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This thesis has traced the influence of Zoroastrianism on Christianity. The major contention was that a dualistic theme in the form of good versus evil, heaven and hell, and God opposing Satan originated with Zoroaster, continued through Judaism, influenced Plato, and was finally crystallized in the works of Saint Augustine. This study indicated the change of Judaism after the "Babylonian Captivity" and also the dualism reflected in Plato's Republic and Saint Augustine's Confessions and The City of God. There is also reference to the development of Platonism and Manichaeism in the third century A.D.In other works there have been allusions to the role that Zoroastrianism has played in the growth of the Judeo-Christian religion. The originality of this thesis is the attempt to tie together in a chronological manner Zoroaster's influence in the expansion of the dualistic theme.

This thesis examines some major attempts made during the twentieth century to defend the doctrine of hell in the light of charges made against it. It aims to provide a survey of major statements of the doctrine, evaluate the coherence of the various arguments involved, and then determine what is the most adequate and coherent defence of the doctrine. The second and third chapters provide a backdrop to the rest of the thesis, detailing the traditional model of hell as presented in the works of St. Augustine and Jonathan Edwards, and then examining the modern reaction against hell as eternal retributive punishment. Chapter four addresses the question of whether Karl Barth was a universalist, and concludes that because he cannot logically avoid the charge of universalism, his theology is not able to provide an adequate defence of the doctrine of hell. The Roman Catholic theologians Hans Küng, Karl Rahner, and Hans Urs von Balthasar are examined in the fifth chapter. They provide a wealth of information on topics dealing with hell, and although hopeful that there will be a universal outcome in the eschaton, they defend the possibility of hell. The sixth chapter looks at the impact and influence of C.S.Lewis' work on hell, whilst the seventh addresses a recent debate concerning whether or not those in hell will cease to exist. Although the position known as conditional immortality may be viable, as a defence of hell in itself it is insufficient. The eighth and ninth chapters examine arguments used in the philosophy of religion. William Lane Craig and Thomas Talbott have debated the possibility of hell using the concept of Middle Knowledge. While Middle Knowledge is found wanting, this debate is particularly helpful in highlighting the issues involved in defending hell, and these are then considered in more detail in the ninth chapter which examines free will defences of hell. Finally, the conclusion argues that the most adequate and coherent defence of hell available to the modern mind rests itself on the principle of free will. When this defence addresses particular issues highlighted throughout the rest of the thesis, then a coherent defence of the doctrine of hell can be provided.

It will be demonstrated, in conclusion, that in art as in life, the contingencies Britten imposed upon the Christian element are ultimately displaced by other 'non-Christian' elements related to the Classical paradigm.

This study provides a qualitative analysis of an Assembly of God Pentecostal church in the North East of England. The research employed an ethnographic framework incorporating overt participant observation and in-depth interviews over the period of one year at the City Christian Centre. In addition, a number of other churches (of varying denominations) were visited and observed. In this work, former interpretations within the sociology of religion, regarding membership and recruitment, are challenged and new perspectives offered. Few ethnographic studies of conservative evangelical Christians in the United Kingdom exist and quantitative work on this group, generally, has failed to define significant concepts such as salvation and conversion adequately. While such concepts remain foundational to the conservative evangelical believer, a significant transformation of religious expression is taking place within contemporary British Pentecostalism. This thesis gives an account of a synthesis between classical Pentecostals and the Charismatic movement that is creating a distinct form of spiritual expression resulting in a hybrid church. This fusion of traditions affects congregations in a number of important areas. Expressions of praise and worship, theological interpretations and church leadership each reflect the dynamics of the hybrid church. So in addition, does a shift in class composition. Once the preserve of the working classes, Pentecostalism in Britain is now much more socially and economically diverse in its membership. This thesis comes at an interesting time for the sociology of religion. Much is said about a resurgence of interest in religion, this is partly due to its persistence in society. Much work has focused on church demographics and secularisation, this work, however, shifts the emphasis away from religious decline to religious adaptation and change.

This thesis uses a comparative case study as the means for demonstrating how the policies and attitudes of local churches are influenced by organisational factors. A model based on open systems theory reveals that each local church mediates and processes a variety of environmental inputs. As a result, the inputs are converted into outputs or products. The model, therefore, draws attention to the relationship between the churches and their environment and also to their internal structures and processes. In this instance a single input was followed through 'the system'. This concerned the question of the response of local churches to high levels of unemployment, and associated socio-political issues. The resultant data underlines how important for these churches is their 'religious' environment, particularly when it involves their parent denominations. The main finding, however, is that the two churches investigated were both able to mediate and modify environmental inputs on unemployment. It is, therefore, the 'internal' polities and organisational structures of local churches which are of prime importance. Despite the fact that these churches had different polities, it was possible to discern in each case the key interaction between formal and informal organisational structures and processes, and how these related to the position and activities of agents such as the minister and lay leaders. It was found, in more specific terms, that the most crucial influence on the internal processes of these churches came from the ministers. The investigation required a fourteen-month period of intensive fieldwork during which the writer was a participant observer in both churches. Other methods of data collection used included both structured and unstructured interviews and the monitoring and analysis of a wide range of secondary material. The findings presented here are a contribution to both the sociology of organisations and the sociology of religion. They also illustrate the value of ethnographic studies of the church in its manifestation as a local organisation.

The dissertation recontextualizes the iconographical developments of the Last Judgement scene in Central Italian mural painting in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries by exploring the theological and political contexts in which these scenes were produced. Two striking events mark the evolution of the Late Medieval Last Judgement scene: first, the revival of the 'complete' Last Judgement after a period of contraction, and second, the separation of Heaven and Hell from the Last Judgement. Both of these features reflect an increasing anxiety about the fate of the soul in the afterlife: a fate which, by the end of the thirteenth century, had moved from the end of time itself to the moment of an individual's death. The first chapter concerns Pietro Cavallini's fresco in S.Cecilia in Trastevere (c.1293), its place within the Roman tradition of Last Judgement scene, and its role as the earliest surviving monumental example of the 'complete' Last Judgement. Chapter II concerns the frescoes of S.Maria Donnaregina in Naples (c.1317-23), patronized by the Angevin queen, Maria of Hungary. In 1266 the Papacy conferred on Charles I of Anjou the Kingdom of Naples in exchange for defense of the Papal States, and the Angevins became the chief administrators of civil and penal justice throughout the Papal States and independent Guelf city-states. A discussion of Angevin iconography establishes a connection between Angevin self-image and the Last Judgement scene. Chapter III is devoted to Giotto's Last Judgement at the Arena Chapel in Padua (c.1305) and its imitator at S.Maria Maggiore in Tuscania (c.1320). The chapter includes a discussion of thirteenth-century papal decrees concerning the fate of the soul in the afterlife, the appearance of the penitent patron at the foot of the cross, and the possibility of a Papal-Angevin-Guelf influence on the production of both of these frescoes. Chapter IV on the "Angevin Connection" begins with a reinterpretation of the iconography of the Florence Baptistery mosaics (c.1271-1330) in terms of their patronage by the Church and the exclusively Guelf Guild of the Calimala. The first instance of the separation of Paradise and Inferno from the Last Judgement, in the Magdalen Chapel of the Bargello in Florence (c.1322), is discussed in light of the civic function of the chapel and of Angevin control of the office of podesta. The relief panels of the façade of Orvieto Cathedral (c.1290-1330) are also considered in view of Papal and Angevin domination of that city. In Chapter V the influence of the Magdalen Chapel's separation of Heaven and Hell is linked to the increasing secularization of the Last Judgement scene as evidenced in the Campo Santo, Pisa (c.1330) and the nave of S.Croce, Florence (c.1330). The revival of the 'complete' Last Judgement scene in Late Medieval Central Italy was the result of theological changes concerning the afterlife, the rise of the penitential movement, and the formation of the Papal-Angevin-Guelf alliance for whom the triumphant scene of judgement became emblematic. The individual's anxiety about the fate of his soul at the moment of death and the appropriation of the Last Judgement for use in secular contexts affected the separation of Heaven and Hell from the Last Judgement and brought about the secularization of a traditionally sacred scene.

From the time of the Reformation in England Anglo-vatican relations have typically been seen as a long history of unending antagonism. It is not common knowledge that in the period between 1846 and 1851 there was a notable, if temporary, lull in this animosity and even talk of establishing full diplomatic relations. This thesis aims to account for this thaw in tensions and to analyse the British response to the early 'liberal' years of Pope Pius IX, not only looking at government policy but also the attitude of the British public towards the new Pope. In addition, this study sets out not only to look at individual issues, such as the Risorgimento, the history of the Roman Catholic Church in England and the Irish question, but seeks to explain the interplay between them in order to come to a fuller understanding of British policy. This thesis reveals that British policy was based on the need to achieve a number of goals, such as a peaceful solution to the political crisis in the Italian peninsula and the curbing of the Irish agitation, and that it was held that an enlightened Pope could help in the fulfilment of these aims. The effort to improve relations in the end failed as it was undermined by an overoptimistic assessment of the Pope's liberalism and failure of the British government to appreciate the depth of anti-Catholic opinion among the British public and their representatives in Parliament. The result was that this short thaw in relations came to an abrupt end.

The evidence for this thesis includes several hundred pew disputes heard before the church courts in the period c.1550-1700. The jurisdictions examined here include the dioceses of York, of Chester, of Coventry and Lichfield, and of London. These have been supplemented by churchwardens' accounts, parish registers and vestry minutes. These sources also often contained pew lists and plans that are analysed alongside rate assessments and other taxation records. This thesis investigates the relationship between church seating arrangements and the social hierarchy of local communities in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. It firstly, therefore, explores both legal and official views regarding church seating and status. Secondly, it examines the nature and chronology of conflict over pews, and the social profile of disputants. Thirdly, it explores popular perceptions of the social order through the analysis of the depositional evidence generated by pew disputes. Fourthly, the chronology of pew litigation is explored in the light of ecclesiastical policy and the reaction to these policies in the localities, particularly during the 1630s. Fifthly, the thesis considers the possibility that dispute was a function of the function implication of changing methods of pew allocation. Finally, through the consideration of the meaning of conflict over church seating as it erupted in the context of three parishes over a number of years, the role each of these themes played in helping to construct the local social order is analysed. The analysis of the records of pew disputes and of the politics of space in church here enables us to perceive more clearly how contemporaries attempted to negotiate their social roles across a complex web of intersecting and overlapping hierarchies and thereby become agents in the recreation of the local social order. Moreover, depositional evidence in particular suggests that status itself was a compound phenomenon that incorporated a number of factors including wealth, age, gender, reputation and officeholding.

This thesis investigates religious life among the clergy and laity in the diocese of Lichfield, 1603-1642, including the role of Puritans, Catholics and Church Papists. Nicholas Tyacke has maintained that the implementation of Laudianism in Charles I's reign proved contentious, an interpretation criticised by some historians who aver that the Church continued to maintain a 'middle way'. This study finds that the evidence from the diocese largely supports Tyacke's interpretation. Proto-Laudian reforms were implemented in the see some years before the Laudian ascendancy through the episcopates of Neile and Overall. Every bishop in the period who undertook a programme of reform met local hostility and indifference, and sometimes the opposition of his ecclesiastical and lay superiors. Every religious group underwent change and development. Puritans and Catholics pursued strategies for survival, supported by their respective religious networks. Official opposition often had the effect of strengthening their resolve and confirming them in their beliefs. Local conformists' commitment to the established Church deepened during this period. They respected the Church's role as the official purveyor of religion, morality and the ecclesiastical rites of passage, without evidencing much theological understanding. In the 1630s Bishop Wright oversaw the Laudian programme of sacramental, sacerdotal and liturgical reform, but his lack of organisation, zeal and commitment frustrated Charles, Laud and some local diocesan officials. The changes met resistance, which gathered strength with the collapse of the Personal Rule and manifested itself either in a desire to return to the pre-Laudian Church, or in its root and branch reform. The strength of an individual's anti-Catholicism indicated which religious solution s/he supported. When war came, for the most part Puritans predictably supported Parliament, but a number of moderate Puritans supported the King. Even among the 'godly' fraternity allegiance could sometimes be determined by a variety of considerations.