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Challenging Dechristianization: The Historiography of Religion in Modern France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Thomas Kselman
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame

Abstract

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Type
Modern European Historiography Forum
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 2006

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References

1. Van Kley, Dale, The Religious Origins of the French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 1560–1791 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Kley's, Van work was translated as Les Origines religieuses de la Révolution française, 1560–1791 (Paris: Seuil, 2002)Google Scholar; Maire, Catherine, “Aux sources politiques et religieuses de la Révolution française: Deux modèles en discussion,” Le Débat 130 (May–August 2004): 133–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Van Kley, Dale, “Sur les sources religieuses et politiques de la Révolution française,” Commentaire 108 (winter 20042005): 893914.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Lefebvre, Georges, The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1947)Google Scholar. The bicentennial of 1789 produced an avalanche of books on the Revolution. A good starting point for the historiography of the Revolution is Ronald, Schechter, ed. The French Revolution: The Essential Readings (Malden: Blackwell, 2001).Google Scholar

3. Vovelle, Michel, Piété baroque et déchristianisation en Provence au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Seuil, 1978).Google Scholar

4. Van Kley, Dale, “Introduction,” Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe, ed. Bradley, James and Van Kley, Dale (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001), 145Google Scholar; see also Kley's, Van review essay, “Christianity as Casualty and Chrysalis of Modernity: The Problem of Dechristianization in the French Revolution,” American Historical Review 108 (2003): 10811104CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a collection of articles that takes a similar perspective, see Châtellier, Louis, Religions en transition dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2000).Google Scholar

5. For Van Kley's relationship with Furet, see his interview published in the internet journal “parutions.com,” June 2003: http://www.parutions.com/index.php?pid=1&rid=4&srid=100&ida=3493.

6. Tackett, Timothy, Religion, Revolution, and Regional Culture in Eighteenth-Century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Desan, Suzanne, Reclaiming the Sacred: Lay Religion and Popular Politics in Revolutionary France (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Kennedy, Emmet, A Cultural History of the French Revolution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; see also McManners, John, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France, 2 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar. McManners, however, does not take up as a central issue the relationship between religion and revolution. According to Van Kley, on the basis of the work of McManners and others, “the conflict between Christianity and the French Revolution [i]s a thorny problem to be resolved rather than … the foregone conclusion of a century of ‘enlightenment.’” See Kley, Van, “Christianity as Casualty and Chrysalis of Modernity,” 1102.Google Scholar

7. Maire, Catherine, De la cause de Dieu à la cause de la nation: le jansénisme au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1998).Google Scholar

8. A similar point, more clearly stated, was made by Berger, Peter in The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1969), 110Google Scholar, where he raises “the question of the extent to which the Western religious tradition may have carried the seeds of secularization within itself.” For a similar argument based on a careful analysis of eighteenth-century texts, see Michael, Buckley S. J., At the Origins of Modern Atheism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988).Google Scholar

9. For a good brief introduction to this issue, see Justin Vaïsse, “Veiled Meanings: The French Law Banning Religious Symbols in Public Schools,” The Brooking Institution, U.S.-France Analysis Series, March 2004. Available at http://vaisse.net/. Jean Baubérot, a professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, has been a key figure in providing a generally positive account of laïcité; see his Laïcité 1905–2005, entre passion et raison (Paris: Seuil, 2004).Google Scholar

10. Tincq, Henri, Dieu en France: Mort et résurrection du catholicisme (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2003), 12Google Scholar. For an overview of religion in the nineteenth century, with references to recent work, see Kselman, Thomas, “State and Religon,” in Revolutionary France, 1788–1880, ed. Malcolm, Crook (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 6392.Google Scholar

11. Harris, Ruth, Lourdes: Body and Spirit in the Secular Age (New York: Viking, 1999)Google Scholar; Boudon, Jacques-Olivier, Paris: Capitale religieuse sous le Second Empire (Paris: Cerf, 2001).Google Scholar

12. Two other works by anglophone scholars also take up Lourdes with insight and sympathy, though observed from a more narrow perspective than Harris's work: Kaufman, Suzanne, Consuming Visions: Mass Culture and the Lourdes Shrine (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univeristy Press, 2005)Google Scholar; Taylor, Therese, Bernadette of Lourdes—Her Life, Death, and Vision (New York: Burns and Oates, 2003)Google Scholar. Jonas, Raymond has also written with great sensitivity about visionaries and devotions in France and the Cult of the Sacred Heart: An Epic Tale for Modern Times (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)Google Scholar, The Tragic Tale of Claire Ferchaud and the Great War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)Google Scholar. See also Kselman, Thomas, Miracles and Prophecies in Nineteenth-Century France (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

13. Rémond, René, Religion et société en Europe: La secularization aux XIXe et XXe siècles, 1789–1989 (Paris: Seuil, 1998)Google Scholar; Ormières, Jean-Louis, Politique et religion en France (Paris: Editions Complexe, 2002)Google Scholar. Lalouette, Jacqueline, La République anticléricale, XIX–XXe siécles (Paris: Hachette, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bonafoux-Verrax, Corinne, A la droite de Dieu: La Fédération nationale catholique, 1924–1944 (Paris: Fayard, 2004)Google Scholar. The work of Louis Pérouas, how-ever, takes up questions of popular belief in Culte des saints et anticléricalisme (Paris: Boccard, 2002)Google Scholar. To judge by recent surveys what Americans describe as “everyday religion” is beginning to make an appearance, but questions relating to institutional development, orthodox practice, and political relations remain central. See, for example, Philippe, Joutard, ed., Histoire de la France religieuse. T. 3. Du roi Très Chrétien à la laïcité républicaine (Paris: Seuil, 2001)Google Scholar; Cholvy, Gérard and Hilaire, Yves-Marie, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 2 vols. (Paris: Privat, 19851986)Google Scholar. The range of topics pursued by French scholars specializing in the history of religion can be sampled in the collection of articles dedicated to Delumeau, Jean, Homo religious: autour de Jean Delumeau (Paris: Fayard, 1997).Google Scholar

14. Jacqueline, Lalouette and Jean-Pierre, Machelon, ed., Les congrégations hors la loi? Autour de la loi du 1 juillet 1901 (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 2002)Google Scholar; Patrick, Cabanel and Jean-Dominique, Durand, ed., Le grand exil des congrégations religieuses françaises, 1910–1914 (Paris: Cerf, 2005)Google Scholar; “La Séparation des églises et de l'état—les homes et les lieux,” Colloque organisé par l'Institut d'Histoire du Christianisme et le Centre André Latreille, Lyon, January 23–24, 2004.

15. Cox, Jeffrey, “Master Narratives of Long-term Religious Change,” in The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750–2000, ed. Hugh, McLeod and Werner, Ustorf (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).Google Scholar