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Re: IT IS! IT IS! IT'S THE INDUSTRIAL RELIGION!
David C. Larkin wrote:
> Actually, Martin Luther established a new form of Christianity that
> was based upon faith not works. The Roman Church at the time was
> teaching that salvation was by works. Martin Luther rebelled against
> that idea and taught that man is saved by grace through faith, not by
> works lest man could boast of his salvation through his works.
> Although Luther was a predestinarian, perhaps it was Calvin's doctrine
> of predestination that caused men to seek to prove that they were
> included among the saved by their industriousness. However, you have
> to consider the Enlightenment, and, as Peter Gay, Yale enlightenment
> historian calls it, the rise of paganism, not a "new Christianity"
> that really made it possible for the "industrial religion" to take
> hold.
Hi David,
It took a lot of dialog and research to try and pick the right
words here. For example, if Luther established "Protestantism",
and Protestantism ultimately came to be based upon works, etc.
Here are the references from my web site which I did not post:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Willis Harman, GLOBAL MIND CHANGE;
Knowledge Systems, 1988 ISBN 0-941705-05-6
"Nicolas Copernicus established mathematically that the Earth
moves around the sun in On the Revolution of the Celestial
Spheres" [p. 5]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lewis Mumford, THE PENTAGON OF POWER
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1964 ISBN 0-15-671610-0
"If there is any one point at which one may say the modern
world picture was first conceived as the expression of a new
religion and the basis of a new power system, it was in the
fifth decade of the sixteenth century." [p. 29]
". . . it was by such close observation of planetary movements,
as well as by tedious mathematical calculation, that Tycho
Brahe confirmed Copernicus' conclusions and made possible
Kepler's final correction." [p. 31]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I. Bernard Cohen, THE BIRTH OF A NEW PHYSICS;
Norton, 1985 ISBN 0-393-30045-5
"There were only two possibilities open: One was to refuse
to look through the telescope or to refuse to accept what one
saw when one did; the other was to reject the physics of
Aristotle and the old geocentric astronomy of Ptolemy." [p. 78]
"In the contrast between Galileo's heroic stand when he tried
to reform the cosmological basis of orthodox theology and his
humbled, kneeling surrender when he disavowed his
Copernicansim, we may sense the tremendous forces attendant
on the birth of modern science." [p. 126]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thomas Kuhn, THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION;
Harvard University Press, 1957 ISBN 0-674-17103-9
"But for whatever the reasons, the Church did, in 1616, make
Copernicanism a doctrinal issue, and all the worst excesses of
the battle against the earth's motion -- the condemnation of
Copernican opinions, the recantation and 'imprisonment' of
Galileo, and the dismissal and banishment of prominent
Catholic Copernicans -- occurred in or after that year." [p. 199]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Erich Fromm, TO HAVE OR TO BE;
Bantam, 1977 ISBN 0-553-27485-6
"Luther established a purely patriarchal form of Christianity
in Northern Europe that was based on the urban middle class
and the secular princes. The essence of this new social
character is submission under patriarchal authority, with
work as the only way to obtain love and approval.
[See reviewer's comments on Luther below.]
"Behind the Christian facade arose a new secret religion,
'industrial religion,' that is rooted in the character
structure of modern society, but is not recognized as
'religion.' The industrial religion is incompatible with
genuine Christianity. It reduces people to servants of the
economy and of the machinery that their own hands build.
"The industrial religion had its basis in a new social
character. Its center was fear of and submission to powerful
male authorities, cultivation of the sense of guilt for
disobedience, dissolution of the bonds of human solidarity by
the supremacy of self-interest and mutual antagonism. The
'sacred' in industrial religion was work, property, profit,
power, even though it furthered individualism and freedom
within the limits of its general principles. By transforming
Christianity into a strictly patriarchal religion it was
still possible to express the industrial religion in
Christian terminology." [p.p. 131-132]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Max Weber, THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM
Routledge, 1992 ISBN 0-415-08434-2
"[Capitalism] is associated with an outlook of a very specific
kind: the continual accumulation of wealth for its own sake,
rather that for the material rewards that it can serve
to bring. 'Man is dominated by the making of money, by
acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic
acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means
for satisfaction of his material needs.' This according to
Weber, is the essence of the spirit of modern capitalism."
"The entrepreneurs associated with the development of rational
capitalism combine the impulse to accumulation with a
positively frugal life-style. Weber finds the answer in
the 'this-worldly asceticism' of Puritanism, as focused
through the concept of 'calling'. The notion of the calling,
according to Weber, did not exist either in Antiquity or in
Catholic theology; it was introduced by the Reformation."
[p. xii]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
REVIEWER'S COMMENTS ON LUTHER:
Luther taught a very strong concept of "calling," but not
quite in the same way as the Puritans. For Luther, calling
meant that all professions were equal in the sight of God,
and that God was as glorified through a candlemaker creating
high quality candles as he was through a priest or monk. His
focus was breaking down the clergy/laity distinction in
medieval Catholicism for a doctrine he called the "priesthood
of all believers".
The creation of a merchant class and the later Industrial
Revolution led to what Weber is talking about. The Puritans
took this concept of calling and eventually concluded that
since good Christians worked hard for the glory of God, good
Christians were wealthy Christians. Therefore, wealth was a
sign of God's favor. John Wesley (who was actually an
Arminian Methodist rather than a Calvinist, but he fits in
with Weber's thesis very well) realized that if people
followed the Methodist spiritual practice of hard work and
thrift, they would soon become very wealthy. This worried
him greatly, and he always exhorted his followers to "Make
all you can, save all you can, so that you can give all you
can." Wesley himself lived by this rule and died poor,
though he made a considerable amount of wealth in his
lifetime. His followers, unfortunately, conveniently forgot
about this point. "Russ Reeves" <russr@pe.net>
References: