Under the Spell of Freedom: Theory of Religion after Hegel and Nietzsche

How do the history of religion and the history of political freedom relate to each other? The variety of views on this subject in philosophy, the humanities and social sciences, and the public is broad and confusing. But the grandiose synthesis in which Hegel brought together Christianity and political freedom is still an enormous source of orientation for many-despite or even because of the influential provocations of Friedrich Nietzsche. As Hans Joas shows in Under the Spell of Freedom, a different view has developed in the religious thinking of the twentieth century based on a conception of history that is more open to the future and on a concept of freedom that is richer than that of Hegel. Using sixteen selected thinkers, Joas deconstructs the grand Hegelian narrative of human history as the self-realization of the idea of freedom, setting as a counterpart the sketches of a theory of the emergence of moral universalism. Further, taking the classical views of Hegel and his emphasis on the role of Protestant Christianity and the extremely negative views about Christianity in the work of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Joas elaborates on this new understanding of religion and freedom, which avoids both Eurocentrism and an intellectualist view of religious faith and practice. The result is a forceful plea for a global history of moral universalism. Under the Spell of Freedom is an important step in this direction.

Table of Contents:
Preface Introduction: Hegel's Philosophy of Freedom and a Blind Spot in Present-day Hegelianism Part I: A New Understanding of Religion in the Early Twentieth Century Chapter 1: Introductory Remarks: A New Understanding of Religion in the Early Twentieth Century Chapter 2: The Independence of Religion: Ernst Troeltsch Chapter 3: Secular Sacredness: Rudolf Otto Chapter 4: Self-Evidence of Sense of Self-Evidence: Max Scheler Part II: Secularization and the Modern History of Freedom Chapter 5: Introductory Remarks: Secularization and the Modern History of Freedom Chapter 6: The Sacralization of Democracy: John Dewey Chapter 7: Post-Totalitarian Christianity: Alfred Döblin's Religious Dialogues Chapter 8: The Contingency of Secularization: Reinhart Koselleck's Theory of History Chapter 9: The Secular Option, Its Rise and Consequences: Charles Taylor Part III: The Search for a Different Kind of Freedom Chapter 10: Introductory Remarks: The Search for a Different Kind of Freedom Chapter 11: A German Idea of Freedom? Cassirer and Troeltsch Between Germany and the West Chapter 12: Indebted Freedom: Paul Tillich Chapter 13: Sieve of Norms and Holy Scripture, Theonomy and Freedom: Paul Ricoeur Chapter 14: Communicative Freedom and Theology of Liberation: Wolfgang Huber Part IV: The Project of a Historical Sociology of Religion Chapter 15: The Project of a Historical Sociology of Religion Chapter 16: Religion is More than Culture: H. Richard Niebuhr Chapter 17: Christianity and the Dangers of Self-Sacralization: Werner Stark Chapter 18: More Weberian Than Weber?: David Martin Chapter 19: Religious Evolution and Symbolic Realism: Robert Bellah Chapter 20: Religion and Globalization: José Casanova Conclusion: Global History of Religion and Moral Universalism Notes Index

About the Author :
Hans Joas is Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin. For more than twenty years, he was a Visiting Professor of Sociology and in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. Among his numerous prizes are the Max Planck Research Award in 2015; the Prix Paul Ricoeur in 2017; and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award of the German Sociological Association in 2022. Some of his books in English include The Power of the Sacred (Oxford, 2021); G.H. Mead, A Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought, Pragmatism and Social Theory; The Creativity of Action, The Genesis of Values, War and Modernity, The Sacredness of the Person: A New Genealogy of Human Rights, and Faith as an Option: Possible Futures for Christianity. He has also published two books with Wolfgang Knoebl: Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures and War in Social Thought: Hobbes to the Present and has edited several volumes, including The Axial Age and Its Consequences (with Robert Bellah).

Review :
Hans Joas, for decades now one of the world's most influential social theorists, sociologist and theorist of religion, and diagnostician of the modern age, has written an extraordinary, bracing book about the relation between the modern discourses of about religion and the modern idea of freedom. No one interested in any of these topics, especially no one interested in accounts of secularization and its meaning, can afford to ignore Joas's passionate, pellucid discussion. Hans Joas is arguably the most important moral philosopher writing in German today. This book will go a long way in making clear to the Anglophone world why that is so. Hans Joas is one of the most recognized and renowned contemporary sociologists of religion. In this book, he tackles a center question in the modern discussion of religion. What is the relation, if any, between public freedom and religious conviction? Through a wide-ranging discussion of crucial topics and thinkers, Under the Spell of Freedom takes the reader into the depths of this question. Importantly, Joas draws on his previous work on American pragmatism, human dignity, and human rights to offer an alternative conception of the connection between religion and freedom. This should be read and pondered by every serious student of religion and society. It is a fresh and exciting contribution to the field. Many of Joas's theorists may be well known to his best-read readers, but illuminating insights await even the cognoscenti, as do persuasive original arguments accessible to relative newcomers to sociology of religion, political theology, and religious studies. This is a strikingly original work.