The thesis follows the stages of the Reformation from the late-medieval Church to the Elizabethan Church and later Separatist groups in eighteen parishes of the upper River Tove valley. A number of ideas and assumptions about the Reformation have been tested for the area. An important finding is that even in this small area the timing and pace of the Reformation varied between individual parishes and occurred in different ways. There is shown to have been a diversity and variety of piety between and within communities across the period of the study. It is shown that changes had begun before the Dissolution, making Henry VIII’s reforms easier to accept; that there was no Marian revival of Catholicism in the area; and that the main element in the timing of reform was the different influences at work in the parishes. After an introductory chapter, evidence is presented in five more chapters that are entitled: the Study Area; the Late-medieval Church; Wills and Religious Beliefs; Influences in the Parishes; and the Growth of Dissent. These are followed by a Conclusion, outlining the main findings of the thesis, the advantages of the methodology used, and how the thesis is a new type of study of the Reformation.

Early sixteenth century radical Anabaptism emanated in Switzerland during Huldrych Zwingli's protest against the Roman Catholic Church. Much like Martin Luther, Zwingli founded his reform effort on the Bible being the final arbiter of the faith, sola scriptura, and the sufficiency of the shed blood of Christ plus nothing for eternal salvation, sola fide. Based on these principles both adopted the doctrine of the Priesthood of the Believer which recognized every believer's Spirit empowered ability to read and interpret the Bible for themselves. These initial theological tenets resulted in the literal reading of the Bible and a very pragmatic Christian praxis including a Pauline pneumatology that recognized the efficacy of the manifestation of the charismata. Radical adherents of Zwingli rejected infant baptism as being totally unbiblical and insisted upon the rebaptism of adults but only on a personal confession of faith, thus the term Anabaptist. Notwithstanding any knowledge of the Anabaptist movement, early twentieth century Pentecostalism had a similar response to a literal reading of Paul with the same results, the manifestation of the charismata. This thesis identifies the similarities between Anabaptism and Pentecostalism notwithstanding the lack of knowledge of the early Anabaptist movement on the part of early Pentecostals.

When Pentecostal-Charismatic [P-C] theologians look for theological resources, John Calvin is rarely first choice. This thesis explores how the Reformer's theology of human participation in God through Union with Christ offers a rich, untapped, resource for constructing a theology for P-C worship. It moves through three key questions: I. What is the distinct understanding of divine-human relationship captured in the instinctive praxis of Charismatic worship? 2. How does Calvin's notion of Union with Christ provide a theological grounding for, and critique of the notion of intimacy and encounter with God at the heart of Charismatic worship experience? 3. Can the dialogue between these two traditions form the basis for constructing a wider Trinitarian theology of Christian worship that is a synthesis of pneumatological emphasis and Christo-centricity. Union with Christ is found to provide a missing soteriological lens for P-C worship whilst P-C worship invites an expansion of the notion of 'visible grace' and the 'accommodation' of God. United by their shared pneumatological emphasis, together both traditions offer a new framework for constructing a theology of worship that expands existing sacramental models. This 'Trinitarian Participatory Ontology' places both Christ and the Spirit as central to mediating human participation in God.

It is argued that an exclusive theology of evangelism can contribute to a public theology in a multicultural and Muslim majority context. The result theologically contributes towards a contextual articulation of an exclusive faith to a pluralistic public. On the practical level, this theology of evangelism provides a public theology for Chinese-Indonesian Charismatics to express their exclusive faith to the wider Indonesian public, mainly the Javanese Muslims. A unified paradigm of theology as wisdom is utilised in this research to discern the psychological, cosmic and public aspects of the belief and practices of ordinary Charismatics. This 'ordinary theology' is portrayed through qualitative research in a case study megachurch in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. An interdisciplinary approach towards these psychological and cosmic aspects is done by employing a Jungian personality psychology theory and a managerial philosophy for a non-profit organisation. This study shows the influence of evangelism in the extensive public engagement of Indonesian Charismatic megachurches. These findings indicate a potentiality of such exclusive faith to speak publicly that is elaborated through Miroslav Volf's proposal on political pluralism, which assumes an authentic voice for religious exclusivism. This provides an alternative articulation of Charismatic academic theology besides the common systematic expression.

This thesis seeks to illustrate the substantial contribution which John Owen, Bishop of St. David's, made to the campaign against the disestablishment of the Anglican Church within Wales, and the foundation of the Church in Wales. Owen's significant contribution to this important period within Welsh ecclesiastical history has not been acknowledged. This thesis demonstrates that Owen played an invaluable role not only in opposing the various measures which sought to disestablish, disendow and dismember the Anglican Church, but also in preparing the Church for its new disestablished status following the successful passing of the disestablishment measure in 1914. The thesis draws on the extensive pamphlet material which was published by Owen during his episcopacy, a resource which has largely remained unused, which provides the basis for the distinctive voice which he provided during this period of significant religious and political change. Through the substantial use of these materials, together with other contemporary and scholarly work, it is clear that Owen's significant involvement in the debates was a crucial element of the Church's response to its opponents. Owen vigorously demonstrated through political argument and factual detail, the Church's position in respect of a wide range of issues, which encompassed the disestablishment debate, and he remained committed to facilitating a positive beginning for the Church upon its disestablishment in 1920. Through the exploration of Owen's life and work, this thesis provides insight into the disestablishment campaign from an Anglican perspective, it offers new insight into the history of the foundation of the Church in Wales, and is a contribution to the history of Christianity in Wales in the twentieth century.

Drawing upon the tools of spatial analysis, this study examines varieties of sacred space crafted at Stone Mountain Park, near Atlanta, Georgia. The focus on spatial aspects of religious practices at Stone Mountain grounds three over-arching methodological objectives of the thesis. The first is to further develop and extend spatial analysis within the academic study of religion. The second objective is to illustrate the need to expand the parameters of the contested term religion and its correlate sacred space to reflect the variety of social practices that fall outside the domains of traditionally conceived religious or sacred structures and locations. The third objective is to explore connecting threads between spatial analysis of religious practices and religious identity formation. Taken together, these three objectives provide an interpretative framework for five case studies examining the spatial history of the location, the emplacement of the Lost cause mythology at the site, differences between the decades old Easter sunrise service, and a more recent Via Crucis pilgrimage on Good Friday, the emergence of contemporary New Age spiritual practices on the monadnock, and the cultivation of a corporate religion during an extended Christmas holiday season marketed at the park. The project concludes with an exploration of areas of convergence between spatial analysis in religious studies and consideration of the relevance of place to religious identity formation.

This thesis focuses on strengthening the Christian presence in the Holy Land that has been in existence for more than 2,000 years. The Christian presence there is not only about maintaining and preserving the holy shrines related to Christianity. It is also about maintaining and preserving the local Christian communities located in Palestine and Israel. These groups have had a series of challenges resulting in a critical decline in the Christian population. The research presented here applies a SWOT analysis to the history, current reality, of the Christian presence in the Holy Land and the challenges that influence its future. The benefit of using this approach allows for a concrete analysis of the problems that face the Christian community from the Palestinian-Israel conflict, economic instability, social problems, and the Christian culture predicament, identifies from the literature. The outcome of the analysis is translated into strategic solutions and actions that can be incorporated in programmes and projects to be implemented within, and by, the local Christian communities. These strategic solutions aim to revitalise the indigenous Christian presence in Palestine and Israel and encourage the development of their social, political and cultural existence, with the hope of obtaining justice, peace and reconciliation.

Over the past two decades, the church has sought to incorporate technology into its worship services in ways that mimic modern society; professional audio consoles, stage lighting, projection screens, and theatrical sets are now customary. Because how people experience sacred space forms their views about it, what technical artists do in practice also shapes the congregation's beliefs about God. Therefore, this thesis addresses the research question, how might a biblically informed theological understanding help better shape praxis for contemporary church technical artists? The tabernacle construction narrative (Exodus 35:30-36:1), Christ's mediation from within the church (Hebrews 2:12-13), and Paul's exhortation to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Colossians 3:16) are exegeted and viewed in light of current practice to form a portrait of the role of the technical artist. This thesis offers an original argument that technical artists are mediators of modern church worship and establishes the technical arts as a biblically sanctioned vocation within the theological school of ecclesiology. The technical arts are aligned with the long-standing tradition of the musical arts as a worship-centered activity and those "producing worship" are worshipers themselves.

The argument of this thesis is that H. Richard Niebuhr has produced a distinctive, indeed, unique theological crucis. Although Niebuhr never made this motif the explicit focus of his work, his writings, nonetheless, demonstrate a perennial reference to, and penetrating grasp of, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as the defining events of the Christian gospel. After a short introduction to Niebuhr's life and work, and a brief discussion of that tradition which gives prominence to the theology of the cross (theologia crucis), an exposition and interpretation of Niebuhr's theologia crucis is carried out by means of six distinct, though interrelated perspectives: existential; evangelical; ethical; ecclesiological; ecumenical and eschatological. Despite his reluctance to present a full-blown dogmatics of systematics, I use these six perspectives to trace the contours of the coherent, yet largely, implicit theologia crucis that lied just below the surface of his corpus, so that my thesis may allow its form and content to crystallise more clearly in the mind's eye. Beginning with an existential exploration of Niebuhr's phenomenology of faith in terms of trust and loyalty, we are enabled to more fully apprehend the multi-faceted faithlessness of the social self-as exposed by the theologia crucis. In the next chapter, written from an evangelical perspective, we see how God in Christ has transformed the human situation by converting the various forms of faithlessness into that faithfulness which Niebuhr calls radical monotheism. Chapter three considers the ethical consequences of this faith-stance as depicted by Niebuhr in terms of response to the creative, governing and redemptive actions of God. Next, we analyse his ecclesiology, and see that this largely takes the form of a constructive critique in order to help clarify the mission of the ecclesia crucis.

This is a study of intellectual encounters with the figure of Christ during the European Enlightenment. In the first instance, it contributes to a body of research which has sought to revise the customary view in New Testament studies, that the historical study of Jesus began with the posthumous publication of Herman Samuel Reimarus's Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jünger (1778), the last in a series of Fragments published by G. E. Lessing. The thesis proposed here is that Reimarus’s writings on Jesus are a notable but relatively late entry, by the German intellectual establishment, into arguments about Jesus and Christian origins which had been raging across Europe for more than a century: arguments concerning history, morality and political theology. In my Introduction I explain the rationale for this study within the context of contemporary scholarship and contemporary culture, giving a brief outline of my methodology. In Part I of the thesis I outline my project, its themes and methods. In Chapter One I introduce the ‘quest for the historical Jesus’ as a major concern in modern New Testament studies, and a persistent source of interest in wider intellectual discourse. I then take the reader back into the eighteenth century, placing Reimarus’s seminal contribution to the discipline within the context of the wider publishing controversy in which it featured (the Fragmentenstreit). In Chapter Two I explain the historical, moral and political theological dimensions of my analysis; in particular, I define the relationship between my history of scholarship on Jesus, and the one offered by Albert Schweitzer in Von Reimarus zu Wrede (1906), the single most influential work on the rise of historical Jesus studies. In Chapter Three I outline my periodisation and interpretive stance on the main context for my study: the European Enlightenment. Part II of the thesis concerns history. In Chapter Four I review a range of literature on the origins of historical Jesus studies, discussing the advances made since Schweitzer, and sketching the contours of a new, more comprehensive interpretation. In Chapters Five and Six I supplement that sketch with my own account of the emergence of the modern historical-critical conscience within European intellectual culture during the Enlightenment, and its application to the Bible. I profile some of the scholars who blazed the trail for Reimarus, showing where, and by whom, he was anticipated in some of his critical stances regarding Jesus and Christian origins. Part III of the thesis addresses morality. In Chapters Seven and Eight I consider why for so many thinkers in the Enlightenment, including Reimarus, morality came to be seen as central to Jesus' historical mission and his most important theological legacy. I locate this ethical turn within a long history of Western philosophical and theological disputation, with origins in antiquity, culminating in early modernity with the reassertion of moral-theological rationalism which was buttressed by an early modern Thomist revival. I also argue for the influence of a particular vision of Christian reform which prioritised freedom over predestination, and the moral example of Jesus and primitive Christian piety. Part IV of the thesis concerns political theology. In Chapter Nine I consider this generally neglected dimension of Reimarus’ work, placing him in a tradition of Enlightenment intellectuals who drew upon Jesus and primitive Christianity, in conjunction with theological metaphysics, to give weight to their own particular arguments for religious toleration. In my Conclusion, as throughout this thesis, I argue that some of the writers who paved the way of Reimarus’s writings on Jesus and Christian origins have their roots in much older, theological preoccupations, and often in heretical versions of Christianity. While these perspectives on Jesus and Christian origins constituted some of the most radical challenges to mainstream religious thought during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they do not submit to a vision of Enlightenment characterised by a straightforward process of overcoming theological worldviews through the emergence of a new secular critique. For the most part, this tradition of scholarship is best understood as a radicalisation of existing tendencies within the history of classical and Christian thought, which continued to understand Jesus, or at least his teachings, as either a path to personal salvation, or as a theologically authoritative court of appeal in the Enlightenment’s protest against religio-political tyranny.