The American Civil Religion:

An Identity in Need of
Restoration
■ By Ethan Gerstman
U.S. voting site
Introduction
American political culture is
quasi-religious. It has all the characteristics of a
conventional religion: an established set of rituals,
a prophetic history, and a fervent population that
upholds it. When Americans vote, they reaffirm
their connection to the “civil religion.” When
politicians, historians, or artists describe and
depict the vaunted beginnings of the United States
as an era of enlightenment, they enhance the
power of the civil religion. When Americans
accept the view that America and American values
are exceptional and unique, they revitalize the civil
religion. Alone, this American civil religiosity is comments on the early stages of American culture.
not dangerous. But if the central values of this For example, the Declaration of Independence
religion become perverted, in contexts such as references divinity three times as the force that
immigration policy and voting rights, civil justifies the Revolution.I Similarly, in the
religiosity can be a threat to the values it should introduction to the Federalist Papers, Hamilton
uphold. Ultimately, the modern American civil defers to the authority of “nature’s G-d.”II
religion has largely lost the beneficial qualities that It is evident that the Founders cemented
it originally had and its misinterpretation by some religiosity into America’s earliest documents. But
has led to disenfranchisement and xenophobia. ironically, in America, church and state are legally
separated. That separation of religion and
government was not an attempt to curb religious
What is the American Civil Religion? authority; rather, they knew religious pluralism was
The political philosophy that underlies
divisive when mixed with government, and
American culture is unique by virtue of its
therefore they sought to replace conventional
religiosity. Although the language of Christianity is
religion. They replaced it with a state religion—a
spread throughout, there is no legal favoritism
‘civil religion,’ a term first applied to America by
toward any specific religious practice; the
Robert Bellah in 1967.III By integrating religious
Founders explicitly excluded religious law from
diction and ideology into government, the
the founding documents. That is not to say
Framers created an environment in which
religion had no foundational influence. The
patriotism would define civic identity, instead of
Founders intermixed Judeo-Christian and natural
religious preference. Citizenship would be the
rights rhetoric and values into all the central works
marker of that patriotic identity, acting as a badge
of political literature created during the
of pride, a covenant to the founding documents
Revolution, and in the political philosophy that

BRANDEIS JOURNAL OF POLITICS 2022-2023 45

and to the country. As political philosopher Alexis
de Tocqueville commented on this unique
American identity in 1835, “[Patriotism] is in itself
a kind of religion: it does not reason, but it acts
from the impulse of faith and sentiment.”IV The
Founders ingrained the sentiment of religion in
the American institution of citizenship to unite
the burgeoning nation. They designed
patriotism to act as a religion, a replacement for
the state role that conventional religion had
played in the Old World.
Cultivating the Civil Religion After the
Founding
The foundation of the American civic
religion is public perception. Just as mythology has
empowered conventional religion, the state
religion in America has been likewise strengthened
by mythology. Following in the steps of the
Founders, artists and historians have strengthened
the civic religion, patriotism, by attaching
prophetic and religious connotations to pivotal
American turning points. One example is the
circulation of the 1896 five-dollar silver certificate
which depicted Lady Liberty, an allegory for
American creativity, in the process of enlightening
the world with electricity. The goal was, according
to art scholar Ariel Buhksbaum, to make it clear
that electricity’s “genius originates from
America.”V Bills such as the 1896 educational
series served as enhancers of the American civic
religion, as they reinforced America as the
enlightener, as the force ordained by divinity.
American Progress is another such example.
Painted in 1872, the lithograph depicts a woman,
clearly resembling Lady Liberty, in center frame
leading Americans into the West.VI There,
American destiny is intertwined with American
progress and opportunity, which at that time was
the West. Once again, the artist represents divinity
and destiny as synonymous with American ideals.
Historian Juliana Barr argues that American Progress
cemented the narrative of a divine American
destiny in which “the United States was ordained
by God to expand its civilization.”VII Both
American Progress and the 1896 five-dollar silver
certificate were tools used to enhance the
American civic religion. They, and many others,
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established America as a divine power to many
Americans. Inadvertently or intentionally,
American artists have ordained America with
divine powers, thereby enhancing the civic religion
more extremely than the Founders.
Modern Presidential Influence on the Civil
Religion
Presidents are the torch bearers of the
American civil religion. Through their rhetoric,
they act as the pastors of the modern American
civil faith. For example, following the September
11th, 2001 attacks, on September 14th, President
Bush held perhaps the most significant
demonstration of civil religion since the Kennedy
speeches referenced by Bellah in his work.VIII Bush
broadcast a service complete with clergy from
many faiths to create an image of a nation united
in prayer. According to Emilio Gentile, “with
religion, politics, and the armed forces represented
simultaneously, the ceremony symbolically staged
the Americans' cohesion and strength, united
around their president to defend God’s
democracy.”IX Bush’s ceremony was merely part of
a long tradition of modern presidential civil
religiosity, which began with Reagan in 1980.
Reagan birthed the modern civil religion in his
campaign. For example, in his first inaugural
address, Reagan described Americans as “citizens”
of a blessed land while proposing that
Inauguration Day should become a national “day
of prayer.”X According to historian Philip Gorski,
“Reagan positively encouraged” a powerful
national religious pride.XI
But conservatives are not the only ones
who stoke civil religious pride. In recent years, the
mantle has been taken up by Democratic
presidents. Barack Obama is a clear example. In
2004, at the Democratic National Convention,
Obama attempted to portray America as a place
deserving of mystical awe: “my father got a
scholarship to study in a magical place; America
BRANDEIS JOURNAL OF POLITICS 2022-2023
which stood as a beacon of freedom and
opportunity.”XII And later, in a 2004 interview,
Obama stated that he was a “follower, as well, of
our civic religion.”XIII He would maintain and
reinforce that belief throughout his presidency.
For example, at the National Prayer Breakfast in
2010, Obama aligned himself with the values of
the Old Testament prophets, asserting that
American values and religious Christian values are
equally in alignment.XIV He carried the civil
religious torch just as Bush and Reagan had before
him. Ultimately, modern Presidents starting with
Reagan maintained the American civil religious
tradition as a means to reap electoral benefits,
irrespective of political persuasion.
The Religiosity of American Citizenship
The institution of citizenship is central to
American civic religion. It acts as a covenant
between the divinity purported to be behind
America and the individual. The Framers, in
Federalist Papers No. 2, designed citizenship to be
the power source for the civil religion, granting a
unique membership to a people blessed by
“Providence.”XV Other early American leaders
reinforced that idea of membership, such as in
Washington’s Farewell Address in 1796: "Citizens
by birth or choice, of a common country, that
country has a right to concentrate your affections.
The name of American, which belongs to you, in
your national capacity, must always exalt the just
pride of patriotism, more than any appellation
derived from local discriminations."XVI
Washington addressed the idea of belonging
explicitly. Alongside the Framers, he wanted to
make the individual American feel as if they were
part of an interconnected civic force. Citizenship
was the medium for that feeling of belonging.
Americans would enter an interconnected
covenant with each other through citizenship and
would then regard that bond as sacred.
Washington’s interpretation of citizenship
can be considered an ideal type. For him,
citizenship was separable from ethnicity,
background, and religion; it was instead a
construct that was specifically inclusive. Inverse to
that interpretation is xenophobia, understood as
both a fear of foreigners and an active process of
civic ostracism. As the next section argues,
xenophobia is among the historical byproducts of
American civil religiosity. It ignores the central
BRANDEIS JOURNAL OF POLITICS 2022-2023
Washingtonian precepts of generalized equality,
interpreting the American covenant instead as
exclusionary.
The Consequences of Xenophobia
The unintended negative consequences of
citizenship’s religious nature include xenophobia.
Xenophobia, the fear of foreigners, in America, is
linked to the phenomenon of citizenship
religiosity. Opponents of foreign immigration view
the ‘intrusion’ of immigrants as detrimental to the
American covenant. For example, as historian
Alphonso Clearwater argues in favor of immigrant
restriction: “If we cease to bestow this august
privilege of citizenship recklessly, we may fulfill
that destiny predicted by the founders of the
republic.”XVII For Clearwater, fulfillment of the
American “destiny” is at odds with the extension
of citizenship. He believes that extension of
citizenship will inhibit his perception of the
American destiny—American economic and
political hegemony: “The verdict of history is that
the most intelligent and resourceful race wins in
economic contests.”XVIII
While the phenomenon of xenophobia
was surely powerful in 1914 when Clearwater
wrote that article, the sentiment behind him is
thriving in modern America. Those Americans
have treated American citizenship as paramount to
their self-identity, and therefore fear its
corruption. This form of xenophobia is, according
to Erika Lee, present in the “illegal-immigrant”
campaigns against Mexican immigration. She
argues that this wave of xenophobia is “new,” and
“purportedly race-neutral.”XIX While it is true that
these anti-immigration activists are acting under
the guise of “law and order,” their motives are not
new, and their race neutrality is due to their
adherence to civil religion.XX They believe, as
Clearwater did, that the way to protect the value of
their own citizenship is to exclude others.
Xenophobia is, according to political
scientist Ronald Sundstrom, a form of “civic
ostracism.”XXI It is a worldview that encourages
exclusion from the general polity; it furthers a
“sense that the subject does not rightly belong to
the nation.”XXII That sense is described by
Sundstrom as a “perpetual foreignness.”XXIII
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Those who apply the term alien to immigrants do
not choose one demographic in particular.
Xenophobes apply perpetual foreignness “to
Hispanics/Latinos, Asians, and Asian Americans”
alike.XXIV They are civic ostracizers—intent on
protecting an identity they believe is vulnerable.
New cultures, they fear, will corrupt their
covenant of citizenship, and by extension, their
own identity. The Framers are not at fault for this
interpretation; the founding documents
specifically endorse the immigration of foreigners.
Rather, it is clear that American xenophobia is the
creation of Americans who misinterpreted the
Framing.
The Relationship Between Civil Religiosity
and American Perceptions of Criminality
We have established that citizenship acts
as a covenant in America. It creates a kinship
between those who have it and excludes those
who do not. Yet the benefits conferred through
citizenship are vulnerable. Their existence hinges
on an individuals’ behavior. Civic disloyalty is
usually the basis for the revocation of those
benefits. Disobedient citizens are cast out by the
American civic religion, portrayed as enemies
rather than kinsmen. Tocqueville described this
unique American disownment in a similar way:
During my stay in the United States, I
witnessed the spontaneous formation of
committees in a country for the pursuit
and prosecution of a man who had
committed a great crime. In Europe, a
criminal is an unhappy man who is
struggling for his life against the agents of
power, whilst the people are merely a
spectator of the conflict: in America, he is
looked upon as an enemy of the human
race, and the whole of mankind is against
him.XXV
Citizenship, and the connection to the
patriotic divinity harbored therein, requires
obedience to the state. Tocqueville argued that the
American people regard criminality as abhorrent
and inhuman, not merely an insubordinate act. He
is correct in that Americans do hold that unique
48
view, but he does not explain the view’s source.
Once again, the revulsion toward civic disloyalty is
a product of civil religiosity because such
disobedience represents a disdain for the
traditions of the civil religion. Those who
transgress and disobey the law are not engaging in
the “ritual observance” that Tocqueville argues is
inherent in American patriotism.XXVI Rather, they
are doing the opposite. By disregarding American
civic ordinances, criminals are outside of the
American covenant, and thus subject to the same
anger as non-citizens. The benefits of citizenship
cease when one is legally awry.
The aforementioned cessation of benefits
is common in contemporary America. Take for
example the disenfranchisement of felons in the
last decade. According to Matt Whitt, in the
journal Social Theory and Practice, “felon and
prisoner disenfranchisement policies prohibit a
significant proportion of U.S. citizens—especially
at state levels—from exercising their most
fundamental political right.” Whitt argues that
felon disenfranchisement is indicative of a greater
trend of democratic erosion that hurts rather than
helps American principles.XXVII His argument
correctly targets felon disenfranchisement as an
indicator of deteriorating civic principles. But just
as Tocqueville failed to pinpoint the primary
motivation, Whitt has failed to accurately
designate the reason for the restriction of voting
rights. One of the underlying motivations behind
legal disenfranchisement is the desire to protect
the American civil religion. Exclusion of those
with “suspect” moral values will ensure that the
religion remains pure. In 2005, philosophers John
Kleinig and Kevin Murtagh argued that “the
relative lack of civic involvement [of felons]” is an
“eviscerating social problem,”XXVIII essentially
intended to curb African American voting. While
felon disenfranchisement may be a racist policy,
the intention behind it can be attributed to
defense of the civil religion. Voting is the central
ritual of the American religion; it is how
Americans commune with the Founders.
Therefore, defenders of the religion who believe
they must protect it from the unkempt, criminals,
would target voting as a vulnerable institution.
BRANDEIS JOURNAL OF POLITICS 2022-2023
 Conclusion
American civil religiosity is integral to
American culture. It influences American beliefs
about criminality, immigration, identity, and
history. That is, in large part, due to its cultivation
by the artists of the 19th century and the modern
presidential tradition. Americans must recognize
the weaponization of the civil religion as a means
to pursue political objectives, whether by
disenfranchising felons or excluding immigrants.
When presidents and presidential candidates use
religious diction in speeches, it is clear they are
attempting to call upon civil religiosity to grant
i. Jefferson, Thomas. The Declaration of Independence,
Revolutions (London, England) (London: Verso, 2007),
1–3.
ii. Hamilton, Alexander et al. The Federalist Papers, Oxford
World’s Classics (Oxford; New York: Oxford University
Press, 2008).
iii. Bellah, Robert N. “Civil Religion in America.” Daedalus
134, no. 4 (2005): 40–55.
https://doi.org/10.1162/001152605774431464.
iv. de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America (New York:
Bantam, 2000), 102.
v. Bukhsbaum, Ariel. “The Silver Certificates of 1896: A
Study of Low, Blashfield, and Shirlaw’s Work and Its Place
in the American Renaissance” (M.A., United States --
New York, Sotheby’s Institute of Art - New York, 2015),
35.
https://search.proquest.com/docview/1728065329/abstr
act/648C5FEA49AA494FPQ/1.
vi. Gast, John. “American Progress. 1872” in Chromolithograph
Published by George A. Crofutt. Source: Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress. For Comparison to Eugène
Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People, 1830, 1915–1935.
vii. Barr, Juliana. “Beyond the ‘Atlantic World’: Early
American History as Viewed from the West.” OAH
Magazine of History 25, no. 1 (January 1, 2011): 1.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oahmag/oaq001.
viii. Bellah. “Civil Religion in America.”
ix. Marsden, Lee and Emilio Gentile. “God’s Democracy:
American Religion after September 11.” Journal of
American Studies 44, no. 1 (2010): 74.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021875810000605.
x. Reagan, Ronald. “Ronald Reagan’s 1981 Inaugural
Address” (Washington, D.C., January 20, 1981).
xi. Gorski, Philip. American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion
from the Puritans to the Present (Princeton: University Press,
2019).
http://resources.library.brandeis.edu/login?url=https://w
ww.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctvc77fnk.
BRANDEIS JOURNAL OF POLITICS 2022-2023
them electoral success. They are trying to invoke
the prophetic energy of the Founding to legitimize
their presidency or candidacy. In this election
season, candidates, regardless of party affiliation,
will use civil religiosity in that manner, and it is
necessary for voters to understand that such usage
is potentially manipulative. American culture
should strive to restore the civil religion to what
the Framers intended it to be—a shared political
identity united around values of tolerance, liberty,
and inclusion.
xii. Obama, Barack. “Barack Obama’s Address to the 2004
Democratic National Convention” (2004 Democratic
National Convention, Boston, MA, July 24, 2004).
xiii. Obama, Barack and Cathleen Falsani, "Barack Obama: The
2004 “God Factor."" Chicago Sun Times, April 5, 2004.
xiv. Obama, Barack. “President’s Remarks at the National
Prayer Breakfast” (Washington, D.C., February 4, 2010).
xv. Jay et al., The Federalist Papers No. 2.
xvi. Washington, George. Washington’s Farewell Address to the
People of the United States. Senate Document (United States.
Congress. Senate) No. 106-21 (Washington: USGPO: For
sale by the Supt of Docs, USGPO, 2000).
xvii. Clearwater, Alphonso T. “The Undervaluation of
American Citizenship." Proceedings of the New York State
Historical Association 13 (1914): 83.
xviii. Clearwater, 81.
xix. Lee, Erika. “America First, Immigrants Last: American
Xenophobia Then and Now.” The Journal of the Gilded Age
and Progressive Era 19, no. 1 (January 2020): 13.
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537781419000409.
xx. Lee. “America First, Immigrants Last.”
xxi. Sundstrom, Ronald R. and David Haekwon Kim.
“Xenophobia and Racism,” Critical Philosophy of Race 2, no. 1
(2014): 24. https://doi.org/10.5325/critphilrace.2.1.0020.
xxii. Sundstrom and Kim, 25.
xxiii. ibid, 27.
xxiv. ibid, 28.
xxv. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 161.
xxvi. de Tocqueville, 113.
xxvii. Whitt, Matt S. “Felon Disenfranchisement and Democratic
Legitimacy.” Social Theory and Practice 43, no. 2 (2017): 283.
xxviii. Kleinig, John and Kevin Murtagh. “Disenfranchising
Felons.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 22, no. 3 (2005): 232.
Note: Ethan originally wrote this article as a Freshman in
spring, 2020; however, due to the pandemic, there was no
issue for that year. Sonia Pavel, the Journal's
Co-Editor-in-Chief at the time, helped to edit his piece.
49