Research

The Department for Church History conducts research into the theology behind the establishment of new churches , preaching and institutional history, from the earliest Christian times right up until the present day. The approach to this work regards church history as a coherent process, in which the spread of Christianity and divergent forms of expression interact with new spiritual directions and changing social conditions. An element of the research is conducted in collaboration with the Centre for African Studies and in association with the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals.

Presently, the department is conducting research into the following:

• The rationality of faith and the science of theology in the Late Middle Ages
• Religion and cultural encounters in the Middle Ages
• The resonance of medieval rituals in modern culture, including music, drama and other art forms
• Monastic life as an interpretation of existence in the history of the church
• The history of the Reformation, the theology behind it and the history of its impact
• Theology, the practice of piety and artistic culture in the Lutheran tradition (16th-18th centuries)
• Faith, experience and reason in England, from the Cambridge Platonists to the Newtonian School in the 17^th century The relationship between Christians and Jews in Denmark, from the Enlightenment to the 20th century
• Visual art and Christianity in church history
• Christianity's attitude to violence and the use of violence in history
• The theological poetics of conversion