"This volume documents a significant meeting in the history of Schleiermacher studies at which leading scholars from Europe and North America gathered to probe key features of Schleiermacher's theological and philosophical program in light of its contested place in the study of religion. Offering fresh interpretations of Schleiermacher's theory of religion, revisionary dogmatics, and hermeneutics of culture, the book critically re-examines Schleiermacher's thought with an eye on the contemporary divide between theology and religious studies."--Publisher's website.

Schleiermacher is now regarded as an influential figure in the history of Christian thought, theories and methods in religious studies, and hermeneutics. The German-language critical edition of his work beginning in 1980, Schleiermacher Kritische Gesamtausgabe, and English translations of key portions of his corpus beginning in the late nineteenth century, have allowed scholars to investigate the richness of his thought. German scholars have often focused on Schleiermacher's ties to early modern philosophy, his aesthetics, hermeneutics, and theory of religion, while English-speaking scholars have often focused on the theological influences and implications of Schleiermacher's work. Over the last 30 years, both German and Anglophone scholars have been at work translating and analyzing key texts. This Handbook gathers authoritative interpretations of Schleiermacher's work from both German and English-speaking scholars, bringing together the best that Schleiermacher scholarship has to offer. The chapters are divided into three parts. The first part offers a clear and nuanced understanding of Schleiermacher's own historical and intellectual context. The second part presents a close analysis of the structure and content of Schleiermacher's thought, in relation both to questions of method and particular theological themes and to broader inquiries in philosophy and the humanities. The third part provides an examination of the reception of his thought and of its contemporary implications for theology and the study of religion.

Since its first appearance in 1821/22, The Christian Faith has had a fractious history of reception. It implements decisive departures for theology, founding the possibility to speak about God on human freedom. It recognises the role of historical consciousness, and the need to relate to advances in the natural sciences. The study investigates the early critiques of Schleiermacher’s analysis of the feeling of utter dependence, of his conception of Christ as the archetype of the God-consciousness, and of his doctrine of God in terms of absolute causality. It reconstructs the revisions carried out in the second edition of 1830/31 as a break-through to a transcendental argumentation. Does Schleiermacher’s elaboration of the anthropological turn in theology leave it defenseless against the dissolution of faith in a saving God in Feuerbach’s projection thesis? Does it offer a naturalising account of religion? And where does the interconnectedness of nature established by God leave what was prized by the Romantics, human individuality? Ongoing objections and new constellations of questions are examined in their relevance for a modern theology that spells out faith in God as a practical self-understanding. “Maureen Junker-Kenny’s book is an outstanding presentation of Schleiermacher’s theology. She attends not only to the development of his method from the first to the second edition of The Christian Faith, but also to his concrete interpretation of Creation, Christology, Redemption, Theological Anthropology, especially human freedom, and his understanding of God. The book has an exceptional value in the way she relates Schleiermacher not only to his contemporaries, but also contemporary concerns. Schleiermacher’s theology is shown in its relation to the modernity of his age, but also the ongoing modernity of today. The book has a depth and breath that make it indispensable not only for historical theology, but also contemporary constructive theology.” – Francis Schüssler Fiorenza, Harvard Divinity School “In Self, Christ and God in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics. A Theology Reconceived for Modernity, Maureen Junker-Kenny proves herself to be not only a distinguished interpreter of Schleiermacher’s work, but a creative practitioner in her own right of his dialogical method. Elegantly conceived and beautifully written, the book shows how Schleiermacher connected the different aspects of his thought—form/content, structure/doctrine, piety/critical rigor—into a coherent system. Self, Christ and God in Schleiermacher’s Dogmatics is now the only guide to Schleiermacher’s magnum opus, Christian Faith, anyone needs.” – Christine Helmer, Northwestern University, Chicago

The rise of populism and nationalism in the West have raised concerns about the fragility of liberal political values, chief among them tolerance. But what alternative social resources exist for cultivating the interpersonal relationships and mutual goodwill necessary for sustainable peace? And how might the lived practices of religious communities carry potential to reinterpret or re-circuit these interpersonal tensions and transform the relationship with the cultural "other" (Fremde) from "foe" (Feind) to "friend" (Freund)? This volume contributes a unique analysis of this shifting discourse by viewing the contemporary socio-political upheaval through the lens of Friedrich Schleiermacher's theology, with a focus on the themes of friendship, interpersonal subjectivity, and sociability as a path beyond mere tolerance. Each of the essays of the volume is written by an internationally recognized scholar in the field, and the volume examines Schleiermacher's novel reflections across multiple social contexts, including North America, Great Britain, western Europe, and South Africa. As these essays demonstrate, the implications of this conversation continue to resound in contemporary religious communities and political discourse.

Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher stands in the very first rank of Christian systematic theologians with Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, and Karl Barth and has been dubbed as the 'Father of Modern Theology'. The beginning of the era of liberal theology that dominated Protestant thought at least until the First World War is commonly dated to the publication of Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers in 1799. His influence extends far beyond theology. He was a pioneer in education, the philosophy of language and hermeneutics. There has been a resurgence of interest in Schleiermacher. His way of wrestling with many of the issues of theology in the modern world are still quite relevant. This Guide for the Perplexed brings the results of the recent decades of research to bear on the most controversial and important aspects of Schleiermacher's work for our own time.

A renewed focus on the role of interpersonal relationships in the cultivation of religious sensibilities is emerging in the study of religion. Matthew Ryan Robinson addresses this question in his study of Friedrich Schleiermacher's notion of "free sociability". In Schleiermacher's ethics, the human person is formed in and consists of intimate, tightly interconnecting relationships with others. Schleiermacher describes this sociability as a natural tendency prompted by experiences of physical and existential limitation that lead one to look to others to complete one's experience. But this experience of incompleteness and orientation to "the completion of humanity" also constitute the fundamental structure of religion in Schleiermacher's theory of religion as orientation to "the universe and the relationship of humanity to it." Thus, Schleiermacher not only presents sociability as basic to human nature, but also as inherently religious - and, potentially, redemptive.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, transatlantic intellectuals slowly revised theological anthropology, or the doctrine of humanity seen in light of the divine. Gradually, elite discourse deposed humanity from its lofty estate and centering it within a naturalistic account wherein likeness to animal fauna became the central evaluative lens. Durst argues that theological anthropologies across the disciplines increasingly shifted focus away from classic confessional themes such as the soul and the image of God, and toward the methods of natural theology and intuitionism. This occurred in the form of challenges to theology in biology, phrenology, transcendentalism, anti-theology, Christian socialism, intuitionism, and religious experience. The human soul and human sinfulness also found a revised articulation in terms increasingly shaped by the cultural authority of science. An ascendant subjective approach to human nature emerged whereby religious experiences, not theological claims to truth, assumed prominence as the central measures of religious life.

Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Platons Werke (1804–28) changed how we understand Plato. His translation of Plato’s dialogues remained the authoritative one in the German-speaking world for two hundred years, but it was his interpretation of Plato and the Platonic corpus, set forth in his Introductions to the dialogues, that proved so revolutionary for classicists and philosophers worldwide. Schleiermacher created a Platonic question for the modern world. Yet, in Schleiermacher studies, surprisingly little is known about Schleiermacher’s deep engagement with Plato. Schleiermacher’s Plato is the first book-length study of the topic. It addresses two basic questions: How did Schleiermacher understand Plato? In what ways was Schleiermacher’s own thought influenced by Plato? Lamm argues that Schleiermacher’s thought was profoundly influenced by Plato, or rather by his rather distinctive understanding of Plato. This is true not only of Schleiermacher’s philosophy (Hermeneutics, Dialectics) but also of his thinking about religion and Christian faith during the first decade of the nineteenth century (Christmas Dialogue, Speeches on Religion). Schleiermacher’s Plato should be of interest to classicists, philosophers, theologians, and scholars of religion.

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) is best known as the 'father of liberal Protestant theology,' largely on the strength of his massive work of systematic theology, 'The Christian Faith'. Here, Dole presents a new account of Schleiermacher's theory of religion.

Theology was once 'queen of the sciences', the integrating centre of Christendom's conceptual universe. In our own time the very idea of systematic theology is frequently called into question, derided as an arcane and superstitious pseudo-discipline. Even within the church, it is commonly disregarded in favour of unreflective piety and pragmatism. At the same time, the southward shift in world Christianity's centre of gravity prompts crucial questions about the future form and content of theology. Within this context, Theology and the Future offers a case for the continuing viability of theology, exploring how it might adapt to changing circumstances, and discussing its implications for how we are to imagine and help shape our shared human future. Beginning with the question of God, this book explores what might be meant by 'the future of God', and what its implications are for Christian theology. Chapters follow on the location of theology (in global Christianity, the church and the academy) and on its sources and method. The second half of the book explores a wide variety of dimensions of the human future that theology might address and illuminate. The essays bring together a mix of specialist theologians and interdisciplinary thinkers to support the assertion that there can be no more critical endeavor to the future than understanding God and all things in relationship to him.