American civil religion

The Christian flag displayed alongside the flag of the USA next to the pulpit in a church in California. Note the eagle and cross finials on the flag poles.

American civil religion is a term coined by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967. The article in which the term is coined, "Civil Religion in America," sparked one of the most controversial debates in United States sociology. Soon after the paper was published, the topic became the major focus at religious sociology conferences and numerous articles and books were written on the subject. The debate reached it peak with the American Bicentennial celebration in 1976.

According to Bellah, Americans embrace a common "civil religion" with certain fundamental beliefs, values, holidays, and rituals, parallel to, or independent of, their chosen religion. This belief system has historically been used to attack nonconformist and liberal ideas and groups.

Magnets on automobiles became a popular way to display patriotism in the United States during the 2004 elections.

History

The United States was settled in part by religious dissenters from the established Church of England, who desired a civil society founded on a different religious vision. Consequently, there has never been a state church in the United States and individual state churches have not existed in the United States since the early nineteenth century. Religious denominations compete with one another for allegiance in the public square. These facts have made public displays of religious piety by political leaders important to a large sector of the population; lacking an established church, they need public assurance of those leaders' religious beliefs.

Bellah argued that America has experienced three periods of crisis when a large number of Americans were cynical about the American creed. When "the spiritual glue that had bound the nation together in previous years had simply collapsed." The founding of the nation is the first period, since it was by no means clear that the American people could actualize the American creed. The Civil War and the 1960s were the other two periods.

Bellah and fellow scholar Martin E. Marty studied civil religion as a cultural phenomenon, attempting to identify the actual tenets of civil religion in the United States of America, or to study civil religion as a phenomenon of cultural anthropology. Marty wrote that Americans approved of "religion in general" without being particularly concerned about the content of that faith, and attempted to distinguish "priestly" and "prophetic" roles within the practice of American civil religion, which he preferred to call the public theology. Bellah wrote that civil religion was "an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the American nation." He identified the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights Movement as three decisive historical events that impacted the content and imagery of civil religion in the United States. He also identified several modalities within U.S. civil religion related to the biblical categories of the priesthood, prophets, and wisdom tradition.

Three periods of crisis

In the book The Broken Covenant Bellah argued that America has experienced three periods when a large number of Americans were cynical about the American creed:

“

Once in each of the last three centuries America has faced a time of trial, a time of testing so severe that...the existence of our nation has been called in question...the spiritual glue that had bound the nation together in previous years had simply collapsed.

”

The founding of the nation is the first period. The Civil War and the 1960s were the other two periods.

Historical background

Bellah's ideas about civil religion were not novel. Before Bellah wrote his paper in 1967 coining the term "American civil religion" several prominent scholars had alluded to the concept. But there was no common conceptual term to describe, interpret or analyze civic religious faith in America.

Scholarly progenitors of this idea include John Dewey who spoke of "common faith" (1934); Robin Williams's American Society: A Sociological Interpretation (1951) which stated there was a "common religion" in America; Lloyd Warner's analysis of the Memorial Day celebrations in "Yankee City" (1953 [1974]); Martin Marty's "religion in general" (1959); Will Herberg who spoke of "the American Way of Life" (1960, 1974); Sidney Mead's "religion of the Republic" (1963); and G. K. Chesterton advanced the thesis that the United States was "the only nation...founded on a creed" and also coined the phrase "a nation with a soul of a church".

In the same period, several distinguished historians such as Yehoshua Arieli, Daniel Boorstin, and Ralph Gabriel "assessed the religious dimension of 'nationalism', the 'American creed', 'cultural religion' and the 'democratic faith'".

Premier sociologist Seymour Lipset (1963) referred to "Americanism" and the "American Creed" to characterize a distinct set of values that Americans hold with a quasi-religious fervor.

Today, according to social scientist Rondald Wimberley and William Swatos, there seems to be a firm consensus among social scientists that there is a part of Americanism that is especially religious in nature, which may be termed civil religion. But this religious nature is less significant than the "transcendent universal religion of the nation" which late eighteenth century French intellectuals such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Alexis de Tocqueville wrote about.

Empirical evidence supporting Bellah

Ronald Wimberley (1976) and other researchers collected large surveys and factor analytic studies which gave empirical support to Bellah's argument that civil religion is a distinct cultural phenomena within American society which is not embodied in American politics or denominational religion.

Examples of civil religious beliefs are reflected in statements used in the research such as the following:

• "America is God's chosen nation today."
• "A president's authority...is from God."
• "Social justice cannot only be based on laws; it must also come from religion."
• "God can be known through the experiences of the American people."
• "Holidays like the Fourth of July are religious as well as patriotic."

Later research sought to determine who is civil religious. In a 1978 study by James Christenson and Ronald Wimberley, the researchers found that a wide cross section of American citizens have civil religious beliefs. In general though, college graduates and political or religious liberals appear to be somewhat less civil religious. Protestants and Catholics have the same level of civil religiosity. Religions that were created in the United States, the Mormons, Adventists, and Pentecostals, have the highest civil religiosity. Jews, Unitarians and those with no religious preference have the lowest civil religion. Even though there is variation in the scores, the "great majority" of Americans are found to share the types of civil religious beliefs which Bellah wrote about.

Further research found that civil religion plays a role in people's preferences for political candidates and policy positions. In 1980 Ronald Wimberley found that civil religious beliefs were more important than loyalties to a political party in predicting support for Nixon over McGovern with a sample of Sunday morning church goers who were surveyed near the election date and a general group of residents in the same community. In 1982 James Christenson and Ronald Wimberley found that civil religion was second only to occupation in predicting a person's political policy views.

Quotes

“	While some have argued that Christianity is the national faith...few have realized that there actually exists alongside...the churches an elaborate and well-institutionalized civil religion in America	”
—Robert Bellah,

“	The greatest part of...America was peopled by men who...brought with them into the New World a form of Christianity...by styling it a democratic and republican religion	”
—Alexis de Tocqueville,

“	Civil religion is neither bona fide religion nor ordinary patriotism, but a new alloy formed by blending religion with nationalism. If civil religions were bona fide religions then one would expect to find a soft side to them, teaching love of neighbor and upholding peace and compassion. But this is not the case.	”
—Stjepan Mestrovic ,

See also

• American exceptionalism
• Civil Religion

References

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American civil religion

• Bellah, Robert Neelly (Winter 1967). Civil Religion in America. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 96 (1): 1–21. From the issue entitled Religion in America.
• Bellah, Robert Neelly (August 15, 1992). The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-04199-9. 
• Canipe, Lee (March 22 2003). Under God and anti-communist: how the Pledge of Allegiance got religion in Cold-War America. Journal of Church and State.
• Cloud, Matthew W (March 22 2004). "One nation, under God": tolerable acknowledgment of religion or unconstitutional cold war propaganda cloaked in American civil religion?. Journal of Church and State 46 (2): 311. ISSN 0021-969X.
• Edwords, Frederick (November/December 1987). The religious character of American patriotism. The Humanist magazine: 20–24, 36.
• Gehrig, Gail (June 1981). American Civil Religion: An Assessment. Society for Scientific Study. ISBN 0-932566-02-2. 
• Hughes, Richard T. (July 6, 2004). Myths America Lives By. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-07220-0. 
• Jewett, Robert and John Shelton Lawrence. Captain America And The Crusade Against Evil: The Dilemma of Zealous Nationalism. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 0-8028-2859-0.  Page 328 specifically talks about American civil religion, referencing Jones's book, American Civil Religion.
• Jones, Donald G. and Russell E. Richey (November 1990 (Original published in 1974 by Harper)). American Civil Religion. Mellen University Press. ISBN 0-7734-9997-0. 
• Mathisen, James A. (1989). Twenty Years After Bellah: Whatever Happened to American Civil Religion?. Sociological Analysis 50 (2): 29–46.
• Levinson, Sanford (1979). "The Constitution" in American Civil Religion. The Supreme Court Review 1979: 123–151.
• Civil Religion entry, Swatos, William H. (1998). Encyclopedia of Religion and Society. AltaMira Press. ISBN 0-7619-8956-0. 
• Luckmann, Thomas (1967). The Invisible Religion.  Published the same year as Bellah's article.

American exceptionalism

Further information: American exceptionalism

• Churchill, Ward (Spring 2005). The Ghosts of 9-1-1: Reflections on History, Justice and Roosting Chickens.
• Lipset, Seymour Martin (April 1997). American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31614-9. 
  • Book reviews of: Seymour Martin Lipset's American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword Part 1. The Washington Post, The Weekly Standard, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, New Statesman & Society, etc. Retrieved 2006-07-16.
• Zinn, Howard The Power and the Glory Myths of American exceptionalism. bostonreview.net. Retrieved 2006-07-16.

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