A second confessional age? Reflections on religion in the long nineteenth century

This article takes a critical look at Olaf Blaschke's recent suggestions for reappraising the manifestations and significance of religion in modem Europe. Although the idea of employing the early modem concept of confessionalization to study the modem period - represented by the phrase "second confessional age" - is very attractive, the essay asserts that Blaschke ultimately promises more than he delivers. There are three principal shortcomings. First, his model's understanding of confessionalization and its outcomes derive mainly from research on German Catholicism, thereby offering a distorted picture of modem German religious history. Second, the poor conceptualization of the category of "confession" and the inadequate attention to confessionalization as process greatly limit the model's explanatory capacity. Finally, by excessively restricting how the confessionalization paradigm could apply to modem Europe, Blaschke squanders an opportunity to make fruitful cross-epochal comparisons. In particular, he fails to see that confessionalization after 1800 was not simply a response to modernization, but was itself a manifestation of European modernity.