and “Becoming,” dogmatism and radicalism, stasis and metanoia, the capital-
ist class and the working, or better stated, “under” class, civil/bourgeois reli-
gion and a determinately negated prophetic/Messianic/Eschatological religion.
Unlike positivistic thought, which analytically compartmentalizes and sepa-
rates these categories from each other, dialectical logic and theory grasp the
inherent inter-relational dynamic of these supposed antithetical pairs.
In the early 20th century, the French Priest, Fr. Alfred Loisey, is purported
to have said, “Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom of God and all that came
was the church.” This truism pictures the difference between these two the-
ories of religion. Rational Choice Theory of religion admittedly is concerned
only with the functioning of the institutional church or “firm” (Stark 1996)
according to the market theory of the given capitalist controlled civil society.
Conversely, the Critical Theory of society and religion is founded upon, and
is expressive of, suffering humanity’s longing for that which is totally “Other”
than the class produced exploitation of this civil society. This prophetic,
Messianic and eschatological longing for the totally “Other” is translated
through the Critical Theory into a secular, and thus relevant, meaningful, and
revolutionary theory that seeks the determinate negation of the reified capi-
talist civil society and its barbarism for the creation of a better future society.
The determinate negation of the religious notion of and longing for the totally
“Other” into the Critical Theory itself is an essential element of this com-
pletely secular and materialist Theory’s work for a more just, equitable, good,
rational – in terms of both instrumental andcommunicative reason, free – in
terms of both autonomy andsolidarity, and shalom-filled future society.
Positivism
The fundamental difference between Rational Choice and the Critical Theory
of religion is expressive of modernity’s long contentious history of philo-
sophical/theoretical debate as well as national and international class war-
fare between the advocates of positivism and dialectical thought. As Adorno
has stated, “positivism [is] the myth [or metaphysics] of things as they actu-
ally are” (Horkheimer and Adorno 1972:x). In the attempt to understand and
thereby control how things function in both nature and society, positivism
analytically reifies and, possibly better stated, kills “things as they actually
are” as they are disconnected from its historical past as well as any change
towards a real future. In being dissected from its past development, the present
128 • Michael R. Ott