Werner Stark - The Sociology of Religion, Part 4: A Study of Christendom

The International Library of Sociology

THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

The International Library of Sociology

THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION

In 8 Volumes

First Published in 1969

by Routledge

Reprinted in 1998, 2000, 2002

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1969 Routledge

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Sociology of Religion: Part Four - Types of Religious Man

ISBN 0-415-17543-7

The Sociology of Religion: 8 Volumes

ISBN 0-415-17823-1

The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes

ISBN 0-415-17828-X

Publishers Note

The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

The first three volumes of the present work were concerned with the external relationships of religious communities, i.e. their relationships to the inclusive societies which surround and contain them. With this fourth volume, our investigation enters a new field, and we have formally marked the fact that we are crossing a borderline by prefixing to our text a new and appropriate motto. It indicates the problem area with which we shall have to deal now: it is the inner life of religious communities, or, speaking more professionally, the specific roles which in their interplay constitute these communities and provide the forms within which their vital processes can unfold, continue and develop towards greater maturity.

It is one of the disadvantages of a work like the present which comprises several volumes and appears over a number of years that the reader has sometimes to wait a while for the discussion of a topic which particularly interests him. A review of our first volume, for instance, complained bitterly that (besides a host of other subjects) the authority structure within religious institutions was an issue scarcely raised. It was not, in fact, scarcely raised, it was not raised at all; nor should it have been. To a systematic scholar, there is a proper place and time for everything. The authority structure (to retain an ugly term) in and of those religious organizations which we normally describe as churches belongs to their constituent internal, not to their limiting external, realities. It should not have been touched before; it is thoroughly investigated here.

Even this volume will not yet present all the considerations which are usually thought to belong to the specialty known as the sociology of religion. If the reviewer whom we have just mentioned found it odd that there was no discussion of the secularization of the universal church in volume III, he will miss it also in volume IV; but he will get it in volume V, right at the end of our analysis, and there it will be where it ought to be, for logic demands that we should first speak of the rise, and of the emergent characteristics, of the social embodiments of the Christian religion before we discuss the difficulties which relatively recent developments have created for them.

In the preface to volume I, I expressed the conviction that my text would arouse a good deal of hostile criticism due to divergencies of religious opinion, and this expectation was to some extent borne out by subsequent reactions. Yet only to some extent. The welcome which my books received in such publications as the Anglican journal, Theology, the Baptist Times and the Methodist Recorder, not to speak of others, is reassuring proof of the fact that fruitful and irenic discussions are possible among men of good will, whatever their personal backgrounds and commitments. So far as the present volume is concerned, religious prejudice is in all probability going to be less in evidence than before, for we have found the truly dominant churches to be comparable, if not similar, in structure; all the more likely is it that anti-religious prejudice will raise its head. Both classical protagonists of the sociology of religion, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, were confirmed unbelievers, and Weber in particular has started a tradition which highly successful because of its compatibility with deep-seated intellectualist conceptions and convictions has led to a rather negative assessment of the whole phenomenon of religiosity. The sacraments, for instance, are to Weber merely evidence for the survival of magical ideas and practices, bits of savagery left over in our civilized world. It is hardly possible that such a hostile attitude should lead to a due appreciation of the life of faith, personal or collective; it is almost unavoidable that it should lead to its undue depreciation. When, not so long ago, a certain university discussed the establishment of a department of social anthropology, an old professor was heard to mutter: Why do they study those nasty customs? Why dont they simply wait until they die out? That man would assuredly not have made a good social anthropologist. If my respectful attitude to the phenomena of religion should draw fire from certain circles, this is as it ought to be. Their bullets will neither hurt nor wound.

The friends who have been with me on my earlier journeys of exploration are with me still, as I am happy to record. Dr. Madeline H. Engel has continued to look after my English; Fathers Edwin A. Quain, S.J., and Robert J. McNamara, S.J., have once again read my manuscript and given me their reactions to it; and, of course, my wife has stood by me all through my recent labours. I have had an enlightening correspondence on some points of the Scottish tradition with Dr. John Highet, the Rev. Mr. Johnston R. McKay and the Rev. Mr. Andrew Herron. I want to assure all of them that I appreciate their kindness. Part of the preliminary research on volume IV was done in the University Library at Freiburg i. Breisgau; a grant from the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia enabled me to work there. For this material support, too, I am duly grateful.