Holiness has fascinated, plagued and mystified the Church for nearly two millennia. One of the most significant controversies on this theme is the issue of cultural influence. With this in mind, I have selected two contemporary figures from very different cultural backgrounds for modem-d~y comparison and contrast in this matter: Therese of Lisieux and William J. Seymour. While both lived near the tum of the last century, they came from vastly dissimilar cultural milieus: Therese from the Republican Monarchist conflict of late nineteenth-century France and Seymour from the post-Civil War racism of American history. Yet, with all of their differences, each strove with utmost diligence to pursue a holy life. This thesis will demonstrate the elements of holiness that are supra-cultural by highlighting the commonalities of these two innovative thinkers and will also illustrate important elements of distinction between them. Both faced a critical cultural dilemma in their day - in America, racism; in France, class division - therefore it is essential to portray the manner in which each overcame, or attempted to overcome, his or her cultural hurdle. Despite societal limitations, they were nonetheless able to offer fresh insights on holiness in their respective settings. In addition, it will be demonstrated that a common historical element exists in the tradition of our key figures which stems from the influence of The Imitation o/Christ. It will be illustrated how the traditions of holiness described in this famous devotional by Thomas aKempis were, directly or indirectly, influential in the lives of these individuals. Consequently, one will be able to observe that the two greatest revival movements o fthe twentieth century share a familiar connection as regards holiness; namely, the writings of a fifteenth-century Roman Catholic monk. The influence of Thomas aKempis in combination with the cultural influences of Therese of Lisieux's and William J. Seymour's respective settings brings new insight to this vital subject.

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The purpose of this study has been primarily to explore the meaning of baptism to mothers in the North-East. It also aims to address the situation in which despite a decline in regular congregations the church receives a significant number of requests for baptisms amongst families who rarely return to church attendance after the baptism. To explore these issues the thesis has reviewed the available literature on baptism, and adopted several methods to ‘hear the voices’ of mothers and parish clergy. These include participant observation, interviewing, questionnaires, and reflexivity. Chapter 2 looks at the story of the research, situating it within a history of infant baptism and describing how I did the research. Chapters 3 – 5 summarise and describe the data from focus groups, the questionnaire and from conversations with mothers and with clergy. Chapters 6 – 8 offer an analysis of the data; Chapters 9 – 10 offer a theological interpretation of the data; and Chapter 11 highlights some implications of the research for the Church. While much has been written on the rite of Baptism from a historical, theological and ecclesiological perspective, there has been little work done on the perceptions of the mothers who participate in the rite. I argue that Baptism is as meaningful for mothers as it is for the clergy as connections are made to the past and to the future, to the gathered community and to God. I explore the christening as an opportunity for mothers to perform motherhood, displaying themselves and their children as ‘respectable’. I interpret this as their ascribing social and familial identity to the child and developing their own family (howsoever constructed) narratives. Theoretically speaking, I argue that, in Rappaport’s terms, the Ultimate Sacred Postulate for these mothers is family, with the child representing renewed hope for the perpetuation of that family. This thesis exposes the challenge faced by a mission-focussed Church, seeking to halt decline through growing congregations, when faced with women (and, indeed, families) whose sense of belonging and desire for God’s blessing does not lead to regular (or even occasional) commitment to a congregation.

This thesis seeks to construct a contemporary spirituality of bodily diminishment rooted in Bonaventure’s theological synthesis, particularly his category of the aesthetic, which, the author argues, provides both a lens for understanding the experience of diminishment, and a way of harnessing it constructively in service of the self’s soteriological journey. Reading Bonaventure’s Trinitarian metaphysics as the framework of his soteriology, this thesis begins by examining key Bonaventurean aesthetic concepts such as fruitfulness, light and proportion before asking how such concepts can illumine the body’s participation in the self’s journey to God—a journey which Bonaventure describes as a primarily noetic or spiritual ascent. Sin is introduced as a “greed” or possessive quality that fractures apart the body-soul self who was called to become whole and “beautiful” through the act of contemplation. This greed, it is shown, has left worldly corporeality (including the human body) abandoned to diminishment and death, an aesthetic harnessed and transfigured by Christ in the paschal mystery. There the “ugliness” of body-soul fragmentation ceases to be terminal, and instead becomes the new face and means of the Christ-formed self's “becoming.” The new aesthetic possibilities opened up to fallen humanity through the paschal mystery are traced throughout Bonaventure’s Major Life of Francis, and particularly the stigmata event, which this thesis reads as a profound revelation of Francis’ own transfigured diminishment. In addition to the Major Life (Legenda maior), central texts used for this constructive project include Bonaventure’s Collationes in hexaemeron and Lignum vitae. In addition to soteriology and aesthetics, key theological concepts explored include Christology, the Trinity, anthropology, apophaticism, sin, death, glory, virtue and poverty.

In this thesis, I argue that when Christ uttered the Eucharistic words of institution, and when ministers do the same, the bread / wine of the Eucharist is consecrated and renamed, bringing about a metaphysical state of affairs much like the Incarnation where the consecrated and renamed objects are both bread or wine and a part of Christ's extended body. As this thesis is an instance of Analytic Theology that takes the history of theological reflection seriously, I first introduce the analytic methodology, some metaphysical presuppositions, and an analysis of traditional views on the metaphysics of the Eucharist. Next, I present foundational Biblical material focusing on a linguistic and narrative exposition of the Last Supper, from the accounts in the Syonptic Gospels, 1 Corinthians 10-11, John 13-17, and Luke 24. Here I also introduce the recent Eucharistic theology of George Hunsinger, who is a regular interlocutor throughout the thesis. Chapters 3 and 4 make use of recent work in speech-act theory in order to describe how the Eucharistic elements are consecrated and renamed, resulting in the predications 'is bread' and 'is the body of Christ' being apt of the consecrated object. I also introduce an action account of divine omnipresence that provides an underlying motif for Christ's presence in the Eucharist. I then offer an exposition and advancement of recent analytic discussions of Chalcedonian Christology, specifically' three-part, concrete, compositionalism' elucidated by enabling externalism. This is then utilised in the next two chapters to delineate three types of incarnational models of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. I argue that one of these models better fits with the Scriptural, liturgical, and Christological material, and is in accord with Hunsinger's work. Thus, this model is offered as a Scripturally-grounded, historically-informed, metaphysically-coherent, and (potentially) ecumenicallyattractive incarnational model of Christ's presence in the Eucharist.

While desire for salvation forms the foundation of all Christian investigation, the modes through which salvation is explored vary between different theologians. William of St. Thierry, while leaving behind a wealth of extant sources, is frequently overlooked in the academic and theological investigation of the subject. This study undertakes an in-depth investigation of William’s writings, focused on pnuematological soteriology and an explanation of the characteristic elements which made up his thinking on this core. William investigates the Holy Spirit through three major identities: Will, Love and Unity. As a result of the fact that these characteristics also exist within humanity, and of the intimacy of the subject matter, this study is informative both to those studying historical theology, and to those seeking the spiritual origins of western anthropology and identity. In order to reveal the particular contours of William’s theology, it is important to compare him to the theologians on which he drew, and to those in whose company he was writing. This study compares William with the two patristic thinkers who exerted the greatest influence on his work: Origen of Antioch and St. Augustine of Hippo. It also draws comparison with four of William’s contemporaries, each representing different intellectual communities of the time: St. Anselm of Canterbury, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St. Victor, and Peter Abelard. This comparison is important in order to appreciate William’s theology in light of its own principles.

The Fruyte of Redempcyon is an early sixteenth-century English vernacular devotional text which presents loosely-structured prayers and meditations on the events of Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension, focussing mainly on the events of the Passion. In its time it was extremely popular (being printed five times between 1514 and 1532), but since then there has been relatively little attention paid to it or to its compiler/author, the anchorite Symon Appulby (died c.1537). There initially appears to be no particular reason for The Fruyte’s contemporary popularity, but in some respects its very ordinariness was the key to its success. This text was aimed at English-literate lay people to help with their personal devotions, offering unquestionably orthodox and ‘safe’ content, yet it also offered its readers something less well-known in the way in which it presented that content. Through examination of the selection and use of the Latin source materials, analysis of sections of the original English writing which has not been undertaken before, and consideration of the placement and purpose of the woodcuts within the printed editions, The Fruyte is revealed as providing a unique glimpse into the reading preferences of the devout laity in the decades immediately before the English Reformation. Symon Appulby’s position and location as an anchorite attached to a parish on the edge of the City of London is also an important consideration in determining the significance of The Fruyte of Redempcyon to a greater understanding of this period.

The late twentieth and early twenty first centuries have seen developments within atonement theology that seek to promote nonviolence by removing the cross of Christ as the central work of Christ, producing what has become known as “nonviolent atonement theology.” Previous research has critiqued these developments by assessing them individually and using hermeneutical, historical and theological criteria. However, it will be argued in this study that nonviolent theology is motived by an ethical concern for the Other, a grouping which will be defined as those outside positions of power and at risk of oppression. The nonviolent atonement theology of literary critic and anthropologist Rene Girard, feminist theologians Rosemary Radford Ruether, Mary Grey and Rita Brock and Ann Parker, and Anabaptist thinker J. Denney Weaver are critically discussed, showing how this concern for the Other has led to political understandings of the doctrines of sin, the work of Christ and salvation. Having assessed these developments the thesis argues that nonviolent atonement theology has a potentially negative impact upon the Other, while providing an alternativecruciform model in the work of P.T. Forsyth. It is the contention of this thesis that Forsyth’scruciform theology offers a plausible alternative to nonviolent atonement theology due to the interweaving of kenotic and sociopolitical themes within a form of atonement theology that remains substitutionary.

Despite the fundamentally historical nature of the Christian faith the history of biblical interpretation has been marked by periods in which the Bible was read through the lens of faith with little regard for history using the principles of allegory (the late classical and medieval Church), or through the lens of history with little regard for faith using the tools of historical criticism. The following is an argument that this conflict is rooted in the failure to give to historical time an authentically Christian theological purpose. History as a means of revelation was rejected by the Greeks and this prejudice set the stage for how a hellenized Church approached it. Generally it was an ambivalent acceptance of it. A concept of history that justifies it as a faithful hermeneutical tool must be rooted in the Incarnation in order to unite it to divine eternity. By this means Scripture can be seen to be both the eternal word of God and the historically written words of men simultaneously. The Incarnation is here seen as the sole means whereby the Creator can unite with and interact with his creation. And it should be used as a template for interpreting all actions of God in the world, especially revelation. The central premise of such a hermeneutic is that the eternal cannot be known to the created unless it comes in created, therefore spacial and temporal form. This argument will begin as a historical study of early biblical interpretation to trace the development of the practice of allegory. From there a study of time in the thoughts of two central theologians of the Latin and Greek Church, Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, followed by an examination of the use of history in modern theologians. A more detailed examination of the subject of time and God's relationship to it will be made with a concluding section tracing out the principles of an incarnational hermeneutic.

This thesis brings together the two fields of missiology and Wesleyan studies, in order to develop a theology of participation in the missio Dei from the perspective of whole-life discipleship. Barth’s re-articulation of mission as an activity of God and the subsequent emergence of the missio Dei concept has shifted missiological thinking from an anthropocentric view of mission to the understanding that the church and persons are participants in the missio Dei. This thesis argues for the missio Dei to be defined as the grace of the triune God moving in, through, and with the world, that all might be drawn into the life-transforming embrace of divine love. The thesis argues that all narratives are held in tension within one grand narrative, the Bible. No person is in existence outside of this grand narrative. This is not a statement of fact but a confession of faith. The statement of fact is that the biblical grand narrative, the story of the triune God’s creation, redemption and sanctification, claims the status of being applicable to all persons and narratives. The thesis argues for defining grace as the presence, pardon, and power of God that moves in, through, and with the world. Jesus Christ is the meritorious means while the Holy Spirit is the efficacious means making possible the participation of all persons in the missio Dei. The central argument of the thesis, then, is that one participates in the missio Dei by participating in the means of grace, or the spiritual disciplines of piety and mercy. There are two original contributions. First, a Wesleyan perspective of grace and the means of grace inform the development of a theology of participation in the missio Dei that overcomes the repetitive articulations of mission as simply being human action or divine action. Second, through the means of grace, Christian disciples participate in the missio Dei as those transformed by God’s love and those through whom that love embraces and transforms the world. Twenty-first century missiology is illumined as the missio Dei concept is articulated as fully divine yet inseparable from human activity through the Wesleyan notion of co-operant grace, thereby positing the understanding that ecclesiology is informed through attention to disciplined discipleship. An implication of this argument for contemporary mission is that it is applicable for all persons, all ages, and all ecclesial expressions of the Christian church as participation in the missio Dei through the means of grace is understood to be a holistic way of life where spiritual formation is understood as inseparable from justice ministries.