by Max Weber
Far be it for me to pronounce a “value judgment” on the religiosity of the “sects.” As anyone would admit, the examples given earlier are by no means chosen with the purpose of winning sympathy for it. These examples would be more likely to strengthen the belief, which in Germany is commonly held about “Puritanism,” that it has basically never been anything but “hypocrisy.” Now, it was not my intention to challenge this foolish distortion on this occasion; it is, however, my personal opinion that however and wherever the contents of intense religious consciousness have been expressed in external social form and have since—whether knowingly and voluntarily or not—become allied with political, economic, and “social” interests, the result is very similar. While it may be similar it is not identical, however, for when it comes to “evaluation,” the question might well be asked as to whether, for example, the “plain” Quaker Meeting, which does at least reduce the “actions” and “intentions” of the religious encounter to a minimum and often consists only of profound silence and meditation, is not the most adequate form for a “divine service.” This could certainly be true for someone who does not confuse “religious” contents with the formal psychological quality of aesthetic twilight moods of the kind people today so much love to create by musical and visual mystification.
In reality, however, it is usually the case that even where “modern” man actually does have an “ear” for religion (or thinks he does), he is usually in no way a “religious community person” and therefore tends to be predestined for the “church”—which he can disregard if it suits him—but not for any kind of “sect.” On the other hand, we should be under no illusion—the “state church,”8 or indeed the “Church” in general, is likely to benefit for the foreseeable future from this factor, coupled with the absolute indifference of those who inquire only about what is conventional and advisable for the “well-behaved” citizen, in other words, to benefit from the feebleness of religious motives.
At the same time I should like to add, in order to avoid any possible misunderstanding, that I am by no means unaware that even a highly ideological, and genuinely religious, theory of the state church is perfectly plausible. Such a theory would take as its starting point the absolute irrationality of the religious individual and of his experiences, and proceed to draw the conclusion that a union agreed on as an “association” (sect) based upon certain beliefs or ways of acting is contrary to the essential nature of religion.
The profound inner insincerity of a commitment to the state church, like that represented even by such innovators as Frederick William IV, and now Stoecker too (men who are undoubtedly serious about their zeal for reform), certainly does not lie in the “concept” of the state church as such. It lies in the naive yet massive cunning9 with which the postulated exclusive “believing” church “is happy to accept” a monopoly of the educational and cultural budget and—more important, as these material factors are by no means decisive here—secular privilege in the life of state and society. Then, simply because, in spite of its “exclusivity,” it is, after all, “the Church” and intends to remain so, it cultivates an erastian10 “modesty” in its religious demands on the strata which enjoy “privilege” in the “world.” What Stoecker had to say about Moltke is a classic example of such an attitude.
All of the above is true, in my opinion, not only of such caricatures of objectively “genuine” Christian reforming zeal, but also of the attitudes of “educated” people generally toward the state church as empirically given. At the same time—and it was my intention to avoid any possible misunderstandings here—I should not wish it to be thought that I believed that all those who devoted their lives to an (ideal) state church only ever gained this position via nonreligious cultural values. That would not be true to the facts, as I am very well aware. But the view that arises out of the irrationality of the religious personality inevitably leads to Rothe’s dictum: “the maximum degree of religion and the minimum degree of church,” and this, alongside the sectarian philosophy, has consequences for the religious permeation of social life “from below.” Such consequences, it seems to me, are plainly to be seen.
WEBER’S NOTE
1) In this area there lie a few of those points in which I differ from my friend and colleague Troeltsch, and which he discussed at the Breslau Evangelisch-soziale Kongress.11 If I were not so heavily involved with other work, I would gladly debate these here. I should just like to indicate at this point that his habit of identifying “conservative” with “aristocratic” (and he is far from alone in this) leads to a number of questionable theses.
In my view, it is incontrovertible that the two concepts are by no means identical, and are only held to be identical here in Germany on account of today’s historical constellation. A “full” democracy—in the customary sense of this word—is in more than one sense the “most conservative” structure possible, and social, economic, and political differentiation represents a revolutionizing developmental trend by contrast.
Furthermore, usage of the words “aristocracy” and “democracy” by Troeltsch (and many others) is, in my view, too undifferentiated: if one assumes that aristocracy simply equals social exclusivity of a human group, then one must first distinguish whether membership of that group is linked to personal qualities or to individual achievements (predestination, “proof” in a religious, business, sporting, “human,” or other sense), or whether it (that is, membership of the group) is constituted by qualifying features passed on by inherited social stratification or the social position of one’s ancestors attrib-uted to one, etc., etc. In short, it must be established whether it is the quality of the person or that person’s position that determines membership of the exclusive group. We tend to think of the latter characteristic when we speak of “aristocracy.” Looked at in the cold light of day, this is remarkable enough, since there is no mention here of a community of personal α’‘ρηστοι as in the case of that other form, which is proper to the adopted exclusivities of American “democracy.” Even the millionaires’ clubs over there are not necessarily an exception. For us, it is only the grandson of the “upstart” who is venerated. It is an observable fact, however, that true Americans reserve their admiration for the man who has succeeded in earning the million. They attach less value to the million itself or the position of millionaire.
If then, as Troeltsch does, we wish to investigate the position of Christianity with regard to “democracy” or “aristocracy,” we must first consider the very different meanings of the word “democracy” contrasted with the concept of “aristocracy” which is generally set against it. A clear distinction will have to be made between the aristocracy of “position” and that of “quality.” We should first ensure, however, that the concept of “conservative” be kept quite separate.
EDITORS’ NOTES
1. “‘Kirchen’ und ‘Sekten’ in Nordamerika. Eine kirchen- und sozialpolitische Skizze.” Die Christliche Welt: Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt für Gebildete aller Stände, nos. 24–25, Marburg, June 1906.
2. Throughout this essay, Weber often resorts to vernacular English. To make this clear to the reader, we have placed English words and phrases in bold type.
3. The German text has “hyperbole” (Hyperbel) but the opposite—“understatement”—appears closer to what Weber means.
4. According to the Luther scholar Wilhelm Pauck, the source of these “private statistical surveys” was Hans Haupt, a pastor of an immigrant German evangelical church in Towanda, New York. Pauck reports that Troeltsch and Weber, in advance of their American trip, asked Haupt “to collect as much material as possible about American denominations and their moral teachings and attitudes, especially in relation to economic practices.” In conversation with Pauck, Haupt remarked that it appeared “the professors knew all that could be known without having to weigh the empirical evidence.” See Wilhelm Pauck, Harnack and Troeltsch: Two Historical Theologians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 72. Weber
may have consulted other sources as well. (The editors are indebted to Hans Rollmann, scholar of Troeltsch and of the Moravian movements, for providing them with the information necessary for this note, and for note 11.)
5. Zweckverband is an association set up for a specific purpose.
6. The distinction between “church” and “sect” (and among “church,” “sect,” and “mysticism”) was a prominent theme in Ernst Troeltsch’s The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, translated by Olive Wyon with a foreword by James Luther Adams (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press (1992 [1931, 1912]), especially pp. 515–54, 691–820.
7. Adolf Stoecker (1835–1909) was a conservative politician and reformer who founded the Christlich-soziale Arbeiterpartei (Christian Social Workers’ Party), hoping to win the working classes back to the Church, but met with little success as the monarchist and nationalist ethos of the party had little appeal for them. From 1879 to 1898, he was a member of the Prussian Abgeordnetenhaus (parliament) and was a cofounder of the Evangelisch-soziale Kongress.
8. The German word is Landeskirche, that is, the official church of the Land (one of the constituent states of the German empire).
9. The German word is Schlangenklugheit (wisdom of the serpent). Matthew 10.16 has “be ye wise as serpents,” but in the present context the word is clearly being used ironically.
10. This word means advocating the supremacy of the state over the church in ecclesiastical affairs.
11. The Congress was founded in 1890 and met annually in different cities; the Breslau meeting took place in 1904. Ernst Troeltsch’s speech to the Congress was published in an extended and revised form as Politische Ethik und Christentum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1904), 43 pages. For more information on the speech and its background, see Hans-Georg Drescher, “Demokratie, Konservatismus und Christentum: Ernst Troeltsch’s Konzept zum Umgang mit politischer Ethik auf dem Evangelisch-sozialen Kongress, 1904,” Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 30 (1986), pp. 84–98; and Drescher’s Ernst Troeltsch: His Life and Work (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), pp. 101–06.
Critical Remarks in Response to the Foregoing “Critical Contributions”1
Editors’ Preface: In two articles published in 1907 and 1908, H. Karl Fischer critically appraised Weber’s The Protestant Ethic on both substantive and methodological grounds.2 Fischer’s most salient points were that Weber handles the concept of the “spirit of capitalism” in a contradictory manner (Franklin’s “spirit” is at first conceived of as different from the capitalist spirit, Fischer alleges, but later becomes identical to it); that Luther’s use of the term “Beruf” was not innovative but rather reflected common parlance of the day; that religious ideas were just as likely to have been adaptations to economic life as factors influencing it. More generally, Fischer taxes Weber with offering an “idealist” interpretation of history; claims that Sombart’s analysis, showing that capitalist enterprises (Betriebsformen) existed long before the Reformation, is more plausible than Weber’s; and adds for good measure that both Sombart and Weber ignore what might have lent greater credence to their investigations: a “psychological” account of the rise of the capitalist spirit. In Fischer’s view, J. S. Mill was on to something when he noted that the acquisition of money becomes an end in itself, valued independently of what money can buy. The capitalist spirit, Fischer continues, can be construed in a similar manner: as a psychological pleasure derived from the feeling of power that money confers on those who possess it. Religious motives may be secondary or irrelevant. Still, Fischer concedes, there is undoubtedly some connection between denomination (Konfession) and capitalist development. The problem is that we can only note the parallels, not establish causation.
Responding to Weber’s reply, Fischer recapitulates the main thrust of his critique, underlining the importance of a psychological approach to the understanding of historical events. Fischer speculates that Puritanism may have simply strengthened a spirit that was already present; and he insists that while Weber’s remark that theory must fit the facts is obviously true, it misses the crucial point. Facts, or source material, make little sense without a rigorous methodology to evaluate them.
Weber’s two rejoinders are notable for their analysis of psychological forms of explanation of historical events; and for their forceful restatement of his “problematic”—the attempts to deal with Protestant asceticism’s influence on “the spirit of the methodical conduct of life” (Lebensführung), and “with the rise of that ethical ‘style of life’ which was spiritually ‘adequate’ to the economic stage of ‘capitalism’ and which signified capitalism’s victory in the ‘soul’ of man.”
* * *
I am grateful to my two joint editors3 for agreeing to the publication of the foregoing article. For however obscure a critique may be—and I believe the foregoing to be this—it does still call attention to the points in the criticized work that can give rise to misunderstandings—misunderstandings which the author, whether or not through any fault of his own, has done too little to prevent.
Admittedly, for almost all the objections raised by my critic, I must reject any blame on my part, and for some I deny any possibility of misunderstanding for an attentive reader. Whereas I (vol. 20, p. 15; [here in this volume])4 assume an antithesis between the “spirit” expressed in the words of Jakob Fugger quoted by my critic, and those of Franklin, he alleges that I find that “spirit” in both equally. [1] Whereas I quote Franklin (vol. 20, p. 26 [footnote on page 19 in this volume]) as one of various examples [2] that show that what I have called ad hoc the “spirit of capitalism” does not depend simply on the form of the economic business, the critic has me treating Franklin’s attitude [Gesinnung] on one occasion as differing from the capitalist “spirit,” and on another occasion as identical to it. I have taken considerable pains (vol. 20, p. 36 [here in this volume]) to demonstrate that the ethically tinged concept of the “calling” [Beruf] (and thus also the corresponding meaning of the word), which is common to all Protestant peoples since the first Bible translations, but is absent from all others, is, where it relates to the point that is decisive for my investigation, a new coinage from the Reformation. My critic,5 however, is of the opinion that Luther, in using this new coinage, would have adopted the “common popular expression”—although he makes no attempt to cite any evidence that it was “common.” Naturally, my findings may need to be corrected at any time by philological research. But merely asserting the opposite point of view is scarcely an adequate response in the light of the present state of knowledge.
Furthermore, I myself have attempted to justify in detail my view, and give reasons for it, that the idea of the “calling” as it appeared in the form of Lutheran religiosity remained specifically different from the manifestation which the idea assumed within the “ascetic” forms of Protestantism, where it became an integral part of the capitalist “spirit.” And yet my critic holds this finding of mine, which constitutes one of the basic ideas of my essays, as an objection against what he calls my “idealistic historical interpretation,” which (he claims) seeks to derive capitalism from Luther.
Whereas (in vol. 20, p. 54 [here in this volume]) I have explicitly repudiated the “foolish” thesis that the Reformation alone could have created the capitalist spirit “or even” capitalism itself (as an economic system), by reason of the fact that important forms of capitalist business activity date from well before the Reformation—I still suffer the fate of having this absolutely indisputable fact quoted against me by my critic, who appeals to my friend Sombart. And whereas I have most unambiguously deplored any attempt to construct some “idealistic” (in vol. 21, p. 110, I wrote “spiritual” [here in this volume]) interpretation of history out of the historical configurations [Zusammenhänge] which I have described, I then find that my critic not only imputes this very interpretation to me in the remarks just quoted, but he also poses the question elsewhere whether I imagine the transformation of the Baptist ethic
to be a “logical process in the sense of Hegel.” [3] He then presents as his own view things which, at the appropriate place (vol. 21, p. 69 [here in this volume]), I myself have said clearly enough for everyone to understand. I feel not in the least guilty if he is unconvinced by the explanation I gave there (and frequently elsewhere) for the way in which the Baptist attitude to life infiltrated the “world.” It is well known, by the way, that the explanation applies also to the experience of other sects that are similar to them in this respect, for example, a number of Russian sects, which of course existed under completely different economic conditions. [4]