5

Religious Revolution Now

Its Occasions and Instruments

Reasons for religious revolution

Th e previous chapters of this book have discussed and criticized the
three major orientations to existence to have emerged from the reli-
gious revolutions of the past. Th ese three approaches to the human
condition— religions in the encompassing but nevertheless historically
anchored sense in which I have used the term— fail to account for the
whole history of religion. Th ey correspond to a period, although a long
period in that history. Th ere was once a time when we did not view the
world in their light. Th ere is every reason to suppose that there will be a
time in which their light, if not extinguished, will not be the sole or
even the predominant infl uence on our most comprehensive beliefs
about the human situation.
Th e gates of prophecy are never closed. It is contrary to all sense, and
above all to the historical sense that represents one of the greatest
achievements of the last few centuries, to suppose that religious revolu-
tion, combining in some form visionary teaching and exemplary action,
will happen only once in human history. Men and women have shown
themselves capable of it in the past. Not even our faithlessness has
destroyed this capability, or at least our prospect of once again acquir-
ing it.
Th e overriding force that drives the development of religion is the
need to commit our lives in one direction or another, on the basis of a
view of the world and of our place in it, and in response to the manifest