Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1963. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Also available in print.

This work presents a brief historical survey of the Church and State relationship from the introduction of Christianity into Russia in the tenth century until the beginning of the Russo-German War in 1941.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1956 W57 / Master of Science

Traditionally, Ebenezer Erskine (1680-1754)- a leading Marrow Representer and 'founder' of the Secession Church- has been understood as either reclaiming a lost evangelical element of Scottish theology or portending a new factionalism that ultimately would splinter a formerly united Kirk. Such considerations of Erskine, however, have been undertaken without serious consideration being given to his theology and have been pursued in accordance with the historiographical interests of the later Secession Church. In the present work, Erskine is established within his own context- historical, ecclesiastical, and theological- and attention is given to the doctrinal system that shaped his ministry and his succession of controversial engagements. The picture that emerges is that of a man driven by two chief theological emphases- an evangelical federalism and a modified Covenantalism. In both of these doctrinal systems, Erskine was self-consciously drawing upon the complex inheritance of Scottish theology, particularly the systems of Westminster federalism and of Covenantal dissent within the Revolution Church, and was seeking to apply those systems to a contemporary Scotland that had been radically altered by the Union of 1707; the advent of toleration in 1712; and the theological commitments embodied in John Simson, Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. When Erskine is thus understood as seeking to contextually apply a commonly-inherited body of Scottish theology, new understandings of his involvement in Kirk-shaping controversies arise, presenting a more coherent picture of a major figure in the history of the Kirk, bringing increased clarity to an obscure age, and proving instructive to a twenty-first century Church facing similar issues yet unaware of Erskine's sometimes contentious testimony to contextual fidelity.

This thesis explores how Scotland's federal theology helped to perpetuate the seventeenth-century Presbyterian conception of a covenanted Church and nation among a significant portion of eighteenth-century evangelical Presbyterians. It examines how both a seventeenth-century form of federal theology and a social ethic based on Scotland's Covenants were preserved among many Scottish Presbyterians between 1690 and the 1790s, until a broader and more individualistic evangelicalism increasingly eclipsed the corporate aspects of federal theology. The thesis focuses on the experiences of the Secession and Reformed Presbyterian Churches, Presbyterian denominations which broke away from the established Church of Scotland. Chapter one traces the origins of federal theology in Scotland, and considers the Scottish covenant idea within Post-Reformation Calvinism generally, and more particularly within the Presbyterian Church of Scotland after the Revolution Settlement of 1689-90. Chapter two considers how federal theology was preserved and perpetuated among Presbyterian evangelicals after 1690, how these evangelicals continued the covenanting practice of identifying Scotland with biblical Israel, and how their longings for national revival came to hinge upon the renewal of Covenant obligations. Chapter three considers the impact of the Marrow controversy in prolonging the predominant influence of federal theology on eighteenth-century Scottish popular piety, particularly among the Secession and Reformed Presbyterians. Chapter four considers a further aspect of the Marrow controversy-that is, its emphasis on the connection between the moral law and the covenant of grace. In analyzing both the individual and corporate dimensions of federal theology, this chapter examines the thought that informed the practice of covenanting, and considers why many Secession and Reformed Presbyterians believed in the 'perpetual obligation' of Scotland's Covenants for subsequent generations. The chapter also introduces the theological criticisms that would in the course of the eighteenth-century largely undermine federal theology's corporate applications for most Presbyterians and that would greatly weaken adherence to the Covenants within the two Secession Synods (Burgher and Anti burgher). Chapter five examines the application of the covenant idea to the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. It explores how the sacraments kept alive the social ideal of federal theology and its aspirations for national revival within the Secession and Reformed Presbyterian Churches between 1690 and the 1820s, despite the mounting theological criticisms of federal theology and covenanting. Finally, chapter six examines how federal theology's corporate aspects affected the Secession and Reformed Presbyterians' views on Church and State and the role of the civil magistrate. Consideration is given to how Scotland's changing social, political, and intellectual contexts eroded the commitments to a Covenant piety among evangelical Presbyterians, and to how this led to further schisms within the two Secession Synods at the close of the eighteenth century.

Contemporary political and public theology is predominantly statist, with a view of the state as the solver of human problems, and with the church urging the state to do more to bring about social justice and peace. This practice of politics as statecraft has been forcefully challenged by a number of recent theologians, such as those within the theological movement known as Radical Orthodoxy. Against such a backdrop, this thesis examines the work of two of Radical Orthodoxy’s most political writers: John Milbank and William Cavanaugh. Their characterization of the state, as based in nominalist philosophy and violence, is highly negative. This negative assessment renders statist theologies and the practice of statecraft profane and deeply problematic for Christians. They prefer instead to see the church as the only true politics. Yet this move places their ecclesial and sacramental politics in the overall modern movement of the politicization of Christianity. This thesis argues that the state is neither sacred nor profane, but if accepted as mundane, it is something that can be freely engaged with by the church as part of its overall witness to politics and society. In order to outline and assess the political theology of Milbank and Cavanaugh three biblical and doctrinal lenses – creation, preservation, and redemption – are used to judge their work. From the viewpoint of creation we see where Milbank and Cavanaugh find the origins of the state in comparison with other theological positions. This carries through to the commonly held view that the state is in the order of preservation, as an ordinance of God preserving human society from the chaos caused by human sinfulness. Finally, in redemption we see how in both Milbank and Cavanaugh the state becomes an anti-redeemer in competition with the political salvation found in the church and voluntary associations. The thesis concludes by drawing on the work of Jacques Ellul in advocating the desacralization of the state from being either sacred or profane. Such a perspective enables the Church to freely engage in statecraft as just one tactic in its political advocacy without corrupting itself.

Van Sendingkerk tot Verenigde Gereformeerde Kerk in Suider Afrika :1960-1997

From 1924 to 1929 the Roman Catholic Church and the Mexican State engaged in the crucial stage of a long-time struggle to determine whether the former would be independent of or subordinate to the latter. This thesis analyzes Church-State relations during this five year period and stresses the activities of President Plutarco Elías Calles, the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and more fanatic Mexican Catholics.