This thesis is specially concerned with the section of the Church now called Mar Thoma Syrian Church; it has therefore to leave out of consideration the various groups which live apart from that section, once the occasions of separation have been noticed. Thus we shall see that the Syrian Church has a loose-knit unity until 1653; for the last fifty years that period under Roman Control. Then about half of the Christians became Jacobite in allegiance. The work of the Christian Missionary Society, missionaries in the nineteenth century, led the coversion of a few families to the Anglican faith and the formation of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church. We shall see more about this Church later on in this thesis.

No description available.

In this paper we will examine, in survey fashion the hermeneutical programs formulated by supernatural orthodoxy,1 the natural religion school,2 and the attempts to find an alternative to these in the post-Enlightenment period of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A preliminary overview is in order to map out the direction of the discussion and to suggest a common uncritical assumption held by all major programs, viz, the use of non-biblical literary models for interpreting the immanent character of the Scriptures. 1. Orthodoxy has reference to the Protestant interpretation of the Bible which accepted the possibility of divine intervention into history. This intervention included the miraculous activity of God on behalf of his people and the communication of information to his inspired writers. 2. The natural religion school denied the miraculous intervention of God preferring a rational description of the world in terms of unbreakable laws derived from science.

The New England Puritans who settled in Massachusetts in 1629 were the product of the Reformation as experienced in England. They struggled with Catholicism and Anglicanism for many years before deciding to move to New England. Moving as non-separating Congregationalists (not separating from the Anglican Church, yet rejecting episcopacy), they left the tensions of being Puritans, or radical Protestants, behind them only to find more tensions in their new holy state. When they settled New England they hoped to build a state that answered to God's call for the development of a new Israel. The saints were to interpret that call and all others were to follow in agreement. Tension within the new state, however, did not allow this to happen. Some settled in New England because they were separatists. These people, most prominently Roger Williams, caused a great deal of tension. Some settled there to share new religious views. The orthodoxy did not welcome these people, whether they were Antinomian Puritans, Quakers or Baptists. Those concerned with more worldly matters, such as trade, were continuously causing tension within New England because some became more concerned with their own well-being as against that of the commonwealth. And others caused tension because of their interest in modern thought and literature. All of these tensions eventually became too much for the orthodoxy to combat successfully. The opposition from without grew into opposition from within as many New Englanders began to question the old ways and the manner in which those ways were enforced.

Mordecai Fowler Ham, Jr. (1877-1961), a Kentucky bred, Southern Baptist evangelist, was an active participant in both the prohibition and fundamentalist movements. His career was characterized by disagreement and conflict due to Ham's defiance toward anyone who did not profess his style of Christianity. A true product of the period in which he lived, Ham fought modernism and evolution zealously. He also preached against the use and sale of alcohol and dared liquor supporters to challenge his position. He was convinced as well that Jews, blacks, and Haman Catholics posed a potential threat to Christian America, and he monitored their activities cautiously for the majority of his sixty-year ministry. Ultimately ham's Southern audiences grew tired of the evangelist's allegations and stopped listening to him. Ham, however, continued to preach against his opposition until his death in 1961.

This thesis attempts to present a view of the Harmonist Society during its period in Indiana, 1814-1824 and to fit it into the framework of the times.

This study will describe many of these practices which have been recorded in the journals of the society at South Union and will identify origins, similarities and differences as they relate to the practices of the people of the surrounding geographic region.

This thesis uses principles from Burke's Rhetoric of Identification to examine how apocalyptic prophecies foster and maintain an apocalyptic group identity. Jehovah's Witnesses were used as a sample apocalyptic group because they comprise a group with a heavy textual and symbolic focus on the apocalypse.

[Truncated abstract] Molokans are a Russian sectarian community that has been a transnational diasporic community since their exile from southern Russia in 1839. During the 1839 exodus they were relocated to Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. These countries make up a region referred to by Molokans as Transcaucasia located in and around the Caucasus Mountains. A further migration to Turkmenistan followed in 1889. Since that time, Molokans have settled in Iran, the United States of America, Mexico, Australia and Brazil. The colonies in Brazil and Mexico have disbanded with members re-joining Molokan communities in the United States of America and Australia. The communities remain in contact with one another and with various Molokan communities still existing in the Russian Soviet Socialist Federal Republic. Molokans are characterised by a religious structure of lay ministers and elders in a traditional, patriarchal social community. They are a collectivity of churches (there is no hierarchy between the churches) and sub-groups who practise varying degrees of adherence to Molokan dogma. They are a millenarian, charismatic religious community similar to Pentecostals and Anabaptists with the exception that they have ceased to evangelise and have become ‘closed’ communities practising endogamy. Given their closed structure, relatively little is known about this group in mainstream society . . . Spirituality, in the form of prophecy, healing, and the shared expression of religious ecstasy (rejoicing in the Holy Spirit) provides a sense of communitas that helps to bind the communities. Persecution in Russia and in the United States of America promoted mistrust of outsiders and contributed to the closure of social boundaries. Interventionist and reform activities in both Russia and the United States of America reinforced the belief that social closure was the only way to maintain cultural continuity. Their shared history of migration and persecution contributes to the building of a core community identity.

Basée sur une étude ethnographique de trois villages quechuaphones de la haute Cordillère sud du Pérou, notre recherche a pour objectif de montrer les différents rôles endossés par les missionnaires qui effectuent des visites ou s’installent sur place, et les impacts causés par leur présence et leurs œuvres. Dans la vie de ces hameaux, certains éléments culturels et sociaux sont dits traditionnels, c’est-à-dire non liés à la culture moderne, comme l’animisme, le catholicisme, le syncrétisme, le travail manuel, l’élevage, l’agriculture. Par le moyen de comparaisons entre les villages sans missionnaires, ceux qui reçoivent la visite de groupe religieux et ceux au sein desquels s’implantent des Églises, nous repérons les pratiques traditionnelles et constatons les évolutions cultuelles et sociales dues aux missions. L’enclavement géographique et linguistique des communautés étudiées, leurs caractéristiques sociales, culturelles et religieuses ainsi que leur environnement hostile font d’elles des terrains missionnaires peu habituels. De ce fait, les individus et les groupes religieux qui les évangélisent jonglent avec beaucoup de contraintes et peu de ressources. Cependant, avec le développement des réseaux routiers, ces villages se désenclavent l’un après l’autre. Par conséquent, le paysage religieux des hameaux d’altitude se modifie, accueillant de plus en plus d’Églises. Ainsi, la mondialisation gagne peu à peu les hautes Andes et le développement de l’activité missionnaire n’est pas seul responsable des mutations socioculturelles observables dans les communautés. Le tourisme et les interventions des O.N.G. et de l’État engendrent elles aussi des changements que chaque Église accompagne et/ou subit aux côtés des populations, réadaptant régulièrement ses méthodes d’évangélisation. La présence des différentes entités religieuses ouvre un nouveau mode de relation avec le monde extérieur. / Based on an ethnographic study of three Quechua speaking villages in the Southern part of the Peruvian highlands, our research seeks to show the diverse roles the missionaries who visit or live in the field assume, and the different impacts caused by their presence and their activities. In the life of these communities, some cultural and social elements are said to be traditional, i.e. not linked to modern culture, like animism, Catholicism, syncretism, manual work, animal breeding, agriculture. By making comparisons between villages that do not have missionary presence, others who do receive missionary visits and those with permanent missions, we identify the religious and social changes that are produced by missionary works. The communities’ geographical and linguistic isolation, their social, cultural and religious characteristics, as well as their inhospitable physical environment make them an uncommon missionary destination. Consequently, religious individuals and groups who evangelize must face many difficulties with few resources. However, with the growing spread of road networks, those villages open up more and more to the cities. Hence the highland communities’ religious landscape changes by welcoming more and more different Churches. Globalization then reaches the high Andes little by little and the development of missionary work is not the only cause to the sociocultural evolutions one can observe in the villages. Tourism and N.G.O. intervention leads to changes, and each Church accompanies and/or deals with them along with the people, readjusting their methods of evangelization on a regular basis. The presence of the diverse religious entities opens a new way of relating to the outside world.