Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism Analysis

On February 25, 2018, I attended the Sunday worship service at The Salvation Army Kroc Corp Community Center Church in Phoenix, Arizona. Despite not having been to church in a number of years, I had some semblance in terms of what to expect, especially in terms of how the church would solicit donations. What I did not expect, however, was the advertising of the community center in which the church is based. Given that the center requires a paid membership, this seemed a bit odd as this was a Christian non denominational church that preaches selflessness. Max Weber’s theories on religion gives some insight on the increasingly capitalistic nature of churches. In his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, his views on the relationship

Puritans, a group of religious individuals who are known to follow some of the most strict ascetic practices and are most commonly seen as those most often abstaining from a number of pleasurable activities, found themselves developing a craving for a life of luxury. The word used to describe them, bourgeois, is “a person whose political, economic, and social opinions are believed to be determined mainly by concern for property values and conventional respectability” (“Bourgeois.”). Based upon his statement, money is able to corrupt even the most “godly” individuals causing them to value materialistic goods over their typical responsibilities as self-sacrificing individuals and according to Weber, “. . .the whole history of monasticism is in a certain sense the whole history of a continual struggle with the problem of the secularizing influence of wealth” (Weber 158). The very thing that religion helped to promote also proved to be the downfall of its holy messages. The history of monasticism, also known as a monkhood, had arisen from the idea of not giving in to the money. Since wealth typically caused the corruption of even the most religious individuals, it would make it clear that those not quite as devout monks would have a very hard time resisting the appeal of greed. This allows

Despite only one visit, the advertising of the paid member only events was so prevalent and their performance of offering made it so that it was obvious that it was not uncommon for them to use their religion to pursue revenue. By being able to demonstrate the various ways in which the church is exploiting its follower’s profits, the effects of the church’s addiction to capitalistic gain is made very clear. In an effort to maintain a religious integrity, it is necessary to analyze the growing pursuit of wealth within religious communities. Through introspection it my be possible to bring the church back to its selfless values and away from