W. H. Auden's contribution to "The New Canterbury Pilgrims"

"As he reaches adolescence, every boy and girl today begins to notice two phenomenon: official religion and religiosity. Official religion is not the same as conventional religion. A conventional Christian is someone who does not distinguish between his faith and culture;he believes in the Nicene Creed as unquestionably and in the same way as he believes that no gentleman wears a celluloid collar."

"An official Christian, on the other hand, is someone who, for various reasons, like setting an example for the young or doing business in his community, attends the rites and recites the formulas while knowing perfectly well that he, personally, does not believe in them. In the boarding schools I attended, chapel was compulsory for the masters as well as the boys, and one very soon realized that many of the former were definitely not Christians but that attending chapel was a condition of their employment. One could not call them hypocrites because this was a open secret which they made no serious effort to conceal"

moore latter