Modernism and Religion: Between Mysticism and Orthodoxy

Modernism and Religion explores how modernism influenced religious change in the 20th century, with a focus on immanence and immediacy in religious discourse. It discusses Catholic theological modernism, human rights, Christian sociology, and philosophical personalism, and how they responded to the challenge of new mysticism. Orthodoxy was also made new in ways that resisted the secular demand for religion to remain private.

Format: Hardback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 31 August 2023
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Modernism and Religion contends that modernism played a significant role in the religious transformations of the twentieth century. The increased emphasis on immanence and immediacy in religious discourse during this period is evident in the modernist epiphany. Modernism also became associated with mysticism, with writers such as David Jones, T. S. Eliot, and H.D. exploring this aspect of their work. Additionally, the emergence of Catholic theological modernism, human rights, Christian sociology, and philosophical personalism represented a strategic response by religious authorities to the challenge posed by new mysticism. Orthodoxy itself underwent a transformation, resisting the secular demand that religion remain a private affair. Modernism and Religion offers an alternative to epiphanic modernism through the mechanical form and clashing registers of long poems by these writers. Their wavering orthodoxy brings previously secularized aspects of religion back into its purview, challenging the boundaries between the secular and the religious.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474457224
Edition number: 96,524 ed.