After the demise of Christianity, Western society did not become secular, according to Emile Durkheim, but located foundations in a new religion he calls the “cult of the individual.” This religion holds the rational individual person as sacred, and corresponds to a multi-faceted, complex, and diverse society united around individual democratic rights and modern science. Different traditional religions can co-exist in the cult of the individual, but only if they accept a subordinate status in relation to it. Durkheim maintains, however, (...) that all religions construct authoritative regimes of truth and moral obligations, setting the stage for conflict. How then should modern democracies respond to challenges to their authority from traditional religions? This article argues that a Durkheimian response would be to assert the values of the cult of the individual, as this is the only way to maintain the integrity and viability of Western democratic society. (shrink)

Human concern with problems of being and becoming promotes conceptions of ideal states of being, exemplified by paragons and heroes and projected as Utopias or visions of salvation; it leads to regimens for cultivating and maintaining individual ability to meet social expectations; and it produces fantasies, as in myth and popular literature, that rehearse the problems and that offer escape from them and roles to emulate in dealing with them. Many of these regimens and fantasies appear in the rituals and (...) teachings of organized religion. Many also figure in private devotions apart from established religions. The many forms they take constitute much of the religious life of ordinary people. From this viewpoint, there is much to examine in American life. (shrink)

The English term religion is used to refer to local Christian churches, their organizations, and their practices. Nevertheless, Western anthropologists have tried to utilize it as if it were a technical term with universal applicability. Anthropologists have sought to characterize religion by several dichotomies, although their own field researches have revealed the irrelevance of such dichotomies as well as the fact that non‐Western peoples do not recognize an entity equivalent to religion. Were the characteristics used by anthropologists in defining religion (...) precisely applied to Western societies, then several other kinds of organizations, ceremonials, and practices would have as much, or even greater, claim to being included within the rubric of religion as the Christian and allied churches. The consequence of this conceptual imprecision has been the theoretical stagnation noted by eminent theorists. (shrink)