The story of evangelicalism in New Zealand is almost as old as the history of European contact. The essays in this volume exhibit much of the breadth and depth of this evangelical witness, divided as it is into two sections: historical and theological. As David Bebbington says of the historical essays in this volume, "what is most striking about the members of the evangelical bodies depicted in this volume is their variety. These people were not uniformly anything, let alone joyless or humourless. The evangelicals of New Zealand were by no means monochrome, and least of all black." Derek...

Earthing the Cosmic Queen explores the connection of poet, world, and text in the Song of Songs based on the process of reading as understood by Relevance Theory. This linguistic theory reveals new insights into the Song of Songs by tracing associations between the poet and her world. The main portion of this book involves a discourse analysis of the entire Song for the purpose of revealing the poet's cognitive environment and communicative intentions. Seven sites of discourse are explored: entreaties, wasf, the daughters, royalty, the brothers, losing and finding, and the Garden. The Garden...