American Civil Religion

I recently finished reading The Faith Instinct by Nicholas Wade. In one of the book’s concluding chapters Wade writes about American Civil Religion, the idea that the history and symbols of the United States have resulted in a sort of pseudo-state religion. The theory is not Wade’s, but it was the first time I had come across it (my history reading over the last fifteen years has been mostly limited to the Pagan/Magickal/Occult sphere).

Over the last few years the practice of American Civil Religion has become more and more pronounced. Many conservatives seem to see The Constitution as a near-religious document, second only to The Bible in terms of importance. While the whole point of the Constitution was that it could be changed and reinterpreted by succeeding generations, every line is now looked at as holy writ (at least when it’s convenient, no one talks much about counting some human beings as 3/5ths of a person), never mind that the Founding Fathers could not have imagined semi-automatic weapons or a healthcare system without leeches. In this way the Constitution is very much like The Bible, people pick and choose the things they want out of it, and ignore the parts that might stand in disagreement to their own positions (like the line “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State” in the Second Amendment).

The Constitution is not the only “scripture” at the heart of American Civil Religion. There are several other documents and speeches that carry nearly as much weight. The most obvious of those other scriptures is the Declaration of Independence. Containing the rhetorical flourishes of Jefferson and Franklin the Declaration is not just a letter proclaiming American independence, but a document outlining the rights and hopes of the American people (or at least white male landowners back in 1776).

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