Changes in the general trends of religion following the unification of Germany are lucid.
Unification led to the advancement of Judaism in Germany. Gradually, Jews would become more able to advance in society and are ultimately free to move up the social ladder. In time, Jews would become symbolic for social progress and modernity.
On a different note, religion was getting questioned by the rest of society. German culture was becoming more and more secular, as religion was now officially being challenged by the beliefs and studies of science. Overall, attached to religion is the question/ concern of whether one's faith will progress.
At the same time, some individuals felt alienated from their faith. Protestant workers, for example, truly felt as if they were in a separate class (possibly because of the social divide and changes in family life).
My question is, did the liberal ideas of the revolutionaries leading up to the unification of Germany play a major role in affecting the general views and trends of religion? Or, was it just partly a result of the general conflict between the reform and the orthodoxy?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I would say that some of the liberal ideals that influenced the revolution definitely played a role in the new religious changes. I would say that the most notable in these would be the Protestants who felt they did not need to go to church. Since these liberals considered being Protestant part of being German they felt that saying German also mean protestant. That is to say that every facet of their being was Protestant and as such there was less need for formalized worship as they participated in the worship process as a part of everything they did. Now the line between this being an excuse for not going to church and religious patriotism is fine and it is hard to tell whether protestants really felt going to work, walking their dog and simply being German were enough to make one a good protestant or they were just getting content and lazy in their religion.
ReplyDeleteThe Jews of mid 1800s Germany could definitely thank the liberals for all the rights they were granted. The calls for more suffrage and equal rights were what freed Jews from the bonds they had been previously under. The liberals called for the elimination of old feudal ways, trying to get rid of all remnants of an outdated system. The suppression of the Jews had been a part of that older system and as such their liberation was taken on along with the rest of the outdated practices.
While I agree that there is a link between liberal beliefs (especially faith in science and progress) and the emergence of the Kulturkampf, I would also argue that the causes of religious strife in Germany cannot so easily be separated from one another. For example, the seemingly reactionary and obscurantist stance of the Papacy likely made it easier for liberals to depict Catholics as backwards and superstitious than if the Papacy had been embracing revolution and the advance of science.
ReplyDeleteWhile I wouldn't assert that liberalism did not have an effect on the religious beliefs of the time period, it seems to me that industrial and secular world views would play a more defined role. In the century of Darwin, and riding the wave of continual scientific advances, particularly related to atomic science near the end of the century, religion found more opposition from logically minded intellectuals. This is linked with liberalism considering academia and liberalism tended to go hand in hand in 19th century German. Recognizing this entertwinement, I merely propose that changing religious attitudes towards religion at the end of the 19th century are tied to many other factors outside the realm of German politics.
ReplyDelete