Despite the increased number of interreligiously married Muslim women, especially in Western countries, the phenomenon remains overlooked. This research aims to highlight interreligiously married Muslim women's untold stories and to examine their experiences of being part of an interfaith marriage. The research illustrates that Muslim women's interfaith marriages are seen as prohibited and unconventional by many Muslim scholars and communities, and they view this prohibition as a subject that is closed for discussion due to the traditional scholarly consensus supporting it. However, some contemporary Muslim scholars have started to discuss Muslim women's interfaith marriages and argue that the rule and consensus regarding these unions should be re-evaluated considering the ways in which society and gender roles in today's marriages are changing. Using qualitative interviews with intermarried Muslim women, this study examines the impact of the families on Muslim women's decision to marry a non-Muslim, how they deal with the religious differences in the family and the impact the interfaith union has upon their religiosity. The research reveals that 'love' is the main reason behind the Muslim women's decision of interfaith marriage. The findings also indicate that while interfaith marriage does not directly impact Muslim women's religiosity, community pressure and negative perceptions of their marriages have curtailed Muslim women and their children's relationship with the Muslim community.

After 171 years of British colonial rule, Hong Kong has developed its distinct identity, with a laissez-faire economy, freedom of the individual, and the rule of law, in contrast with the historical experience of mainland China. Combined with the tragic experience of the Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, this led the people of Hong Kong to the fear of reintegration, creating a mindset of ‘binary opposition’ among the people of Hong Kong. The contested identities destabilise mutual trust and encourage local resistance against the ‘encroachment’ from China. This thesis looks beyond the identity of binary opposition and argues that to resist China’s re-absorption is not necessary to take the form of antagonism. The mode of hybridity is not only a useful strategy to resist national assimilation, but also creates the necessary space for the possibility of cultural reconciliation. Christian churches, part of the ambiguous colonial tradition and recent opposition, could become such a space for reconciliation if they can learn from the Biblical experience as well as contextual theologies in other parts of Asia.

This thesis argues that the transition from traditional Roman ideas of sexual behaviour to idealised Christian sexual behaviour was a reactionary process, for which the period from AD 390 to AD 520 offers a crucial key stage. During this era, the Roman West underwent significant socio-political changes, resulting in warfare and violent conflict, which created a pressurised and traumatic environment for people who endured them. In this context, the rhetoric of divine punishment for sinful behaviour was strongly linked with sexual acts, causing ideas on sexual mores to develop. The thesis highlights three key aspects of these developments. Firstly, warfare necessitated changes in Christian doctrines on marriages and rape, resulting from collective and cultural trauma. Secondly, sexually impure acts of incest and prostitution were defiling to the religious collective yet the consequences of these were negotiated on a case-to-case basis, reflecting adaptation. Thirdly, traditional Roman ideas of polygyny and homosexual acts overrode Christian ideas on the same. After discussing these three aspects, this work offers a revised interpretation of Salvian of Marseilles’s De gubernatione Dei to illuminate the purpose of the sexual polemic contained in his work – a task that no existing scholarship has attempted to undertake. Daily realities and conflicts drove discourses on sexual mores forwards, and this thesis outlines how this occurred in practice, arguing that attitudes to sex were deeply rooted in secular contexts and were reactionary in nature. This examination of attitudes to sexual mores reveals a re-moulding of pre-existing Roman cultural norms, rather than a revolutionising Christian overtake. The thesis concludes that the ‘Christianisation’ of late Roman society was a process conditioned by contemporary events and concerns, which contributes to interpretations on the dynamics of cultural change in the late antique era.

In this thesis, I use the work of Friedrich Nietzsche to offer a detailed account of existential sin. I show that existential sin as a form of self-understanding is deeply embedded in the Christian theological tradition, and that Nietzsche’s account of existential sin should be understood as part of this same tradition. In my reading of On the Genealogy of Morality I show that we need to place sin in close relation to bad conscience, guilt and the genealogical method itself. However, despite being grounded in Christian thought and dependent upon the figure of the Christian God in its origin and emergence, I follow Nietzsche in positing that existential sin continues to exist after the death of God. It is by considering sin as not only a form of self-understanding, but also as a cultural memory, that we can make sense of this claim. For Nietzsche existential sin is at its root a mistaken understanding of human nature that has taken hold of us through Christianity. However, I argue that we need to consider existential sin as a socio-historical answer to the ontological problem of meaningless suffering. Existential sin responds to a fundamental experience of the human condition. With this in mind, in the final chapter of the thesis I examine possible avenues of redemption from post-Christian sin. What options are open to the person suffering from post-Christian sin-consciousness if she cannot turn to religious narratives? I argue that Nietzsche’s redemptive method of genealogy is not sufficient, and that life-affirmation is too demanding. However, a weaker version of life-affirmation in which meaningless suffering is affirmed as necessary, but not desired, does provide a promising alternative answer to the problem of meaningless suffering.

Non-state actors such as transnational social movements (TSMs) and international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) have had an increasingly high profile in global politics in recent years through advocacy and campaigning activities which have caused them to be of growing interest to scholars. However, two aspects of INGOs have not received much scholarly attention. The first relates to religious INGOs and the lack of research regarding how religion influences this significant sub-set. The second concerns internationalisation processes as there is little research on why clusters of loosely affiliated and often diverse national NGOs choose to combine to form large INGOs and the processes they go through. Using social movement theory as a methodological framework, this research addressed both points by carefully examining the genesis and developments of two large INGOs: firstly to identify how, and with what effect, religion interacted with other factors in their working practice; and secondly, to track the reasons for internationalisation and to determine the methods they used. Underpinning the research was a detailed review of how international relations, international development and social movement scholarship conceptualise religion and religious actors. This identified weaknesses in scholarship caused by the legacy of secularisation theory as it obstructs the ability to perceive the presence of religion and to understand what effect it may have. The research, therefore, concludes with two further contributions: the first are recommendations to improve religious literacy, by presenting a more contemporary way to conceptualise religion and religious actors; and finally, there are proposals for strengthening research methodology to enable the presence and influence of religion to be identified and incorporated into scholarly analysis.

The thesis begins with an exploration of the conversational mode of reading, modelled by Cixous, with which I bring Cixous‟s and H.D.‟s texts into dialogue. A crucial point of contact between H.D. and Cixous is their exploration of the sacred in relationship to creativity and materiality. This project is situated in the context of critical studies of H.D. as a visionary poet, while I foreground her religious sensibilities through an exploration of the religious syncretism of her writing from the Second World War. The discussion of critical context leads to an outline of the theoretical tools employed through the project, which include trauma theory‟s engagement with the categories of testimony and witness, performance approaches to ritual theory and Paul Ricoeur‟s work on metaphor, imagination and ways of being in the world. This chapter presents my thesis that Cixous and H.D. write a material mysticism through their engagement with alterity, the sacred and the materiality of writing as a creative practice. Chapter Two examines the ways the voices of the dead function in H.D.‟s autobiographical novels, or „spiritual autobiographies‟, The Gift and The Sword Went Out to Sea. In these texts, H.D. draws upon her personal vision and experiences of spiritualism and Moravian history for the resources for a creative and spiritual response to the traumas of war. The chapter draws upon trauma theory‟s elaboration of testimony and witness as a way of speaking the unspeakable, of giving voice to trauma and providing the support and receptivity to allow testimony to emerge. Chapter Three explores the complexities of H.D.‟s religious syncretism through the lens of ritual. It uses performance approaches to ritual to consider the productive meaning-making dynamic of Greek drama and ceremonial processions in The Sword, Moravian litany in The Gift, and Hermetic alchemical ritual in Trilogy. The literal transformation of words in Trilogy links the activity of ritual to that of language. This leads to a discussion of H.D.‟s and Cixous‟s emphasis on writing itself as a ritual. Chapter Four draws upon Paul Ricoeur‟s understanding of metaphor as mobilised by the internal dynamic of sameness and difference to examine the ways in which Cixous and H.D. deploy the images of the orange and the bee. The proliferation of these images across Cixous‟s and H.D.‟s writing allows creative explorations of how spirituality and creativity inheres in encounters with others, subjectivity and embodiment. Chapter Five considers the spatial context of Cixous‟s and H.D.‟s attention to writing as a mode of creative transformation. I explore two spatial metaphors in Cixous and H.D.; the garden, with the associations of grounded, particular places, and flight, as the movement between places. The conclusion recapitulates the concerns of the thesis and considers ancient wisdom as a locus for understanding H.D.‟s texts and a resource for approaching the role of the imagination in literary Modernism.

The supervision of students for ministry is of primary importance for the Church today. In a context where religion is becoming increasingly privatised and the Church increasingly marginalised, not only are there fewer candidates presenting for ministry, and fewer ministers, the challenges facing these ministers become ever more complex. Although the study of theology is basic to the exercise of ministry, the skills for ministry are learned on placement, where a student engages in the practice of ministry supervised by an experienced and trained minister. It is from this supervisor that the trainee minister learns how to deal with the complexities of ministry today. It follows, therefore, that the training given to such supervisors must be developed to take account of the changing role of ministry. The Church of Scotland has an intensive training course for these supervisors whom I will refer to as ‘formational supervisors’. This thesis aims to evaluate this training to ascertain the extent to which it equips formational supervisors for the task. To do this, I interviewed six formational supervisors and the six probationer ministers on placement in their congregations to determine the extent to which supervisory practice was sharpened and enhanced by the Church of Scotland’s current training programme, where any weaknesses lay, and, therefore, whether the training was fit for purpose. The results of my research show that the training offered is very good but could be excellent. I outline the strengths and weaknesses of the training as it is currently configured and suggest areas for development. I make ten recommendations for improvements to the training. I also identify the characteristics of the formational supervisor which sets this type of supervision apart from pastoral or clinical supervision. This is significant in enabling appropriate training in formational supervision. The results of the research, while being of importance for the training of formational supervisors of ministry students in the Church of Scotland, have wider application. These results would also be helpful for reflecting on training in other churches and could be developed for the training of formational supervisors in any discipline.

This thesis explores the implementation of academic servant leadership in a faith-based university in Indonesia. The exploration includes the academic leaders’ understanding on the concept and practise of servant leadership. Their perceptions are analysed in order to construct the theory of academic servant leadership in the HE sector. The case study method was chosen as the methodology since it is able to explain the academic servant leadership phenomena from the leaders’ perspective in their context. Data was collected from thirty higher education leaders who participated in a semi-structured interview. The analysis shows that servant leadership is driven by three motives: service, influence and improvement. The motives for servant leadership influence their characteristics which consist of spiritual, intrapersonal and relational characteristics. These concentric characteristics are then manifested into five servant leadership actions namely ‘pergumulan’, individual meetings, institutional meetings, dealing with conflicts and fostering collaborations. The researcher argues that academic servant leaders need to have a pure motive and strong character in order to enact their servant leadership. The manifestation of their characters into actions cannot be separated from three contextual matters at the case campus, namely hierarchical academic leadership, organisational changes and external challenges and opportunities.

This thesis explores the place of the natural world in the spiritual and intellectual lives of British and Irish Quakers (Friends) from the earliest evidence in 1647 up to the rise of evangelical Quakerism around 1830. Whilst Quakers agreed that God had made and continued to uphold the creation, responses to the natural world were, after the Restoration, essentially individualistic, giving rise to diverse views of its place in theology. Overall, it is shown that there was a shift away from the unity of the first Quakers’ experience that both God and the creation could be truly known only through divine revelation, towards support for the scientific study of the material world, and forms of natural theology. It is argued that this was the result of personal experience, not of synergies between empiricism and orthodox Quaker theology. Although reservations about its status continued, for an increasing number of Quakers, nature was a resource in a divinely-inspired search for order and truth. Although the subject is almost absent from contemporary official records of the Society of Friends, the natural world became a significant part of the wider Quaker culture of the 19th century.

The theologically-inspired Jubilee 2000 campaign was highly successful but much theological reflection on the sovereign debt owed by the poorest nations has been overly polemical. Our study indicates that nonetheless a post-liberal, dialogical approach to the issue of international debt can be realised, and traces some of its key observations and themes. The origins and development of Jubilee 2000 are traced both in Britain and internationally, with particular reference to the campaign in Zambia. Key arguments and factors critical to the success of Jubilee 2000 are discussed and analysed. In performing this analysis we draw on the work of Atherton, whose approach offers criteria for establishing the adequacy of theological engagement in a plural and globalised context. Analysis of the themes of jubilee, grace and forgiveness, and usury reveal that despite their limitations, they offer valuable and distinctive contributions on issues of power and money, in their insights into the human condition, and into obligations across generations. Future theological engagement on debt will also require greater attention to the role that money performs, and a new synthesis of visionary and realistic elements.