The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, Volume I only

By Ernst Troeltsch

Book Overview

In this landmark work, Ernst Troeltsch offers a history of Christian ethics. This expansive volume relates Christian ethical ideas to the changing structures of church and society from the period of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226812960
• ISBN13: 9780226812960
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: Midway Reprint
• Weight: 1.18 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A masterpiece

This book is a masterpiece by Ernst Troeltsch, providing a deep analysis of the evolution of the social thought and teaching of the Christian Churches. This book presents not only the historical, but also the sociological and even philosophical evolution of the social teachings of the Christian Churches, being thus a fundamental book for graduate and undergraduate students, historians, sociologists, scientists of religion and all those interested in learning about this matter.

A magisterial treatment

This book is extremely thorough, comprehensive, demanding, and rewarding. It's translated from German -- the German of prewar academia -- so approach the text with patience and fortitude. Familiarity in advance with the history of the Reformation is almost a prerequisite; try Bainton's history (short) or MacCulloch's (long).

from the back of the book

The work of one of the great minds of the twentieth century, this unsurpassed classic is more than a history of Christian ethical ideas. It comes near to being a history of the Christian era, for it relates these ideas to the changing structures of church and society, showing the mutual influences between ideas, social forces, and institutions. In a critical and creative way it has advanced the methods of theological and sociological analysis and synthesis. At the same time the work is more than a history, for it speaks to the present condition of the churches and the culture. This two-volume document is as substantial and original as anything that exists on the topic. It reaches from the period of early Christianity to the end of the eighteenth century when "the main body of Protestant civilization was founded and evolved." The extensive footnotes alone virtually amount to a liberal education.

Indespensible

I'm quite surprised to find no review of this monumental work. So, briefly: This text is INDISPENSABLE for understanding both religion in the west, but also the religious and political debates that rage across our front pages. Here you will find a key to why so many can use the same religious vocabulary to mean such different things. How "ought" the faithful live out their beliefs in relation to their neighbors and their governments? Reclusively, publicly, or leave it to the Bishops? Troeltsch illuminates the three major historical manifestations of the Christian church in the post-reformation era: the sectarian (read, "we're right, you're wrong, but leave us alone"), the Protestant (read, "mainline"), and the Roman Catholic. Of course, published in 1911, Troeltsch's work has to be understood within the context of the pre-Great War (WWI, to us) positivism, along with its contemporaries, such as James's "Varieties of Religious Experience," for example. Both are brilliant synthetic systems that attempt to give timeless frameworks for understanding their fields. And both have the grandeur, idealism, and the tragic limitations of the (post-war) League of Nations. Nevertheless, through Troeltsch we have sufficient tools to illuminate, for example, the monumental nature of the shift in American religion marked by the entry of Christian fundamentalism onto the political battlefield. Fundamentalism, a formerly sectarian expression of faith, is transformed into nothing less than a religious and political crusade by Jerry Falwell though the Moral Majority. Similarly Pat Robertson leads the formerly apolitical evangelical right into the fray. Together Falwell and Robertson engineer not only the political coup which finds its greatest success in the (re?)election of George W. Bush, but also a distinctively religious transformation (or deformation, depending on your perspective) of sectarian church and Christian faith into a political machine. It is a revolution - speaking now not of the political but of the ecclesial - eerily reminiscent of Cromwell's Republic, one whose repercussions will echo for decades to come.