ABSTRACT

The initial departure from mimetic conceptions took place in theology. Karl Morrison whose work on the age-long classical tradition of mimesis in Christian thought have already invoked, is quite emphatic that the Protestant reformers were mimetoclasts: "Luther and Calvin proved to be deniers of mimetic strategies of transformation because they rejected mimetic Christology". The dispute concerning the Eucharist was the main focus of theological difference in the Reformation. It was a controversy that in the first place divided Protestants from Catholics; but among the former, it further sub-divided the various reformed churches, first it pitted Luther against Zwingli and then Calvin against both. The consequences of Calvinism for a distinctly modern form of politics have been debated ever since Max Weber made his few brief but suggestive comments on this topic as an extension to his much better worked-out case concerning economics.