When nineteenth-century American Presbyterian pastor James Waddel Alexander wrote the lyrics of the hymn “O Sacred Head Now Wounded,” he created what has become the most popular of numerous English translations of seventeenth-century German Lutheran pastor Paul Gerhardt's hymn “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden.” That text was, in turn, a translation of part of an anonymous thirteenth-century cycle of passion poems, one dedicated to each of Christ's wounds. From the medieval original through Gerhardt to Alexander, each subsequent translation has diminished its depictions of blood and rendered its narrator's interaction with the crucified body of Christ less passionate, dictated by the theological needs and aesthetic sensibilities of the translator's religious tradition. At the same time, both Gerhardt and Alexander included significant elements from the original that were anomalous in their own contexts. The inclusion of a medieval poem in the worship of seventeenth-century Lutherans and nineteenth-century Presbyterians may reveal an ecumenical bent on their part, albeit with clear limits. A comparison of the various versions of the hymn demonstrates the complex interrelationship between an original text and translations of it, some of which may properly be called versions of it and some of which may have become something altogether different.

This article analyzes the views of Reformed Presbyterians (Covenanters) in relation to the subject of American slavery. Popular mythology, especially that propagated by the exponents of Neo-Confederacy, would have us believe that all those who criticized the system of chattel slavery that existed in antebellum America were either secularists or adherents to heterodox religious opinions. In order to debunk this myth, this article seeks to demonstrate the solid antislavery credentials of this theologically conservative group of Presbyterians by examining the writings of various Covenanters on chattel slavery. As this agitation against slavery took place in a context of significant internal strife between the Covenanters over the issue of the civil magistrate's power circa sacra, this paper will consider how the antislavery arguments of Thomas Houston and John Paul diverged in order to suit their respective positions on civil magistracy. Related to this is the Covenanters' critique of the US Constitution, which Reformed Presbyterians rejected owing to its proslavery sentiments. Hence this article provides us with an important insight into antislavery ideology and developments within Reformed theology in relation to the state during the nineteenth century. Finally, consideration will be given to understanding the complex response of the Reformed Presbyterians to the American Civil War and to debates between the Irish Covenanters and their American brethren on the proper reaction to the conflict.

“The religious question” regarding the role of the Catholic Church in Spanish society shaped the often contentious relationship between the Church and state. This relationship entered a new chapter with the coming of the Second Republic and the passage of the 1931 constitution. Among the legislation aimed at implementing the articles of the constitution was the 1933 Law of Confessions and Congregations that outlawed schools run by religious orders. Despite this law, most religious schools remained open. Using three schools of the Sisters of the Company of Mary in the cities of Tudela, Valladolid, and Tarragona, this article shows how orders adapted under the new government. One of the Church's primary tactics was to establish front organizations directed by the laity that permitted the religious orders to circumvent the law in order to maintain their schools.

The two major Protestant churches in Saxony-Anhalt, the Church Province of Saxony (Evangelische Kirche der Kirchenprovinz Sachsens [KPS]) and the State Church of Anhalt (Landeskirche Anhalts [LKA]), undertook denazification processes against “compromised” pastors and church hierarchs after 1945. Where the Church Province faced secular criticism about “lenient” denazification, the Anhalt Church enjoyed state support, largely because it admitted political representatives to its review commission. Hierarchs in the KPS explained their leniency with reference to the resistance of Christians in the Third Reich, a particular theology of church and state relations, and forgiveness. The verdicts handed down, nonetheless, were premised primarily on each clergyman's affiliation to the former German Christian movement and not on Nazi party membership; denazification was therefore “de-German-Christianization.” (The German Christian movement was a heterodox movement heavily influenced by Nazism.) However, quite apart from de-German-Christianization, there was also pragmatism within both (mutatis mutandis) the KPS and the LKA. Both desired a fully manned and unified pastorate in a time of acute need. Most churchmen withstood denazification as a result. One pastor in Anhalt exemplifies the process. Formerly a member, Erich Elster renounced the German Christian movement as a “false path” after 1945. He continued in his pastoral duties, albeit with an admonishment to preach orthodoxy. The general continuity of churchmen did not provide for unity in any case, and it even led to recrimination and in places a post-war perpetuation of the Third Reich “church struggle” (Kirchenkampf) that had pitted German Christians against members of the Confessing Church.

This contribution analyzes the views held by Danish and Norwegian church people regarding the welfare state, as expressed in the period when the general debate on the welfare state culminated in both countries. Generally speaking, religion played a relatively limited role in international welfare state research, which can be referred to as “blind to religion.” Tough socio-economic variables, well-established political actors, and government interests dominate the field. There are examples of religion as one among many variables, but when it has been ascribed explanatory value, it predominantly has been in relation to southern and continental European welfare models, because the focus has been on Catholicism. In recent years, the frequently mentioned “cultural turn” has made its entrance into comparative welfare research; yet, even then culture and religion are often assigned a modest role in “the black box,” which is invoked when the “harder” data are insufficient. Most recently, historians and church historians have launched a discussion on the Lutheran Nordic welfare state, but so far this discussion has not analyzed empirically the role of the church in the golden age of the welfare state. In this article, we go directly to those involved and examine what the church actors really felt about the post-war welfare state.