Liturgy Wars: Ritual Theory and Protestant Reform in Nineteenth-Century Zurich/[Edited] by Theodore M.Vial

RELIGION IN HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE Edited by Frank Reynolds and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan The University of Chicago, Divinity SchoolA ROUTLEDGE SERIES RELIGION IN HISTORY, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE: edited by Frank Reynolds and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan 1. LAS ABEJAS Pacifist Resistance and Syncretic Identities in a Globalizing Chiapas Marco Tavanti 2. THE SPIRIT OF DEVELOPMENT Protestant NGOs, Morality, and Economics in Zimbabwe Erica Bornstein 3. EXPLAINING MANTRAS Ritual, Rhetoric, and the Dream of a Natural Language in Hindu Tantra Robert A.Yelle 4. LITURGY WARS Ritual Theory and Protestant Reform in Nineteenth-Century Zurich Theodore M.Vial 5. HEAVENLY JOURNEYS, EARTHLY CONCERNS The Legacy of the Mi’raj in the Formation of Islam Brooke Olson Vuckovic 6. LEST WE BE DAMNED Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559–1642 Lisa McClain 7. THE FOX’S CRAFT IN JAPANESE RELIGION AND FOLKLORE Shapeshifters, Transformations, and Duplicities Michael Bathgate 8. STEEL CITY GOSPEL Protestant Laity and Reform in Progressive-Era Pittsburgh Keith A.Zahniser 9. THEORIES OF THE GIFT IN MEDIEVAL SOUTH ASIA Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Reflections on Dāna Maria Heim LITURGY WARS RITUAL THEORY AND PROTESTANT REFORM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY ZURICH Theodore M.Vial Routledge New York and London Published in 2004 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 www.routledge-ny.com Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE www.routledge.co.uk Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Copyright © 2004 by Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Liturgy wars: ritual theory and Protestant reform in nineteenth-century Zurich/[edited] by Theodore M.Vial. p. cm.—(Religion in history, society & culture; 4) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-96698-1 (alk. paper) 1. Biedermann, Alois Emanuel, 1819–1885. 2. Baptism (Liturgy)—History—19th century. 3. Zurich (Switzerland)—Church history—19th century. 4. Reformed Church—Switzerland—Zurich—Liturgy—Theology—History—19th century. I. Vial, Theodore, M., 1962– II. Series BX9427.5.B36L58 2003 264'.042494572–dc22 2003015565 ISBN 0-203-50519-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-57867-8 (Adobe eReader Format) For Nancy Contents SERIES EDITORS’ FOREWORD viii PREFACE x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE RELIGIOUS CONFLICT IN ZURICH 9 Round One: David Friedrich Strauss and the Overthrow of the Zurich 10 Government Rounds Two and Three: Biedermann and the Fight over Baptism 11 CHAPTER TWO CONTESTING HUMANITY AND CONTESTING HISTORY 17 Liberal Politics during the Regeneration 18 Economics in Zurich during the Regeneration 21 School Reform in the Regeneration 24 CHAPTER THREE THE PERSONALITY OF GOD AND OTHER CONTRADICTIONS 28 Point/Counterpoint: Was Biedermann a Christian? 29 Epistemology 29 The Doctrine of God 33 The Knowledge of God and of Ourselves 36 CHAPTER FOUR WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? 39 Processing Christology 40 Biedermann versus the Liberals 41 Biedermann’s Filial Christology 42 Biedermann versus Strauss 44 The Main Event: Biedermann versus the Orthodox 49 The Christology of Ebrard 49 vii The Christology of Marheineke 51 CHAPTER FIVE META FIGHTS: BATTLES IN THEORY OVER BATTLES IN PRACTICE 55 The Two 1868 Ceremonies of Baptism 56 A Ritual Theory Map 56 Speech Act Theory 62 CHAPTER SIX LITURGY WARS, CULTURE WARS 66 Lawson and McCauley on Competence 69 Lawson and McCauley’s Generative Rules 69 Lawson and McCauley’s Predictions 71 Explaining the Ritual Change in the 1868 Liturgy 72 Speech Acts in the Context of Preaching 74 CONCLUSION 78 APPENDIX ONE CEREMONIES OF BAPTISM FROM THE 1868 ZURICH LITURGY 83 CEREMONY I 83 CEREMONY II 85 APPENDIX TWO DERIVATION OF THE BAPTISM CEREMONY 87 NOTES 89 BIBLIOGRAPHY 116 INDEX 123 Series Editors’ Foreword Religion in History, Society and Culture brings to a wider audience work by outstanding young scholars who are forging new agendas for the study of religion in the twenty-first century. As editors, we have two specific goals in mind. First, volumes in this series illumine theoretical understandings of religion as a dimension of human culture and society. Understanding religion has never been a more pressing need. Longstanding academic habits of either compartmentalizing or ignoring religion are breaking down. With the entry of religion into the academy, however, must come a fully realized conversation about what religion is and how it interacts with history, society, and culture. Each book in this series employs and refines categories and methods of analysis that are intrinsic to the study of religion, while simultaneously advancing our knowledge of the character and impact of particular religious beliefs and practices in a specific historical, social, or cultural context. Second, this series is interdisciplinary. The academic study of religion is conducted by historians, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, and others. Books in the series bring before the reader an array of disciplinary lenses through which religion can be creatively and critically viewed. Based on the conviction that the instability of the category itself generates important insights, “religion” in these works encompasses and/or informs a wide range of religious phenomena, including myths, rituals, ways of thought, institutions, communities, legal traditions, texts, political movements, artistic production, gender roles, and identity formation. In the present volume (the fourth in the series) Theodore Vial explores crucial aspects of the intense struggle that occurred within Protestant Christianity as it actively participated in the highly disruptive processes of modernization that were transforming European life in the late nineteenth century. He focuses his attention on the dramatic struggles that occurred within the Protestant community in Zurich, Switzerland —struggles that pitted “liberal” reformers who supported the changes that were occurring against “orthodox” conservatives who mobilized a powerful resistance. In Vial’s narrative he adopts an unusual strategy by placing in the foreground the character and significance of battles concerning religious practice. In order to accomplish the task that Vial sets for himself he turns to the field of ritual theory and develops a highly sophisticated and innovative approach that enables him to identify intrinsic correlations between the conflicting theological positions that separated the two Protestant groups and the conflicting liturgical practices to which they were committed. He also explores the fascinating interactions between the theologically charged liturgical battles that constitute his special concern and other battles (political, social, cultural, etc.) in which the same groups were simultaneously engaged. Vial’s book demonstrates the creative possibilities that can be generated through an engagement between approaches to the theory and practice of ritual on the one hand and approaches to the study of mainstream ix Protestant communities on the other. We hope that Liturgy Wars will stimulate others to carry forward the process that Vial has initiated. WINNIFRED FALLERS SULLIVAN The University of Chicago Divinity School FRANK REYNOLDS The University of Chicago Divinity School Preface This book began its life a long time ago as a dissertation. Generous research support was provided by the Overseas Dissertation Research Committee of The University of Chicago, and Agnes K.Smith, a family friend. Though I had no official status in Zurich I was welcomed by Professors Eduard Schweizer (emeritus), Fritz Büsser (emeritus), and Fritz Stolz (emeritus). Without their good will I would not have been able to gather the material I needed, or think it through adequately. I was particularly impressed when Professor Stolz named a key article in an obscure Festschrift in a field far from his own, and walked me to the library shelf where it was located, saving me roughly a month’s worth of work. This was typical of the generosity and erudition I found so wonderfully combined in all three at the University of Zurich. The argument I make here does not fall neatly into traditional disciplinary categories, and this work would not have been possible without the flexibility and open-mindedness of my dissertation committee, chaired by B.A.Gerrish and including Frank Reynolds and Daniel Brudney (of the Philosophy Department), all of the University of Chicago. It is no coincidence that each is unusually dedicated to the vocation of graduate teaching. My greatest hope is that the high standards for historical theology and scholarly writing set by Brian Gerrish, the encyclopedic knowledge of theory and unfailing good judgment embodied in Frank Reynolds, and the passion for ideas of all three are reflected in some small way in this book. Frank also read drafts as the manuscript made the long journey from one genre (dissertation) to another (book that more than three people

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