Religion and the origins of socialism

Bibliographic Data

ID23583124
AuthorsGareth Stedman Jones (0000-0002-5902-9823, The King's College, corresponding author)
Year2010
Pages171-189
Publication date2010-10-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeCHAPTER
VenueReligion and the Political Imagination (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/cbo9780511779510.009
OpenAlexW1466806872
ISBN9780511779510
LanguageEN
Citations received11

Socialism has rarely if ever been treated as part of the religious history of Europe and the wider world. Through most of the twentieth century, political and intellectual historians, particularly those writing about the modern period, tended to leave the study of religion to sociologists and psychologists. In the face of philosophical criticism, scientific advance and large-scale social change, religious mentalities and beliefs, it was assumed, were receding. Socialism, it was thought, belonged to that cluster of modern ideas which took the place of religious conceptions of the world. It was considered a ‘social’ movement and essentially secular, the expression of an urban and industrial working class and the growth of class-consciousness. But in 1979, the world changed. With the unanticipated triumph of the Iranian Revolution, and the resurgence of religious fundamentalism in different parts of the world, conflicts between temporal and spiritual authority once again came to fore. These developments in turn have provided a different and arguably more appropriate framework, within which to examine the history of socialism. For socialism was above all a product of the fundamental crisis of spiritual authority created by the French Revolution. It was the outcome of a critique, not so much of the state, but of the church, and of the unsuccessful revolutionary attempts to find a replacement for it.

Aesthetics · Class consciousness · Communism · Consciousness · Criticism · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept) · Intellectual history · Period (music) · Political consciousness · Political science · Politics · Social science · Socialism · Sociology · Working class · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies

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