The church, the afterlife and the fate of the soul

The impact of belief in the afterlife on the Church's history and evolution, and the manifold ways in which it has impacted on and been reflected in the lives, expectations, and aspirations of Christians across the centuries, is the central theme of this volume. By considering the whole chronological and geographic spread of the church's experience, these essays demonstrate the current excitement of scholarly study of the afterlife: and they frequently question such deeply held assumptions as the late development of purgatory in Christian thought, the divorce between the living and the dead in the western tradition after the sixteenth century, or the importance of post-death salvation in successful modern evangelism. PETER CLARKE is Lecturer in History at Southampton University; TONY CLAYDON is Professor of Early Modern History at Bangor University.