Civil religion, also referred to as acivic religion, is the implicit religious values of anation, as expressed through publicrituals, symbols (such as the national flag), and ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places (such as monuments, battlefields, or national cemeteries). It is distinct from churches, although church officials and ceremonies are sometimes incorporated into the practice of civil religion.[1] Countries described as having a civil religion include France[2] and the United States.[3][4][5] As a concept, it originated in Frenchpolitical thought and became a major topic for U.S.sociologists since its use byRobert Bellah in 1960.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau coined the term in chapter 8, book 4 ofThe Social Contract (1762), to describe what he regarded as the moral and spiritual foundation essential for any modern society. For Rousseau, civil religion was intended simply as a form of social cement, helping to unify thestate by providing it with sacred authority. In his book, Rousseau outlines the simpledogmas of the civil religion:
The Italian historianEmilio Gentile has studied the roots and development of the concept and proposed a division of two types of religions of politics: a civil religion and apolitical religion.[7]
Civil religion stands somewhat abovefolk religion in its social and political status, since by definition it suffuses an entire society, or at least a segment of a society; and is often practiced byleaders within that society. It is somewhat less than anestablishment of religion, since established churches have officialclergy and a relatively fixed and formal relationship with the government that establishes them. Civil religion is usually practiced by political leaders who are laypeople and whose leadership is not specifically spiritual.
Such civil religion encompasses such things as:[8]
and similar religious or quasi-religious practices.
Professional commentators on political and social matters writing in newspapers and magazines sometimes use the termcivil religion orcivic religion to refer toritual expressions ofpatriotism of a sort practiced in all countries, not always including religion in the conventional sense of the word.
Among such practices are the following:[8]
These two conceptions (sociological and political) ofcivil religion substantially overlap. In Britain, where church and state are constitutionally joined, the monarch's coronation is an elaborate religious rite celebrated by theArchbishop of Canterbury. In France, secular ceremonies are separated from religious observances to a greater degree than in most countries.[citation needed] In the United States, a president being inaugurated is told by the Constitution to choose between saying"I do solemnly swear..." (customarily followed by "so help me God", although those words are not Constitutionally required) and saying "I do solemnly affirm..." (in which latter case no mention of God would be expected).
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Practically all the ancient and prehistoric reigns suffused politics with religion. Often the leaders, such as thePharaoh or theChinese Emperor were considered manifestations of aDivinity. Tribal world-view was oftenPantheistic, the tribe being an extension of its surrounding nature and the leaders having roles and symbols derived from the animal hierarchy and significant natural phenomena (such as storm).
The religion of the Athenianpolis was a secularpolytheism focused on theOlympian Gods and was celebrated in the civic festivals. Religion was a matter of state and the AthenianEcclesia deliberated on matters of religion. Atheism and the introduction of foreign gods were forbidden in Athens and punishable by death. For example, the Athenian ecclesia charged thatSocrates worshiped gods other than those sanctioned by the polis and condemned him to death.
Rome also had a civil religion, whose first EmperorAugustus officially attempted to revive the dutiful practice of classicalpaganism.Greek andRoman religion were essentially local in character; theRoman Empire attempted to unite its disparate territories by inculcating an ideal of Roman piety, and by asyncretistic identifying of the gods of conquered territories with the Greek and Romanpantheon. In this campaign, Augustus erected monuments such as theAra Pacis, the Altar of Peace, showing theEmperor and his family worshiping the gods. He also encouraged the publication of works such asVirgil'sÆneid, which depicted "piousÆneas", thelegendary ancestor ofRome, as a role model for Roman religiosity. Roman historians such asLivy told tales of early Romans as morally improving stories of military prowess and civic virtue. The Roman civil religion later became centered on the person of the Emperor through theImperial cult, the worship of thegenius of the Emperor.[9]
The phrasecivil religion was first discussed extensively byJean-Jacques Rousseau in his 1762 treatiseThe Social Contract. Rousseau definedcivil religion as a group of religious beliefs he believed to be universal, and which he believed governments had a right to uphold and maintain: belief in a deity; belief in an afterlife in whichvirtue is rewarded and vice punished; and belief inreligious tolerance. He said the dogmas of civil religion should be simple, few in number, and stated in precise words without interpretations or commentaries.[10] Beyond that, Rousseau affirmed that individuals' religious opinions should be beyond the reach of governments. For Rousseau civil religion was to be constructed and imposed from the top down as an artificial source of civic virtue.[11] Attempts to implement Rousseau's theories during theFrench Revolution resulted in various grass-roots and state-sponsored civic religions. The atheisticCult of Reason arose from the radicaldechristianization campaign, while its successor, the deisticCult of the Supreme Being, was established byMaximilien Robespierre to counter atheism and promote civic virtue. Other examples included theDecadary Cult andTheophilanthropy.[12][13] Some scholars critiqued and accused Rousseau's civil religion of inspiring figurative "self worship" amongst citizenry.[14][15][16][17]
Wallace studiesÉmile Durkheim (1858–1917), the French sociologist who analysed civil religion, especially in comparative terms, and stressed that the public schools are critical in implementing civil religion. Although he never used the term he laid great stress on the concept.[18]
Writing in 1965 on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1915Landing at Anzac Cove, Australian historianGeoffrey Serle noted: "Two generations of Australians have had it drummed in from rostrum and pulpit that we became a nation on 25 April 1915 or at least during theFirst World War." This date is now commemorated asAnzac Day.[19]
Michael Gladwin has argued that for Australians Anzac Day "functions as a kind of alternative religion, or 'civil religion', with its own sense of the mystical, transcendent and divine", while Carolyn Holbrook has observed that after 1990 Anzac Day commemoration was "repackaged" as a protean "story of national genesis" that could flexibly accommodate a wide spectrum of Australians. According to Gladwin, "The emphasis of Anzac Day is no longer on military skills but rather values of unpretentious courage, endurance, sacrifice in the midst of suffering, andmateship. Anzac Day provides universally recognised symbols and rituals to enshrine transcendent elements of Australia's historical experience, making it a quasi-religion, or at least a 'civil religion'."[20]
Secular states in Europe by the late 19th century were building civil religion based on their recent histories. In France's case, Baylac argues, the French government
encouraged a veritable state religion, worshiping the flag and multiplying the national holidays and commemorative monuments. ... July 14 became a national holiday in 1882; the centennial of the French Revolution was celebrated in 1889. In Italy, the secular state multiplied the celebrations: State holidays, King and Queen's birthdays, pilgrimage of 1884 to the tomb of Victor-Emmanuel II. A patriotic ideology was created.[2]
The Soviet Union madeMarxism–Leninism into a civil religion, with sacred texts andmany statues of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin.[21] Stalin personally supervised the cult of Lenin and his own cult, which took advantage of the historic semi-religious adulation Russian peasants had shown toward the tsars.[22] The Lenin icons were put into storage whencommunism fell in 1991. TheStalin statues had beenremoved in the 1950s and mention of him was erased from encyclopedias and history books. However underVladimir Putin in the 21st century the memory of Stalin has been partly rehabilitated in search of a strong leader who made the nation powerful. For example, school textbooks were rewritten to portray "the mass terror of the Stalin years as essential to the country's rapid modernization in the face of growing German and Japanese military threats, and amid the inaction or duplicity of the Western democracies."[23]
Civil religion is an important component of public life in America, especially at the national level for its celebration ofnationalism. Sociologists report that its "feast days" areThanksgiving,Veterans Day, andMemorial Day. Its rituals include salutes to the flag and singing "God Bless America".[5] Soldiers and veterans play a central role of standing ready to sacrifice their lives to preserve the nation. Bellah noted the veneration of veterans.[8] The historian Conrad Cherry called the Memorial Day ceremonies "a modern cult of the dead" and says that it "affirms the civil religious tenets".[24]
The American Revolution was the main source of the civil religion that has shaped patriotism ever since. According to the sociologist Robert Bellah:
Behind the civil religion at every point lie biblical archetypes: Exodus, Chosen People, Promised Land, New Jerusalem, and Sacrificial Death and Rebirth. But it is also genuinely American and genuinely new. It 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 nations.[25]
Albanese argues that the American Revolution was the main source of the non-denominationalAmerican civil religion that has shaped patriotism and the memory and meaning of the nation's birth ever since. Battles are not central (as they are for the Civil War) but rather certain events and people have been celebrated as icons of certain virtues (or vices). As historians have noted, the Revolution produced a Moses-like leader (George Washington), prophets (Thomas Jefferson,Thomas Paine) and martyrs (Boston Massacre,Nathan Hale), as well as devils (Benedict Arnold), sacred places (Valley Forge,Bunker Hill), rituals (Boston Tea Party), emblems (the new flag), sacred holidays (July 4) and a holy scripture whose every sentence is carefully studied and applied in current law cases (theDeclaration of Independence, theConstitution, and theBill of Rights).[26]
Although God is not mentioned in theConstitution of the United States of America, mention is specifically made of "Nature's God" in the opening sentence of theDeclaration of Independence.[9]
In the 1960s and 1970s, scholars such asRobert N. Bellah andMartin E. Marty studied civil religion as a cultural phenomenon, attempting to identify the actual tenets of civil religion in the United States, or to study civil religion as a phenomenon ofcultural anthropology. Within this American context, 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 thepublic theology.[27] In the 1967 essay "Civil Religion in America", Bellah wrote that civil religion in its priestly sense is "an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the American nation". Bellah describes the prophetic role of civil religion as challenging "national self-worship" and calling for "the subordination of the nation to ethical principles that transcend it in terms of which it should be judged".[25] Bellah identified theAmerican Revolution, theCivil War, and theCivil Rights Movement as three decisive historical events that impacted the content and imagery of civil religion in the United States.
The application of the concept of civil religion to the United States was in large part the work of sociologistRobert Bellah. He identified an elaborate system of practices and beliefs arising from America's unique historic experience and religiosity. Civil religion in the US was originally Protestant but brought in Catholics and Jews after World War II. Having no association with any religious sect, civil religion was used in the 1960s to justify civil rights legislation. Americans ever since the colonial era talk of their obligation both collective and individual to carry out God's will on earth.George Washington was a sort of high priest, and the documents of theFounding Fathers have been treated as almost sacred texts. With the Civil War, says Bellah, came a new theme of death, sacrifice and rebirth, as expressed throughMemorial Day rituals. Unlike France, the American civil religion was never anticlerical or militantly secular.[25]
India has a civil religion of its own derived from the native concept ofdharma. While secularism elsewhere meansseparation of church & state,secularism in India is significantly different from how it is understood in theWestern world: Secularism in India means equal participation (& interference) of the government in allreligions due to the deep influence ofIndic religions, or more specificallyHinduism, themajority religion of the land, in shaping a distinctlyIndian cultural identity.The Diplomat explains this phenomenon as India being acivilization state, whose government "sees itself not merely as a party to asocial contract with its citizens, but as the guardian and promoter of a nation’s culture and traditions".[28]
InChina, theConfucian ritual religion may be considered civil religion.[citation needed]
This assertive civil religion of the United States is an occasional cause of political friction between the US and Europe, where the literally religious form of civil religion has largely faded away in recent decades. In the United States, civil religion is often invoked under the name of "Judeo-Christian ethics", a phrase originally intended to be maximally inclusive of the several religions practiced in the United States, assuming that these faiths all share the same values. Alvin J. Schmidt argues that since the 1700s, expressions of civil religion in the United States have shifted from a deistic to a polytheistic stance[example needed].[29]
Some[who?] scholars have argued that theAmerican flag can be seen as a maintotem of a national cult,[30] while others[who?] have argued that modern punishment is a form of civil religion[how?].[31] Arguing against mob violence and lynching, Abraham Lincoln declared in his 1838 Lyceum speech that the Constitution and the laws of the United States ought to become the "political religion" of each American.[32]
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