The Eucharist Sacrifice and the Changing Utopian Moment in Post
The Eucharist Sacrifice and the Moment Changing Utopian in Post Reformation Christianity ADAM SELIGMAN The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel ABSTRACT In this study, the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, and especially English Puritanism, is analyzed in terms of the transformation of the soteriological doctrines of Christianity. This transformation, in turn, is seen as crucial to a restructuring of utopian themes in Christian civilization. Based on the restructuring of models of social authority and of Christian community, a new vision of the ideal social order was posited. The uto- pian visions posited by these changes and the contradictions inherent in them are viewed as central to the emergence of modern notions of political and social praxes. Introduction IN THIS STUDY, it will be argued that the major assumptions under- lying Christian utopian visions and their realization were radically transformed in the period of the Protestant Reformation. Indeed, the Refor- mation and, more specifically, its Calvinist variants, will be presented as con- taining a salient utopian or millennial moment-with lasting importance for the structuring of modern social life. In pursuing this line of inquiry, we are in fact following on the thought of Max Weber, who saw in the 'inner-worldliness' of ascetic Protestantism one of the fundamental components of the modern world order (Weber, 1958; Schluchter, 1979; Eisenstadt, 1968, 1988). The present study will explore the role of ascetic Protestantism in fundamentally restructuring one of the major and defining components of the Western Christian tradition. The transforma- tion effected by ascetic Protestantism in the utopian models and modes of millennial action within the Western Christian tradition was, it is argued, a crucial aspect in the development of the modern socio-political order.
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