This article considers what a ‘big picture’ approach to global religious history might look like, and in particular the implications of deploying the comparative method across much larger stretches of time and space than historians normally attend to. It will begin by reflecting on the epistemological moods that have hindered this project to date, the problem of the very question of defining ‘religion’ and the recent development of Globale Religionsgeschichte. A truly longue durée global history of religion will need organising problems, and there are at least two: how were innumerable religious systems eaten up by a handful of world religions? And how might religion ever have ceded the centre‐ground of social and political life? After briefly referring to the way in which the author has sought to answer the first question through the model of immanentism‐transcendentalism, it is suggested that attending to the big picture will necessarily involve genuine dialogue with anthropology, historical sociology and cognitive science. Among the many problems of conceptualisation raised by this perspective is the question of how to understand macro‐cultural regions or ‘civilizations.’ Lastly the question of modernity and secularisation theory is briefly addressed in a final section.
This forum contribution voices its appreciation for the journal's original inspiration as a platform for the social history of religions. It suggests that theology, rather than standing opposite to JBR's project, should be a part of it, under specific terms and conditions.
The story of religion(s) in the world is extraordinarily complex and diverse. In this very brief essay, I comment on this complexity and diversity by discussing the way in which sub‐fields (many, many sub‐fields) have emerged in the study of the history of religion. By focusing on this development, I hope to demonstrate how the larger field has grown and expanded over the course of the last 50 years.
This piece reflects on the role of women historians in proposing alternative narratives of religious change. Its focus is on the work of scholars who have challenged us to rethink the history of the European Reformations by placing gender and more recently material culture at the centre of their analyses. The broader suggestion is that the field of religious history has been especially receptive to radical interventions by women historians.
This article examines the religiosity of Irish Catholic soldiers who served in the British Army during the First World War. Drawing on the letters, diaries and memoirs of servicemen, newspapers, contemporary books, the observations of Catholic chaplains, official army records and Catholic publications, it takes a popular religion approach examining both orthodox Catholic beliefs and practices as well as more unorthodox ones such as the sacralisation of religious literature and the use of various objects as talismans. This article argues that Irish Catholic troops drew upon their religious toolkit to help them endure the challenging conditions of active service. In this regard, they mirrored the religious behaviour of many other Western Christian soldiers during the First World War. While the primary focus of this article is on Irish Catholics, it also contributes to a growing body of scholarship that has stressed the importance of religious frameworks in helping soldiers cope with the challenges of mass industrialised warfare in the early twentieth century.
This article takes one facet of the controversy engulfing the Church of England in the mid-nineteenth century over ritualism-the interpretation of the rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer governing clerical dress-and explores it through the writings of three representatives of very different standpoints. It considers, first, the careful academic scholarship of James Craigie Robertson (1813-82), Professor of Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London, and Canon of Canterbury Cathedral, arguing against ritualist innovations. It then turns to Thomas Walter Perry (1815-91), a strong advocate for eucharistic vestments. Finally, it explores the polemical Protestantism of Richard Paul Blakeney (1820-84). Each author is considered the contexts of the Tractarian and ritualist movements and of the wider liturgical and aesthetic developments of the period. The article concludes that no church party emerged victorious from the "battle of the rubric," and that the conflict significantly undermined the ideal of conformity to the Book of Common Prayer as a sign and source of unity in the Church of England.
During World War I, Protestant churches in Australia, on the whole, enthusiastically supported the war effort. The Queensland Presbyterian Church was a significant exception. This study analyses discord and tensions among its clergymen about what constituted an appropriate response to the war. These disputes, which took place in regular assemblies, were widely publicised in the press and generated significant public controversy.
This study examines how Catholic anti-Protestantism and anti-Communism shaped Vatican strategy in the Philippines between 1945 and 1958. It argues that while Protestantism was perceived as a cultural and religious threat linked to American influence, Communism emerged as the more urgent political and existential danger. Drawing on Vatican archival sources, it highlights the role of the Apostolic Delegation in assessing risks and translating them into concrete political action. The study shows how these priorities led to a strategic alignment between the Vatican and the United States, forming a "Pacific alliance" that influenced Philippine politics, especially during the 1953 elections. Ultimately, the article contends that anti-Communism eclipsed anti-Protestantism, enabling a pragmatic Vatican acceptance of American influence in the region.
