Under the Spell of Freedom

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).

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