The Myth of Private Religion

While reading Professor Stephen Turley's essay Classical Christian Education and Public Witness,  two of his assertions struck me as familiar:

...Consequently, there emerged a whole new definition of religion: religion was no longer a public expression of cosmic piety and social obligation. Instead, religion was simply something that one personally believed but could not know; it was that by which one cultivated a sense of private meaning and existential satisfaction, but religion had no public, that is objective, value at all.

and

... it is here that secularism plays a key role, for it is through secularization that the state is able to perpetuate and protect its monopolization over the public square. And the primary mechanism by which such monopolization is maintained is the redefinition of religion and the consequent marginalization of the church to the private sphere of life. The state effectively marginalizes the church (or any other competing vision of the public) by re-inventing our conception of faith and religion in accordance with secular norms: faith and religion are little more than instrumental means by which individuals find personal meaning and purpose for their lives.

 These two passages echoed what I had read recently in Frank Sheed's classic Theology for Beginners. Commenting on the widespread modern tendency to treat God as "extra" to life, he writes:

Religion, it is felt, is something that some people go in for; it might be better for ourselves if we all did a little more of it; but it has no place in the practical business of man's life...What a man believes about God is his private affair: in other words it does not affect anyone but the man himself, and it does not affect him in a way that matters to anyone else.

This is a very remarkable statement indeed. All history echoes with denial. What men have believed about God has caused more wars and fiercer wars than any other thing whatever. Rivers of blood have flowed because of what men believed about God. And now, suddenly, it has become their own private affair. Obviously this can only mean that men do not believe anything very intensely about God, or, if they do, are not likely to do anything very extreme about it.

Aztec human sacrifice

Reiterating this thought, the Catholic author Hilaire Belloc wrote, "Every major question in history is a religious question. It has more effect in molding life than nationalism or a common language." The Aztec religious practice of human sacrifice could hardly be dismissed as their own private affair. It definitely had an effect on the chosen ones and their families and shaped Aztec culture. Religion is how a man views the world, his philosophy of life, how he answers the great questions of life.If and why humans believe in the dignity of the human person determines all actions towards one another and molds human society. "Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude toward the universe" and."a state, a human policy, or a general culture, must be inspired by some body of morals, and there can be no body of morals without doctrine..." (Belloc, The Great Heresies}. Contrary to the Beatles song, a world without religion cannot be imagined. Belief is very much not a private affair and, because it is of necessity public, error about belief will have a negative public effect. Frank Sheed continues:

Supposing a man refuses to believe in the existence of the sun. He will of course be ready with a theory to account for the widely held view that the sun does exist. He will say perhaps that the sun is a collective hallucination, or a large fire just fifty miles up in the air, or a result of wishful thinking, or a visual effect produced by spots on the liver, or a relic of tribal superstition, or a piece of sexual symbolism, or a purely mental compensation for an unjust economic system. However ingenious his theory or however excellent his character and intention, he would be wrong about day and night, about the seasons, about the moon, the stars, the weather - he would be in danger of death by sunstroke. So far it might well be his own private affair. But if he persuaded large numbers of people that the sun did not exist, his private error would be in a fair way to becoming a public nuisance; and if he were the captain of a ship, passengers' lives would not be safe with him: he could not be trusted to get them across the ocean. You could not discuss astronomy with such a man because, however much a man may be entitled to his own opinion, the sun remains a fact, and a fact essential to astronomy and navigation. Similarly, you cannot discuss the purpose of life with a man who denies the existence of God. You cannot profoundly collaborate in human affairs, in sociology, say, or education with a man who denies the existence of God. You cannot simply agree to omit God from the collaboration for the sake of argument, any more than you could agree to omit the sun from navigation. The sun is a fact and essential to navigation. God is a fact and essential to everything.

To me, this is one of strongest reasons for why the Catholic Textbook Project exists -- to tell the story of history with God and religion, not as extra, but as essential. To ignore their significance to humanity is a distortion of history, of reality, which can only lead to a diminished life for everyone.

Artwork by Ade Bethune from the Ade Bethune Collection, St. Catherine University Library, St. Paul, MN 55105