Across Europe, the parish church has stood for centuries at the centre of local communities; it was the focal point of its religious life, the rituals performed there marked the stages of life from the cradle to the grave. Nonetheless the... more
Across Europe, the parish church has stood for centuries at the centre of local communities; it was the focal point of its religious life, the rituals performed there marked the stages of life from the cradle to the grave. Nonetheless the church itself artistically and architecturally stood apart from the parish community. It was often the largest and only stone-built building in a village; it was legally distinct being subject to canon law, as well as consecrated for the celebration of religious rites. The buildings associated with the ‘cure of souls’ were sacred sites or holy places, where humanity interacted with the divine.
In spite of the importance of the parish church, these buildings have generally not received the same attention from historians as non-parochial places of worship. This collection of essays redresses this balance and reflects on the parish church across a number of confessions – Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed and Anti-Trinitarian – during the early modern period. Rather than providing a series of case studies of individual buildings, each essay looks at the evolution of parish churches in response to religious reform as well as confessional change and upheaval. They examine aspects of their design and construction; furnishings and material culture; liturgy and the use of the parish church. While these essays range widely across Europe, the volume also considers how religious provision and the parish church were translated into a global context with colonial and commercial expansion in the Americas and Asia. This interdisciplinary volume seeks to identify what was distinctive about the parish church for the congregations that gathered in them for worship and for communities across the early modern world.
Contents:
The early modern parish church: an introduction
Andrew Spicer
Patrician and episcopal rivalry for the Milanese parish church: San Nazaro in Brolo during French and Spanish rule,
Philippa Woodcock
Exploring the features and challenges of the urban parish church in the southern Low Countries. The case of 16th-century Ghent
Anne-Laure Van Bruaene
The Counter Reformation and the parish church in western Brittany (France) 1500-1700
Elizabeth Tingle
The body of the faithful: Joseph Furttenbach’s 1649 Lutheran Church plans
Emily Fisher Gray
Staging the Eucharist, adiaphora, and shaping Lutheran identities in the Transylvanian parish church
Evelin Wetter
Parish temples of Geneva and the Swiss Romande
Andrew Spicer
'Which of them do belong to the parish or not’. The changing rural parish in the Dutch Republic after the Reformation
Arjan Nobel
Unitarian parish churches in early modern Transylvania
Maria Crăciun
Heaven on earth: churches in early modern Hispanic America
Andrew Redden
Franciscans and the parish in early modern Brazil
Ivan Cavalcanti Filho
Parish churches, colonisation and conversion in Portuguese Goa
Mallica Kumbera Landrus
Dutch churches in Asia
Andrew Spicer
'To build up the walls of Jerusalem’: Anglican churches in 17th-century Virginia
Carl Lounsbury
Parish churches in the early modern world - afterword
Beat Kümin
“This thoughtful book by Ismail Kurun builds upon earlier investigations of the religious foundations of modern social and political life. Kurun focuses in particular upon the theological and largely Protestant origins of liberalism. We... more
“This thoughtful book by Ismail Kurun builds upon earlier investigations of the religious foundations of modern social and political life. Kurun focuses in particular upon the theological and largely Protestant origins of liberalism. We must thank Kurun for his industry and courage in bringing into print an important work of such scope and circumspection.” -- Michael A. Gillespie, Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Duke University, and the author of The Theological Origins of Modernity (University of Chicago Press, 2008)
“The notion that the modern world is primarily a creation of secular Enlightenment thinkers has long been discredited. Yet it is a myth which continues to persist. By making a significant contribution to explaining Christian theology's role in shaping modernity, Ismail Kurun's new book will help readers see the surprising ways in which the modern world has been shaped by Christian thought and practice.” -- Samuel Gregg, Ph.D., Director of Research, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty
“Ismail Kurun’s book fills a gap in the literature on the emergence of liberalism.” -- Benedikt Koehler, Ph.D., in Economic Affairs
"Kurun … furnishes a robust historical analysis of liberalism’s debt to Protestant theology.” -- Thomas F. X. Varacalli, PhD, Anglican and Episcopal History
“Schmitt said 'All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts not only because of their historical development but also because of their systematic structure.' This hypothesis is still controversial: however, Kurun valiantly follows several other major scholars in showing that it cannot be ignored if we want to understand the nature of liberal ideas.” -- James Alexander, Assis. Prof. of Political Science, Bilkent University
Six illegitimate interpretive constraints used by heretics on the Scripture are discussed and refuted via a positive assertion of the Scriptures' actual teaching about biblical interpretation.
