Free-Religious Communities

Abstract

This paper presents a study on history of spiritual and practical activities of so-called free-religious communities (freireligiösen Gemeinden) created in 1840s in Germany by «the German Catholics» and Protestant «friends of light» — originally separate movements, opposite to Catholic and Protestant orthodoxy respectively. The analysis presents a complete picture of development of the free-religious movement, starting from its emergence during the Vormärz period. The span of research covers intense activity during the revolution of 1848–1849, the period of political reaction following soon after the suppression of revolution, the ultimate ban by national-socialists in fascist Germany, reaching up to our days. Additionally, focus is given to the preceding tradition of the German free-thinking and its connection with the free-religious movement. It is shown that one of the distinctive features of the free-religious movement is the variety of world-view among ideologists of its different communities. Thus, this movement falls under a special category, intermediate between religion and secular outlook. As a result of the analysis the author comes to a conclusion that the ideology of the free-religious movement can be characterized by interweaving of religious and political motives in its program, and the deviation that the views of its adherents take from orthodox Christianity — to pantheism and even materialism.

Keywords

• Freethought
• atheism
• anti-clericalism
• Germany
• free-religious movement
• socio-political movement
• revolution of 1848–1849
• free communities
• «the German Catholics»
• «friends of light»
• Johannes Ronge Close