Religion in America

Abstract

While some interpreters have claimed that Alexis De Tocque ville was less concerned with the intrinsic truth of religious concepts than with their beneficial effects upon society, it has never been denied that, whether Tocqueville's intent was re ligious or utilitarian, a key portion of Democracy in America is devoted to the role of religion in the United States, and a plea for an approximately similar role in any future mass societies. His commentary is important as an interpretation of the lasting values of our culture, and his observations in Democracy (1835; 1840), his and Gustave de Beaumont's On the Penitentiary System in the United States (1835), his diaries, sketches, letters, and Beaumont's Marie; or, Slavery in the United States (1835) also provide an historical critique of the religious condition of America in the 1830s. At that time, Tocqueville was a believing Catholic, but not an ardently practicing Catholic, and from this position he achieved one of the most objective views of American religion. Just as he did not fully reject the old elitist political order nor fully admire the new order of democracy, he could neither reject Catholicism nor fully endorse religious pluralism. He was concerned with religion, but he was not rigidly orthodox and therefore made no absolute prejudgments about religion in America.