We have long been taught that the Enlightenment was an attempt to free the world from the clutches of Christian civilization and make it safe for philosophy. The lesson has been well learned--in today's culture wars, both liberals and their conservative enemies, inside and outside the academy, rest their claims about the present on the notion that the Enlightenment was a secularist movement of philosophically-driven emancipation. Historians have had doubts about the accuracy of this portrait for some time, but they have never managed to furnish a viable alternative to it--for themselves, for scholars interested in matters of church and state, or for the public at large. In this book, William J. Bulman and Robert Ingram bring together recent scholarship from distinguished experts in history, theology, and literature to make clear that God not only survived the Enlightenment, but thrived within it as well. The Enlightenment was not a radical break from the past in which Europeans jettisoned their intellectual and institutional inheritance. It was, to be sure, a moment of great change, but one in which the characteristic convictions and traditions of the Renaissance and Reformation were perpetuated to the point of transformation, in the wake of the Wars of Religion and during the early phases of globalization. Its primary imperatives were not freedom and irreligion but peace and prosperity. As a result, it could be Christian, communitarian, or authoritarian as easily as it could be atheist, individualist, or libertarian. Honing in on the intellectual crisis of late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries while moving everywhere from Spinoza to Kant and from India to Peru, God in the Enlightenment offers a spectral view of the age of lights.

Through a series of studies focusing on individuals, this volume highlights the continued importance of religion and religious identity on British life throughout the long eighteenth century. From the Puritan divine and scholar Roger Morrice, active at the beginning of the period, to Dean Shipley who died in the reign of George IV, the individuals chosen chart a shifting world of enlightenment and revolution whilst simultaneously reaffirming the tremendous influence that religion continued to bring to bear. For, whilst religion has long enjoyed a central role in the study of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century British history, scholars of religion in the eighteenth century have often felt compelled to prove their subject's worth. Sitting uneasily at the juncture between the early modern and modern worlds, the eighteenth century has perhaps provided historians with an all-too-convenient peg on which to hang the origins of a secular society, in which religion takes a back-seat to politics, science and economics. Yet, as this study makes clear, in spite of the undoubted innovations and developments of this period, religion continued to be a prime factor in shaping society and culture. By exploring important connections between religion, politics and identity, and asking broad questions about the character of religion in Britain, the contributions put into context many of the big issues of the day. From the beliefs of the Jacobite rebels, to the notions of liberty and toleration, to the attitudes to the French Wars, the book makes an unambiguous and forceful statement about the centrality of religion to any proper understanding of British public life between the Restoration and the Reform Bill.

A new interpretation of English history and religion in the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century has long divided critical opinion. Some contend that it witnessed the birth of the modern world, while others counter that England remained an ancien regime confessional state. This book takes issue with both positions, arguing that the former overstate the newness of the age and largely misdiagnose the causes of change, while the latter rightly point to the persistence of more traditional modes of thought and behaviour, but downplay the era's fundamental uncertainty and misplace the reasons for and the timeline of its passage. The overwhelming catalyst for change is here seen to be war, rather than long-term social and economic changes. Archbishop Thomas Secker [1693-1768], the Cranmer or Laud of his age, and the hitherto neglected church reforms he spearheaded, form the particular focus of the book; this is the first full archivally-based study of a crucial but frequently ignored figure. ROBERT G. INGRAM is Assistant Professor at the Department of History, Ohio University.

We have long been taught that the Enlightenment was an attempt to free the world from the clutches of Christian civilization and make it safe for philosophy. The lesson has been well learned--in today's culture wars, both liberals and their conservative enemies, inside and outside the academy, rest their claims about the present on the notion that the Enlightenment was a secularist movement of philosophically-driven emancipation. Historians have had doubts about the accuracy of this portrait for some time, but they have never managed to furnish a viable alternative to it--for themselves, for scholars interested in matters of church and state, or for the public at large. In this book, William J. Bulman and Robert Ingram bring together recent scholarship from distinguished experts in history, theology, and literature to make clear that God not only survived the Enlightenment, but thrived within it as well. The Enlightenment was not a radical break from the past in which Europeans jettisoned their intellectual and institutional inheritance. It was, to be sure, a moment of great change, but one in which the characteristic convictions and traditions of the Renaissance and Reformation were perpetuated to the point of transformation, in the wake of the Wars of Religion and during the early phases of globalization. Its primary imperatives were not freedom and irreligion but peace and prosperity. As a result, it could be Christian, communitarian, or authoritarian as easily as it could be atheist, individualist, or libertarian. Honing in on the intellectual crisis of late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries while moving everywhere from Spinoza to Kant and from India to Peru, God in the Enlightenment offers a spectral view of the age of lights.