Civil Religion in America

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Civil Religion in America

• Faith and Society

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John Winthrop
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A Model of Christian Charity

• Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to
  provide for our posterity, is to follow the
  counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to
  walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must
  be knit together, in this work, as one man. We
  must entertain each other in brotherly affection.
  We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our
  superfluities, for the supply of others
  necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce
  together in all meekness, gentleness, patience
  and liberality. We must delight in each other
  make others conditions our own rejoice
  together, mourn together, labor and suffer
  together, always having before our eyes our
  commission and community in the work, as members
  of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of
  the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be
  our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His
  own people, and will command a blessing upon us
  in all our ways, so that we shall see much more
  of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than
  formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall
  find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten
  of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our
  enemies when He shall make us a praise and glory
  that men shall say of succeeding plantations,
  "may the Lord make it like that of New England."
  For we must consider that we shall be as a city
  upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.
  So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in
  this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to
  withdraw His present help from us, we shall be
  made a story and a by-word through the world. We
  shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of
  the ways of God, and all professors for God's
  sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God's
  worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be
  turned into curses upon us till we be consumed
  out of the good land whither we are going.
• Sermon aboard the Arabella, 1630

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John F. Kennedy
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John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1961

• "The same revolutionary beliefs for which our
  forebears fought are still at issue around the
  globe - the belief that the rights of man come
  not from the generosity of the state but from the
  hands of God.

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Ronald Reagan
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-Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address to the Nation,
Jan. 11, 1989

• "I've spoken of the shining city all my
  political life, but I don't know if I ever quite
  communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my
  mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks
  stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed,
  and teeming with people of all kinds living in
  harmony and peace ..."

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Bruce Springsteen
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Bruce Springsteen, "Chords for Change," Aug. 5,
2004

• "It is through the truthful exercising of the
  best of human qualities - respect for others,
  honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals -
  that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our
  soul, as a nation and as individuals, is
  revealed."

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Alexis De Tocqueville on "republican religion"

• "In the United States even the religion of most
  of the citizens is republican, since it submits
  the truths of the other world to private
  judgment, as in politics the care of their
  temporal interests is abandoned to the good sense
  of the people. Thus every man is allowed freely
  to take that road which he thinks will lead him
  to heaven, just as the law permits every citizen
  to have the right of choosing his own
  government," he wrote in Democracy in America
  (Book I, Chapter XVIII).

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Jean Jacques Rousseau, "On the Social Contract"
(1762)

• "There is, therefore, a purely civil profession
  of faith of which the Sovereign should fix the
  articles, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as
  social sentiments without which a man cannot be a
  good citizen or a faithful subject. ... Now that
  there is and can be no longer an exclusive
  national religion, tolerance should be given to
  all religions that tolerate others, so long as
  their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the
  duties of citizenship."

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Robert Bellah, "Civil Religion in America," 1967

• "What we have, from the earliest years of the
  republic, is a collection of beliefs, symbols and
  rituals with respect to sacred things and
  institutionalized in a collectivity ... American
  civil religion has its own prophets and its own
  martyrs, its own sacred events and sacred places,
  its own solemn rituals and symbols. It is
  concerned that America be a society as perfectly
  in accord with the will of God as men can make
  it, and a light to all the nations."

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Other Names

• civic faith
• public piety
• republican religion (small "r")
• Benjamin Franklin called it "public religion"
• Abraham Lincoln called it "political religion

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Declaration
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Declaration of Independence, United States of
America

• "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
  all men are created equal, that they are endowed
  by their Creator with certain unalienable rights
  ... And for the support of this declaration, with
  a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
  Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
  lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

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Characteristics

• Sacred Texts
• Sacred Rituals
• Membership Requirements
• Language
• Ethnicity
• Faith
• Race

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Issues

• Flag Burning
• Marriage Amendment
• Ten Commandments
• Prayer in School
• Patriotism
• In God We Trust
• Pledge of Allegiance