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.

Socially and politically significant Muslim communities are posing a challenge to the public spheres of Western Europe: can public reason in a liberal democracy be so conceived as to accommodate the religious reasons of Muslims and other religiously motivated citizens? This question, often discussed from the perspective either of political philosophy or of particular religious traditions, is addressed here instead by drawing on the theory and practice of inter-religious dialogue. The dialogue movement known as ‘scriptural reasoning’ is analysed for its potential to provide a way of conceptualising the nature of reasoning in the public sphere. ‘Reasoning with texts’, it is argued, is a way of describing much of the reasoning that takes place within the public sphere and not just religious reasoning. This approach to understanding public reasoning is established through a combination of example and theory. A model of communicative hermeneutics as public reason based on an (inter)textual rationality is proposed. As well as providing space for textually based religious arguments, this (inter)textual imagination can be situated alongside and complement postmodern developments of Jürgen Habermas’s conception of the public sphere. Whilst this approach to reasoning in the public sphere initially appears very different from the classic statement of the idea of public reason in John Rawls’s political liberalism, it is shown to have significant continuity with Rawls’s theory when this is viewed through the lens of the Supreme Court as exemplar of public reason. This highest level of public reason involving legislation is also a form of reasoning with texts. But in order for religious and more popular levels of public discourse and deliberation to impact on the political and legislative processes, these too must be conceived as modes of reasoning having some continuity with higher levels of public reasoning. It is such continuity that this thesis seeks to theorise.

Foucault’s concepts of Pastoral power and “governmentality” have led to the development of the London school of “governmentalists” (McKinlay and Pezet 2010). However, extant literature on governmentality drawn from this school of thought has undertaken an analytics of power centred on the deployment of governmental forms of power at the State level, not taking into consideration another entity that emerged after modernity, the modern enterprise, and not going beyond the 19th century, thereby trapping “governmentality” studies inside their own modern discourse. Following Foucault’s established relation between Pastoral power and “governmentality”, this thesis analyses the form of organising deployed by an organisation that emerged in the 16th century, apparently being able to survive into modernity without adopting modern managerial business categories. This organisation is the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits. The first part of this thesis will analyse the relevance of the Society of Jesus for organisational studies and will show how modern business categories fail to explain its structural resilience. The second part of the thesis introduces Pastoral power as a possible explanation for the apparent structural resilience of the Society of Jesus. Following this line of reasoning, and after having established an analytics of power as a possible methodological framework, the Society of Jesus’ “organising practices” will be presented, leading to the conclusion that this entity, having emerged at the cornerstone of modernity, deployed practices that represent a significant shift when compared with previous Pastoral forms of organising. The fact that the Society of Jesus clearly intended to deploy practices for the conduction of geographicallydispersed individuals leads to the conclusion that it deployed a “protogovernmental” form of power, and that the rationality underpinning its practices, although not entirely modern, is clearly at the cornerstone of modernity and can therefore be enlightening to an understanding of how modern managerial categories might have emerged.

Jürgen Moltmann suggests that where liberal market welfare policies are introduced people with learning disabilities are disadvantaged, whereas Christian communities provide a more favourable environment. This hypothesis is investigated by assessing the social capital available to two groups of people with a learning disability. The members of one group are being supported to live independent lives as ‘citizen consumers.’ The second group are members of a Roman Catholic parish community supported by their families. The results suggest that both groups have few resources of bridging or linking capital. The second group have larger and richer resources of bonding capital which comes largely through family networks. They also had significant resources of spiritual capital but not religious capital. In the light of the results, a theological critique is undertaken of some aspects of contemporary social policy and consumer culture. A distinction is made between human relationships as transactions and as gifts. Insights from the theology of gift relationships are offered. The question is raised whether it is appropriate to consider gift relationships as a form of capital and Churches as a form of social capital. Liturgy is considered as a form of liberative praxis.

This dissertation argues that a major factor in Pentecostalism's rapid world-wide growth was the emergence of a strong literary, as distinct from oral, tradition. From its earliest days the movement gave birth to a plethora of publications and publishing houses, mostly operating by faith, that proved highly successful in disseminating the distinctive tenets of the movement across the globe. The first part of this work outlines the social, historical and religious background to the movement in the USA and Britain, and highlights the distinctive doctrines and practices of Pentecostalism. The second section examines the emergence of Pentecostal publishing movements and their products in the USA, especially the role played by the prototypical magazine of W. J. Seymour, The Apostolic Faith. The third and major part of this dissertation is a detailed case study of the earliest, and most influential, Pentecostal magazine published in Britain, Confidence. The crucial role that this journal and its editor, A. A. Boddy, played in formulating and propagating the beliefs and practices of the nascent movement is critically examined, together with an assessment of its contribution to wider issues of religious life and thought in Britain. Areas of subsequent influence in the development of historic Pentecostalism and its contemporary offshoots are also discussed

The aim of this thesis is to explore the “strange phenomenon” of the Intentional Christian Community Othona in Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex, Great Britain, founded in 1946 by Norman Motley, to cherish differences and diversity through reconciliation among nations that had been at war with each other. An old neglected chapel, St Peter-on-the-Wall, became the spiritual centre of this Community. A phenomenographic, auto-ethnographic and multi-dimensional research approach, designed to investigate and describe the Othona Community and its praxis and the researcher's involvement in it, is used for the empirical part of the thesis. The study seeks to discover a) the Lebenswelten ― or the world created by its life ― of the Othona Community, b) members'/participants' perception of the Community through interviews and Community literature, c) a way of understanding this “strange phenomenon” and its special charism with the help of an “endogenous theology”. This thesis shows that a two-fold encounter lies at the heart of the experience at Othona: encounter between a person and the “Other” (represented by the Stoep) and between a person and the “Wholly Other” (represented by the Chapel). Through examination of these encounters light is shed on the extraordinariness of Othona. The German term Heimat (a deeply spiritual home) is introduced here to encapsulate these “encounteral” experiences which induce a transformation of place and people alike. Theologically, the thesis claims that a combination of a Theology of Encounter and an understanding of Heimat can assist the appreciation of the Othona phenomenon as a Community of temporary withdrawal and restoration, where differences and a Kingdom model are experienced in narrative encounters on the margins by offering Heimat through belonging and significance.

The issues raised by the phenomenon of homosexuality among the Shona are so complex in their nature. The widely held assumptions are that firstly, there is no place for gays and lesbian within the Shona culture and secondly, God Forbids. To justify these claims they point to prevalent socio-cultural as well as ecclesiastical intermediary systems that serve as authorities to enforce and monitor specific rules of conduct and moral goals. The study explores these conventional notions and attempts to establish the reality in which these moral actions are carried out. It marks the beginning of the work of demystification and deconstruction of various existing theories and theologies of sexuality. By scanning through the intricate socio-cultural and ecclesiastical structures the study seeks to identify the place of homosexuality among the Shona and discuss the paradoxes and contradictions presented by the Church‟s approach. This study is an analysis of the underlying issues in regards to homosexuality among the Shona. Such an analysis helps in identifying and developing contextual sexual theological approaches.

This thesis uses a practical-theological methodology to explore the theology and spirituality of „spiritual warfare‟ that developed in the charismatic renewal from the 1960s. Beginning with a study of twelve charismatic Anglican pioneers, a detailed case study then explores spiritual warfare praxis in a charismatic Anglican congregation. The ensuing theological reflection focuses on the ontology of evil, through dialogue with Nigel Wright, Amos Yong, and Gregory Boyd, as well as Karl Barth and Walter Wink. The thesis argues for a positive ontology for evil powers, based on a charismatic hermeneutic of biblical texts; on the grounds that Jesus treated Satan and demons as real spiritual entities, the Pauline epistles refer to real evil spiritual powers in the heavenly realms, and charismatic experience supports this ontology. Such powers are in malevolent and wilful rebellion against God, deriving from a corrupted fallen angelic nature. A Trinitarian model of theological praxis is presented, focused on responding to the goodness of God in repentance; renewing faith in the believer‟s identity in Christ and His victory upon the cross; and resisting the devil in the power of the Spirit. This model emphasizes personal responsibility, helps bring freedom from fear, and re-connects with Anglican baptismal liturgy.