The aim of this study is to undertake research that will help with the formation of a theology to help the Asante people of Ghana live the Gospel in accordance with their own culture. It seems that the Enrichment model proposed by me can be a paradigm for such an -enterprise. Early Church theologians used the Day of Atonement to formulate its Christology. Similarly, Asante Christians can use the Odwira festival to enrich their theology. The study is divided into three sections. In the 'first section, I look at the backgrounds to Leviticus 16 and the Asante Odwira festival. There are four chapters. In the first chapter, a general introduction of the entire study is outlined.. In chapter 2, Asante beliefs and practices relevant to the Odwira festival are reviewed. In chapter 3, introductory information about the book of Leviticus and Leviticus 16 is discussed. In the four. chapter, ancient Israelite and Asante sacrificial systems are examined. Sacrifice in both communities is a means ofcontact with the spirit world. In the second section, I compare the Day Atonement and the Asante Odwira festival, also in three chapters. In the first part, I undertake a literary and ritual analysis of Leviticus 16. In the second, I analyze the ritual of the Asante Odwira. In the third part, I look at the differences and similarities between the two ceremonies. Clearly, there are differences between the two; however, the remarkable similarities cannot be overlooked. On the whole, in both, the central theme is purification and cleansing. In the last section, I deal with Odwira and Christian witness in Ghana. This section has two chapters. In the first, the introduction of Christianity in Asante by European missionaries and .their evangelistic approach is reviewed. Their techniques were typical of those found in the Replacement model of early Christian theologians; they sought to eradicate the beliefs and practices of the indigenous and replace them with European culture. This did more harm than good, because Christianity was presented as a foreign religion that was totally alien to the culture of the Asante. In the second chapter, I examine how the Odwira can enrich the theology of Asante Christianity. Just as the Jewish, Greek, Roman and European cultures have dictated the beliefs and practices of Christianity, in the same way, the native Asante culture, via its Odwira festival, can contribute meaningfully to Asante Christianity, to make it more Asante than European.

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Pierre-Andre Liege (1921-1979) was a major French Catholic theologian and a prolific writer, whose pastoral ministry inspired thousands. He introduced la theologie pastorale into France, and was an influential figure behind the innovations of Vatican II. This thesis introduces Liege to English readers. Based upon primary sources, interviews, relevant secondary French literature, and the appraisal of representative British texts, it is an exercise in critical, comparative practical theology. It examines the social, ecclesiastical and theological context and content of Liege's pastoral theology. This was prophetic but uncompromising radical but systematic focussed on catechetics, and ambitious for disciples. It was inseparable from his life and action, and sought to reform church praxis in conformity with the gospel, thus building mature Eucharistic communities. The thesis goes on to explore the impact of Liege's work on contemporary and subsequent French practical theology. Then it critiques British practical theology through the lens of Liege's thought. The British approach is revealed as more individualistic and diffuse, focussed on pastoral care, not catechetics, and neither prophetic, nor seeking radical church reform. The thesis concludes that Liege's life and thought demonstrate an essential role for the practical theologian, and the need for a constandy renewed practical theology, if church praxis is to be reformed towards conformity with the gospel. It argues British practical theology can learn from Liege: His use of theology to drive praxis, to transcend its focus on individualistic pastoral care, and to discover a theological discourse transmitting faith could be used to enlarge the British perspective. The thesis proposes an agenda for possible development and change. By presenting Liege as an exemplar of French practical theology, the thesis demonstrates the general value of critical, comparative, international and interdenominational approaches to practical theology and broadens the shared understanding between countries, denominations and theological traditions.

Pastoral care in the University of Cambridge has traditionally been identified with college-based Christian chaplaincies. As the University grows and becomes more diverse and more complex so do the challenges of pastoral care. In the face of these challenges the Chaplaincy to University Staff has been developed. This study is a reflexive exploration of its character; I am the current Chaplain to University Staff. I adopt virtue ethics as the methodological construct, drawing critically and creatively on the late twentieth century scholarship of Alasdair MacIntyre. Using the cardinal and theological virtues as a curriculum of themes I facilitate an intentional scheme of storytelling among six colleagues from secular disciplines with whom I collaborate in the promotion of staff wellbeing. The communal character of virtue ethics is focussed on this small community of colleagues but the storytelling process, in turn, illuminates the political landscape of the wider University as an institution. The participants demonstrate a humanistic diversity in their interpretation of the theological virtues, a similar diversity of understanding around their conception of justice and both passion and modesty in their subtly teleological commitment to the work of staff wellbeing. Special features emerge from the data set including Moments of Semantic Breakthrough, Narratives of Established Habitus and Discourses of Solidarity. The practice of virtue storytelling amongst colleagues with collaborative responsibility for the promotion of staff wellbeing across the University discloses the viability of narrative virtue ethics in this specific context as a way of enabling such people to understand and extend the nature of their work. It further demonstrates the viability of the Chaplain as a supporter and interpreter of virtue. The practice is commended by the participants for further development among wider circles of colleagues as a novel form of reflective practice. I identify a personal interpretative standpoint that stresses the importance of community and interdependence. The model is commended for the practice of chaplaincy in other contexts.

Since the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church has undergone radical transformation in all dimensions of religiosity : in belief, ethical consequences of belief, practice, religious experience and religious belonging. This research concentrates on the last of these five dimensions, as, it is claimed, this subsumes the remaining four. Demonstration is required to show not only that the Catholic Church has changed in its attitude towards religious belonging, but also to highlight how and why religious belonging itself has changed. Such demonstration will be forthcoming at two levels : theoretical and empirical, dividing the thesis into two major sections. In the theoretical section, it will be suggested that religious belonging has changed in the Catholic Church from a uniform organisational model to a pluriform model. The latter allows a selection of four types of religious belonging : the total institution, the family, the closed community and the open network, formed by the Parsonian variables of particularism, universalism, ascription and achievement. Why such a pluriform model has come into being is explained in terms of motivation and (dis)satisfaction. The empirical testing of hypotheses, generated from the theoretical section, concentrates on an international congregation of missionary sisters as its subject. It is argued that a cross-cultural study within the Catholic sisterhood, not only enables the sociologist to examine change in religious belonging, but that sisters are sufficiently representative to permit tentative generalisation to other groups of Catholic Church membership. It is maintained that change in religions belonging can be partially explained by the following simplified model: inner motivation → satisfaction → family belonging/closed community belonging; outer motivation → dissatisfaction → open network belonging.

This work had two objects. The first was to determine the numerical importance of various factors affecting attendance in the Church of England. The second was to analyse the results in a way which would be helpful in all types of pastoral planning. The main factors investigated are age, social class, distance travelled to church, stewardship, the number of full-time workers in, and the population of, a parish. Other factors, which were not, or could not, be analysed, were also reviewed. Because the literature on the subject is very limited - perhaps half a dozen basic items - the author had to rely largely on his sample of 299 one-church parishes in the Greater London Area. The results were not as precise as the author had hopedi the reason for this would appear to be the inevitable omission of semi- or non-guantifiable parameters. In order to help the various committees and others involved in pastoral planning and reorganisation, two sections on estimating the optimum size of a proposed church, and its cost, have been included.

The thesis explores, from a theological and pastoral perspective, the responses of individuals, families and their carers to the deaths of children in the pre-natal, peri-natal and neo-natal period. Setting the changes in both the theory and practice of bereavement care in their historical context, the thesis critically examines a diverse range of international bereavement literature, bringing them into dialogue with each other and offering informed reflection from both a theoretical/academic and multidisciplinary practice perspective which is of relevance to both clinical and non-clinical practitioners. Challenging the predominance of the medical model, the thesis argues that the needs of the bereaved are best met by a dialogical, holistic, person-centred, multi-disciplinary approach, which engages both virtues (particularly characterised by the notion of agape) and skills in reflective practice. Critical questions of identity, relationality and care are addressed not merely as theoretical constructs, but as part and parcel of human experience The first chapter outlines the major themes in the development of bereavement studies from Freud onwards, showing how early-life deaths only became the focus of serious attention relatively late in the twentieth century, and arguing that such early-life deaths are both 'like' and 'un-like' other forms of bereavement. The three following chapters look at miscarriage (and related issues), stillbirth, and neo-natal deaths respectively. Each chapter raises issues which are specific to these particular forms of bereavement and others which re-surface as common themes, extending the scope of the thesis from the effects of such deaths on the individual, to their effects on the family matrix and on caregivers. There is separate discussion of the effects of early-life bereavement on siblings. Finally, through a discussion of ritual and through the collation and analysis of a broad range of liturgical material, including rites concerning both the beginning and end of life, the critical relationship between liturgy and pastoral care is established as a key theme of the thesis.

In 2005 the Church of England explicitly identified mission and evangelism as part of ordained vocation. This marked a shift in the church’s espoused theology recognising clergy as leaders of mission as well as engaging in sacramental ministry, teaching, and pastoral care. However, the difference between the importance placed on mission, and evidence from clergy studies, raise questions as to how mission and evangelism is perceived, and how this in turn affects ministerial practice. To address these questions a cycle of theological reflection was employed utilising constructivist grounded theory methods, in which the selection documents of clergy ordained in 2009 were analysed alongside interviews with clergy on their perceptions of vocation and ministry six years after ordination. The study found that operant theologies of vocation appeared resistant to the increasing importance of mission within the Church of England’s understanding of vocation, with up to a third of participants viewing mission as optional rather than central to vocation. In addition, the study showed deficiencies within the selection process in assessing candidates’ vocation and competency in this area. Furthermore, evidence suggested that those candidates’ lacking experience and motivation to engage in mission at selection did not take advantage of options available during training to engage in mission practice and six years after ordination had not integrated mission in to their personal sense of vocation. In contrast candidates excelling at mission and evangelism at selection used the options available within training to develop further in this area and went on to lead growing churches often developing fresh expressions of church. The thesis argues from normative understandings of ordained vocation as expressed in the ordinal, and from renewed understandings of the diaconate, to offer recommendations for a revision of selection and training which place the vocation to witness at the heart of ordained vocation.

This thesis engages the concept of resilience in light of the disciplines of social science, philosophy, and theology. Viewing resilience through these lenses presents the possibility of ‘re-envisioning’ human responses to adversity in ways that both question assumptions underlying resilience and corroborate current research. Social science data are foundational for understanding factors significant in human resilience to adversity, but may be further ‘thickened’ through narrative accounts of human being. Attention to the hermeneutic phenomenology of Paul Ricoeur provides insight into both the ‘surplus of meaning’ possible through narrative and human identity formed in relation to the Other. These take on added significance when understood in light of the narrative of the Christian Gospel that discloses meaning through relation to the self-giving God. Julian of Norwich serves as an example of the meaningfulness of the Gospel narrative, known through a personal experience of Divine love. Thus, the resilient individual may be re-envisioned through the transformative narrative of the Gospel. A renewed understanding of personhood situates responses to adversity within the meaningfulness of the ‘world’ projected by this narrative. Through participation in the narrative of the Gospel, the love of God engenders human resilience by creating meaning and connection in an environment of eschatological hope.