No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis examines the writing of Emily Brontë and Christina Rossetti in terms of its expression of religious culture and belief. It is my argument that Brontë and Rossetti experienced religion as intellectuals, questioning and exploring doctrine and dogma neither as sentimental lady Christians nor dismissive, secular critics. I contend that by close reading their poetry, the genre both women privileged as most appropriate for the consideration of religious matters, the reader may trace the sermons and theological works they read. Moreover, their writing, I suggest, evinces their intellectual response to theological, ecclesiological and ecclesiastical developments that took place in the nineteenth century. I thus label Brontë and Rossetti 'religious intellectuals,' a phrase suggestive of their intense understanding of, rather than their mild acquaintance with, religious debate. Many women writing within the nineteenth century found that religion granted them a field within which to freely read and research, but were denied the professional title of 'theologian.' Brontë and Rossetti are thus examples of a wider phenomenon wherein women encountered religion like scholars, one disregarded by current criticism unable as it is to categorize a female activity simultaneously religious and intellectual. I use Brontë and Rossetti as examples of what I call the 'religious intellectual' because they represent different sides of this classification. Where Brontë struggled away from her Methodist background, serving as a cultural commentator on its enthusiastic belief-system, Rossetti forged a scholarly identity as a late member of the High Church Oxford Movement. Both poets, I contend, wrote about religion in order to signal their intellectual ability. I conclude that Brontë's interest in Methodism and Rossetti's fascination with Tractarianism reveals the poets to be both independent of family pressures and false consciousness, and fully engaged with a subject central to their age.

No description available.

No description available.

In the last years of the pontificate of Paul II and for the whole of the pontificate of Sixtus IV, nearly six hundred Scottish clerics supplicated to the pope for a variety of reasons, although the majority concerned their holding of benefices. The clerics ranged from those who were unbeneficed to those who were of prelatial rank and also included a small group who were familiars of the pope and of cardinals. Their supplications are contained within the Registra Supplicationum, a Vatican Archive source, which has long been regarded as an important source for the study of the late medieval Scottish Church in light of the paucity of native ecclesiastical source material. In order to analyse almost 1,200 supplications (for the period January 1470 to August 1484) to the best effect, the study has employed the use of a relational database. Methodological issues such as record linkage are therefore discussed in detail, in addition to results of analysis. In essence the research has been conducted as much to determine what issues can, and should be addressed as to provide definitive conclusions. Nevertheless, use of such methodology has imparted greater clarity to results of analysis than has hitherto been possible. The study reveals, for example, that a disproportionate number of supplications were made by, or on behalf of a distinct group of papal or cardinal familiars. Furthermore, in terms of relations to the papacy, a marked variation from diocese to diocese can be noted. The dioceses of St Andrews, Glasgow, and, to a lesser degree, Aberdeen were not only the most popular dioceses in which aspiring clerics sought benefices, but clergy from these dioceses were more likely to seek favour from the pope.

Previous attempts at understanding Revelation have stressed the common links between it and the rest of the New Testament writings, or else have tended to ignore entirely its distinctive perspective on the world. This thesis illuminates the content of John's unique message in respect to its particular life-situation. There are nine chapters and the first deals with a review of the date and authorship of the Apocalypse while the second looks at how genre criticism can help us understand the audience's predispositions and the author's strategy. The third chapter is also concerned with literary criticism in that it looks at how John presents himself to his audience and how this gives us clues to his social standing within the seven assemblies named in the text. Chapters four and five look in detail at John's use of two important titles, God as 'the Almighty' and Jesus as 'the Lamb'. Chapter six deals with the usefulness of sociology in helping us understand the dynamics of the life-setting in Asia Minor by reference to research on sects and millenarian movements. Chapter seven covers the manner in which Rome ruled and compares this to the brutal and vindictive images in Revelation. Chapter eight looks at how the Apocalypse differs from the indigenous religions of Asia Minor (especially the cult of Ephesian Artemis), the Jews in Sardis and the early Christian works of 1 Peter and Ignatius of Antioch. The ninth chapter forms our conclusions. John of Patmos wrote an apocalypse to seven named assemblies in Western Asia Minor. This was a genre with which his audience was familiar. He attempted to gain their confidence in Rev 1-5 by using a number of literary devices which stressed that he was a legitimate bearer of a transcendent message. The message was so unusual in its malevolent imagery that he needed to assure his audience that they could be confident in accepting his analysis of the world around them. John and his followers can be best characterised as a revolutionist sect and even a millenarian movement. Such groups separate themselves from the wider world and expect its imminent end. They tend to come from marginalised groups deprived of power and status. John's message was unique among the early Christian texts in that it presents Jesus in the role of a theriomorphic avenger and God is seen as the Almighty who wreaks indiscriminate torture and then utterly destroys his enemies. Such images are drawn as a counterpoint to John's understanding of Roman rule as violent and repressive. In response to this understanding he forms a theology based on brutality, vengeance and cruelty and desires power, honour and wealth, the crucial values in the Roman world, for the Almighty God and his most ardent followers.

No description available.

The original question this study posed was, "How do contemporary Christian Hawaiians identify themselves between being Hawaiian and being Christian?" This hypothetical question is fundamentally oriented in the present. In order to find better answers to the question, however, a broader historical framework is indispensable. Therefore, the dissertation is composed of two focuses: the past and the present of Hawaiian Christianity--mainly in the Congregationalist tradition. They are separated not only by time and target of investigation but also in the analytical methods used for approaching targets. However, I attempt to present them in such a manner as to make interpretation of the past and the present resonate. In the historical study of this dissertation, I investigate how Hawaiians incorporated Christianity in the latter half of the 19th century and how Hawaiian culture functioned in the process of incorporation. By locating two dissident Hawaiian Christian movements within a broader social context of the colonial condition, I aim to describe how Hawaiians were dealing with Christianity. Although their results were different, leaders of the two movements attempted to seize the initiative and establish sovereignty in the church. They wanted to establish a real church for Hawaiians. In the study of contemporary Hawaiian Christianity, I investigate how Christian Hawaiians are constructing their identity and faith. Through examining their narratives on how they deal with Hawaiian traditions and Christianity, I show how their identity and faith are diversely constructed but loosely unified under the problem that originally brings about diversity. I also point out that Christian Hawaiians are facing difficulty in the process of establishing Hawaiian Christianity because of the post-colonial condition, in which Hawaiian-ness (a symbolic complex of Hawaiian history, culture and identity) is competitively represented and has never had a fixed unitary meaning. By juxtaposing the past and present of Hawaiian Christianity, I argue that Hawaiian-ness can serve not only as a problem but also as a catalyst when constructing Hawaiian Christian faith in the present. As a post-colonial problem, the relation between culture and faith becomes a significant issue for Christian Hawaiians, who desire to make Christianity Hawaiian.