Civil Religion Research Articles

Civil Religion as Myth, Not History

This article draws upon recent historiography to critique the concept of “civil religion”, and argues that it should be replaced by nationalism. Its central point is that there is indeed a dominant language of American nationalism and one that has largely reflected the culture of the Anglo-Protestant majority, but that it has always been contested and that it has changed over time. Civil religion, by contrast, is a far more slippery concept that elides questions of power, identity, and belonging that nationalism places at the center of inquiry.

The Relevance of the Concept of Civil Religion from a (West) German Perspective

The paper argues for the continued importance and usefulness of the term “civil religion” in light of the (West) German discussion and the situation in Europe. For non-Americans, and especially for Germans for whom terms like “political religion” are tied to the National Socialist past, the concept of civil religion helps explain the relationship of religion and politics, both in modern democracies in general and in Germany and the United States in particular.

Confucianism as a Civil Religion: Problems and Prospects

Confucianism as a Civil Religion: Problems and Prospects

A Sinful People

A Sinful People Peter Heinegg These Truths: A History of the United States. By Jill Lepore, New York, NY: Norton, 2018. xx + 942 pp. $39.95. This spirited, angry history of America is not primarily concerned with religion, though, needless to say, Lepore covers the piety of the pilgrims, the country's Great Awakenings, the Social Gospel, the growth of fundamentalism, the Moral Majority, and so forth. And her approach is secular throughout. Nevertheless, this nation was born with the Bible in its veins; the intensity of its faith makes it an outlier in the First World; its currency still proclaims “IN GOD WE TRUST”; and so, it turns out that These Truths supplies a thick body of evidence for the charge that we are indeed a sinful people. The map of America is spangled, and not by accident, by place names from the Hebrew Bible: Bethel, Canaan, Carmel, Gilead, Goshen, Hebron, Jericho, Moab, Nebo, Rehoboth, Salem (over thirty of them), Tekoa, and many others. This wasn't just a pious gesture. Christian immigrants to America famously saw themselves as heirs to a vastly superior New Covenant and a uniquely grand Promised Land. In this sense, it was only logical to presume that in their new home the ideas of the old Deuteronomic principle would come to mind: Obedience to divine law guarantees prosperity; disobedience brings disaster. Generations later, this belief would be diluted into a quasi‐religious patriotic pride: God had blessed America after all, from sea to shining sea; so evidently the nation must, for the most part anyway, have deserved it. Against this widespread and still current assumption, Jill Lepore, the only Harvard professor who also serves as a staff writer for The New Yorker, presents American history more as a series of infidelities to our supreme (though flawed) sacred texts, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The “truths” enshrined in them, she says, are the basis of the American experiment, namely “political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people.” Jefferson's description of these truths as “sacred & undeniable” was replaced by Ben Franklin's “self‐evident”; but, given that the Founding Fathers are still considered the Apostles and Saints of our civil religion, “sacred” can stand. But when those same truths are de facto denied or made a mockery of, what you have is desecration. And Lepore concentrates on various modes of such desecration, above all on slavery. She opens her story in October 1787, after the Constitution was signed, but before it was ratified (something like a moment from the days of the Primitive Church), and quotes from an ad in New York's Columbian Almanac: “TO BE SOLD. A LIKELY young NEGRO WENCH, 20 years of age, she is healthy and had the small pox, she has a young male child.” And she ends with Black Lives Matter and the horrors that engendered it, like the white supremacist march in Charlottesville. After four centuries, the BLM movement's title remains a utopian vision, not a reality, as shown by, among other things, the failure of Reconstruction, Jim Crow, the KKK, segregation, the ongoing suppression of the black vote, and countless other forms of systematized bias. The Constitution gave slaves no rights, but let the southern states enlarge their population by counting slaves as 3/5ths of a person. Bibelfest American Christians could always fall back on the acceptance of slavery in both the Old and New Testaments, while ignoring biblical laws aimed at mitigating the harshness of slaves’ lives (Ex. 21.26‐27, etc.). Perhaps most strikingly (though Lepore doesn't mention this), slave owners flouted Dt. 23.15 (“You shall not give up to the master a slave who has escaped from his master to you”), which effectively overrules the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. On a similar note, savage, even genocidal attacks on native Americans could be, and were, justified by the principle of herem, or merciless ethnic cleansing, announced in Dt. 7.1‐7 and illustrated by Joshua's (fictionalized) annihilation of the Canaanites. But again, the Bible has countervailing themes of kindness toward aliens and “sojourners” that might have inspired a different history than the one encapsulated...

CONFUCIANISM, A HABIT OF THE HEART: BELLAH, CIVIL RELIGION, AND EAST ASIA. Edited by Philip J.Ivanhoe and SungmoonKim. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 235. Hardback, $80.00; paperback, $24.95.

CONFUCIANISM, A HABIT OF THE HEART: BELLAH, CIVIL RELIGION, AND EAST ASIA. Edited by Philip J.Ivanhoe and SungmoonKim. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 235. Hardback, $80.00; paperback, $24.95.

The Vices of Our Virtues: Tocqueville and the Constitution of the American Dream

The American Dream does not amount, as is often alleged, to the empty promise of a naive exceptionalism. Nor does it reduce to the self-indulgent expectation of instant gratification. Rather, the rhetoric of the Dream is most often employed precisely to critique these one-dimensional distortions, to admonish that the nation’s aspirational identity is in crisis and on the verge of decline into daydream, pipe dream, or nightmare. Drawing on Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, I argue that the Dream is a resonant but precarious synthesis of the values of individual freedom, material progress, and moral community. These dimensions stand in tension with one another and are moreover prone to their respective excesses of individualism, materialism, and moralism. Within the dynamic of this complex constitution, the Dream sanctions its own critique; we reaffirm our promise by denouncing our prodigality. As such, the Dream serves as the jeremiad of the American civil religion.

Why the Covenant Worked: On the Institutional Foundations of the American Civil Religion

Scholars of American civil religion (ACR) have paid insufficient attention to the micro-level processes through which civil religious ideas have historically influenced beliefs and behavior. We know little about what makes such appeals meaningful to average Americans (assuming they are meaningful); nor do we know much about the mechanisms through which abstract religious themes and imagery come to be associated with specific policy aims, or what Robert Bellah called “national goals.” This article argues that a renewed focus on the relationship between civil religion and organized religion can help fill this gap in the literature. More specifically, I draw attention to three mainline Protestant institutions that for much of the twentieth-century were instrumental both in cultivating respect for the national civic faith and in connecting its abstract ideals to concrete reform programs: namely, the clergy, the state and local church councils, and the policy-oriented departments of the National Council of Churches (NCC). Finally, I argue that a fresh look at the relationship between civil religion and “church religion” sheds new light on the (arguably) diminished role of civil religious appeals in the present. If, as Bellah claimed in his later writings, ACR appeals have lost much of their power to motivate support for shared national goals, it is at least in part because the formal religious networks through which they once were transmitted and interpreted have largely collapsed.

The Damned Neighbors Problem: Rousseau’s Civil Religion Revisited

Near the conclusion of The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau starkly proclaims that no state has been founded without a religious basis, and thus if he is right, every political community must grapple with the tension between the conflicting claims of the divine and the mundane. Because Christianity cannot solve this tension, Rousseau calls for a new religion, a civil religion. Whereas most of the academic treatment of civil religion follows various paths beginning with Robert Bellah’s original 1967 article, this essay explores more deeply the contours of Rousseau’s original articulation of the problem to which civil religion is his proposed solution. The essay concludes by suggesting that we can find important elements of Rousseau’s approach still alive and well in American politics and culture today.

“In God We Trust:” The U.S. National Motto and the Contested Concept of Civil Religion

In this essay, “In God We Trust”, the official motto of the United States, is discussed as an illustration of the contested character of American civil religion. Applying and evaluating assumptions from Robert N. Bellah and his critics, a conceptual history of the motto is presented, showing how from its first appearance to today it has inspired debates about the place of civil religion in American culture, law, and politics. Examining these debates, the changing character of the motto is explored: its creation as a religious response to the Civil War; its secularization as a symbol on the nation’s currency at the turn of the twentieth century; its state-sponsored institutionalization during the Cold War; its part in the litigation that challenged the constitutionality of civil religious symbolism in the era of the culture wars; and its continuing role in the increasingly partisan political battles of our own time. In this essay, I make the case that, while seemingly timeless, the meaning of the motto has been repeatedly reinterpreted, with culture, law, and politics interacting in sometimes surprising ways to form one of the nation’s most commonly accepted and frequently challenged symbols. In concluding, I speculate on the future of the motto, as well as on the changing place of civil religion in a nation that is increasingly pluralistic in its religion and polarized in its politics.

Babe Ruth: Religious Icon

Babe Ruth is a mythic figure in American baseball history. His extraordinary skills and legendary exploits are central to the idea of baseball as America’s national pastime and are woven into the fabric of American history and iconography. Much has been written about Ruth’s life, his extraordinary physical powers, and the legends that grew up around him that made him a mythic figure. The story of Babe Ruth as it has been told, however, has not included its meaning from the perspective of the study of religion and sport. This paper explores the life and legends of Babe Ruth to illustrate the significance of Ruth’s identity as a Catholic in early twentieth-century America and the fundamental connections between Ruth’s story and the Christian myth and ritual that is foundational to American civil religion.

Does Confucian Public Reason Depend on Confucian Civil Religion?

Does Confucian Public Reason Depend on Confucian Civil Religion?

The construction and re-construction of the civil religion around the cult of Atatürk

The longest living among its twentieth-century counterparts, the century-old cult of Atatürk is deeply rooted in the collective conscience in Turkey. In this essay, we will try to show the dual role of the image of Atatürk in the political struggle, both in current times and in the past, as a national hero created around civil religiosity. In the case of Atatürk, not only do we encounter a figure that primarily facilitates the legitimation of the existing political and social system, but also an eternal saviour who is called upon in order to oppose that system at various times.

Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies ed. by Cheng-Tian Kuo

Reviewed by: Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies ed. by Cheng-Tian Kuo Jonathan Brasnett Cheng-tian Kuo, ed., Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press B.V., 2017. 425 pp. €109 (hb) ISBN 978-94-6298-439-4 Religion and Nationalism in Chinese Societies is an impressive volume that aims to explore the evolution of religion-state relations, the influence of religion in nationalist discourse and the phenomenon of nationalism as a quasi-religion in the “Greater China” region (i.e., China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong). Kuo’s introduction lays out the competing theories of modernism, which sees religion as having no place in the modern Chinese polities, and revisionism, which holds that religion and politics have influenced one another throughout Chinese dynastic history and that this has continued into modern China, with nationalism replacing religion as the primary tool for strengthening the legitimacy of the rulers. He summarizes the current context in contemporary “Greater China,” arguing that the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or mainland China) mobilizes a “political Trinity: patriotism, socialism, and the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)” with all other religions subservient (p. 13); in the Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan), religions enjoy both freedom of worship and freedom to influence politics; in Hong Kong, a “civil religion” is developing which defends democratic values but remains fragile (p. 14). Part I of the volume examines the nexus between Chinese religion and nationalism before the foundation of the PRC in 1949. Chapter 2, by Chi-shen Chang, explores the different form of “Chineseness” or Chinese identity, which form the basis of modern Chinese nationalism. This “Chineseness” could have a political-geographic connotation, based on the territory historically controlled by Chinese rulers; it could have a cultural connotation, based on sharing a common “language, costumes, customs, and values” (p. 62); or it could have an ethnic connotation based on common Han ethnicity descended from the mythical Yellow Emperor. Chang cites Wang Fuzhi 王夫之, the seventeenth-century Chinese philosopher, who argued that Chinese identity was based on the Confucian ideal of defending the Chinese territory, culture and ethnicity from barbarian invasions, which remains a key aspect of “Chineseness” to this day. [End Page 101] The third chapter, by Julia C. Schneider, examines the ways in which China sought to assimilate or “sinicize” those living within its territory who did not share the same Chinese linguistic, cultural, ethnic or even national identity. Applying Liang Qichao’s 梁啟超 concept of “lesser nationalism,” which regards those who are not ethnically Han residing inside the Chinese territory as inferior, she argues that the Ming and Qing dynasties undertook “Confucian civilizing” missions to assimilate other ethnic groups to the dominant Han culture. Likening this practice to Christian missionizing, Schneider insists that the Han Chinese perceived their Confucian values and culture as supreme, thereby justifying expansionism and sinicization during the Ming and Qing dynasties, which continues to inspire Chinese nationalism today. The fourth chapter, by Adam Yuet Chau, discusses different “spheres” (jie 界) that formed in Chinese society as it modernized in the early 20th century, each advocating on behalf of different interest groups, including the scholarly sphere, the minorities sphere, the political sphere, and the religion sphere. These spheres, in theory, should complement each other in a functioning modern state, but during the Maoist era of the PRC, many of them, including religion, were deprived of their autonomy and co-opted by the CCP to serve as “instruments in the state’s effort to mobilize society for building socialism” (p. 132). Chau argues that, in an effort to ensure that the religion sector could never be influenced by foreign interests, the CCP encouraged the creation of representational bodies for each religion which are amenable to state control, fostering greater Chinese nationalism among actors in the state-sanctioned religion sphere. Chapter 5, by Robert D. Weatherly and Qiang Zhang, outlines two different types of nationalism employed by the CCP, and gives an example of each type. First, confrontational nationalism emphasizes one’s victimization at the hands of an “enemy” by focusing on a symbolic injustice. The CCP has used this approach by often highlighting the Yuanmingyuan incident (1860), in...

Civil Religion and Religious Independents: Examining the Beliefs of Atheists, Agnostics, and the Unaffiliated

In an age of rapid change and colliding cultures, what we share as human beings can sometimes be lost … But I believe that the history of both America and Indonesia should give us hope. It is a story written into our national mottos. In the United States, our motto is E pluribus unum – out of many, one. Bhinneka Tunggal Ika – unity in diversity. We are two nations, which have traveled different paths. Yet our nations show that hundreds of millions who hold different beliefs can be united in freedom under one flag. – Obama, 20101 Our Founders embraced the enduring truth that we are stronger together. America is once again at a moment of reckoning. Powerful forces are threatening to pull us apart. Bonds of trust and respect are fraying. And just as with our founders, there are no guarantees. It truly is up to us. We have to decide whether we all will work together so we all can rise together. Our country's motto is E Pluribus Unum: out of many, we are one. Will we stay true to that motto? – Clinton, 20162

Edward Orozco Flores, “Jesus Saved an Ex-Con”: Political Activism and Redemption after Incarceration

American Religion 1, no. 2 (Spring 2020), pp. 139–141 Copyright © 2020, The Trustees of Indiana University • doi: 10.2979/amerreli.1.2.15 Book Review Edward Orozco Flores, “Jesus Saved an Ex-Con”: Political Activism and Redemption after Incarceration (New York: New York University Press, 2018) Brad Stoddard McDaniel College, Westminster, USA In “Jesus Saved an Ex-Con”, sociologist Edward Orozco Flores joins a growing chorus of scholars, activists, and theologians who argue that religious responses to mass incarceration and criminal justice reform more broadly help the formerly incarcerated not only regain their dignity and repair the damage caused by mass incarceration, but also, according to Orozco, “expand the boundaries of democratic inclusion to facilitate social integration” (2). To demonstrate this, Flores conducted qualitative, ethnographic research on two faith-based organizations (FBOs)—Community Renewal Society (CRS) from Chicago and LA Voice from Los Angeles—to document how these groups work with formerly incarcerated gang members both to inspire and nurture personal religiosity and to lobby for structural changes through criminal justice reform. Based on this research, Flores argues that faith-based community organizing fosters progressive prophetic activism or prophetic redemption for people furthest on the margins of American society and American democracy. Prophetic redemption, Flores argues, finds its roots in the Black Social Gospel and the work of sociologist and activist W. E. B. Du Bois, who argued that institutional factors like racism and racial segregation perpetuate poverty and impede socioeconomic mobility. Du Bois’s insights are particularly relevant today, where the formerly American Religion 1:2 140 incarcerated face legalized forms of discrimination that prevent them from voting , that prevent them from obtaining public assistance, and that make it difficult for them to find jobs. Du Bois’s arguments later influenced sociologists and criminologists, particularly the Chicago School of sociology, which provided intellectual support for the Age of Roosevelt crime control efforts that “shifted power to the elites, without regard for power building among the marginalized” (10). This shift enabled the rise of the surveillance state (as it relates to incarceration) and to punitive criminal justice policies. The Chicago School continues to study criminology, ignoring important work in the sociology of religion, which argues that civil religion continues to inspire both personal and political reform. Faith-based groups like CRS and LA Voice embrace this notion of civil religion as they fight for criminal justice reform, providing spaces for formerly incarcerated gang members to find meaning post-incarceration, to participate in democratic reforms, and to foster prophetic redemption. Flores begins the book by outlining the history of political and criminal justice reform that created a space for FBOs and community-based organizations (CBOs) to become more involved in criminal justice reform. This history includes Age of Reagan neoliberalism, the privatization of probation, and the emphasis on reentry. These changes gave FBOs and CBOs a seat at the proverbial table, where they advocated for insurgent grassroots resistance instead of topdown criminal justice reform. In the process, members of FBOs participated in religious and civic practices that helped give meaning to their incarceration and their lives more broadly, that fostered social acceptance, and that inspired them “to expand the boundaries of democratic inclusion” (66). In chapters four and five, Flores returns to the theme of prophetic redemption , first, where he argues that FBOs engaged in insurgent prophetic redemption that allowed them to draw from their experiences on the street, in gangs, and in recovery programs. These experiences provided rhetorics and strategies for community engagement and personal transformation that affected their organizational efforts. FBOs also engage in pastoral prophetic redemption as they foster a diverse and inclusive movement to engage the community in substantive reform. Flores also argues that FBOs’ efforts to engage their communities and their democracies created opportunities for “collective subjectivity and empowerment ” (161) by redefining their notions of manhood, masculinity, parenthood, and engaged citizenship. Flores concludes by summarizing his argument where he contends that scholars interested in criminal justice reform should concern themselves not only with personal claims or displays of religiosity, but with civil religion, where religious people organize for personal, communal, and political transformations. Brad Stoddard 141 “Jesus Saved an Ex-Con” is a well-researched...

Gorski, Philip. American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017. 336 pp. $35.00 (cloth); $19.25 (e-book).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsGorski, Philip. American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017. 336 pp. $35.00 (cloth); $19.25 (e-book).David M. KruegerDavid M. KruegerPhiladelphia. Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 99, Number 2April 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/702239 Views: 97Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Martin Buber’s View of Biblical Leadership and His View of the Eternal Thou

Abstract Recent studies have renewed focus on Martin Buber’s “theopolitics” in contrast to “theological politics.” The present study expands this work by looking at what Buber meant by God. His approach to the Bible, informed by his view that “extended, the lines of relationship meet in the Eternal Thou,” illuminates his analysis of the five types of biblical leadership. That analysis, far from separating “religion” and “politics,” seemed to assume what might be designated a civil religion. The social order was integrated with religious concerns. Underneath the socio-religious surface, however, Buber discerned universal principles of relationship. Analyzing each stage in biblical leadership as Buber presented it shows how he extended the lines of historical relationships to reveal an aspect of the Eternal Thou.

Ministry in a Post-Religious Society: Can we do it at All?

AbstractThis paper considers some of the issues relating to Christian ministry in a cultural world that thinks of itself as post-religious. It builds upon some ideas of Simone Weil on forms of the implicit love of God (with particular attention to beauty and music), Karl Rahner's anthropology and the Christian doctrine of the creational relationship. It discusses the way Rousseau's bifurcation of religion into personal religiosity and a public civil religion is a template that the modern world seems to favour, making it difficult for Christian religion to find a place in liberal cultures of rights and tolerance. It ends by exploring Marilynne Robinson's suggestion that ‘people live profound lives’ and suggests that the virtues of hope and love might be signs of serious living in the absence of explicit religious belief.

American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present. By Philip Gorski. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017. 336 pp. $35.00 cloth. - The Politics of the Sacred in America: The Role of Civil Religion in Political Practice. By Anthony Squiers. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 2018. 181 pp. $129.00 cloth, $99.00 e-book.

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An Occult Royal Wedding

This article explores the contested nature of the meaning of state ceremonies, focussing on alternative accounts of the United Kingdom's 2011 Royal Wedding between William Windsor and Kate Middleton. Although state ceremonies are ostensibly secular affairs, utilizing religious symbolism for purely ceremonial reasons, there are those who think differently. David Icke perceives a hidden, satanic symbolism and deploys various interpretive strategies including the numerology of time, symbology of ceremonial objects, and genealogy of participants. Building on Bellah's concept of "civil religion," this article looks at competing expressivist and instrumentalist analyses alongside the interpretive strategies of Icke, and other 'truth-seeker' bloggers, for whom the Royal Wedding, alongside other state rituals, functions as a nefarious ritual of civil irreligion.