The gods of institutional life: Weber's value spheres and the practice of polytheism. (April 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Friedland, Roger
• Is Part Of: Critical research on religion. Volume 1:Number 1(2013)
• Page Start: 15
• Page End: 24
• Publication Date: 2013-04
• Subjects: Caliban -- contact zones -- hybridity; Religion -- Periodicals; Religion -- Research -- Periodicals; Religion and sociology -- Periodicals; Religion and politics -- Periodicals; 200.5
• DOI: 10.1177/2050303213476104
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-3032

Abstract

Weber's theory of value spheres outlines a project of institutional polytheism, each ordered around a 'god'. This suggests not only that social theory can build a religious sociology, but that a theory of institutions must be an exercise in comparative religions. Weber's comparative sociology of religions, however, does not align with his theory of value spheres in terms of his distinction between polytheism and monotheism, transcendence and immanence, salvation and mysticism, being possessed and possessing. A theory of institutional logics points beyond Weber's separation of value and instrumental rationality, faith and practice, and hence the ways in which he partitioned the institutions of modernity.