The career of the Anglican scholar and bishop, Kenneth Cragg, focusses attention on the Christian understanding of other faiths in general and of Islam in particular. Cragg has been a leading exponent of a particular missionary approach to Islam, emphasizing that there is a 'mission to Islam' as much as a mission to Muslims. To this end he interprets Islam as pointing in its deepest meaning towards Christianity, a course which has aroused both admiration and opposition among Christians and Muslims alike. I attempt to show that his theology is strongly influenced by distinctive Anglican traditions, and nourished by one particular Arab Christian source. Cragg, however, resists any easy classification, and faces the accusation of theological evasiveness as well as hermeneutic sleight of hand. His writings show a remarkable consistency over thirty years and point to possibilities for reconciliation between deeply rooted religious antagonisms. A further significance of Cragg is his awareness of contemporary secularity in its interaction with and impact upon religious belief. Here again his conviction that the deepest convictions of unbelief are at heart religious needs to be tested. The central question is whether he illegitimately 'christianises' Islam, and by extension, other faiths and ideologies. His keyword is 'retrieval', but there are attitudes and beliefs that cannot be retrieved, only abandoned. Few would quarrel with the ethics he advocates, but the question remains whether his theological method can be accepted as valid.

Christianity has seen phenomenal growth in sub-Saharan Africa and African churches in the West have also grown rapidly in the last few decades. The majority of members in these churches in the West are migrants and their children. In Britain, these migrant churches represent a vibrant form of Christianity with regard to their visibility and prominence. Considering the challenges these migrants’ churches face in their efforts to evangelise the host community, most migrant members use the churches as the platform for their own expression of personhood, faith and mission. Internal strategies are designed and implemented by the churches to assist members to integrate into the wider society. These strategies otherwise referred to as micro-integration strategies concentrate on preparing the members for living in the communities they reside in. It is argued that these internal strategies determine the level of contextualisation of beliefs and praxis in the host communities, thus creating a new identity that is a combination of Ghanaian and British values. The study has explored how the internal integration strategies and the contextualisation of the Ghanaian migrants’ faith determine the extent to which the churches assume a transnational status in their outlook and the expression of their faith.

This study is an exploration of the experience of faith from a psychodynamic perspective. The main purpose of this study is to provide a coherent and convincing account of the roots and characteristics of Christian women’s faith experience which will complement and, in some respects correct, existing accounts. Attachment theory is mainly employed as a conceptual framework for the research and the study pursues attachment as an important key factor for faith development. Examining the patterns of God-attachment in relation to human attachments, this study employs a qualitative methodological approach, focusing analysis on linguistic meanings, and using open-ended and unforced autobiographical narrative in-depth interviews with a group of 10 Korean Christian women. The main findings indicate what the key characteristics in women’s faithing are: the language, means and context with or in which women practice their faith; the relational and affective understanding of faith within the women’s accounts and the interaction of attachment issues in their experience of faith. Three major patterns are identified in which the women’s faithing strategies and their representations of self and God are presented: these are Distance/Avoidance, Anxiety/Ambivalence and Security/Interdependence. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are identified for Christian education, pastoral care and counselling for women.

Pentecostal and charismatic expressions of Christian faith among Christian Brethren churches of northern Tanzania are the focus of this study. By tracing the historical developments of the Open Brethren and Pentecostal Movements, the work highlights similarities and distinctives which continue in the present to shape a new rising African Christianity that has been defined as 'pentecostal evangelicalism'. Historical origins in mission endeavour shed light on the indigenous development of these Charismatic Brethren and Pentecostal Evangelicals. This new expression of faith is shown to be well adjusted to an African religious and cultural milieu in the given Tanzanian context. It is not denominationally situated but rather bears the marks of revivalist movements. The study incorporates an analysis of opinions expressed by Tanzanians through use of a Q Method survey and thereby attempts to define 'pentecostal evangelicalism'. The thesis concludes by pointing to shema and shalom as theological nodes which describe these charismatic Brethren and suggests their understanding may have value beyond the shores of the African continent.

This thesis investigates the use to which William Langland puts the Glossa Ordinaria to authorise his vision of ethical, social and ecclesiastical reform in Piers Plowman. There was much in late fourteenth-century England to arouse the ire of the reformer and satirist and among Langland's targets was glossing the Bible. Yet the Bible was only available in glossed editions; so why and how did he differentiate between the Glossa Ordinaria and contemporary glossing? The answer seems to lie in the exploitative and dishonest use to which glossing was often put. Langland sees beyond that, however, recognising the ethical perils of linguistic diversity and more serious still, the lack of ethical content in, and even the antinomian tendencies of conventional (mostly Augustinian) understandings of some major Christian doctrines, such as predestination and free will, original sin, grace, the image of God in man, the Incarnation of Christ, and the relationship between wisdom, knowledge and love. This thesis examines the extent to which Langland deviates from these conventional understandings and revisits older understandings with more ethical productivity and a greater motivation for the laity to live ethically. He finds in the Gloss a source of such understandings.

This thesis considers the practice of Bible translation from the perspective of contemporary translation studies and provides a fresh translation and accompanying commentary of aspects of Paul's Letter to the Romans. The emergence of functionalism, particularly skopos theory, in the latter part of the 20th century is seen as a key moment in the development of translation theory. The thesis argues that it has significant advantages over source text orientated approaches which have traditionally dominated Bible translation practice. An essential history documents this evolution of theoretical developments in translation study. The advantages of skopos theory over equivalence-based approaches are discussed with particular reference to Bible translation theory and the work of E. A. Nida. The functionalist approach increases the range of possible translations, with this thesis adopting a foreignising purpose in a new translation of Romans 1:1-15, 15:14-16:27. The foreignising approach owes its origins to F. Schleiermacher (popularised more recently by L. Venuti among others) and involves rendering a text so as to preserve or heighten the sense of otherness of the source text, thereby retaining something of the foreignness of the original. An accompanying commentary is provided to explain the translator's choices.

Present day Methodists are often surprised to learn that ‘women in the Ministry’ is not a twentieth century phenomenon; that the Bible Christians and Primitive Methodists had the flexibility and foresight to make valuable use of female preaching talents. This research has concentrated on the women travelling preachers of Primitive Methodism, starting from the premise that there were doubtless far more than was immediately apparent; searching them out; looking at their life and work; their value and influence within the context of the movement itself and in relation to the strata of society to which it chiefly appealed. I have sought to weigh the contemporary arguments about the merits and demerits of female preaching; to look at the gradual decline and ultimate demise of the female itinerant; to see if an explanation for their disappearance could be found in the prevailing social conditions or if the answer lay within Primitive Methodism itself. As Primitive Methodism moved from enthusiastic evangelism towards consolidation so its emphasis shifted and its attitudes developed and changed. The female travelling preachers played a vital, though often little acknowledged, role in the Connexional evolution and it is this role which I have tried to explore and evaluate.

Medieval Iberian literary tradition constitutes a vast corpus of writings with which to study interfaith relations – in particular, Christian attitudes towards Muslims. This thesis focuses on works produced in the thirteenth century under king Alfonso X of Castile-Leon. Scholars have often looked to Alfonso X's poetry and legal texts to explore Christian responses to Islam, at a pivotal moment of Christian domination in the Peninsula. The thesis looks to Alfonso's historiography (the Estoria de España), which has received much less attention from scholars of interfaith relations. This study employs a historical-critical method of interpretation to explore the transmission and reformulation of Christian society's attitudes towards Islam. It offers a sophisticated analysis of the narratives of three prominent figures in the history of Spanish Islam: a) the Prophet Muhammad, b) Ibn Abi Amir al-Mansur, and c) King al- Mamun of Toledo. The study reveals the wide-ranging and contrasting attitudes towards Muslims visible not only in the writings of Alfonso X, but throughout the broader historiography and literature of medieval Spain. The thesis explains how these contradictions are rooted in the paradoxes of conflict and co-operation among the faiths in the Peninsula. It concludes that the ambivalence of Christian writers allows for the coexistence of both disdain and respect for Muslims in medieval society.

This work studies Christian-Muslim relations in Ghana with special reference to the role of traditional Akan culture. It identifies and examines religious and cultural practices of the Akan people of Ghana that continue to exert strong influence on the people in the wake of the upsurge of Christianity and Islam. These practices have not only succeeded in moulding and shaping both Christianity and Islam into unique entities as found in Ghana but also toning down the ancient rivalries that have existed between them. It is concluded that Christian-Muslim exchanges go beyond theological and historical discussions. They, more importantly, include religious and socio-political practicalities and issues which are found in this work to not only have far-reaching implications for the formulation of images and attitudes of the other religious tradition but also foster effectual and meaningful Christian-Muslim encounters. It is in the context of cultural and, in fact, holistic understanding of Christian-Muslim engagements that the commonalities of the two great religious traditions could be celebrated and the differences inherent in them be deeply appreciated as an asset and not a liability.

This study examines the distinctly ecclesial dimensions of Orthodox thinking on Islam and Muslim-Christian encounters within the context of the modern theological renewal in the Orthodox Church over the past few decades. It shows how by building on the patristic, ecclesial, and liturgical revival over the past half-century – inspired by figures such as Afanassieff, Bulgakov, Florovsky, Lossky, Schmemann, Staniloae, and Zizioulas – Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, Metropolitan Georges (Khodr), Dr. Tarek Mitri, Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), and others have reframed the discussion within the Church, and within ecumenical circles, about Christian-Muslim relations. By creatively applying traditional concepts of christology and pneumatology, they have posited Islam as part of the divine economy for salvation and have publicly endorsed (and directly participated in) Muslim-Christian dialogue. The study surveys these interactions between Orthodox Christians and Muslims and analyzes their significance in the broader context of their collective and independent attempts to redefine their identity during the years 1975-2008. The study concludes that it is now possible to speak of an Orthodox ‘position’ on Islam and relations with Muslims. It also suggests that in their interactions with each other, Orthodox Christians and Muslim are putting forth new paradigms for addressing some of the world’s pressing concerns.