On the secular “religions”

There’s a whole kind of discourse about things that we often consider secular as religion – so capitalism as a religion, and Marxism as a religion, and nationalism as a religion. And here there’s a divide amongst scholars who study religion. And there are some that are called substantivists, who think that religion is belief in a god or gods or something like that, that it’s defined by what it believes in. And then there’s another group of scholars who are called functionalists who say, no, a religion is defined by its function, so if it functions like a religion then it’s a religion. If it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck. And so they study things like consumerism and nationalism and, say … like Caroline Marvin says, nationalism is the most powerful religion in the United States, and in many other countries as well. 

So the way it functions, it tends to be that kind of thing to which you give your ultimate loyalty. And for many people, even in a so-called Christian society, Christianity doesn’t function that way – Christianity is not a religion in that sense because it’s not what people would kill and die for, in a sense, right. It’s a poorly organised leisure activity that they do on Sundays or something.