French Protestants Research Articles

The World in Theology

AbstractThis article focuses on the activity of French Protestant theologian Georges Casalis as a co‐editor of the French journal Christianisme social (Social Christianity) in the turbulent period between 1965 and 1970. The journal reflected the conflicts of the times on issues such as relations with Eastern Europe, Christian–Marxist dialogue, the new impulses coming from revolutionary movements of the South, and the events of May 1968.

The French Protestant Experience in Francophone World Christianity: Jean-François Zorn and the History of the Société des Missions Évangéliques de Paris

ABSTRACT During the last quarter century, a veritable flood of research has been made available on the role of French Protestants in the development of world Christianity. Generally unnoticed by scholarly communities outside the francophone world, this enterprise is transforming historiographies of Europe, Africa, and Oceania. It addresses questions of churches and mission, colonialism, conflict, intercultural relations, power, gender, racism, and more. The research has been largely provoked by that of Jean-François Zorn (professor emeritus, Institut Protestant de Théologie at Montpellier), especially his Le grand siècle d’une mission protestante; La Mission de Paris de 1822–1914. This work created cultural and intellectual space for other scholars. The resulting research is important not only for French Protestantism but for the Christianities of francophone countries, with implications generally for world Christianity. This essay introduces the work of Zorn and the last quarter century of research on the developments of Christianity in the francophone world.

Fleeting Emotional Unity of French Protestantism in Ephemeral Spaces

National gatherings are regularly held in French Protestantism. Particularly, the recent years have witnessed the establishment of large national festive gatherings. These meetings aim at bringing people together. For the sake of togetheness as well as for theological reasons, the organizers usually seek to uphold all the trends and currents of French Protestantism. The latter remains, however, characterized by its extreme diversity, which has been increasing in the recent past. During the meetings, these gatherings create some kind of a united Protestant church. It seems, however, that the ephemeral nature of the event is, in fact, what allows unity. The religious unity of French Protestantism has a very paradoxical dimension.

The Fleeting Emotional Unity of French Protestantism in Ephemeral Spaces

The Fleeting Emotional Unity of French Protestantism in Ephemeral Spaces

Aid for Refugees: Religion, Migration, and Poor Relief in Sixteenth-Century Geneva

ABSTRACTDuring the sixteenth century, migration of mainly French Protestants into Geneva resulted in a significant refugee community dedicated to discipline and poor relief. This article examines the ongoing impact of migration on the formation of religious communities and their correlation with the development of poor relief funds in a leading Reformation city. The social dislocation of religious refugees fostered a high commitment to their new identity as advocates of the Reformed religion and proponents of poor relief for foreigners. John Calvin, chief minister and French immigrant, articulated his ideals for establishing a truly Christianized community through the institutions of the church, the consistory and the Bourse française (French Fund) to support the formation of a distinctive religious identity. This article argues that aid for the refugees became an integral part of establishing this religious and social reformation from the 1540s to the 1560s as waves of refugees landed in Geneva.

The Pilgrim’s Progress in the Huguenot Diaspora: French Protestants and the Transnational Commodification of English Nationalism

The Pilgrim’s Progress in the Huguenot Diaspora: French Protestants and the Transnational Commodification of English Nationalism

ДИПЛОМАТИЧНІ ВЗАЄМОВІДНОСИНИ ЛОНДОНА ТА ПАРИЖА ПІД ЧАС АНГЛО-ФРАНЦУЗЬКОЇ ВІЙНИ (60-ТІ РР. XVI СТ.)

The article is dedicated to the diplomatic relationships between the British Kingdom and the Huguenots during the Anglo-French War of 1562-1564 and their influence on the foreign policy of England and France. The author analyzes the main directions of the diplomatic relations of the Elizabethan politicians with the French Protestants, finds out the factors and circumstances of the defeat of the Huguenots in the Battle of Dre and change the course of diplomatic relations between the countries. Also, author observes the course and results of the war of 1562-1564, and concludes that the defeat for England in this military conflict in the future had positive effects. For Elizabeth I became clear that it makes no sense to rely on the further assistance of Protestant forces from other states to the English case. The country could deviate from the policies that it was carrying out, and to re-evaluate its foreign-policy priorities, which contributed to a further new course of the country.

Belladonna by Celia Hawkesworth

spreads throughout the city, sowing fear on top of the terror that stalks the streets. But as with any great literary work, this novel doesn’t just tell a story. Rather , it unfolds across multiple dimensions, each layer peeling back to reveal something new: the structure of the novel itself (stories within stories, references to the “author” as a character); buildings that, when damaged by bombs, reveal archaeological treasures; and identities that turn out merely to be covers for other (perhaps still false) identities. Exquisitely translated by Jonathan Wright, this novel breaks through the superficial news stories and helps us see more clearly what the American invasion has wrought, how violence begets violence, and how tenuous is the line between innocence and guilt. Brilliant and horrifying, Frankenstein in Baghdad is essential reading. Rachel S. Cordasco Madison, Wisconsin Tidiane N’Diaye. L’Appel de la lune. Paris. Gallimard. 2017. 223 pages. The Senegalese author Tidiane N’Diaye is known for such historical works as Le Génocide voilé (Gallimard, 2008) and Par-delà les ténèbres blanches (Gallimard, 2010). L’Appel de la lune, set in nineteenthcentury South Africa before and during the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879, is his first novel. The “call of the moon” depicts a multiracial , though rarely tolerant, South Africa, before complete British military domination , and long before apartheid. This historical novel’s main plotline sets up a love story that is in some ways worthy of a fairy tale. The idealistic romance, however, develops against a backdrop of widespread and clearly depicted racial, religious, and generational strife. Marc Jaubert, a descendant of exiled French Protestants whose family runs a vineyard, falls in love with the beautiful Zulu princess Isiban, whom he first glimpses as she dances alone at night, illuminated by the moonlight. This unlikely love story leads to an even unlikelier marriage , mediated by the couple’s respective grandfathers. N’Diaye’s background as a researcher often shows during the narrative , which includes succinct but frequent background information on Zulu social norms, British colonial policy, religious beliefs among the Boers, and the history of Protestantism in France. The expository historical digressions sometimes take precedence over the storytelling, but the author never loses sight of his narrative thread for long. Around Isiban and Marc gravitates a cast of characters that N’Diaye has clearly sought to make as diverse and representative as possible . Isiban’s sister Pampatha disapproves of her marriage to a white man. Marc’s brother François similarly resents his brother for marrying a black woman. Kuzayo, the Zulu spy and translator, plays a vital role as intermediary between the extended families of the two lovers. A Boer family uses the Bible to justify its vicious racism. The aristocratic British army officers exhibit their own smug level of “civilizational” superiority. By contrast, the small community of family, friends, and colleagues who gravitate around Isiban and Marc seem to prefigure the sort of multiracial community that is the stated goal of postapartheid South Africa (the novel ends with a call for “a true rainbow nation”). There is an unambiguously didactic element to this novel. The author wants his readers not only to learn about history but to learn from it, to understand the mistakes of the past and to avoid repeating them. That said, N’Diaye also knows how to tell good stories and how to tie various subplots together. This is an immensely readable and informative first novel. Edward Ousselin Western Washington University Daša Drndić. Belladonna. Trans. Celia Hawkesworth. New York. New Directions. 2017. 378 pages. Belladonna’s title is a deadly plant; its Latin epigraph warns a society on a suicidal path: “Today it’s me, tomorrow . . . you. Who can escape?” This densely intertextual, selfreferential historical metafiction, its scope and power remarkable, employs Sebaldian techniques to probe the Holocaust, the end of Yugoslavia, and neocolonialism. The protagonist of this apocryphal “manuscript,” its sixty-five-year-old author, Croat Andreas Ban, seeks to “cobble up a whole” from his “fragments.” His targets all too timely, Ban’s psychic odyssey charts our violent century “of cleansing . . . of erasure,” where form has eclipsed content, community the individual, ethnocentrism fellow feeling, dogma and...

Portraying Ourselves Observing Others: The French Ethnocolonial Gaze on Sixteenth-Century Floride française (1562-1565)

Between 1562 and 1565, France sent three colonial expeditions to the eastern shores of Florida. Led by Jean Ribaut and René de Laudonnière, the French explored a 65-kilometer expanse along the Atlantic coast, stretching from today's St. Augustine, Florida to Port-Royal, South Carolina. They befriended tribes of Timucuans, set up alliances with them, and established settlements Charlesfort and Fort Caroline. The king appointed professional painter Jacques le Moyne de Morgues to accompany the second expedition and illustrate the experiences of the colonists in Florida. Le Moyne's 42 illustrations, later published as engravings, reflect a unique model of early modern European visual representations of the indigenous Other of the Americas. Le Moyne uses various gazes to portray the French experiences in Florida, the most provocative of which are those depicting members of the French expedition observing the Amerindians engaged in activities related to their lifestyle and social structure, including rituals, ceremonies, and interactions with other tribes. These illustrations reflect an ethnocolonial gaze, which represents a process of French exploration and colonization mediated by extended cross-cultural interactions with the Other. This gaze, which involves both reading alterity and self-reflection, shows the French analyzing elements of local society that might work to their colonial advantage. Le Moyne's innovative ethnocolonial representations of Franco-Amerindian interactions, an extension of an emerging Huguenot hemeneutic of reading alterity, constitute a significant stage in the development of modern ethnographic portrayals of Otherness that French Protestant travel writers, cartographers, and visual artists were developing in the mid-sixteenth century.

The morning after: Nuit Debout - debates, practice and theory

This paper analyses the French protest movement Nuit Debout that started on March 31, 2016 at the Place de la R?publique in Paris. The protest is approached from the perspective of the debate that took place in French media on how to define of the enemy, goals, preferred strategy and organizational model, then, from the angle of the protest practice itself, and finally, that of the sociology of Luc Boltanski. The article focuses on two issues that got the most attention from the protesters and the public - convergence of struggles and prefigurative politics. Both are discussed from the vantage point of Boltanski?s study of contemporary capitalism in order to provide propositions for further development of the ideas that Nuit Debout tried to put into practice. The aim is to highlight the importance of everyday practices and experiences of injustice for today?s critique of capitalism and the convergence of struggles, as well as to assess the role that experimenting with participatory democracy and horizontality, present in the latest social movements as well as in Nuit De bout, plays in processes of confluence of those experiences and ?ordinary? critiques and their transformation into program, strategy and action.

Setting Scottish History Straight: <em>La Stuartide</em> of Jean de Schélandre as Corrective of <em>Macbeth</em>

_La Stuartide_ is an incomplete epic in honour of the Stuart dynasty composed by the French Protestant poet and dramatist Jean de Schelandre. Published in Paris in 1611 and personally presented by the author to King James I of England (James VI of Scotland), it includes a heavily mythologized treatment of the same segment of Scottish history dramatized by Shakespeare in _Macbeth_. Comparison with a manuscript ‘Modelle’ of the project, which had previously been presented to the king, aids in identifying key points, notably in the heroic representation of Banquo, supposedly James's ancestor, where the poet appears to be reacting against the more equivocal version of the English playwright.

L'Appel de la lune

spreads throughout the city, sowing fear on top of the terror that stalks the streets. But as with any great literary work, this novel doesn’t just tell a story. Rather , it unfolds across multiple dimensions, each layer peeling back to reveal something new: the structure of the novel itself (stories within stories, references to the “author” as a character); buildings that, when damaged by bombs, reveal archaeological treasures; and identities that turn out merely to be covers for other (perhaps still false) identities. Exquisitely translated by Jonathan Wright, this novel breaks through the superficial news stories and helps us see more clearly what the American invasion has wrought, how violence begets violence, and how tenuous is the line between innocence and guilt. Brilliant and horrifying, Frankenstein in Baghdad is essential reading. Rachel S. Cordasco Madison, Wisconsin Tidiane N’Diaye. L’Appel de la lune. Paris. Gallimard. 2017. 223 pages. The Senegalese author Tidiane N’Diaye is known for such historical works as Le Génocide voilé (Gallimard, 2008) and Par-delà les ténèbres blanches (Gallimard, 2010). L’Appel de la lune, set in nineteenthcentury South Africa before and during the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879, is his first novel. The “call of the moon” depicts a multiracial , though rarely tolerant, South Africa, before complete British military domination , and long before apartheid. This historical novel’s main plotline sets up a love story that is in some ways worthy of a fairy tale. The idealistic romance, however, develops against a backdrop of widespread and clearly depicted racial, religious, and generational strife. Marc Jaubert, a descendant of exiled French Protestants whose family runs a vineyard, falls in love with the beautiful Zulu princess Isiban, whom he first glimpses as she dances alone at night, illuminated by the moonlight. This unlikely love story leads to an even unlikelier marriage , mediated by the couple’s respective grandfathers. N’Diaye’s background as a researcher often shows during the narrative , which includes succinct but frequent background information on Zulu social norms, British colonial policy, religious beliefs among the Boers, and the history of Protestantism in France. The expository historical digressions sometimes take precedence over the storytelling, but the author never loses sight of his narrative thread for long. Around Isiban and Marc gravitates a cast of characters that N’Diaye has clearly sought to make as diverse and representative as possible . Isiban’s sister Pampatha disapproves of her marriage to a white man. Marc’s brother François similarly resents his brother for marrying a black woman. Kuzayo, the Zulu spy and translator, plays a vital role as intermediary between the extended families of the two lovers. A Boer family uses the Bible to justify its vicious racism. The aristocratic British army officers exhibit their own smug level of “civilizational” superiority. By contrast, the small community of family, friends, and colleagues who gravitate around Isiban and Marc seem to prefigure the sort of multiracial community that is the stated goal of postapartheid South Africa (the novel ends with a call for “a true rainbow nation”). There is an unambiguously didactic element to this novel. The author wants his readers not only to learn about history but to learn from it, to understand the mistakes of the past and to avoid repeating them. That said, N’Diaye also knows how to tell good stories and how to tie various subplots together. This is an immensely readable and informative first novel. Edward Ousselin Western Washington University Daša Drndić. Belladonna. Trans. Celia Hawkesworth. New York. New Directions. 2017. 378 pages. Belladonna’s title is a deadly plant; its Latin epigraph warns a society on a suicidal path: “Today it’s me, tomorrow . . . you. Who can escape?” This densely intertextual, selfreferential historical metafiction, its scope and power remarkable, employs Sebaldian techniques to probe the Holocaust, the end of Yugoslavia, and neocolonialism. The protagonist of this apocryphal “manuscript,” its sixty-five-year-old author, Croat Andreas Ban, seeks to “cobble up a whole” from his “fragments.” His targets all too timely, Ban’s psychic odyssey charts our violent century “of cleansing . . . of erasure,” where form has eclipsed content, community the individual, ethnocentrism fellow feeling, dogma and...

1968 and all that: One of France’s leading journalistic historians discusses the new style of French protest

1968 and all that: One of France’s leading journalistic historians discusses the new style of French protest

A New Primacy of Conscience? Conscientious Objection, French Catholicism and the State during the Algerian War

This article explores how the Roman Catholic Church in France re-evaluated its traditional condemnation of conscientious objection in the closing years of the Algerian War. In contrast to the French Protestant Churches after 1948, the Catholic Church continued to proclaim objection to be detrimental to the principles of state sovereignty and obedience to legitimate authority. Despite this, cases of Catholic conscientious objectors like Jean le Meur and Jean Pezet brought contentious Church debates into the public sphere, dramatized in the press and the courtroom. The article traces how the moral dilemmas of the Algerian War created a space for new theological ideas that challenged the hierarchical, corporatist structure of the French Catholic Church and opened the way for a new emphasis on individual conscience that came to fruition with Vatican II. By focusing on Catholic activism during the war itself, the article also challenges the idea that support for conscientious objection emerged spontaneously after the end of the Algerian War. More broadly, the article addresses the wider narrative of the emergence of human rights by illustrating how the Algerian War proved to be a turning point in the relationship between individuals and authority.

A longitudinal analysis of gendered patterns in political action in France: a generational story?

This article asserts that the impact of generational replacement on gendered political participation patterns is not sufficiently taken into account by existing analyses of participatory gender inequalities. In this longitudinal study, gender and generational differences in French protest patterns are systematically examined. The article tackles two interrelated questions: what is the impact of generational replacement on gender differences in political action in France, and from an individual-level perspective, how do we explain the different participation levels from different generations of women and men? A longitudinal quantitative analysis of survey data from the European Values Study from 1981 to 2008 confirms the significance of generational differences as well as the multi-dimensionality of participatory gender differences.

Um huguenote e um católico e a questão da (in)dissolubilidade do matrimônio em Luanda, no século XVII (A Gloriosa Família, de Pepetela (1997)).

<p>O objetivo do estudo é evocar no romance <em>A Gloriosa Família</em>, do angolano Pepetela (1997), a dimensão internacional de um confronto religioso entre a nobreza católica, liderada pelos Guise, e a burguesia calvinista, apoiada pelos Bourbon, que culminou no massacre dos huguenotes, protestantes franceses, na noite de São Bartolomeu (1572), em Paris, e desencadeou a fuga dos sobreviventes para a Holanda e outros países. No “novo romance histórico”, que mostra a trajetória da família mestiça Van Dum, nos anos da ocupação de Luanda pelos holandeses (1641 a 1648), em acirrada competição com os portugueses pelos escravos para as plantações de cana-de-açúcar do Brasil, desenrola-se um conflito de fé e dogma entre um huguenote e um católico sobre o casamento: Jean Du Plessis e seu sogro Baltazar Van Dum. O oficial de ascendência francesa, nascido na Niederlande, aportou em Luanda (1641), como membro do exército conquistador e se casou com Matilde que cometeu adultério. Diante dessa tragédia familiar, o marido optou pela ruptura do casamento, que não tem caráter sacramental, segundo a tradição calvinista, e abalou o alicerce católico da ideologia da não dissolução matrimonial.</p>

:The Visual Theology of the Huguenots: Towards an Architectural Iconology of Early Modern French Protestantism 1535 to 1623

:<i>The Visual Theology of the Huguenots: Towards an Architectural Iconology of Early Modern French Protestantism 1535 to 1623</i>

The Nineteenth-Century Missionary-Translator: Reflecting on Translation Theory through the Work of François Coillard (1834–1904)

In the discussion of the history of Christianity, the issue of translation is inevitably present, and yet the discipline of Translation Studies too often neglects the potential for insight that this rich history of translation can bring. This article seeks to reconcile these academic fields, allowing each to enlighten the other. In particular, by presenting the example of the nineteenth-century French Protestant missionary François Coillard (1834–1904) and his translation methods, the article posits colonial missionary narratives as useful not only for considering historical translation processes but also for reconsidering some of the assumptions of contemporary translation theory. By employing sources written by Coillard as well as those written about this ‘Livingstone français’, it challenges the assumptions prevalent in translation theory that the translator is invisible and that he works alone.

Un médecin protestant du dix-septième siècle et ses livres: Anatomie de la collection Élie Bouhéreau à la Bibliothèque Marsh de Dublin

Élie Bouhéreau (1643–1719) was a French Protestant physician from La Rochelle who studied at the Protestant académie of Saumur and fled from France at the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. By 1683, his collection numbered some 1700 volumes. Since 1707, it has been kept in Marsh's Library. This article is based on archival material, including Bouhéreau's correspondence, and on the detailed examination of annotations found in individual copies of the books in the collection. The article throws light on the ways in which Bouhéreau acquired these books and examines why he bought them and how he read them. The collection is a rare example of a fully preserved private library that belonged to a prominent member of a learned provincial circle, made up of former students from the académie of Saumur.

Recruitment by Petition: American Antislavery, French Protestantism, English Suppression

Why do petitions flourish when they are often denied if not ignored by the sovereigns who receive them? When activists seek to build political organizations in network-rich but information-poor environments, petitioning as institutional technology facilitates recruitment. A petition’s signatory list identifies and locates individuals sympathetic to its prayer and expresses to other citizens who and how many agree with the prayer. Three historical moments—the explosion of antislavery petitioning in the antebellum United States, the emergence of Protestantism in sixteenth-century France, and England’s suppression of petitioning after the Restoration Settlement of 1660—provide vivid demonstrations of the theory. A recruitment-based theory implies that petition drives mobilize as much as they express, that well-established groups and parties petition less frequently, and that the most important readers of a petition are those asked to sign it. The petition’s recruitment function complements, but also transforms, its function of messaging the sovereign. Contemporary digital petitioning both routinizes and takes its force from the petition’s embedded recruitment technology.