The Christian Front Against Godlessness: Anti-Secularism and the Demise of the Weimar Republic, 1928–1933: Table 1

Weir, Todd H.

doi:10.1093/pastj/gtv035

Cited by 70 publications

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“…In this description it is hard not to discern an ideological component, and a conceptual history reveals the common origins of secularisation and secularism in Christendom itself (Lübbe 2003;Quack 2017. See also Asad 2003 andWeir 2015). Notwithstanding extensive attention to trying to define the different concepts, the two are easily conflated.…”

Section: Religious Diversity In Europe: Different Narratives and Inte...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Diversity in Europe

2022

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Section: Religious Diversity In Europe: Different Narratives and Inte...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Diversity in Europe

2022

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“…1 For the picture of the tensions in Weimar Germany due to religious divisions, see the sociological-historical summary of Todd H. Weir (Weir 2015). He depicted intrareligious battles, but also a campaign against secularism, which helped Hitler come to power.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Marrano Phenomenon

2019

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x xi to engage in religious thinking which would not be bound or wholly determined by the dogmas of any orthodoxy. More than that, as a truly liberated theological speculation, it often goes against the rigid law of the tradition-and thus becomes antinomian. The fascination with which so many 20th century diasporic Jews approached the 'Marrano theology' as a living hypothesis is mostly indebted to Gershom Scholem's not purely historical work devoted to presenting it as a still actual phenomenon within the Jewish world. Thanks to Scholem, the Marrano idea acquired a rich symbolic potential, linked to the messianic ferment of the Sabbatians, of whom, as Scholem has shown, a large number were Marranos. The most famous of xii them, Abraham Miguel Cardozo, wrote an entire treatise, "Magen Abraham (The Shield of Abraham)", devoted to the messianic significance of Marranism, in which the seeming vice of secrecy cunningly turns into a virtue of deeper truth. For, says Cardozo, the true faith can only be hidden.The Marrano rule, therefore, reads: only what is concealed can be an authentic faith; what becomes positively revealed is nothing but an official religion. Hence, the real faith needs to protect its subversive-antinomian character by avoiding open pronouncement and articulation. It was thus mostly due to this Marrano influence that Sabbatai Zwi's conversion to Islam became almost immediately interpreted as an act of free will, demonstrating that only 'hidden faith' can be genuine: inner, unconcerned, and unhindered by official norms and religious institutions. Cardozo believed the Marranos to be the truly chosen people, 'the righteous remnant of a true Israel', destined to save the world and spread the divine message through all the nations by subverting their pagan institutions from within. Sabbatai, therefore, not only followed the way of those reflexive Marranos, but also justified it and showed its deeper spiritual meaning; now, to convert to Christianity or Islam meant to be able to expand the messianic practice of 'lifting the sparks' from the realm of kelipot, the 'broken vessels', and to penetrate the darkest regions of the created world (such as Islam or Roman-Catholic 'Edom'). To choose faith in a hidden way meant a deliberate effort to keep the antinomian impulse opposed to all oppressive laws of this world, both secular and religious, from contamination with a fallen reality; to maintain it in a form of a hovering 'specter', distanced from any direct positive realization. It is precisely here that the 'hidden tradition' loses all persecutory and negative aspects of deficiency and becomes a positive mode of living, believing, and thinking.Yet, as I have already indicated, the true contemporary champion of the Marrano strategy, cunningly playing with the 'revealment and concealment' of the secret antinomian specter, is Jacques Derrida. Derrida performs his Marrano identification, but, being a 'true' Marrano (which, as Scholem rightly observes, is a paradox in itself), he never-or very rarely-talks about i...

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“…As Todd Weir has recently argued, the antisecularism that was at the heart of such a Kulturkampf might even have contributed to the rise of National Socialism in Germany, for the latter's positioning as anti-secularists drove conservative Protestants, and to a more limited extent Catholics, to seek alliances with National Socialism. 89 In Germany, then, the relationship between religion and socialism remained fraught with contradictions and idiosyncrasies in the interwar period, even if there was a discernible rapprochement. What about the situation in Britain?…”

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Difficult (Re-)Alignments – Comparative Perspectives on Social Democracy and Religion from Late-nineteenth century to Interwar Germany and Britain

Berger

2018

Journal of Contemporary History

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The attitudes of British and German socialists vis-a-vis religion before the First World War has been described by one of the most eminent scholars in the field of the history of religion, Hugh McLeod, as being diametrically opposed – German socialists were largely secular, irreligious and anti-clerical whereas within British socialism, Christianity, especially dissenting Protestantism, was a far more important streak. In this article I would like to modulate the stark contrast contained in this commonly held view by looking at a slightly different time frame than McLeod, and by emphasizing more the ambiguities and uncertainties of that relationship between socialism and religion in both countries. It shall be argued that a longer-term positive relationship between religion and socialism in Britain can be juxtaposed with a rapprochement between the forces of religion and socialism in interwar Germany. Hence the article will provide a cross-country diachronic comparison of the relationship between religion and socialism in Britain and Germany. It will highlight, in particular, a common utopianism of religion and socialism, that could also be called utopianism of the social ethics of the Sermon on the Mount; attempts to forge socialism as new religion shall be examined on the subsequent pages.

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The Christian Front Against Godlessness: Anti-Secularism and the Demise of the Weimar Republic, 1928–1933: Table 1

Cited by 70 publications

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Religious Diversity in Europe

Religious Diversity in Europe

The Marrano Phenomenon

Difficult (Re-)Alignments – Comparative Perspectives on Social Democracy and Religion from Late-nineteenth century to Interwar Germany and Britain

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