Time and Place: New York, on February 6, 1956

Abstract: This is the second lecture on “The Religious Crisis of Today” and recaps first a previous lecture for which no recording is available. In it, Fromm discusses Freud’s and Jung’s understanding of religion and four types of religion: ritualistic religion, orthodox religion, religion of the road, and mystical religion. Then he spoke about the emergence of monotheism and overcoming narcissism. In this second lecture he talks about the evolution of the concept of God in the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish tradition. Of particular interest here is the development of negative theology, as later discussed by Maimonides. The concept of human beings is also subject to development, as the story of the creation of humankind already shows. The central issue of humans is the need for relatedness. The impact of both developments for monotheism is, that there is a new concept of the One which in principle is beyond any description. Hence the present crisis of religion has mainly to do with the fact that the monotheistic idea is transformed into a new form of idolatry and that God is set up as a new idol. – The lecture (62’) was given on February 6, 1956, in New York by Erich Fromm on the invitation of the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association.

The text of the lecture and discussion can be downloaded as a PDF file.

ID in the directory of Erich Fromm’s works (https://fromm-online.org/en/works/original-writings/): 1956e-eng