It is my assumption that the way people live--the way they build their houses, grow crops, maintain land, talk to each other, think of themselves or of others, the things they spend the most time doing, the things they feel intensely when they do them, the things they rely upon and expect to happen (and the things they expect not to happen), the things they single out in day to day life and give special place or name to, the things they fear most, the things they hope to do or see or get, the things they remember out of all other things, the things they own and buy, the things they will not buy or sell, the things they make, the things they do (and do not) teach their children, the songs they sing, all these things and more--is the cloth for which religion is the pattern. It would be incorrect to say that dog-trot houses are their religion, or that country cooking or homemade whiskey is their religion; but it would also be incorrect to say that their religion is something different from all these things. Religion includes all of these as their meaning. Religion is the whole pattern of life that enables them to make sense (this sense is not stated, but is rather symbolized) of all these things. These things are the particulars, the parts, of which religion is the whole, the structure which includes them.

Most of us do not see religion in this way. Instead we see religion as a special kind of very personal emotion, belief or feeling; sometimes we see religion as a special, definable institution like the church that sponsors and reinforces that personal feeling. In fact, the normal way in our culture for religion to be understood and spoken of is in these two, related ways--as personal feeling and special institution. When personal feeling and special institutions provide the actual pattern of life for us, then they do constitute religion--the pattern or source of meaning for our lives.

The trouble with this familiar way of looking at religion is that sometimes what we call religion is not actually what gives pattern and meaning to our life--or is only a small part of that pattern. Sometimes, when our values change, when values other than or in addition to those in personal feeling or special institutions become important to us, it is very misleading to look for religion in the familiar guise. Our actual religion may include much more than personal feeling and special institution, and in some cases our actual religion may be quite different from these. Most recent interpreters of religion in the west, particularly in America, suggest that our actual religion is very much different from what we say our religion is. For these interpreters, real religion is to be found in the values people actually live by or give themselves to; it is to be found in the things people trust in or rely upon to make sense of the world they live in.

Tillich has said that religion is ultimate concern. But ultimate concern is not some abstract idea known only to theologians and philosophers, not some rarefied concept crowning the remote arch of metaphysics. Ultimate concern is first and finally the particular way a people in a place and time come to live.