Secular Religion

Below is a quote, the conclusion, of an article by Katy Butler entitled “Living On Purpose”.  In it which she chronicles certain aspects of the lives of two men, Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr, [co-authors of The Power of Full Engagement] who were seeking perfection; one in coaching, the other in his own life. Her conclusion represents as close a description, from the secular standpoint, of the Christian worldview as I have seen. She implies that there are forces [Psychological? Social? Spiritual?] that we do not control, and that shape us. We can cooperate with these forces [and by implication resist some of them], but we must also practice “self-acceptance”, “persistence”, and “forgiveness”. The article also briefly chronicles the secularization of culture and the helpful religious rituals that were left behind, and the deleterious effects of their loss.

This may be the greatest paradox of the expanded definition of the unconscious. The more we know about factors outside our conscious control, the greater the chance we have to influence and channel them. At the same time, the more the Renaissance vision of the perfectability of man recedes into the distance, the more our genuine ability to shape our lives grows, and the more our grandiose sense of complete control wanes. So does Freud’s magisterial conception of an Ego that would, after indefinite years of psychoanalysis, supplant the writhing Id.

This paradox invites us to look over our lives, take a deep breath, and hold the reins with a looser hand. We can’t control ourselves. We can’t even control the factors that control us. We can simply help shape what helps shape us. We influence our lives, but we don’t control them. If we want to be effective and happy, we need to include on our lists of values not only “excellence,” “effort,” and “integrity,” but “self-acceptance,” “persistence,” and “forgiveness.” This may be the deeper meaning of the notion of “practice” that the seeker and the tennis coach have stumbled on, and a way to approach the vast unconscious with a deeper emotional wisdom.


“Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.”
– Albert Einstein (1879–1955)