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The Certainty of Salvation: Ritualization of Religion and Economic Rationality among Hutterites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Karl A. Peter
Karl A. Peter
Affiliation:
Simon Fraser University
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Extract

The Hutterites are an Anabaptist sect that was founded early in the sixteenth century. Their society today is characterized on the one hand by a traditional social order and on the other by the pursuit of rationally structured economic activities. How is it possible to combine these seemingly contradictory characteristics in the daily life of communities whose populations hardly exceed 140 members? Would it not be much more reasonable for Hutterites not only to uphold their traditional social order, but also to follow conservative economic practices as some of the Old Order Amish do? How is it possible that a Hutterite individual can at one moment give detailed technical instructions for repair of a complicated machine over shortwave radio and an hour later expose himself to a religious sermon, the text of which has not changed for 350 years?

Type
Religion and Communal Power
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 222 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1983

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