Occupy Wall Street’s Civil Religion of the Nones: A Theology of Consensus

Abstract

ABSTRACTOver the last thirty years religious and political polarization has not only created the Religious Right, but a Secular Left. These changes have had a profound and underappreciated influence upon civil religious life in the United States. This article lays out the case for distinguishing between two forms of civil religion: the traditional, pro-status quo (drawing on Puritan thought) and a critical, anti-establishment variant (which draws upon the Quaker tradition). After detailing historical and theoretical reasons behind such a distinction, I posit that the contemporary expression of the anti-establishment civil religion exists in the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. Far from purely secular, OWS epitomizes the Quaker civil religion: its ideals of radical democracy and individuality, as well as practices like the Quaker’s own consensus-based decision made through the People’s Mic. Ultimately, I argue that as American religiosity changes, so too does its expression through the nation’s civil religious traditions.