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Revista Derecho y Religión, "Civil Religion in the United States of America", vol VI, 2011

Religión, "Civil Religion in the United States of America", vol. VI, 2011

Presentación: Derek H. Davis (UMHB-EEUU)

While it is common to speak of the separation of church and state as one of America’s fundamental commitments, the separation tradition is not nearly as rigid or straightforward as many people outside the United States assume. Many practices within the United States violate a strict notion of the separation of church and state, but they are accommodated within the American system as ways to take the rough edges off separation and acknowledge the sovereignty of God over all human affairs, including the political.  For some Americans, of course, these practices go too far in lowering the needed wall between church and state; for others they do not go far enough in lowering a highly intrusive wall. 

It is the Constitution’s Establishment Clause that requires church-state separation, but the “separation” ideal is lightly enforced when it comes to American civil religious practice. According to Robert Bellah, the most celebrated scholar on American civil religion, civil religion is about those public rituals that express the nexus of the political order to the divine reality. By most accounts, civil religion is a form of religion which gives sacred meaning to national life.  It is a kind of theological glue that binds a nation together by allying the political with the transcendent. Civil religion is a way for many Americans to recognize the sovereignty of God over their nation without getting bogged down in theological differences because for them, nationhood makes little sense unless it is part of a universe ruled by God; consequently, they believe that the body politic should have a religious dimension. Stated in another way, religion is not merely private; it is inescapably public, too. Bellah acknowledges this, arguing that separation of church and state does not deny the political realm a religious dimension.

Civil religion manifests itself in different ways in different contexts, but French Sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) was probably correct in suggesting that every society at its deepest foundations is religious, and the sovereign must act responsibly to respect and acknowledge this, lest the society itself deteriorate and pass into oblivion. For most Americans, of course, a nation which takes steps to acknowledge the sovereignty of God, even if in generic, symbolic ways, is not merely accommodating the wishes of the citizenry in the sense of filling a sociological need, but acting to affirm 

the divine reality. In any case, the accommodation of civil religion can be said to prevent the nation from steering too far in the direction of a secularized culture.

The U.S. Supreme Court occasionally acknowledges the evidence of civil religion in American life. Legislative prayer, legislative and military chaplaincies, Christmas and Hanukkah displays, and graduation prayers in public schools, as expressions of civil religion, have all been challenged as violations of the separation requirements of the Establishment Clause. The Court tends to sanction those civil religious traditions that are generic, longstanding, and not likely to offend persons of tender age. Thus, in the case of legislative prayer, the Supreme Court has held that the practice is constitutional because it has a long and unbroken tradition in American political life. In the public school context, however, given the impressionability of young persons, similar prayers are prohibited as violations of the institutional separation of church and state. The same contrary set of rules, applied in the respective contexts of legislative halls and public school classrooms, can be said to apply to the posting of the Ten Commandments and other sacred texts. Legislative and military chaplaincies are likewise affirmed as longstanding traditions, although it is doubtful that courts would endorse the concept of public school chaplains because of the impressionability and potential for indoctrination of the students they would serve. Holiday displays have been held not to violate the Establishment Clause if their religious message is muted by surrounding secular symbols. Prayer offered by a clergyman at a public school graduation ceremony, however, has been held to violate the Establishment Clause as an inappropriate government sponsorship of religion.

In summary, civil religion has been for much of American history, and remains, a vital cultural force. It is manifested in our own day in prayers at presidential inaugurations, the invocation used each time the Supreme Court itself hears argument (God save this honorable court), Thanksgiving and National Day of Prayer proclamations, the words under God in the pledge of allegiance, the phrase In God We Trust on coins, various Scripture quotations inscribed on government buildings (Moses the Lawgiver is the inscription above the Supreme Courts bench), and even the ritual benediction, God Bless America, used frequently by presidents. These civil religious expressions are not promoted exclusively by the state, or exclusively by the religious community. Rather, they are promoted by both, serving to imbed in the national civil order an unmistakable religious quality.

All of these civil religious traditions are violations of a strict notion of the separation of church and state. Yet they form a rich tradition of practices that are culturally and judicially accommodated. Undoubtedly they offend many, but they are for the most part generic practices that are not coercive in the way that, for example, audible school prayers in the public schools are. Indeed, these practices are accepted and celebrated by most Americans, and they contribute to a unique, nuanced, and sometimes contradictory set of concepts, principles, customs, beliefs, and symbols that comprise the American tradition of religion and state.

Civil religion is a sociological reality in every society. Non-American readers of this issue of Derecho y Religion will find distinct differences in their own civil religious traditions from that in America. Those who have contributed to this issue are all Americans, but none attempt to offer the United States system as the perfect exemplar for all other nations. Every nation is unique and has certain historical practices and traditions that define the nation and its character. What works in one nation might not 

be fully transferrable to another, due to ideology and historical practice and tradition.  The contributors to this volume, for better or worse, simply attempt to describe the distinctly American form of civil religion. If this essay makes it possible for those outside the American tradition to understand civil religious practice in the United States, however imperfect in theory and practice it might be, then the editors of Derecho y Religion, as well as those who contributed this volume, shall have succeeded in their aims. 

On behalf of the contributors, I wish to thanks the editors of Derecho y Religion, especially Antonio Sanchez-Bayón who has coordinated the production and direction for the invitation to prepare this issue, for the invitation to produce this issue, and for their cooperation and assistance during the entire process. New friendships and a welcomed spirit of collegiality have been have been the result.


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