Since the pioneering work of Ernest Troelsch and Max Weber in the early twentieth century, scholars have been paying close attention to the relation of Protestant Christianities to their surrounding societies. Especially in northern Europe and the Western Hemisphere, where Protestantisms dominate, there is a long history of interaction in these societies between their religious, political, social, and economic systems. The results of these interactions have had a lasting effect, even in those areas where religious participation and identification have dwindled since the mid-twentieth century. However, the details of these interactions and effects are often hard to pinpoint with great accuracy, and the exact impacts of the dynamics have been contested.
This present volume is a fine contribution to the ongoing study of these questions, looking at the case of the impact of the Lutheran Reformation on the development of the political and social life of Denmark up to the year 1800. By examining the effects of one Protestant tradition on a single rather socially and religiously monolithic country, the authors hope to drive deeply into the question, taking a discussion that can often be quite general into a much more specific and detailed realm. After an introductory chapter by the editors, there are first seven chapters on the general social and political impact of Lutheran theology in northern Europe, followed by eight chapters that focus more directly on Denmark itself.
The sixteenth-century transition of the territories of central and northern Europe from Catholicism to Lutheran Protestantism was felt more broadly in these areas than simply a change from one version of Christianity to another. Medieval Western Christianity had deeply shaped the culture of these territories not only religiously but also in terms of their political, social, and familial systems. The medieval systems had been based on church control of many areas of daily life, and the new Lutheran Reformation had to supply new answers and new systems for the territories that left papal control. The editors of this volume posit that the new Lutheran teachings can and should be seen as a system of social teachings which help to explain and regulate the relationship between God and humanity as well as among humans themselves. More specifically, they suggest that it is the Lutheran understanding of the human household, shaped and directed by God's Word, that served as a vehicle for the new Lutheran Reformation to permeate into all levels of Danish society. Lutheranism came to order human society in three interlocking estates—government, church, and household—all of which drew their inspiration from Luther's writings. Rather than dividing the world between church and state, this approach sees these three estates as integrating the religious and the social realms into a single society. The result in Denmark was a single confessional culture that was developed over several centuries.
The seven essays in the first part of the book study the elements that contribute to the new Lutheran social and political understandings. Theodor Dieter begins by looking at consequences of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses as a restructuring of the economic structures and impact of the medieval church on society. Vitor Westhelle examines the schools of thought that have sought to explain the impact of Protestantisms on society and shows how Lutheranism laid the foundation for a distinctive social ethic. Hans-Martin Gutmann shows how Luther's theology led in the direction of a new ethic of intimacy as a social construct to regulate human relations. Bo Kristian Holm demonstrates how Luther employed familial metaphors as a means of reimagining the human relationship with God as seen through his new understanding of justification. Sasja Mathiasen Stopa uses a new reading of Luther's writings on the fourth commandment as a vehicle for understanding of the hierarchical relationships that maintain human societies. Candace Kohli examines Luther's theological anthropology, giving special consideration to the work of the Holy Spirit. And Thomas Kaufman looks at Lutheran academic culture in the early modern period as well as the role played by Lutheran theological faculties in the regulation of church and society.
After these chapters on the development of Lutheran theology on the nature of church and society, the final eight chapters deal more directly with the impact of Lutheranism on Danish religious, social, and political life. Mattias Skat Sommer examines the role of the three estates in the theological works of Danish reformer Niels Hemmingsen. Svend Andersen continue this thread by looking at Luther and Hemmingsen as well as the eighteenth-century Danish writer Ludvig Holberg. Gorm Harste examines how the Lutheran Reformation in Denmark led to the creation of a “culture of sovereignty” that came to define the Danish monarchy, while Rasmus Skovgaard Jakobsen looks at similar themes in the conception of the Danish nobility. The final four chapters look at the impact of the Reformation at the household level, including studies by Laura Katrine Skinnerbach on family devotional culture, by Agnes Arnórsdóttir on marriage regulations and inheritance, by Søren Feldtfos Thomsen on women's positions in the household, and by Nina Javette Koefoed on the Lutheran household as a contributing aspect of the Lutheran confessional culture in Denmark.
This volume has an internal coherence and consistency that is often lacking in multi-author volumes due, it would seem, to the careful editorial direction of Holm and Koefoed and by the process of participation in interdisciplinary research groups at Aarhus University in Denmark, which no doubt led to this well-conceived and executed volume.
