Performative Practice: Ernst Troeltsch's Concept(s) of Christianity

What is Christianity? Ernst Troeltsch combines theological and sociological accounts of Christianity’s history in order to identify Christianity. But his interdisciplinary conceptualization(s) of Christianity continue to cause frustration and fascination alike, because he draws no clear-cut distinction between what is Christian and what is non-Christian. Countering the assumption that such a distinction is what Troeltsch is after, I analyze and assess Troeltsch’s “What Does ‘Essence of Christianity’ Mean?” (1903/1913) as a hermeneutics of identification which approaches the identity of Christianity by what it does rather than by what it describes. Through his hermeneutics, I argue, Troeltsch anticipates the theorizations of identity so characteristic of modern and postmodern thought which turn identity into a task. Troeltsch’s concept of Christianity, then, could be conceived of as a performative practice which radically resists any conceptual closure.