Christendom lasted for over a thousand years in Western Europe, and we are still living in its shadow. For over two centuries this social and religious order has been in decline. Enforced religious unity has given way to increasing pluralism, and since 1960 this process has spectacularly accelerated. In this 2003 book, historians, sociologists and theologians from six countries answer two central questions: what is the religious condition of Western Europe at the start of the twenty-first century, and how and why did Christendom decline? Beginning by overviewing the more recent situation, the authors then go back into the past, tracing the course of events in England, Ireland, France, Germany and the Netherlands, and showing how the fate of Christendom is reflected in changing attitudes to death and to technology, and in the evolution of religious language. They reveal a pattern more complex and ambiguous than many of the conventional narratives will admit.
1. Introduction Hugh McLeod; Part I: 2. The secularisation decade: what the 1960s have done to the study of religious history Callum G. Brown; 3. Christendom in decline: the Swedish case Eva M. Hamberg; 4. New Christianity: indifference and diffused spirituality Yves Lambert; Part II: 5. Established churches and the growth of religious pluralism: a case study of Christianisation and secularisation in England since 1700 David Hempton; 6. Catholicism in Ireland Sheridan Gilley; 7. Long-term religious developments in the Netherlands, c. 1750-2000 Peter Van Rooden; 8. The potency of 'Christendom': The example of the 'Darmstädter Wort' (1947) Martin Greschat; Part III: 9. The dechristianisation of death in modern France Thomas Kselman; 10. The impact of technology on Catholicism in France (1850-1950) Michel Lagrée; 11. Semantic structures of religious change in modern Germany Lucian Hölscher; Part IV: 12. Master-narratives of long-term religious change Jeffery Cox; 13. A missiological postscript Werner Ustorf.
