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Summary: In the future, religion will just be being nice to people.
Commentary: While I was doing 15MAD last year, I collected a bunch of articles by and about Charles Eliot. One of the big questions I talked about was Eliot's views on religion. Quite a few of the selections in 15MAD were these very negative, illiberal passages that painted Christianity in a negative light. At first, I wondered if maybe he was secretly trying to convert people away from Christianity by just reprinting the worst of the Bible.
But I did some reading, and the consensus seemed to be that Eliot was probably at least nominally Christian, in the same way that a lot of upper class intellectuals were for hundreds of years. Not a hardcore "Bible thumper" but at least appearing to broadly believe in some something resembling the Abrahamic Deity.
He actually gave a speech at the conclusion of Harvard's summer session about how he thought religion would evolve in the future. As I've discussed before, Eliot was believed that it was important to look at the overall progress of civilizations, ideas, etc. I think this is something many people don't tend to do very well with regards to religion. For traditional religious conservatives, progressing in religion is anathema. The whole point is to get as close to the "authentic" original version (which varies depending on your religion, denomination, etc.) as possible. They only way you could progress is if someone found an older manuscript or something, which is sort of progression by regression. On the other end of the spectrum, there's the endless chorus by anti-theists that all religion is, at best, a bunch of superstition made by "stupid bronze age goat herds" and that the only progress possible is reducing it.
It's worth pointing out that Eliot does kind of flirt with a "god of the gaps" version of this, discussing how we understand more things and don't turn to religion for as many problems as we used to. He says, "The general impression you have received from this comprehensive survey must surely be that religion is not a fixed, but a fluent thing."
Now the nineteenth century immeasurably surpassed all preceding centuries in the increase of knowledge, and in the spread of the spirit of scientific inquiry and of the passion for truth-seeking.
I think we can generally say the same about the 20th century now.
The new religion rejects absolutely the conception that man is an alien in the world, or that God is alienated from the world. It rejects also the entire conception of man as a fallen being, hopelessly wicked, and tending downward by nature; and it makes this emphatic rejection of long-accepted beliefs because it finds them all inconsistent with a humane, civilized, or worthy idea of God.
I think this prediction was largely correct. It seems that the further you go in time, the less popular the "fire and brimstone" Old Testament ominicidal maniac God is.
Every age, barbourous or civilized, happy or unhappy, improving of its own conception of God within the limits of and imaginings. In this sense, too, a human religion wait for a humane generation.
Don't pat yourself on the back too hard, Eliot.
The workman today, who gets cut [...] goes to a surgeon, who applies and antiseptic dressing to the wound [...] The surgeon is one of the ministers of the new religion.
Knowledge and care of the cornerstones of the "new religion." If you look at religion as something that can, should, and does evolve, then Eliot's inclusion of Job and other readings make a lot more sense. It's not a value judgement on Old Testament Christianity, merely an early step on the path that will continue into the future towards a better understanding of religion, morality, etc.
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