Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University [Paperback]

In shaping the modern academy and in setting the agenda of modern Christian theology, few institutions have been as influential as the German universities of the nineteenth century. This book examines the rise of the modern German university from the standpoint of the Protestant theological faculty, focusing especially on the University of Berlin (1810), Prussia's flagship university in the nineteenth century. In contradistinction to historians of modern higher education who often overlook theology, and to theologians who are frequently inattentive to the social and institutional contexts of religious thought, Thomas Albert Howard argues that modern university development and the trajectory of modern Protestant theology in Germany should be understood as interrelated phenomena.

Tal Howard is Associate Professor of History at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts. He is also the founding director of the Jerusalem and Athens Forum, an honors program in the history of Christian thought and literature. He has received fellowships from the Erasmus Institute (University of Notre Dame), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture (University of Virginia).