From Civil To Political Religion: The Intersection Of Culture, Religion And Politics

From Civil to Political Religion The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics From Civil to Political Religion The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics Marcela Cristi This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities. National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data Cristi, Marcela From civil to political religion : the intersection of culture, religion and politics Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-88920-368-7 1. Civil religion. I. Title. BL98.5.C74 2001 322’.1 C2001-930472-2 © 2001 Wilfrid Laurier University Press Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5 Chapter 5, written with Lorne L. Dawson, was originally published as “Civil Religion in Comparative Perspective: Chile under Pinochet (1978-1989)” in Social Compass 43, 3 (Sept. 1996). Reproduced here with minor modifications, courtesy of Social Compass, Collège Jacques Leclercq, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Cover design by Leslie Macredie. Photograph by Andrés Gómez, courtesy of Reuters/Andrés Gómez/Hulton/Archive. Printed in Canada All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means— graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 214 King Street West, Suite 312, Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S6. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1 Theoretical Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . One European Pedigree, Two Different Traditions . . . . . . . . . . Rousseau on Civil Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rousseau’s Ideal Citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Durkheim on Civil Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Religion, Social Order, and the State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 15 17 27 30 41 Chapter 2 American Civil Religion and the American Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . The Rebirth of Civil Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Setting the Ground Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civil Religion as a Source of Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Other Voices of Dissent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civil Religion as a Source of Legitimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 48 56 69 74 79 Chapter 3 The “Problem” of Legitimacy, Power, and Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 The Intellectual Roots of the Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Legitimacy in Sociological Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Religion and Legitimation Today . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 The Invisibility of Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 The Consensus Legacy and Its Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Civil Religion: Its Agents and Structural Support . . . . . . . . . . . 129 v From Civil to Political Religion Chapter 4 State-Directed Civil Religions in Comparative Perspective . . . . . 135 Civil Religion as Political Religion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1