Edited volumes by Arie L. Molendijk
Religion is back on academic and political agendas in a major way. ‘As I’ve said many times, I be... more Religion is back on academic and political agendas in a major way. ‘As I’ve said many times, I believe that change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up, and few are closer to the people than our churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques’. Barack Obama spoke these words in the Summer of 2008, proposing a new partnership between the White House and grass-roots groups, ‘both faith-based and secular’, in keeping with a tradition of such initiatives since
the days of the Clinton administration. Obama added that his initiative endangered in no way the constitutional separation of church and state. Somehow the religious re-emerges in the secular and the public. Even the political role of religion is appreciated by so-called secular intellectuals formerly rather critical of religion. These developments have led observers to speculate about a new ‘postsecular’ age, particularly among scholars of prominence such as Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor and José Casanova. Looking at where exactly religion
re-emerges in the secular, it seems also intriguing that urban environments play a prominent role, contrary to views that cities are merely places of a secular disengagement from a variety of faiths. Arguably it is in ‘the urban’ that the shift from the secular to the postsecular in terms of public space, building use, governance and civil society is most intensely observed and experienced. Th e constellation of the religious, the political and the urban—as our subtitle has it—is by no means easy to describe and analyse, nor to theorize. In this volume we have chosen primarily for a theoretical perspective (while retaining an openness to empirical manifestations of the central conceptual ideas) to address contemporary relations
between religion, politics and urban societies. Th e primary focus is on the relations between public religion, deprivatization of religion and theorizations of modernity and modernities, with the secondary and closely related focus on theorizing postsecular urbanism including the role of faith based organizations (FBOs) in cities.
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Papers by Arie L. Molendijk
Protestant Theology and Modernity in the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands
In 1822 Isaac da Costa converted to Christianity, together with his wife Hanna Belmonte (1800–186... more In 1822 Isaac da Costa converted to Christianity, together with his wife Hanna Belmonte (1800–1867) and his friend the physician Abraham Capadose (1795–1874), who is well-known for his battle against vaccination. Da Costa presented his conversion as a quest for personal truth, which individuals have to appropriate for themselves. His own conversion narrative ultimately resolved the dialectics between free personal conversion and the outer personal and socio-political circumstances and constraints (the death of his father, the emancipation of the Jews in the Netherlands) in favour of the authenticity of the individual decision. From a structural point of view his choice of the ‘religion of my fathers’ was also a conversion to modernity. After his conversion Da Costa became a public figure in the Netherlands and he played a leading role in the early nineteenth-century Dutch revival movement, the Réveil.
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Protestant Theology and Modernity in the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands
‘Modernism’ is not to be confused with the term ‘modernity’ and the process of modernization ment... more ‘Modernism’ is not to be confused with the term ‘modernity’ and the process of modernization mentioned above, but it is also a contentious notion. Although the term has a more restricted sense, it is also used in different domains in a variety of ways. In the arts and philosophy, the term generally refers to innovative movements and individuals, although who actually belongs to the avant-garde is a matter of dispute. It is frequently used to characterize modern culture as opposed to religion. Yet it may apply to the religious and theological sphere too, indicating new theologies and the critical interpretation of the Bible, which demythologizes Scripture. In the present book the term is primarily used to refer to the Protestant movement that aimed at a synthesis of liberal Protestantism and modern culture. The chapter presents an overview of the various meanings of the term, in both a general and a religious sense. Alongside terminological issues, the main protagonists are introduced, debates within Dutch modernism are analysed, and a brief description of the movement is given. Finally, the chapter gives an explanation of the decline of liberal Protestantism in the Netherlands in the twentieth century, by referring to the Dutch system of pillarization. The liberal idea that Protestant religion was an integrative force in Dutch society was severely frustrated in a situation where their counterparts organized themselves into separate confessional organizations that came to dominate the public sphere.
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Protestant Theology and Modernity in the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands, 2021
The main intellectual developments discussed in this chapter are the rise of the historical-criti... more The main intellectual developments discussed in this chapter are the rise of the historical-critical study of the Bible and the science of religion in the Netherlands in the second half of the nineteenth century. Both developments concern the historization of the field of theology itself, the use of historical and comparative methods to study religions. The influence of the natural sciences and Darwinism on theology was not particularly strong in the Netherlands. The first section addresses the ground-breaking work of the Old Testament scholar Abraham Kuenen, especially in relation to the publications of Julius Wellhausen and William Robertson Smith. The second section is devoted to the Dutch Radical School, which emerged at the end of the nineteenth century. The third section focuses on the new 1876 Higher Education Act, which introduced history of religions and philosophy of religion (often considered to be the two main branches of the ‘science of religion’) as part of the theolog...
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Protestant Theology and Modernity in the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands, 2021
The following characterization of a ‘pillar’ captures the Dutch situation rather nicely: ‘A pilla... more The following characterization of a ‘pillar’ captures the Dutch situation rather nicely: ‘A pillar is…defined as a subsystem in society that links political power, social organization and individual behaviour and which is aimed to promote—in competition as well as in cooperation with other social and political groups—goals inspired by a common ideology shared by its members for whom the pillar and its ideology is the main locus of social identification’ (Erik H. Bax). But how exactly do the several pillars relate to each other? Does the pillarization metaphor not suggest a false symmetry and uniformity? It has been a matter of debate whether the social democrats and the liberals could be aptly described as ‘pillars’. Various motives and aspects have played a role here. Important is the aspect of the emancipation of underprivileged groups, either in religious (Catholics and orthodox Protestants) or social respects (labourers). Second, the defence against secularizing tendencies—in pa...
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NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, 2021
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Words, 2020
Even the critics of Dutch Reformed theologian, politician, and publicist Abraham Kuyper (1837-192... more Even the critics of Dutch Reformed theologian, politician, and publicist Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) acknowledge his great power of oratory. This essay examines the nature of Kuyper's rhetoric in a mythopoetic perspective that sees its inspiration in a romantic understanding of artistic inspiration and vivid representations of reality. Long-term editor of De Standaard, Kuyper's stalwart defence of Calvinism against Modernism drew from the struggles of Dutch history (the 16th-century siege of Leyden) and from his personal history to espouse strong views that are couched in military as well as organic metaphors. His mastery of the psychology of mass communication enabled Kuyper to accomplish many, though not all, of his political goals. No doubt, he was a master of religio-political rhetoric.
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The Emergence of the Science of Religion in the Netherlands, 2005
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NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, 2020
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NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, 2010
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NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, 2014
Ernst Troeltsch was one of the most influential intellectuals of the late Wilhelmine Empire and t... more Ernst Troeltsch was one of the most influential intellectuals of the late Wilhelmine Empire and the early Weimar Republic. He considered his book The Absoluteness of Christianity (first published in 1902) the starting point of his work. The issue at stake here were the consequences of the historical turn in the humanities for theology. This turn implies a new phase in the history of Christianity, as Troeltsch wrote to his colleague Adolf Harnack. Troeltsch was harshly criticized for this point of view by, among others, Karl Barth, who deemed Troeltsch’s dogmatics idle and non-binding talk. This essay argues that Troeltsch’s attempt to historicize theology and to come to appraisals on the basis of socio-historical research has to be taken seriously, unless one is prepared to pay the price of the marginalisation of the discipline.
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NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, 2018
Adolf Harnack’s Das Wesen des Christentums (1900) sold more than 100.000 copies. The first Englis... more Adolf Harnack’s Das Wesen des Christentums (1900) sold more than 100.000 copies. The first English edition What is Christianity? appeared already in 1902. In the preface, the church historian and liberal theologian Harnack (1851-1930) characterized the book as a ‘short and plain statement of the Gospel and its history’. The present article explores Harnack’s career, the defining historical approach (historicism), his characterisation of the essence of Christianity (‘God and the human soul, the soul and its God’), and the reception of Das Wesen des Christentums (Alfred Loisy, Leo Baeck). Finally, its strengths (a contextualised, thick description of the Christian faith) and weaknesses (its hegemonial liberal stance) are outlined.
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Friedrich Max Müller and the Sacred Books of the East, 2016
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International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 2015
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J. Vree, J. Zwaan (ed.), Abraham Kuyper's Commentatio (1860). The young Kuyper about Calvin, A Lasco, and the church, I, Introduction, annotations, bibliography, and indices, II, Commentatio BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review, 2007
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The Religious, the Political and the Urban
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NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion, 2017
This essay outlines the major issues and tensions in the field of theology and religious studies ... more This essay outlines the major issues and tensions in the field of theology and religious studies in the Netherlands. The institutional variety of the field is huge and one of the reasons why it is hard to come to fruitful cooperation. Moreover, as one research assessment formulates it, ‘the research landscape of theology and religious studies in the Netherlands has in a very short time gone through an amazing, and for a sound scholarly research climate barely acceptable number of changes, fusions, mergers, transfers’. This time-consuming process has put a lot of pressure on scholars. Now it is time to join forces and contribute to the future of the academic study of religion as it serves the general public interest in the Netherlands and abroad.
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Publications of the English Goethe Society, 2016
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NTT Journal for Theology and the Study of Religion
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Edited volumes by Arie L. Molendijk
the days of the Clinton administration. Obama added that his initiative endangered in no way the constitutional separation of church and state. Somehow the religious re-emerges in the secular and the public. Even the political role of religion is appreciated by so-called secular intellectuals formerly rather critical of religion. These developments have led observers to speculate about a new ‘postsecular’ age, particularly among scholars of prominence such as Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor and José Casanova. Looking at where exactly religion
re-emerges in the secular, it seems also intriguing that urban environments play a prominent role, contrary to views that cities are merely places of a secular disengagement from a variety of faiths. Arguably it is in ‘the urban’ that the shift from the secular to the postsecular in terms of public space, building use, governance and civil society is most intensely observed and experienced. Th e constellation of the religious, the political and the urban—as our subtitle has it—is by no means easy to describe and analyse, nor to theorize. In this volume we have chosen primarily for a theoretical perspective (while retaining an openness to empirical manifestations of the central conceptual ideas) to address contemporary relations
between religion, politics and urban societies. Th e primary focus is on the relations between public religion, deprivatization of religion and theorizations of modernity and modernities, with the secondary and closely related focus on theorizing postsecular urbanism including the role of faith based organizations (FBOs) in cities.
Papers by Arie L. Molendijk
the days of the Clinton administration. Obama added that his initiative endangered in no way the constitutional separation of church and state. Somehow the religious re-emerges in the secular and the public. Even the political role of religion is appreciated by so-called secular intellectuals formerly rather critical of religion. These developments have led observers to speculate about a new ‘postsecular’ age, particularly among scholars of prominence such as Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor and José Casanova. Looking at where exactly religion
re-emerges in the secular, it seems also intriguing that urban environments play a prominent role, contrary to views that cities are merely places of a secular disengagement from a variety of faiths. Arguably it is in ‘the urban’ that the shift from the secular to the postsecular in terms of public space, building use, governance and civil society is most intensely observed and experienced. Th e constellation of the religious, the political and the urban—as our subtitle has it—is by no means easy to describe and analyse, nor to theorize. In this volume we have chosen primarily for a theoretical perspective (while retaining an openness to empirical manifestations of the central conceptual ideas) to address contemporary relations
between religion, politics and urban societies. Th e primary focus is on the relations between public religion, deprivatization of religion and theorizations of modernity and modernities, with the secondary and closely related focus on theorizing postsecular urbanism including the role of faith based organizations (FBOs) in cities.