Abstract
Abstract In his Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau proposed a “purely civil profession of faith” and tolerance of other religions. In the faith-based side of nation building, early Americans dismissed Rousseau's generic religion and embraced a Protestant Christianity with “liberty of conscience to all men.” After World War II, the US moved beyond pan-Protestantism to a more inclusive vision of the American civil religion, accepting Catholic and Jewish Americans into the fold. More recently, some have talked of including Muslims as well. Iraq's notions of Pan-Islam may be far from European societies' secularism, but may actually have some similarities to America's history of civil religion.
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