Religion as an Inescapable Concept … Thank You Atlantic Monthly

I would only take exception at the notion of “religion finding expression through secular commitments.” Once those putatively “secular commitments” become the person’s or people’s ultimate loyalty the commitment is no longer secular but religious. Overtly religious commitments surrendered are always surrendered for new religious commitments even if those commitments are now sold subverted as “secular commitments.” Kuyper understood this as we see in the quote above. The author of the Atlantic Monthly piece should have stuck with these “new” secular commitments being properly characterized as “sublimated religions.” Kuyper properly noting that these new commitments were all “faith-based” proves that religion as religion never goes away.

This demonstrates that religion is an inescapable concept. When you throw in the observation above concerning “ultimate loyalty” and understand that wherever a people’s “ultimate loyalty” lies there you have identified their God or god concept we learn that God likewise is an inescapable concept for all peoples. The first step in understanding a culture or social order is identifying their God (ultimate loyalty) and their religion (ultimate faith-based commitments). A people’s religion will be consistent with whatever their ultimate loyalty is and their ultimate loyalty will be consistent with their religion.

This means that no person or peoples are “more religious” or “less religious” than other persons or peoples. All people are uniformly religious. It is just a matter of identifying where their God and religion lie. This also means that all persons and peoples have the same religious furniture in their thinking. Universally all people have categories of origin, sin, redemption, destination, nature of man, etc. etc. etc. Now, most people will not be epistemologically self-conscious about what they believe but that does not mean that they are not acting in terms of these un-articulated to themselves categories.

So, for example, the Communist god is the Communist party. Their religion based on their god concept finds them believing that man is basically good (Communist anthropology). Their religion teaches them an origin story that is based on materialistic time + chance + circumstance. Their sin concept is in rebelling against the diktats of the Communist party. Their redemption category is found in the payment of their own sin of rebelling against the party by confessing their guilt and gladly receiving the bullet to the nape of the neck. Their religious belief regarding their telos is a yet unattained Utopia. The most ardent Communist is every bit as religious as your most committed Medieval Monk.