Joachim Wach

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Joachim Ernst Adolphe Felix Wach (German: January 25, 1898 – August 27, 1955) was a German religious scholar and sociologist of religion from Chemnitz. He emphasized the significance and importance of Religious Experience (a.k.a. Connection Experience as the foundation and root of Religion and religious expression.

Writings

  • Der Erlösungsgedanke und seine Deutung (1922)
  • Das Verstehen: Grundzüge einer Geschichte der hermeneutischen Theorie im 19. Jahrhundert (3 vols, 1926–1933)
  • Religionswissenschaft: Prolegomena zu ihrer wissenschaftstheoretischen Grundlegung (1924)
  • Meister und Jünger : zwei religionssoziologische Betrachtungen (1924)
  • Sociology of Religion (1947)
  • Types of Religious Experience: Christian and Non-Christian (1951)
  • The Comparative Study of Religions (posthumous, 1958)
  • Understanding and Believing: Essays (1968)
  • Introduction to the History of Religions (1988: English translation of Religionswissenschaft

https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.WACHGuide to the Joachim Wach Papers] University of Chicago

Notes

Religion
  • Definition: With reference to Rudolph Otto, "Religion is the experience of the Holy." [1]
    • As he points out, this definition of religion "stresses the objective character of religious experience in contrast to psychological theories of its purely subjective (illusionary) nature which are so common among anthropologists.[2]
  • Signalled the cultural significance of religion.
  • Defined religion as an expression, codification of religious experience. Points out there has been a struggle to manifest and express religious experience.
    • "It would be interesting to review the saga of religion as a consistent and more or less successful struggle for the adequate manifestation and expression of religious experience."[3]
  • Wanted to eventually "understand better the various aspects of religious experience itself." [4]
  • He rejects a one-sided theorization of religion that sees it as emerging from as only a consequence of the social, material, economic conditions of society (i.e. as an expression of ruling interests, ideology). Sees it instead as part of a contest (contested spirituality) and emphasizes that religious experience has had a "great" influence on social structure. [5]
  • Notes that the religious experience tends to objectivity itself in various ways. "Religious experience...enfolds itself in definite attitudes and different forms of expression." [6] This leads to Nomenclature Confusion. He calls for a "grammar" of religious language based on a" comprehensive empirical, phenomenological, and comparative study..."[7]
Religious Experience

Had some interesting things to say about religious experience

  • Notes that religious experience is often massive. A visionary experience can provide a complete, "comprehensive," and "coherent theoretical statement," in symbolic form. [8]
  • Suggests that religious experience is the root of religion

The contributions of the great religious leaders whom we designate “founders of religions” should also be interpreted in the light of this development. In the vision (prime intuition) of each of them is contained a germ of theory, later to be developed into doctrine and from there possibly into dogma either by the founder himself or by his followers.[9]

  • Argues there is an evolutionary character to our understanding of religious experience. "What is expressed by the primitive mind as myth is conceived of in terms of doctrine at a more advanced level of civilization." The establishment of doctrine is handled by an "over-all authority to decide and define doctrine." Once the authorities get control, a unification of doctrines occurs. Note, he misses the corruptions that occur when elites get their hands on mystically based teachings.[10]
  • Suggests religious experience gets expressed theoretically (dogma/doctrine), practically (cultic aspects), and sociologically (in social relationships).
  • Suggested that the cultic/ritual aspects of religion are formalizations of religious experience.
Corruption
  • Is are that the "official creed or statement of beliefs" of a religion may be corrupted by "more or less subtle (self-) deception on the side of the formulators and their followers."[11] Points to psychology, psychosociology, and psychopathology as areas which might shed light on the corruptions, deceptions, etc..

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019.
  2. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019.
  3. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019. Chapter 2, Paragraph 1
  4. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019.
  5. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019.
  6. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019. Chapter 2, Paragraph 1
  7. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019.
  8. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019. Chapter 2, Paragraph 3
  9. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019.
  10. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019.
  11. ↑ Wach, Joachim. Sociology of Religion. Routledge Library Editions, Volume 16. New York: Routledge, 2019.
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