French religious life in the mid-seventeenth century was conspicuous for its revolutionary reversal of Tridentine prescriptions enforcing strict claustration upon women religious. In the process modes of female piety changed from contemplative to active within the development of a number of active female religious congregations dedicated to working beyond the cloister to provide key social and welfare services to communities. This study explains the genesis of this active female apostolate in the seventeenth century. It is a comparative examination of the first three of these orders, which spearheaded this development; the Order of the Visitation, the Daughters of the Cross and the Daughters of Charity. The work initially examines the Visitandines, the first female religious order seriously to challenge Tridentine prescriptions on claustration. Although in the long run they failed in their attempt, this order served as an influential example and created powerful networks of people of influence and means who would go on to support future orders. The second order, the Daughters of the Cross, was the first to benefit from their 'mistakes' and networks. Although they developed on a small scale, the highly significant Paris-based community, unrestricted by claustration, dedicated itself to professional teaching services. The third and the biggest success story, the Daughters of Charity, drew on the experience of these two groups, and exploited networks of influence and finance. They circulated freely in the community and worked to provide community servies on a national and subsequently international scale. My thesis is concerned with the interaction between founders, supporters, particular bishops and the women themselves and the acts of collusion which finally achieved this radical change. It aims to identify an initially tentative process which gained in the course of 50 years considerable momentum and radically transformed religious life for both women and for social Catholicism.

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-106).

Thesis (Ph.D.(Practical theology)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 253-258).

Thesis (M.A.)--Wheaton College, 2006. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-106).

Thesis (M.A.)--Wesley Biblical Seminary, 1995. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 50-52).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 1992. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-162).

This thesis examines the work of ordained clergymen, of all denominations, who were active photographers between 1839 and the beginning of World War One: its primary aim is to investigate the extent to which a relationship existed between the religious culture of the individual clergyman and the nature of his photographic activities. Ministers of 'the Black Art' makes a significant intervention in the study of the history of photography by addressing a major weakness in existing work. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the research draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources such as printed books, sermons, religious pamphlets, parish and missionary newsletters, manuscript diaries, correspondence, notebooks, biographies and works of church history, as well as visual materials including original glass plate negatives, paper prints and lantern slides held in archival collections, postcards, camera catalogues, photographic ephemera and photographically-illustrated books. Through close readings of both textual and visual sources, my thesis argues that factors such as religious denomination, theological opinion and cultural identity helped to influence not only the photographs taken by these clergymen, but also the way in which these photographs were created and used. Conversely, patterns also emerge that provide insights into how different clergymen integrated their photographic activities within their wider religious life and pastoral duties. The relationship between religious culture and photographic aesthetics explored in my thesis contributes to a number of key questions in Victorian Studies, including the tension between clergy and professional scientists as they struggled over claims to authority, participation in debates about rural traditions and church restoration, questions about moral truth and objectivity, as well as the distinctive experience and approaches of Roman Catholic clergy. The research thus demonstrates the range of applications of clerical photography and the extent to which religious factors were significant. Almost 200 clergymen-photographers have been identified during this research, and biographical data is provided in an appendix. Ministers of the Black Art aims at filling a gap in scholarship caused by the absence of any substantial interdisciplinary research connecting the fields of photohistory and religious studies. While a few individual clergymen-photographers have been the subject of academic research - perhaps excessively in the case of Charles Dodgson - no attempt has been made to analyse their activities comprehensively. This thesis is therefore unique in both its far-ranging scope and the fact that the researcher has a background rooted in both theological studies and the history of photography. Ecclesiastical historians are generally as unfamiliar with the technical and aesthetic aspects of photography as photohistorians are with theological nuances and the complex variations of Victorian religious beliefs and practices. This thesis attempts to bridge this gulf, making novel connections between hitherto disparate fields of study. By bringing these religious factors to the foreground, a more nuanced understanding of Victorian visual culture emerges; by taking an independent line away from both the canonical historiography of photography and more recent approaches that depict photography as a means of social control and surveillance, this research will stimulate further discussion about how photography operates on the boundaries between private and public, amateur and professional, material and spiritual.

Thesis (D. Min.)--New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes abstract and vita. Includes final project proposal. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-153, 41-46).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-156).

Religious dissent in Scotland in the years before 1550 is best categorised as evangelical: the two characteristics which mark dissenting activity are the doct[r]ine of justification by faith alone, and the reading of the Bible in the vernacular. Dissent can be found in the southwest from lay preacher Quintin Folkhyrde in 1410 to a small but identifiable group of Lollards in Ayrshire who were tried in 1494 for group Bible reading, eschewing rituals, and challenging the authority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. These 'Lollards of Kyle' were associated with the notary public Murdoch Nisbet, whose transcription of a Lollard New Testament into Scots was augmented in 1538 by the further transcription of textual aids from Miles Coverdale's edition. The Lollard group seems to have adopted the solafideism in this material, apart from their continued aversion to swearing. In the east, Luther's ideas were debated at St Andrews University in the 1520s, where Patrick Hamilton adhered to them and was burned in 1528; however, the same message of solafideist theology, Scripture reading, and perseverance in persecution was reiterated by his fellow-students John Gau and John Johnsone, in printed works which they sent home from exile. One of the primary concerns of ecclesiastical and state authorities was the availability of the New Testament in English, or other works reflecting Lutheran theology; they legislated against both owning and discussing such works. Sporadic heresy trials in the 1530s and 1540s reveal heretical belief and practice which is connected to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. In the late 1530s, a group of known evangelicals were at the court of James V: Captain John Borthwick tried to convince the king to follow the lead of Henry VIII and lay claim to church lands; Sir David Lindsay of the Mount probably wrote a play exhorting the king to enact reforms; Henry Balnaves was active after James's death in trying to forge a marriage treaty with England, which might have resulted in Henrician reforms. The governor Arran initially supported the court evangelicals, even backing a parliamentary Act allowing the reading, but not discussion, of the Bible in the vernacular. However, he reversed his policy and Balnaves, along with others, was imprisoned in Rouen, where he wrote a lengthy treatise about justification by faith alone, its effects on Christian society, and its help in times of persecution. George Wishart returned to his homeland in 1543, and began a preaching tour which took him from Angus to Kyle to East Lothian. Probably not having been guilty of the Radical beliefs laid to his charge in Bristol, Wishart held a developed Reformed theology, in addition to traditional evangelical concerns calling for a purified church guided by the Scripture principle, and drawing a sharp distinction between true and false churches. After Wishart was executed, John Knox proclaimed the Mass to be idolatrous before being imprisoned. The first Scot who appears to have moved from his basic evangelical beliefs to a functional Protestantism is Adam Wallace, a thorough sacramentarian who had baptised his own child. Upon his return in 1555, Knox took it upon him to convince the evangelicals that attendance at Mass was idolatrous, and he began administering Protestant communions. The central tenets of evangelical faith, however, continued to shape the incipient Protestant kirk.