As a mother tenderly: using mothering as a metaphor and analogy for parish ministry. The thesis sets out to use maternal imagery as a way of articulating the practice of parish ministry in the Church of England. The aim is to find a language which can affirm and encourage many aspects of good practice that are in danger of being over looked because they are neither well articulated nor valued. The ministry of a parish priest is a relational activity: characterised by care. It is because the priest has a responsibility to care for those entrusted to her that she engages in priestly activity. In doing so she is sharing in the collective ministry of the church in which she has a pivotal and public role. The church is to be a community in which people grow up in Christ and come to maturity of faith. In order to explore the relational activity of a parish priest the imagery of mothering is used. The changing place of women in society has made it more difficult to use gendered images and thus it is necessary to discuss whether mothering is an essentially female activity. After acknowledging the complexity of the gendered language and the reality that most women arrive at mothering through a specifically female bodily experience, the thesis goes on to state that the practice of mothering is not instinctual but learnt. It involves learning through a relationship with a particular child and what is learnt are human ways of being and doing which are not gender specific. As the child is a growing developing human being the relationship and activity needs to be adaptable and contingent, requiring concrete thinking. Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking offers a philosophical understanding of mothering as a practice shaped by three demands which are all good and often conflict. Using her understanding of mothering and drawing on Hanah Arendt’s categories of human activity the thesis explores the practice of mothering. The thesis then uses this understanding of mothering as a way of reflecting on the practice of parish ministry. As a relational activity parish ministry needs to value particularity and concrete contingent responsiveness. Intersubjective relationships need to be maintained and the virtues cultivated that guard against the temptations to intrusive or domineering styles of care on the one hand or passive abnegation of responsibility on the other. Parish ministry cannot be understood in terms of tangible productivity so different ways of understanding success and evaluating priorities need to be articulated. The thesis suggests ways of thinking about and describing aspects of parish ministry that highlight the kinds of practices that enable people to flourish. The use of maternal imagery is not intended to suggest that women have a better access to these ways of being and doing, nor that congregations are like children. Mothering at its best seeks to create the relationships and spaces in which people grow up and flourish. Times of dependency are part of that but maturity and reciprocal relationships of interdependence is the goal.

Neo-Thomism misread Aquinas by trying to find in him answers to questions posed by Descartes and Kant, producing a theology that people like Chauvet rightly abandoned. This thesis, on the other hand, proposes a decidedly pre-modern reading of Thomas. It begins with two basic structures of Thomas' thought - a threefold notion of truth (so that truth is ontological as well as epistemological), and an understanding of exitus-reditus that shows its links to “archaic” concepts such as the hau of the Maori. Then it considers human life in terms of merit and thus “economy,” (exchange of valuables); but this economy is a gift economy, and here we consider the gift in the light of Seneca (whom Thomas took as an authority) and Mauss, as well as using Allard's insights into how debt, particularly debt to God, generates what in Thomas takes the place of the Cartesian subject. In this light grace is seen as the spirit of the gift with which God graces us, giving rise to gratitude. We then consider Christ as graced and gracing us, first of all by our configuration to him in the sacraments (using the analogy of clothes), followed by a conformation in grace. We look at this in baptism and penance, but then we take the Eucharist as a three-fold sign, and show how it generates in us faith, hope and love. The unity of the sacrament as a gift is emphasised, and the cases of its division, such as fiction, the votum sacramenti, and circumcision are examined. As a Jew, Derrida gives insight into grace before the coming of Christ and the value of the sacrifice of Abraham, and in this way we can see how Thomas circumvents Derrida's critique of the gift. Finally we compare Thomas with Chauvet.

This research is premised on the investigation of two under-researched groups within the Church of England, whose subjectivities have altered since the Church of England made the momentous decision to allow the ordination of women in 1992. Whilst women priests more generally have been subject to research investigation and comment, priests as mothers and the non-ordained spouses of women priests are two groups of people whose experiences and subjectivities have not been explored in explicit detail. Indeed, at the heart of this research is the theme of gender identity and how femininities and masculinities are lived and negotiated by these two groups constructing their identities within the boundaries of the Church. Rather than considering gender in a one-dimensional way, by focusing on both femininities and masculinities a more nuanced and complex picture will be allowed to emerge. This study emphasises the way in which everyday life is negotiated and lived and how this often disrupts traditional established binaries such as public and private, masculinity and femininity, sacred and profane. It considers how women priests negotiate an institution governed by sacredly masculinist norms and how their positioning as mothers impacts on this mediation. Motherhood is taken as a topic of salient concern, unpicking its ideologies and how these dominant ideas have been informed by both secular and religious discourses, especially regarding how sacred and profane discourses impact on motherhood’s construction. And how men as spouses mediate a terrain established as explicitly feminine is considered, highlighting the means through which gender acts as an important mechanism through which expectation and practice is established but how this is explicitly interwoven through particular gendered ways of experiencing public and private divisions.

In the latter half of the twelfth century and at the beginning of the thirteenth, the machinery and methods of Episcopal government in several English bishoprics were improved and transformed by the actions of certain competent and energetic prelates. The following study aims to record and assess the achievements of one such bishop - Hugh of Wells, for twenty-six years occupant of the see of Lincoln. Hugh's experience of Hubert Walter's reforms in the royal chancery and his implementation of this knowledge to diocesan government after his elevation to the bishopric of Lincoln culminated in a pontificate marked by transition and innovation in the sphere of administrative procedure - notably, the registration of certain categories of diocesan business upon rolls. An examination of these enrolments in conjunction with the four hundred surviving acta of the bishop has allowed a more detailed insight into many aspects of routine ecclesiastical government than at first appeared possible. Yet, even the resultant study is by no means an exhaustive record of the conduct of diocesan affairs under this very efficient but otherwise unremarkable bishop. The central bureaucracy of the diocese, its composition and recruitment, the division of duties between the various administrative officials and the bishop's relations with the regular and secular clergy under his control have all merited close attention but in the event it has proved impossible to include in this thesis a survey of the administration of the temporalities of the see during Hugh's episcopate even though ample source material is available for such a project.

This thesis investigates the existence of stress in the Roman Catholic priesthood. A transactional model of stress is adopted as a heuristic for this investigation. Here, stress is seen as the relationship between features of the work environment, as appraised by clergy themselves, and various indicators of diminished well-being e.g. poorer self reported health, lower self-esteem and increased pessimism about the role and effectiveness of the priest in the future. This model also places considerable emphasis upon the possible role of perceived support in the overall aetiology - or amelioration - of stress. Using this transactional model as a guide, seventeen work environment stressors, were identified on the basis of qualitative and quantitative investigations with a total sample of 189 priests drawn from four dioceses. The qualitative investigation comprised twelve in-depth interviews with an opportunistic sample of clergy. The focus of these interviews was to determine the antecedents and consequences of stress as perceived by members of the clergy. On the basis of the interview data a bespoke questionnaire was developed for distribution to a broad sample of priests. The questionnaire measured both antecedents (work environment factors) and consequences (impacts on well-being) as well as perceptions of the support available to priests both inside and outside the Church. The data to be presented show that it is the contradictions that many priests have to deal with which are often pivotal in the aetiology of stress e.g. the implementation of Canon Law in an increasingly secular world. The multiplicity and diversity of roles that priests now have to fulfil - whether at Diocesan or parochial level, is also a key factor, as are the daily parish/diocesan administration duties that priests have to undertake and the increasingly 'convenience stores mentality' (as clergy see it) of the Church community. Very little support in dealing with these issues was perceived to be available to them by many priests within the sample. The implications of these results are discussed both in terms of their correspondence with findings in general occupational stress research and in terms of a proposed rudimentary stress management programme that might be implemented to help manage stress within the Roman Catholic priesthood.

This study considers the nature of Methodist allegiance in four south Nottinghamshire parishes from the arrival of the denomination in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century until about 1875. In this area, Methodism became strongly established against an inadequate Anglican church but nevertheless most individuals did not exhibit an exclusive commitment. Using records from the Newark, subsequently Bingham, Wesleyan Methodist circuit, relating to the Societies in three medium-sized villages and one small market town, and looking particularly at Methodist membership and decisions regarding choice of baptismal rite, the research shows the existence of both exogenous growth and continuing fluidity of allegiance from the early period until well beyond the mid-century point of the religious census. It demonstrates a previously unidentified, significant turnover in Methodist membership throughout the period, which occurred irrespective of apparent growth, stability or decline. This lends support to the growing body of evidence about both varying and dual denominational allegiance, in particular between the Wesleyan chapel and the parish church. The research further confirms this phenomenon in relation to baptismal decisions, where some committed Methodist families continued to use the Anglican rite and many varied their choice for different children. In investigating these facets of religious life, the study also establishes the existence of emerging religious competition during the nineteenth century, evidenced additionally in competitive church building, service patterns and the provision of education. Only by the last quarter of the century were denominational boundaries clearly hardening, particularly in the town of Bingham, but this thesis demonstrates that until then allegiance was neither exclusive nor consistent.

This thesis explores the thought of John William Graham in the context of changes that took place in the Society of Friends in Britain during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. With other liberal-minded Christians, he turned against evangelicalism and strove to promote a faith open to new scientific thinking, and new approaches to the Bible. With other Quakers of his generation he found a religion which met his needs in George Fox and other early Friends, with their promotion of an inward faith, free alike of dogma and of ritual, and relying on the ‘free ministry’ of immediate inspiration. He became prominent in campaigning against tendencies within Quakerism to establish a paid pastorate and set forms of worship, and for a newly invigorated Quaker ministry. He believed that authentic Quakerism, based on the ‘Inward Light’ could lead the way towards a new and better world. Graham had an idiosyncratic outlook on theology as well as politics, especially the politics of war and of empire, which occasionally set him at variance with other Quakers of the ‘Renaissance’. In exploring points of convergence and divergence, this thesis provides new ways of understanding this crucial era in Quaker history.

This study is about the nature of the relationships between Websites – which enable global access to data and interaction – and local churches – which are congregations whose core focus is on particular, geographically-located, communities. It considers the thesis that there are significant inequalities in the provision, design and effectiveness of local Methodist church Websites which, if addressed, could result in a more consistent approach to Website provision within the Methodist Church and in better mission outcomes from the resources that are invested in Website design. The argument presented plays a part in the integration of the fields of missiology and information technology, making an original contribution to knowledge because of the way in which macro-missiological issues related to the use of technology are considered along with the micro-missiological issues related to local church Websites and the local mission priorities of individual churches. In conjunction with the gathering of new data about local church mission priorities and Websites and the production of original statistical information, new insights are revealed concerning the deployment of information technology in the context of Christian mission and, in particular, new insights into the deployment of Website technology in the context of local Methodist churches.

During the late twentieth century Baptist church membership declined whilst church attendance increased. An investigation of these phenomena references Stanley Grenz’s post-foundational theology and Anthony Giddens’s sociological theory of structuration. An historical overview of Baptist church history reveals the continuities and discontinuities in the theology and practice of church membership. Attention is focused on the covenantal discourse of professional theology from the early 1980s to date, on the denominational discourse informing a sample of 120 church membership materials, and on the relational discourse of twenty interviews with church members and attenders. Interview data shows that membership discourses have two forms: formal and relational. The latter is found to reduce distinctions between members and nonmembers for which ‘belonging’ provides a validating framework enforced by four features: experientially-validated subjectivity; post-denominationally conceived identity; de-structured relationality; and practical immediacy. Scripture, church tradition and the contemporary context are the sources for Grenz’s post-foundational theology and point to the trialectical tension between the covenantal, denominational and relational discourses of membership and belonging. A discursive theological methodology is proposed that is located within the congregation, rooted in a trialogue, requires deeper scriptural engagement, and is focussed on discussion of an additional Core Value: ‘relational communities’.

This thesis argues that current debates about belief within present-day British Quakerism misrepresent the nature of Quaker faith and practice by over-emphasising particular aspects of the way in which Quakers have traditionally talked about God, namely, seeking to understand the mystery of divinity and the role of the divine will in relation to human intuition and reason in guiding behaviour. By comparing texts from the seventeenth and twenty/twenty-first century, using a quantitative method, it is demonstrated that there is a consistency across time in the way in which Quakers have perceived God and their relationship to God. By treating ‘performance’ (how adherents follow the will of God) and ‘transformation’ (how adherents experience their relationship with God) as dualistic and by using different strategies to avoid the challenge of empiricism, present-day Quakers appear dis-united in their internal theological disagreements. This thesis argues that Quaker faith and practice is more accurately understood, in both periods, as a single axis, running between performance and transformation and that this pattern of believing and belonging avoids internal disputes, which are misplaced. The method of analysis itself also provides a contribution to academic understanding of how patterns of belief and behaviour can be analysed.