It is the purpose of this investigation to (1) review the background of Graham’s early training and environment to determine what factors may have influenced him; and to (2) analyze six televised sermons of May 10, 17, 25, 31, and June 7, and 14, 1958 respectively to determine the persuasive speech techniques employed.

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Mourning rituals and memorial aesthetics played an integral role in Victorian England. Queen Victoria's poet laureate, Alfred Lord Tennyson, confronted death on a literary level. His national elegiac poetry — addressed to Victoria — is illuminated when read as a funeral sermon. By drawing out the funeral sermon techniques Tennyson incorporates, we see that he assumes a role as religious mediator to counsel and comfort Victoria in her grief. Tennyson's funeral sermon message alters quite distinctively from Albert's death in 1861, to the death of the Duke of Clarence in 1892, where he makes a final effort to restore the Queen to an acceptance of her state and lead her to an active, healthy type of mourning. The corresponding poems, "Dedication" and "The Death of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale: to the Mourners," highlight Tennyson's unique role as spiritual guide for Queen Victoria, and can be read as a series of funeral sermons. Indeed, Tennyson incorporates various funeral sermon elements over decades in order to encourage the Queen to heal and cope with the trauma of death in the royal family.

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<p>This dissertation examines the development of Huguenot confessional identity and political strategy under the Edict of Nantes through sermons. Here, sermons serve as a vital medium of ideological exchange, shaping and reflecting the mental world of France's Protestant population, while acting as a source of dialogue between Huguenot ministers, their parishioners and readers, and the crown. As a result, this study demonstrates the cultural tools that influenced how the Huguenot population made sense of their position in France in the seventeenth century, and it shows that, while Huguenots lost much of their effective political power after 1629, their ministers were active in the decades after through informal but telling channels, instructing their parishioners about proper civic and political belief, and positing for their various audiences a view of the French polity – and of its absolutist monarchy – that included a legitimate place for the Huguenot population.</p> <p>The introduction and the first chapter provide the historical and historiographical background, while also offering a detailed explanation of the training and vocation of Huguenot ministers, shedding light on their sermons and their social and professional networks. Chapters two and three provide the heart of the argument, exploring the elements of the sermons that emphasized, first, the necessity of religious particularism for Huguenots within France and, second, their abiding devotion to the crown. Together, these dual elements of Huguenot identity meant that they were negotiating their own vision for the kingdom and their place within it. The final three chapters examine the prevalence and significance of the Huguenot dual identity in diverse sermon themes, while also showing its legacy beyond the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes.</p> <p>This dissertation provides an important contribution to Reformation and French historiography, while also complicating notions about religious identity and the development of absolutist thought by demonstrating a confessionally-distinct political activism that is not often recognized. It also reveals the interwoven nature of religion and politics in the Reformation era, here as it is manifested in sermons.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This thesis examines seventeenth century English wedding and funeral sermons to explore thepreached traits of the ideal Christian woman and the lived traits given to women deemed virtuousfollowing their deaths. The main research question asks how the ideal traits compare to the realtraits associated with virtuous women, and what these traits tell us about expectations, reality, andtheir role in female piety in early modern England. The three approaches used in this thesis comefrom Christine Peters, Jessica Murphy, and Penny Pritchard— all of whom look at the interactionsbetween gender, religion, the Reformation, and sermons as popular literature. These approachesaid in the understanding of why religion was being pushed as a female-specific activity that mustbe constantly performed, the examination of the various characteristics and how they fit into thegendered religious sphere, and what this meant for women seeking approval from their husbands,families, and communities. Contrary to the previous research, this thesis finds that while weddingsermons sought to instruct women to obey their husbands before anyone else, the funeral sermonswere noting that the real accomplishment was in obeying God before all else. This thesis also findsthat while the wedding sermons spoke exclusively to the husbands about finding the ideal wife, thefuneral sermons ignore the women’s roles in their families and solely praise their piety and goodworks. Overall, it is concluded that the idealized wedding sermons attempted to teach women toserve their husbands, when in reality, women were being praised for their devotion and service to God.

Practical Theology / D.Th. (Practical Theology)