Religious Transformation in Western Society (Routledge Revivals) by Harvie Ferguson

Author:Harvie Ferguson [Ferguson, Harvie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781136821394
Google: b_irAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2010-12-15T03:39:13+00:00

CHRISTIANITY AND BOURGEOIS MORALITY

The transition from Faith to Belief was an expansive, outward movement, the objectification of an inward and incommunicable trust in God as an ideal cosmological structure symbolic of the Divine plan of salvation. The inner and hidden world of Faith was projected on to, and reflected in, the natural order of both human beings and things. The collapse of this structure of Belief, in both its cosmological and social dimensions, was inevitably viewed as a religious crisis. The underlying coherence of nature, and the firm promise of personal salvation, were simultaneously threatened. But while the cosmological crisis was resolved, in principle, by embarking upon a long-term process of secularization, the foundation of social order and the longing for Happiness clung together in a continuing religious embrace.

It was a religiosity of a new sort. Not the groundless, irrational and diffuse subjectivity of Faith, but the well ordered coherence of Morality was established as the new and radical form of inner religious life. A new ordering principle, which was itself an implicit expression of a novel cosmological vision, emerged through the systematic inculcation within individuals of self-motivating and self-controlling mechanisms. In the absence of a wholly objective structure of social relations such mechanisms had to be instilled as the universal and predictable springs of conduct. Each individual had to become aware, not so much of a complete map of the world with his or her location fixed upon it, as of generalized rules, akin to grammatical rules, which would condition their action irrespective of the particular circumstances in which people found themselves. In this way an ordered and peaceful society would be generated from a multiplicity of individuated moral acts.

The transcendental character of Belief was, thus, transformed and internalized as new, universal and unconditional Moral demands. And all hope of Happiness lay in the complete absorption of the claims of Morality. Individuals sought, thus, to consume new values, to make the generative rules of the new society part of themselves.

In this process of transformation anachronistic remains of the cosmology of Belief were attacked as ‘superstition’ and ‘magic’, and the form of religious consumption shifted. Rather than make liturgical and sacramental rites the focus of periodic contact with an ultimate value, this value became permanently present as the inner prompting of conscience. And these rites were transformed into signs of what the individual conceived to be an inexhaustible inner-obedience.

The asceticism characteristic of the Reformation and its aftermath was, then, quite unlike older Christian traditions of self-denial. It was not conceived as the exclusive and exemplary ordeal of a spiritual élite, nor, as Weber pointed out, was it expressive of a rejection of the world, It embodied, rather, a new universal principle of human self-control in relation to a ceaseless human need to act within and transform the world. In this context the underlying significance of ascetic practices changed dramatically. In Weber’s view the ascetic morality espoused by the followers of Calvin served to relieve them of the anxiety provoked by their strict adherence to a doctrine of predestination.

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