Troeltsch’s “Political Ethics and Christianity”: The Case for Hierarchy 1

In 1904 Troeltsch set forth his political ethics in a programmatic essay entitled, “Political Ethics and Christianity.” ² It was based on an address he made to the fifteenth Evangelical Social Congress. By this time, the Evangelical Social Congress had taken a more conservative turn, as discussed in chapter 7. Harnack was now the president. Troeltsch’s essay reflects the new conservatism, for in it he recalls approvingly the Emperor’s pronouncement, “Political pastors are nonsense!” (PE, 39), which signalled the monarch’s shift to the right in 1896.