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Human Diversity in Early Modern Religious Life
Conference, 26–27 June 2025 at Goethe-University Frankfurt, org. by Xenia von Tippelskirch & Karin Sennefelt (Stockholm)
Early
modern religious life was characterized by the paradoxical nexus
between the claim of universality and the principle of electedness.
Universality had to be negotiated with the respective circumstances of
social life. In the corporative society of the early modern period,
social positioning played a major role; the intertwining of social
status and the promise of salvation could lead to the stabilisation of
social inequalities, but could also permit social mobility. Very concrete and practical questions had to be managed in this general
framework, questions that determined who belonged to a specific
religious community, what role, what position was to be given to
different members of society, and who had a privileged relationship with
the divine. But how were these decisions to be taken and to what extend
did corporeal differences play a role? They were of key importance in
the context of missions, imperial expansions and more generally in the
confrontation of groups of competing religious denominations...
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