Sociology of Religion

Joachim Wach

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367085858
• eBook ISBN: 9780429662935
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This book, first published in 1947, presents the then-new subject of sociology of religion in systematic and historical theology and in the science of religion, in political theory and the social sciences, in philosophy and psychology, in philology and anthropology. Its intention is to bridge the gulf between the study of religion and the social sciences, an exercise that draws strongly upon cultural anthropology.

PART I

METHODOLOGICAL PROLEGOMENA

CHAPTER I

THE METHOD

1. THE METHOD

It is readily apparent that it would be beyond the scope of a volume of this nature to develop a methodology for the study of religion even in its broadest outlines.¹ We shall, therefore, content ourselves here with a brief discussion of the relationship that obtains between the various branches of the science of religion.² Theology, a normative discipline, is concerned with the analysis, interpretation, and exposition of one particular faith. The general science of religion, which reckons within its province phenomenology,³ history, psychology, and sociology of religion, is essentially descriptive, aiming at understanding the nature of all religions.⁴ There is thus a quantitative and qualitative difference between the approaches, methods, and goals of the two disciplines: either one religion or a variety of them is the subject of study, the method being either normative or descriptive. A philosophy of religion⁵ would be akin to theology in its normative interests, but it would share its subject matter with the science of religion.⁶

There are many excellent treatments of the history of religion⁷ and of its psychological nature but fewer systematic and comparative studies of the varied forms of the expression of religious experience.⁸ Most students place the main emphasis on such theoretical forms as myth, doctrine, or dogma. These are important, but equally, if not more, important⁹ is the practical expression in cultus and forms of worship. Besides doctrine and rites, there is a third field of religious expression which is only now gaining the measure of attention which it merits: religious grouping, religious fellowship and association, the individual, typological, and comparative study of which is the field of the sociology of religion.¹⁰ This volume presents the outline of such a study.

An acquaintance with the historical development of the various religions and cults which are reviewed here from the sociologist’s point of view must be presupposed. Without the work of the historian of religion, the sociologist would be helpless. Yet neither can substitute for the other; whereas the former is interested in longitudinal lines of development, the latter tries to cut through these lines vertically. It is the sociologist’s hope that his categories will prove fruitful for the organization of the historian’s material.

The credit for having been the first to conceive of a systematic sociology of religion belongs to Max Weber.¹¹ It is interesting that the spotlight on Weber’s works has been directed almost entirely to his studies in Calvinism,¹² leaving in the dark the major portion of his contribution to the systematic sociology of religion. We shall here be primarily concerned with this systematic outline and his studies of the non-Christian religious world. Weber and his colleagues, especially Werner Sombart, have also done pioneer work in investigating the tenuous strands linking economics and religion.¹³ The study of economics in its relation to religion, however, comprises only one of a number of forms of social activity and can be considered as merely one aspect of a sociology of religion. Like the study of “religion and art” or “religion and legal institutions”, the examination of the complicated interrelations of economics and religion is of great significance in the general investigation of the relationships between religion and the whole gamut of social activities. But the study of “economics and religion” is by no means identical with a sociology of religion.

Weber left much to be done. In his scheme of religions he neglected to include the entire group of so-called “primitive” religions as well as Mohammedanism and other important faiths. In addition, the great scholar’s understanding of religion was somewhat impaired by his critical attitude towards it.¹⁴ The categories under which he classified religious phenomena are not entirely satisfactory, because not enough attention is paid to their original meaning.

In many respects Weber’s work was complemented by the exhaustive studies of his friend, Ernst Troeltsch, which were, unfortunately, limited exclusively to Christianity.¹⁵ His approach stimulated H. R. Niebuhr’s analysis of American denominationalism, one of the outstanding recent contributions to the sociology of cults,¹⁶ just as Max Weber’s influence, combined with that of Leopold von Wiese’s sociology, stimulated Howard Becker’s interest in the sociological aspect of religion.¹⁷ It is regrettable that the commendable precedent set by the two German scholars—one a social scientist, the other a theologian and philosopher—in refusing to allow personal metaphysical and other theories and conceptions to interfere with the impersonal task of analysing and describing social phenomena of religious significance has not always been followed.¹⁸

It is important that we avoid falling into the same type of error which was made by the proponents of the new psychology of religion a few decades ago.¹⁹ Some students, dazzled by the new light, had imagined that they had now been provided with the universal key²⁰ to a complete understanding of religion. Those of us who study the sociological implications of religion will err equally if we imagine that our work will reveal the nature and essence of religion itself.²¹ This injunction is directed particularly at those theorists who apply the philosophy of Marx and Comte to the study of religion and society. Durkheim,²² for example, impaired the validity of his analysis of primitive religious institutions by his unwarranted assumption of an identity of the worshipping subject with the object of religion.²³

Our aim will be more modest. We hope by an examination of the manifold interrelations between religion and social phenomena to contribute to a better appreciation of one function of religion, perhaps not its foremost but certainly an essential one. Through this approach we hope not only to illustrate the cultural significance of religion but also to gain new insight into the relations between the various forms of expression of religious experience and eventually to understand better the various aspects of religious experience itself.

In her stimulating discussion of patterns of culture, Ruth Benedict, one of the leading modern anthropologists, contrasts the attitude prevalent during a period in which “religion remained a living issue” with the more sophisticated attitude which makes possible an understanding of religion from “objectively studied data”.²⁴ We cannot agree with this and similar pronunciamentos of the “death” of religion, which are based primarily on a false identification of religious experience with one or another of its historical expressions. The categories of “true” and “false”, contrary to the once popular desire of the historians, can never be dispensed with. The problem is to interpret correctly the meaning of the phenomena which are to be evaluated. That was clearly seen half a century ago by William James.²⁵ Many grievous errors could be avoided if the discipline of hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation, could be revitalized. We need precise definitions and thorough discussions of the presuppositions, methods, and limits of interpretation in the science of religion, comparable to the great theological, philosophical, and legal systems of hermeneutics.²⁶

To summarize, the sociology of religion will supplement but can never replace phenomenology, psychology, or history of religion, to say nothing of theology. To the latter we leave the formulation of the religious norms and values which shall guide our lives and actions.²⁷ If our method here is for the most part descriptive, our results will be much more than academic. This does not imply that predetermined conclusions will be triumphantly deduced. It does mean that an impartial observer will become strikingly aware of the intricacy and variety of the relations existing between society and religion; he will be impressed with the tremendous fomenting and integrating power possessed by religion. In his inspiring lectures, called Welt-geschichtliche Betrachtungen, which contain brilliant contributions to our subject of study and have only recently been translated into English,²⁸ Jacob Burckhardt, the great Swiss historian of culture, reminds us of Bacon’s monumental dictum: “Religio praecipuum humanae societatis vinculum” (“Religion is the most substantial bond of humanity”). In the light of the calamity which has beset civilization in our time, a thorough understanding of the role of religion, past and present, is of the utmost importance. The era in which scholars in the field of comparative religion could display their wares with an air of supreme indifference is about over. It would be enlightening to collect dogmatic judgments from the pens of the thinkers at the end of the nineteenth century who frequently betray, directly or indirectly, arguments and modes of thought relevant to the period of the Enlightenment—an age of one-sided intellectualism and scepticism.²⁹ The feeling of superiority which impelled so many positivist commentators to ridicule the “crude” and “bizarre” expressions of the ignorant mind has almost entirely vanished. Just as the careful study of the history of art gave us a new understanding and appreciation of the nature of that art which is different from our own, so the historian of religion to-day tries to penetrate the mythical symbolism used in religion and to reveal for us the real meaning which lies swathed in such exotic clothing. Not a few of us have been startled by a realization of the relative nature of the hitherto naively used term “primitive” when applied to religion. Some students have even gone to the other extreme, not only discarding the modern feeling of superiority but developing a nostalgic, though unproductive, longing for the “days gone by” and a shortsighted envy of people who once possessed what the “modern” world has lost. The more realistic approach is one which combines a sympathetic insight into the meaning of religious experiences different from ours geographically and temporally with a critical awareness of its relevance to modern life and problems.

One more methodological problem must not escape our attention. Careful discrimination between social philosophy (normative theory of society) and sociology is necessary. There is no such thing as Christian or Jewish or Moslem sociology. But there are implicit or explicit Christian, Moslem, or Jewish social philosophies. The totally unwarranted confusion of social philosophy with sociology is evident in the normative concept of religion often styled “Christian sociology” which underlies most studies of the social implications of Christianity,³⁰ valuable as they may be, and the few existing monographs on other religions.³¹ It is a mistake to assume, as was frequently done at the high tide of the promulgation...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Preface
• Table of Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Part I. Methodological Prolegomena
• Part II. Religion and Society
• Appendix
• Indices