Ordained Ministry in Maori Christianity, 1853–1900

From 1853 an ordained clergy emerged in the Protestant (but not the Catholic) churches founded by missionary organisations in New Zealand in the first half of the nineteenth century. Ordained indigenous ministers succeeded and largely superseded an earlier large force of lay "teachers." Although the Maori churches might in other circumstances have been seen as progressing towards self–reliance and autonomy, the colonial context of the second half of the nineteenth century confined them and their clergy to a restricted place in the ecclesiastical life of New Zealand. The transition from "teachers" to "ministers" in the Church Missionary Society (Anglican) and Wesleyan missions is examined, and a study is made of the place of indigenous ministers in the Maori Anglican and Wesleyan churches, the Mormon church, and the Maori religious movements such as Ringatu.     

The Limits of Mastery: Slaveholders,Slaves, and Baptist Church Discipline

Existing scholarship describes early southern evangelical churches as racially radical institutions that, as the eighteenth century surrendered to the nineteenth, capitulated to slavery, implementing accommodations intended to make them more attractive to respectable, slaveholding churchgoers. This essay argues that that transition was never as complete as suggested. Based on a set of 65 Baptist church minutes from congregations located in 4 different southern states, it shows how evangelical churches continued to exercise a degree of authority over slave-owning members and their treatment of bondpeople from the late eighteenth century through the end of slavery itself.     

The Millennial Voice in Victoria to 1914

The expression of millennial beliefs in Australia has been little studied, perhaps because of the slight impact of adventism on the general religious experience. This essay surveys the millennial ideas current in nineteenth‐century Victoria. Both Protestant Christian sects and the mainstream churches of British origin are considered; fringe groups which drew inspiration from Christian concepts are also noticed. An outline of the prophetic concerns which emerged in England late in the eighteenth century and refined in detail thereafter is followed by a discussion of the introduction of those ideas to Victoria. Special attention is given to a number of millennial sects that established a presence in the 1850s. This is followed by a consideration of the millennial beliefs employed later in the century by the mainstream denominations, especially as they were faced with threats from liberals, doubters, and freethinkers. In conclusion, the impact of liberalism and moral enlightenment on the Christian faith is discussed and related to the decline in church membership during the twentieth century.     

A Long History of Faith‐Based Welfare in Australia: Origins and Impact

In a nation where governments and churches have collaborated in the delivery of welfare services since 1788, such faith‐based welfare was seen as normative rather than problematic. Indeed most Australians would struggle to imagine a welfare system that was not built on such an arrangement. However, by the late twentieth century, the world views and ideologies of church leaders and politicians were no longer in alignment, creating tensions in the relationship. This article explores the origins and development of church–state collaboration in the delivery of welfare, and examines the impact this has had on both the shape of charity and the mission of the churches as faith‐based agencies are increasingly challenged in an environment in which government funding is tied to policies that potentially transgress the principles of the gospels, and victims of past welfare practices demand reparation.     

“The Faith Society”? Quantifying Religious Belonging in Edwardian Britain, 1901–1914

Historians disagree about how the Edwardian era fits into the jigsaw of secularisation in Britain. Was it a time of religious crisis (Keith Robbins, Hugh McLeod) or a faith society (Callum Brown)? This article subjects the debate to quantitative scrutiny by examining the available statistics of church attendance and church membership/affiliation for 1901–1914. A mixed picture is reported, with elements of sacralisation and secularisation co‐existing. Although churchgoing was already in relative and absolute decline, one‐quarter of adults (disproportionately women) still worshipped on any given Sunday and two‐fifths at least monthly. Moreover, hardly anybody failed to be reached by a rite of passage conducted on religious premises. Only 1 per cent professed no faith and just over one‐half had some reasonably regular and meaningful relationship with organised religion in terms of church membership or adherence. For children, perhaps nine‐tenths attended Sunday school, however briefly.     

Yangjiao or the ��Other��? Christianity and Chinese society in the second half of the nineteenth century

This article explores the relationship between Christianity and Chinese society in the second half of the nineteenth century by re-examining the primary sources of anti-Christian movements. The first part shows how Christian churches broke the dominance of the Qing government over local society. Conflicts between Christianity and Chinese religion were often transformed into political confrontations between churches and the Qing bureaucracy. The second part analyzes how Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism interpreted Christianity, with an emphasis on how to understand the perception of Christianity in Chinese society. Exploring broader societal perceptions of Christianity—and not just those expressed in the writings of the Confucian literati—allows for a more nuanced understanding of Chinese interpretations of Christianity. The third part studies the relationship between churches and Chinese religious sects. On the one hand, in the language of anti-Christian movements such as those of the Zaili and Cai sects, Christianity was the hateful “Other.” On the other hand, in the process of preaching Christianity, churches themselves experienced a period of transmutation: they recruited into the church not only non-religious civilians but also the followers of popular religions. For a long period, Christianity was called yangjiao, the “foreign religion,” making it the “Other.” Missionaries started to feel an urgency to reject their identity as the “Other” after the harrowing experience of the Boxer Movement.     

“Hymns of a More or Less Idiotic Character”: The Impact and Use of “Sankey's” Gospel Songs in Late Nineteenth‐Century Australia

Through the large inter‐denominational evangelistic campaigns of the last quarter of the nineteenth century in Australia, the gospel songs commonly described as “Sankey's” were introduced to both church‐goers and the general community and came into wide public knowledge. This article explores their early acceptance, dissemination, and use, and argues that while their impact upon church‐goers was considerable since they were so widely sung in many churches, they were also known, or known about, in the wider community, occupying a significant cultural space.     

Bonhoeffer,Christ and Culture

Abstract

The aim of this article is to reflect theologically on recent research into the changing nature of civil society with a view to exploring the implications of these changes for the way churches and other faith communities might contribute to civil society in the future. The article looks at the mismatch between government rhetoric concerning the role of churches and faith communities in building up civil society, and the actual experience of faith communities becoming engaged in formal civil society activities such as regeneration and social cohesion which has often felt disempowering and awkward. The article then looks at the growth of non-institutional society (i.e. broad-based organizations and direct action campaigns) which tends to lie outside government control and raises the theological and strategic question as to whether more liquid and flexible forms of political participation have something to offer churches seeking to become more appropriately engaged in postmodern flows of society and the increasing marginalization within them.     

The Common Good,Pluralism and the Small Church

Abstract

This paper discusses the understanding of “Common Good” that has been used by the Church of England, especially over the last five years. It suggests that its implicit universalism and identification of Christian morality with the ethical norms for the nation is premised on an understanding of the role of the Church which is no longer realistic. After a brief discussion of the latest statistics for church attendance and a comparison with other national churches in Northern Europe, I suggest that the Church of England is a “small church” and even that Christians constitute a religious minority. This means that the pursuit of the “Common Good” as defined by the church may simply be a piece of nostalgic longing for the time of the “big church.” The recent exclusions for the churches on same-sex marriage legislation indicate that the gap between most of the churches and the wider society. Rather than defining the common good, I suggest that in a pluralist society the churches which recognize their limited role will need to build alliances and common causes with other groups, both religious and secular.     

Nineteenth-century urbanization as sacred process: insights from German Strasbourg

This article examines a crucial site for modernity’s encounter with religion during the long nineteenth century, albeit one largely ignored both by religious and urban historians: the modern big city. Drawing on evidence from Strasbourg, which joined the ranks of Germany’s big cities soon after the Franco-Prussian War, it points out first, that urbanization had a significant urban dimension. It altered the absolute and relative size of the city’s faith communities, affected the confessional composition of urban neighborhoods, and prompted faith communities to mark additional parts of the urban landscape as sacred. Second, while urban growth—both demographic and physical—frequently challenged traditional understandings of religious community, it also facilitated the construction of new understandings of piety and community, especially via voluntary organizations and the religious media. Thereby, urbanization emerged as a key force behind sacralization in city and countryside as the nineteenth century ended and the twentieth began.     

"A Troubled Godless Place": Catholic Practice and Local Politics in the Communes of the Central Vaucluse, 1830–1905

In the final quarter of the nineteenth century, men and women in the French communes of the central Vaucluse began to defer or neglect vital Catholic rites of passage. Against a backdrop of turbulent regional politics and economic upheaval, formal adherence to church doctrine declined sharply, never again to regain its previous levels. This article assesses the religious gestures of individuals and communities through the analysis of their sacramental participation, the only recorded response of Catholics to the church's presence in their lives. The implementation of the lay republic in the community by means of both local and national secularizing policy from 1878 to 1905 was the primary precipitant of general, dramatic decreases in formal Catholic practice. It was only upon the official secularization of communal society and politics that significant numbers of central Vauclusiens began to relinquish their attachment to Catholic rites of passage surrounding birth, marriage, and death.     

Laymen and church reform around the year 1000: the case of Otto-William,count of Burgundy

The frequently-expressed idea that the church reform of the eleventh century was only possible when churches were removed from lay control is a product of the perceptions of the late rather than the early eleventh century. In fact, church reform in France began long before papal directives had begun to remove laymen from ecclesiastical affairs, at a time when most churches were controlled by the local nobility. The example of Otto-William, count of Burgundy at the beginning of the eleventh century, is illustrative of the seeming paradox that, around the year 1000, an ambitious territorial prince could also be considered, by his ecclesiastic contemporaries, as a model patron of reform. The paradox is resolved in the understanding that the early eleventh century saw no incompatibility between lay control of churches and church reform. Rather, ecclesiastical reformers needed laymen to give them churches and land and to protect them; laymen needed reformed monks, men of undoubted sanctity, to pray for their sinful souls. As the case of Otto-William indicates, ecclesiastical reformers and territorial princes were not necessarily enemies but were often allies.     

The Strange Birth of Anglican Synods in Australia and the 1850 Bishops' Conference

The emergence of synods in Australian Anglicanism and their shape flowed in large measure from the social democratic forces at the time and these were for the most part expressed by Anglican lay people. While the Bishops' conference in 1850 identified the issue of church governance and lay involvement the precise recommendations of the conference were nowhere followed. The popular memory of this process which gives determining influence in shaping the form of church constitution to the theological opinions of the local bishop owes its origins to some key interpretations at the beginning of the twentieth century which were part of the political debate about a national church constitution, a debate which was being argued with theologically shaped rhetoric. The reality in the middle of the nineteenth century was quite different but nonetheless implied a theological perspective which validated the use of contemporary social and political ideas in shaping church structures. In order to secure a model which incorporated the whole church community the synods used the mid nineteenth century parliamentary model. Whether that remains the best model for synods is a question.     

Anglican Church Expansion and the Recruitment of Colonial Clergy for New South Wales and the Cape Colony,c. 1790–1850

This article provides the first study of the recruitment of colonial Anglican clergymen in the sixty or so years after the establishment of the first colonial Anglican bishoprics in the late eighteenth century. While studies on the social and educational backgrounds of missionaries abound, the clergymen who ministered primarily to European settlers have been largely overlooked. Nothing comparable to the Clergy of the Church of England Database exists for colonial clergy. This article examines the educational backgrounds of those recruited for service in New South Wales and the Cape Colony and highlights the problems which both the Colonial Office and high churchmen faced when they tried to recruit men from particular church parties and educational institutions. The evidence presented here questions the established chronology of Anglican Church expansion, and casts new light on the tensions which existed in the colonial churches in the first half of the nineteenth century.     

有价值的乌托邦--对霍华德田园城市理论的一种认识

19世纪末英国社会改革家埃比尼泽·霍华德提出的田园城市理论 ,不仅是城市规划的理论 ,还是关于社会改革的学说。它针对 19世纪工业化、城市化给城市带来的弊病而提出 ,具有丰厚的历史文化和社会背景 ,以及多种社会改革学说的渊源。田园城市理论虽具有很强的乌托邦色彩 ,但至今仍对城市和社会发展有借鉴意义。     

“Strangers are Flocking Here”: Identity and Anonymity in New Orleans, 1810–1860

When the population of New Orleans increased dramatically during the nineteenth century, it became a place of strangers. While historians have documented the experiences of different groups in the city, the nineteenth‐century urban world was defined largely by those unknown, by the strangers one passed in the streets. The present study explores how residents of the city coped with this change by analyzing the meanings they ascribed to strangers. It also illustrates why the ability of a stranger to legitimize his/her identity became a crucial means of escaping scrutiny and obtaining acceptance by society. The essay examines the reception of two groups of strangers: elite travelers who sought to read and interpret the city and its subjects and new residents who sought opportunity and adventure, but instead became alienated from society and castigated as vagrants and suspicious people. Although city residents largely came to terms with the anonymity of city life by the 1850s, this essay explores the preceding decades when strangers invoked both fear and excitement.     

New evidence for the Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles from Fatih Camii, Istanbul

The Church of the Holy Apostles was one of the most important buildings in Byzantine Constantinople. The mausolea of Constantine the Great (the main imperial burial place until the eleventh century) and of Justinian I were in the complex surrounding this vast cruciform church. Nothing of this complex appeared to have survived its demolition to clear the site of the Ottoman mosque complex of Fatih Camii after 1461. Fieldwork in 2001 recorded walls pre–dating the fifteenth–century phase of the mosque complex, still standing above ground level and apparently including a large rectilinear structure. This is identified as the Church of the Holy Apostles and an adjacent enclosure may be that containing the mausoleum of Constantine the Great. The reconstructed church plan resembles those of St John of Ephesus and St Mark's (San Marco), Venice – churches known to have been modelled on the Church of the Holy Apostles, Constantinople.     

Archaeological Intelligence

The county of Norfolk is well known for its huge number of ruined and abandoned medieval churches. ‘St Mary's Chapel’ at Ashwellthorpe has not usually been, reckoned among these. Although local tradition always maintained that it was the parish church of the lost village of Ashwell, some architectural historians have been sceptical, suggesting that it is merely a post-medieval domestic building on which part of a church roof has been re-used. Renovation of the property has not only confirmed its ecclesiastical origin, but revealed that it is the chancel of a church later used as a chantry chapel, with a major refurbishment in the fifteenth century.     

The custom of the English Church: parish church maintenance in England before 1300

A division of responsibility for parish church fabric and contents between rector and parishioners first appeared in English ecclesiastical legislation in the early thirteenth century and was to remain in place until the mid-nineteenth century. It is often suggested that this responsibility was forced onto parishioners by a clergy keen to limit their own financial liability and that this marks the point at which parishioners first become involved in their local churches. This article looks at the development of these statutes from their origins in the Anglo-Saxon period through to their full realisation in the later thirteenth century. It argues that there were many among the thirteenth-century ecclesiastical hierarchy who were opposed to this change, and that far from being forced on parishioners, allowing parishioners to take responsibility for part of the church was a pragmatic solution to problems brought about by changes to both parishes and parish churches.     

The custom of the English Church: parish church maintenance in England before 1300

A division of responsibility for parish church fabric and contents between rector and parishioners first appeared in English ecclesiastical legislation in the early thirteenth century and was to remain in place until the mid-nineteenth century. It is often suggested that this responsibility was forced onto parishioners by a clergy keen to limit their own financial liability and that this marks the point at which parishioners first become involved in their local churches. This article looks at the development of these statutes from their origins in the Anglo-Saxon period through to their full realisation in the later thirteenth century. It argues that there were many among the thirteenth-century ecclesiastical hierarchy who were opposed to this change, and that far from being forced on parishioners, allowing parishioners to take responsibility for part of the church was a pragmatic solution to problems brought about by changes to both parishes and parish churches.