Civil Religion Today: Religion and the American Nation in the Twenty-First Century Williams Rhys H.
Civil Religion Today: Religion and the American Nation in the Twenty-First Century Williams Rhys H. Moves the discussion of American civil religion into the twenty-first centuryCivil Religion, a term…
Specifikacia Civil Religion Today: Religion and the American Nation in the Twenty-First Century Williams Rhys H.
Civil Religion Today: Religion and the American Nation in the Twenty-First Century Williams Rhys H.
Moves the discussion of American civil religion into the twenty-first centuryCivil Religion, a term made popular by sociologist Robert Bellah a little over fifty years ago, describes how people might share in a sacred sense of their nation. Bellah used civil religion to make sense of the turmoil of the 1960s, especially moral debates provoked by the Vietnam War. While hotly debated, the idea continues to enjoy wide application among academics and journalists.
Is Bellah's hopeful assessment still useful for understanding contemporary America? Now, a half-century later, American society is again riven by conflict over immigration, economic inequality, racial oppression, and "culture wars" issues. If not, how should we think of it differently?Civil Religion Today reassesses the term to take stock of its usefulness after fifty years of engagement in the field.