Abstract
This is a rather brief and insubstantial review of a lengthy and substantial book - indeed, of the first of three such substantial books treating of the modern history of German theology. This first volume in the set is, on its own, already a marvel of scholarship. Its five parts cover the period between 1781 and 1848 and together comprise 36 topical chapters (each roughly 20 pages in length) expertly authored by a collection of international writers. The topical coverage is rich and wide; its 70-page bibliography itself an inexhaustible guide and resource for readers.
As it is a work of comprehensive and detailed reference, one is perhaps unlikely to read through the chapters in sequence - though certainly nothing would preclude it! But there are several discrete pathways one might follow through the volume as a whole. For example, one could trace a line through the several chapters that treat of the historical, social and institutional development of the churches, religious orders, universities and German states, all of which serve to give distinctive shape to theology throughout this period. One could also find a through line of chapters exploring specifically philosophical developments and their theological significance, from the Enlightenment and its critics through to Kant, the ‘pantheism controversy’, the idealism of Hegel and Schelling, and the materialism of Feuerbach and beyond. Another line of reading could track the story of modern biblical criticism and attendant debates through their various stages. A further path might trace specifically Catholic theological history from the early modern period up through the emergence of the Tübingen School, Catholic rationalism, engagement with biblical criticism, and on to mid- nineteenth-century debates about religious freedom and Catholic ‘toleration’. Another pass through the book could pull upon a thread concerned with ideas and understandings of ‘religion’ and ‘anti-religion’, mythology and ‘comparative religious history’, as well as of Judaism. After one had done all this, there would yet remain a rich and variegated seam to mine concerned with manifold developments in specifically Protestant theology across these years, a collection of chapters on central themes, questions and challenges as well as key figures - not least leading pietist theologians, the neologians, Schleiermacher, Strauss, Baur and the ‘mediating theologians’. It is certainly true that college and university teachers could also readily assign individual chapters as valuable background reading to inform and orient students as they approach the study of primary texts from this world.
Arguably, many of the specifically modern questions that continue to preoccupy contemporary theology to this very day emerged, took shape, and received some of their first and most formative answers in this period in Europe’s German-speaking lands, churches, seminaries and universities. Those still wrestling with the legacy of modernity in theology will be very well served indeed by the education to be had and the insights to be won from time spent with this volume.
Suffice it to say, this series will prove a landmark project in English-language scholarship in the historical study of modern theology generally, and that seated in German-speaking lands in particular. Taken together with its succeeding volumes, this book’s rich and detailed essays promise to be a crucial point of reference and orientation for students and scholars for years to come. It will prove a key addition to any serious theological library.