Religion and Society at the Dawn of Modern Europe

This book reveals how, in confrontation with secularity, various new forms of Christianity evolved during the time of Europe's crisis of modernisation. Rudolf Schlgl provides a comprehensive overview of the development of religious institutions and piety in Protestant and Catholic Europe between 1750 and 1850; at the same time, he offers a detailed exposition of contemporary philosophical, theological and socio-theoretical thought on the nature and function of religion. This allows us to understand the importance of religion in the self-defining of European society during a period of great change and upheaval. Religion and Society at the Dawn of Modern Europe is a pivotal work translated into English here for the first time for all scholars and students of European society in the 18th and 19th centuries.