Publisher's Synopsis
The essays reflect the enormous boom which the interdisciplinary research of the European Enlightenment of the 18th century has experienced in recent decades regarding the history of theology, philosophy and religion. They make it plausible to speak of 'the' enlightenment as an epoch in the sense of a characteristic historical constellation in which religious culture participated actively and passively. However, it was a very heterogeneous unity; even rival enlightenments can be identified. Enlightenment, which around 1800 got into a religious, epistemic and political crisis, has nevertheless developed theological challenges with regard to hermeneutics, the aesthetics of religious practice, Christian ethics and of the pending church reform. Both the common profile of a 'pious' enlightenment, and of 'enlightening' challenges become visible in persons (F. F. Budde, S. J. Baumgarten. J. S. Semler, G. F. Handel, Ch. Jennens, F. G. Klopstock, J. P. Uz, G. E. Lessing, I. Kant, G. Chr. Storr, and others), places (Halle, Berlin, London, Ansbach, Tubingen), theoretical and literary formations (pietism, Wolffianism, neology, religious poetry) and in highly significant developments in soteriology, hymnbook reform, and a critical turn against supernaturalism.
