Religious Emotions and Emotions in Religion: The Case of Sermons

Abstract

This article examines the challenges posed by combining the categories of religion and emotion in historical studies. It analyses two major ways of framing this: religious emotion and emotions in religion. By taking sermons as a case study, both as a religious practice and a genre of historical source, an approach that retains the useful elements of each approach is developed. At the same time, the article explores the potentials of sermons as a source for the history of emotions, noting important consequences in the history of religious communication for the history of emotions and vice versa. In particular, reception history approaches are explored as a way to enrich accounts of the emotional aspects of sermons. Further, the article serves as an introduction for the collection of articles: “Preaching and Passions: Sermons and the History of Emotions.”