Note about the 'anxious bench'

Abstract

[MWS 14.1 (2014) 97-101] ISSN 1470-8078 Note about the 'anxious bench' Mariana Magalhäes Pinto Côrtes In the section dedicated to Methodism in his The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber briefly mentions a strange and unprecedented conversion technique practised during the move ment of the 'Second Great Awakening'. This technique was called the 'anxious bench'. Weber doesn't use the original English term, probably—although there is no certainty on this point—because he only knew about the technique from the German translation of the book written by the theologian and educator John Williamson Nevin called The Anxious Bench-A Tract for the Times, published in 1843.1 1. In the famous translation of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Talcott Parsons, the 'anxious bench' was referred to only indirectly. To quote the Par sons' translation: The attainment of repentance under certain circumstances involved an emotional struggle of such intensity as to lead to the most terrible ecstasies, which in America often took place in a public meeting. This formed the basis of a belief in the undeserved possession of divine grace and at the same time of an immediate consciousness of justifica tion and forgiveness (Weber 1930:140). 'In a public meeting' stands in for the 'Angstbank'. The German reads: Ein unter Umständen bis zu den fürchterlichsten Ekstasen gesteiger ter Busskampf, in Amerika mit Vorliebe auf der "Angstbank" vollzo gen, führte zum Glauben an Gottes unverdiente Gnade und zugleich damit unmittelbar zum Be wusstein der Rechtfertigung und Versöh nung (Weber 1920:146). My thanks to Sam Whimster who pointed this out to me during a conference on Weber and Foucault in Säo Paulo, May 2013. On this issue of Weber's sources, the anonymous referee for this Note informs us that the German translation of The Anxious Bench appeared in 1844 from the second and enlarged English edition and was accomplished probably by Nevin himself since he was one of the founding fathers of the so-called Mercersburg Theology, a German-American theological movement in the mid-19th century.© Max Weber Studies 2014, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. 98 Max Weber Studies The 'anxious bench' was a conversion r Great Awakening', an evangelist reviva the United States in the nineteenth c revivalist movement constituted an innovative re-elaboration of cer tain practices employed by the Methodism in the eighteenth cen tury which, in turn, could be closely related to German pietism at the end of the seventeenth century. In the field of Protestant move ments derived straightforwardly from the Reformation, German pietism introduces, according to Weber, the sentiment factor, which was not part of the original Calvinist theology of predestination. Instead of projecting all rational conduct in this world to the pur suit of salvation in the Other World, German pietism intended to provide its followers full communion with God and his blessedness in this present world. Although this communion is mediated by the search for everyday asceticism, German pietism could result in a religiosity of a markedly hysterical character, by alternating frantic ecstasy and nervous lethargy, as Weber has pointed out. By rejecting the Calvinist presupposition of the particularism of grace, German pietism postulated that grace is universally distributed; its conces sion, however, is given to each man only once. If the moment of concession is passed by, grace would be lost forever and the follower would be in the same condition of those condemned by the arbi trary Calvinist predestination. As the decisive moment of receiving grace was undefined, German pietists invented a method for bring ing it about. Known as 'penitential battle', the method consisted of a devotional exercise in which sinners were encouraged to engage in a war against themselves and to regret their sins, a necessary condition to allow them to regenerate the heart and to receive the intended grace. Aimed at mass conversion, Methodism transforms the 'penitential battle' practice in an efficient mechanism to incite a sentimental experience of conversion. In North America, especially among Methodist sects and under revivalist movements of religious effervescence, the 'penitential battle' gains a particular and curious reconfiguration in...