Missionary Societies

Author(s):  
Brian Stanley

While some of the global reach of Dissenting traditions is due to the vagaries of migration from Britain in the early modern period, much of it is also the result of the deliberate propagation of the faith in which the Missionary Societies, formed between the French Revolution and the early nineteenth century, were key. Older scholarship tended to celebrate evangelical Dissent as being central to this movement. More recent exploration has shown that unlike earlier Pietist and Anglican missionary activity, the Baptist Missionary Society (1792) and London Missionary Society (1795) had a global reach, rather than being limited to strong national/colonial networks. Given the independence from state control of these new societies, they were also entirely reliant on philanthropic giving to finance their activities.

1995 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Y. Andaya ◽  
Barbara Watson Andaya

The identity of “Southeast Asia” has been debated since the 1950s, when the region began to develop as an area of academic viability around which courses could be constructed, programmes built, and research published. Much less controversy has accompanied the growing use of “early modern”, a term which seems set to displace “precolonial” in periodizing Southeast Asian history. The phrase, of course, comes from scholarship on Europe, where it was popularized as a result of efforts to find shared “periods” that would facilitate the writing of a general history. It would be surprising if questions as to the applicability of “early modern” in Southeast Asia do not spark off some debate, especially in light of subaltern writings that reject the notion of modernity as a universal. For such historians the very invocation of the word implicitly sets a “modern Europe” against a “yet to be modernized non-Europe”. But whatever decision is made regarding terminology, scholarship on Southeast Asia is increasingly viewing a period that stretches from about the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century as rather different from those traditionally described as “classical” and “colonial/modern”. The term “early modern” itself is at present a convenient tool for historical reference, and only time will tell whether it will find general acceptance.


2014 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Holmes

This article examines Presbyterian interpretations in Scotland and Ireland of the Scottish Reformations of 1560 and 1638–43. It begins with a discussion of the work of two important Presbyterian historians of the early nineteenth century, the Scotsman, Thomas McCrie, and the Irishman, James Seaton Reid. In their various publications, both laid the template for the nineteenth-century Presbyterian understanding of the Scottish Reformations by emphasizing the historical links between the Scottish and Irish churches in the early-modern period and their common theology and commitment to civil and religious liberty against the ecclesiastical and political tyranny of the Stuarts. The article also examines the commemorations of the National Covenant in 1838, the Solemn League and Covenant in 1843, and the Scottish Reformation in 1860. By doing so, it uncovers important religious and ideological linkages across the North Channel, including Presbyterian evangelicalism, missionary activity, church–state relationships, religious reform and revival, and anti-Catholicism.


Author(s):  
Sverre Bagge

There is a continuous tradition of historical writing from the Middle Ages to the present day in all three of the Scandinavian kingdoms, as well as in Iceland, though admittedly it began later (not until the early fourteenth century) in Sweden than in the other countries. The works dating from the Middle Ages have already been discussed. Those of the Early Modern Period are of interest as evidence of learning and for an understanding of how “history” was viewed at the time, and also because they contain a number of documents from the Middle Ages whose originals have been lost. However, the beginning of modern scholarly historical writing is usually dated to the early nineteenth century, in Scandinavia as in the rest of Europe. The professionalization of history, which started in Germany, quickly spread to Scandinavia. Throughout Europe, this professionalization was related to a national revival that typically placed great emphasis on a nation’s medieval past....


2021 ◽  
pp. 609-634
Author(s):  
Carolyn J. Sharp

This chapter explores homiletical possibilities afforded by the book of Jeremiah to the Christian preacher. The earliest layers of contextualization are examined through consideration of preaching on Jeremiah in the early Church, focusing on sermons of Origen. In discussing the early modern period, the chapter attends to the preaching of Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin. Finally, the chapter reflects on homiletical moves made by contemporary preachers in a variety of ecclesial contexts from the nineteenth century to the present, including Charles Spurgeon and Walter Brueggemann. Noteworthy in the homiletical reception of Jeremiah are four passages: first, the commissioning of Jeremiah (1:4–10), which foregrounds agonistic dimensions of prophetic witness and has served as a focus in liturgies of ordination; second, the lament, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” (8:22), transformed in a renowned African American spiritual into the asseveration that “there is a balm in Gilead,” namely, Jesus; third, Jeremiah’s depiction of the divine word as irresistible, “like a burning fire shut up in my bones” (20:9); and fourth, the promise of the new covenant that God will inscribe on the heart (31:31–34).


Author(s):  
Mark Goldie

Absolutism is a nineteenth-century term designed precisely to address the mismatch between doctrine and power. The intellectual resources of absolutism were far older than the Renaissance and Reformation. The absolutism of monarchs was a contingent and temporary corollary of the principal juridical development of the early modern period: the emergence of the concept of sovereignty. Absolute monarchy was a free rider on a concept that would later unseat it. Theorists of absolute sovereignty drew heavily on Roman law, and often invoked the idea of the translatio imperii, the inheritance by modern monarchies of Roman imperial authority. The sovereignty of kings, seeking to trump the divine imperium of the papacy, masqueraded its jurisprudence as the divinity of kings. The “divine right of kings” was a theological meditation on a juridical concept, not a species of mysticism, and rarely did absolutists endow monarchs with magical or sacerdotal attributes. Absolutism conspicuously appropriated religious form when expressed as a theory of obedience. Absolutist theory offered an account of the origins of civil authority.


Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 91
Author(s):  
Stefan Eklöf Amirell

This article traces the long historical background of the nineteenth-century European notion of the Malay as a human “race” with an inherent addiction to piracy. For most of the early modern period, European observers of the Malay Archipelago associated the Malays with the people and diaspora of the Sultanate of Melaka, who were seen as commercially and culturally accomplished. This image changed in the course of the eighteenth century. First, the European understanding of the Malay was expanded to encompass most of the indigenous population of maritime Southeast Asia. Second, more negative assessments gained influence after the mid-eighteenth century, and the Malays were increasingly associated with piracy, treachery, and rapaciousness. In part, the change was due to the rise in maritime raiding on the part of certain indigenous seafaring peoples of Southeast Asia combined with increasing European commercial interests in Southeast Asia, but it was also part of a generally more negative view in Europe of non-settled and non-agricultural populations. This development preceded the notion of the Malays as one of humanity’s principle races, which emerged toward the end of the eighteenth century. The idea that Malays were natural pirates also paved the way for several brutal colonial anti-piracy campaigns in the Malay Archipelago during the nineteenth century.


2007 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 147-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miri Shefer Mossensohn

AbstractOttoman society and its medical system of the early modern period and the nineteenth-century demonstrate the marriage of medicine and power. I present the view from the imperial center and focus on the aims and wishes of the Ottoman elite and imperial authorities in İstanbul as they were embodied in state activities, such as formal decrees and policies meant to be implemented all over the empire. For the Ottoman elite, medicine was always a significant imperial tool, but it was neither the only tool of control, nor the most important one. The extent to which the Ottoman elite used medicine in its social policies changed over time. A comparison between the Ottoman use and distribution of health and food from the early modern period until the nineteenth century illustrates this point. It was especially during the nineteenth century that medicine was intentionally-and successfully-implemented as a mechanism of control in the Ottoman Empire.


2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (46) ◽  
pp. 28684-28691
Author(s):  
Mauricio de Jesus Dias Martins ◽  
Nicolas Baumard

The English and French Revolutions represent a turning point in history, marking the beginning of the modern rise of democracy. Recent advances in cultural evolution have put forward the idea that the early modern revolutions may be the product of a long-term psychological shift, from hierarchical and dominance-based interactions to democratic and trust-based relationships. In this study, we tested this hypothesis by analyzing theater plays during the early modern period in England and France. We found an increase in cooperation-related words over time relative to dominance-related words in both countries. Furthermore, we found that the accelerated rise of cooperation-related words preceded both the English Civil War (1642) and the French Revolution (1789). Finally, we found that rising per capita gross domestic product (GDPpc) generally led to an increase in cooperation-related words. These results highlight the likely role of long-term psychological and economic changes in explaining the rise of early modern democracies.


Author(s):  
Wiederin Ewald

This chapter presents an overview and history of the Austrian administrative state. It shows how the traditional form of the Austrian administration evolved in the second half of the nineteenth century. After defeat in World War I, the Republic of Austria succeeded the extinct Danube Monarchy; it took over the Viennese central administrative departments and their personnel and remained a ‘typical administrative state’. In the early modern period, the fundamental elements of Austria's administration developed on three different levels that still exist and to this day continue to characterize the administration's structure. Most notably, the state's dominant administrative feature is expressed by the equality of the judiciary and the administrative branch in both standing and rights.


Mathematical and philosophical thought about continuity has changed considerably over the ages. Aristotle insisted that continuous substances are not composed of points, and that they can only be divided into parts potentially; a continuum is a unified whole. The most dominant account today, traced to Cantor and Dedekind, is in stark contrast with this, taking a continuum to be composed of infinitely many points. The opening chapters cover the ancient and medieval worlds: the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Alexander, and a recently discovered manuscript by Bradwardine. In the early modern period, mathematicians developed the calculus the rise of infinitesimal techniques, thus transforming the notion of continuity. The main figures treated here include Galileo, Cavalieri, Leibniz, and Kant. In the early party of the nineteenth century, Bolzano was one of the first important mathematicians and philosophers to insist that continua are composed of points, and he made a heroic attempt to come to grips with the underlying issues concerning the infinite. The two figures most responsible for the contemporary hegemony concerning continuity are Cantor and Dedekind. Each is treated, along with precursors and influences in both mathematics and philosophy. The next chapters provide analyses of figures like du Bois-Reymond, Weyl, Brouwer, Peirce, and Whitehead. The final four chapters each focus on a more or less contemporary take on continuity that is outside the Dedekind–Cantor hegemony: a predicative approach, accounts that do not take continua to be composed of points, constructive approaches, and non-Archimedean accounts that make essential use of infinitesimals.


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