Secular ideologies replicate religious salvation-history as a narrative form.

Evidence

There are many such mythologies at the present time. One particular brand is what is sometimes called salvation-history, history presented as the coming of the truth that saves mankind, or at least part of it. The best known are of course the religious versions of history, each presenting the essential truth of its own brand of salvation, which washes whiter than the others. To these we may add the modern secular versions, liberal, Communist, nationalist, patriotic, and the rest. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1831

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to the moral-panic and identity work on how groups sacralize their own narratives; also echoes the ‘civil religion’ concept from sociological literature. — connects to: Christian nationalist history follows a golden-age-fall-redeem narrative structure. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 526; The Western idea that history moves toward an endpoint descends from Christian eschatology — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 159; Nostalgia for an imagined Christian past drives declension narratives that motivate political action — Andrew L. Whitehead, American Idolatry, 198