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The Quaker-Puritan controversy began as soon as George Fox started preaching, in 1647, but the major part of the polemical writings date from 1653. All of the early Quaker leaders were engaged In the disputes, and all but the radical left wing of Puritan thought is represented. Host of the anti-Quaker writers can he classified as Congregationalists, Baptists, or Presbyterians. The basic Issues under dispute centered on theological and ecclesiological differences, but these were complicated by political and social conflicts. The Quaker refusal to pay tithes, to take oaths, or to give magistrates and others the customary tokens of respect, caused the Qua leers to be frequently regarded as enemies to the State.

This thesis examines the role of the Christian missions of the Paris Evangelical Missionary Society, the Church of Christ and the Roman Catholic Church among the Toka-Leya of southern Zambia. It attempts to view the Christian missionaries and the Toka-Leya as a 'total society' and therefore closely relates the behaviour of the two groups in the mission field. It analyses the ideals and objectives of the sponsoring missionary societies in Europe and America; the aims and motives of the missionaries in the mission field; the social relations between the missionaries and the Toka-Leya, and the Toka-Leya reactions to Christianity, both during the initial period of contact and the contemporary times. In order to both define the Toka-Leya as a social reality and to emphasize the basic differences between their culture and that of the missionaries, a description of their social structure with regard to the economic, political, kinship and religious organization, has been presented. Notwithstanding the set-backs to the efforts of the missionaries soon after the colonial occupation, there has been a steadily rising interest in Christianity among the Toka-Leya. This interest appears to be related to pervasive changes that have been affecting the social structure since the colonial occupation. To the Toka-Leya, the apparent inability of the traditional cosmology to cope with the new changes, which are seen as being disruptive to society, has called for a new approach to the predicament. Christianity, by offering a universalistic interpretation of the new disturbances in society, is more appealing to the Toka-Leya, for it helps them to cope with social change, psychologically and intellectually.

The thesis examines the origins, growth and indigenisation of parachurch movements, in their primary and secondary forms, in the context of established Christianity in Ghana in the post-war era. The historical accounts explore the operations of primary groups, particularly, Scripture Union and kindred Christian Fellowships, stimulating the development of secondary independent evangelistic and charismatic organisations. It includes early and later movements towards independency, culminating in "church formation" a metamorphosis in the whole parachurch movement. The indigenous and exogenous components of the parachurch phenomena - evangelical and Pentecostal, are discussed to indicate the complex multi-1ateral determinant factors involved. The very significant background factors include the traditional religion and national political and socio-economic situations to which the parachurch groups respond in diverse ways. Church relations emerges as the immediate problem in parachurch operations. Parachurch operations are intended to complement that of the Church, but they generate issues of conflict and mistrust which are discussed as they emerge in the historical accounts. Particular international and local efforts towards resolving conflict and promoting co¬ operation are considered. A detailed examination is made of the evangelicalism of the parachurch movements, expressed in terms of doctrinal affirmations, commitment to the Bible and evangelism, and particular modest acts of social concern. A radical brand of evangelicalism emerges with Pentecostal influence, involving the adoption of the music and spirituality of local Pentecostal Churches. Hence the engagement in fasting and extended prayer with glossolalia, particularly in all-night prayer meetings; focus on prophecies and visions; with the ministry of healing and deliverance emerging and enduring as evangelical Pentecostal response to the supernatural realities of the African world. The evangelical pentecostal impact of the parachurch movements on church life is evident in the rise of growth of charismatic renewal movements within the Protestant Churches, as indicated by the case of the Methodist Church which has been selected for special treatment.

A traditional State in the Gold Coast was an amalgamation of towns and villages in a given geographical and ethnic area whose people possessed a common language, culture and religion and ruled by a democratic central government headed by a Paramount chief. The colonial State resulted from the European presence which was motivated by commercial and political interests. It superseded the traditional States but did not destroy them. In their efforts to advance their political interests, the European authorities needed the help of the christian missionaries whom the traditional authorities regarded as part of European political power. The relationship between the colonial State and the Christian Missions was most prominently seen in the field of education. The missionary enterprise resulted in the planting and growth of the Church which had to relate to both the traditional and the colonial States, giving them its social and political allegiance. The religious allegiance of the Church belonged to its Lord and its refusal to give it to the traditional State resulted in conflict between the two. The Church's success in securing a degree of customary law and religious observance exemptions for christians including chiefs, was an aspect of the influence of Christianity which desacralized the traditional State and chiefship to some extent. By providing formal education, the use of the christian press and serving as a role model for African leadership, the Church proved to be the architect of Gold Coast nationalism and thus the achievement of Ghanaian independence. The Church's reaction to some of the policies of the Nkrumah Government compelled it to get actively involved in national politics while living outside party politics. The result is that subsequent course of Church-State relations in Ghana has been dictated by the events which took place under the First Republic. The Church in Ghana is the only conceivable counterbalance to the national State. The Christian Council of Ghana and the Ghana Catholic Bishops' Conference are a powerful instrument for the Church's actions on national issues.

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The aim of this thesis is to address the most important questions raised by the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, which was the only comprehensive census of religion in the history of the modern United Kingdom. The relationship between religion and society is clearly of general interest in all contexts, but perhaps attains a special importance in England and Wales between 1676 and 1851, a cradle of 'modernity'.;Secularisation theory proposes that the social significance of religion necessarily declines under conditions of modernity, yet sociologists have seldom investigated such claims with empirical rigour. Furthermore, historians have only paid limited attention to secularisation theory, and geographers have been altogether silent on the issue. This thesis aims to address these deficiencies in two stages. First, certain core propositions of secularisation theory are investigated using detailed empirical data. Secondly, secularisation theory is used as a basis for comprehending religious change in England and Wales. In this way context is used to evaluate theory, and then theory is used to illuminate context.;To realise these aims, extensive use is made of a very large historical dataset and geographical information system (compiled at both registration-district and parish level). The Religious Census data of 1851 - when combined with earlier religious sources, decennial census data, and other sources - provide a uniquely comprehensive and geographically sensitive basis with which to examine the connections between religion, society, culture and economy.;The results of considerable analysis is to argue that certain of the core propositions of secularisation theory were indeed manifest in England and Wales. The analysis highlights the fundamental importance of religious pluralism: over and above the more usually considered religious practice. It is shown that to pay conceptual and methodological attention to religious pluralism is to help explain the geography of religious practice, and what is usually described as a paradox of Victorian religion - revival and decline.

This thesis contains a history of Bethany Fellowship Missions against the background of developments in the North American Protestant missionary enterprise from 1945 until 1993. In chapters one and two I present the history of North American Protestant organisations and of post-World War II missions. In chapters three through five I discuss the history of Bethany Fellowship, its theology, and major changes that have occurred in the organisation since its inception. In chapters six through eight I discuss Bethany's missionary outreach in Brazil, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico. In chapter nine I discuss developments in post-World War II missions and how those developments have affected Bethany's missionary programme. In chapter ten I discuss Bethany's missions' theory. In chapter eleven I draw my conclusions. My hypothesis in this thesis is that Bethany Fellowship Missions is a useful window into the world of conservative North American evangelical missions for two reasons. First, as a member of the Evangelical Foreign Mission Association, Bethany is an example of North American evangelical missions confessionally. Second, because of its distinctives it is also an example of the extraordinary complexity to be found among such missions.