Thesis (M.A. (Church and Dogma History))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

A change in missiology?: Perspectives on the theology of the Church of Sweden Mission 1945-2000, as reflected through leadership and by missionaries. Like orhermissionary organisations, the Church of Sweden Mission (CSM) has undegone farreaching change and development since its foundation in yhe nineteenth century, This study focuses on how missionaries and CSM's leadership have perceived the developments that have taken place. A survey was constructed and sent to all living missionaries during 2004-2005. Then six focus-group discussions were organised and various appeals for financial collections in local churches during the period 1945-1999 have been scrutinised. The methods employed are based on qualitative analysis (focus-groups), quantitative analysis (survey) and text analysis. A pilot survey, sent to a limited number of persons, was carried out in 2001 and provided guidance for the foumulation of questions both for the survey and for the focus-groups. Chapter 2 give Swedish historical perspectives on mission and missiology from the first beginning of interest in foreign mission around the year 1800 til 2000. Chapter 3 gives international perspectives on missiology after 1945 focusing two major international handbooks on missiology and a Norwegian handbook. Chapter 4: Survey to all missionaries 2004-2005. The answers to the survey showed a clear tendency in the shift of motivation from mission to dialogue and from evangelisation to diaconal and humanitarian goals. 38 per cent say that they have changed their own missiology. Chapter 5: Focus group discussions in 2005. The majority of the participants in the six different focus-group discussions stated that the CSM had gone through major changes both theologically and practically, during the period under study. Chapter 6: Appeals for collections 1945-1999. The analysis shows that evangelisation remained the overall motive that was given for the whole period. On one hand there was a widespread continuity over the whole period, and on the oter hand a certain change in diaconal motives from the 1970s onwards, which were more often presented side by side with evangelisation. All three studies point to a change from conservative theology, to first to liberal theology and then on to radical theology. The change being less clear in the collection appeals than in the survey and the focus-group discussions.

The subject of this thesis is the relationship between eschatology and history in the Christian community for which Luke-Acts was written. Chapter 1 formulates the problem in terms of Luke's eschatology. It argues that Luke and his community thought of the End as 'near' and that Luke's historical perspective affected his eschatology. Luke-Acts represents a community that held a relevant eschatological hope and was aware of continuing history. This is the interpretive problem this thesis seeks to enlighten. The perspective to be used in approaching this problem is that of sociological analysis. Chapter 2 explores the use of sociological perspectives in New Testament study and the benefits to be achieved by the use of the sociology of knowledge. Chapter 3 is a sociological analysis of the community in terms of date, location, stratification, racial composition, boundaries, social institutions, and charismatic roles and functions. This material suggests that mission was an important community task. Chapter 4 establishes a sociology of mission for the community, investigating commitment as the mechanism that motivated community members to pursue mission, the importance of mission to the community, the motivation of converts, and the problems encountered in mission. Chapter 5 investigates the social functions of eschatology in the community and finds that it functioned in legitimating numerous aspects of the community's mission experience. Chapter 6 investigates the social functions of history in the community and finds that it functioned in legitimating various aspects of the community's mission experience. In the conclusion it is shown that history and eschatology were functionally related to one another in legitimating aspects of the community's mission experience. This functionality also provided a meaningful relationship in helping the community to make sense of its world. This further prepares us to try and understand these ideas theologically by placing them in a social context.

This study examines the changing patterns of authority both within and between the local Christian communities at the end of the second century and during the third. Amid the general tightening of Church discipline, the most significant development is the expansion and consolidation of a "monarchical" episcopate rather than the monepiseopate. A monarchical bishop is distinguished from one of the latter type by a greater control over the local congregation, a universal acceptance within his community of his position as chief teacher, having the last word on questions of orthodoxy, and the ability to act without the approval of his clergy and laity. The activities and writings of the chief Christian writers during the period under review are considered separately, and there is a section devoted to the relationships between the local Churches. The period commences as the Church begins to emerge from the crisis tfce variegated and largely heretical movement called Gnosticism inflicted upon her. Among the Gnostics, only the Valentinians and the Marcionites formed Churches, as the remainder were gathered (around their teachers) in little groups, usually compared to the philosophical schools, tut also having some similarities with the mystery religion groupings. The general aim was the acquisition of saving knowledge, and the movement was generally characterised by rigid internal divisions, a passionate subjectivity and objection to community discipline, and a belief in secret traditions. Eventually the orthodox communities rejected this entire authority pattern, although the process took longer in Alexandria, where a more refined philosophical Gnosticism exerted considerable influence on Clement, and to some extent on Origen. The organization of the Marcionites was roughly the same as that in the orthodox community at Rome around the middle of the second century, and was quickly bypassed and rejected.

The thesis covers new ground in several ways. It is over two hundred years ago that Blomefield first published his monumental survey of Norwich. Since then much work has been done on individual aspects of the Church in late medieval Norwich. However, no attempt had been made to synthesize these later researches. This thesis tries to make the synthesis. Blomefield used wills extensively in his survey of the Church in Norwich. He used them, almost exclusively, as evidence that various things happened: for example, as evidence that a certain hermit lived in the city, or that a particular person was buried in one of the friaries. This thesis, too, makes extensive use of the factual information which wills provide, but it also tries to use wills as evidence of thought and of intentions. Thus, Chapter 3 of the thesis analyses how the citizens of late medieval Norwich left their money in their wills, and from this analysis an attempt is made to estimate what the citizens thought about various aspects of their religion. Wills have never been used extensively in this second way in a study of Norwich. Indeed, few other English or Continental towns have been, or can be, the subjects of similar studies. In as much as it uses wills in this second way, Chapter 3 of the thesis parallels the recent work of Mile de Nuce on Toulouse and that of Dr Thomson on London. Dr Thomson's work on London is the only other comparable study of a late medieval English town which has so far been made, and there are only two more English cities - York and Canterbury - for which enough wills survive from the late Middle Ages to permit studies of this kind. As well as trying to fill these specific gaps, the thesis hopes to contribute to the study of the late medieval Church in more general ways. Namely, by throwing a little more light on three inter-connected questions about the late medieval Church which are receiving increasing attention from ecclesiastical historians. First, movement in the Church from below: that is to say, how the mass of the faithful (as distinct from those who were the official rulers and teachers of the Church) affected and were affected by Christianity. Secondly, the impact of new religious movements which were the product of the late Middle Ages. And thirdly, the question of 'lay piety', or the religion of the laity. Two reasons why the Church in late medieval Norwich merits study, have just been mentioned: no synthetic study of the topic has recently been made, and secondly, so many wills of the citizens survive. In addition, Norwich is of intrinsic interest since the records of the subsidies of 1523-7 show that it was then the second most populous and wealthy city in England (after London). Furthermore, the religious institutions of the early and high Middle Ages abounded in the city. Thus, Norwich was an episcopal city, unlike the next most populous city in the 1520's, Bristol; Norwich had a Benedictine monastery and four friaries, and a nunnery nearby, and it had more parish churches than any English city other than London and possibly Lincoln. Yet at the same time Norwich was especially likely to have been in contact with the new religious currents of late medieval Christendom. Thus, Norwich was a major European city, and it was the cities which seem to have been the chief centres of the new religious movements; Norwich was also the provincial capital of one of the most advanced areas of the kingdom; and geographically and through trade Norwich was close to the Low Countries and the lower Rhineland, which were then the most fertile areas for religious movements this side of the Alps. The starting point of the thesis has been the wills of the citizens of late medieval Norwich. These wills survive in large numbers from 1370. Most of them are preserved in the will-registers of the Norwich Consistory Court, though many of the most interesting ones are in the will-registers of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury. As has just been said, these wills are the basis of Chapter 3 of the thesis. They also provide much information for other chapters of the thesis. For example, they provide information about where the citizens wanted to be buried, and about whom they chose as executors and witnesses of their wills as their confessors - points which are discussed in Section (a) of Chapter 1. They provide information about those sons and daughters of the testators in question who were priests or members of religious Orders, and about the books which the secular clergy of the city owned, and about their wealth - points which are discussed in Section (b) of Chapter 1. They also provide information about the books which the laity owned, about the numbers and some of the activities of the guilds and confraternities and the recluses of the city, about Christian names and patron saints, about the shrines to which testators dispatched pilgrims, about the religious objects, such as rosaries and vestments, which the citizens owned, and about the Masses and prayers which the citizens wanted to be said for them when they died - points which are discussed in Chapter 2. After the wills, four collections of records have been of special value. First, the records of the dean and chapter (then the prior and convent) of Norwich. As well as containing the records of visitations of various parishes in the city, these documents provide valuable information about tithe disputes and about other conflicts in which the Benedictine Cathedral Priory was involved; and the obedientiary rolls of the priory record offerings to various shrines in the Cathedral, which are discussed in the section of pilgrimages. Secondly, Norwich City Records. The Private Deeds in these records have provided information about a number of chantries, and the Account Rolls of the Guild of St George have provided considerable knowledge about the guild of St George, as well as about other guilds and confraternities. The other records of the City Government have provided information about a multitude of topics, and they have been specially useful for the section in Chapter 4 which discusses the disputes between the citizens and the Cathedral Priory, Thirdly, the bishops' registers. As well as showing who were the patrons of the parochial benefices in the city, the registers provide valuable information about the careers of the beneficed clergy of the city, and especially about how many of them had university degrees. And fourthly, the record of Bishop Goldwell's visitation of the parishes of Norwich, which is a very full record of how many members of the parish clergy there were in the city in 1492, and of how they were distributed among the parishes. Of the printed sources, Hudson and Tingey's edition of The Records of the City of Norwich stands in a class of its own for its usefulness. It has been especially valuable for Section (a) of Chapter 4, which deals with the disputes between the citizens and the Cathedral Priory, and the editors' introduction to the book has been most useful. The various works in which the 1389 returns of the guilds and confraternities of Norwich are printed, and Miss Grace's edition of the Records of the Gild of St George in Norwich, provided much of the knowledge used in Section (c) of Chapter 2, which discusses the guilds and confraternities of the city. Dr Jessopp's edition of the records of visitations of religious houses in the diocese of Norwich has provided considerable information, especially for the section on the morals and behaviour of the clergy.

This thesis offers a re-examination of the expulsion, return and subsequent integration of the Jesuits into France during the reign of Henry IV and the regency of Marie de Medicis (1594- 1615). Drawing on archival material from Paris, Rome and London, it argues that in order to understand the Society of Jesus's role in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century France one must understand the circumstances of their return. The critical moment for the Society in France, this study contends, was the promulgation of the Edict of Rouen in 1603, not their expulsion in 1594. The Edict and the royal goodwill which sanctioned it gave the Society a legal standing in France and established a set of conditions which formed the basis for a new Jesuit role in the French church and wider society. Moreover, the Edict of Rouen was more than just an attempt by Henry IV to bring peace to the Catholic church; it was also an important assertion of royal authority in the French church. Indeed, I argue that the return of the Society exclusively through royal clemency or grâce defined an important alliance between the monarchy and the Jesuits which was to be a significant feature of the French church for more than a century. Although numerous historians have already looked at various aspects of this important topic, this thesis is the first to argue that the most important development of this period for our understanding of the Society's position and role in France was the accommodation of the Society by the French church and French royal administrative structures after the king's will was expressed in 1603. It also asserts that it was the reality of compromise not the rhetoric of conflict which should shape our understanding of the Society's integration into France and their role in the French church in the seventeenth century.

While historians of Britain in the 1640s have long been attracted by the English New Model Army and in recent years by the English royalist armies, the armies fielded by the Scottish Covenanters have suffered a strange neglect. It was not until the work on this thesis was well- advanced that the crude nature of previous efforts became apparent. In an attempt to provide a basic understanding of the Covenanting forces, this thesis synthesizes a mass of material relating to the religious aspects of the armies. Two crucial questions emerged: did the military reflect Scottish society or any part of it; were the Covenanters' forces godly armies seeking to evangelize the areas they occupied? These themes have been interpreted broadly to include the rules of war, the army chaplains, religious manifestations in military life, the moral behaviour of the soldiers, and the role of the armies in spreading the presbyterian faith. In addition to those topics, an examination of the soldiers' relations with civilians and the political activities of the military have been included. The first most clearly allows one to determine whether the Covenanting armies attained the status of godly armies. The political question arises out of the close relationship between religious and political activities in the period. With the exception of family legal papers the entire spectrum of Scottish seventeenth-century sources was inspected. The records of the 1.Estates and its committees, the General Assembly and its Commission, form the basic sources for a view of national developments. At the local level the burgh, presbytery, family and kirk session records proved invaluable. Unfortunately few diaries, memoirs or letters survived. English materials primarily state papers, pamphlets and news books were also helpful. The findings of this thesis suggest that the armies of the Covenanters failed to achieve the ideals set for them.

Visitatio, however, is driven by the same forces that drive equally dramatic liturgical commemorations year-round, climaxing in but not exclusive to the period around Easter. Beginning with an account of late Anglo-Saxon baptism, I examine the liturgy for the high festivals from Christmas to Ascension Day. For each chapter, I describe the liturgical forms for the day and their intended relationships with the participants, focussing on the establishment of dramatic associations between the celebrants and certain figures in the commemorated events. I then compare the liturgical forms with vernacular treatments of a particular festival, looking both for overt instruction and more subtle influence of the liturgy on the preaching texts. Anglo-Saxon preachers and homilists openly assumed the themes and symbolic images of the dramatic ritual in their attempts to make their congregations understand and take on Christian imperatives. Recursively, vernacular preaching helped solidify the meanings of the symbolic elements of the dramatic ritual and their significance to the lives of Christians. Anglo-Saxon appreciation of the dramatic potential of the liturgy was realized both in creative expansion of the liturgy and in the vernacular preaching texts that identified and enhanced this dramatic dynamic.

The thesis is presented in five books each with a number of subdivisions or chapters. The first is composed of two chapters: chapter one deals with pan-evangelical developments from the early Evangelical revival to 1789. It examines the centripetal and centrifugal forces that served to unite but also to separate like-minded evangelicals. It briefly describee several early institutional attempts at church union, the proto-types of the great pan-evangelical organizations studied in the body of the thesis, Chapter two examines the more immediate forces between 1789 and 1795 that gave rise to the first major experiment in pan-evangelical cooperation - the London Missionary Society. It focuses on the ambivalent effects of the French Revolution on church union, initially separating evangelical Dissenters from churchmen, but later bringing them back together again. It also looks briefly at the role millennial prophecy played in drawing evangelicals closer together before the anticipated Second Coming. Book two examines the London Missionary Society in three chapters. Chapter three traces the largely abortive attempt to found an institution that was intended to unite all evangelical denominations, examining why this attempt ultimately failed. Chapter four studies inter-societal relations between the L.M.S. and other foreign missionary societies following this failure, and the continuing, though largely unsuccessful attempts to recreate a pan-evangelical union or federation in the mission world. Chapter five describes the state of internal relations within the Society itself, concluding with a brief anaysis of its fall into Congregational hands by 1818. Book three is a study of the British and Foreign Bible Society and is divided into four chapters. Chapter six examines the forces in Britain and on the Continent which led to the formation of an evangelical Bible society, showing that because of the simplicity of its objectives - the circulation of Bibles without note or comment - it could attract a much larger denominational patronage than either the L.M.S. or the Tract Society. Chapter seven demonstrates, however, that even in this simple design, the Society evoked criticism from High Church opponents who saw in it an immediate threat to the establishment. The controversy that issued from this opposition is examined in detail, together with the adverse effects that controversy had on the Society's internal cohesion, Chapter eight shows that many of the High Church accusations were based on fact, and that because of its growing size, the institution coald not always control some of its more irregular provincial auxiliaries. The sometimes arbitrary and largely ineffective way that the parent society tried to reassert its control over provincial affairs created dissident groups in Scotland and England leading to two major conflagrations - the Apocrypha and Tests Controversies - which are examined in chapter nine. Books four and five examine the Religious Tract Society and the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, each in two chapters. Chapters nine and twelve trace the early developments of each society (the London Society being at first a branch of the L.M.S.) from the late eighteenth century through to their emergence as major pan-evangelical institutions in the first decade of the nineteenth century. We discover that until the Bible Society had been in existence four years, the Tract Society and the evangelical mission to the Jews were much like the L.M.S. in denominational composition: only after 1808 did they also comprehend all the major evangelical bodies. Chapters ten and thirteen examine the internal controversies that plagued both societies showing why the R.T.S. was able to overcome internal dissension while the London Society fell into Anglican hands after only six years. Each book describes society activities during the period examined in this thesis, and attempts to show the impact of interdenominational cooperation on the church at large. Close attention has been paid to theological, social, and political developments contemporary with the pan-evangelical impulse and the impact these in turn had on the societies studied. By a comparative analysis of the four societies, their successess and failures, the thesis hopes to make a contribution to the ecumenical dialogue today.

This thesis examines the impact of the English Bible upon the people and parishes of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex between 1525 and 1560. It examines two major themes of this impact: firstly, the level of success of the installation of the Great Bible in the parish churches; secondly, the effects of the publication and open reading of the scriptures in the vernacular upon the laity of East Anglia. The first theme explains the reasons for the order to install English scripture in the churches, and the information on the success of this installation provided by prosecution records and churchwardens' accounts. It then introduces an obscure document set, the church-plate certificates produced during the reign of Edward VI, and using these examines the level of installation of the Bible and of the religious injunctions of 1547. The results of the study of the church-plate certificates and churchwardens' accounts are compared with a number of factors, including parish wealth, proximity to towns and agricultural patterns, to determine which types of parishes were more likely to comply. The second theme examines the various responses of laypersons to the appearance of the English Bible in East Anglia. Although much of this section has been derived from records of prosecution, it also studies the effects of the English Bible on diverse events such as Kett's Rebellion of 1549, popular printing in Ipswich and the production of educational primers. This section also looks at the level of scriptural knowledge of laypersons ranging from that of Robert Reynys, a churchreeve of Acle, of the 1430's, to that of the prosecuted Marian Protestants during the 1550's.