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of view that religion--or better: the act of faith^a, in religion^b--is the state of ultimate concern. From this follows the fundamental answer to the question of this whole [course of] lecture[s]: religion is the substance of culture^c; culture is the form of religion.

Now after I have announced this, so to speak, as the subtitle to the whole lecture, I come back to the relationship of these two concepts of religion, or more intensively, these two elements in the act of faith: "ultimate" and "concern." Ultimacy^d drives beyond every special concern; concern drives to full concreteness. And out of this, the other side of religion--which I did not mention last time, and which has raised questions in your minds--follows naturally and understandably. There would be no religion, in ANY way, if the concern couldn't express itself in concrete forms. But there is a problem in these concrete forms. The concern is supposed to be ultimate, but when I gave you the examples of nation and success, you immediately felt with me that they are not true ultimates, because they are transitory, and they are, if they remain alone, empty (at least success), and, if they are without criteria, demonic^f (such as nationalism).^e So we must distinguish between that which is really ultimate and that which CLAIMS to be ultimate but is actually NOT ultimate^g.

In traditional religious language^h, that which is not really ultimate but claims to be, is called idolatry. Every content of faith, of ultimate concern, which claims ultimacy without having it in its very nature, is an idol. The act of such idols is idolatry. Idolatry is therefore a universal phenomenon. It is not what is usually called polytheism. In polytheism there are elements of true ultimate concern; in polytheism there is also idolatry. In Christianity and the monotheistic religions, there is also true ultimacy, and there is also idolatry. And the history of the church is full of idolatric elements, as much as the history of all other religions. And it belongs to the fundamental Christian doctrine that the history of the church stands UNDER the judgment of ultimate concern and is judged by it, and is judged as largely idolatric, claiming to be ultimate where there is no ultimacy.

Now this is one of the most important consequences following from my definition of faith as ultimate concern. It follows from it that no religion is exempted from the criterion of true ultimacy and from the temptation to replace true ultimacy by idolatry.