This thesis aims to provide a critique of the conclusions of Gershom Scholem regarding the potential for ‘Gnostic’-Kabbalistic filiation, and to establish whether, in light of the available evidence, Scholem’s arguments (which have yet, to my mind, to be sufficiently challenged) can be reasonably supported. I strive to offer an arguably clearer definition of the relevant taxonomic terms than is often presented in scholarly analyses of this question, whilst also arguing for the applicability to this debate of certain pertinent methodological approaches drawn from the wider school of comparative mythology. As such, I also attempt to establish a clear methodology for judging the probability of the genetic descent of one ‘system’ from another, viz. that perhaps the most logical method for assessing potential similarities between different ‘systems’ is to assume in the first instance that all correspondences identified are essentially coincidental, dismissing this assumption only if one can identify a high level of exactness in these comparisons (such as would render pure coincidence relatively improbable) and/or establish a secure chain of transmission between two sources, a chain which renders the transmission of ideas not only possible but indeed probable. Applying this methodology to certain potential routes by which second century ‘Gnostic’ thought might have been transmitted to the origin point of the medieval Kabbalah, I attempt both to demonstrate the wider applicability of such a methodology beyond the narrow question of ‘Gnostic’-Kabbalistic relationships, and to illustrate the serious difficulties with advancing any of these potential routes as a reliable source for the transmission of ‘Gnostic’ ideas to the Kabbalah. Rather, I argue that it may be more logically defensible, in the absence of clear source evidence, to ascribe such correspondences as are located purely to coincidence, albeit a coincidence perhaps somewhat tempered by certain observations regarding the relative ubiquity of certain concepts and modes of thought.

The writings of the American pragmatist thinker Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) provide resources for what this thesis calls the “nested continua model” of theological interpretation. A diagrammatic demonstration of iconic relational logic akin to Peirce’s Existential Graphs, the nested continua model is imagined as a series of concentric circles graphed upon a two-dimensional plane. When faced with some problem of interpretation, one may draw discrete markings that signify that problem’s logical distinctions, then represent in the form of circles successive contexts by which these distinctions may be examined in relation to one another, arranged ordinally at relative degrees of specificity and vagueness, aesthetic intensity and concrete reasonableness. Drawing from Peter Ochs’s Scriptural Reasoning model of interfaith dialogue and Robert C. Neville’s axiology of thinking—each of which makes creative use of Peirce’s logic—this project aims to achieve an analytical unity between these two thinkers’ projects, which can then be addressed to further theological ends. The model hinges between diagrammatic and ameliorative functions, honing its logic to disclose contexts in which its theological or metaphysical claims might, if needed, be revised. Such metaphysical claims include love as that which unites feeling with intelligibility, hell as imprisonment within an opaque circle of interpretation whose distorted reflections render violence upon oneself and others, and the divine as both the center of aesthetic creativity and outermost horizon from which our many layers of interpretive criteria emerge. These are claims made from a particular identity in a particular cultural context, but the logical rules upon which they are based are accessible to all, and the hope of the model is to help people overcome problems of interpretation and orient themselves toward eternity without ignoring the world around them.

Mon mémoire porte sur le développement personnel. Par le biais de la sociologie des religions mise de l’avant par Thomas Luckmann dans The Invisible Religion (1970 [1967]), je l’appréhende comme une « “nouvelle” forme sociale de religion » (“new” social form of religion). Dans cet ouvrage, le sociologue avance que la religion est devenue, dans les sociétés modernes, une quête de sens existentiel animée par le thème de la réalisation personnelle (self-realization). Définissant la religion comme un système de significations et liant sa forme contemporaine au thème de la réalisation personnelle, l’approche de Luckmann me sert de cadre théorique pour entrevoir le développement personnel comme une manifestation de la religion invisible. N’étant pas rattachée à aucune institution religieuse officielle et se manifestant dans la sphère privée des individus, la religion contemporaine ne serait pas perçue comme telle par les individus et deviendrait — selon Luckmann — invisible. Dans le cadre de mon mémoire, j’interroge l’omniprésence du développement personnel dans le monde contemporain sous l’angle de son « [in]visibilité ». L’enjeu du mémoire est de mener une étude empirique sur le développement personnel afin de rendre visible une manifestation de la religion invisible dans nos vies. À cette fin, j’élabore une méthode permettant d’en discerner la présence dans le monde contemporain. Après une revue de littérature sur le développement personnel, je présente dans le premier chapitre l’ouvrage de Luckmann ainsi que les questions qui se trouvent au cœur de ma recherche. Dans le second chapitre, j’expose la méthode retenue pour saisir une manifestation contemporaine de la religion, c’est-à-dire une analyse de discours de type analytique. Dans le troisième chapitre, je m’attarde à découvrir le ou les modèles de connaissances de cette manifestation souvent associée au domaine du non religieux à partir de lectures des livres de développement personnel sélectionnés pour mon corpus : Le chemin le moins fréquenté (1987 [1978]), Écoute ton corps (1991 [1987]), Les quatre accords Toltèques (1999 [1997]) et Le secret (2007 [2006]). Une fois un « schéma du développement personnel » délinéé, je me consacre, dans le quatrième chapitre, à mettre en exergue la religion invisible dans une religion visible, c’est-à-dire un regroupement qui se considère « religion ». Prenant pour cas d’étude le Mouvement raëlien, je procède à une seconde analyse de discours de trois de ses livres : La méditation sensuelle (1980), Le Message donné par les Extra-Terrestres (1997) et Le Maitraya : extraits de son enseignement (2003). Ce faisant, j’évalue la place de la religion invisible dans des contextes qui se veulent expressément non religieux et religieux. Je conclus mon mémoire en abordant les enjeux liés à la visibilité de la religion et suggère, sur la base de mes résultats, de nouvelles perspectives de recherche pour la sociologie des religions. / My master thesis focuses on personal development. Drawing on the sociology of religion put forward by Thomas Luckmann in his book The Invisible Religion (1970 [1967]), I understand personal development as a “new” social form of religion. In this book, the sociologist argues that religion has become, in modern societies, a quest for existential meaning driven by the theme of self-realization. Defining religion as a system of meanings and linking its contemporary form to self-realization, Luckmann’s approach allows for the development of a theoretical framework that apprehends personal development as one manifestation of the “invisible religion.” Because it is not be perceived as religion, contemporary religion would be—according to Luckmann—be invisible. Not being tied to any official religious institution, the new form of religion would manifest itself in the private sphere. In my thesis, I question the ubiquity of personal development in the contemporary world in terms of its visibility/invisibility. The present thesis is an empirical study on personal development; it aims to make visible one invisible manifestation of religion in our lives. To this end, I develop a method that enables to identify its presence in the contemporary world. After a review of the literature on personal development in the first chapter, I present in my second chapter Luckmann’s book and the questions at the heart of the thesis. In the third chapter, I discuss the method used to capture a contemporary manifestation of religion, a discourse analysis. In the fourth chapter, I seek to uncover the knowledge paradigms of the personal development, often associated with the field of non-religious, by reading a selection of books from this literature : Le chemin le moins fréquenté (1987 [1978]), Écoute ton corps (1991 [1987]), Les quatre accords Toltèques (1999 [1997]) et Le secret (2007 [2006]). After delineating their “meaning system of personal development”, I dedicate myself, in the fifth chapter, to highlight the invisible religion in a “visible” one; a group whose members consider religious, the Raelian Movement. For this purpose, I undertake to a second discourse analysis with sources published by the Movement: La méditation sensuelle (1980), Le Message donné par les Extra-Terrestres (1997) et Le Maitraya: extraits de son enseignement (2003). In doing so, I assess the place of the invisible religion in contexts that are specifically perceived as non-religious and religious. I conclude my thesis by addressing issues related to the visibility of religion and, based on my results, suggest new research perspectives for the sociology of religion.

Juan Luis Segundo (1925-1996) was a Uruguayan Jesuit priest who, I argue, based his liberation theology on his understanding of existentialism. The major contribution of this thesis is the exploration of unknown and unexplored sources in Segundo's work. These sources support my thesis of his basis in existentialism and are corroborated by his mature theology. This thesis is significant because the connection between existentialism and liberation theology has been widely overlooked. My starting point is Segundo's 1948 book, in which he combines existentialism with personalism and develops a transcendental method grounded in love and inter-subjectivity. The following three chapters develop my argument through his engagement with four existentialist thinkers: Berdyaev, Sartre and Camus, and Heidegger. Chapter 3 demonstrates how Segundo follows Berdyaev's primacy of freedom, which allows for human creativity, but Segundo takes it as a "quality of the will" and relates freedom to love. Berdyaev influences Segundo's preference for a methodology yielding consistent growth rather than a systematic approach to theology. Chapter 4 shows how Sartre's and Camus' understanding of freedom and limits influenced Segundo's sense that a person's lived reality must be the starting point for theological reflection (e.g. the hermeneutic circle). In chapter 5, I use an unpublished manuscript to show how Segundo uses the place of tradition in the Christian church and the role of tradition in Heidegger's phenomenological analysis of Dasein in order to build his theology of "liberative human seeking and divine revelation". In the final two chapters, I draw the new sources together with two of Segundo's widely read books: Faith and Ideologies (1982) in chapter 6 and The Liberation of Theology (1975) in chapter 7. In chapter 6, the transcendental method he first wrote about in 1948 returns and he addresses materialism and personalism. Chapter 7 serves as my conclusion and uses Segundo's hermeneutic circle as the fullest manifestation of my argument.

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore how uninstitutionalised female preachers, or dā'iyāt, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia construct authority in a context in which male ulama dominate the production of religious knowledge and represent the apex of the religious and social hierarchy. The study was broad, descriptive, and explanatory and drew primarily on the framework known as ‘accountable ethnography’. Data collection occurred between June and December 2009 and consisted of observations, interviews, and collection of literary artefacts, which were reviewed alongside literature published internationally. A flexible mode of inquiry was employed, partly in response to constraints on public religious discourse imposed in Saudi Arabia after September 11, 2001. The study concludes that the dā'iyāt construct authority predominantly by relying on male ulama as marji'iyya diniyya (religious frame of reference) when issuing fatwas, as pedagogical models, as sources of charismatic inspiration, and as providers of personal recommendations. The dissertation also addresses a set of 'alternate' strategies of authority construction employed by Dr Fāṭima Nasiīf. Almost uniquely, this dā'iyā is found to construct authority that goes beyond reproduction of institutionalised views by developing scholarly arguments to support interpretations of Islamic texts that are responsive to women’s perspectives and needs. In doing so, she expands the parameters of religiously permissible practice while remaining, for her part, within the confines of orthodox practice. Thus, although her society and most researchers perceive knowledge as a masculine attribute in the Saudi religious sphere, in matters relating to women, as well as through active leadership in ritual practice, Dr Fāṭima demonstrates that the dā'iyā can become the authority. Nevertheless, for her and for the other dā'iyāt, the study finds that legitimatising female religious authority depends upon maintaining the established social order, including the hierarchy that places women in a subordinate position to men.

This thesis explores the experiences, encounters, responses and reactions to Islamophobia through a narrative study of forty female Pakistani and British students with a Pakistani heritage in universities across England. In exploring Islamophobia as a ‘racialised’ phenomenon, the participant narratives locate the experiences and encounters of Islamophobia within their ‘intersubjective’ realities, across various ‘communities’ of ‘discourse.’ These realities are informed by the wider socio-political milieu of a war against Al Qa’ida and its affiliates that ‘securitizes’ the Muslim and Pakistani identity(s) particularly in Britain. The university is also implicated in the counter terrorism agenda of the state, depicted as a ‘vulnerable’ space for radicalizing students. However, females in this discussion are predominantly absent within the academic and public narratives. Therefore, this research will explore the experience of Islamophobia, the way it is perceived by the British/Pakistani/Muslim/female student, and the way students respond and react to it within the university. The research employs a narrative method of inquiry. The narrative analysis is informed by a Bakhtinian notion of ‘dialogics’ to explore the multiplicity of ‘meanings’ that emerge through individual accounts of Islamophobia located within their public and private realms. In exploring these narratives the thesis illustrates how ‘degrees of religiosity’ influences encounters and experiences of Islamophobia, and highlights responses and reactions of students to such experiences, that include individual and group activism to challenge Islamophobia and the insecure meta-narrative about Muslims and terrorism. The research further focuses on both the religious identity of the Muslim student, and their problematic ethnic identity, Pakistani demonstrating how in a securitized socio-political milieu Muslim students are further vulnerable to experiences of Islamophobia, in the form of Pakophobia, where both their religious and ethnic identities are held suspect. These narratives have implications for the emerging understanding of Islamophobia as a ‘racialised’ phenomenon. They further have implications for universities that are encouraged to participate in the government’s counter-terrorism agenda. The narratives by locating the research within the particularities of a wider socio-political milieu that ‘racialises’ and ‘securitizes’ Muslims raises critical questions about the nature of discrimination in a post 9/11, 7/7 era that may have repercussions for other Muslim minority groups.

This thesis examines political engagement amongst young urban Chinese Protestants. Based on 100 interviews in Beijing and Shenzhen, 50 with Protestants, and 50 with non-Protestants, it focuses on three areas: national narratives (what individuals think about China, its current situation and its future direction), political opinions, and social and political activity. I firstly argue that Protestants generally adhere to a relatively ‘critical’ national narrative, one that is more divergent from the Party-state’s nationalist discourse than that of their demographic peers. I then argue that in causal terms, it is primarily individuals who hold these critical values who are most drawn to Christianity, rather than developing the values as a result of their faith. Secondly, Protestants do not just hold more negative opinions of China's political regime, but that the criteria by which they judge it are different. In contrast to their demographic peers, Protestants do not base their judgements of the regime on its performance at delivering on everyday political issues. Thirdly, Protestantism catalyses the development of a sense of agency in its adherents: a sense of moral responsibility towards China and a desire to bring change through transformative activism. However, factors in China's cultural, historical, social and political context serve to steer Protestants' activism away from engagement with secular society and inward towards the church community. I conclude by arguing that Protestantism poses two challenges to China's Party-state: Firstly, it is symptomatic of an underlying sense of social and political malaise, of scepticism towards the primacy of economic enrichment and towards the Party-state’s attempt to legitimise its rule based upon this. Secondly, Protestantism catalyses the emergence of a critical, morally agentic individualism that anchors its worldview in a discourse outside the control of the Party-state. Adapting to these social shifts presents a major future challenge for the CCP.

The central aim of this thesis is to analyse the influence of Kierkegaard on Bonhoeffer. This relationship has been almost universally recognized. And yet this area has received no comprehensive study, limited within the secondary literature to footnotes, digressions, and the occasional paper. Furthermore, what little literature there is has been plagued by several stereotypes. First, discussion is often limited to Discipleship. Second, Kierkegaard has been identified as an individualist and acosmist who rejected the church, leading many to consider Bonhoeffer the ecumenist and ecclesiologist as selectively agreeing with Kierkegaard, but ultimately rejecting his overall stance. This thesis will argue that neither stereotype is true, and suggest (a), that Kierkegaard’s influence can be found throughout Bonhoeffer’s work, and (b) that although a more stereotypical perspective may be present in SC, by the end of his life Bonhoeffer had gained a far deeper understanding across the breadth of Kierkegaard’s work. The importance of this thesis is not simply to ‘plug the gap’ of scholarship in this area, but also to suggest the importance of analysing Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer together. This will focus on three specific areas. First, alongside the influence of Kierkegaard on Bonhoeffer, it will argue for the importance of using Bonhoeffer as an interpretive tool for understanding Kierkegaard. This thesis will show how Bonhoeffer adopted and adapted Kierkegaard’s work to his own situation, forcing Kierkegaard to answer questions that were not present during his own life. In this way, we are led to compare Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer as individuals, and not simply their static declarations. Secondly, against the tendency to consider Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer’s final attacks on Christendom as unfortunate endings to otherwise profound careers, it will be suggested that these attacks stand as the fulfilment of their earlier thought. It will be argued that despite their different contexts, both Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer were led to the same conclusions concerning Christendom. Thirdly, given Kierkegaard’s submission to indirect communication and his somewhat 'prophetic' proclamations concerning one who will come after him and reform, this thesis will ask whether Bonhoeffer stands as something of a fulfilment to Kierkegaard’s thought in the guise of a Kierkegaardian ‘reformer’.

Horrendous evils pose distinctive challenges for belief in an ethically perfect God. To home in on these challenges, I construct an ethical framework for theodicy by sketching four cases of human action where horrors are either caused, permitted, or risked, either for pure benefit (i.e., a benefit that does not avert a still greater harm) or for harm avoidance. I then bring the framework and the moral valuations confirmed by this casuistry to bear on the project of theodicy. I construct four analogous structures – one for each case – and identify examples of each structure in theodicies in contemporary philosophy of religion. I summarize each theodicy and evaluate whether it is structurally promising with respect to horrendous evils. That is, if the proposed interconnected set of facts and reasons were true, would God be ethically in the clear? My initial conclusions impugn the dominant structural approach of depicting God as causing or permitting horrors in individual lives for the sake of some merely pure benefit. This approach is insensitive to relevant asymmetries in the justificatory demands made by horrendous and non-horrendous evil and in the justificatory work done by averting harm and bestowing pure benefit. I next argue that the structurally promising theodicies I have identified are implausible due to their overestimation of the extent to which finite human agents can bear primary responsibility for horrendous evils and their underestimation of the importance for theodicy of being consonant with a broadly Darwinian approach to evolutionary theory. The project of theodicy is in trouble. The second half of my thesis develops an approach to theodicy that falls outside my proffered taxonomy. Following a suggestion of Leibniz, Robert Adams has argued that theodicy can be aided by the insight that almost all of the evil of the actual world is metaphysically necessary for the community of actual world inhabitants to be comprised of the specific individuals who comprise it. Beginning with this insight, I develop (what I term) Non-Identity Theodicy. It suggests that God allows the evil he does in order to create and love the specific individuals comprising the community of inhabitants of the actual world. This approach to theodicy is unique because the justifying good recommended is neither harm-aversion nor pure benefit. It is not a good that betters the lives of individual human persons (for they wouldn’t exist otherwise), but it is the individual human persons themselves. In order to aim successfully at the creation of particular individuals, however, God would need a control of history so complete that it might be argued to be inconsistent with beliefs about human free will that are important to some theologies. I construct a second version of Non-Identity Theodicy designed to avoid this problem by considering whether God’s justifying motivation for allowing the evil of this world could be his aiming for beings of our type, even if it could not be his aiming for particular individuals. I suggest that God would be interested in loving those he creates under various descriptions (e.g., biological, psychological, and narrative descriptions), and argue that a horror-prone environment is necessary for us to be the type of being we are under each of the descriptions. I assess the structural promise and plausibility of Non-Identity Theodicy. In order to do so, I engage with Derek Parfit’s non-identity problem and with some influential assumptions in the ethics of procreation literature. I end by recapping what I take to be the key areas of overemphasis and under-emphasis in contemporary theodicy.

Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo retomar a discussão do agravamento da crise macroinstitucional da igreja católica no decorrer da segunda metade do século XX. Parte-se de um esforço de reconstrução discursiva (à base de fontes documentais, entrevistas e histórias de vida) das experiências missionárias inovadoras iniciadas na Belo Horizonte dos anos1960 por um grupo de jovens italianos, militantes leigos da Gioventù Studentesca de Milão, assim como das trajetórias de vida e motivações religiosas e políticas de cada um dos integrantes do grupo desde então até os dias atuais. Esse é o objeto empírico da pesquisa. Além desse quadro, contudo, a pesquisa visa contribuir para a compreensão sociológica das complexas relações de mútua penetração e encadeamento entre o catolicismo internalizado, a formação de minorias católicas ativas e o processo de modernização social e cultural. / The subject of the present research is the aggravation of the institutional crisis of the Catholic Church during the second half of the XXth Century. Based upon documentary sources and field work that includes interviews and histories of life, the research tries to reconstruct the experiences of an Italian group of lay catholic missionaries, who acted in the city of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, in the 1960s. These young men and women belonged to the so called Gioventù Studentesca from Milan, Italy. Their trajectories of life and their religious and political motivations were rebuilt from these days to the present moment. That is the empirical subject of the research. On a second but not secondary frame, the present thesis seeks to contribute for the sociological understanding of the complex relations of mutual penetration and chaining between the catolicismo internalizado, the formation of catholic active minorities and the process of social and cultural modernization of the Catholic Church