Who is spreading the "religion is private" rumor, and how can I stop it?

Whenever I come across someone opining on the question of religion in America, I'm interested, because I myself get pretty opine-y about that very subject. And when it comes up in a national media outlet, say, the New York Times, I get my hopes up, because the Grey Lady has standards. However, I was fairly disappointed this morning when I read Eric Weiner's opinion article, Americans: Undecided About God?.

Weiner invoked the growing "spiritual, but not religious" (which is like nails on a chalkboard for this writer) contingency in the United States, blaming religion's effort to influence the political sphere as the catalyst for the trend.

"Their idea is that we’ve mixed politics and religion so completely that many simply opt out of both; apparently they are reluctant to claim a religious affiliation because they don’t want the political one that comes along with it."

I'm not sure I can swallow such a hypothesis. People are turned off by "institutional religion" (*see "spiritual, but not religious") for many reasons: hypocrisy, perceived exclusions, rigidness, promotion of antiquated practices, etc. That a specific denomination (as it seems Weiner is actually speaking of, rather than Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, as a whole) supports certain public policy is an outgrowth of a particular understanding of theology. No religion exists neatly packaged apart from human existence. Teachings compel concrete responses. But Weiner seems to long for a more sterilized understanding of God:

"Religion and politics, though often spoken about in the same breath, are, of course, fundamentally different. Politics is, by definition, a public activity. Though religion contains large public components, it is at core a personal affair... There lies the problem: how to talk about the private nature of religion publicly."

This guy has traveled extensively as a correspondent for NPR, won a Peabody award, and written a book about finding God, and yet he still states rather cavalierly something at which a first semester seminary student would gawk. Religion is a private affair?! Nothing could be further from the truth. Christianity (the only religion on which I can speak with any sense of authority) introduces a way to live in a community that reflects God's mercy and grace. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism (as emphasized by Dr. Barry Bryant) spoke of piety, the love of God, and mercy, the love of neighbor, as twin components of the Christian faith. You cannot love God without extending compassion and justice to world around you. Whether Weiner likes it or not, religion is public.

He ends his article waxing poetically about a religion for the non-religious, yearning for a "Steve Jobs of religion" who can "invent a new way of being religious." Well, Mr. Weiner, the individualistic fulfillment you crave exists within the confines of modern consumerism and capitalism, but you are correct in assessing that you won't find it in the Bible, or most any religious text. I feel as though you might be looking in the wrong places (read: the television) for the religion you seek. That new way of being religious exists around you, in churches, shelters, agencies, seminaries, and many other places where people are attempting to live in the world as an expression of God's love. And as it turns out, that way of being religious is not new at all.