The decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750-2000 / edited by Hugh McLeod and Werner Ustorf.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

McLeod, Hugh, editor.

Ustorf, Werner, 1945- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christianity--Europe.

Christianity.

Europe--Church history.

Europe.

Europe--Religion.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 234 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Christendom lasted for over a thousand years in Western Europe, and we are still living in its shadow. For over two centuries this social and religious order has been in decline. Enforced religious unity has given way to increasing pluralism, and since 1960 this process has spectacularly accelerated. In this 2003 book, historians, sociologists and theologians from six countries answer two central questions: what is the religious condition of Western Europe at the start of the twenty-first century, and how and why did Christendom decline? Beginning by overviewing the more recent situation, the authors then go back into the past, tracing the course of events in England, Ireland, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and showing how the fate of Christendom is reflected in changing attitudes to death and to technology, and in the evolution of religious language. They reveal a pattern more complex and ambiguous than many of the conventional narratives will admit.

Contents:

Introduction / Hugh McLeod

The secularisation decade : what the 1960s have done to the study of religious history / Callum G. Brown

Christendom in decline : the Swedish case / Eva M. Hamberg

New Christianity, indifference and diffused spirituality / Yves Lambert

Established churches and the growth of religious pluralism : a case study of christianisation and secularisation in England since 1700 / David Hempton

Catholicism in Ireland / Sheridan Gilley

Long-term religious developments in the Netherlands, c. 1750-2000 / Peter Van Rooden.

The potency of 'Christendom' : the example of the Darmstädter Wort (1947) / Martin Greschat

The dechristianisation of death in modern France / Thomas Kselman

The impact of technology on Catholicism in France (1850-1950) / Michel Lagrée

Semantic structures of religious change in modern Germany / Lucian Hölscher

Master narratives of long-term religious change / Jeffrey Cox

A missiological postscript / Werner Ustorf.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

1-107-13390-4

1-280-16134-5

0-511-06499-3

0-511-12066-4

0-511-20379-9

0-511-32624-6

0-511-49678-8

0-511-07345-3

OCLC:

252483259