The American civil religion, Robert Bellah argued, was derived from two sources, one religious and the other secular: the covenant…
A Neo-Weberian theory of American civil religion
Reconsidering civil religion
In this forum, scholars interrogate Robert Bellah’s 1967 thesis of an “American civil religion.”
The social body of belief
American civil religion has taken several forms. One type is preoccupied with national cohesion, claiming that the bonds by which…
Civil religion and beyond
Civil religion, on one hand, links the US to the biblical tradition; on the other hand, the moral and political…
Civil religion of a different kind
Very different from the mode of civil religion that I discussed in my previous post are the experiences of religious…
All used up
There is a question that has been haunting me about our times and our collective condition, specifically in regard to…
Echoes of American civil religion
It is interesting to revisit civil religion discourse in the context of a new time and its discontents, and the…
Fantasies of sovereignty
Montreal [site of the 2009 AAR meetings] was a particularly appropriate site for a return to civil religion. A civic…
Taking exception to American exceptionalism
The United States is an empire in decline, as well as a nation under enormous economic duress, and civil religion…
Religion and the civic imagination
Since the publication of Robert Bellah’s 1967 article “Civil Religion in America,” discussions of the topic have tended to devolve…
Confronting the mythical beast
The notion of “American civil religion” reminds me of the legendary vampire. It has a seemingly irresistible tendency to take…