| This dissertation examines the development of religious reformations as wide-scale transformations of religious belief and practice influenced by state policies, economic developments, international pressures, and philosophical developments. These transformations occur on the institutional and ideological level of a religious tradition. Aside from being concerned with religious reform, religious reformations are declarations of the status of individuals and communities within society. By cutting across classes, religious reformations support a new worldview and ordering of society and therefore are also connected to social transformations. Religious reformations are a culmination of propitious events, group interests, and the charisma, intellect, skill, and power of individuals. Extricating the term reformation from the Protestant Reformation I will argue that a religious reformation is a particular type of religious/social phenomenon that may occur at any point in history given the proper circumstances. Following this argument it becomes apparent that the factors which led to the emergence of the Protestant Reformation are the same factors which gave rise to the development of Reform Judaism, and indeed, can give rise to religious reformations in other religions such as Islam. By accepting religious reformations as a type of religious phenomenon, one must ask "what are the fundamental characteristics of religious reformations?" In response I posit that at the most basic level religious reformations, such as the Protestant Reformation and Reform Judaism, represent a rejection of the legitimacy of one religious and social system and the proclamation of the legitimacy of another religious and social system. They encompass the adoption of a radically new cosmological order that states that the individual does not need intercessionary institutions to maintain a relationship with the Divine. Concurrently, state systems become open to the possibility of universal participation in government. |
