Abstract: Few institutions have been as influential as the German universities of the 19th century in shaping the modern academy and in setting the agenda of modern Christian theology. This book examines the rise of the modern German university from the standpoint of the Protestant theological faculty, focusing on the University of Berlin (1810), Prussia’s flagship university in the 19th century. In contradistinction to historians of modern higher education who often overlook theology, and to theologians who are frequently inattentive to the social and institutional contexts of religious thought, it is argued that modern university development and the trajectory of modern Protestant theology in Germany should be understood as interrelated phenomena.

Keywords: Christian theology, University of Berlin, Prussia, higher education, society