54 beyond wishful thinkingorientations to existence have common, non- trivial characteristics, of
form and of substance, despite the im mense diff erences, of substance as
well as of form, distinguishing them. In an earlier section, I explored
the extent to which they share a program for society and for the self. In
this section, I discuss the degree to which they can all be understood as
instances of a similar practice. I call this practice by the conventional
name religion, modifying the conventional idea of religion in the
double light of a thesis about the past and an intention concerning the
future.
Th e future- regarding advantage of the idea of religion is the most
signifi cant in the argument of this book. Given that a historical con-
struction about historical realities, such as the concept of religion, lacks
a fi xed reference or a stable essence, it should not be surprising that it
has a pragmatic horizon. Th e meaning that we give to it should depend
on what we propose to do with the activities and beliefs that at a given
time we use it to describe. What this form of experience has been until
now matters chiefl y by virtue of its bearing on what it can and should
become: on what we should do with it, and turn it into.
I view the past and the present of what I call religion in the light of
an idea about its future: the concept of religion must be large enough to
accommodate the transformation for which I argue as well as the most
important approaches to life to have marked the history of humanity
over the last two and a half thousand years. It must make room for the
full array of the religious revolutions that resulted in the three posi-
tions considered here. It must include the two of those three positions
that dispense with the conception of a transcendent God, locked in an
embrace with the humanity that he created and that he has saved, or
will save, through his engagement in human history. It must, however,
also have space for the religious revolution that is needed next.
Th at a concept of religion can be inclusive enough to perform these
multiple roles and yet exclude enough of neighboring areas of belief and
action to prevent its descent into emptiness may seem unlikely. Yet that
it can be adequately inclusive and exclusive in this fashion and to these
ends is just what I next claim. Th e vindication of this claim can lie only
in the execution of the argument.
What this idea of religion chiefl y excludes is philosophy and, by ex-
tension, art and politics. Th e three orientations that I explore and the