Can we identify religion with devotion to ideals?
There is to-day a widespread tendency to do this.
Prominent in a public library stands the motto:
"To be religious is to pursue the highest ideals."
Sometimes the word value is substituted for the
word ideal; but the word value is no clearer in its
significance than ideal and there is just as much dif-
ference of opinion concerning its exact meaning.
Is that which we experience when we have distinc-
tively religious experience an ideal? Is God or
Christ or whatever the religious person may con-
sider the chief object of his concern, preëminently
an ideal? Is the chief function of religion to clar-
ify, enforce and make alluring certain ideals-"the
conservation of socially recognized values"--for
instance? Is religion preëminently a device for
glorifying social coöperation and arousing utmost
devotion to those goals of endeavor which society
holds to be highest?

Or is the function of religious experience relative
to ideals creative rather than conservative? Is it
the reconstruction of ideals rather than the en-
hancement and enforcement of established and rec-
ognized ideals? Is it "the revaluation of values"

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