This volume explores the inherent pluralism of the Reformation and its manifold legacies from an ecumenical and interdisciplinary point of view. The essays shed new light on several key questions: How do we interpret and assess the Reformation as a historical and theological event, as a historiographic category, and as a cultural myth? What are the long-term global consequences of the Reformation period as manifest in the rise of competing confessional cultures and distinct Christian world religions, producing different types of modernities? How did these confessional cultures interact with the development of empires and nation-states, with the emergence of the sciences, as well as with divergent legal cultures and traditions in education and social welfare? What kind of modalities emerged in these confessional cultures for engaging with the humanistic study of the Bible and, later on, Higher Criticism?
