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Though this thesis has a section on Quaker numbers and distribution and impact at the local level (in Cheshire, Essex and Somerset) and it deals, in an appendix, with Quaker social origins, its main concern is with the impact of the sect during the period 1652-1664, with those aspects of the Quaker movement that brought it into conflict with the authorities and with the way in which the various authorities - local as well as central, in the Interregnum as well as the early Restoration period - dealt with the Quaker problem. The thesis both establishes and accounts for hostility towards the Quakers (at all levels of society), a hostility which during the 1650s intensified dissatisfaction with the Cromwellian regime, encouraging a more conservative religious settlement, and which during the 1660s had something to do with the repressive legislation and paranoia of those years. Fear and hatred of Quakers had clear political repercussions, contributing in part, in 1659, to the reaction that ended in the restoration of the Stuarts. Finally, it is argued that before 1660 the Quakers were not consistent pacifists and did not abstain from politics; that after 1660 the famous peace testimony was slower in developing and less universally accepted than most historians have assumed. For this reason and because of the sect's social radicalism - their opposition to tithes for example - the anxieties of the gentry and ministers were not without foundation.

The roots of Krio Christianity are to be found in a particular period of Nova Scotian religious history. The Black Loyalists, freed slaves, who had fought for the British during the American War of Independence on the promise of land and freedom, found themselves placed in Nova Scotia after the war was over. They arrived in the wake of Henry Alline, the prophet heralding the Great Awakening in Nova Scotia, and encountered an evangelical movement that went beyond the boundaries of the accepted evangelical tradition in Britain. They became involved, some to leadership, in Baptist, Methodist and Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion denominations and absorbed a particular strand of New Light teaching. When the Black Loyalists journeyed to Africa at the invitation of the Sierra Leone Company they brought with them their specific religious beliefs and set up, in 1792, what were in effect the first black churches in tropical Africa. Slaves, recaptured from the holds of slave ships by British squadrons - arrived into Sierra Leone after 1808, disorientated, and without possessions. The Church Missionary Society, already using Freetown as a base, began the specific task of providing Christian instruction, and schooling in the assurance that Sierra Leone would develop as a Christian and therefore civilised country. The formation of the Native Pastorate was seen as the climax of the development of Christianity in Sierra Leone pointing the way ahead for a 'native' bishop. But when a recaptive was appointed bishop it was to the territories beyond the Queen's dominions. Both Bishop Crowther, and Henry Venn, the architect of the self governing church, regarded the Church in Sierra Leone as too English a church for a 'native' bishop. In 70 years the Christianity had changed in character, a change that owed much to the dwindling numbers of Nova Scotians in the Colony and their corresponding decline as role models for the recaptives.

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The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact African American missionaries had on the ethnic reconnection between African Americans and East Africans. Their role in the evangelization of Africa has long been overlooked by historians and this research seeks to correct this disparity. Well before the end of slavery in the USA there was a desire among African Americans to send missionaries to Africa. Approximately 600 of these missionaries went to Africa between 1820 and 1980. Seventy-five percent went to West Africa, 50% went to Liberia alone. The remaining 25% went to South, Central and East Africa. The missionaries who went to East Africa (i.e. Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Eastern Zambia) are the focus of this research. This research begins with a historical overview of African American missions. George Liele was the first documented African American missionary from the USA. Liele went to Jamaica from Savannah, Georgia in 1783. Lott Carey, who went to Liberia in 1821, was the first African American Baptist missionary to Africa. The purpose of this overview is to give the reader a context from which to comprehend the subsequent chapters. The next three chapters represent the major body of this research. They identify the key factors that motivated African American missionaries to go to East Africa. Factors such as calling from God, race, African identity and education are evaluated. The preparatory training of these missionaries is evaluated as is the external influences of Brooker T. Washington and J.J. Coles. The similarities in ancestry, race and some cultural expressions of music are contrasted with differences in education and views of western culture. African perceptions of these missionaries are evaluated along with the perceptions of western missionaries and colonial officials. A discussion of their attitudes towards Islam and African traditional religions is included as is an evaluation of the reasons why they returned to the USA. The changes these missionaries experienced in their cultural understanding of East Africa influenced their understanding of African identity, the gospel and their desire to return to Africa. Their readjustments to American culture are evaluated along with how they maintained their connection with East Africa through letters, literature, fund-raising, and helping Africans come to the USA for education.

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This thesis is an attempt to indicate the importance attached to the episcopate within the early Anglo-Saxon Church and the diverse manner in which episcopal authority was defined. It explores the reason why the role, function and authority of bishops concerned both bishops themselves and others within the Church, and the purposes to which texts defining and describing the conduct of bishops were put. One purpose of the study is to seek to reassess the historical problem of the Christianisation and transformation of early Anglo-Saxon society. This transformation altered the structure of the way in which people thought about their lives. The figure of the bishop became one means by which this transformation could be explored, explained and understood. The episcopate became a locus of authority within a newly Christianised world. The extent to which texts concerned with defining episcopal authority used and explored models and ideas derived from earlier Christian tradition is explored. The introduction establishes some of the parameters of the thesis and shows how a monastic bias has been injected into the study of early Anglo-Saxon history by the writings of Bede and the Tenth-Century monastic reformers. An opening chapter analyses the sources used: hagiography, the writings of Bede and the decrees of church councils. It stresses in particular the need to approach hagiographical sources from a theoretical perspective. Chapter two delineates Bede's conception of the Church as an episcopal institution and shows the manner in which he was concerned to portray the conversion of the English people largely through the work of bishops. It also discusses the functions which Bede expected bishops to perform. Chapter three also on Bede focuses upon the manner in which, as a monastic writer, he conceived the ideal bishop to be both a pastor and a solitary heavily influenced by ascetic and monastic conceptions of the episcopal office.

The principal objective of this thesis is to examine the interaction, during the period from 1846-1900, between the Christian preaching of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the local response of the Efik people in the Cross River basin of present day South-Eastern Nigeria. The historical development of mission preaching in Calabar, as well as its theological background is established. The interpretation of the mission's proclamation by the Efik people in terms of their local religion and culture is treated. The history of Christian proclamation and local response in the region is explored through the following categories of cultural interaction: the representation, rejection, reception, and reformulation of the mission message. The work is an attempt to get beyond crude stereotypes in academic literature of mission preaching as merely a destroyer of indigenous culture. The thesis contends that mission preaching and local response were more diverse than previous scholarly work suggests and that the sources for this study demonstrate how the Efik people were active agents in the transmission of Christianity within the region, rather than passive recipients. It argues that the nature of the mission's evangelism cannot be properly understood without an appropriate recognition of the local religious and cultural categories used by the Efik people to reject, receive, reformulate, and 're-present' the biblical message to others in the area. Conversely, we maintain that to assess properly the contribution of the Efik people in the interpretation and transmission of emerging Efik Christianity, it is necessary to establish the form, the content, and the extent of mission preaching.

Since 1960, particularly in the non-western world, there has been a remarkable increase in the number and size of independent pentecostal-like churches and organisations. Using a case-studies methodology, this thesis analyses the missiology of this 'neopentecostal movement'. Part One of the thesis introduces and sets the historical stage for the movement; Part Two analyses the movement's missiology. This analysis includes its theology of mission, strategies of mission, ecumenism, and sociological factors. The thesis concludes with a three part discussion of some reasons for the movement's popularity and growth, the movement's balance of Christian responsibility and privilege, and finally, some issues that the movement and the larger Church raise for one another.

This study examines the nature and extent of various forms of anti-Catholicism which existed on Tyneside and in County Durham between 1845 and 1870. Previous studies that have touched upon anti-Catholicism in the North East of England have tended to argue that local cultural factors reduced the anti-Catholic feeling which was more evident in other areas of the country during this period. However, in applying and expanding upon previous theories of anti-Catholicism, the study will take a multi-faceted and broader perspective, rather than simply a manifestation of one specific type, to argue that local cultural conditions actively encouraged different forms of anti-Catholicism in different areas within Tyneside and in County Durham. It will demonstrate this through an examination of the major tenets of anti-Catholic ideology and their appeal among the wider population; the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various political campaigns which drew on ‘Conservative’ and ‘Liberal’ anti-Catholic thought; the Protestant response to the resurgence of Catholicism at the local level and the role played by the local Catholic communities in increasing anti-Catholicism; and, finally, the varieties of religious violence, both English and Irish and intra-Irish, which were greatly influenced by local conditions and circumstances. This study has wider implications for our understanding of the pervasive and all-encompassing nature of nineteenth-century English anti-Catholicism generally. It also contributes towards the wider debate on North East regional identity by questioning the continued credibility of a paradigm which views the region as exceptionally tolerant and coherent.