This thesis will argue that by applying a hermeneutic of performance to biblical narratives, religious dramatic texts and Anglican liturgies we are able to encounter the divine as an immanent and transcendent presence in theatrical performance. Performance, and theatricality, create realities beyond our quotidian experience and provide a context for such encounters. To explore these encounters I consider biblical texts, where God is present and active in a narrative, dramatic texts where God is a character on stage and Christian liturgies where God is active as first person of the trinity, passive as object of worship, or supremely in the Eucharist, present as Jesus. All will be examined through the twin lenses of performance as an end and theatricality as the means to such an end. Theatrical performance is conditional upon multiple dynamics of action and reaction, feedback and response between both actors and audience which constantly modulate its process. Although capable of repetition, a performance remains unique and possessed of its own truth – however interpreted, Hamlet remains Hamlet. In performance actors become characters, each working with audiences to create and participate in different realities. This is the single most important application of theatricality. In performance, all characters and audience are of equal value and within the framework of a performance can shape and change what happens. ‘Upstaging’ of any character, by any character is always possible. This means that outcomes may be expected but can never be guaranteed. God viewed as a character must be subject to the same constraints as other characters. This raises theological problems. In the biblical narrative of Moses, God is upstaged by Aaron casting the Golden Calf, and by Moses’ post hoc rejection of divine forgiveness. Once God appears on stage his divinity is at risk by being, or perceived as being a human playing at being God, so finite and idolatrous. In liturgical texts God is the object of worship, but when worship includes elements of performance and theatricality, God, Jesus and congregations are all potential performers raising the theological spectre of authentic ‘liturgical celebration’ becoming theatrical ‘imaginative representation’. However, the different realities afforded by performance and theatricality allow mutual liminalities as God and humanity cross thresholds into each others’ presence sharing and shaping events. In all the texts examined there are events where transgression and conflict render them susceptible to becoming tragedies. As a character in their performance God’s impassibility is threatened and he must bear responsibility for their outcomes with their apparent loss of redemptive hope. As God becomes a character in human stories (Moses, cycle plays) his immanence affects their outcomes, but as humans become characters in divine stories (the Eucharist) they enter moments of transcendence. In their mutuality, realities created by performance and theatricality offer transformative experiences of truth and redemptive hope unique in themselves but unitive in their repetition.

The large numbers of Africans that have come to live in Britain in the last few decades have necessitated a better understanding of African Christianity. Focusing on Pneumatology, this study sets out to achieve such understanding by first undertaking a research of a church in London with a congregation made up of mostly Africans. This fieldwork yielded twelve concrete statements or “pattern-theories” on what the church members believe about the Holy Spirit. At that point, a review of existing literature was used to understand these “pattern-theories” more deeply. A second fieldwork was then carried out whereby two of these twelve “pattern-theories” were tested on a larger number of Africans drawn from four different Christian denominations. The second phase enabled the study to achieve a wider understanding based on a more diverse population of Africans. These two phases of fieldwork constituted the empirical cycle. Following the analysis of the findings the study advances five factors which determine African Pneumatology. These are their day to day experience of life, the Bible, their African worldview, the African traditional concept of God and the worldwide Pentecostal movement. The study also suggests that the Doctrine of the Trinity is a key factor determining African Pneumatology.

In this contextual study I investigate why and how the traditional approach to mission, engaged by Anglican missionaries, gave rise to a dual observance of ritual among Shona Anglican Christians. I begin by establishing the significance and essence of Shona views of death and the dead, then investigate the missionaries' historical background. I highlight that Christian arrogance, in the guise of racial superiority, underlies the confrontational and condemnatory approach. Traditional views were considered evil, in their place, Shona converts were forced to adopt western Christian views as the only acceptable and valid way of coping with this eschatological reality. These views did not usually fit the Shona worldviews and religious outlook, hence the adoption of dual observance. For some, life continues to be classified as either Christian or traditional and never both. However, some present Shona Anglican practices reflect a desire to integrate the two. Unless there is this integration, the Church remains other and irrelevant to the Shona people. The ultimate aim of this thesis is to advocate for a theological synthesis of Christian and Shona traditional views. I argue that such a synthesis, patterned on the interactive dialogical model, could lead to the cessation of confrontation and condemnation and its attendant dual observance, and enhance the development of a Shona Christian theology of death and the dead which provides for relevant and sensitive pastoral care.

This thesis answers the question How might an understanding of shame in the church inform approaches to ministerial praxis? It is methodologically a creative piece of practical theology which begins and ends with an autoethnographic reflection, drawing on the metaphor of landscape. The practical theology methodology involved the following stages: noticing; reflexivity; describing, naming; focusing; investigating; analysing; evaluating; theorizing, synthesizing; and responding, while drawing on insights from a mixed methods approach to qualitative research. The empirical research involved an anonymous online survey (261 respondents) to church leaders, church members and theological educators and two representative focus groups. Shame is defined phenomenologically using a range of disciplines; a review of literature relevant to shame and ministerial praxis is included. The unique contribution this thesis makes is twofold. Firstly, the development of an empirically underpinned typology of shame in the church which has six domains: personal, relational, communal, structural, theological and historical facilitating the identification of shame which is often a hidden phenomenon. Secondly, identifying specific approaches to ministerial praxis which help mitigate such shame including a shame examen to assist conscientization. The final chapter discusses the author’s learning about shame, ministerial praxis, doing theology and theological education.

<p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att testa Modigliani och Millers teorem i praktiken, samt undersöka om svenska och amerikanska företags val av kapitalstruktur har någon påverkan på deras företagsvärde och avkastning på eget kapital.</p><p>Uppsatsen har använt sig av en kvantitativ ansats där regressionsanalys och hypotesprövning har utförts för att mäta sambandet mellan variablerna.</p><p>Franco Modigliani och Merton Millers teorem om kapitalstruktur visade att valet av finansiering har betydelse för ett företags värde. Ett företag finansierat med skulder blir på grund av skattereduktioner högre värderat än ett obelånat företag.  </p><p>Svenska företag visar ett relativt starkt samband mellan skuldsättningsgrad och P/BV till skillnad från de amerikanska där det inte förekommer ett samband. Både de svenska och amerikanska företagen visade ett klart samband mellan skuldsättningsgraden och avkastning på eget kapital, samt ett samband mellan företagsvärde och avkastning på eget kapital.</p><p> </p>

Syftet med denna uppsats är att testa Modigliani och Millers teorem i praktiken, samt undersöka om svenska och amerikanska företags val av kapitalstruktur har någon påverkan på deras företagsvärde och avkastning på eget kapital. Uppsatsen har använt sig av en kvantitativ ansats där regressionsanalys och hypotesprövning har utförts för att mäta sambandet mellan variablerna. Franco Modigliani och Merton Millers teorem om kapitalstruktur visade att valet av finansiering har betydelse för ett företags värde. Ett företag finansierat med skulder blir på grund av skattereduktioner högre värderat än ett obelånat företag.   Svenska företag visar ett relativt starkt samband mellan skuldsättningsgrad och P/BV till skillnad från de amerikanska där det inte förekommer ett samband. Både de svenska och amerikanska företagen visade ett klart samband mellan skuldsättningsgraden och avkastning på eget kapital, samt ett samband mellan företagsvärde och avkastning på eget kapital.

Cluniac monasteries, so called because of their relationship to the abbot of Cluny in Burgundy, have been estimated to have numbered over seven hundred foundations at one time, distributed throughout France and in England, Wales, Scotland, Lombardy, and Spain. To date Cluniac studies have tended to concentrate on the abbey of Cluny, undoubtedly the fullest expression of Cluniac monasticism. Much work has been done on other individual Cluniac foundations but there has been little attempt to place the resulting information in the context of an organisational relationship between Cluniac monasteries and the abbot of Cluny, because this relationship is poorly understood. This thesis redresses this neglect by for the first time providing a model for this relationship whereby all Cluniac monks are said to have constituted an extended monastic community under the authority of the abbot of Cluny whose purpose was the transmission and maintenance of a distinctive monastic observance. This model was developed from a comprehensive examination of evidence of a variety of types, viewed from specific perspectives, relating to all the Cluniac foundations in England and Wales. This shows clear evidence of the involvement of centrally coordinated Cluniac administration in the regulation of these monasteries from the foundation process, the selection of their sites and their relationship with secular settlement and ecclesiastical and secular authority to provide optimal conditions for the following of a distinctly Cluniac monastic observance by their resident monks. It is argued on the basis of this model that future Cluniac research will be far more fruitful if it is reorientated towards the study of the extended Cluniac monastic community.

This research tests C.G. Jung’s suggestion that if protestant Christians think of God as a mythologem then it advances consciousness. There is an implied benefit of greater religious tolerance. The research methodology is to investigate the theoretical concepts involved, operationalise them, and then conduct an empirical test of their relationship. There are multiple problems that have to be overcome, including Jung’s amorphous and protean use of terminology. His concept of myth, in this context, is clarified and positioned within his philosophy, the contemporary culture of materialism, and the primary beliefs of the target audience. The contemporary understanding of Jungian consciousness is also revisioned to incorporate Jung’s notion of advancement based on the transcendent function. There are no existing measures for ‘thinking mythologically’ nor ‘advancement’. The concepts do not lend themselves to established psychometric principles. Therefore, two new forms of questionnaire are devised to measure these concepts, alongside two new questionnaires of conventional design that collect information about demographics and religious tolerance. There is an Information Technology sub-project, using a bespoke database and set of programs, to develop, publish, and promote the questionnaires on the internet. There are then two stages of statistical analysis: one to develop reliable and valid measures for each concept; the other to measure the relationships between the concepts. The main result of the test is that the specific relationship Jung describes in the letter – between mythological thinking and advancement of consciousness – does not hold. However, the data does suggest there may be a direct relationship between mythological thinking and religious tolerance. Despite the failure of the main test, there are a number of useful lessons from the results and suggestions for future research. There are also several spin-offs from the thesis, in terms of both concepts and resources. These are reviewed in the final chapter.

The Roman Catholic Church maintains that women cannot be ordained to the ministerial priesthood because of its unbroken tradition that only men can be priests, based on the example of Jesus, who chose only men to be ‘Apostles’. Vatican documents published during the late twentieth century use the writings of several mediaeval theologians and canonists to support this ruling. The topic is of present-day importance for understanding the origins of the exclusion of women from the priesthood given the current shortage of priests in the Catholic Church. This thesis looks first at the present ruling in the Vatican documents, and then considers the mediaeval writings, canon law and theology, from scholars such as Gratian, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure and Duns Scotus, looking especially at their Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Subsequent chapters analyse in more detail the arguments from scripture and biology, drawing together strands of thought in the Middle Ages on these subjects, including judgements about women’s intellectual and emotional capacity, and the contemporary anthropological and Christological understanding of the Incarnation. Language and translation are also significant but often neglected factors in the discussion, which the thesis studies by highlighting the recovery of Greek writings in medicine and philosophy, along with choice of terminology and use of metaphor, in the mediaeval period and in modern Church documents. By this approach, a critical survey is made of the most salient aspects of the debate. This thesis seeks to dissect systematically the origins of the prohibition, based on attitudes towards women which, while not always intentionally misogynistic, were nonetheless rooted in a world view that, the thesis argues, is no longer relevant today.

The interest of diploma work is focused on fundamental analysis of selected stocks. Fundaments which were taken into account were earnings per share, sales per share and book value per share. The first part of diploma work describes theoretical background and investment strategies based on P/E, P/S and P/BV ratio. Following part is paying attention to analyzed period, the selection of analyzed stocks and also to the analysis itself. Analysis is performed on twenty stocks traded on London Stock Exchange, on the Main Market. Analyzed period is from 1996 to 2005. In each year of analysis were created three portfolios based on investment strategies connected with P/E, P/S and P/BV ratios. For each selected portfolios was analyzed rate of return. The rate of return was analyzed in different times from creation of the portfolio. The last -- third part includes results of performed analysis, which was performed for each year separately. Result includes analysis of selection of stocks to portfolios and overall analysis of rate of return from of different portfolios. This part of diploma work also includes reflection of limits and weaknesses of performed analysis. Diploma work proved market anomaly. All investment strategies, which were based on ex post analysis, proved its ability to bring higher rate of return than the market.