Chapter 50 Part Two Results Chapter 12 Ideology: Religion 3

3 From a purely religious point of view, we must consider the period in this book as a whole.During this period, increasing secularization and (European) religious apathy resisted religious revival movements in the most uncompromising, irrational, and emotionally appealing ways.If Paine represents one end of the spectrum, Miller, an Adventist, represents the other.The atheist mechanical materialism openly revealed by the German philosopher Feuerbach (Feuerbach, 1804-1872) confronted the anti-intellectual youth of the "Oxford Movement" in the 1830s, who tried their best to imitate the early medieval saints. They argued that the relevant literature records were all correct.

But this return to old religions worked in three different ways.For the masses, this return was primarily a means to cope with the increasingly inhumane exploitation of society under middle-class liberal control.In Marx's words (though he was not the only one to use them), it was "the sigh of the oppressed soul, the emotion of a heartless world . . . the opium of the people." society, even educational and political institutions, in an environment not provided; and to teach the politically uncivilized peoples to express their grievances and desires in primitive ways.Its strict writing, emphasizing emotion and superstitious worship are not only against the overall society dominated by reason, but also against the upper class who destroy religion with their own imagination.

For the middle class rising from such masses, religion plays a strong moral pillar, which not only confirms their social status, fends off the contempt and hatred from traditional society, but also provides them with the impetus to expand and develop .It also liberates them from the shackles of society if they belong to a particular sect.Religion can clothe their pursuit of profit with a moral cloak, making them appear greater than self-interested people; religion can also legitimize their harsh attitude towards the oppressed; Savage, bringing sales to commerce. For monarchs, nobles, and indeed all those at the top of the social pyramid, religion guaranteed social stability.They had learned from the French Revolution that the Church was the strongest support of the crown.Devout and uncultured peoples, such as the Southern Italians, Spaniards, Tyroleans, and Russians, have risen in arms, supported and sometimes even led by priests, to defend their churches and rulers against outsiders , heretics and revolutionaries.A devout and uneducated people would be content to live in poverty, to which God had called them, to live a life of simplicity, morality, order, and freedom from the strife of reason, under a ruler whom Providence had appointed for them. destructive effects.For conservative governments after 1815 - what government in Continental Europe is not? —Fostering religious sentiments and supporting the church was as integral a part of government policy as maintaining the police and press censorship, since priests, police and censors were the three pillars of opposition to the revolution at the time.

For most recognized governments, it was enough that Jacobinism threatened kingship and the church protected them.But for a group of romantic intellectuals and visionaries, the alliance of kingship and altar had a deeper meaning: it preserved an old, organic, living society against reason and freedom. and the individual finds this alliance a more suitable means of expressing his own wretchedness than any rationalist can offer.In France and England, a similar defense of the union of kingship and altar was of little political value.The same is true of romantic pursuits of tragic, personal religion. (At that time, Kierkegaard [Dane Soren kierkegaard, 1813-1885] was the most important representative who explored the mysteries of the human mind. He was born in a small country, and only a few contemporaries noticed him. A posthumous affair.) But in the reactionary bastions of monarchy in Germany and Russia, romantic and reactionary intellectuals played some political role as civil servants and drafters of manifestoes.And where the monarchs themselves were often prone to insanity (such as Alexander I of Russia and William IV of Prussia), they acted as personal advisors.But, on the whole, Genz and Muller (Adam Muller) and his ilk are just small people, and the medieval legacy in their beliefs (Metternich did not believe in this kind) is only a short-lived traditionalism, heralding The police and censors on whom the king depended were at hand.The strength of the Holy Alliance of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, which was to maintain order in Europe after 1815, did not lie in the crusading mysticism in name only, but in the determination to suppress any rebel movement with the armies of Russia, Prussia, and Austria.What is more, truly conservative governments tend to distrust intellectuals and thinkers, even if they are reactionary, because once they accept principles of thinking rather than obeying them, the end of government is near.As Genz (Metternich's secretary) wrote to Müller in 1819:

I will continue to defend the following: "To keep the publishing industry from being abused, nothing should be printed in the years to come. Full stop." If this principle could be applied in a coercive manner, there would be very few exceptions With the permission of the most wise higher courts, we shall, in a short time, find that we have returned to the way of God and truth. While illiberal thinkers had little political influence, they exerted considerable religious appeal, as their return to the sacred past led to a marked revival of Roman Catholicism among the sensitive youth of the upper classes.Wasn't Protestantism itself the immediate forerunner of individualism, rationalism, and liberalism?If a truly religious society could in itself cure the ills of the nineteenth century, would there be any other than a purely Catholic society like the Christian Middle Ages? (In Russia, a purely Christian society of the Orthodox style still flourishes, but the same current is less toward the clean grandeur of the past and more toward the present, infinitely esoteric mysticism of the Orthodox Church.) As usual , Genz expresses the appeal of Catholicism with a clarity not befitting the subject:

Protestantism is the first, true, and only source of all evils under the weight of which we groan today.We could and should have condoned it had it confined itself to reasoning, for the individuality of reasoning and argument is rooted in the very nature of human beings.But as soon as the government agrees to accept Protestantism as a legitimate form of religion, as a manifestation of Christianity, as a human right; as soon as the government . . . If the higher authorities grant them a position, then the religious, moral and political order of this world will immediately disintegrate. . . . The French Revolution, and the still more serious revolution that is about to break out in Germany, flow from this same source.

Legions of high-spirited young men thus put aside their intellectual fears and threw themselves into the outstretched arms of Rome, embracing with an unbridled enthusiasm celibacy, ascetic self-torture, the writings of early Christian writers , or simply the warm and aesthetically satisfying ecclesiastical liturgy.As one might expect, most of them came from Protestant countries: German Romantics were usually Prussians.To Anglo-Saxon readers, the 'Oxford Movement' of the 1830s is the most familiar of these phenomena, despite its British character.In England, only a few young fanatics would actually join the Church of Rome. These people express the most ignorant and reactionary spirit of the university. The most influential figure among them should be the brilliant Newman (J.H.Newman, 1801-1890) .Others found an expedient comfort in the Church of England as "ritualists," whom they claimed to be the true Catholic Church, and who, to the great dismay of "low" and "vulgar" monks, To their horror, they also tried to adorn it with vestments, incense, and other Catholic abominations.For those traditional Catholic aristocratic and gentleman families with religion as their family emblem, and for Irish immigrant laborers who are increasingly becoming the main body of British Catholicism, these new converts make them do not know what to do; Not exactly taken seriously by cautious and realistic Vatican Church officials.However, since they came from good families, and conversions of the upper class might lead to conversions of the lower classes, they were still popular with the Church.

Yet even within organized religion—at least within religions such as Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism—liberal gravediggers are still at work.Among the Roman Church, their main battlefield was France, and the most important figure was Ramene.His successful transition from romantic conservatism to the revolutionary ideal of the people brought him closer to socialism.Lamenet's Paroles d'un Croyant (1834) caused an uproar in government offices, because they hardly expected that such a reliable defender of the existing system as the Catholic Church would be behind their backs. Put a knife on it.Ramene was quickly declared guilty by Rome.However, liberal Catholicism survived in France.The country has always been willing to accommodate a slightly different sect from the Church of Rome.In Italy, the powerful revolutionary torrent of the 1830s and 1840s also swept into the vortex some Catholic thinkers, such as Rosmini and Gioberti (1801-1852), who advocated the leadership of the pope Under the establishment of a free Italy.But in any case, the body of the church is militant and increasingly anti-liberal.

Protestant minorities and denominations are naturally closer to liberalism, at least politically.To be a French Huguenot meant, in practice, to be at least a moderate liberal (Louis Philippe's Prime Minister Guizot was such a man).Churches in Protestant countries like Anglicanism and Lutheranism were more politically conservative, but their theology was clearly much less resistant to the encroachment of biblical and rationalism.The Jews were of course directly exposed to the full impact of this flood of liberalism. After all, their political and social emancipation depended on liberalism.Cultural assimilation was the goal of all emancipated Jews.In advanced countries, the most extreme people abandon their old religions for Christianity or agnosticism, like Marx's father or the poet Heine (but he discovered that just because Jews don't go to synagogue doesn't mean they're no longer Jews, at least to the outside world).The less extreme developed a diluted version of liberal Judaism.Only in the Jewish ghettos of small towns did life governed by Jewish scriptures and legal codes continue.