Explain, USING MAX WEBER’S CATEGORIES (Charismatic leader, Prophet, Bureaucrat), how both Early Catholicism (and the Bhagavad Gita) are significant a phase or stage all religions go through

Explain, USING MAX WEBER’S CATEGORIES (Charismatic leader, Prophet, Bureaucrat), how both Early Catholicism (and the Bhagavad Gita) are significant a phase or stage all religions go through

YOU WILL WRITE TWO (2) ESSAYS IN TOTAL AND SUBMIT THEM TOGETHER AS ONE

SUBMISSION (NOT SEPARATELY). TWO ESSAYS WILL BE BASED ON THE QUESTIONS/TOPICS
GIVEN BELOW. THE TWO ESSAYS HAVE TO BE SUBMITTED TOGETHER AS ONE
COMPLETE SUBMISSION, NOT SEPARATELY.
THE TWO ESSAYS FROM THE QUESTIONS BELOW HAVE TO BE AT LEAST 2 PAGES (DOUBLE
SPACED, 12 PT, LIKE THE ESSAYS).
Pals = Eight Theories of Religion (new edition, Nine Theories….)
Livingston = Anatomy of the Sacred
ONE OF YOUR ESSAYS MUST BE ON QUESTIONS/TOPICS 1, 2, OR 3 BELOW.
1. One of the important contributions of Ernst Troeltsch to the analysis of
religion is his typology of church, sect, and cult. Discuss what Troeltsch
(influenced by Weber) means by these categories and how can they be used to
explain the social or communal aspects of religious phenomena. To be able to
write an acceptable essay on this question the chapter on Weber in Pals and
Chapter 7 of Livingston, Anatomy of the Sacred, are indispensable. (Weber
strongly influenced Troeltsch, but the question is about Troeltsch, not
Weber.)
2. When we study religion, we tend to focus on the founder almost
exclusively: Buddha, Jesus, Muhammed, Moses, and the earliest generation of
believers (apostles, companions, immediate disciples), and disregard the
second and third generation of followers as insignificant. In my lectures I
corrected this imbalance by emphasizing the importance of works produced at a
later stage or phase of the religion (by second or third generation followers)
that is not distinguished by the originality or exceptional charisma of the
original founders. Early Catholicism in Christianity (consult early sections

of the Outline) and the Bhagavad Gita are two expressions and later
developments of Christianity and Hinduism respectively. Question (in two
parts): 1. Explain, USING MAX WEBER’S CATEGORIES (Charismatic leader,
Prophet, Bureaucrat), how both Early Catholicism (and the Bhagavad Gita) are
significant a phase or stage all religions go through, if they are going to
survive and perpetuate themselves, after the founder has died, and the next
generation or two of believers has to figure out how to keep the faith going,
as it were. 2. Explain also how it is that these second or third generation
of leaders (the “bureaucrats”) of the religion are in a way the real
preservers of the religion and are just as (and perhaps more) important and
essential to its survival as the founders themselves. (Chapter 5 of Pals and
parts of Chapter 7 of Livingston are essential readings for answering this
question, as well as my treatment of Max Weber and the extended comments on
Early Catholicism and the Bhagavad Gita in the Outline of the lectures posted
on Canvas).
3. As we have seen from the readings on Durkheim, Tylor, Frazer, Freud, and
earlier key figures such as Feuerbach and Marx, the study of religion has
emphasized the all-too-human nature of religious phenomena. Religion is seen
as the creation of the human mind or of society (or culture) in general,
whether this is seen in a positive light (Durkheim and Geertz) or a very
negative one (Marx and Freud). These sociological, psychological, or
anthropological interpretations of religions can be seen as expressions of the
ascendance of secularism and scientific naturalism in the last two hundred
years since the Enlightenment. Religion is being “explained away” (or
“reduced” to) as a human, natural phenomenon, with no basis in some
transcendent, supernatural reality. Question (in two parts): 1. Do you
agree with Tylor, Frazer, Marx, Durkheim, and Freud, that religion has been
explained away as, and can be reduced to, a purely natural phenomenon? 2. Or
do you agree with Schleiermacher, Otto, Eliade, Heidegger, and even
anthropologists such as Clifford Geertz—who does not deny the reality of the
transcendent in religion (even as he says that as a scientist he cannot affirm
it either)—that there is in religion something that cannot be reduced to or
explained in terms of the natural, or, at the very least, that we must suspend
our judgment about the ultimate status (truth or falsity) of religious
phenomena?

ONE OF YOUR ESSAYS MUST BE ON ONE OF THE ABOVE QUESTIONS/TOPICS
______________________________________________________________________________
4. Myth and Sacred Scripture we have seen are essential aspects of all
religions. Yet believers seem to be uncomfortable with the category of myth
when scholars apply it to their particular religion. And this is especially
true in the three Western religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Even
Hindus are now upset that a Western scholar would consider one of their great
epics, the Ramayana, “myth.” Christians never had a problem labeling the
stories in other religions myth, while strongly defending the historicity of
every story in the Genesis narratives, or events in the life of Jesu, even to
the minutest detail. Orthodox Jews and Muslims would be offended if anyone
suggested there is myth in the Torah or the Qur’an. How do we deal with
myth? Even if a myth is historically untrue, can it still be true in a more
important sense? Question: Discuss the different views of myth in Chapter 4
of Livingston, and state with which view do you agree the most and why?
5. Question (in three parts): 1. Is religious Fundamentalism in the end a
desperate attempt to preserve the old order by peoples, groups, or societies
(in America and the Muslim world) that cannot accept the modern world and
choose to live in discredited and obsolete worldview? 2. Or is it the only
way religion can be saved from the destructive critique of scientific
naturalism? 3. Is there a middle way that is neither naturalistic nor
fundamentalist? For example, Are thinkers like Heidegger, Otto, and Eliade
perhaps giving us an alternative to both naturalism and fundamentalism, or are
their positions too vague or give up too much to naturalism to be taken
seriously as an alternative worthy of our consideration? (For this question
you must read Livingston, Chapter 14.)
6. Ritual is arguably one of the most important categories of religion, even
more than belief in a god. Many Jews who do not believe in God yet are
observant Jews (that are Orthodox in practice but not in belief). Buddhists
are atheists yet have developed elaborate rituals through the centuries. In

China Hsun Tzu and Confucius exalted the role of ritual (Li) even when they
themselves may have harbored doubts about the supernatural. Question (in
three parts): 1. What is the most important function of ritual? 2. What is
it about ritual that makes it such a central aspect of religion, and perhaps
the most important aspect? 3. In what sense can it be said that not God or
gods but ritual is the true creator of humanity and society and the most
significant element in religon? (For this question you must read Livingston,
Chapter 5, “Sacred Ritual”; Pals chapters on Durkheim and Eliade; Geertz’s
discussion of ritual at the top of page 272 in Pals is also quite useful in
thinking about this question, as well as skimming “Religion as a Cultural
System” posted on Canvas for references to ritual, the essay which is the
basis for Pals’s exposition of Geertz).