Wach, Joachim (1898–1955)

An underappreciated figure in the sociology of religion, Wach was born and studied in Germany, but under Nazi pressure emigrated to the United States in the mid-1930s and completed his academic career at the University of Chicago. His major work was Sociology of Religion (1944), which was an elaboration of his Einfu¨hrung in die Religionssoziologie (1931). Wach believed in the universality of religious belief and argued that “communing with the deity” was as fundamental to culture and society as was recognition of our material surroundings. Influenced by Max Weber, Wach emphasized the importance of the historical and comparative study of religion, and especially of the need for western scholars to study eastern religions. He argued that comparative study should aim towards understanding (Verstehen) and not just aggregate statistical analyses.

Wach was an advocate of the intellectual value of the discipline of religious studies and saw it as a way of teaching students to be neither fanatical nor indifferent towards religion. He regarded the sociology of religion as providing an important bridge to theology and to making different types of religious expression more accessible to social science analysis. But, while arguing for the essentially religious nature of humans, Wach differentiated between theology and its concern with understanding its own faith or confessional tradition (what must I believe?), and the comparative study of religion, Religionswissenschaft, that seeks to establish and understand “what is there that is believed?” Unlike Peter L. Berger, Wach did not see religious pluralism as undercutting the certainty of belief; he saw it rather as potentially leading to the reflexive examination, preservation, and strengthening of an individual's own faith. MICHELE DILLON

Wallerstein, Immanuel (1930– )

Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York, Binghampton, Director of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economics, Historical Systems and Civilizations, and former President of the American Sociological Association, Wallerstein's early work was on Africa and colonialism in The Road to Independence: Ghana and the Ivory Coast (1964), Africa: The Politics of Independence (1961), Social Change: The Colonial Situation (1966), and Africa: The Politics of Unity (1967).