Sociology of Religion is a 1920 book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

 by Max Weber

Max Weber

Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...

, a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 economist

Economist

An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

 and sociologist. The original edition was in German.

Max Weber studied the effects of religious action and inaction. Instead of viewing religion as an "opiate of the people

Opium of the People

"Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original, "Die Religion .....

," or as a method of promoting a moral society, Weber simply categorized different religions in order to fully understand religion's subjective meaning to the individual (Verstehen

Verstehen

Verstehen is an ordinary German word with exactly the same meaning as the English word "understand". However, since the late 19th century in the context of German philosophy and social sciences, it has also been used in the special sense of "interpretive or participatory examination" of social...

).

By viewing religion strictly in the scientific sense, Weber was striving for objectivity, attempting to ignore value judgments, and to understand religion as those human responses that give meaning to the inescapable problems of existence, such as birth, death, illness, aging, injustice, tragedy, and suffering. In The Sociology of Religion, Weber proposes that people pursue their own goals, and that religion facilitates that. He shows how early religious beliefs stem from the work of skillful, charismatic individuals, and how their actions are eventually transformed into a systematic, church-based religion - in other words, how religion begins with charismatic authority

Charismatic authority

The sociologist Max Weber defined charismatic authority as "resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him." Charismatic authority is one of three forms of authority laid out...

 and is transformed into traditional authority

Traditional authority

Traditional authority is a form of leadership in which the authority of an organization or a ruling regime is largely tied to tradition or custom...

.

Because religion enables people to pursue their interests, Weber believed that religion actually gave rise to the spread of modern capitalism

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

, as he asserted in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a book written by Max Weber, a German sociologist, economist, and politician. Begun as a series of essays, the original German text was composed in 1904 and 1905, and was translated into English for the first time by Talcott Parsons in 1930...

. This writing illustrated the way in which religious beliefs steered the direction of the economic and technological forces that were already in motion.

Max Weber takes an objective, distant view of the sociological traditions of the institution of religion. He is standing on the outside, looking in, contrary to the believers whose journey of faith causes them to examine their religion from within. This detached, dispassionate view of religion embodies the objectivist, modernist practice of the sociological perspective of religion today.

(A) Origins of Religion

1) Primordial Notions Of Religion

a) Viewpoint

b) This-worldly Orientation

c) Magic

d) Charisma

e) Belief in Spirits

f) Ecstasy and Orgy

g) Soul and Supernatural Power

2) Symbolism

a) Fear of Soul

b) Displacement of Naturalism

c) Spread of Symbolism

d) Stereotyping Effect

e) Transitions

f) Mythological Analogy

3) Concepts Of God

a) Enduring Being

b) Pantheon

c) Roman Gods

d) Gods of Economy

e) Earthly and Heavenly Gods

f) Specialization of Gods

g) Gods of Household

h) Political God

1) God of Israel

2) Local God and Foreign God

3) City-state God

4) Bands and God

i) Monotheism

1) Primary God

2) Divine Order

3) Universalism

(B) Emergence of Religion

1) Religion And God

a) Coercion of God

b) Worship Of God

1) Prayer

2) Sacrifice

c) Definition Of Religion

2) Priest

a) Cult

b) Enterprise

c) Doctrine

d) Sociological Definition

3) Development Of The Notion Of Supernatural

a) Demonstration Of Power

b) Attribute of Failure

c) Differentiation of Supernatural

d) Ethical God

e) Divination

f) God of Law

g) Impersonal Powers

4) Development Of Religious Ethic

a) Taboo

b) Totemism

c) Table-Community

d) Taboo and Social Intercourse

e) Caste Ethic

f) Concept of Sin

g) Religious Ethic

h) Systematization of Ethic

(C) Prophet

1) Definition

a) Priest And Prophet

b) Magician And Prophet

c) Prophetic Age

d) Lawgiver and Prophet

1) Moses

e) Prophet and Social Policy

f) Tyrant and Prophet

g) Ethic Teacher and Prophet

1) Guru

h) Philosopher

i) Reformer

j) Mystery Cultist

2) Natures Of Prophecy

a) Ethical and Exemplary Prophecy

b) God and Prophets

1) God as Rainmaker

2) Gods of Near East

c) Prophetic Revelation

(D) Religious Community

1) Origins Of Religious Community

a) Prophetic Community

b) Cultic Community

c) Exemplary Community and Lay Devotee

d) Occasional Lay Society

e) Lay Community

f) Parish and Sect

2) Development Of Religious Community

a) Prophet vs. Priest

b) Scripture

1) Oral Tradition

2) Canonization

3) Priestly Education

c) Development of Dogma

1) Religious Community

2) Priest's Interests

3) Conditions in World Religions

4) Christian Dogma

5) Dogma in Other Religions

d) Preaching and Pastoral Care

e) Priestly Rationalization of Ethic

f) Magicalization of Priestly Religion

g) Popularization of Prophetic Religion

(E) Religiosity of Social Strata

1) Peasant

a) Ancient Israel

b) Passivity of Peasant

c) Zoroastrianism

d) Judaism

e) Christianity

2) Warrior Aristocrats

a) Warrior's Conduct of Life

b) Prophecy and Warrior

c) Holy War

d) Mithraism

3) Bureaucrats

a) Confucianism

4) Citizen

a) Wealthy Citizen

b) Middle-Class

c) Petty-Citizen

d) Christianity

e) Occident and Oriental City

f) Rationality of Citizen's Life

g) Development of Citizenry Rationalism

5) Slave And Propertyless

6) Mass Religiosity: Magic And Savior

7) Women And Religion

8) Social Strata And Sense Of Dignity

a) Legitimacy of Fortunate

b) Compensation of Disprivileged

9) Pariah Status

a) Jews and Hindu Castes

b) Jewish Resentment

c) Theodicy of Disprivilege

1) Jewish Theodicy

2) Jesus's Teaching

3) Buddhist Doctrine

(F) Intellectualism and Religion

1) Privileged Intellectualism

a) Priest

b) Privileged Lay Intellectuals

2) Intellectual Salvation

a) Social Conditions

b) Asia

c) Near East and West

d) Intellectual Characters

3) Non-privileged Intellectualism

a) Pariah And Petty-citizen Intellectualism

b) Ancient Judaism

4) Intellectualism And Christianity

a) Paul's Petty-citizen Intellectualism

b) Dogmatic Intellectualism

c) Anti-intellectualism of Christianity

1) Carriers of Religion

d) Intellectualism in Medieval Christianity

e) Humanist Intellectualism

f) Puritan Intellectualism

5) Modern Intellectualism

a) Anglo-Saxon and Latin Intellectualism

b) German Intellectualism

c) Socialism

d) Russian Intellectualism

e) Enlightenment Intellectualism

(G) Theodicy and Salvation

1) Theodicy

a) Transcendental Creator

b) Problem Of Theodicy

c) Advent Solution

d) Concept of Other World

e) Solution by Predestination

f) Providence

g) Solution by Dualism

h) Solution by Karma

2) Salvation And Rebirth

a) Promise of Wealth

b) Political Salvation

c) Salvation from Evil

d) Other-worldly Salvation

e) Salvation and Conduct of Life

f) Sanctification and Rebirth

3) Salvation By Ritual

a) Ritual Mood

b) Ritual Mysticism

c) Sacrament

d) Confessional

e) Puritan Rites

f) Jewish Ritualism

4) Salvation By Good Works

a) Account for Every Action

b) Total Personality

5) Salvation By Self-perfection

a) Animistic Methodology

b) Induction of Ecstasy

c) Development of Methodology

1) Transcendental God

2) States of Sanctification

3) Indian Methodology

4) Catholicism and Confucianism

5) Certainty of Salvation

6) Rationalization of Methodology

d) Religious Virtuosi

(H) Asceticism and Mysticism

1) Asceticism

a) Definition

b) World-rejection

c) Inner-worldly Asceticism

2) Mysticism

a) Mystical Illumination

b) Flight from the World

c) Mystical Union

d) Concentration upon Truth

e) Container vs. Instrument

f) Brokenness vs. Vocation

g) Anomie vs. Reformation

h) Mystic Love

3) Oriental Vs. Occidental Salvation

a) Concept of Divine

b) Knowledge vs. Action

c) Roman Law

d) Roman Rulership

e) Roman Church

f) Ascetic Protestantism

(I) Salvation by Other's Achievement

1) Salvation By Grace

a) Savior

b) Doctrines of Savior

c) Incarnation

d) Sacramental Grace

e) Institutional Grace

f) Catholic Institution

g) Dispensation and Conduct of Life

h) Confessional and Conduct of Life

i) Judaism and Ascetic Protestantism

j) Institutional Authority

2) Salvation By Faith

a) Faith and Magic

b) Faith of Islam and Judaism

c) Non-prophetic Faith

d) Dogmatic Faith

e) Explicit and Implicit Faith

f) Faith of Heart

g) Aristocracy of Dogma

h) Virtuoso of Faith

i) Faith and Intellect

j) Faith and Mysticism

k) Faith and Ethic

l) Idea of Vocation

m) Lutheran Faith

n) Faith and Carriers

o) Emotional Faith

3) Salvation By Predestination

a) Men of Predestination

b) Power of Predestination

c) Islamic vs. Puritan Predestination

d) Chinese Destiny

e) Aristocracy of Predestination

f) This-worldly Determinism

(J) Religious Ethics and the World

1) Internalization Of Religious Ethic

a) Ritualistic Religion

b) Ethic of Heart

2) Religious Ethic And Economics

a) Religious vs. Family Ethic

b) Religious vs. Neighborly Ethic

c) Alms-Giving

d) Protection of Weak

e) Religious Antipathy to Usury

f) Antipathy to Rational Economy

g) Economic Credit and Religion

h) Asceticism vs. Economy

i) Catholic Economic Life

j) Protestant Asceticism

3) Religious Ethics And Politics

a) Conditions of Religion and Politics

1) Ancient Political Religion

2) Rise of Religious Community

3) Religious Rejection of Politics

b) Tension between Religion And Politics

1) Absence of Conflict

2) Quaker Experiment

3) Political Indifference

4) Justifications of Violence

c) State and Christianity

1) Early Christianity

2) Medieval Christianity

d) Solution by Organic Ethic

1) Catholic Organic Ethic

2) Islamic Viewpoint

3) Indian Organic Ethic

4) Medieval Traditionalism of Vocation

e) Moder State and Religion

4) Religious Ethics And Sexuality

a) Sexual Orgy

b) Religious Hostility to Sexuality

c) Religious Regulation of Sexuality

d) Woman and Religion

e) Marriage

f) Rise of Eroticism

5) Religious Ethic And Art

a) Initial Intimacy between Religion and Art

b) Rise of Esthetic Intellectualism

c) Prophetic Antipathy of Art

d) Religious Interests in Art

e) Rational Religion's Rejection of Art

(K) Religions and the World

1) Judaism: World-accommodated

a) Absence of Asceticism

b) Jewish Economic Ethos

c) Double Standards of Morals

d) Jew, Catholic, and Puritan

e) Jewish Intellectualism

1) Jewish Ideal

2) Jesus' Opposition

3) Urban Judaism

f) Self-control

g) Jewish Rationalism

h) Lack of Asceticism

i) Paul's Breakthrough

j) Puritanism and Judaism

2) Islam: This-worldliness

a) Political Religion

b) No Salvation

c) Feudal Ethic

d) Contrast to Judaism and Christianity

3) Buddhism: World-rejection

a) Genuine Religion of Salvation

b) Transformation of Buddhism

4) Capitalism And Religion

5) Jesus: World-indifference

a) Jesus's Self-Consciousness

b) Salvational Heroism

c) Indifference to World

External links

• Online ebook of Sociology of Religion
• Max Weber's Approach to Religion