Word: greeleys
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Even more compelling is Greeley's argument against the "literary myth" which holds that a society can be accurately described by what its intellectuals think. Intellectuals ignore survey data on religion and even the strange new cults popping up on campus and thus conclude, after consultation with each other, that the religious impulse is dead...
...basic flaw in Greeley's arguments lies in his definition of religion as "an explanation of what the world is all about." This notion takes in ideology as well, so that under Greeley's definition. Marxism would be called a religion even though it disavows the notion of God. Yet Greeley explicitly rejects the arguments of liberals for a "God-less Christianity" a la Dietrich Bonhoffer. In the end, one has absorbed empirical data and a considerable body of theory all pointing to the persistence of theistic religion, only to discover that God is not really the focal point...
...later chapters, Greeley discusses the continuing importance of the sacred, of ritual, of myth. He notes in a chapter on religion and sex, that "sexuality is by its very nature sacred and by its very nature religious." He concludes by calling upon the Church neither to dabble in "social relevance" nor to keep out of earthly affairs entirely. He would have her reinterpret her myths in order to reassert the importance of the transcendent. The Church, he says, is the only institution in a position to alleviate the despair which he sees all around us, since only religious myths...
UNFORTUNATELY, the book begins better than it ends. Greeley is best when he's dissecting the flaws of anti-ideological, anti-religious ideologues. He is also very much to the point in insisting that beneath atomized mass society exists a layer of Gemeinschafl communities which en-compass the whole human being and not just this or that functional part. And he insists that such communities, far from being the reactionary enclaves which some liberals say they are, could become forces for social change...
...Greeley's case is not without its problems, but it is certainly a useful antidote to the popular wisdom he disdains. Moreover, despite Greeley's propensity to make (usually funny) jokes at the expense of the Left, he is willing to acknowledge the accuracy of radical criticism of the corporate ideal, which ideal encouraged the anti-religious spirit. In so doing, he eases communication between the Left and the advocates of Catholic ethnics. Given the unusually bitter feelings which characterize relations between the two groups, this in itself is an admirable contribution...