The long nineteenth century (c.1780–c.1920) in Western Europe saw an unprecedented rise in the production and possession of material goods. The material culture diversified and led to a rich variety of expressions. Dovetailing with a process of confessionalisation that manifested itself quite simultaneously, material religion witnessed its heyday in this period; from church buildings to small devotional objects.

The present volume analyses how various types of reform (state, societal, and e...

In the mid-nineteenth century, when the idea of religion as a private matter connected to the home and the female sphere won acceptance among the bourgeois elite, Christian religious practices began to be associated with femininity and soft values. Contemporary critics claimed that religion was incompatible with true manhood, and today's scholars talk about a feminisation of religion. But was this really the case? What expression did male religious faith take at a time when Christianity was l...

In Guatemala, the 36-year armed conflict from 1960 to 1996 claimed 200,000 lives, over two per cent of the population, and displaced a million more. In the 1970s and the 1980s the widespread and violent repression of social movements fighting for justice and human rights reached unimaginable proportions, involving assassinations, disappearances, and exile. Even parts of the Church, traditionally considered an ally of the powerful and the wealthy, were not spared this fate.

Missionaries and Re...

How churches in Northern Europe reinvented their role as providers of social relief.

Charity is a word that fits well in the history of religion and churches, whereas the concept of social reform seems to belong more to the vocabulary of the modern welfare states. Christian charity found itself, during the long nineteenth century, within the maelstrom of social turmoil. In this context of social unrest, although charity managed to confirm its relevance, it was also subjected to fierce critici...

Theodor Zahn (1838 - 1933) was a German Protestant theologian and a biblical scholar at the University of Erlangen. He was distinguished for his eminent scholarship, especially in connection with the New Testament canon. He stood at the head of the conservative scholarship at his time.

In this book Theodor Zahn gives a sketch of the history and an examination of the contents of the Apostles’ Creed.

The Apostles’ Creed is one of the oldest confessions of the Christian Church and is profess...

Case studies upon the use of concepts like feminization and masculinization in relation to christianity

Since the 1970s the feminization thesis has become a powerful trope in the rewriting of the social history of Christendom. However, this 'thesis' has triggered some vehement debates, given that men have continued to dominate the churches, and the churches themselves have reacted to the association of religion and femininity, often formulated by their critics, by explicitly focusing their a...

The changing attitude of Catholic culture towards modernity.After decades of a problematic, if not plainly hostile, approach to modernity by Catholic culture, the 1960s marked the beginning of a new era. As the Church employed a more positive approach to the world, voices in the Catholic milieu embraced a radical perspective, channeling the need for social justice for the poor and the oppressed. The alternative and complementary world views of 'universalism' and 'liberation' would drive the e...

Among a wide spectrum of American Protestants, the horrors of World War II triggered grave concern for Europe’s religious future. They promptly mobilised resources to revive Europe’s Christian foundation. Saving the Overlooked Continent reconstructs this surprising redirection of Western missions. For the first time, Europe became the recipient of America’s missionary enterprise.

The American missionary impulse matched the military, economic, and political programs of the U.S., all of w...

Catholic mission from the mid-20th century onwards was complicated by geopolitical upheaval, church reform, and the emergent critique of the colonial power matrix to which the Church belonged. Missionary movements to Latin America coincided with visions for a progressive, radically transformative church.

Landscapes of Liberation expands scholarship into liberation theology’s reception in Andean America and critically examines the interplay of the Catholic Church as a global institution with...