Nineteenth Century Religious Thought In The West Volume 1

A fresh appraisal of the most important religious thinkers of the nineteenth century.

The successful three volumes of Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West provide a fresh appraisal of the most important thinkers of that time. Soames essays centre on major figures of the period; others cover topics, trends and schools of thought between the French Revolution and the First World War.

This is the first of a set of three volumes which provide a fresh appraisal of the most important thinkers of the nineteenth century in the West. Some essays centre on major figures of the period; others cover topics, trends and schools of thought between the French Revolution and the First World War. The contributors are among the leading scholars in their field in Europe and North America. They seek to engage their subjects not only in order to see what was said but also why it was said and explore what is of lasting value in it. Readers, therefore, will find the essays not only highly informative about their subject matter but also distinctively personal contributions to the task of re-evaluating the thought of the nineteenth century. Contributions are sufficently clear to be of use to students in religious studies and cognate disciplines but have enough depth and detail to appeal to scholars.

This is a clear picture of the main currents of Western religious thought in the nineteenth century.

Through various realignments beginning in the Revolutionary era and continuing across the nineteenth century, Christianity not only endured as a vital intellectual tradition contributed importantly to a wide variety of significant conversations, movements, and social transformations across the diverse spheres of intellectual, cultural, and social history. The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Christian Thought proposes new readings of the diverse sites and variegated role of the Christian intellectual tradition across what has come to be called 'the long nineteenth century'. It represents the first comprehensive examination of a picture emerging from the twin recognition of Christianity's abiding intellectual influence and its radical transformation and diversification under the influence of the forces of modernity. Part one investigates changing paradigms that determine the evolving approaches to religious matters during the nineteenth century, providing readers with a sense of the fundamental changes at the time. Section two considers human nature and the nature of religion. It explores a range of categories rising to prominence in the course of the nineteenth century, and influencing the way religion in general, and Christianity in particular, were conceived. Part three focuses on the intellectual, cultural, and social developments of the time, while part four looks at Christianity and the arts-a major area in which Christian ideas, stories, and images were used, adapted, changes, and challenged during the nineteenth century. Christianity was radically pluralized in the nineteenth century, and the fifth section is dedicated to 'Christianity and Christianities'. The chapters sketch the major churches and confessions during the period. The final part considers doctrinal themes registering the wealth and scope through broad narrative and individual example. This authoritative reference work offers an indispensible overview of a period whose forceful ideas continue to be present in contemporary theology.

In this second of three volumes which survey the dynamic interplay of Christianity and Western thought from the earliest centuries through the twentieth century, Steve Wilkens and Alan Padgett tell the story of the monumental changes of the nineteenth century.