A Critical Evaluation of the Evangelistic Preaching of Martyn Lloyd-Jones with Special Reference to his ‘Acts’ Series of Sermons and its Relevance for UK Pastors Today Abstract The ministry of David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981), a leading British preacher within the Reformed tradition, has been a subject of research in the decades since his death. In spite of the importance he himself attached to evangelistic preaching, however, no significant study has been conducted of his own evangelistic preaching. This dissertation explores his weekly evangelistic ministry based on the Book of Acts in the 1960s, his closing years at Westminster Chapel, London. The purpose is to consider the ongoing usefulness, if any, of his practice and method for ministers who stand in the same theological tradition today. The work examines, first, the convictions that drove Lloyd-Jones’ practice, using his published addresses as primary source material. Beyond a summary of his career and his influence (Chapter One), consideration is given to the religious and social context at the time of the Acts sermons, and to its significance for the approach Lloyd-Jones successfully adopted (Chapter Two). Chapter Three presents a detailed analysis of his sermons on the Acts of the Apostles and identifies a number of their characteristics. Having established the historical groundwork, the dissertation goes on in Chapter Four to focus on my own preaching in the context of the church of which I am a minister, serving within the Reformed tradition and following the approach modeled by Lloyd-Jones. Using questionnaires derived from the analysis of his sermons, surveys were undertaken of first, the church leaders and secondly, the Young People’s group. Their goal was to provide feedback that would serve to identify strengths and weaknesses in my own evangelistic preaching at the same time as to evaluate the appropriateness of maintaining Lloyd-Jones’ approach in the changed context of the early 21st century. The conclusion reached is that while changes in society today require some adaptation in terms of presentation and style, the essential characteristics of Lloyd-Jones’ preaching continue to be meaningful, because they arise from fundamental theological convictions that are unaffected by changes in human behaviour or thinking. Finally, Chapter Five asks how this study may be developed further, applying it in a wider context as well as in local-church ministry.

In this ethnography, writing as both practitioner and researcher, I represent and analyse the opinions and reflections of Anglican chaplains in English and Welsh prisons in order to locate their self - perception of role and identity. The Anglican chaplain has been a statutory appointment in every prison since 1779 and was a central figure in penal practice throughout the first half of the 19th century. Several chaplains wrote at length about their ministry and its significance; this conscious utterance in the public domain dwindled sharply from the 1860s onwards. My research presents current chaplains’ perspectives on their role and identity, configured by a social context which is perceived to be secular and in which other world faiths have a strong presence. Four main areas of focus emerge from the data: working with prisoners, working with staff, the apparently contradictory, ritual nature of secular and religious engagement, and issues of gendered interaction. These data are contextualised by respondents’ perceptions of prisons as parishes, the construction of Anglican chaplains’ identity by events within and outwith prisons and churches, and perceived relations with the Church of England and the Church in Wales. Having recognised other models of prison ministry, the thesis ends by identifying modes of potential, structured cooperation between church and chaplaincy. The epistemological con text derives from Goffman’s theory of total institutions but recognises subsequent reinterpretations of his work. The methodological reference points are Turner’s theory of liminality, Bell’s theory of ritual - like activities and Foucault’s heterotopia of deviance. The thesis offers a perspective on a traditional public form of ministry, that of the chaplains themselves, unexplored and not analysed for over a century. It is submitted as a further development in the growing discourse around practical theology and religious ministry in prisons.

In spite of the realities of an increasingly post-ecclesial world, sacrament continues to appear as a theme in contemporary culture, often in places least expected. What it means to describe something – a text, ritual, experience, etc – as “sacramental” derives from the unique yet complex conception of sacrament as practiced (liturgy) and theorized (theology) within the Christian tradition. Indeed, whilst simultaneously upheld as the “constitutive” action and foundational sacrament of Christ's Body called church, the Eucharist has confounded the Christian faith throughout its history. Its symbolism points to the paradox of the incarnation of God in Jesus of Nazareth, and his sacrificial death on Calvary, which St. Paul describes as a stumbling-block (skandalon) and foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23). And yet this scandalous quality of sacramentality, not only illustrated by but enacted in the Eucharist, has not been sufficiently accounted for in the ecclesiologies and sacramental theologies of the Christian tradition. Following the image from the Fourth gospel of “the word made flesh,” this interdisciplinary study examines the scandal of sacramentality along the two-pronged thematic of the scandal of language (word) and the scandal of the body (flesh). While sacred theology can think through this scandal only at significant risk to its own stability, the fictional discourses of literature and the arts are free to explore this scandal in a manner that simultaneously augments and challenges notions of sacrament and sacramentality, and by extension, what it means to describe the Church as a “eucharistic community.” Our aim is less a reassertion of the vitality of traditional sacramental rituals even within contemporary culture and more an effort to understand why the notion of sacrament and sacramentality has held such staying power, despite significant cultural shifts and movement away from the traditional practices of the Christian faith. Why do novelists, artists, theologians, philosophers and religious communities continue to make use of and draw upon the language and evocation of ‘sacrament’? Our thesis is that it is precisely the scandalous, subversive power of the eucharistic mystery, the thematic and symbolic tensions and destabilizing effect inherent to sacramentality, that make it such a fertile trope for artists and writers, especially within a postmodern context preoccupied with the themes of language, embodiment, presence/absence, immanence/transcendence, and so on.

This thesis reports on an extensive qualitative study of women ministers in the Church of Scotland. It examines the literature in relation to women clergy in other denominations in the UK and the USA and considers ways in which the Church of Scotland clergy are similar and dissimilar to their counterparts. The research included a quantitative survey, the examination of data from the Church of Scotland Yearbook and thirty one ‘ministry-story’ interviews. The Survey and the Yearbook produced basic demographic data about women ministers in the Kirk showing an increasing age profile and a shortage of younger women ministers. The survey also found that women ministers considered themselves to be different from male ministers most especially in the fields of collaboration and leadership style. The interviews considered factors in the path to ministry, women ministers in the exercise of their ministry, relationships with congregations, colleagues and the institutional Church. Whilst there was considerable progress in terms of the acceptance of women’s ministry by congregations and the wider community, there was also evidence of a lack of acceptance from some male ministers and an unwillingness to confront the issue on the part of the institution. Women ministers consider there to have been some progress towards integration of women’s ministry within the Church of Scotland but are also uncertain about the future and whether a backlash against women will be experienced. Although women have been ordained to ministry of word and sacrament within the Church of Scotland since 1968, this represents the first major study of women ministers within the Kirk and will provide a background for further study and exploration.

This thesis demonstrates that friendship has particular relevance for postmodern ecclesiology and offers the basis for a relationally, rather than structurally conceived, understanding. It argues that friendship can be foundational for the Church community in contemporary times, as a means of self-understanding and as a basis for its mission. In doing this, it progressively explores friendship by means of an ongoing conversation with a variety of thinkers and theologians who have contributed to the subject. Each reveals, in a variety of disciplines, differing facets of friendship which ultimately contribute to a fresh understanding of ecclesial identity. This understanding shows the Church to be well placed to have friendship as its locus; in hospitality, a commitment to community, and the centrality of the Eucharistic meal. Friendship is shown to have a significant pedigree in philosophical thought, which has in turn influenced Christian theology. The thesis describes the paucity of incisive commentary on friendship in New Testament scholarship, and outlines the ambiguity surrounding friendship in postmodern culture, suggesting friendship's untapped potential as an ecclesial basis. Friendship's philosophical treatment in the classical era, particularly through Plato, Aristotle and Cicero provides a basis for its influence in Christian theology, as revealed by Augustine and Aquinas. The importance of friendship for personhood is explored through considering the nature of the self, specifically in conversation with Descartes and his challengers, particularly Nietzsche and Derrida. Applying this to the nature of the self in community, Bauman, Habermas, Derrida and Lyotard are amongst those who offer insights. This foundation allows a consideration of friendship as a particular instantiation of love, which sharpens the Christian principle of love for all people. From the insights of monasticism and Queer Theology, friendship's potential for a relationally rooted ecclesiology emerge: here the contribution of Aelred, Newman, Rudy and Stuart are significant. The Trinitarian theology of Zizioulas forms the basis for describing a communio ecclesiology, informed by Barth, Bonhoeffer, McFarland and Gunton, amongst others. This allows the Church as a community of friends, characterised by hospitality and centred on the Eucharist to be envisaged. The work of Derrida and Caputo on hospitality and 'the impossible' contribute useful insights into how this community might be resourced as it operates as the 'friends of Christ'.

This thesis explores young lay women’s experiences of Communion in the Church of England within a framework of practical feminist theology. After grounding the study in a review of relevant feminist literature on the Eucharist, the use of qualitative research methodology is described. Semi-structured interviews with ten young women revealed three central themes: ways in which women experience and respond to exclusion and alienation from Communion; the importance of relationality and community; and how experience leads women to construct their own understandings about Communion. Ambiguity and difference within women’s experience are key concepts. Some embrace traditional understandings and practices of Communion; others subvert these to claim new and liberating understandings for themselves and their communities. The thesis points to a desire to deconstruct boundaries, creating a vision of inclusive and egalitarian Eucharistic community where loci of power and authority are challenged by the quest for personal autonomy and relationship in community. The research process is shaped by the pastoral cycle method of theological reflection. This leads to the suggestion of a metaphor of birthing as a means of responding to the experiences and needs revealed by the research and a model for developing liberational Eucharistic theology for

The Church of England's approach to urban regeneration has been shaped by government-led regeneration and its own social, political and financial situation, rather than its theology. The encouragement towards partnership working as a means of financing parishes in deprived areas in its 2006 report Faithful Cities is a result of the Church's inability to finance its work in deprived areas using its own resources. This thesis evaluates the impact of Faithful Cities within the dioceses of Worcester and Birmingham. It does this through geographical mapping of deprivation in each parish; review of diocesan policies on urban regeneration; the assessment of resource allocation to parishes with differing degrees of deprivation, and through in-depth interviews with key stakeholders (Bishops, Archdeacons, Diocesan Staff, Parish Clergy) in each diocese. Barriers to resourcing parishes in deprived areas through redistribution of internal resources are noted in both dioceses. However, partnership working is found to be impractical for overworked and untrained parish clergy to manage, and volunteers from churches lack the skills and interest to deliver projects which have partnership funding attached. Partnership funding is therefore potentially as problematic as the reallocation of internal resource as a way to fund Church presence in deprived areas.

This study indicates that several common assumptions about Anglican pew-renting are unrealistic. Although many critics writing in the nineteenth century, and some historians since, believe that rented sittings in Anglican churches were filled by the very rich and the upper-middle class, the evidence strongly indicates that the primary renters were from the middle-middle and lower-middle classes, particularly small business owners. Also contrary to popular belief, pew-letting continued in many churches well into the twentieth century, in some instances into the 1950s and 1960s, and one Anglican church in the British Isles has continued to rent sittings into the twenty-first century. This is qualified, though, by the finding that those churches that rented sittings persisted in the practice for longer than was expected, but the number of new churches which instituted seat-letting systems dwindled, particularly in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Pew-renting is also seen to have been most often practiced in large urban churches of low-church orientation. The findings further suggest that most churches abolished pew-rents in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, not for philosophical or charitable reasons, but because profits diminished to the point at which the cost and trouble of administering a system of pew-rents could not economically justify the revenue produced. Finally, this study has uncovered some evidence both of private pew-renting in addition to proprietary chapels, and of informal pew-renting in the form of tips paid to pew-openers and other officials for preferred seating for a single church service. Examples of dishonest behaviour by church officials are also given.

This thesis asks what might be revealed from a Practical Theology conversation between historical texts and contemporary Christian Science experience about healing theologies and practices. Certain enduring theological ideas (God's goodness and omnipotence, the deceptiveness and impotence of evil, and a correlation between healing and salvation) explain these Christian healing practices. I investigate such ideas and practices using a Practical Theology methodology that accommodates an epistemological contrast and enables meaningful analysis of the ideas. This 'critical conversation' between the Secret Revelation of John, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and myself as an autoethnographic 'text,' draws out comparisons and contrasting ideas of Christian healing. The three parts of the thesis reflect moments of 'conversation': (1) an overview of the conversation's structure and identification of its partners; (2) a detailed conversation between the two historical texts based on three key themes (the enduring theological ideas mentioned above), and (3) engaging my experience as a twenty-first-century 'text' in conversation with the same themes in epistemologically contrasting contexts. I conclude that understanding theological views from contrasting epistemologies is a constructive means for expanding mutual understanding of Christian healing practices with great potential benefit to scholarly and ecumenical audiences.

The purpose of the thesis is to design an evaluation model which could be used to improve the quality of Sunday schools in Korea. Various evaluation theories that are current outside the church were examined and evaluated to see whether they were amenable to modification to serve the church’s interest in Sunday Schools. The adapted theories were put into practice and tested to see whether the resultant model of evaluation was fit for practical use [or not] in a church setting by doing a number of case studies. Recently the church has had to face severe criticism from the wider Korean society. In order to overcome these problems, the thesis examines the purpose of Sunday school education, which is essentially based on the pursuit of faith conceived more holistically, and considers the improvement needed to deliver quality education in Sunday schools. For this purpose, it tries to devise an evaluation model that establishes a clear understanding of the present state of Sunday schools whilst also suggesting how these schools might change and develop the quality of their education. In order to achieve the quality improvement of Sunday schools, this thesis considers QM (Quality Management) as the main theoretical basis of an evaluation model, because both the kind of analysis and improvement which are used in QM, were shown to be suitable and applicable to a Sunday school setting whilst providing a basis for a continuous improvement in quality. The thesis demonstrates the suitability of this model with regard to its practical application in the field by testing it in individual Sunday schools, which together represent the range of Korean Sunday schools that one might encounter. Also, it critically considers those parts and processes of the evaluation model which should be changed in response to the issues that arose during the case studies.