“This is an England-centred book, complementing rather than replacing other histories and standard works … . It lends itself to dipping into for leads worth following and could provoke less open minds to reflect on the permanent value of the counter-tradition in Western Christianity which supposes that morals are more important than theological truth.” (Robert Morgan, Modern Believing, Vol. 64 (2), 2023)
“Birch’s invaluable, rigorous, and engaging book does much to further—it will be of vital interest to historians, theologians, and religious studies scholars of all levels, seeking to engage honestly with the complex, pluralistic nature of our collective intellectual history.” (Jonathan Greenaway, Literature and Theology, February 7, 2021)
Jesus in an Age of Enlightenment
Radical Gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson
von Jonathan C. P. BirchThis book explores the religious concerns of Enlightenment thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. Using an innovative method, the study illuminates the intellectual history of the age through interpretations of Jesus between c.1650 and c.1826. The book demonstrates the persistence of theology in modern philosophy and the projects of social reform and amelioration associated with the Enlightenment. At the core of many of these projects was a robust moral-theological realism, sometimes manifest in a natural law ethic, but always associated with Jesus and a commitment to the sovereign goodness of God. This ethical orientation in Enlightenment discourse is found in a range of different metaphysical and political identities (dualist and monist; progressive and radical) which intersect with earlier ‘heretical’ tendencies in Christian thought (Arianism, Pelagianism, and Marcionism). This intellectual matrix helped to produce the discourses of irenic toleration which are a legacyof the Enlightenment at its best.