Fromm read Christian doctrine shifts as products of socioeconomic change

Evidence

Where Reik had gone wrong, Fromm argued, was in homogenizing the early Christians as a single group with a uniform psychic reality. In doing so, Reik was not unlike theologians such as Harnack: “IReik] overlooks the fact that the psychological subject here is not a man and is not even a group possessing a relatively unified and unchanging psychic structure, but, rather, is made up of different groups with different social and psychic interests.” 24 To Fromm, the basic change in Christian dogma — from the first-century Adoptionist idea of a man becoming God to the fourth-century Homoousian notion of God becoming man - was a product of social change. Only the earlier formulation expressed the rebellious hostility of the first Christians towards authority, the authority of the father. The doctrinal change corresponded to the acceptance of God’s authority and a redirection of resentment inwardly, onto the Christians themselves. “The cause for the development,” Fromm argued, “lies in the change in the socio-economic situation or in the retrogression of the economic forces and their social consequences. The ideologists of the dominant classes strengthened and accelerated this development by suggesting symbolic satisfactions to the masses, guiding their aggression into socially harmless channels.” — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 327

Categorization

• XREF: Fromm’s class-based reading of doctrinal change prefigures the Frankfurt School’s approach to ideology critique; connects to Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals and later critical theory on religion as social function. — connects to: Christian doctrine institutionalized women’s subordination despite early egalitarian impulses — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 204; European secularism grew from Christianity adapting to post-Reformation religious compromise. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in…, 878; Slow methodical doctrinal change keeps religious unity while satisfying intellectual demands — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1187 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies the Adoptionist vs. Homoousian christological distinction and Fromm’s social-psychological reading of it.

Broader Connections

• Christian doctrine institutionalized women’s subordination despite early egalitarian impulses #exemplifies (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 204
• European secularism grew from Christianity adapting to post-Reformation religious compromise. #expands (0.85) — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 878
• Slow methodical doctrinal change keeps religious unity while satisfying intellectual demands #expands (0.78) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1187
• Christianity adapted to Europe but not to non-Western cultures. #exemplifies (0.75)