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In any case, I see no way in which, having concluded that "religion" is not to be defined without metaphysical presuppositions, I could continue to say some of the things I've said in the past. Consider, for example, the following:

Wiki Markup"\[T\]he clarification I have suggested understands 'religion' in a functional sense sufficiently formal to include cultural forms or movements that others, assuming a nonfunctional, or substantive, understanding, would speak of as, at most, 'quasi-religions,' or possibly 'religion surrogates.' Thus Communism, for instance, might be quite properly spoken of as a religion in my sense, provided only that it is taken to be not only a certain understanding of our basic faith but also a whole symbolic structure of beliefs, rites, and social organizations whereby such understanding is expressed and enforced-in short, provided that it is taken to be the primary cultural form through which certain men and women today have come to understand their basic faith" _(On_ _Theology:_ 109 f.).  

Clearly, the only provision I stipulate here for speaking of Communism properly as a religion is but one of two such provisions that I would need to stipulate if "religion" in the strict and proper sense cannot be defined without the "absolutely minimal metaphysical presuppositions" I have now come to think of as necessary. If I am right in thinking this, Communism, on my own showing, is not a religion, but, at most, a "quasi-religion" or a "religion surrogate." Generalizing, then, I can only allow that such terms have a use that I mistakenly denied them to have.

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