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Why did Christianity produce the special organizational form "church" in the first place? Is it possible to be a Christian without the church? To what extent is Christian faith in community with other believers an alternative to the mere self-optimization of individuals?
In this accessible and questioning new work, Hans Joas traverses theological, church-historical, sociological, and ethical territory in search of a viable conception of the church adequate to contemporary globalized societies. Across eleven essays that draw on work by Ernst Troeltsch, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, H. Richard Niebuhr, Leszek Kolakowski and others, Joas reflects on key debates—from the failure of so-called secularization theory to explain religiosity in modern society, to the role of Christianity and the church in relation to rampant nationalism and refugee crises, and to the question of whether or not human dignity ever was, or still is, the highest value in the West. Addressing the sociology of the church as the distinctive communal formation of Christianity for the last two millennia, Joas underscores the need for Christian conceptions of church to balance theological sensibility with concrete sociological grounding. In the process, he considers the relation of a community of faith to contemporary ideas about the optimization of life.
"With Why the Church?, Joas further burnishes his status as one of our finest sociologists of religion. The book richly weaves together many of the principal strands of his thought." —William Barbieri, The Catholic University of America
"Joas offers one of the most significant social-theoretical reflections on the Christian 'church' since Ernst Troeltsch. Highly recommended for anybody interested in moral universalism, civic cosmopolitanism, or the fate of the religious and secular options in the modern world." —Jose Casanova, Georgetown University
"Hans Joas' alternative vision of moral universalism rejects developmental theories of modernity in favor of contingency and reopens a discourse about ethical values, including religious values. In contrast to the narratives of secularization in Hegel, Weber, and Habermas, Joas allows for a field of tensions in which religious traditions may rearticulate themselves and contribute uniquely to political dilemmas, rather than being predestined for silence and obsolescence." —Sean Hayden, Religious Studies Review
2. Why the Church?
3. Problematic Predictions
4. Do We Need Religion?
5. Faith or Self-Optimization?
6. A Christian through War and Revolution
7. Christianity without the Church?
8. Human Dignity
9. Is Human Dignity Still Our Supreme Value?
10. The Church as Moral Agency?
11. The Church's Global Responsibility and Particular Obligations