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HANS ERICH BÖDEKER
Christian truths, but rather turned also to the distinct religious consciousness
of the individual Christian. This dissociation from the Church, however, was not
the end of religion, but only the transformation of its traditional appearance.'**
Private religion was obviously from its inception limited to the “more capable
individuals”, as Semler had once put it. He elaborated extensively and specifi¬
cally upon this “theory of two classes of Christians” within the discussion of
Enlightenment individualization of religious consciousness.’ Going against
the orthodox line, he defended the right to one’s own perceptions, freedom
for theology, doctrine and research, and the “private religion” of the thinking
Christian. He explicitly tied the assertion of religious freedom to a specific
level of reflection. And given the low standard of education of large sections of
the population at that time, Semler reckoned that only a small minority would
be bearers of an independent “private religion”. He never failed to refer to the
distinction, which he believed that religion had always drawn, between two
“classes” of people. Semler’s main concern was that the “capable” should have
“the freedom of morally experienced Christians”.’°° Their capabilities entitled
them to this freedom, for it enabled them to achieve the ultimate purpose of
religion. “Thinking Christians no longer need a teacher.”’”' “Only the weak need
external order and guidance.” '** The Church, with its doctrines, provided for
“incapable Christians” exactly what “capable Christians” were able to work out
for themselves. This distinction between the religion of the educated individual,
private religion, and the religion of the Church was one of the most effective
transformations within the modern religious culture.
In the preface which Lessing planned for Nathan der Weise, for example,
(two legible pages survived among his papers, but have since disappeared), the
antithesis between reason and revelation acquired an “educational” dimension
and foundation: for the less educated “rabble” — revelation; for “scholars” or
philosophers, that is in contemporary terms, the Gebildeten (educated classes)
— reason. Philosophy was seen as the concern exclusively of those who were ca¬
pable of Enlightenment, even though for Lessing this dichotomy dissolved into
a historical-philosophical perspective. Lessing suggested that lower religious
188 Cf. for the Protestant concept of church, BODEKER, Hans Erich, Kirche als Religionsgesellschaft
im Diskurs der deutschen protestantischen Aufklärung. Eine Strukturskizze, in L. Hölscher
(ed.), Baupläne der sichtbaren Kirche. Sprachliche Konzepte religiöser Vergemeinschaftung in
Europa, Bausteine zu einer Europäischen Religionsgeschichte im Zeitalter der Säkularisierung,
Göttingen, Wallstein, 2007, 53-89.
189 Cf. RENDTOREF, Kirche und Theologie (note 26), 53ff.
190 SEMLER, Freie Lehrart (note 26), 6f.
11 Thid., 8.
12 Ibid., 180.
* 124 +