The Role of Civil Religion in American Society

America’s Civil Religion is being put to the test by xenophobia and backlash against African American civil rights. Nevertheless, young people are being taught the basics of civil religion at an early age. This article will discuss some of the important issues that are related to civil religion and what role they should play in American society. Here are some questions to consider:

Dogmas

The term “dogmas of civil religion” was first introduced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This idea describes the use of religious words and practices to promote national values and patriotism. Rousseau suggested three dogmas of civil religion: a belief in the existence of a supreme being, the rewards of virtue, and the punishment of vice. The chief sin, he argued, is religious intolerance.

The concept of civil religion originated with Rousseau. He believed that religious beliefs are universal, and that afterlife rewards virtue and punishes vice. He also advocated religious tolerance. To this end, Rousseau proposed some simple dogmas of civil religion, such as an afterlife, the notion that the just will live forever, and the sanctity of the social contract and laws of a polity. While these are all fairly modern ideas, they are still quite mystical.

While Durkheim is right in saying that all societies have a common conscience, this does not mean that all states develop civil religions. Such theorizing inhibits analysis of civil religion, but it does alert scholars to the potential for civil religious practices. The reason for this is due to the non-universality of totemism, the transcendental ideology that features the state as the primary agent. Thus, in civil religion, there are several tenets and dogmas that are universal.

Congruence

The first step in measuring congruence between civil religion and political opinion is to determine the level of agreement between the candidate’s views and their respondents’ beliefs. This is based on a survey with five items. For each item, the respondent’s perceived civil religious beliefs were compared with those of the candidate. If the candidates’ answers were nearly identical, their scores were equal. If they were not, they were treated as missing data. The remaining items were then summed to determine the overall congruence measure.

Another way to measure the degree of congruence between civil religion and political ideology is to examine the role of public figures in American history. American leaders have often invoked the “God-is-a-man” rhetoric that blends the symbols of God, country, and flag to attack liberal and nonconformist groups. In such cases, the words of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, as well as the religious and moral ideas of the Reformation, are difficult to use to suppress individual freedom. The defenders of slavery, for example, resisted the thinking and the ideas of Jeffersonian democracy and Reformation religion, and instead dreamed of medieval chivalry and divine-right monarchy.

Impact on presidential voting preferences

In a recent study, we examined whether civil religious perceptions influence presidential voting preferences. We hypothesized that people who regard themselves as more religious would prefer to vote for an incumbent president. This hypothesis was tested by considering three civil religious measures as independent variables and then adding two other factors: political orientation and major church-religious affiliation. Our findings indicate that this effect is statistically significant. The findings have important implications for future research.

The results indicate that religious convictions affect presidential voting preferences. In fact, respondents who are more religious are 3.7 times more likely to vote for a candidate who shares their religious beliefs. This means that people with religious convictions tend to be more conservative than those with less religious beliefs. But is it really true that religion influences voter choice? Interestingly, it does. The findings suggest that voters with more religious convictions may be less ideologically consistent than they appear.

Relationship to public school system

The relationship between civil religion and the public school system is an issue of great controversy. Although students’ First Amendment rights to religious expression are well established, there has been very little psychological research on the subject. The current law does not mandate the teaching of religious views in public schools, but it does allow students to express their religious views freely. Although the legal rights of students to express themselves are well-established, teachers may not always understand how these rights are interpreted and exercised. Teachers have a great deal of power over the lives of their students, and can potentially influence their academic success.

Separation of church and state is a concept that has long shaped the role of civil religion in public schools. While public schools do not have the authority to prohibit religious expression in the school, they have considerable discretion to regulate religious expression, both during school hours and outside of school hours. Evangelical Christians have been instrumental in fighting for these rights in the public school system, and have repeatedly succeeded in securing the same privileges as secular groups.