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Ronald Beiner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Civil Religion and anticlericalism in James Harrington
European Journal of Political Theory, 2013Co-Authors: Ronald BeinerAbstract:In the last few years, there has been a notable surge of interest in the themes of Civil Religion and the battle against “priestcraft” among historians of political thought. Examples include Eric N...
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Civil Religion a dialogue in the history of political philosophy
2010Co-Authors: Ronald BeinerAbstract:Civil Religion offers philosophical commentaries on more than twenty thinkers stretching from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. It examines four important traditions within the history of modern political philosophy. The Civil Religion tradition, principally defined by Machiavelli, Hobbes and Rousseau, seeks to domesticate Religion by putting it solidly in the service of politics. The liberal tradition pursues an alternative strategy of domestication by seeking to put as much distance as possible between Religion and politics. Modern theocracy is a militant reaction against liberalism, reversing the relationship of subordination asserted by Civil Religion. Finally, a fourth tradition is defined by Nietzsche and Heidegger. Aspects of their thought are not just modern, but hyper-modern, yet they manifest an often-hysterical reaction against liberalism that is fundamentally shared with the theocratic tradition. Together, these four traditions compose a vital dialogue that carries us to the heart of political philosophy itself.
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Civil Religion: Rousseau's Problem
Civil Religion, 1Co-Authors: Ronald BeinerAbstract:Bayle has proved very well that fanaticism is more pernicious than atheism, and this is incontestable. But what he did not take care to say, and which is no less true, is that fanaticism, although sanguinary and cruel, is nevertheless a grand and strong passion which elevates the heart of man, makes him despise death, and gives him a prodigious energy that need only be better directed to produce the most sublime virtues. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau The term Civil Religion comes from a particular text – Book IV, chapter 8 of Rousseau's Social Contract . Nevertheless, pursued with sufficient doggedness, radicality, and intellectual ambition, the idea of Civil Religion can open up to us not only the unique political thought-world of Rousseau's work as a whole but also the unique thought-worlds of all major figures in the tradition of modern political philosophy. More to the point, it can open up to us the dimension of full dialogue between these thinkers, and not just their own thought-worlds seen as singular wholes. It is in this sense that this book aims at the presentation of a dialogue, or of a set of dialogues. From the point of view of this dialogue within the history of political philosophy, one can say that when Rousseau composes his Civil-Religion chapter, he is already familiar with two possible solutions to the problem of adjudicating the uneasy relation between politics and Religion offered by his predecessors in the tradition of modern political philosophy (to be explored in Chapters 2–5 of Part I); in that sense, the Civil-Religion chapter already inserts itself into a dialogue in progress. However, Rousseau rejects both of these possible solutions as undesirable. In the Geneva Manuscript he explores a possible solution of his own, but he jettisons this as well when he comes to write the Social Contract . Hence, readers of Rousseau who believe the Social Contract should be interpreted as a determinate and realizable blueprint for an ideal political community need to think hard about the fact that the book concludes with the statement of a crucial political problem for which Rousseau is unable to propose any solution that he himself regards as acceptable. The Social Contract concludes with a stunning paradox. The key statement of Book IV, chapter 8 is that “a State has never been founded without Religion serving as its base” (“ jamais Etat ne fut fonde que la Religion ne lui servit de base ”). This statement occurs in the context of a very penetrating analysis that lays out what one presumes to be an exhaustive survey of religious–political possibilities. There are two main alternatives: The first, to which Rousseau attaches the label “natural divine right,” is strictly otherworldly in its focus and finds its purest embodiment in the Christianity of the Gospels; the second, which Rousseau refers to as “Civil or positive divine right,” embraces a variety of more worldly, theocratic regimes. These divide basically into two types: the fairly inclusive, local Civil Religion of Roman and other paganisms; and the more universalistic and therefore imperialistic theocracies of Islam and Judaism. All national Religions will appear parochial relative to the universalism of Christianity, but as the contrast between Judaism/Islam and paganism shows, this parochialism can have either a (relatively) tolerant or aggressive cast. Rousseau also presents a third, hybrid, alternative – “mixed right” – which offers a kind of dual-sovereignty model, dividing authority between church and state. In practice, it means that the priests are tempted to usurp temporal authority for themselves, and to this extent undercut the established authority of the state. Rousseau calls it “the Religion of the priest” and agrees with Hobbes in denying to this worldly–otherworldly Religion any moral claim whatsoever. The most blatant target of this polemic is of course Catholicism, but as Rousseau concedes in the paragraph referring to Hobbes, this dividing of sovereignties is latent in the “spirit of Christianity” in general, not just the Catholic version of Christianity.
Jacob Abolafia - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Solar Theology and Civil Religion in Plato’s Laws
Polis The Journal for Ancient Greek Political Thought, 2015Co-Authors: Jacob AbolafiaAbstract:How is a legislator to harness the positive cohesive power of Religion without falling prey to a charge of hypocrisy? As with so many theoretical puzzles, it was Plato who first recognized this paradox of Civil Religion. Consequently, the multi-tiered Religion he proposes in the Laws should be understood as western thought’s first attempt to solve this problem. At the centre of the Laws stands a single icon – the sun – that fits within both the Olympian schema of polis-Religion and a naturalistic, rationalist account persuasive to the more philosophically minded. Using the language and imagery of solar worship, Plato designed a shared ‘Civil Religion’ (to use an anachronistic term), that can reasonably claim to link the social forms of political life to the higher truths of reason, even if not all the city’s citizens will mean the same thing when they speak of the god and his rites.
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solar theology and Civil Religion in plato s laws
Polis: the journal for ancient greek political thought, 2015Co-Authors: Jacob AbolafiaAbstract:How is a legislator to harness the positive cohesive power of Religion without falling prey to a charge of hypocrisy? As with so many theoretical puzzles, it was Plato who first recognized this paradox of Civil Religion. Consequently, the multi-tiered Religion he proposes in the Laws should be understood as western thought’s first attempt to solve this problem.At the centre of the Laws stands a single icon – the sun – that fits within both the Olympian schema of polis-Religion and a naturalistic, rationalist account persuasive to the more philosophically minded. Using the language and imagery of solar worship, Plato designed a shared ‘Civil Religion’ (to use an anachronistic term), that can reasonably claim to link the social forms of political life to the higher truths of reason, even if not all the city’s citizens will mean the same thing when they speak of the god and his rites.
Max L Stackhouse - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Civil Religion political theology and public theology what s the difference
Political Theology, 2004Co-Authors: Max L StackhouseAbstract:AbstractIdentifying and distinguishing the dominant features of Civil Religion, political theology and public theology is an important aspect of the trans-Atlantic conversation about the role of Religion in the common life. Civil Religion is often a form of patriotic self-celebration that in the West, and particularly in the US, has often been expressed in terms of Christianity. Its defect lies in its lack of transcendental and thus critical reference. Political theology attempts to meet this defect by bringing the disciplines of theology and critical thought to bear on the relation between politics and Religion. Political theology, however, too often equates or reduces the public to partisan or governmental policy, and understands the state as the institution that comprehends and guides all other spheres of society. Public theology seeks to remedy this by insisting that institutions of Civil society precede regimes both in order of occurrence and by right, and insists that theology, in dialogue with othe...
David Fontana - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Obama and the American Civil Religion from the Political Left
The George Washington International Law Review, 2010Co-Authors: David FontanaAbstract:Fred Gedicks has written an interesting paper on the future of Civil Religion in the United States.1 As Gedicks describes it, the American Civil Religion, as defined most notably by Robert Bellah several decades ago,2 argues that there is and should be a core series of basic principles at the heart of American nationalism, principles supportive of the American democratic order and derived from principles associated with the major religious traditions practiced by American citizens.3 Gedicks paints a dreary picture of the future of the American Civil Religion, arguing that Civil Religion is a theoretically undesirable concept and a practically impossible one to realize in the contemporary United States.4 My brief reply to Gedicks's paper will focus on this latter point, and argue that there is a good reason to believe that the American Civil Religion has a viable future, one deriving from the American political left. The best example of this is the 2008 presidential candidacy of President Barack Obama.5 I. THE Civil Religion OF BARACK OBAMA: A LIBERAL Civil Religion? Gedicks argues that it would be empirically difficult to have an American Civil Religion in the current climate because of increasing religious diversity and the vehemence of the religious beliefs held by religious true believers.6 In its place, he argues for a procedural Civil Religion, one comprised entirely and exclusively of "a thinner Rawlsian [Civil Religion] dedicated to procedural values of fairness and equity."7 The political success of Obama, however, which relies on a Civil Religion that was (contrary to Gedicks's predictions) both religious and Civil, may defy some of Gedicks's empirical expectations. By the time Obama became politically relevant, it might have been impossible for Civil Religion to be advocated by those on the right. Despite what Gedicks argues, there is still a shared, monotheistic, Western religious angle to American public sentiment. The most recent annual poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 92 percent of American citizens believe in God.8 Gedicks is certainly right that within this monotheism there is diversity; as he estimates, between one-quarter and one-third of American citizens may hold nontraditional religious beliefs.9 These religious beliefs, however, still share the core of the Civil Religion that Bellah identified: monotheism, dedicated to certain rights and beliefs consistent with the American liberal tradition- understood at a sufficiently high level of generality, of course.10 The issue with the American Civil Religion, though, is that it had come to be seen as so ideological and exclusionary that it alienated many mainstream and liberal voters. While advocacy of an American Civil Religion could have motivated those true believers, typically those on the political right that Gedicks discusses, a politically conservative Civil Religion that had "appropriated the symbols and practices of American Civil Religion and infused them with sectarian meaning"11 turned off many voters. An American liberal Civil Religion held out more promise as an inspiring American nationalism, but with a tolerant edge. Enter Obama onto the national political stage, perhaps "the most theologically serious politician in modern American political history,"12 whose speeches have been just as full with religious imagery and rhetoric as they have been with Civil imagery and rhetoric. Obama's speeches were full of references to Civil ideas, or as Gedicks defines them, Rawlsian ideas,13 as well as to religious ideas. During his now famous 2004 speech at the Democratic National Convention, Obama stated that even in blue states people "worship an awesome God"14 and believed in hope as "God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation; the belief in things not seen; the belief that these are better days ahead."15 In a major speech at a 2006 conference on poverty, Obama referenced the importance of "acknowledge[ing] the power of faith in people's lives"16 and argued as follows: [S]ecularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their Religion at the door before entering into the public square . …
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Obama and the American Civil Religion from the Political Left
2010Co-Authors: David FontanaAbstract:Fred Gedicks has written an interesting paper on the future of Civil Religion in the United States. As Gedicks describes it, the American Civil Religion, as defined most notably by Robert Bellah several decades ago, argues that there is and should be a core series of basic principles at the heart of American nationalism, principles supportive of the American democratic order and derived from principles associated with the major religious traditions practiced by American citizens. Gedicks paints a dreary picture of the future of the American Civil Religion, arguing that Civil Religion is a theoretically undesirable concept and a practically impossible one to realize in the contemporary United States. My brief reply to Gedicks’s paper will focus on this latter point, and argue that there is a good reason to believe that the American Civil Religion has a viable future, one deriving from the American political left. The best example of this is the 2008 presidential candidacy of President Barack Obama.
Gerald Parsons - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The Cult of Saint Catherine of Siena: A Study in Civil Religion
2008Co-Authors: Gerald ParsonsAbstract:Contents: Preface Introduction: Civil Religion and the cult of Catherine of Siena 'La santa senese': Catherine and the Civil Religion of Siena 1384-1857 From 'santa senese' to 'Patrona d' Italia': the cult of Catherine of Siena 1859-1939 Catherine of Siena and the Second World War: 1940-1945 From 'Patrona d' Italia' to 'Patrona d' Europa': the cult of Catherine of Siena 1946-2007 Conclusion: Catherine of Siena and the varieties of Civil Religion Bibliography Index.
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Siena, Civil Religion and the Sienese
2004Co-Authors: Gerald ParsonsAbstract:Siena is often referred to as the 'City of the Virgin' and the 'City of the Palio'. The special devotion of the Sienese to the Virgin began in the thirteenth century and in times of danger the Sienese have regularly rededicated their city to the Madonna, who is also celebrated in the twice-yearly festival of the Palio. 'Siena, Civil Religion and the Palio' examines Sienese devotion to the Virgin from the medieval period to the present day. Exploring how the Palio has become the principal means of sustaining and celebrating Sienese culture, values and identity - including popular devotion to the Virgin - the book shows how this festival stands in continuity with the earlier Civil Religion of medieval and renaissance Siena. Drawing on insights from recent discussion of Civil Religion in medieval and renaissance Italy, the USA and modern Britain, the book explores how Civil Religion sustains the Sienese sense of their history, identity and uniqueness through a variety of beliefs, rituals, ceremonies and symbols. Illustrated and including a full bibliography, the book breaks new ground in interpreting Sienese devotion to the Virgin and to the Palio in terms of 'Civil Religion'.