Description
Book SynopsisThis work shows that the collapse of the post-reformation confessional state was more the result of religious dissent from within, much of it orthodox, than attacks of an anti-religious Enlightenment.
Trade Review“The editors, Dale Van Kley, a professor of history at Ohio State University, and James E. Bradley, a professor of church history at Fuller Seminary, have produced a remarkably coherent collection that should interest serious students of the Enlightenment. It is a carefully crafted book and will reward thoughtful reading” —History: Reviews of New Books
“These essays are united by the idea that notions of civic rights and representative government so dear to us and so central to our social and political life are not derived from heretical and enlightened sources that challenged orthodox Christianity and polity, but rather from debates within both religious orthodoxy and political status quo. While the Reformation era religious conflicts tended to pit Protest and Catholic confessions and states against each other, the 18th-century religious conflicts took place within various individual confessional establishments and states that founded and maintained them. In their focal coherence, these essays provide us with a model of the comparative study of religion during the Enlightenment.” —Virginia Quarterly Review
“Bradley and Van Kley’s splendid introduction provides a fascinating overview of the earlier literature on the subject and draws credible connections between the diverse accounts that follow. Each of the chapters is a substantial piece of work, written by seasoned scholars who command a broad array of primary sources in making their arguments.” —The Journal of Religion
“... fascinatingly clear. The whole collection therefore constitutes a landmark in the recent rehabilitation of religion into our understanding of the eighteenth century and how it worked.” —French History
“These timely essays focus on conflicts within confessions and the way in which they could become the seedbed of enhanced religious freedom. . . . This invaluable publication affords abundant evidence of what a cockpit for debate the Churches were, very much primary centres of intellectual life in eighteenth-century Europe.” —European History Quarterly
