Why Study Religion and the Enlightenment in England and Europe with Jeremy Gregory

Until very recently the standard model for assessing the place of religion in the Enlightenment was one of simple opposition: Religion represented the superstition and darkness that the rational light of the Enlightenment would sweep away. In this video Professor Jeremy Gregory argues that while this view may be true in terms of Voltaire, recent scholarship proposes (especially for 18th-century England) a different model where religion and Enlightenment went hand in hand. Indeed, in England members of the Anglican Church saw themselves as already enlightened and as spreading the enlightenment.