Will Herberg

Will Herberg (June 30, 1901 – March 27, 1977) was an American Jewish writer, intellectual and scholar. He was known as a social philosopher and sociologist of religion, as well as a Jewish theologian. He was a leading conservative thinker during 1950s and an important contributor to the National Review magazine.

Early life

Herberg was brought up in a secular Jewish family in Manhattan. He was expelled from City College in 1920 and never was awarded any academic degree. However, he falsely claimed to have degrees from Columbia University, including a PhD in 1932.[1] However, he later received three honorary doctorates, the first in 1956.[2]

During his undergraduate years, Herberg became a member of the Communist Party USA. Following the split of party leader Jay Lovestone and his cothinkers in 1929, Herberg remained loyal to them, a decision earning his expulsion from the party on September 10, 1929.[3] Thereafter Herberg joined the so-called Lovestoneites, remaining with that organization until its termination at the end of 1940, serving as editor of the group's weekly newspaper, Workers Age.[4]

Protestant, Catholic, Jew

He later turned away from Marxism and became a religious conservative, founding the quarterly Judaism with Robert Gordis and Milton R. Konvitz. During the 1960s, he was the religion editor of the conservative journal National Review, and he also taught at Drew University.

Herberg's 1955 book Protestant, Catholic, Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology created a sociological framework for the study of religion in the United States. Herberg demonstrated how immigration and American ethnic culture were reflected in religious movements and institutions.[5] It has been described as "one of the most influential books ever written about American religion."[6] During the 1950s, that book and the 1951 essay Judaism and Modern Man set out influential positions on Judaism and on the American religious tradition in general.

Herberg also wrote that anti-Catholicism is the antisemitism of secular Jewish intellectuals.[7]

Cut flower culture

Herberg is credited with coining the phrase "cut flower culture" to describe the spiritual rootlessness of modern European and American societies. The epithet is typically taken to imply that these societies cannot long survive without being regrafted onto their Judeo-Christian roots. In Judaism and Modern Man, Herberg wrote:

The attempt made in recent decades by secularist thinkers to disengage the moral principles of western civilization from their scripturally based religious context, in the assurance that they could live a life of their own as "humanistic" ethics, has resulted in our "cut flower culture." Cut flowers retain their original beauty and fragrance, but only so long as they retain the vitality that they have drawn from their now-severed roots; after that is exhausted, they wither and die. So with freedom, brotherhood, justice, and personal dignity — the values that form the moral foundation of our civilization. Without the life-giving power of the faith out of which they have sprung, they possess neither meaning nor vitality.

Opposition to Civil Rights Movement

In his September 7, 1965 National Review article, "'Civil Rights' and Violence: Who Are the Guilty Ones?", Herberg wrote of his opposition or skepticism towards the Civil Rights Movement, feeling, like many of his colleagues at National Review at the time, that the civil rights campaign was moving too quickly and broke up the fabric of American society in an overly socially disruptive manner, not friendly to proper social cohesion. They supported what is often termed the Booker T. Washington position of "gradual reform."

Contributions to conservatism

Herberg was also a prominent traditionalist conservative and wrote for traditionalist publications as Russell Kirk's Modern Age. He was also a frequent contributor to William F. Buckley, Jr.'s leading conservative magazine National Review.

References

  1. ↑ Gaston, K. Healan (2013). "The Cold War Romance of Religious Authenticity: Will Herberg, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Rise of the New Right". Journal of American History. 99 (4): 1133–58 [p. 1137]. doi:10.1093/jahist/jas588.
  2. ↑ The Encyclopedia of Religion and Society
  3. ↑ "Denounces Provocative Acts of Lovestone Gang," Daily Worker, vol. 6, no. 162 (Sept. 13, 1929), pg. 4.
  4. ↑ Gaston, "The Cold War Romance of Religious Authenticity: Will Herberg, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Rise of the New Right," pp 1137-8
  5. ↑ Schwartz, Joel (2004). "Protestant, Catholic, Jew... (retrospective book review)". Public Interest. 155 (Spring): 106–136.
  6. ↑ Wolfe, Alan (2003). The Transformation of American Religion: How We Actually Live our Faith. New York, NY: Free Press. p. 64.
  7. ↑ The Myth of Hitler's Pope

Works

Further reading

External links

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