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The Weber Thesis

The Weber Thesis

Ryan Schram

Mills 169 (A26)

ryan.schram@sydney.edu.au

April 2, 2015

Available at http://anthro.rschram.org/2667/5

Readings

Haynes, Naomi. 2012. “Pentecostalism and the Morality of Money: Prosperity, Inequality, and Religious Sociality on the Zambian Copperbelt.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 18 (1): 123–39. doi:10.1111/j.1467–9655.2011.01734.x.

Robbins, J. 1998. “Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Desire among the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea.” Ethnology 37 (4): 299–316. doi:10.2307/3773784.

Robbins, Joel. 2001. “God Is Nothing but Talk: Modernity, Language, and Prayer in a Papua New Guinea Society.” American Anthropologist, New Series, 103 (4): 901–12.

Cannell, Fenella. 2005. “The Christianity of Anthropology*.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 11 (2): 335–56. doi:10.1111/j.1467–9655.2005.00239.x.

Other media

DuBois, Bastien. 2013. “Cargo Cult” (Trailer). https://vimeo.com/62094392.

Weber's four types of religion

  • Other-worldly mysticism: Dissociation, trance, ecstasy, loss of ego.
  • Worldly mysticism: Contemplation, healing, gnosis (wisdom), discovery of the secret order of the world.
  • Other-worldly asceticism: Renunciation or abandonment, Buddhism, Christian hermits, Hindu sannyasin.
  • Worldly asceticism: Self-discipline, control: Calvinism.

These are ideal types and as such no real religions fit perfectly in any of these.

A question for this week is where do you put Pentecostalism, and why?

A persisting question

We understand that Durkheim and Weber complement each other, but we are still stuck with a nagging question. Aren't some religions more appropriately understood from the point of view of an individual? What, in general, is the relationship between the individual side of religious belief and practice and the social or collective side?

Individualism and society

I want to take as given that some societies exhibit individualism as a chief value. Relationships and groups are ideally based on choice. People create their own paths in life.

By contrast other societies exhibit a different orientation. Societies based on all-encompassing social institutions such as kinship structure and hereditary leadership, for instance, tend to place obligations to the group over individual choice.

This does not mean that some societies are more free or have looser structures, or that other societies are more oppressive. Each type of society is based on different values. None are necessarily more or less oppressive.

The rationality of salvation

The Weber thesis is that the development of an ascetic form of Protestant Christianity spurred the development of market exchange and capitalist production. This is presented in his famous book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905).

The Protestant Ethic

Calvin teaches that salvation is for the elect. There's nothing you can do to earn salvation.

What you do with your life has nothing to do with your relationship to God.

If you were successful, it was a sign that you were in the elect. Wealth is not valuable for its own sake.

A person should follow one's “calling” as a duty to God.

The means of earning a living (a calling) are separate from the ends (a living, wealth and success). Thus if one is wealthy, one can be deatched from this wealth and deal with objectively.

The disenchantment of the world

Protestant reformers condemned people for being consumed with worldliness: being greedy and venal. Greed is bad.

Because their philosophy was based on a new way of thinking of the person as an individual, they actually paved the way for disembedding the economy from social relationships.

More generally, Weber claims that the Protestant calling paved the way for greater institutional specialization, like the separation of society and economy, of politics and religion. People are no longer defined by what they do. Who they are in essence is distinct from their livelihood and their practical circumstances. So you can be rich and still be a good, moral person. You can order evictions, but still be a decent individual.

Also, this new kind of 'worldly asceticism' led to people splitting off supernatural forces from the material world. This is also called the disenchantment of the world. If you believe in God or angels, that's a personal matter. All other secular social institutions are now based on the assumption that there is no magic in the world.

This is also generally speaking what Weber means by rationalization. He does not mean that religious thought is irrational, but that certain kinds of religious ethics have led to a more rational (formalized and specialized) organization of social life.

Analysis and interpretation

Erklaren: Analysis. Identifying which facts belong to which ideal categories.

Verstehen: Understanding. Putting the pieces back together to understand how something looks from the individual's point of view.

Weber is never simply labeling or defining things. He also wants to draw out a more general story or interpretive understanding of society as a process.

Pentecostalism

Origins

The Asuza Street Revival, led by William Seymour, 1906-1909:

Men and women would shout, weep, dance, fall into trances, speak and sing in tongues, and interpret their messages into English. In true Quaker fashion, anyone who felt "moved by the Spirit" would preach or sing. There was no robed choir, no hymnals, no order of services, but there was an abundance of religious enthusiasm. (Synan 1997: 98)

How it differs from other holiness churches

  • The receipt of Pentecost, or a baptism of the Spirit.
  • Very loose organization, and very egalitarian. Anyone can preach or minister.
  • Many small churches, often completely independent, communicating through various media.
  • Use of mass media, including films, radio and television, from very early on.

The global movement

  • Spreads through grass-roots networks.
  • Paradoxically both world-making and world-breaking (Robbins 2004).

Christianity across cultures

Do Christian converts adopt a new culture when they convert to a foreign religion?

Is Christianity inherently individualistic because of its basis in 'faith'? Is this what Weber meant by rationalization.

References

Robbins, Joel. 2004. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (1): 117–43. doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.32.061002.093421.

Synan, Vinson. 1997. The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.

A guide to the unit

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