History shows that nearly every religion moves through the same time-worn cycle of phases--from purity and reality and fellowship through organization and literalness and external expansion to hypocrisy and exploitation and tyranny. All religious influence historically passes through these stages of rise and fall. It begins by expressing an elementary portion of divine truth and by promoting a simple standard of human morality. It ends by opposing the truth and defending immorality. In its purity and vitality, it suffuses the hearts of its votaries with goodwill towards other men and hence draws them closer together. But in its degradation and devitalization it poisons the hearts of its slaves with intolerance towards other men and thus sets them farther apart. The declension of a religious movement begins at the point where the external organization of it begins to replace the internal feeling of it. The intuition is then gradually forgotten and the importance of funds, buildings, officials, prestige, and power rises egoistically and ambitiously in its stead. In the end the inner reality is all but lost, only its mocking shadow remains. It might be said that in its early unformed state, the movement spiritually exhilarates men but in its later institutional state it materially exploits them. It is therefore necessary to make a clear-cut distinction between a religion in its original pure form and in its later corrupt form. Time corrupts every religion. The history of Christianity confirms this cyclic nature of religion. It arose outwardly amidst bitter suffering and violent death; it began to fall inwardly amidst gilded prosperity and exaggerated pomp.
-- Notebooks Category 17: The Religious Urge > Chapter 4 : Problems of Organized Religion > # 33
