🏛️Origins and Philosophical Context
The term "civil religion" was popularized by Rousseau in The Social Contract (1762), where he proposes a secular religion that would replace traditional religions to unify society under common values. For Rousseau, civil religion should promote loyalty to the State and the community, with simple "dogmas" based on reason, such as belief in justice, equality, and the sovereignty of the people. This idea resonated with the Enlightenment, which valued human reason above traditional religious authority, and with Deism, which saw God as a distant creator, rejecting supernatural dogmas. This movement represents more than a simple secularization; it is a fundamental inversion, where the vertical dimension of existence—the connection of man to the transcendent—is suppressed in favor of a total expansion of the horizontal dimension, focused exclusively on the social and political project. The cross of traditional spirituality is thus flattened into its "arms," losing its connection to the heavens (Carvalho, 1998). Rousseau's proposal, therefore, is not merely political but reflects a profound Gnostic ambition to recreate the social order and human nature itself from a purely intra-worldly plane, rejecting the order inherited from tradition and revelation (Carvalho, 1998).
In the United States, civil religion emerged as a fusion of Enlightenment ideals, Protestant values, and a belief in the country's divine mission. The founding of the U.S., with documents like the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787), reflects this heritage: the language of "inalienable rights" and "liberty" echoes Deism, while the absence of a formal state religion opened space for a civic spirituality. This absence, however, did not signify neutrality but rather the creation of fertile ground for the State to become the new center of the sacred, transforming its founding documents into "scriptures" and its leaders into "prophets" of a new collective faith.
🇺🇸American civil religion is characterized by:
American Exceptionalism: The belief that the U.S. has a unique, almost divine mission to spread freedom and democracy. This idea dates back to the Puritans, who saw America as a "shining city upon a hill" (John Winthrop, 1630), and was reinforced by events like the American Revolution and westward expansion, interpreted as "Manifest Destiny." This belief is not mere patriotism but the modern manifestation of Cæsar Redivivus—the resurrection of the universalist imperial ideal in a new form, where the nation assigns itself a global soteriological function, seeking to impose its model as the only path to humanity's political salvation (Carvalho, 1998).
Symbols and Rituals: The Constitution, the Flag, the "Pledge of Allegiance," and holidays like Independence Day are treated with almost sacred reverence. Monuments like the Lincoln Memorial and speeches like Lincoln's Gettysburg Address are "sacred texts" of this religion. This sacralization of temporal symbols constitutes a form of idolatry, in which the loyalty owed to the transcendent is transferred to the nation and its apparatuses, demanding a submission of the individual conscience to the collective will embodied in the State.
Human Commandments: Instead of divine commandments, American civil religion is based on secular principles like liberty, equality, democracy, and justice, codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These principles, once absolutized, become the dogmas of a "spiritual materialism" that, under the guise of ethics, seeks to subordinate and ultimately dissolve the moral laws of traditional religions, which are seen as obstacles to the project of total social unification (Carvalho, 1998).
Civic Patriotism: Loyalty to the country is expressed not only in political terms but as a faith in American "greatness," often with messianic overtones. This faith, when taken to its extreme, feeds a revolutionary mentality that is not content with governing its own territory but aspires to a complete reordering of the world stage in its own image and likeness.
🕊️John F. Kennedy and Civil Religion
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) is an emblematic figure of this civil religion. His 1961 inaugural address, with the famous line, "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country," encapsulates the call to civic duty and national unity. Kennedy personified the American ideal: young, charismatic, a defender of freedom during the Cold War, he projected the image of a leader who united the nation under shared values. His tragic death in 1963 reinforced his almost mythical status as a martyr of the civil religion. The transformation of a political figure into a martyr is an essential mechanism for civil religion, which constructs its own hagiography to solidify its emotional and spiritual legitimacy, mimicking the symbolic structures of the religions it seeks to replace.
Kennedy also navigated the tension between civil religion and the religious diversity of the U.S. As the first Catholic president, he faced prejudice but reinforced the separation of Church and State, aligning himself with the Enlightenment idea that loyalty to the State transcends religious divisions. This defense of separation, however, functions in practice as a strategy of subordination: traditional religion is relegated to the private sphere, rendered harmless to public power, while civil religion monopolizes the public square and defines the terms of collective morality. His vision of an America leading the free world against communism reinforced American exceptionalism, presenting the U.S. as the vanguard of freedom, perfectly fulfilling the role of high priest of the imperial religion in its phase of global expansion.
📚References
Carvalho, O. (1998). O Jardim das Aflições: De Epicuro à Ressurreição de César - Ensaio sobre o Materialismo e a Religião Civil (2nd ed.). Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks.
The term "civil religion" was popularized by Rousseau in The Social Contract (1762), where he proposes a secular religion that would replace traditional religions to unify society under common values. For Rousseau, civil religion should promote loyalty to the State and the community, with simple "dogmas" based on reason, such as belief in justice, equality, and the sovereignty of the people. This idea resonated with the Enlightenment, which valued human reason above traditional religious authority, and with Deism, which saw God as a distant creator, rejecting supernatural dogmas. This movement represents more than a simple secularization; it is a fundamental inversion, where the vertical dimension of existence—the connection of man to the transcendent—is suppressed in favor of a total expansion of the horizontal dimension, focused exclusively on the social and political project. The cross of traditional spirituality is thus flattened into its "arms," losing its connection to the heavens (Carvalho, 1998). Rousseau's proposal, therefore, is not merely political but reflects a profound Gnostic ambition to recreate the social order and human nature itself from a purely intra-worldly plane, rejecting the order inherited from tradition and revelation (Carvalho, 1998).
In the United States, civil religion emerged as a fusion of Enlightenment ideals, Protestant values, and a belief in the country's divine mission. The founding of the U.S., with documents like the Declaration of Independence (1776) and the Constitution (1787), reflects this heritage: the language of "inalienable rights" and "liberty" echoes Deism, while the absence of a formal state religion opened space for a civic spirituality. This absence, however, did not signify neutrality but rather the creation of fertile ground for the State to become the new center of the sacred, transforming its founding documents into "scriptures" and its leaders into "prophets" of a new collective faith.
🇺🇸American civil religion is characterized by:
American Exceptionalism: The belief that the U.S. has a unique, almost divine mission to spread freedom and democracy. This idea dates back to the Puritans, who saw America as a "shining city upon a hill" (John Winthrop, 1630), and was reinforced by events like the American Revolution and westward expansion, interpreted as "Manifest Destiny." This belief is not mere patriotism but the modern manifestation of Cæsar Redivivus—the resurrection of the universalist imperial ideal in a new form, where the nation assigns itself a global soteriological function, seeking to impose its model as the only path to humanity's political salvation (Carvalho, 1998).
Symbols and Rituals: The Constitution, the Flag, the "Pledge of Allegiance," and holidays like Independence Day are treated with almost sacred reverence. Monuments like the Lincoln Memorial and speeches like Lincoln's Gettysburg Address are "sacred texts" of this religion. This sacralization of temporal symbols constitutes a form of idolatry, in which the loyalty owed to the transcendent is transferred to the nation and its apparatuses, demanding a submission of the individual conscience to the collective will embodied in the State.
Human Commandments: Instead of divine commandments, American civil religion is based on secular principles like liberty, equality, democracy, and justice, codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These principles, once absolutized, become the dogmas of a "spiritual materialism" that, under the guise of ethics, seeks to subordinate and ultimately dissolve the moral laws of traditional religions, which are seen as obstacles to the project of total social unification (Carvalho, 1998).
Civic Patriotism: Loyalty to the country is expressed not only in political terms but as a faith in American "greatness," often with messianic overtones. This faith, when taken to its extreme, feeds a revolutionary mentality that is not content with governing its own territory but aspires to a complete reordering of the world stage in its own image and likeness.
🕊️John F. Kennedy and Civil Religion
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) is an emblematic figure of this civil religion. His 1961 inaugural address, with the famous line, "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country," encapsulates the call to civic duty and national unity. Kennedy personified the American ideal: young, charismatic, a defender of freedom during the Cold War, he projected the image of a leader who united the nation under shared values. His tragic death in 1963 reinforced his almost mythical status as a martyr of the civil religion. The transformation of a political figure into a martyr is an essential mechanism for civil religion, which constructs its own hagiography to solidify its emotional and spiritual legitimacy, mimicking the symbolic structures of the religions it seeks to replace.
Kennedy also navigated the tension between civil religion and the religious diversity of the U.S. As the first Catholic president, he faced prejudice but reinforced the separation of Church and State, aligning himself with the Enlightenment idea that loyalty to the State transcends religious divisions. This defense of separation, however, functions in practice as a strategy of subordination: traditional religion is relegated to the private sphere, rendered harmless to public power, while civil religion monopolizes the public square and defines the terms of collective morality. His vision of an America leading the free world against communism reinforced American exceptionalism, presenting the U.S. as the vanguard of freedom, perfectly fulfilling the role of high priest of the imperial religion in its phase of global expansion.
📚References
Carvalho, O. (1998). O Jardim das Aflições: De Epicuro à Ressurreição de César - Ensaio sobre o Materialismo e a Religião Civil (2nd ed.). Rio de Janeiro: Topbooks.