This thesis examines the religion and spirituality of black African churchgoing teenagers in England. The study is situated within the existing literature on the religion and spirituality of children and teenagers in the field of religious studies, not as a repeat of any existing study, but as a unique investigation. It is important given the limited research that exists on the subject matter, despite the enormous population of black teenagers in the United Kingdom. The study argues that a qualitative methodology is most suitable because of the nature of the enquiry. The interview method is adopted because it allows for interaction between the researcher and the participants, which is crucial to the aims of this study. The participants of the study comprised 27 black churchgoing teenagers, ages 13 to 15, who are members of the RCCG, an African-led denomination. The results show that even though religion and spirituality influence the lives of the participants, other factors affect the extent of this influence. The factors discussed in this study include the influence of society (societal values, social media and music) and social contexts (home, school and church) on the religion and spirituality of the participants. The perceptions and the beliefs that the participants expressed on religion and spirituality were also discussed. This information forms the basis of the main research. In addition, the influence of fashion - tattoos and body piercing - was discussed, although it was not covered by the original interview questions, as it was unexpectedly brought up during the course of the interviews. This study contributes to the ongoing debates about the religion and spirituality of teenagers from a specific cultural background, providing a balanced comparison between the existing literature on the religion and the spirituality of teenagers from a British background and teenagers with African origins who are living in Britain. It also provides a unique understanding and knowledge for research boards in education, black majority church leaders and teachers on the way African teenagers, particularly the participants of this study, perceive religion and spirituality, thereby helping the church leaders and the teachers to support them.

This thesis analyses how martyrs’ blood was constructed in sixteenth-century English martyrological writings, confessional apologetics and polemics, c. 1520-c. 1625. It uses the topic of martyrs’ blood as a lens onto wider confessional constructions of both martyrdom and confessional theologies. It argues that, despite superficial similarities, Protestants and Catholics constructed martyrs’ blood in very different ways, and that this calls into question recent scholarly trends towards seeing the confessions as having a common conception of martyrdom. Chapter One surveys the treatment of blood and martyrdom from the Bible to the medieval West, demonstrating the main threads on which early-modern constructions of martyrdom drew. Chapter Two discusses Henrician Protestant constructions of martyrs’ blood. Chapter Three focuses on John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments. Chapter Four examines the relatively unbloody rhetoric of English Catholic discussions of martyrdom, from the 1520s to 1570s. Chapter Five looks at the emergence of a rich rhetoric of martyrs’ blood in English Catholic writings from the 1580s to the 1620s. Authors examined include William Tyndale, John Bale, John Foxe, Thomas More, Reginald Pole, Robert Persons and William Allen. The thesis focuses particularly on five key elements relating to the texts’ treatment of martyrs’ blood: Eucharistic theology; materiality; temporal worldview; bloody enemies; martyrs’ blood as witness.

This thesis is entitled ‘Classical Elements in Early Christian Depictions of the Afterlife’. Taking an approach influenced by Reception studies, it explores some key moments where Christians engage in a dialogue with their pagan predecessors. The focus is primarily on Latin literature, although a limited selection of art and Greek literature has been included where particularly revealing. The aim of this work is to use a series of case studies in order to demonstrate the cross-pollination of ideas and to show that in late antiquity, Christian authors in the Latin West were reacting to their pagan antecedents in a variety of different ways. Through close readings of several key texts this thesis will examine moments of cultural interchange and allow us to think about some specific and illuminating examples of a complex and nuanced relationship. In the first few centuries AD Christian ideas about what happens when we die were still fluid, so the afterlife provides a particularly fruitful basis for exploring wider questions about the relationship between paganism and Christianity.

The aim of restorative justice is generally to empower victims and help offenders be accountable for their wrongdoings. In order to achieve these objectives, some programmes of restorative justice facilitate meetings between victims and offenders to give a chance to the victim to participate in deciding how the one who has wronged them can make things right. Some Christians have been among the most active contributors and advocates of implementing restorative justice in the public sphere since its inception. This is because the theory underpinning the approach resonates with Christian concepts such as sin and repentance. By employing in-depth interview analysis as a main method, this thesis demonstrates that engaging in restorative justice is problematic for those Christian advocates who believe they have a monopoly on the inner truth of restorative justice. This is because they operate their mission in a contradictory fashion, whereby they believe that only Christian faith can hold the true ethos of restorative justice, but at the same time need to suspend such language to avoid isolating wider (non-Christian) communities. Expressing such a belief may jeopardise their relationships with non-Christian partners for the advancement of restorative justice, and suspending Christian language may disempower themselves from engaging in the programme. After identifying these risks, the thesis argues that a fundamental problem that advocates encounter is how to deal with non-Christians as the 'other'. I propose that a possible way for advocates to continue their mission is to adopt reflexivity as a socio-political position, which asks of them to reconsider their absolute belief in the Christian approach to restorative justice. They need to be open to recognise their own limitations and adapt the ways in which they are committed to their Christian traditions, not only point out the others' problems.

胡健斌. / "2003年4月" / 論文 (神道學碩士)--香港中文大學, 2003. / 參考文獻 (leaves 60-71) / 附中英文摘要. / "2003 nian 4 yue" / Hu Jianbin. / Lun wen (shen dao xue shuo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2003. / Can kao wen xian (leaves 60-71) / Fu Zhong Ying wen zhai yao. / Chapter I. --- 擇要 --- p.i-ii / Chapter II. --- 鳴謝 --- p.iii / Chapter III. --- 目錄表 / 緒言 --- p.1-6 / Chapter 甲、 --- 敬拜上帝之道 --- p.7-37 / Chapter 第一章. --- 因時制宜，改變模式 / Chapter (1) --- 忠孝傳統的改良 --- p.8-17 / Chapter (2) --- 拆毀偶像的熱誠 --- p.17-20 / Chapter (3) --- 小結 --- p.20 / Chapter 第二章. --- 揉合傳統，熟悉背景 / Chapter (1) --- 崇拜禮儀的執行 --- p.21-29 / Chapter (2) --- 凡事祈求的追尋 --- p.29-31 / Chapter (3) --- 小結 --- p.31 / Chapter 第三章. --- 具體操練，容易掌握 / Chapter (1) --- 軍紀的見證 --- p.32-34 / Chapter (2) --- 生活的指引 --- p.34-35 / Chapter (3) --- 生活化的禱告 --- p.36 / Chapter (4) --- 小結 --- p.36-37 / Chapter 乙、 --- 偏離上帝之道 --- p.38-49 / Chapter 第四章. --- 民間宗教化 / Chapter (1) --- 方言和預言 --- p.40-43 / Chapter (2) --- 權能佈道與醫治 --- p.43-44 / Chapter (3) --- 小結 --- p.44-45 / Chapter 第五章. --- 真道易扭曲 / Chapter (4) --- 妖的本質 --- p.46-47 / Chapter (5) --- 退妖使命 --- p.47-48 / Chapter (6) --- 小結 --- p.48-49 / 結論 --- p.50-54 / 附錄 --- p.55-59 / 參考書目 --- p.60-71

In his book The Shape of the Liturgy Dom Gregory Dix coined the phrase ‘Eucharistic man’. In a speech to clergy Archbishop Rowan Williams remarked that Homo Eucharisticus, his Latinised version of Dix’s words, was, ‘a new human species who makes sense of the world in the presence of the risen Jesus at his table’. This thesis will seek to define what is specifically meant by the term Homo Eucharisticus and to indicate that, in a very real sense, Dix is Homo Eucharisticus, understood in his life, vocation, and his primary scholarship as it is centred on The Shape of the Liturgy. I shall demonstrate that Dix’s theology was Incarnational and that his Trinitarian understanding was based on the precept of a ‘Spiritual-Logos’. I shall examine these concepts in the context of Dix’s experience and personality. I shall assess the historical, intellectual and theological influences that helped to shape his life and vocation, and explore his Anglican identity as a priest, a scholar and a member of a religious community. I shall explain Dix’s creative understanding of the Trinitarian nature of the Eucharist and determine that he was a noteworthy theologian of major significance. I shall include studies of his writings on the Ministry of the Church and his major liturgical works The Apostolic Tradition of Saint Hippolytus and The Shape of the Liturgy. I shall present a reassessment of his liturgical scholarship and review his continuing importance in the Church of the twenty-first century.

This thesis is to build bridges between the West and China for a better understanding of the recent history of Christianity in China. Regarding western Christians we have to take into account the two Opium Wars and the following historical events. Because they had a significant negative impact on Chinese conceptions of Christianity, and knowledge of these events is vital to a better understanding of why Christianity was and is closely linked to imperialism in Chinese thoughts. lt offers us insights into why Chinese people are not anti-religious but anti-Christian, and why the Chinese government is anti-religious but particularly anti-Christian. Regarding Chinese people, acknowledgement should be given to the contribution of missionaries and the positive impact of Christianity on Chinese society, especially regarding the anti-opium movement of the nineteenth century, which have remained until today overlooked, either intentionally or not. However, this thesis is only a step toward a more complete project, an additional work and further research are still required to develop a fuller and better understanding in order build bridges between the West and China; understandably, this is a complex task.

This thesis elucidates the Spirit practices of Neocharismatic movements in India. Ever since the appearance of Charismatic movements, the Spirit theology has developed as a distinct kind of popular theology. The Neocharismatic movement in India developed within the last twenty years recapitulates Pentecostal nature spirituality with contextual applications. Pentecostalism has broadened itself accommodating all churches as widely diverse as healing emphasized, prosperity oriented free independent churches. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the Neocharismatic churches in Kerala, India; its relationship to Indian Pentecostalism and compares the Sprit practices. It is argued that the pneumatology practiced by the Neocharismatics in Kerala, is closely connected to the spirituality experienced by the Indian Pentecostals. Spiritual gifts, healing, spiritual warfare, exorcism, prayer and worship are significant to both movements. While emphasizing about healing, prosperity, and the miracles the movement is unable to cater the pastoral needs of those who could not experience any. The daily Christian experience with struggles and pain shapes the pneumatology of the Neocharismatics. However, the Neocharismatics practice it as emotional engagement with a modern outlook that relates to globalization. The argument engages with Pentecostalism as a global movement, and Neocharismatic Christianity as an advanced version of globalized Pentecostalism. Healing, prosperity and miracles give prime importance in the church. Hence spiritual life is seen as a fulfillment of a way out of the struggles of material life. This thesis suggests the need to construct a pneumatology for the Neocharismatics, which is focused towards the Christian doctrine. The Holy Spirit leads one to the knowledge and the joy in the Lordship of Jesus Christ, which overtakes any negative situations of life and transforms the believer to the image of Jesus Christ.

While the immediate origins of 20th century Pentecostalism are in the Wesleyan-Holiness movement and in that form of Afro American Christianity which developed during slavery, some of its roots go back to West Africa. What began among a small black Christian group in Los Angeles in 1906 has now become a world-wide phenomenon which has spread to the Caribbean and from there to Britain. Black settlers primarily from rural Jamaica - arrived in urban England to face the racism and rejection, not only of the wider society but also of the white denominations. With them they brought types of Pentecostal ism which are similar to and in some ways quite different from, both the mainstream denominations and white indigenous Pentecostalism. Some of the black Pentecostal congregations established in the Borough of Wolverhampton remain tied to white North American headquarters while others are free from white control or influence with a concomitantly greater emphasis on certain black leitmotive.

The Maori and the Missionary before 1840. At the time of the British annexation of New Zealand, there existed no optimistic section of opinion in Britain as to the effect of European colonization on aboriginal races. Experience had showed that colonization of areas of the globe occupied by native races inevitably brought the disintergration, and eventual extinction even, of the original barbarous inhabitants. Humanitarian sentiment was strong in England especially in the Colonial Office itself, and humanitarianism was not linked with enthusiasm to extend the British sphere to lands already occupied by the coloured. Missionary activity in such areas was favoured by the authorities, - there was no opposition to any plan to civilize the pagan, but there was no desire to assume official responsibility for such activities. It has never been disputed that the assumption of sovereignty in New Zealand was forced upon the British Government by the precipitate actions of the New Zealand Company, and that the Colonial Office would have been content to allow the missionaries to continue with their task undisturbed. But when annexation became inevitable, the missionary activities in the country were taken into account; the Imperial Government accepted responsibility with the intention of protecting the natives from the designs of Europeans. This fact was to bear important results for the future of the aboriginal inhabitants of New Zealand. It has been maintained that the Maori race was in itself sufficiently aggressive and proud to have withstood the inevitable process of decay and extinction when faced by the European colonization of its country. Whether this would have been so or not, was not to be tested, but certainly there was no precedent set for such a romantic view. The Maori was to vindicate himself and to maintain his position in spite of the white flood that flowed in upon him in overwhelming numbers. That this was so was largely due not to maintain his place as a force to be reckoned with, but to the missionaries in his midst, who had prepared him for the adjustment to the Pakeha system, and who remained the protectors of his rights after British colonization was established.