Chapter 6 considers the ‘perceptual’ version presented autobiographically by Peter van Inwagen but supported conceptually by figures such as David Brown and Mark Wynn. Here sainthood is understood in terms of providing an embodied source of religious experience, and evidence is understood in perceptual terms. More specifically, the perception of divine reality is indirect and materially mediated through the saintly source, and examples are provided from Christianity, Judaism, Sufi Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Japanese folk religion, and secular media. Unlike the propositional version presented in Chapter 5, the perceptual version is inter-religious and does not lead to any specific understanding of divinity.

Chapter 5 considers the ‘propositional’ version defended by Sarah Coakley and Alexander Pruss. Here sainthood is understood in terms of radical altruism (or ‘cooperation’ in the context of evolutionary biology), and evidence is understood in propositional explanatory terms. More specifically, the concept of ‘inference to the best explanation’ is invoked to argue that the best explanation of some radically altruistic lives is that they both point to and participate in a self-giving transcendent divine reality, namely the Christian Trinity.

Chapter 4 examines how Augustine’s theology of the righteousness of faith also becomes more Christological, that is, uniquely shaped by having Christ as its object. This chapter begins with the fundamental contrast between pride and humility. Augustine sees pride as the love of the delusional thought that one is the center of reality, and faith in Christ as the healing remedy which restores the soul’s relationship to God, the true center. Returning to confessiones (Confessions), Augustine understands faith in Christ as more than just an ascent to God. Instead, it initiates a double movement in which the soul is first humbled by its recognition in faith of Christ’s humble humanity and then exalted by its reception of his divinity. Finally, the chapter turns to de trinitate (The Trinity), in which Augustine explains how, because sacraments present eternal realities through temporal signs, Christ as sacrament makes the humility of God accessible to faith.

Through an analysis of his Pauline exegesis in the 390s, especially Romans 7, Chapter 2 demonstrates that Augustine develops a consistent interpretation of Paul on justification: faith justifies because it trusts God to give the grace of charity to fulfill the law by the Holy Spirit in baptism. The chapter situates this interpretation within the predominantly baptismal theology of justification in Ambrose and North Africa. This context unlocks how Augustine’s account of faith justifying by obtaining grace is intended to interpret the catechumen’s reception of the Holy Spirit in baptism; in Augustine’s own analogy, faith is the conception of grace, and baptism is its birth. Turning to ad Simplicianum (To Simplician), Augustine’s changed view on election preserves this interpretation of justification by faith. The chapter concludes by applying Augustine’s interpretation of Paul to his conversion in confessiones (Confessions), though this also reveals Augustine’s need to explain why faith sometimes fails to obtain grace.

This chapter surveys definitions of sainthood drawn from the three listed disciplines and engages with the work of Robert Merrihew Adams, Patrick Sherry, John Hick, Jean-Luc Marion, J. O. Urmson, Susan Wolf, Edith Wyschogrod, Linda Zagzebski, Lawrence Cunningham, Elizabeth Johnson, David Brown, Michael Plekon, and Stuart C. Devinish, among others.

This chapter considers the nature of the marital relationships entered into by the second generation and the ways in which Herminie and Fanny were to accommodate the business interests of the Pereire brothers in fashioning the requirements for suitable spouses. It takes note of the role they played in arranging suitable liaisons, including the negotiation of religious affiliation. The chapter also notes how the marriages that took place subtly altered the family situation in its religious and social outlook and in its dynamic. The Pereire family’s relationship with Judaism was relatively fixed by the 1840s when the first of the second generation was ready to marry. They identified as Jewish, they had not abjured the religion of their birth, they still supported Jewish causes and institutions, they still mixed within Jewish circles, and, perhaps most importantly, they were seen by others outside the family as Jewish.

This chapter places the case study of Wiltshire within the context of rural Britain. It offers an in-depth overview and assessment of the existing historiography, and addresses the extent to which there has existed a rural dimension to integration from the perspectives of the county’s local authority and the Muslim migrant communities themselves. It shows that rurality matters, and that both its local authority’s political approach and Muslims’ experiences across the post-1960s period have set Wiltshire apart from the dominant urban narrative, and have shown that rural developments have often been far more complex than has been recognised. Finally, it argues that the rural dimension of Muslim integration in Britain has been neglected for too long and that it is essential to take into consideration if we are to reach a thorough and multidimensional understanding of the Muslim integration process.

This chapter addresses local government policy in Wiltshire between the early 1960s and the implementation of the Race Relations Act 1976. It charts local policy through the arrival of the first waves of post-war immigration to the county, and offers an insight into how policymakers perceived and addressed the integration, accommodation and experiences of Muslim migrants. Despite persistent claims that more rural areas in Britain shied away from devising policies and strategies due to their numerically small immigrant communities, a range of measures were introduced in Wiltshire, especially in the areas of education, the resettlement of Ugandan Asians and community relations. Furthermore, this chapter also exposes how Wiltshire’s local authority went some way towards considering the religious affiliations and needs of its Muslim communities specifically during this period.

This chapter looks at Richard Baxter’s efforts at peacemaking by analysing that part of his work that seems to hold out congregationalist ideas. It is argued that this aspect of Baxter’s work reveals his attempts to reduce the distances between competing interregnum positions on church polity with the goal of achieving Christian concord. Using theoretical work drawn from the field of religious studies, the chapter shows how Baxter attempted to erode the boundary markers of mid-seventeenth-century confessional identity in order to convince his opponents and friends that they shared more common ground than difference. The success and failure of Baxter’s efforts are assessed in the context of the late interregnum and early Restoration debates on religion.