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General Introduction

John Tolan, Gilles Veinstein, and Henry Laurens

in Europe and the Islamic World: A History

This introductory chapter argues that, far from being a “clash” of two rival civilizations, the Muslim world and Europe (or the West) were in reality two branches of a single “Islamo-Christian” ... More

This introductory chapter argues that, far from being a “clash” of two rival civilizations, the Muslim world and Europe (or the West) were in reality two branches of a single “Islamo-Christian” civilization, with deep roots in a common religious, cultural, and intellectual heritage: the civilization of the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East, biblical revelation, and Greek and Hellenistic science and philosophy. This common heritage had grown stronger over fifteen centuries, thanks to the uninterrupted exchange of goods, persons, and ideas. The forms of contact were continuous and extremely varied: wars, conquests, reconquests, diplomacy, alliances, commerce, marriages, the slave trade, translations, technological exchanges, and imitation and emulation in art and culture. Far from marginal curiosities within the history of the European and Muslim peoples, these contacts have profoundly marked them both.Less

The Second World War and After

MATTHEW GRIMLEY

in Citizenship, Community, and the Church of England: Liberal Anglican Theories of the State Between the Wars

This chapter traces what happened to Liberal Anglican political ideas during and after the Second World War. Christian ideas of community enjoyed an Indian summer during the Second World War. This ... More

This chapter traces what happened to Liberal Anglican political ideas during and after the Second World War. Christian ideas of community enjoyed an Indian summer during the Second World War. This was particularly true in the early years of the war, when the defence of Christian civilization was a common theme for writers and politicians. Appeals to Christian national community retained their salience into the 1950. Church attendances recovered in the last years of the war, and continued to grow until 1958. But by the 1960s, the Idealist-educated generation had almost all died off, and their civic ideals had begun to lose their purchase.Less

Segregation: Violent Order in a Christian Civilization, 1890–1900

Elizabeth L. Jemison

in Christian Citizens: Reading the Bible in Black and White in the Postemancipation South

At Mississippi’s 1890 state constitutional convention, white ministers blessed the work of disenfranchising black voters as the triumph of Christian family order. With the loss of civil and political ... More

At Mississippi’s 1890 state constitutional convention, white ministers blessed the work of disenfranchising black voters as the triumph of Christian family order. With the loss of civil and political rights, Black Christians renewed their theological arguments that racial prejudice and violence were sins before heaven. Denied any robust defense of their civil and political rights by local or federal governments, Black Christians shifted their arguments for Christian citizenship inward, arguing that education and self-reliance were keys to future political success. White southerners celebrated their Christian paternalism alongside new efforts to memorialize the Confederacy. They consolidated white supremacist power under Jim Crow segregation, which they justified as the reinstatement of antebellum biblical order on the eve of a new century.Less

Heresy and Liberalism: Cicero, Arius, and Socinus

Robert Pattison

in The Great Dissent: John Henry Newman and the Liberal Heresy

This chapter explains how Newman reached the conclusion that Arius, the 4th-century heresiarch, defiled Christian civilization with liberal apostasy. Other heretics than Arius and Hampden might have ... More

This chapter explains how Newman reached the conclusion that Arius, the 4th-century heresiarch, defiled Christian civilization with liberal apostasy. Other heretics than Arius and Hampden might have been selected to illustrate the anti-dogmatic principle against which Newman rebelled. Among his contemporaries, Blanco White and John Stuart Mill provoked his indignation as much as Hampden did, and the ancient errors of Nestorius and Sabellius, were, he thought, tainted with the same protoliberalism that infected the theology of Arius. But Arius and Hampden are at least representative of the humanistic tradition against which Newman hardened his heart, and in addition, each can claim to be important in his own right. Arius has been controversial for 1,600 years, and if Newman was right, he is one of the pivotal figures of Western thought.Less

Odium Theologicum: The Liberal as Antichrist

Robert Pattison

in The Great Dissent: John Henry Newman and the Liberal Heresy

This chapter tells the story of why Newman came to hate Renn Dickson Hampden, a living oracle of liberalism. Newman's violent reaction to liberals like Hampden coincided with his researches into ... More

This chapter tells the story of why Newman came to hate Renn Dickson Hampden, a living oracle of liberalism. Newman's violent reaction to liberals like Hampden coincided with his researches into 4th-century heresy. In the pages of the neglected Fathers of the Church, he discovered that the intellectual depravity he saw around him had a pedigree extending further back than Locke and the empiricists, further back than Luther and Calvin, further back even than Wycliffe and the Lollards. It was Arius, the 4th-century heresiarch, who had first defiled Christian civilization with liberal apostasy.Less

General Introduction

Menso Folkerts, Barnabas Hughes, Roi Wagner, and J. Lennart Berggren

Victor J. Katz (ed.)

in Sourcebook in the Mathematics of Medieval Europe and North Africa

This introductory chapter provides a brief background to the interchange of mathematical knowledge across three civilizations during the medieval period, as well as this volume's editing and ... More

This introductory chapter provides a brief background to the interchange of mathematical knowledge across three civilizations during the medieval period, as well as this volume's editing and publication history. Medieval Europe, from around 800 to 1450, was a meeting place of three civilizations: the Latin/Christian civilization that was forming on the foundation of the defunct Western Roman Empire; the Jewish/Hebrew civilization, which witnessed great scholarly activity in every location where Jews resided; and the Islamic/Arabic civilization, whose European center was in Spain, but which had a close relationship with the Islamic civilization of North Africa. The scope and diversity of these sources has, in turn, presented some challenges which led to certain editorial features prevalent in the following chapters.Less

Wars and Rumors of Wars: The Response of British and American Churches to the First World War

Brian Stanley

in Christianity in the Twentieth Century: A World History

This chapter suggests that the consequences of the First World War for patterns of Christian belief and the life of the churches were indeed great, but that they stimulated, not an immediate loss of ... More

This chapter suggests that the consequences of the First World War for patterns of Christian belief and the life of the churches were indeed great, but that they stimulated, not an immediate loss of faith, but rather the emergence and increasingly distinct self-definition of some of the most characteristic themes and divergent styles of Christianity in the modern world. It then identifies the main implications of the war for Christianity on a world stage. First, the war came close to destroying the spirit of Protestant internationalism that had been so powerfully symbolized and fostered by the World Missionary Conference held at Edinburgh in June of 1910. A second consequence of the war was the gradual erosion of credibility of the European ideal of “Christian civilization,” and consequent softening of the antithesis between “Christian West” and “Non-Christian East.” Third, the war led some theological interpreters to question the more facile expressions of Christian liberalism and social optimism to which sections of the Protestant churches had succumbed since the dawn of the twentieth century. A fourth spiritual consequence of the war was the stimulus it imparted to forms of religion that emphasized the suprarational, and hence the limits of rational human capacity to change the world.Less

Conceit and Deceit in the European Union: Imaginaries of Europe and a Pan-Eurasian Alternative

Chris Hann

in European Integration: Historical Trajectories, Geopolitical Contexts

Current tensions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ members of the EU are explored with reference to capitalist political economy and historical constructions of a continental divide. While ‘populist’ ... More

Current tensions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ members of the EU are explored with reference to capitalist political economy and historical constructions of a continental divide. While ‘populist’ politicians in the countries of the Visegrád cooperation celebrate their nations and Christian civilisation, the Wertegemeinschaft espoused by the EU mainstream is a form of liberal cosmopolitanism. These contrasting imaginaries of Europe are reinforced by structural inequalities, accentuated by the eurozone (as analysed by W. Streeck and C. Offe). EU elites conceptualize Asia as a distinct continent, and Hungarian leaders invoke the Asian roots of the Magyars when it suits their legitimation strategies. The chapter concludes by drawing attention to long-term commonalities extending across the entire landmass of Eurasia, and the potential of this civilizational heritage for creating new forms of political cooperation.Less

Russia and the West: Toward Understanding

Vladimir I. Yakunin

in Russia: The Challenges of Transformation

This afterword examines the question of whether Russia is part of that entity known as “the West” or “Western civilization.” It argues that Russia developed as an alternative (to the Western) ... More

This afterword examines the question of whether Russia is part of that entity known as “the West” or “Western civilization.” It argues that Russia developed as an alternative (to the Western) Christian Orthodox civilization. On the main issues of existence it never offered different solutions to those of the West and thus became its existential partner and opponent—however much the Russian state and elite periodically endeavored to avoid that. In the West, Russia is criticized for being slow to assimilate the values of the market and of democracy. However, the nation is still searching for the types of institutions that would achieve a balance between and reconcile very disparate values. Thus, the chapter argues that Russia is an ailing nation, but one with the potential for improvement and mutual cooperation with other nations.Less

Fundamentalism as a Political Phenomenon

George M. Marsden

in Fundamentalism and American Culture

From its beginnings, fundamentalism was often interpreted as a political phenomenon. Faith and theology were at the center of the movement, but some political concerns were always there. Most of ... More

From its beginnings, fundamentalism was often interpreted as a political phenomenon. Faith and theology were at the center of the movement, but some political concerns were always there. Most of these were conservative, and by 1930 progressive political outlooks had virtually disappeared among fundamentalists. Fundamentalists saw the future of Christian civilization as being at stake. Most of their political views, however, were haphazard. They were not tied to one political party. Anti-communism was a frequent concern. Their view of the universe can be seen as “Manichean,” as divided between forces of light and darkness. They were accordingly often susceptible to conspiracy theories. They also sometimes became super-patriotic.Less