HONEST RELIGION NEEDS A SECULAR SOCIETY

 I read something today which first alarmed me and then had me thinking: the suggestion that Putin dreams of leading, along with the racist, fascist Bannon and his minions, a Great Revival of white 'Christendom'. He wants to revive the ancient error of the 'Cross-and-crown' framework of society using a coalition of counterfeit 'Christian' nationalists here, reactionary Romans (I question just how 'catholic' these people might be) and the Orthodox churches which have always been organized on an ethno-national basis. This 'coalition' would have three enemies: Islam, China (which has always feared Islam; why do you think they're persecuting the Uighurs so cruelly?) and....modern secularism.
That last gets me really thinking. I grew up in a 'sekler-HEWM'niss' family. I started to become a Christian when I was in college and am still becoming one; I am and have been an in-process Christian just about all my adult life. Neither my church nor any Rationalist body called on me to cut off ties from the first part of my life, by the way.
To me, 'secular humanism' is a few things: first, I'd say it belongs to spiritual adolescents at that stage of development where they see their parents as Utterly Hopeless Creatures, which we know to belong basically to high schoolers, college students (and maybe other young people of corresponding ages) and tends to begin to change in one's early twenties. Perhaps starting regular jobs has something to do with that.
Second, I see it as a way-station between moving beyond the god many of us know from childhood and our parents. We move through the valley of unbelief and in the hills on the other side, we find a God of Whom we know far less than we're used to believing. Paul Tillich said it well: "The post-skeptic God often bears little resemblance to the pre-skeptic God." How right he was!
Third, I see a secular society as actually quite necessary for the nurturing and growth of what I understand to be true religion and true spirituality. A society which is resolutely secular--that is, one where the government concerns itself only with earthly good for its members, including ecosystems--is probably necessary for religion to remain relatively uncorrupted. A society where one faith or another is supported by government opens the door all too wide to corruptions. Not to mention that such a society can play an important role in keeping religion intellectually sharp and honest. The Gallican Church (that is, the Catholic Church in France) offers some proof of that, I'd say.
When we try to use shiny objects to bring people to, or back to, 'old-time religion' it works for a while, but only for a while. Soon enough the objects lose their shine and the whole thing as shown up as yet another snake-oil medicine show. And that's where, in the dark past, religious coercion usually kicked in.
Modern secular society asks only that no religion make a public nuisance nor a public danger of itself; its only compulsion upon religion is more honesty, both intellectual and emotional, than any established religion would require of itself. Such societies have tended to leave such honesty to its religious dissenters.
Modern secular society might also require religion to dig deeper into its scriptures for more meaning--such understandings as can incorporate scientific facts with religious truths. Here, as elsewhere, the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life!
I should also mention here that, to the everlasting shame of religions, secular societies seem to treat their members with considerably more 'humaneness' than do societies which place high importance on outwardly religious displays. See Matthew 7:21 for what Jesus had to say. And, at least as importantly, note this passage:
Jesus, knowing that they [the crowd which he had fed] intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself. John 6:15 (NIV)
He fled from those who would have made him an earthly sovereign. How then can he approve of a renewal of the 'Cross and crown' governmental framework? And read these lines written by a man who was himself a friar more than four centuries before our Bill of Rights was crafted, in a time when any other governmental pattern could hardly be imagined:
When the kindness of Constantine gave Holy Church endowments
In lands and leases, lordships and servants,
An angel cried on high above the Romans,
saying, 'This day has the church drunk venom,
And all who have Peter's power are poisoned forever'.
If Will Langland could see the evil results of 'Cross and crown' government in a time when hardly anyone could imagine anything else, there can be no excuse for us if we permit a renewal of such a flawed model of governance. Repeat. NO. EXCUSE!
Honest religion and secular society need one another! And something it seems I can't say often enough: A robust, living faith welcomes questions, can answer criticisms cogently, gives mockery a pitying smile and asks the state only for impartiality. It is a brittle and moribund 'faith' that begs the state for help to squelch questions, criticisms and justly deserved mockery in order to shore up its outward shell, as its insides are already usually empty as it is.