As I have reflected on the matter, I have come to the conclusion that the underlying cause of many of the conflicts between different groups of Christians today in North America is a difference in the way we conceive of the proper relationship between civil religion and the practice of our Christian faith.
In order for all of us to follow my point in this discussion, we need to make sure first of all that we have a common understanding of what we mean when we say civil religion. Since this is not a formal scholarly article, I am going to take the liberty to cite Wikipedia in order to simplify the discussion a bit. The Wikipedia entry on civil religion defines it as “the implicit religious values of a nation, as expressed through public rituals, symbols (such as the national flag) and ceremonies on sacred days and at sacred places (such as monuments, battlefields or national cemeteries).” It also describes it as “the folk religion of a nation or a political culture.”
An influential article written by sociologist Robert Bellah in 1967 entitled “Civil Religion in America” states the following:
“The words and acts of the founding fathers, especially the first few presidents, shaped the form and tone of the civil religion as it has been maintained ever since. Though much is selectively derived from Christianity, this religion is clearly not itself Christianity.”
He adds:
“What we have, then, 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. This religion—there seems no other word for it—while not antithetical to and indeed sharing much in common with Christianity, was neither sectarian nor in any specific sense Christian.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract (1762) lays out the original thesis that the concepts embodied in civil religion really are a religion of sorts and that they are a necessary part of the moral and spiritual foundation of any modern society. There are many debates and discussions regarding the technical definition of civil religion and the exact content of American civil religion, on which further reading and reflection may prove fruitful. I do not propose to provide any definitive answers to those questions here, but rather to throw out some relevant points for discussion among us as conservative Evangelicals and/or Southern Baptists.
Though tracing its roots to the early days of our history as a nation, some elements of present-day American civil religion were not included in the original ideas of the founding fathers. I would argue that the content of American civil religion is continually evolving. A case in point during the holiday season is that, although there was widespread opposition to the celebration of Christmas in the early years of American life, many of our Christmas traditions, including Santa Claus, gift-giving, and caroling have little by little become embedded in the growing corpus of American civil religion orthodoxy. Other key tenets of current popularly accepted American civil religion include a tolerance of religious plurality and non-discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.
My thesis is that many of the ideas and practices associated with American civil religion are not bad in and of themselves. Indeed many traditions associated with civil religion add value to our lives and do not need to be rejected out of hand. The main problem for us as New Testament Christians, as I see it, is a failure to sometimes differentiate properly between civil religion and the practice of our Christian faith.
I have identified the following pitfalls resulting from an unhealthy tendency to conflate American civil religion and New Testament Christianity.
1. We may blur the lines of what the gospel really means. We communicate to not-yet-believers the false idea that such things as outward shows of patriotism, the defense of certain models of macroeconomics, and the keeping of certain sentimental traditions are part and parcel of what it means to be a faithful disciple of Jesus.
2. We may erect cultural barriers that unnecessarily inhibit people from cultural backgrounds different from our own from coming to Christ.
3. We may give people false assurance that if they are faithful practitioners of American civil religion, they are therefore good Christians and have no need of radical repentance and discipleship that may at times require going against the grain of accepted cultural traditions.
4. We may develop an inordinate fondness for cultural preferences and traditions that can end up competing with our total allegiance to Christ and becoming a de facto idol in our lives.
5. We may create unbiblical barriers to Christian unity, excluding people who have different beliefs than we do on non-essential items more related to civil religion than to the gospel itself from our circle of fellowship.
6. We may embrace certain people and organizations that share many of our cultural values but are not authentically Christian as de facto members of our family of faith.
7. We may come to expect secular institutions, including the various branches of civil government, to fulfill roles in our lives that ought to be reserved for the church. We may end up judging them with criteria that ought to be reserved for regenerate Christians alone.
8. We may raise the false expectation that God has called us to work toward transforming secular institutions in our society (including civil government) into religious institutions and to return America to its “Christian roots.”
While recognizing the dangers associated with a failure to correctly divide between American civil religion and New Testament Christianity, it is important to make clear once again that I do not consider all elements of American civil religion to be wrong or unhealthy in and of themselves.
It will be helpful to bear in mind that in a civil religion based to a large degree on Judeo-Christian heritage, such as American civil religion, there will be:
1. certain elements that are the direct legacy of biblical Christianity;
2. certain elements that are incompatible with biblical Christianity; and,
3. certain elements that are morally and spiritually neutral.
A correct biblical approach to American civil religion will lead us to unflinchingly cling to all those elements in category #1, to keep ourselves pure from all the elements in category #2, and to scrupulously avoid converting the acceptance and practice of elements in category #3 into a litmus test for fellowship in the Body of Christ. I would add that, although we are free in Christ to accept and practice (or not accept and practice) those elements in category #3, we must be careful to not treat them as if they are for us truly part of a religion—even though many of those around us, in effect, may well treat them as such.
Good post. Thanks for writing it.
I entirely agree with you. I have attempted to state much the same thing at various times (though no where as succinctly or eloquently as do you) and have been roundly criticized for it, called liberal, and have even had my faith called into question for doubting that “American civil religion” is Christian at all. You have very well identified the points of convergence and those of divergence as well between the two.
John
Thank you. This was very well written and I believe represents accurately the difference between American Civil Religion and Christianity. They are not the same.
Very good and well put.
Wouldn’t numbers 7 and 8 be the keys? Seems to me that the operative principle for many southern baptists is that our goal as Christians is to take over the secular offices and undo a lot of what has been done. Examples would be the call (by some here) to recriminalize homosexual behavior and pass blue laws, perhaps prohibition, perhaps preferential treatment of Christian institutions.
There are a lot of prickly issues.
Thank you, David; this discussion needs to come to the forefront. I know plenty of older guys who have been saying it for years but have largely been marginalized from the mainstream Evangelical/SBC conversation. When you’re the pastor of a small church and there’s a megachurch across town hosting a citywide God and country crusade and the Republican candidate for governor is one of the speakers and half of your members are attending, it gets sticky.
David has been my favorite blogger for about 193 years. I only regret that he does not blog more. Something about priorities, and education, and all of that nonsense.
Well said, Dr. Rogers.
What makes him good, of course, is that we tend to agree most of the time. I find that a commendable quality.
Back in the annals of blog lore are some MAMMOTH battles between David and Bart Barber. Those could be turned into books!
I remember those battles. I engaged in my own version of them with Bart and David and I almost always agreed. What’s funny, is that now Bart, David, and I are pretty much in agreement all of the time. None of us changed, that I know of. It’s that the issues changed over the past decade and the areas we disagreed on faded into the background and we found that the areas we agreed on were far more prominent.
And, there is a Southern Civil Religion too that pretty much overtook the American version. After the Civil War, it emerged as the Theology of the Lost Cause, and kept morphing and keeps morphing still. Racialized Religion was a manifestation for the next hundred years. The Religious Right, Family Values, and Consumer Religion were iterations from the 1970s to 2000s. Now, it has reemergence in a nationalistic fervor that incorporates previous aspects. But, beneath it all is the desire to promote, protect, and defend a certain “way of life” over and above others – a theology of glory – instead… Read more »
I have always been impressed by your writing, Alan Cross. You say “racialized” religion. I once suggested that a church’s aversion to contemporary worship had a ethnocentric motivation, at least in it’s historical development. That one got me a phone call from my DOM.
The process of being delivered from racialized religion is not something that is accomplished through a single act of repentance. God is still showing me areas where my values are more white than Christian.
David, well said. Couldn’t agree more.
Alan, that’s a great addendum. And also spot on.
I had to read this post three times to really get it to sink in to my cranium. In the last few weeks the term “civil religion” has been popping up on here. But most of the chatter was going over my head. This lucid discussion at least allows me gain a foothold on the whole idea of “civil religion” masquerading as Christianity while at some points being in-sync with at least the outward manifestation of Christian belief. Taking David Roger’s thesis and augmenting it with some insights from Alan Cross really illuminates the landscape. Ambiguity about what is “Christian”… Read more »
I say this not to self promote, but only to add a link as a resource if anyone is interested in how the idea of Civil Religion in the Southern context ended up affecting the witness of Southern Evangelicals – and continue to till this day. I deal with Bellah’s thesis in chapters 2-4 and expand on it and apply it to Evangelicalism, Greek philosophy, and religion in the American South. Racism is treated more as a case study and a symptom of the greater, deeper problem, that we have never really dealt with and that continues to affect our… Read more »
Alan’s book is worth the reading, so if you got an Amazon gift card for Christmas, give it a serious look.
OK Alan.
I’ll be ordering your book in a few minutes.
Roger OKC