With a history of racial violence and in recent years, low-level ethnic tensions, the themes of peaceful coexistence and social harmony are recurring ones in the discourse of Malaysian society. In such a context, we consider the role of the church as a reconciling agent. We begin by setting out a prima facie case for the doctrine of reconciliation. Interacting with the works of various scholars the main contours of reconciliation are traced, underlining it as a central New Testament theme. Recent years have seen the emergence of missiological readings of reconciliation, and a paradigm of mission in which the social implications of reconciliation highlight the importance of the local church as an agent of peace. Insight into the socio-political context of Malaysia is gained from a survey questionnaire which draws our attention to the relative absence of peacemaking initiatives at the local church level. Seven key themes emerge from the survey results, and the seventh - that of identity, is the key theme to be reckoned with if Malaysian churches are to be agents of reconciliation. This thesis argues that a reconciling presence within a divided society like Malaysia necessitates an ethos of peacemaking. This is created and sustained when Christians understand that their identity has been transformed in Jesus Christ. Our aim will be to demonstrate that being an agent of reconciliation is directly linked to our effectiveness in bearing witness to an identity given by Christ. The concluding section draws from the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to support the idea that peace is created as a result of the integration of the self and sustained not in isolation but in fellowship with our neighbour.

How are contemporary clergy managing their lives? This research explores, in depth, Church of England clergy experiences in the early 21 st century to interpret their enduring vocational commitment to the priesthood. The project resonates with the revived interest by Government and researchers about the place of faith in a secular and multi-cultural British society, including the continuing role of religious professionals within the context of an increasingly marginalized Church. The research is located at the interface of practical theology, social science and critical management. Existing literature about the ordained is characterized either by peer encouragement to resist the secularizing tide or a pastoral concern to discover why some clergy become dysfunctional or leave their ministries, despite evidence that clergy report significant job satisfaction and rarely quit. What has been missing is an empirical study asking clergy what they think about contemporary vocational prospects within the Church. This research therefore is based on 46 qualitative interviews with parish clergy in 42 English dioceses: priests who are 'middle manager' ArealRural Deans with broad experience of ordained ministry. Whilst not wholly representative the experiences reported are relevant to the wider Church of England clergy population facing similar challenges. The findings are related to theoretical frameworks on embodiment, professional identity and the governmentality of vocational bodies and souls at work. Clergy household life is related to the literature on gender, sexuality and marriage, family practices and work - home balance. The findings suggest that clergy remain confident, striving for priestly authenticity and ascribing an ontological, abiding character to priesthood. Faithful to their ordination promises, self-disciplined and resistant to ecclesiastical managerialism, the clergy embrace the sacrificial self with a pragmatic agency, accepting an erosion of privacy and intimate relationships and the accumulative opportunity cost of ordination. They believe, belong and are 'becoming priests' across a lifetime.

Southern Ryedale in North Yorkshire is a rural Church of England deanery in the Diocese of York, with a large number of small villages surrounding a market town. With reducing stipendiary clergy numbers and demographic pressures it faces significant challenges. This study explores what (if any) sort of future might be envisioned for the church in the deanery and the sort of ministry that might be required for that future. Noting that the predominant style of the churches in Southern Ryedale (as in many other rural areas of England) is central, the study explores the nature of central churchmanship as a form of being church that has been - and may continue to be - particularly suited to a rural context. The study seeks to distinguish between the default or inherited form of central that has been prevalent, and a more intentional form that might allow the church to engage with 21st century challenges, not least to grapple with issues of discipleship and mission which may enable it to stem and reverse the decline of numbers which threatens its very survival. A study of two typical benefices within the deanery, one a town benefice and the other a multi-church village benefice, produces evidence that not only matches the central model but also indicates possible hope for the future if embodied in a more intentional model of church. The anticipated further decline of stipendiary clergy numbers will require greater reliance on other forms of ministry, not least that of lay people. The reduced number of stipendiary clergy may well be located in, or based on, the town and, ministering from there to the villages, will have an important role in the oversight and support of lay people in ministry.

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No description available.

This thesis examines the controversy surrounding the doctrine of the atonement and penal substitution which occurred within British evangelicalism as a result of the publication of Steve Chalke and Alan Mann‘s book The Lost Message of Jesus (2003). The primary focus is upon what this controversy can reveal about the function of the doctrine of the atonement and various atonement models, such as penal substitution, in the ongoing construction of British evangelical identity. The doctrine of the atonement is a key theological concept which accompanies crucicentrism, which is a particular focus upon the death and crucifixion of Jesus as salvific events. Religious collectives utilise various aspects of religion, including theological doctrines, in order to mark their corporate identity and distinguish themselves from other collectives. It will be demonstrated that the doctrine of the atonement has been used throughout history as a core marker in the construction of British evangelical identity. Penal substitution, as one model of the atonement, has been of particular significance in further defining the collective identity of one particular group within British evangelicalism, namely conservative evangelicals. For other British evangelical groups, penal substitution has been seen as a less significant aspect of their identity. During the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, contestation concerning the validity of penal substitution intensified and took on an increasingly 'intra-evangelical‘ function; adherence or otherwise to penal substitution contributed to the delineation of boundaries between different types of British evangelicals, particularly between conservative and liberal evangelicals. An analysis of the controversy which occurred during the mid-2000s confirms that this situation has essentially continued into the twenty-first century. This is in terms of both the content and manner of the contestation. The analysis is based upon a review of a wide range of documentary sources, supplemented by new data obtained from a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with some key individuals involved in the controversy. The conclusion is reached that the doctrine of the atonement remains a salient theological concept used by British evangelicals in the construction of their collective identity. Further, that advocacy or rejection of penal substitution also continues to contribute to the delineation of boundaries between different types of British evangelicals.

This thesis examines the impact of difference within English Christian community work practice, setting this work in the context of broader debates over the relationship between faith, politics, identity and practice. Several dimensions of difference are considered, including difference as diversity of practice, difference as contestation of practice, and difference as 'the other'. A multi-stage research design is employed to study these dimensions of difference further, based on analysing usage of the concept of 'good practice'. This concept is found to be continually defined, re-defined, applied into particular situations and contested through everyday interpretations, interactions and processes. The complexity of interests, relationships and structures at different levels are explored through consecutive case studies, highlighting both individual and organisational dynamics. An analysis of the data highlights several areas where current understandings and applications are creating counter-productive tendencies and dilemmas for all those involved. Questions of identity, purpose and learning are all found to be central to understanding and addressing these difficulties. Finally, a refined model of Christian community work is proposed that is based on informal education. This model begins to resolve these difficulties, thus helping to develop an improved understanding of this work to inform policy and practice.

Contemporary wedding ritual is a little-explored area of both the Christian theology and the English social reality of marriage. As persistently important rituals in contemporary England, weddings are of great interest in any attempt to describe and account for the place of ritual in contemporary life. As events which are simultaneously acts of Christian worship, efficacious legal ceremonies and popular cultural rites, Anglican weddings bring into focus numerous issues about the inter-relation of social and religious institutions and experiences, theological responses to contemporary culture, material culture and the defining and mapping of personal relationships. The central part of the research consists of a close, empirical study of weddings in the Church of England. This includes semi-structured interviews with marrying couples and officiating clergy, and observation of weddings and wedding rehearsals. This research was conducted within one deanery in West Yorkshire in 2006 and 2007. Theories of ritual, including rites of passage, and of performance are critically employed to examine the structure and function of wedding ritual, and the way in which specifically Christian ritual is incorporated into and informs a more complex ritual whole. Narrative, an increasingly important interpretative concept in both theology and the social sciences, is also employed as an analytical tool to examine both the way individuals make sense of their own experiences and actions. In addition to a detailed account of contemporary practice, weddings are shown to offer important insights into pastoral and liturgical practice and the ministerial identity of clergy. Moreover, weddings are revealed as vital events in contemporary social life, consolidating and displaying the socially embedded identity of marrying couples.

Diane Ruth Westmoreland Can spiritual maturity be nurtured in Northern English Anglican congregations? An exploration of whether parishioners can grow spiritually through an experiential course on prayer, using methods based in Ignatian practice This project began with an observation that people who joined small rural Church of England churches found it hard to grow beyond the beginnings of faith and that some long-standing church-goers struggled to grow spiritually. A further concern was that the Church of England’s current emphasis on strategies for church growth was diverting congregational leaders away from an appropriate level of attention to the spiritual growth of their congregations. This thesis argues that congregational leaders should be encouraged to give more attention to the nurturing of growth towards spiritual maturity in the local congregation. It does this by asking the question, ‘What is spiritual maturity?’; examining models of human maturity from secular human potential psychology, faith development theory and Ignatian spirituality, before presenting a theoretical model of spiritual maturity. This 12 point model hypothesises that a significant difference between psychological and spiritual understandings of maturity is the discrepancy between human potential psychology’s suggestion of self-actualisation as the goal of human life and surrender to God as a key aspect of spiritual maturing. The research created an extensive original dataset and analysed whether spiritual maturity can be nurtured using methods of ethnographic study and action research. The research tracks 24 participants through an experiential course on prayer, written for this research project, and a sermon series, using semi-structured interviews before and after to assess changes in the participants’ spiritual lives and to enquire whether these changes match the model of spiritual maturity proposed. The contention of the thesis is threefold: that clergy should pay more attention to the nurture of spiritual growth; that Ignatian practice can be used in the congregational setting to nurture spiritual maturity and that corporate spiritual experience has a significance for growth which is currently underestimated.

The purpose of this thesis is to present a theologically informed alternative to common conceptions of sport in contemporary culture, particularly in response to the challenges of doping in athletic competition. In the first part we will examine contemporary ethical perceptions of doping in sport by analysing the major arguments commonly used to justify the current ban on enhancement substances. The outcome will show that the context of the debate fails to account for a more fundamental analysis of the purpose and nature of sport. Part two will develop a framework for conceptualising sport. I will identify sport in the theory of social practices as depicted by Alasdair MacIntyre where sport is premised on the virtues and has no end beyond itself. This theory differs from the views traditionally held by the church which include seeing sport as insignificant, immoral or instrumental. In the third part I will offer suggestions for ways Christian theology contributes to our understanding of sport. We will look at three critical steps necessary in developing a Christian ethic of sport. First, we must reconcile Christian moral practice and participation in sport. After this we must recognise sport’s nature in the context of our human essence. As a third step Christians need to actively recover the spirit of play in sport that stands in contrast to the contemporary sports culture. When we have taken these three steps we begin to see sport differently than does the modern sports culture. In the conclusion I will suggest that, for Christians, sport becomes a form of worship as it points us to God through the components of grace and gratitude. This approach should shape our moral behaviour in sport, including in the issue of doping. It is clear that the benefits sought through enhancements fail to contribute to these purposes in any meaningful way. The motivation behind doping is to gain a competitive advantage and is based on a view of sport that sees winning as the highest value. This is incompatible with a Christian theology of sport.