CEVAP:

The place of religion in the tree ideologies is as follows:

• Liberalism separates ‘church’ and ‘state’, by locating all matters of religion in privacy, so leaving the secular state dominant in public.

• Socialism alleges that the separation is an error, which leaves the self in thrall to religion: so it refuses the separation, and instead suggests that church and state together have to be transformed. This throws up two formal possibilities. First, it could involve the secularization of religion, so that religion is emptied of its mythical, metaphysical or transcendental content and restored to humanity, not merely as a ‘religion of humanity’ but as a praxis. Secondly, it could involve a secular interpretation of certain precepts of religion.

• Conservatism alleges that both are errors, since religion is what it is, in its publicity and its authority. For this reason, it should neither be displaced nor replaced. It should go through no form of secularization, but remain authoritative (or as authoritative as it happens to be in our time).