How many times have you heard the claim that modern ideologies are merely substitutes for the religions of the past? And how often have you paused to ask what that slogan actually means? I suspect that, as so often, it is little more than a clever-sounding phrase—one that tells us very little about real life or real history.
It is true that today’s public space is filled with state symbols, whereas before the Industrial Revolution religious symbols dominated. In that limited sense, the theory contains a grain of truth.
Beyond that, however, it is often assumed that ideologies have replaced religion in their ability to mobilize the masses. Yet organized religion never possessed such a capacity in the first place. No medieval or ancient state was capable of mobilizing the masses in the modern sense. At best, it could keep people obedient—and fear was usually sufficient for that purpose.
We also encounter the notion that organized religion once provided people with a shared worldview and a foundation for mutual solidarity, comparable to the national idea of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But this, too, is largely a romantic illusion. There is little serious evidence that anything of the sort functioned in such an idealized way in earlier times.
From positive psychology, we know that people tend to live better lives when they can see themselves as part of some larger cause. Whether they donate a few dollars to fight global poverty, embrace socialism, believe in a minimal state, or rally around a national idea, they are seeking meaning beyond themselves. Organized religion can play this role as well.
Did it play that role more effectively in the past than it does today? That seems highly unlikely. In medieval Europe, for example, everyday religious life appears to have been dominated by a mixture of remnants of old cults, superstitions, and widespread indifference. Still, we must admit that we cannot know this with complete certainty.
In short, political ideologies have not replaced religion in any meaningful sense. Rather, we are dissatisfied with today’s ideologies for many reasons—as we are dissatisfied with everything human beings create. We dream of something better and project that dream backward into history. We clothe it in romantic visions of an imagined golden age of faith.