The Nature of Christianity in Northern Tanzania explores the relationship between the region’s environment and social change during the pivotal, often over-looked German colonial period (1890-1916). The work connects changes in the landscape order and biogeography closely with the beginning Christianization of the three groups on the mountains – the Chagga on Mt Kilimanjaro and the Meru and Arusha peoples of Mt Meru. The work tells a story which is ordered, green and Christian. It looks at both new ideas and plants brought by the Germans to their colony in East Africa. The introduced German-like order and the exotic plants changed the landscape during the short period of German rule. However, the changes taking root in the African societies, driven primarily by the introduction of Christianity, led to an acceptance and adaptation of these imports. Religious change is one of the most profound elements of social change and it deeply impacted the world view of the Chagga, Meru and Arusha peoples. Within all three groups, their worldview was closely tied to religion – there is no difference between the natural and social spheres nor the religious and secular worlds. In the interaction between the German and Africans, the ideas, use of plants and even Christianity became altered, Africanized, and finally propagated by the African groups, helping to create the new African/European landscape. This heritage lives on up till today, growing on the landscape, nurtured by the changes in the societies of the Chagga, Meru and Arusha peoples on Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Meru.

This volume aims to revitalize the exchange between sociological differentiation theory and the sociology of religion, which previously held center stage among the sociological classics. It brings together contributions from different disciplines, as well as various forms of regional and historical expertise, which are indispensable in forming a globally oriented sociological perspective today. Secularization is understood as a process of boundary demarcation, that is, as the enactment of semantic, practical, and institutional distinctions between religion and other spheres of activity and knowledge. These distinctions may emerge from within the religious field itself, or may be absorbed into the field having originally emerged elsewhere. They may even be directly imposed upon religion by external forces. The volume is therefore based on the premise that societal differentiation – and secularity as a specific expression of it – is a widespread structural feature that nonetheless takes on various forms, depending on its historical and cultural context. In order to make this diversity visible, the volume adopts a global comparative perspective, and examines historical distinctions and differentiations in the West and beyond. By examining different forms and modes of secularity in statu nascendi, the volume contributes to developing a better understanding of the diversity of secularities, even of those found in the present day, in terms of their historicity and their specific path dependencies. With this shift in perspective, this special volume initiates a global and historical turn in the theory of differentiation, as well as in the study of secularity.

The three volumes present the current state of international research on Martin Luther’s life and work and the Reformation's manifold influences on history, churches, politics, culture, philosophy, arts and society up to the 21st century. The work is initiated by the Fondazione per le scienze religiose Giovanni XXIII (Bologna) in cooperation with the European network Refo500. This handbook is also available in German.

Tanzanian Adventism exemplifies one of the most fascinating shifts in the history of religions: the growth of Christianity in Africa. Most striking in this account is the analysis of a minority denomination's transformation to a veritable "folk church."

Venice and Padua are neighboring cities with a topographical and geopolitical distinction. Venice is a port city in the Venetian Lagoon, which opened up towards Byzantium and the East. Padua on the mainland was founded in Roman times and is a university city, a place of Humanism and research into antiquity. The contributions analyze works of art as aesthetic formulations of their places of origin, which however also have an effect on and expand their surroundings. International experts investigate how these two different concepts stimulated each other in the Early Modern Age, and how the exchange worked.