Stausberg/Theories, 7. Greeley: Religion, a Secular Theory (1982)

For Greeley the meaning of the attribute “secular,” invoked in the title of his book, was not “non-religious,” but meant to contrast with “ecclesiastical”—that is, institutional or official. He advocates a perspective that grounds religion in “experiences of daily life”; institutions are thus an outcome, not a cause He also found the propositional content of religions—doctrines and teachings—of secondary importance. Formally, his theory is built as a series of interconnected “propositions,” most of which he considered empirically testable and falsifiable and the raw material that religion ultimately emerges from, is the human “propensity to hope,” as stipulated by the first, and most axiomatic, of the propositions.