The
Cambridge History of Christianity, Volume 7:
Enlightenment, Reawakening and Revolution 1660–1815
Chapter Title
15: The Christian
Enlightenment Publication Date
2006 Author
Helena Rosenblatt
Overview
The term ‘Christian Enlightenment’ no
longer raises eyebrows; but this is a relatively recent phenomenon.
A widespread consensus used to exist that
the very essence of the Enlightenment—what made the Enlightenment ‘enlightened’—was
its attack on religion. According to Paul
Hazard's influential interpretation, the
express aim of the Enlightenment was to ‘put Christianity on
trial’ and
even to annihilate ‘the religious interpretation
of life’;
similarly, Peter Gay described the Enlightenment as a ‘war
on Christianity’.
Many scholars before and after agreed with this point of view. They
described the Enlightenment as being—by its very nature—anti-Christian,
anti-Church and even anti-religious.
We now know, however, that the relationship between
Christianity and the Enlightenment was far more complex and interesting.
We realize that
these previous interpretations were overly focused on France, and
erroneously tended to posit a single Enlightenment. Over the past
few years, scholars
have been ‘pluralizing’ the Enlightenment, the result being
that we now see it not so much as a unified and Francophone phenomenon,
but rather as a ‘family of discourses’ with many regional
and national variations across Europe and in America. It has become
clear that earlier interpretations were based on an impoverished view of religious
traditions and perhaps even an outright disdain for them.
