The Dogma of Christ

In the long title essay, which comprises almost half of this book, Erich Fromm provides a discriminating example of what psychology can reveal about the genesis and development of religious belief. "We can understand ideas and ideologies only by understanding the people who created them and believed in them," says Fromm, and proceeds to trace the social history of Christianity from its beginning until it became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century. Showing how the changing social condition of the Christian community created different psychic needs, which in turn demanded revised religious dogma, Fromm establishes a paradigm of the psychoanalytic investigation of religion and at the same time illuminates the character of Christianity in a work that has become seminal to the study of psychology and religion. The other essays included here comment with equal perception on "The Present Human Condition," "Sex and Character," "Psychoanalysis - Science or Party Line?" "The Revolutionary Character," "Medicine and the Ethical Problems of Modern Man," "On the Limitations and Dangers of Psychology," and "The Prophetic Concept of Peace."