Search results for ""author horst weigelt""

This monograph provides an overview as an example of the fact that in Christianity eschatological hopes of salvation were widespread for all people from the beginning, but in different forms and frequencies. It is also shown how they were founded in the individual historical epochs and what contemporary significance was assigned to them in each case. The lack of a theological hermeneutics of eschatological biblical texts becomes evident in all of this. The manifold receptions and adaptations that these universal expectations of salvation experienced in European culture, especially in poetry, literature, philosophy and music, since the Middle Ages, are again presented in examples. It is shown that these transformations, especially in the literature, often took place from the beginning with the inclusion of non-Christian ideas of apocatastasis. Since the Enlightenment, as a result of the increasing disentanglement of religion and society, tendencies towards secularization can often be observed.

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Migrations are a phenomenon that can be traced back to the beginning of the history of mankind. In modern times, especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, numerous migration movements took place from Europe to North America. It was also at this time that the migrations of the Schwenkfelders, followers of Caspar Schwenckfeld?s teachings, from Silesia then belonging to the Austrian Habsburg Monarchy to Pennsylvania took place. On the basis of their spiritualistic theology as well as their intense, personal piety, they rejected some essential doctrines of Christianity and ecclesiastical institutions. Therefore governmental and ecclesiastical authorities meted out severe punishments to them. However, it was not until the establishment of a Jesuit Mission for their catholicization in 1719 that more than two hundred of them left Silesia for the sake of their faith. They emigrated first to the Electorate of Saxony and several years later to Pennsylvania, where they settled scattered widely northwest of Philadelphia between 1731 and 1737. In this multireligious, multicultural, and multiethnic English colony they become acquainted with other religious beliefs and forms of piety. Here, moreover, they were challenged by other social, political, and cultural circumstances. This monograph is the first to pursue, in detail, the effects of these acquaintanceships and challenges on the faith of the Silesian refugees. These effects ranged as becomes clear from declines and multifarious alterations (modifications, changes, or even revisions) to the strengthening and deepening of their traditional faith and piety. However, the study shows, for most of the Schwenkfelders the migrations did not primarily involve risks. Rather they opened up great opportunities for their religious development and their individual and community life. Without doubt, the Schwenkfelder migrations are characterized by uniqueness; nevertheless certain features can also be detected in other religious migrations. Therefore their migrations represent in certain ways a paradigm, for this time and beyond.

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