrament and for the inclusion of the Christian believer into the drama of redemption. I endeavour to demonstrate the theoretical possibility of an account of the operation and efficacy of baptism for which typology is integral. Exploring canonical and historical uses of the biblical narratives of Exodus and the Red Sea crossing, I give examples of the scriptural resources afforded to such an account and of the shapes that it might take. In the opening chapter of the thesis, I build on the methodological foundation of Louis-Marie Chauvet’s account of the symbolic efficacy of the sacraments, developing his position in a direction that places a greater accent upon temporality. Within my second chapter, I present a theological account and defence of typological hermeneutics. In the two chapters that follow, I trace the contours of Exodus and Red Sea crossing typology within the Old and New Testaments. Chapters 5 and 6 advance an integrated account of Scripture, the Church, the sacraments, and the body, drawing together the various threads of my argument to that point. I argue that typology provides a means by which we can mediate between elements of Christian faith and practice that are often disjointed. In Chapter 7, I discuss the use of Red Sea crossing typology within baptismal liturgy and teaching in the first four centuries of the Church. I reflect critically upon the liturgical piety of the fourth and fifth centuries. My final chapter employs the work of Charles Taylor to frame our current crisis of liturgical piety. I conclude that a recovery of typology provides us with invaluable resources with which to address the particular problems that Christian liturgy currently faces.

How do practices contribute to the formation of the mind of Christ in community such that the community truly becomes the body of Christ?” This dissertation demonstrates that Christ acts on his Church through a complex interaction of community and practices to generate the identity, diversity, and virtue of his body. This is a controversial claim because many hold that the matter of virtue rightly consists of adherence to cherished foundations like Scripture and tradition accompanied by calls to obedience. Nonetheless, this study seeks to identify resources to help the Church imagine a virtue ethics appropriate to a 21st century communion ecclesiology. It does so by reading Richard Hooker as an ecclesial ethicist. Examining Hooker’s accounts of Scripture, participation, and liturgical practices, the dissertation develops a Hookerian account that extends the ecclesial ethics of Stanley Hauerwas and Sam Wells on both ends. On the front end, it derives from first principles an account of how humans come to see themselves as part of the theodrama in which improvisation is required. On the back end, it grounds improvisation in a theory of mimetic virtue. Along the way it shows how a largely Barthian Christology coheres with a positive account of sacramental practices and that a Hauerwasian emphasis on practices is not sectarian. Hooker’s repudiation of appeals to timeless absolutes in ethical reasoning and his demonstration that the self-ordering of the Church is phronetic action means that contemporary “liberal accommodationism” and “postliberal traditionalism” can no longer coopt Hooker to justify their ideologies.

How does one read the Old Testament as Christian Scripture? This question, voiced in an academic setting, invites a reflection on how to take biblical texts with both hermeneutical alertness and sustained imaginative seriousness. While scholars have recently engaged in robust discussion about theological hermeneutics there have been relatively few worked examples with particular Old Testament texts. My dissertation seeks to meet this need by providing a close reading of Isaiah 14.3-23, a text with a complex amalgam of textual, historical-critical, history of reception, and theological issues.

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The issue that I explore in this research is the understanding and praxis of integral mission by the Pentecostal churches in Honduras. The main question, which I seek to answer, is what Pentecostals in Honduras understand by integral mission. The study explores mission as carried out by Pentecostal churches in the local communities. The research process makes use of the interview and case study for the collection of data. It explores social, economic and political conditions of Honduras. It also examines the spiritual strength of the Pentecostal churches while serving people. Human transformation is dependent on the solution proposed by Pentecostals to solve the problems of poverty and marginalisation. For some, these social ills are endemic and for that reason they seem to be irreversible. But for those who believe in the transforming power of the gospel and serve in the strength and purpose of the Holy Spirit, such conditions are seen as opportunities for an integral and redemptive mission. The structure of this study is designed from the general to the specific. It also draws information from the historical Evangelical movement, the Roman Catholic Church and Pentecostal scenarios in Latin America and Honduras in particular. It opens up a debate in the Pentecostal theology of integral mission. It promotes a constructive reflection and a mature dialogue between Pentecostals and other Christian organisations that are involved in mission. This research shows that it is possible for Pentecostals to reach mutual understanding and co-operation for mission work with other bodies in true bonds of cooperation. This study could benefit Pentecostals as they explore new opportunities for social service, economic development, political participation and human transformation.

My thesis proposes a theological conceptualisation for understanding gospel and culture relationships in the field of Christian mission. I begin by investigating whether the missiological categories of contextualisation and inculturation are adequate for describing how the Christian gospel is offered from one culture to another. Can the categorical metaphor, ‘translation,’ construed conceptually rather than linguistically, add a more fruitful and comprehensive way of understanding how the Christian message is transmitted across cultures? I contend that ‘mission as translation’ incorporates numerous features of contextualisation and inculturation, yet avoids weaknesses of those two interpretations. The incipient theory of mission as translation has been articulated by mission historians, Andrew Walls and Lamin Sanneh, and theologian Kwame Bediako. I use reading of key texts of these scholars to build a conceptual approach to mission as translation. I contrast their translation principles with the work of two Roman Catholic missiologists, Stephen Bevans and Robert Schreiter, proponents of mission as contextualisation. In developing the argument for my thesis, I explore insights gleaned from studying linguistics, hermeneutics and translation studies. I go on to identify three ‘linguistic translation’ features: similarity and difference, transformation, and multiplicity, and then apply Eugene Nida’s communication theory to missional translation. Drawing on heuristic insights from Michael Polanyi, I take Nida’s translation theory further and suggest that relevance theory, interpreted by Ernst-August Gutt, provides a way forward in translation studies. I argue that Polanyi’s notions of discovery and indwelling offer methodological categories to describe how a mission translator pays attention to cultural particulars and integrates them into perceived meaningful patterns. I use Polanyi’s notion of the tacit dimension as the primary hermeneutical tool in understanding mission as translation. Finally, I test mission as translation by applying it to three case studies and conclude by discussing the three ‘linguistic translation’ features in light of Christian mission.

This thesis is an investigation of the liturgical inculturation of Anglican worship in Sabah, Malaysia. This study is essential in order to assess the impact of Anglicanism on the spirituality of the indigenous people, specifically the Kadazandusun in the context of worship with a view to inculturation of the liturgy. The research methodology employed in this thesis includes historical, survey, analytical liturgical study and the personal context of the researcher as a significant insider. The historical approach reviews, examines and interprets the historical developments of the Anglican Church of Sabah in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Survey in the forms of interviews and questionnaire assess how Christianity had challenged the religio-cultural beliefs and practices of the Kadazandusun and their understanding of the gospel. The analytical liturgical study identify convergent and divergent practices in the process of inculturating the Anglican worship for the fostering of the Christian spirituality of the indigenous people in the Anglican Church of Sabah. The researcher, as a significant insider, provides strong additional series of insights for this project. This thesis is organised into three parts corresponding to three movements of inculturation in the Anglican Church of Sabah. The first part is an investigation of the first movement, which encompasses the encounter between the Kadazandusun religiocultural beliefs and Anglican Christianity introduced by the missionary groups in Sabah. The second part is the examination of the second movement – a critique of the encounter between Anglican worship and Kadazandusun spirituality. The third part is an evaluation of the Anglican worship in Sabah, specifically analysing the factors that have contributed to the hindrances of integrating the gospel with the lives of the people through worship. It is the goal of this thesis to challenge the Anglican Church of Sabah to embrace indigenous Christian worship by implementing inculturation in light of the spirituality of the indigenous people, specifically the Kadazandusun. This will be implemented in a multicultural context in Malaysia.