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Sources in #19CReligionLitSoc ‘Disbelief and New Beliefs’ trace how religious & irreligious views proliferated as C19 developments in physical & social sciences, politics & activism, technology & travel led to new ways of conceiving the world & its limits https://www.routledge.com/Nineteenth-Century-Religion-Literature-and-Society-Disbelief-and-New-Beliefs/Hetherington-Stainthorp/p/book/9781138572850
The opening section explores the popular dissemination of new historical-critical approaches to the Hebrew Bible, the gospels, and the history and archaeology of ancient Egypt, and how these came to be increasingly accepted and assimilated across the century #19CReligionLitSoc
Edwin Abbott’s Philochristus (1878) is thought to be the first British novel with Jesus as a central character - the fictitious disciple's narrative provides alternative explanations for Jesus’s miracles, reflecting Abbott's arguments in his theological works #19CReligionLitSoc
Section 2 illustrates how scientific approaches were drawn upon to understand religious impulses such as belief in spiritual beings, feelings of wonder, private revelation and communion with God, through acts of reconciliation, substitution and opposition. #19CReligionLitSoc
Interlinked texts by Robert Lewins & Constance Naden (a letter, a previously unpublished notebook entry, sonnets & essay extract) illuminate a growing acceptance of wonder, beauty & harmony as a secular sensation rather than one dependent upon religious feeling #19CReligionLitSoc
Section 3 covers forms of esotericism including spiritualism, Theosophy, esoteric Christianity & New Thought. Sources illuminate dialogues with new scientific discoveries and highlight the importance of these movements to the spiritual empowerment to women #19CReligionLitSoc
Alice & Laurence Oliphant’s Sympneumata (1885) advocates a mystic Christian creed founded upon the need to recover the soul’s androgynous nature (that became divided by the original fall) through paired breathing practices that elicit mutual ‘vibratory motion’ #19CReligionLitSoc
Section 4 considers comparative and universal religion, with 2 pairs of texts that illustrate the relationship between indigenous reformers and Western observers, and multiple voices responding to Oswald Simon’s proposal for a Universal Theistic Jewish Church #19CReligionLitSoc
Anagārika Dharmapāla’s speech ‘Points of Resemblance and Difference Between Christianity & Buddhism’ (World’s Parliament of Religions, Chicago 1893) argues for the influence of the Buddha's life & teachings on Christian thought, rebutting many Western arguments #19CReligionLitSoc
Section 5 introduces a range of freethinking positions from deist and pantheist reconfigurations of religion and Owenite reformist beliefs to agnostic intellectualism and uncompromising atheism, as well as approaches to organised secular gatherings #19CReligionLitSoc
‘The Religion of the Millennium’ (The New Moral World 1835) sets out an egalitarian Owenite creed: 12 probable truths gleaned from ‘the laws of nature’ that show the ultimate duty of humanity to be promoting happiness through friendship, kindness & charity #19CReligionLitSoc
This is just a handful of the sources @DrNHetherington & I chose for our #19CReligionLitSoc vol, do check out the full contents!
We’re so happy to have made these texts more accessible, in the hope that they will broaden and deepen future scholarship https://www.routledge.com/Nineteenth-Century-Religion-Literature-and-Society-Disbelief-and-New-Beliefs/Hetherington-Stainthorp/p/book/9781138572850
We’re so happy to have made these texts more accessible, in the hope that they will broaden and deepen future scholarship https://www.routledge.com/Nineteenth-Century-Religion-Literature-and-Society-Disbelief-and-New-Beliefs/Hetherington-Stainthorp/p/book/9781138572850
