This is a study of religious national identity in Britain during the 1920s. The focus of the thesis is the Prayer Book controversy which engulfed the Church of England in 1927 and 1928 and climaxed with the House of Commons rejecting the Church’s proposals for an alternative liturgy on two occasions. The purpose of the revised book was to incorporate moderate Anglo-Catholicism into the life of the Church. It is asserted that the main factor behind the revision controversy, largely overlooked in previous studies, was a conflict of different models of national religion. While the dominant ‘Centre-High’ (sometimes referred to as ‘liberal Anglican’) faction in the Church, which included the English Catholic section of Anglo-Catholics, favoured a broadly Christian national religion and a tolerant, comprehensive established Church, many Protestants, in particular conservative Evangelicals, understood religious national identity to be emphatically Protestant under the terms of a Reformation settlement. The bishops’ revision proposals challenged the Protestant uniformity of the Church and so brought into question the constitutional relationship between Church and State. Thus the issue of national religion played a pivotal role in the revision controversy. Chapter one gives the background to the liturgical project in the Church, assessing the balance of power between the Anglican parties in the 1920s and explaining the purposes of revision. It is argued that the new Prayer Book reflected the reigning Centre-High orthodoxy of the House of Bishops and was moderately Anglo-Catholic in nature. This underlying agenda led many Evangelicals and advanced Anglo-Catholics to reject the new book. Chapters two and three describe the Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic responses respectively and argue that both parties were divided over revision, with large sections of both opposed to revision. Chapter four explains the attitude of the conservative Evangelical, Centre-High and ‘Western’ Catholic groupings towards the constitutional, cultural and moral dimensions of religious national identity. It argues that these understandings of national religion were a key cause of identity conflict within the Church and so determined the responses of each Church faction towards revision. Chapter five enlarges on the idea of Protestant national religion during the period by assessing the important role of the Free Churches and non-English mainline Churches in the crisis. It argues that the involvement of Protestants in these denominations was significant and that the ideologies of anti-Catholicism and national Protestantism motivated this. Finally, chapter six further emphasises the ‘national’ dimension of the revision controversy by explaining the attitude of the House of Commons to revision. It is asserted that the Commons’ debates on revision were in fact discussions on the role of national religion in 1920s Britain and that the rejections of the bishops’ proposals demonstrated the resilience of parliamentary Protestantism in British politics. Overall, the thesis concludes that, while Protestant national identity certainly weakened from the mid nineteenth century, this decline should not be exaggerated. Indeed the 1920s may have seen an upsurge in anti-Catholicism, as Protestants, in particular Evangelicals, reacted to the rise of Anglo-Catholicism in the Church and the post-war successes of Roman Catholicism. The idea of Protestant Britain remained a strong alternative to the conceptualisation of a broadly Christian Britain during 1920s.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of History, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-53).

Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2001. / Bibliography: leaves 299-308.

"Organisation development is a planned, systematic process in which applied behavioral science principles and practices are introduced into ongoing organisations toward the goal of increasing individual and organisational effectiveness. " [French and Bell] This study describes and analyses the implementation of Organisation Development (OD) to an Anglican Church theological seminary, The College of the Transfiguration (Cott), in the Anglican Church of the Province of Southern Africa (ACSA). The origins of OD are business related, emerging in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Over the years, and recently in South Africa, OD has been applied in educational change initiatives. Unlike more traditional change strategies, OD promotes collaboration in organisational change processes through the inclusive participation of all stakeholders. This study is unique in the sense that OD is applied to an Anglican Church theological institution in Southern Africa. The goal of theological institutions, particularly Cot!, is to "form, inform and transform" (Cot! Prospectus, 2011) those who feel called to ordained ministry. Personal experience in this practice has confirmed that organisational emphasis is placed more on product than process; on results rather than the leadership and management of the organisation. This study was an attempt to introduce a process of planned change to such an organisational context. OD was introduced to The College of the Transfiguration in the form of action research using the Survey Data Feedback (SDF) strategy. Data gathered was interpreted and analysed, followed by action planning and implementation of agreed plans. The process had a positive impact on both stakeholders and the organisation despite the challenges associated with the unpredictable world of organisations. Ultimately, I propose tentative recommendations which could help Cott and other educational institutions to achieve long-term improvement in organisational leadership and management.

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John Marston’s literary legacy has inevitably existed in the larger-than-life shadows of his great contemporaries William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. In the last two centuries, his works were hardly taken on their own terms but were perceived instead in overt or implicit comparison to Shakespeare’s or Jonson’s. As a result, Marston’s plays acquired the lasting but unfair image of haphazard concoctions whose cheap sensationalism and personal satire often got them in trouble with the authorities. This was the case until recently, especially with Marston’s comic drama. Following revisionist trends, this study sets out to restore some perspective: it offers a fresh reading of Marston’s comic plays and collaborations—Antonio and Mellida, What You Will, Jack Drum’s Entertainment, The Dutch Courtesan, The Malcontent, Parasitaster, Eastward Ho, and Histrio-Mastix—by pursuing a more nuanced contextualization with regard to religious context and archival evidence. The first central contention here is that instead of undermining political and religious authority, Marston’s comic drama can demonstrate consistent conformist and conservative affinities, which imply a seriously considered agenda. This study’s second main point is that the perceived failures of Marston’s comic plays—such as tragic elements, basic characterization, and sudden final reversals—can be plausibly read as deliberate effects, designed with this agenda in mind. The significance of this analysis lies in its interpretation of Marston’s comedies from the angle of religious and political conformism, which argues for an alternative identity for this playwright. The discussion opens with a presentation of Marston’s early satirical books as texts informed by a moderate Church of England Protestantism, yet coinciding at times with some of Calvin’s writings, and by a distrust of the individualistic tendencies of the English Presbyterian movement as well as the perceived literal ritualism of the old Catholic faith. On this basis, it then proceeds to reveal an identical philosophy behind Marston’s comic plays and collaborations. Antonio and Mellida and What You Will are interpreted to dramatize the human soul’s dependence on God’s favourable grace; Jack Drum’s Entertainment and The Dutch Courtesan to insist on the acknowledgement of God in romantic desire; The Malcontent and Parasitaster to present the dangers of the political immorality; and Eastward Ho and Histrio-Mastix to argue for the necessity of edifying occupations for the wayward human will. In its conclusion, this study further highlights Marston’s bias for political and religious individual obedience to established hierarchies and his suspicion of the early modern forces of change. The conformist identity that emerges from the present discussion is consistently supported by the archival evidence surviving from the playwright’s life. Thus, Marston’s comic drama can be interpreted as the result of carefully considered and skilfully implemented political and religious ideas that have been neglected so far.