The Civic Life of American Religion. By Paul Lichterman and C. Brady Potts

Abstract

I am a political scientist reviewing a work comprised mostly of sociological studies for an audience of religion scholars. The very fact that this fine volume, edited by Paul Lichterman and C. Brady Potts, supports such a multidisciplinary dialogue is a testament to its quality and broad utility. Theoretically rich yet eminently accessible, The Civic Life of American Religion offers a bird's-eye view of how leading social scientists conceptualize and react to the public dimensions of American religion. As a side benefit, the reader is exposed to highlights and summaries of many of the contributors' other published works, most notably, in the cases of Mark Chaves, Omar McRoberts, Dawne Moon, and Lichterman himself. Scholars across disciplines ought to concern themselves with what Martin Marty has called public religion, or what this volume's editors refer to as religion's civic life. The term public religion suggests an epiphenomenon standing somewhat apart from the more privatized aspects of religious life; the notion that religion has a civic dimension to its life is more holistic. Either conceptualization, however, reminds us that organized religion both interacts with and reflects the broader societies of which it is an aspect. As Michael Schudson notes at the outset of his chapter, “The concept of ‘the civic’ is … diffuse, and the activities one might plausibly regard as having an important civic dimension are … varied” (23). Indeed, religion and politics are thickly interwoven with one another in the contemporary United States. It is therefore our job as scholars to interrogate both the empirical and normative realities of this relationship.