Political and Legal Perspectives

Before the last quarter of the eighteenth century there was a generally clear and remarkably uniform pattern of church-state relationships across Europe. In the course of the nineteenth century this firm alliance between political and religious establishments broke down. Religious pluralism developed everywhere, though at different speeds, requiring church and state to reach fresh solutions. This volume Political and Legal Perspectives highlights the impact of broad political change, ‘democratization', on the question of religious reform, in Northern Europe. Competing political parties expressed contrasting views about whether ‘the state' should be ‘neutral' or whether it should give particular support to one or other churches. It is hardly surprising that there was no simple ‘one fits it all' solution. Some countries were multi-confessional where others were still in some sense confessional. This volume shows a set of problems and circumstances which were often common but which led to outcomes which were, and to an extent still remain, ‘different'. The research focus of this book is historical but how ‘the state' deals with ‘the church' (and ‘the church' with ‘the state') continues to be a live and pressing public issue in a multi-confessional and multi-faith European Union.

Contents

Introduction
Keith Robbins

Bibliography

The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland

The Reform and Extension of Established Churches in the United Kingdom, 1780-1870
Stewart J. Brown

Church Establishment, Disestablishment and Democracyin the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, 1870-1920
Keith Robbins

Bibliography

The Low Countries

Liberal State and Confessional Accommodation
The Southern Netherlands / Belgium
Emiel Lamberts

Dutch Political Developments and Religious Reform
James C. Kennedy

Bibliography

Germany

Constitutional Complexity and Confessional Diversity
Heiner de Wall & Andreas Gestrich

Bibliography

The Nordic Countries

State and Church in Denmark and Norway
Liselotte Malmgart

Political Reform in Sweden
Anders Jarlert

Bibliography

Index

Authors

Colophon

Format: Edited volume - hardback

Size: 238 × 170 × 20 mm

248 pages

ISBN: 9789058678256

Publication: November 01, 2010

Series: Dynamics of Religious Reform 1

Languages: English

Stock item number: 60796

Keith Robbins is Emeritus Vice-Chancellor, University of Wales, Trinity/St.David (formerly University of Wales, Lampeter)

Both of these volumes represent a major and unprecedented exercise in the comparative history of church reform during the nineteenth century and both employ the talents of a distinguished and international body of historians.
Though impressive in scope, these volumes are nevertheless accessible, with each chapter being followed by a useful bibliography. While their balance and geographical coverage may be open to question, these volumes represent the first contributions to a series which already shows considerable promise and which will no doubt serve as a major resource for the study of European religious life in the nineteenth century.
Michael Snape, University of Birmingham, UK, European History Quarterly 2013 43: 390

 

Dubbelrecensie 'The dynamics of religious reform'
Keith Robbins ed., Political and Legal Perspectives en Joris van Eijnatten en Paula Yates ed., The Churches
Wel maken deze twee bundels duidelijk dat met een verbreding van de geschiedschrijving over religie veel winst te behalen valt. In een dergelijke verbreding slagen de bundels ten eerste door de geschiedenis van religieuze gemeenschappen niet tot de geschiedenis van kerken te reduceren. Ten tweede toont de eerste bundel ook aan dat een expliciete verbinding van religie en macht meer inzicht kan bieden in de manier waarop de plaats van religie in de moderne samenleving is veranderd.
Peter van Dam, Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, 2012, nr 4
Download het volledige artikel >>>

 

This timely book presents to theologians, historians and sociologists an important study project of the transformation process of Northern Europe's state-church relationship. The reader will find information and analysis that helps explain where these churches have come from.
Jenni Krapu, Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, 2012

 

Both volumes present valuable coverage of a range of country cases which few individual readers, if any, can be fully conversant with. The particularity of each is remarkable despite some affinities to be found among the contiguous countries of Great Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, and the Nordic group respectively. The main essays provide useful works of reference made all the more useful for those who would want to delve further into the matters covered by the addition of bibliographies of works in the relevant languages as well as in English.
JOHN T.S. MADELEY, London School of Economic and Political Science, Politics, Religion and Ideology

 

Both of these volumes represent a major and unprecedented exercise in the comparative history of church reform during the nineteenth century and both employ the talents of a distinguished and international body of historians.
Though impressive in scope, these volumes are nevertheless accessible, with each chapter being followed by a useful bibliography. While their balance and geographical coverage may be open to question, these volumes represent the first contributions to a series which already shows considerable promise and which will no doubt serve as a major resource for the study of European religious life in the nineteenth century.
Michael Snape, University of Birmingham, UK, European History Quarterly 2013 43: 390

 

Dubbelrecensie 'The dynamics of religious reform'
Keith Robbins ed., Political and Legal Perspectives en Joris van Eijnatten en Paula Yates ed., The Churches
Wel maken deze twee bundels duidelijk dat met een verbreding van de geschiedschrijving over religie veel winst te behalen valt. In een dergelijke verbreding slagen de bundels ten eerste door de geschiedenis van religieuze gemeenschappen niet tot de geschiedenis van kerken te reduceren. Ten tweede toont de eerste bundel ook aan dat een expliciete verbinding van religie en macht meer inzicht kan bieden in de manier waarop de plaats van religie in de moderne samenleving is veranderd.
Peter van Dam, Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis, 2012, nr 4
Download het volledige artikel >>>

 

This timely book presents to theologians, historians and sociologists an important study project of the transformation process of Northern Europe's state-church relationship. The reader will find information and analysis that helps explain where these churches have come from.
Jenni Krapu, Revue d'Histoire Ecclésiastique, 2012

 

Both volumes present valuable coverage of a range of country cases which few individual readers, if any, can be fully conversant with. The particularity of each is remarkable despite some affinities to be found among the contiguous countries of Great Britain and Ireland, the Low Countries, and the Nordic group respectively. The main essays provide useful works of reference made all the more useful for those who would want to delve further into the matters covered by the addition of bibliographies of works in the relevant languages as well as in English.
JOHN T.S. MADELEY, London School of Economic and Political Science, Politics, Religion and Ideology