Critique of religion and prophetic messianism by Erich Fromm

Abstract

Religion was a subject of interest to Erich Fromm throughout his life, both for theoretical reasons and critical demands, as well as for other motivations deeply rooted in his biographical trajectory. He was a person who had no qualms about expressing his profound religiosity through his work, which, experientially, has its roots in Orthodox Judaism and the solid rabbinical training he received until well into his youth. This religiosity would be thematised and presented as humanistic religiosity when, having distanced himself from the faith of his ancestors, he began to express and live it personally in non-theistic terms. Fromm did not question messianic hopes insofar as they referred to a different society which, as the utopian goal of history, had to be achieved through human effort to transform the existing reality of injustice and oppression.