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The Oppressive Elements in Religion and the Religions of the Oppressed1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Charles H. Long
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514

Extract

In 1912, Ernst Troeltsch published a memorial review article for William James entitled “Empiricism and Platonism in the Philosophy of Religion.” This article which deals with James' The Varieties of Religious Experience is still the clearest succinct statement of James' position within the context of the general problems of Western philosophies of religion.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1976

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References

2 HTR 5 (1912) 401–22.

3 Ibid., 408–09. Italics added.

4 Ibid.., 413.

5 Ibid.., 414. Italics added.

6 Ibid.., 417–18.

7 Ibid.., 418.

8 From James, Henry Sr., Society the Redeemed Form of Man (Cambridge: Houghton, Osgood & Co., 1879) 4449Google Scholar, quoted in The Writings of William James (ed. McDermott, John J.; New York: The Modern Library, 1968) 3.Google Scholar

9 James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: Modern Library edition; facsimile of the 1902 edition) 157.Google Scholar

10 See Clebsch, William A., American Religious Thought: A History (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1973) xvi.Google Scholar

11 See Northrup, F. S. C., The Meeting of East and West (New York: Macmillan, 1952) esp. ch. 12.Google Scholar

12 Troeltsch, Ernst, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1950) 39.Google Scholar

13 See Troeltsch, Ernst, Christian Thought. Its History and Application (ed. and intr. Hügel, Baron von; New York: Meridian Books, 1957) 12.Google Scholar

14 Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy (trans. Harvey, John W.; London: Oxford, 1950) 13.Google Scholar

15 van der Leeuw, G., Religion in Essence and Manifestation (trans. Turner, J. E.; London: George Allen & Unwin, 1938) 23.Google Scholar

16 See DuBois, W. E. B., Dusk of Dawn. An Essay Toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (New York: Schocken Books, 1968) 39.Google Scholar

17 William James mentions W. E. B. DuBois in a letter to his brother, Henry. “I am sending you a decidedly moving book by a mulatto ex-student of mine, DuBois, professor of history at Atlanta (Georgia) Negro College. Read Chapters VII to XI for local color, etc.” (The book was DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk.) James, Henry, ed., The Letters of William James (Boston: Atlantic Monthly, 1920) 2. 196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 DuBois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk (Basic Afro-American Reprint Library, Johnson Reprint; originally published in Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1903) 189–90Google Scholar. Italics added.

19 William James, The Varieties, 31.

20 See Johnson, Charles S. and Watson, A. P., God Struck Me Dead (Boston: Pilgrim, 1969).Google Scholar

21 W. E. B. DuBois, The Souls, 3.

22 Barre, Weston La, “Materials for a History of Studies of Crisis Cults: A Bibliographic Essay,” Current Anthropology 12 (1971) 344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Lanternari, Vittorio, The Religions of the Oppressed (New York: Knopf, 1963)Google Scholar; Burridge, K. O. L., Mambu (Southampton: Camelot, 1960)Google Scholar; Wilson, Bryan R., Magic and the Millennium (New York: Harper and Row, 1973)Google Scholar; Hollenweger, Walter J., The Pentecostals (London: SCM, 1972)Google Scholar; Barre, Weston La, The Ghost Dance (New York: Doubleday, 1970)Google Scholar; Wallace, F. C., Religion. An Anthropological View (New York: Random House, 1966)Google Scholar; Jarvie, I. C., The Revolution in Anthropology (Chicago: Regnery, 1969).Google Scholar

24 I am indebted to Bernstein, Richard J., Praxis and Action (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1971)Google Scholar and especially to Davis, David Brion, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1975).Google Scholar My discussion follows closely Davis& Epilogue, 557–64.

25 For a thorough discussion of the ideology of hierarchical societies, see Dumont, Louis, Homo Hierarchies (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1970).Google Scholar

26 Davis, The Problem of Slavery, 559.

27 Ibid.., 559–60.

28 Ibid.., 560.

29 Ibid.., 561.

30 Hegel, G. W. F., The Phenomenology of Mind (trans. Baille, J. B., 2nd ed. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1949) 234–35.Google Scholar

31 Davis, The Problem of Slavery, 561–62.

32 Ibid.., 562.

33 McDermott, The Writings of William James, 3.

34 William James, The Varieties, 157.

35 DuBois, The Souls, 190.

36 See my article, “Cargo Cults as Cultural Historical Phenomena,” JAAR 42 (1974) 403–14.Google Scholar