This thesis is an examination of the historical thought of several key English reformers regarding the assimilation or rejection of different aspects of late medieval notions of the sacrament of penance during the Henrician phase of the English Reformation. It is a study primarily concerned with how notions of penance in the theology of these reformers were inherited from patristic, humanist, and continental reformers and how the evangelicals reworked them. While these reformers did not agree on all matters of theology, important points of contact can be found in how they understood the roles of contrition, confession, and satisfaction within a framework that denied the efficacy of human participation in the forgiveness of sins. There are three distinct sections. The two chapters of the first section are concerned with establishing the context of sacramental penance in the sixteenth century. The first chapter identifies distinct phases of the evolution of notions of sacramental penance from the early church through the scholastics, and the second chapter explores the theology of three important influences on the evangelicals—John Wycliffe, Desiderius Erasmus, and Martin Luther—and shows that while their views were unique, they shared important points of connection with the evangelicals in England. The second section consists of the next four chapters, which are dedicated to individual English exiled evangelicals from 1524-1535. Chapter three identifies Tyndale’s unique use of terminology in his redefining of the terms and rearranging of the formula of sacramental penance as he focused on the covenantal language of Christ’s blood as the satisfaction in place of human effort. Chapter four is concerned with Robert Barnes’ notion of the coexistence of contrition and confession, with oral confession occurring after forgiveness has been made. Chapter five details John Frith’s notion of repentance as related to an earthly purgation of sins and a passive, effortless turning from them. Chapter six examines George Joye’s notion of how an effective confession was to be made to God or to man. The third section comprises only one chapter (seven), and it contends that these exiles had significant influence on the later Henrician formularies, and that within them an evangelical notion of confession prevailed, particularly in the relationship of confession and purgatory, but also the understanding of the relationship between sorrow for sin and its forgiveness.

Within the contemporary church, usage of the term transformation has become commonplace. However, the way it is understood is often misguided. This study provides an original synthesis that points the church towards the need to express and live out a full, integrated, effectual and distinctly Christian vision of transformation. Self-identified “evangelicals” continue to explore the possibility of authentic transformation. There is now a proliferation of perspectives on the nature and process of Christian formation, some of which attempt a revision through ecumenical “ressourcement” or interdisciplinary methods. These often-conflicting approaches leave a landscape characterised by pluralism, division, fragmentation, confusion, relativism, individualism, pragmatism and subjectivism. Although evangelicalism is seen by some as a restorationist movement that seeks to draw the church back towards a prototypal faith, self-identified “evangelicals” clearly exhibit differences in their beliefs and practices. Both the absence of a common, coherent and integrated vision, and the lack of transformation itself, are often simply accepted and affirmed. In this thesis, it is argued that the only way to move towards the possibility a cohesive, integrated, broad, effectual and distinctly Christian vision of transformational theology, is through an approach that is grounded in rationallinguistic truth. Such a method is typified by J. I. Packer. His approach to integrating the concerns of theology and spirituality is used as the initial basis towards pursuing a “proto-evangelical” approach to Christian formation. In order to determine the breadth of Packer’s approach, he is brought into dialogue with Maximus Confessor. This critical conversation between two “theologians of the Christian life” allows exploration into the scope and diversity of a distinctly Christian view of transformation, and the seeking out of common characteristics in its nature and practice. This all provides a solid basis upon which to be able to outline an original synthesis.

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This thesis argues that nineteenth-century shifts in hermeneutics enabled women to re-vision Victorian conceptions of womanhood by reinterpreting biblical narratives within fictional texts. Due to these shifts, the meaning of biblical symbols was increasingly tied to the personal experience of the reader. This enabled women to reinterpret these symbols to reflect their own experiences as women. This hermeneutic approach was formulated out of critical enquiry into the nature of the biblical text which resulted in questioning the authority of the Bible. Questions regarding the authority of scripture opened up the possibility for Victorian authors to use fictive texts in order to reinterpret biblical symbols, resulting in the constant re-visioning of biblical symbols by readers and writers. As the authority of scripture became unstable, gender roles, which were rooted within a biblical symbolic, also became destabilized. The novels of female authors who reimagined biblical symbols gave voice to these authors’ own experiences as women as they embodied these symbols within their life and work, resulting in new understandings of Victorian womanhood. George Eliot was particularly conscious of the hermeneutic shifts which were taking place throughout the century due to her extensive involvement in the philosophical and theological movements of the era, and her novels demonstrate how these shifts influenced her work. The reinterpretation of biblical narratives within her novels also reflects how she embodied these female biblical symbols within her own life. While Eliot’s awareness of the shifts taking place within hermeneutic practice is evident in her work, she was not alone in adopting this hermeneutic practice. Novelist Elizabeth Gaskell also reimagined and embodied biblical symbols, yet her experience as a Victorian woman was strikingly different from Eliot’s own and led her to distinct reinterpretations of these symbols in her life and novels. Likewise, social activist Josephine Butler reinterpreted female biblical narratives in order to understand her life in relation to the ‘fallen’ women she worked with. These three women have been chosen for this project because of how they represent nineteenth-century shifts in hermeneutic practice toward biblical symbols in addition to the shared affinities and prominent differences between them. To explore these issues requires a theoretical framework which encompasses literature, philosophy, sociology, history, theology, and feminist theory; however, fundamentally this project is concerned with theological hermeneutics and the nature of biblical symbols. This project examines the influence of nineteenth-century theologians David Friedrich Strauss and Ludwig Feuerbach on Victorian hermeneutics and applies more recent work by Paul Ricœur, Jacques Rancière, and Caroline Walker Bynum to formulate a framework through which to understand the Victorian interpretation of biblical symbols. As Victorian women readers re-visioned female biblical symbols as encountered through sacred and fictive texts, the fresh interpretations of these symbols enabled women to negotiate new ways of understanding gender. These hermeneutic shifts toward biblical symbols created a symbolic understanding of womanhood which was able to better convey the complexity of female experience, providing women with an understanding of womanhood that better correlated with their own experience as women.

In the late 1780s there arose a theological controversy in Ayrshire, centred around the Rev William McGill (1732-1807), the associate minister to William Dalrymple (1723-1814) of the Old Kirk in Ayr. McGill was principally accused of holding ‘Socinian’ views, particularly in his Practical Essay on the Death of Jesus Christ (1786) which were at odds with the accepted standards of his church, a church which still retained a mainly Calvinistic outlook in the period. The Aim of this thesis Within this thesis I will attempt to place McGill firmly within the context of his day. This will be done by offering a picture of the Scottish, English and Irish ecclesiastical scene, with particular reference to Scotland, in which the Ayr minister was working. Further consideration will be given to the impact of the Enlightenment, as well as the American and French Revolutions, in the latter part of the century. The response of the various churches in Britain to these events are of particular importance for McGill’s career as, in his final published work On the fear of God (Ayr, 1795), the theological ‘radical’ emerges as a political conservative. What has perhaps been lacking in previous assessments of McGill is a study of the full range of influences which drove the Ayr minister’s theology. By utilising the evidence offered by the ‘Ayr Library Society’ (which held the works of noted English Socinians) of which McGill, along with Dalrymple, was a founder member in 1762, I will attempt to trace some of the main sources for McGill’s later thought. Of key significance is the holding of works by the Society of several leading English Socinians. Although speculative (as McGill does not directly cite these works), based on the evidence there does appear to be parallels between McGill’s work and that of the English theologians. I will also assess, in addition to considering why McGill’s work proved contentious, the reasons for his ‘apology’, following the case. Additionally it will be important to re-examine the overall effect of the case, in order to fully appreciate the significance of McGill for the wider Scottish churches of his day.

My task in this thesis is to assess the theological implications of Herman Melville’s aesthetic understanding of the modern Subject as a duplicitous self-creation. Although Melville is obviously not a theologian, either by discipline or confession, I will argue we find in the complex theatricality of his life and fiction a means of articulating the potential of a truly radical theological thinking. Such a thinking, I argue, ‘unthinks’ all previous grounds, in order then to recast them imaginatively. For Melville, we shall see, that which identifies theology ‘as theology’ is not simply an unattainable, transcendent Thing-in-Itself. It is, on the contrary, the active emergence of unthinkable excess from the materialistic immanence of its self-characterisation. The aesthetico-theological thinking in view here highlights the necessity of a repositioning of theological discourse from the binary perspective that inevitably leads to self present identification, be it in a discipline or a confession, to the radically decentered / desacralized interdisciplinarity of theology becoming-itself. I seek to achieve this end by situating Melville close to the Germanic philosophical climate that was sweeping across the American literary landscape of the mid-19th century. Melville’s ambivalent attitude toward his own desire for self-destruction, and thus, too, his desire for a non-subjective common pool of artistic genius, is strictly parallel to his misgivings about Transcendentalism and Romanticism. It is, I argue, in the dialectical materialism of Friedrich Schelling that we find Melville’s philosophical analogue, in their respective efforts to understand the self-becoming of the Absolute / God / Truth. Here we find an aesthetico-theological thinking attuned to the creative inadequacy of self-becoming, whereby the finite inadequacy and perspectival duplicity of theological self-presentation carry the potential of a self-creativity that makes all things new. As such, for aesthetico-theological thinking there is truly nothing behind or beyond the materiality of experience - i.e., no Ding an sich or transcendental determination of being. And precisely for this reason the awareness and actualisation of something new, indeed something miraculous because it was previously impossible, is made possible.

This thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of spiritual healing in England in its various different guises during the late-nineteenth and early- to mid-twentieth centuries. It considers the interplay between the various spiritual healing groups themselves and between their philosophies and practices and orthodox medical theory more generally. The first half examines how spiritual healing was conceptualised by those who practised it - who spiritual healers were, what they believed and how they defined illness and healing. The specific therapeutic techniques used by healers are delineated, and the themes of touch and morality explored in detail. The second half of this thesis then examines how spiritual healing was perceived by the religious and medical establishments, and explores their co-operational discourse. Firstly, the reaction of the orthodox Christian churches to spiritual healing and their fractured and inherently conservative attempts to utilise it as a means of revitalising orthodox Christianity are analysed. The final chapters then chart the chronological relationship between spiritual healing and orthodox medicine during three specific periods, and explore the way in which spiritual healing intersected and impacted upon medical reactions to the new psychology of the twentieth century.

Over the years, Christian historiography has overlooked Carrie Judd Montgomery’s (1858-1946) significant contribution to both the Divine Healing movement and Pentecostalism. Her 1879 healing account, early healing homes, and contribution to the formation of the doctrine of healing in the atonement make her one of the most influential people in the American Divine Healing movement. Following her 1908 tongues experience, Montgomery additionally impacted early Pentecostalism by spreading its themes throughout her networks and introducing many significant leaders to the Pentecostal Spirit baptism. An analysis of Montgomery’s writings from 1880-1920 reveal that the prayer of faith in James 5 and healing in the atonement were two of the major foundations in her theology of healing. Further, her pneumatology reveals that she actively pursued the fullness of the Spirit, also at times referred to as “Spirit baptism,” both before and after her own 1908 tongues experience. While speaking in tongues enhanced her spirituality and added a new flavor to her ministry, it did not produce any major shifts within her theology of healing. In light of her experiences with the Spirit throughout the years, a present day approach for revivals and a proposed redefinition of the Pentecostal Spirit baptism are presented.

Previous approaches to colonial New Jersey Quaker tailor, John Woolman (1720-1772), have failed to address the centrality of theology to his social reforms. This thesis comprises an original contribution to Woolman studies and 18th century Quaker theology through a demonstration of a heretofore unrecognised apocalyptic theology which encompassed a practical and comprehensive vision of God's kingdom on earth. Based on an analysis of Woolman's entire body of writing, this thesis argues that Woolman's theology is best understood as apocalyptic because it was centred on a vision of Christ's immediate presence governing all aspects of human affairs. Woolman's apocalypticism is analysed around three main theological themes: divine revelation, propheticism and eschatology. These themes are evident in Woolman's belief that, 1) God intervened in world affairs to reveal God's will for humanity on earth in a way unavailable to the senses and natural faculties; 2) God's will made claims on society and God commissioned human agents to confront apostasy and be God's spokespeople; and, 3) the faithful embodied the kingdom and pointed to the transformation of all things to establish the 'government of Christ'.