(Continued from Semonche.)

American Civil Religion and the American Creed

Much of what we have been considering is part of an American faith structure, a creed, even a civil or public religion. This creed commands belief, operates as a vehicle for public discourse, and becomes a spur to reduce gaps between belief and practice. In 1967, Robert Bellah introduced the term “American civil religion” into the arena of contemporary scholarly debate, drawing his evidence from presidential addresses with their references to God, the nation’s mission, and the transcendent standards to which the American people are held accountable.

That a search for evidence of an American civil religion should seek out and find this God-talk in formal presidential addresses is understandable. The nation has no other single spokesman, and the words of reference to divine providence are regularly found in such speeches. But such references get us only so far in an attempt to explore the viability of the concept of an American civil religion. Talk is cheap, and although such references seem to strike a popular chord, they provide limited evidence of an operative’s faith structure. Too often, such references seem to be a matter of political gloss, all surface and little substance.

Instead, we can turn to sociologists and cultural anthropologists who have defined religion in terms of its functions. These definitions have stressed the possession of a common set of ideas, rituals, and symbols, which can supply an overarching sense of unity even in a society riddled with conflict. The adjective “religious” can and should be attached to various aspects of American culture. Look at the way Americans have gloried in the origin of their nation and insisted upon their destiny. George Washington was deified before he died, and the practical politicians of the late eighteenth century who wrestled with the details of establishing governments are hallowed as “Founding Fathers.”

American nationhood rests upon a common faith, i.e., the American Creed, in a civil theology largely composed of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the Preamble of the Constitution, and the elaborated rights of the individual as found in the Constitution with its Bill of Rights. All of this is housed within the concept of a rule of law, which promises fair, equal, and just treatment to all. Americans become, then, a “covenanting community” in which the commitment to freedom under the law, having transcended the ‘natural’ bonds of race, religion, and class, itself takes on transcendent importance. Sidney Mead has argued that Americans were adherents of a religion that “is essentially prophetic, which is to say that its ideals and aspirations remind them of the standards by which their current practices and those of their nation are ever being judged and found wanting.”

First of all, lawyers and theologians tend to rely on texts produced by hierarchical authorities. Second, for both professions, faith is a prerequisite; only then can understanding follow. Third, both studies encompass all of human life in the effort to make sense of our experience. Finally, the parallels between the courtroom and the church are obvious, including the solemnity of both temples and the formality of the discourse between the supplicant “praying for relief” and the robed figures of priestly authority.

To expand on the first common characteristic – the existence of authoritative texts – the writing at the pinnacle of the civil religion’s theological hierarchy is the Constitution. The Constitution is the official embodiment of the nation’s values, which, when articulated, “provide an important part of the ‘moral cohesion’ that is the cement for our national community.” Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black went even further when he called the Constitution “my legal bible.” It binds the American people because they regard it as supreme and as having a capacity to answer the most troubling national questions.

The secular codification of fundamental law gains its predominant position because it flows from the mythical will of the whole people, the same way that the Bible represents the voice of God captured by His agents. Priestly interpreters in both spheres rest their authority on their ability to extract meaning from the words. The American constitutional text bears a close relationship to a sacred text. The Constitution has provided the arena for a people to find their unity in mutual respect as they “respond to the incessant prophetic call of the text” in their continuing search for the liberty, equality, and justice promised by a rule of law.

Both the civil religion and sectarian religions are based on theologies that establish transcendent standards by which to measure the acts of the faithful, but the most distinctive feature of the civil religion is its nonexclusive character. It, in fact, not only accommodates various private sectarian beliefs, it welcomes them as differences that do not compromise the essential equality of the individuals who make up the society. A primary function of the civil religion is to moderate the effect of sectarianism.

One, however, must be careful not to be seduced by a definition of “civil religion” as a distillation of Judeo-Christian beliefs that have become part of the nation’s traditions over time. To define “civil religion” as embodying the commonalities found in the country’s dominant sectarian religions not only contradicts a core theological premise of the civil religion – its insistence that personal religious difference will not lead to exclusion – but also it trivializes and obscures the importance of the concept itself. Personal religion was to be excluded from the councils of government for the purpose of eliminating the potential for divisiveness that such religious differences inevitably would bring. The commitment of a majority of the people to certain sectarian religious symbols and practices cannot be controlling in a public faith structure.

As with other religions, the component parts of the theology of the American civil religion were forged into a whole within a relatively short time, in this instance in the latter quarter of the eighteenth century. Since that time when the theological core of the American civil religion was constructed, little has been added to it. Changes that have occurred have been in conformity with the civil religion’s theological precepts.

For instance, take Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration, “All men are created equal.” We know from human experience that not all person are equally endowed with intelligence and material benefits. Clearly he was saying that all human beings are created with equal rights that their fellow creatures should respect and that government should protect. In Jefferson’s time blacks were not considered the equal of whites, nor were women considered the equal of men. The problem, however, is not with the text but rather with the limitations of the times and of the translators of the text. Not all translators were equally circumscribed by such limitations: Abigail Adams warned her husband, John, of the rebellious potential of women who were denied the rights commanded by principles to which American males said they subscribed. Many blacks as well wondered how their profound inequality could be supported by a text acknowledging that God had ordained a basic equality among all human beings.

Such disparities lead us to a recognition that, in the practice of any faith, gaps exist between belief and action. Before any progress can be made in bridging the distance between the two, the faithful must perceive the gap. Inevitably, we more easily perceive our ancestors’ failings than our own.

What we are dealing with, then, is not a changing American faith over time, but a remarkably consistent faith in which its practitioners contend with the task, first, of recognizing that gaps between faith and practice do exist, and, second, of attempting to close them. In fact, most internal criticism of American society is premised upon the critic calling attention to a discrepancy between belief and action. Challenges to the core beliefs themselves are indeed rare.

At times, these ever-present critics are successful in stirring the people to action. As an illustration, the modern civil rights movement’s success is in part explained by an identification of its aspirations with the civil theology. When Gunnar Myrdal, a Swedish social scientist, surveyed the condition of blacks in American society in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he found hope in what he called a spiritual consensus built around the ideas of dignity, equality, freedom, justice, and opportunity subscribed to by both “the rich and secure, out of pride and conservatism, and the poor and insecure, out of dire need.” For Myrdal, these ideals constituted a creed that was “the cement in the structure of this great and disparate nation.”

The ensuing civil rights movement was solidly anchored in the American creed. When Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson sought to get the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 through Congress, their speeches were filled with references to the need for Americans to live up to the demands of their civil theology by making its benefits available to all.

These eras when creedal politics supplant interest-group politics are relatively rare, but the system does contain an ongoing institution that is at the heart of the civil religion – the United States Supreme Court. In recognizing and helping to close gaps between common belief and common practice, the Supreme Court has played a major role. The Court is the priestly interpreter of the holy writ, the one agency in government that has the assigned duty to respond to the claims of individuals that the rights they have been promised have not been realized. Those cases involving a claim of individual right interposed against governmental action are real-life dramas, in which seemingly trivial events are transformed into narratives with meanings that touch our largest concerns as a people engaged in self-government under the law.

In the process of writing opinions, the Court does far more than justify its decisions: it describes and defines American culture, it promotes unity, and it educates the people as to their responsibilities under the civil faith. This is as much a moral task as it is a legal one. In interpreting the holy writ, the Court not only describes, integrates, and preserves the law, it explicates and reinforces the basic values that makes us a nation, acting as “our national conscience and our institutional common sense.”

As an interpreter of the written word, the Supreme Court has considerable discretion; and in the task of interpreting, it is itself a creator. Precedent can, and at times should, be overruled, for the High Bench must enter into a dialogue with the past, not to accept its authority blindly but to inquire substantially into what has changed and what effect that change should have on the present ruling. In their opinions, the justices constantly synthesize the old with the new, respecting tradition but reevaluating and reconstituting it in response to new problems.

From the beginning the Supreme Court viewed national union as a precondition for the protection of individual rights. Over time the Court has become increasingly significant as a unifying force within our pluralistic society.