RELIGION AS A SECULAR IDEOLOGY
505
formed man but the additive man dominates the scene. But at the
same time, as American prosperity and success penetrate more and
more of our life and individual Americans exhaust themselves in
its pursuit, some occasionally stop and observe that their effort is
ludicrous and self-destructive. The fear is man's helplessness. The
confusion is enormous and self-perpetuating.
It is actually beside the point to diagnose the condition which
has produced the modern anguish. What has resulted is the frenetic
quest for security, for conservation, for divine-human cooperation
in
the task of governing and administering our society. What has
emerged is the common religion of "Americanism" which all de–
nominations endorse and support as their meeting-ground. The dis–
astrous effect of this amalgam, however, is expressed by the last statis–
tic I will offer. Fifty-four per cent of Americans claiming religious
commitment believed that religion should stay
in
the churches, that it
had nothing to do with political or business conduct. It is presumed
that Americans are not saying that there should be no morality in pub–
lic life. No one could support such a conclusion. Obviously there must
be something which functions in lieu of established religion in the
public domain. The reasonable conclusion is that public morality is
somehow extrapolated from that vagueness called the "American
sense of fair play," "American sportsmanship"; in effect, the virtues
and morality that Americanism presumably comports. This American–
ism is the common religion that all may share and agree upon.
It
need not be demonstrated that this is neither a religion nor a morality
but an ideology. It is the most dangerous kind of ideology, for it is fab–
ricated out of mutually inconsistent realities: the secular and neutral
and the religious dogmatic-an ideology of misappropriated concepts
which is dangerous because it wants the best mutually exclusive
worlds. Democracy, disguised as Americanism, cannot adapt the ex–
clusive, radical, and dogmatic character of religion to its own neutral–
ity and remain independent. Catholics, Protestants and Jews cannot
put aside their absolute claims in order to fashion some hybrid com–
mon denominator uniting them in the basically neutral practice of
democratic government. Their effort compromises both democracy
and religious authenticity.
