Problems with Religion and Politics 371is not merely a religion but also a kind of faith. If these facts assume pri¬
mary importance, and the rational and moral content of religion merely
secondary importance, then religious service becomes "counterfeit" or
"pseudo" service. Indeed, Kant accepts as "a principle requiring no proof"
that any service to God over and above "good life-conduct" is "mere religious
delusion and counterfeit service to God."^168 Only moral service will make us
pleasing to a moral God. Prayer, liturgy, pilgrimages, and confessions are
worthless. There is no difference between the Tibetan using a prayer wheel,
a Catholic saying a rosary, or a Protestant praying without a set formula.
They are all fooling themselves. Nothing good will be accomplished by such
forms of worship, and they may even lead to fanaticism and thus to "the
moral death of reason, without which there can be no religion, because,
like all morality in general, religion must be founded on principles."^169
This still was not sufficient for Kant. In the penultimate section of the
essay, he attacked the "priestcraft" of the official Christian churches, point¬
ing out that the ways in which a primitive Wogulite and "the sublimated
puritan and Independent in Connecticut" pray may differ, but there is no
essential difference between them. The European prelate, who rules over
both church and state, is no different from a shaman among the Tun-
guses.^170 Praying as an "inner ritual service" and a means of obtaining
grace is a particularly harmful "superstitious delusion (a fetish-making)."
It is also not very intelligent, for it amounts to declaring a wish to a being
who, being all-knowing, does not need such declaration.^171 Such clerical¬
ism leads to fetish worship wherever it is allowed to rule. If it becomes
dominant in a state, it will lead to hypocrisy, undermining the integrity and
loyalty of the subjects, and thus producing the very "opposite of what was
intended."^172
This self-defeating religious policy was just what Kant observed in Prus¬
sia between 1788 and 1790. He was speaking not just to a general audience
but also to Frederick William II. His Religion was not just a theoretical
treatise, meant as a contribution to the philosophy of religion; it was also
a political act. In fact, it was primarily a political act. Kant hoped (perhaps
naively) to alter the conduct of his readers, including that of the king. The
Religion was also Kant's declaration of loyalty to Lessing and Mendels¬
sohn. Kant's Religion, Lessing's Education of the Human Race, and Men¬
delssohn's Jerusalem, as well as many other less well-known contributions
to the Berlinische Monatsschrift, were all valiant attempts to introduce
into Prussia the kind of religious freedom that had by then already been
achieved in the United States. Lessing and Mendelssohn were dead. Kant