Modernising Protestantism

A Cultural History of the Dutch Reformed, 1650-1750
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-485-6724-9
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, 664 Seiten, Format (B × H): 170 mm x 240 mm

This book provides a thorough revision of the image of the public church under the Dutch Republic after the Peace of Westphalia and before the onset of the ‘high Enlightenment’. Traditional church history considers the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a period of decline. Yet this was the high tide of Dutch expansion when Dutch society was extremely rich. In its five universities and its highly literate population internationally acknowledged scholarship, arts and sciences flowered. Did really nothing of all this vitality rub off on the public religion?

Rather than the traditional static image of a rather joyless and ossified orthodoxy, an exploration of the interface between the Reformed church and Dutch society at large reveals a religious culture that had much to offer to various audiences, in the sphere of knowledge production as well as in the form of spiritual solace and everything in between.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Spaans, Joke

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christliche Kirchen, Konfessionen, Denominationen Protestantismus, evangelische und protestantische Kirchen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

Chapter 1. Setting the scene

Chapter 2. Controversies

Chapter 3. Rethinking the Reformation

Chapter 4. Church, State and society

Chapter 5. Ministers

Chapter 6. Laity

Chapter 7. Minor clergy

Chapter 8. Comparative religion

Chapter 9. Theology

Epilogue

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Spaans, Joke
Dr Joke Spaans, until 2021 associate professor for the history of Christianity at Utrecht University. Her main interest is the interface between religion and early modern society.