This thesis conducts an experiment with special diplomatics, applying its techniques to the study of selected documents of the United Church of Canada. The results of the experiment are analysed to answer two questions. Does diplomatics make a unique contribution to the archival tasks of appraisal, arrangement, and description? Is the original purpose to which diplomatics was directed, that is, the identification of authentic documents, relevant for modern records? Study of the juridical system of the Church, based on the United Church Manual, demonstrates that diplomatics requires an understanding of the sources and instruments of authority, because they determine how acts and documents can be recognized as authentic. Agendas, reports and minutes of B.C. Conference are then examined from the diplomatic perspective, to identify the juridical persons of the Conference, their competences, and the acts and documents typical of each. The result is a detailed description of the administration of Conference. These studies complement, but do not duplicate, the administrative history typical of archival science. Diplomatic methods are used to identify the procedures and formal elements of the “Call to a Minister.” Extrapolation from resulting data demonstrates that diplomatics rediscovers the Church in the single set of documents. The thesis concludes that diplomatics does make a useful contribution to the methods of archival science, because it studies records and records creators from a distinct perspective. It also concludes that since modern society continues to attach great importance to due process and proper form, as means of protecting the authenticity of acts, the understanding of authority and authenticity provided by diplomatics is relevant to the study of modern administration.

This thesis conducts an experiment with special diplomatics, applying its techniques to the study of selected documents of the United Church of Canada. The results of the experiment are analysed to answer two questions. Does diplomatics make a unique contribution to the archival tasks of appraisal, arrangement, and description? Is the original purpose to which diplomatics was directed, that is, the identification of authentic documents, relevant for modern records? Study of the juridical system of the Church, based on the United Church Manual, demonstrates that diplomatics requires an understanding of the sources and instruments of authority, because they determine how acts and documents can be recognized as authentic. Agendas, reports and minutes of B.C. Conference are then examined from the diplomatic perspective, to identify the juridical persons of the Conference, their competences, and the acts and documents typical of each. The result is a detailed description of the administration of Conference. These studies complement, but do not duplicate, the administrative history typical of archival science. Diplomatic methods are used to identify the procedures and formal elements of the “Call to a Minister.” Extrapolation from resulting data demonstrates that diplomatics rediscovers the Church in the single set of documents. The thesis concludes that diplomatics does make a useful contribution to the methods of archival science, because it studies records and records creators from a distinct perspective. It also concludes that since modern society continues to attach great importance to due process and proper form, as means of protecting the authenticity of acts, the understanding of authority and authenticity provided by diplomatics is relevant to the study of modern administration. / Arts, Faculty of / Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS), School of / Graduate

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 311-315).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 311-315).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Ashland Theological Seminary, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 311-315).

Page 250 was not included becasue it was a blank sheet. / <p>Relying on original research and breaking with the dominant interpretations offered so far by historians, this thesis argues that the United Church of Canada maintained an evangelical institutional identity between the 1930s and 1960s despite the fact that its leaders did not hold evangelical beliefs. For a variety of reasons, these leaders found it expedient to promote institutional practices of evangelism, moral reform, and Christian education that embodied evangelical characteristics and therefore projected an evangelical image of the church to its members and the public. At the same time, they personally rejected key evangelical beliefs, a fact that was reflected in the intentional omission of these beliefs from successive official theological statements of the church, although frankly non-evangelical sentiments were rarely found in such statements. This leadership paradigm, which coupled non-evangelical beliefs and evangelical institutional practices, endured into the 1960s.</p> <p>The tensions inherent between the non-evangelical beliefs held by church leaders and their promotion of evangelical institutional practices made it increasingly difficult for leaders to maintain this paradigm from the 1950s onward. Finally, a series of long-term and short-term catalysts both inside and outside the denomination which converged in the mid-l 960s caused church leaders to abandon the evangelical institutional practices of evangelism, moral reform and Christian education that had defined the church in preceding decades, and simultaneously to state openly their "liberal," non-evangelical beliefs. The result of this major shift, and the ensuing public controversy, was the collapse of the old paradigm and the public redefinition of the United Church as an unambiguously non-evangelical institution. Based on new research into the institutional activities of the United Church after 1930, this conclusion challenges traditional interpretations that have either overlooked the continuing evangelical practices of Canada's largest Protestant denomination or overestimated the extent of its commitment to evangelicalism in this period.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.

The application of the 1984 Education Policy of the Division of World Outreach (DWO) of the United Church of Canada was examined in its "loosely coupled" context that is characterized by a consultative relationship based on trust in overseas partners and confidence in their choices of goals and objectives. Egon Guba's model of policy analysis, its policy-definition driven research process, and its categories of policy-in-intention and policy-in-implementation usefully assisted the appraisal of logical congruence between the goals and objectives stated in the 13 guidelines of the education policy (a policy-in-intention) and those stated in documents from a sample of supported programs (policies-in-implementation). In addition, the DWO's program-based budget practice was assessed for any relevant use of the Planning Programming Budgeting System (PBBS). Finally, a logical congruence between Guba's model and the PBBS model was probed for a possible synthesis. / Documents from 1981, 1985, and 1989 from the sample of five programs from five regions in three continents were reviewed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

In 2006, the United Church of Canada developed a website, WonderCafe.ca, that provided space for internet users to engage in discussions about religion and spirituality online. This website balanced user freedom to explore any topic of discussion with promoting the United Church to visitors. The website uses Web 2.0 technology, which gives internet users a great amount of freedom to shape the space that they participate in online. Using Kim Knott’s spatial analysis, this thesis explores the types of spaces created by the United Church and WonderCafe users. It also seeks to understand the factors the lead to the creation of WonderCafe, the tensions present on the website over its purpose, how one understands community online, the types of values highlighted within this community, and how internet space differs from offline space.