Stevens and Divinity

Reading Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning" reminded me of a question I asked Dr. Hicok in class a few weeks ago, if Modernists were wantonly blasphemic or if the poetic process was simply leading them down the road of raw, inescapable questioning of divinity.
I think I got my answer in this poem. There is much biblical and mythological imagery here, both of which are condemned and discarded by Stevens. But he does not do so in a way that is offensive or violent. Instead he gives his own definition of the meaning of life and beauty.
From the get-go, I knew this was going to be a type of religious debate from the line in the first stanza: "...the green freedom of a cockatoo / Upon a rug mingle to dissipate / The holy hush of ancient sacrifice" (lines 3-5). This line establishes the tension in the poem and sets contrast between the vibrance of nature and the "hushed" feeling of religious tradition.
Stevens sets his argument up in stanza two with "Divinity must live within herself: / Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow... These are the measures destined for her soul" (lines 23-4, 30). He is saying that we cannot measure or attach ourselves to something so incredibly distant and incomprehensible as easily as we can the simple miracles of everyday life. It reminds me of the play RENT. I didn't care too much for the play itself, but the one thing I feel that they got right was the song "Seasons of Love." Specifically the line about measuring time in cups of coffee, I think parallels Stevens' message in "Sunday Morning." Why put stock and standard in something that you can't measure, something that has only a vague and existential kind of worth to you?
Another assertion of Stevens is in stanza five when he writes, "Death is the mother of beauty" (line 63). He expands on that idea throughout the rest of the poem, but that trigger phrase, I think, carries more weight than any other line. In general experience, there is always an extra sense of immersion and urgency when we know things won't last forever. While the phrase "live for the moment" is cliche, it gets Stevens' point across. Natural, ephermeral beauty is so highly regarded because it will inevitably fade. There is a climax, a pinnacle of beauty in mortality that we do not see in divinity. This might account for the distance we feel for heavenly, unending, omnipresent things; it also accounts for our questioning the existence of divinity.
I won't say whether I agree or disagree with Stevens' position on the subject, but he raises the issue in a very realist way that, regardless of personal standing, allows the reader to ponder Stevens' argument without feeling insulted.