There has been much discussion on the roles of men and women in the church today. One of the crucial questions being asked is whether women should be ordained as ministers. Many debates have been centered on the question, "Should women teach?" "Should women exercise authority with men?" "Are men and women equal?" These questions have been approached from different angles. In recent years many denominations have increased opportunities for women in ministry. This thesis sets out to look at opportunities for women in ministry in the Evangelical Church of South Africa (ECSA). It is important to discover what Scripture says about the role of women in the church. The desire to be totally involved in ministry in the church has prompted women's struggle for emancipation. By looking at the culture and background of Indian women in South Africa we are able to ascertain some of the problems facing Indian women in ministry. In order to do this, Old Testament teachings, teachings of Jesus in the gospels and doctrinal teachings in the New Testament have been considered. Various views of those who have written on women in ministry have also been considered. This thesis is not an attempt to undermine the leadership of the ECSA, but rather it wishes to bring clarity on the issue of the ministry of women in the ECSA. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

Taxation was one of the crucial issues facing the first century Palestinian peasantry. In particular, the Galilean peasantry suffered under a triple tax system: tribute to Rome, taxes to support the Herodian administration, and the Temple tithes and taxes. These taxes were not used for the well being of the people, but were a means for the ruling class and Temple leaders to enrich themselves. The wealthier the ruling and Temple elites became, the poorer the peasants became. The burden of taxation forced the peasants to borrow. This would later lead them into a state of indebtedness, landlessness, debt-slavery and finally, into severe poverty. It is against this background that we explore Jesus' response towards taxes in his words and deeds. After investigating the response of Jesus towards taxes, this study examines how Jesus' response challenges the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) - Konde diocese in its handling of taxation issues in its context. / Thesis (M.Th.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1999

In this regional study of Methodist development and societal influence throughout the period of industrialisation, recent trends in Methodist historiography at a national level are combined with the research and source material accumulated at a local level, to provide a detailed analysis of Methodist growth in Cornwall between the years 1780 and 1870. The thesis is divided loosely into three sections. In the first, four chapters outline the essential background to interpretative analysis by considering, in turn, recent historiographical developments in Methodist studies; social change in Cornwall during industrialisation; the performance of the Anglican Church in the county as represented in the Visitation Returns for 1779, (as well as historical and structural reasons for its 'failure'); and Methodist growth as expressed through available statistical indices, especially the date of formation of Methodist societies, and the 1851 Ecclesiastical Census. In the second section, one long chapter is devoted to an in-depth, county-wide analysis of Methodist growth, which considers the impact of external factors, particularly socio-economic, and internal circumstances, such as the degree of maturity of pastoral and administrative machinery, and the level of Connexional or lay control over chapel and circuit affairs, on the form and function of Methodism in nine distinct socioeconomic regions within the county. In the third section, four chapters concentrate on West Cornwall, where Methodism was strongest, in order to examine the roots of, and reasons for, the distinctively indigenous form of Methodism which developed there. On the one hand, the pastoral and administrative difficulties in exerting adequate Connexional control are considered; while on the other, an interpretation of the 'folk' functionality of revivals and of Methodism as a 'popular religion' is offered.

Gérard Roussel was a prominent French ecclesiastical leader in the sixteenth century and yet is little known. The Catholic, Protestant and Enlightenment historical narratives have all ignored him. A member of the renewal-minded Circle of Meaux from 1521 to 1525, he collaborated with the famous humanist, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, to produce an evangelical preaching manual. This study examines its emphases. When this Circle was crushed, Roussel fled to Strasbourg and admired the Reformation taking place there. Marguerite de Navarre recalled him to France and became his patron in various ways. He translated into French a children’s catechism originally published by the German reformer Johann Brenz. The translation puzzles readers today, because it is too complicated for children. This study suggests it was targeted at the royal children to influence their future rule. Roussel became the Lenten preacher in Paris in 1533, experiencing great success. John Calvin was one of his admirers. While traditionalists reacted with tumult, the crowds flocking to hear Roussel suggest that the French evangelicals were more significant in the first third of the century than is commonly understood. They offered a “third option” in France, in addition to the traditionalists and the rising Protestants. Consistently, these evangelicals sought reform of the French church and society through gospel preaching and irenic living. They strongly rejected church schism. Roussel accepted the Bishopric of Oloron in 1536, where he diligently taught, preached and modeled his irenic evangelical emphases. Calvin viciously turned on him as one practising dissimulation. Roussel prepared both a guide for episcopal visitation of a diocese and an extensive catechism for theological students that had the same goal as the preaching manual produced in Meaux. Traditionalist opposition ensured they would not be published, but we have a manuscript available. This study examines them, finding that Roussel was intent on building bridges between all reformers, both Protestant and Catholic. He avoids, as a key example, embracing any of the hotly contested positions on the Lord’s Supper that surrounded him. He instead constructed a simplified biblical Mass, consistent with much traditional piety, but clearly emphasizing gospel preaching as well. Killed in an attack by a Catholic traditionalist in 1555, his life points to the French evangelical embrace of both gospel preaching and irenic living. Recent scholarship has discovered that such irenic impulses had a greater impact on Christian society in this era than has often been recognized. This study deepens that awareness. / Graduate / 0330 / 0335 / 0320 / aschoeber@shaw.ca

This study is a contextual exegetical encounter with the text of the Sermon on the Plain in Luke 6:12-7:17 which is an ethical discourse embedded in the Jesus tradition where Jesus speaks and acts in solidarity with the poor and the marginalized. The study applies the ethical paradigms of the discourse for socio-economic and political justice to the context of the present Namibian public economic establishment which is unjustly increasing socio-economic disparities in society. The study has therefore adopted Burridge’s (2007) ethical model of an open and inclusive community of Jesus in Luke which Jesus forms and in which he encourages egalitarian socio-economic praxis. Burridge finds this model -the “all-embracing portrait of Jesus” - in Luke’s community. It opens up to all as “it seeks to imitate Jesus”. The Sermon on the Plain is in the current study seen as the epicenter of Luke’s presentations of Jesus’ socio-economic and political ethical teaching and praxis for an egalitarian community, the ethical model which Luke expands throughout his narrative account of the gospel. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (ELCIN), the particular contextual focus of this study, is taken as an open and transformative community of Bible readers where this ethical model could be embraced and effect some changes in human behavior that may lead to a more fair, inclusive and equitable socio-economic community, both within the Church and in the predominantly Christian Namibian society. For necessary methodological and hermeneutical approaches to ways in which the New Testament ethics of Jesus - which are the ethical paradigms of ancient communities - can be relevant and applicable to our present day contexts, this study has made use of Burridge’s method that considers New Testament ethics as starting with the historical Jesus. The reconstruction of the historical Jesus and our access to the ethics of Jesus are, according to Burridge, possible through our reading of biblical texts and gospels which are like stained glass so that our picture of what lies behind the text is not unimpeded. This model has been employed by the current study to see beyond Luke’s text the historical Jesus who is part of the peripheral peasant communities. In his context, he encourages the families and villages to sustain their limited socio-economic power through sharing, a form of resistance that Moxnes (1988) terms the “moral economy of the limited good” within the exploitative ruling system. The study identifies the ancient levels of the early Jesus tradition through which the socio-economic and political ethics of Jesus underwent adaptations and continuation. Burridge’s method of the imitation of Jesus and its hermeneutic approach of the gospels as stained glass are in this study applied in Draper’s (1991) African contextual exegetical tripolar framework for our present appropriation. Burridge reads the gospels as narrative biographies of Jesus, presenting Jesus’ words and activities, the umbrella narrative genre in which the ethics of Jesus are not considered as isolated rules or moral prescription. Rather they are rather part of the whole life story of Jesus in which both his rigorous and unconditional acceptance ethics are checked against each other. This approach has led the present researcher to see the community of the followers of Jesus as the place where our ethics of love, mercy, and grace are lived out in tension with the justice of God, which is also at the centre of Jesus’ proclamation of the reign of God as the alternative to socio-economic and political exploitation. This study has therefore argued for the love of Jesus for the marginalized, a love which pushed Jesus to the margins, risking even his life for the sake of justice. ELCIN has been implicated by the dense empirical data of this study. Both the interviews and sermons collected in its Eastern Diocese substantially confirm ELCIN”s timidity, even silence, when it comes to addressing socio-economic and political injustice in Namibia. The study’s findings constitute a qualitative pattern that is transferable to the whole of ELCIN. Therefore the study concludes that ELCIN is collaborating with the proponents in our present government of an unjust system. The data indicates that this situation is accountable for socio-economic and political polarization. The study conscientizes ELCIN, in its prophetic task, to speak from the perspective of the poor and the marginalized, among whom the Church’s “social location” is situated as it continues “seeking to imitate Jesus”. The study suggests that the Church should shift from the traditional spiritualizing of human daily life experiences to critical contextual biblical hermeneutics and appropriation which motivates self-theologizing and local debates. It crucially suggests that ELCIN distances itself from the euphoric excitement of political independence to choose a position of critical solidarity with the state and to operate without its voice being marred by ambivalence. Transformative and liberating formal and informal education is suggested as essential for empowering the marginalized, whereby ELCIN can play a vital role. Reading the Bible together as an open community of the followers of Jesus is suggested so that ELCIN will become an interpretive community that dialogues and openly debates socio-economic and political issues in the light of its unbiased appropriation of the biblical message. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-Unviversity of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

Almost daily emotional worship pours from a warehouse-sized evangelical church in the small rural community of Santa Cruz, Costa Rica. Within twenty years an evangelical presence has gone from virtually non-existent to standing alongside the Catholic Church in the area’s religious landscape. Scenarios like this are going on throughout Latin America as evangelical faith has become firmly rooted in the region. In this thesis I provide another ethnographic research context to the growing body of literature focused on Pentecostalism/evangelicalism in Latin America. Like others addressing this dynamic, I explore the factors and motivations that lead people to become evangelical. I approach these questions with particular emphasis on the characteristics of evangelical faith as it is constructed and practiced during church services. Through participant observation during church services and interviews with practicing evangelicals in and around Santa Cruz, I highlight the relationship between the characteristics of an evangelical faith and the factors and motivations that lead people to seek it. To be religiously active in the manner of my informants requires deep commitment and is not a faith adopted and practiced lightly. Those who become evangelical and sustain the demanding practice are likely to seek it for spiritual solutions to difficult life situations.

The thesis is presented in five books each with a number of subdivisions or chapters. The first is composed of two chapters: chapter one deals with pan-evangelical developments from the early Evangelical revival to 1789. It examines the centripetal and centrifugal forces that served to unite but also to separate like-minded evangelicals. It briefly describee several early institutional attempts at church union, the proto-types of the great pan-evangelical organizations studied in the body of the thesis, Chapter two examines the more immediate forces between 1789 and 1795 that gave rise to the first major experiment in pan-evangelical cooperation - the London Missionary Society. It focuses on the ambivalent effects of the French Revolution on church union, initially separating evangelical Dissenters from churchmen, but later bringing them back together again. It also looks briefly at the role millennial prophecy played in drawing evangelicals closer together before the anticipated Second Coming. Book two examines the London Missionary Society in three chapters. Chapter three traces the largely abortive attempt to found an institution that was intended to unite all evangelical denominations, examining why this attempt ultimately failed. Chapter four studies inter-societal relations between the L.M.S. and other foreign missionary societies following this failure, and the continuing, though largely unsuccessful attempts to recreate a pan-evangelical union or federation in the mission world. Chapter five describes the state of internal relations within the Society itself, concluding with a brief anaysis of its fall into Congregational hands by 1818. Book three is a study of the British and Foreign Bible Society and is divided into four chapters. Chapter six examines the forces in Britain and on the Continent which led to the formation of an evangelical Bible society, showing that because of the simplicity of its objectives - the circulation of Bibles without note or comment - it could attract a much larger denominational patronage than either the L.M.S. or the Tract Society. Chapter seven demonstrates, however, that even in this simple design, the Society evoked criticism from High Church opponents who saw in it an immediate threat to the establishment. The controversy that issued from this opposition is examined in detail, together with the adverse effects that controversy had on the Society's internal cohesion, Chapter eight shows that many of the High Church accusations were based on fact, and that because of its growing size, the institution coald not always control some of its more irregular provincial auxiliaries. The sometimes arbitrary and largely ineffective way that the parent society tried to reassert its control over provincial affairs created dissident groups in Scotland and England leading to two major conflagrations - the Apocrypha and Tests Controversies - which are examined in chapter nine. Books four and five examine the Religious Tract Society and the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, each in two chapters. Chapters nine and twelve trace the early developments of each society (the London Society being at first a branch of the L.M.S.) from the late eighteenth century through to their emergence as major pan-evangelical institutions in the first decade of the nineteenth century. We discover that until the Bible Society had been in existence four years, the Tract Society and the evangelical mission to the Jews were much like the L.M.S. in denominational composition: only after 1808 did they also comprehend all the major evangelical bodies. Chapters ten and thirteen examine the internal controversies that plagued both societies showing why the R.T.S. was able to overcome internal dissension while the London Society fell into Anglican hands after only six years. Each book describes society activities during the period examined in this thesis, and attempts to show the impact of interdenominational cooperation on the church at large. Close attention has been paid to theological, social, and political developments contemporary with the pan-evangelical impulse and the impact these in turn had on the societies studied. By a comparative analysis of the four societies, their successess and failures, the thesis hopes to make a contribution to the ecumenical dialogue today.

The reformation was a very complicated process which coffected all spheres of social and personal life. Its research can be carriet out in many scietific studies and its importance can be reflected upon from different points of view. The trend of the reformation which developed in Switzerland is colled differently in different historical sources: helvetian after the old name of Switzerland (Helvetia); Calvinizm, after the name of a famous religions reformer J.Calvin. The Calvinist church in the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania was colled the Evangelical Reformed Church, in short-the reformed Church. Since its establishment in 1555 the Evangelical reformed Church was independent. The activities and the relationship of the Evangelical reformed Church with Lithuanian state during the period of independence in 1918-1940 is analized in this thesis, the main part of the thesis is devoted to the analysis of the self-govermment of the Evangelical reformed Church, which is the fundamental thing in the reformed Church. The reformed Church has never been governed by a hierarchic structure. Its higest self-governing institution was the Synod. The analysis shovs how the Synod of the Reformed Church independently, without direct interference of the state and without demand for special conditions managed to reorganize its administration and territorial network, retaining self-governing, real property and cult buildings under the changed political circumstances 9after Vilnius, the... [to full text]

The 1859 revival is the most significant spiritual awakening that has affected Scotland in modern times, but it has remained little examined by scholars. This thesis aims to highlight the importance of this religious phenomenon and to analyse it in a critical manner. In the first instance, it considers the three principal traditions of revival that have evolved since the seventeenth century so that the 1859 movement can be located within this history. It also examines the various theories that have arisen during the last fifty years which have sought to explain how and why these movements have appeared at certain times and in particular contexts. It is significant that, unlike previous studies which have explored the revival from either a narrow local or broad national perspective, this thesis considers the awakening on a regional basis, covering the north east of Scotland. It analyses the manner and expression of the revival as it arose in the city of Aberdeen, in the rural hinterland of north east Scotland, and among the fishing communities along the Moray Firth. In addition, by using data from church records and the 1861 census, it determines the composition of the people who were affected by the movement in each of these three separate situations. Furthermore it investigates the factors which explain the relative failure of the revival to affect the fishing town of Peterhead. Accordingly the thesis demonstrates that the 1859 revival was not a single, uniform religious movement. On the contrary, it establishes that local factors, which include the theological and social nature of a particular context, exercised a powerful effect upon the character of this 'season of grace.

Cette thèse tentera de démontrer, dans un premier temps, si les idéologies religieuses conservent une grande importance aux États-Unis, et ce, malgré la sécularisation apparente de la société. Une analyse du processus politique qui est à l’œuvre dans la mobilisation et l’action du Christian Coalition – organisation de la nouvelle droite chrétienne – permet de cerner la place qu’a le religieux dans la sphère publique, et plus particulièrement, dans la sphère politique. Plus spécifiquement, nous observerons les stratégies et les actions que le C.C. entreprend dans le but d’exercer des pressions et d’influencer les débats et le pouvoir politique, tout en déterminant la nature des enjeux qui motivent une mobilisation pour ce groupe protestant conservateur. Une évaluation basée sur le courant des mouvements sociaux illustrera la mesure dans laquelle la nouvelle droite chrétienne détient une partie du pouvoir social et jouit du rôle d’acteur politique par son institutionnalisation dans la sphère politique.