Friedrich Schleiermacher was a theologian, philosopher, educator, and classical philologist during the tumultuous period around 1800. As an emblematic offspring of the Protestant parsonage, he stands out like few others for the cultural flourishing of Protestantism, during which a new form of cultivated inwardness and subjective religiosity emerged. Andreas Arndt offers a fresh perspective on Schleiermacher's thinking in the context of the political and social events of his time. He traces his intellectual development, situates it within his shifting positioning towards the Prussian state, and reconstructs his socio-political concepts in response to the significant historical upheavals, notably the French Revolution, which Schleiermacher understood as an event of religious significance. He associates with it the idea of a realm of freedom.