Max Weber and Religion
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An important part of Max Weber's sociological work was devoted to the religious origins of human society. Overarching the creative human enterprise, in Weber's view, is the tendency toward making the universe increasingly thinkable, or as he characterized it, rational. Religious practice was one mechanism for this. Even belief that touches upon magic as much as it does on practical responses to the challenge of environmental survival presupposes the presence of the rational faculty. Rationality, also rationalism, helps Weber explain how virtually all social structures have developed. For Weber, rationality is that invisible force, process, and (most important) attitude whereby a society moves away from impulses, superstition, and emotion that probably cannot be controlled by mankind and toward social structure and organization that can be controlled by man (Gerth and Mills 51). That trend is secular, but there is a definite place for religious development. In that connection, Weber discusses the role of charismatic leadership. Leaders with charisma have unique attributes: "specific and exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him" (charismatic authority) (Weber 46).Weber's idea of charismatic domination is that "a leader rules by virtue of his or her personal qualities. Legitimacy of rule is grounded in the faith that the ruled vest in the leader, e.g., as a prophet, hero, he
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at, for example, the Matthew gospel emphasizes the special quality of Jesus and accompanying new community of faith arising from within but also challenging the long-established faith of Judaism. Through his (human) father Joseph, Jesus as an individual was identified with the historically important house of David, the great Jewish king (Luke 2.4). That lent him special status in life. Jesus' death, meanwhile, brings on a cataclysmic earthquake, to be followed by a miraculous Resurrection and closing with an injunction to spread the teachings that were the content of Jesus' leadership that he transferred to his immediate disciples: "Go therefore and teach all nations . . . to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. 28.19-20).
Tortured and executed as a heretic and ambitious politician at the behest of the Sanhedrin, or highest legal authority of the Jews during the early Roman imperial period, Jesus distinguished himself in the process of his death by insisting on such claims as that He would destroy and then rebuild the temple. He is accused of blasphemy but is unapologetic (Matt. 26):
Thou has said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and com
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Approximate Word count = 2495
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)
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