Kulturkampf<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Philip Rieff notes, \u201cThat word first appeared in common German use in the early 1870s during the struggle of the National Liberal political party to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kulturkampf\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Philip Rieff notes, \u201cThat word first appeared in common German use in the early 1870s during the struggle of the National Liberal political party to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Leithart\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-04-06T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter Leithart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@PLeithart\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peter Leithart\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/\",\"name\":\"Kulturkampf\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2017-04-06T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-04-06T00:00:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d\"},\"description\":\"Philip Rieff notes, \u201cThat word first appeared in common German use in the early 1870s during the struggle of the National Liberal political party to\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Kulturkampf\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/\",\"name\":\"Leithart\",\"description\":\"My blog is a public notebook, featuring essays, notes, and explorations on Scripture, theology, literature, politics, culture.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d\",\"name\":\"Peter Leithart\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Peter Leithart\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PLeithart\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/author\/pleithart\/\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Kulturkampf","description":"Philip Rieff notes, \u201cThat word first appeared in common German use in the early 1870s during the struggle of the National Liberal political party to","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Kulturkampf","og_description":"Philip Rieff notes, \u201cThat word first appeared in common German use in the early 1870s during the struggle of the National Liberal political party to","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/","og_site_name":"Leithart","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/","article_published_time":"2017-04-06T00:00:00+00:00","author":"Peter Leithart","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@PLeithart","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Peter Leithart","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/","name":"Kulturkampf","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-04-06T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2017-04-06T00:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d"},"description":"Philip Rieff notes, \u201cThat word first appeared in common German use in the early 1870s during the struggle of the National Liberal political party to","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Kulturkampf"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/","name":"Leithart","description":"My blog is a public notebook, featuring essays, notes, and explorations on Scripture, theology, literature, politics, culture.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/6bb7113e4dd45fe26045622aa56f891d","name":"Peter Leithart","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f1033df9cd7263d2e0408cf9ee92ee4d?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg","caption":"Peter Leithart"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Leithart\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/PLeithart"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/author\/pleithart\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3021"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":18781,"date":"2017-04-06T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-06T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=504"},"modified":"2017-04-06T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-06T00:00:00","slug":"kulturkampf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2017\/04\/kulturkampf\/","title":{"rendered":"Kulturkampf"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

P<\/span>hilip Rieff notes, \u201cThat word [Kulturkampf<\/em>] first appeared in common German use in the early 1870s during the struggle of the National Liberal political party to disarm by law the moral\/educational authority, and political punditry, of a triumphalist Roman Catholic hierarchy, revitalized as it then was by its dogma of papal infallibility in matters of faith and morals. The aim of the National Liberals was to shift the German Catholic imagination away from the church to the state. The Pope responded to newly restrictive laws by forbidding clerical conformity to them, In turn, the state dismissed clerical resisters from their duties and, moreover, suspended their state salaries\u201d (My Life Among the Deathworks<\/em><\/a>, 75\u20136).<\/p>

<\/p> \n

Already before 1870, German Protestants, liberal in both theology and politics, were defining liberal political theory in anti-Catholic terms. Adolf Diesterweg discerned conflicting Grundprincipien des Lebenskampfes <\/em>in the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism. Catholicism stood for absolutism, protective tariffs, guilds, patronage, censorship, a state church, stagnation, and authoritarianism; Protestantism was the ground principle of a liberalism devoted to constitutionalism, the free market, competition, freedom of the press and conscience, progress, and academic freedom (Michael Gross, War Against Catholicism<\/em><\/a>, 102).<\/p>\n

The basic opposition was \u201cauthority or freedom, Catholicism or Protestantism.\u201d There was no middle ground or muddle; they were irreconcilable opposites arising from the basic religious orientation of the two faiths. Protestantism stood for \u201crationalism as a method, with the primacy of reason\u201d and opposed the \u201csupernaturalism\u201d of Catholicism, which imprisoned \u201creason by belief.\u201d Protestant spirituality was \u201cself-determination, spontaneity,\u201d in contrast to \u201cthe rule of dark feelings, with passive devotion, blind obedience\u201d (Gross, 103).<\/p>\n

Daniel Schenkel agreed: \u201cFor Schenkel as for other liberal Protestants, the Catholic attack on Protestant Germany was part of a daring and comprehensive \u2018system of power,\u201d an inevitable, enduring, and constant threat: \u2018If the Roman Catholic Church behaves aggressively against the Protestant Christians . . . . it is forced to do so,\u2019 he explained, \u2018by an inner necessity, because it cannot do otherwise, even if it wanted.\u2019 Establishing a separate society within society, splitting Germans into two separate and irreconcilable populations, the Roman Church demanded that Catholics avoid all religious and civil community with Protestants. The Catholic Church had intruded also into the \u2018sacred lap of family life,\u2019 demanding that all children of confessionally mixed marriages be raised Catholic. There was no aspect of life, according to Schenkel, that was now not a matter of confessional allegiance\u201d (Gross, 105). Because it is backward and past-oriented, Catholicism is illiberal; Protestantism, dedicated to progress and the future, is \u201ceasily consonant with liberalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gross argues that \u201cit is important not simply to conflate Protestantism and liberalism after midcentury and to recognize that persistent popular Protestant anti-Catholic culture did not itself define the character of the Kulturkampf<\/em>. The anti-Catholic fervor of the Protestant religious leadership that added heat to and popularized the campaign against the church was a continuation of the animosity toward Roman Catholicism, the authority of the pope, and missionary proselytizing that was as old as the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Indeed, the Kulturkampf<\/em> with its coercive legislation represented a fault line over which many Protestant anti-Catholics for religious and confessional reasons were not prepared to step\u201d (126). <\/p>\n

Still, Protestant-inspired anti-Catholicism gave fuel to German liberalism. Protestantism helped define liberalism in anti-Catholic, and anti-catholic, terms.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"