Research Paper Example: Origin of Civil Religion

From Jean Jacquess On the social Contract in 1972, the author proceeds to state that there exists a purely civil profession based on faith under which the Sovereign should fix different articles not relatively as religious dogmas but rather as the social sentiments without which a man cannot be referred to as a suitable citizen or faithful subject. Bringing in to consideration the lack of an exclusive national religion, then there should be existence of tolerance to all the religions based upon their tolerance for other religions, but on the basis that their dogmas possesses nothing opposite to their duties of citizenship.

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Roland Sherrill states that there is a religious aura and coloration within the many ways Americans think about, or live within to an extent of even their operations relative to their ideas based on how they view their country as a sacred entity. The citizens of a particular country have a belief that their country has been blessed by God and this ultimately means that they too are ultimately blessed. in a 2002 survey that was carried out by the Pew Research Center for the people and the press, there was a recorded 48% of Americans who think that the United States had within it special protection from God for quite a lot of the countys history. This view is otherwise not typically shared by everyone due to a number who rather say that the country has not had any divine protection.

In the influential essay developed by Bellah, he states that American Civil religion is not based on the worship of the American nation but rather based on the relative understanding of the American experience in the worldwide or rather universal reality. He states further that civil religion when considered at its best, is an authentic apprehension of universal and transcendent religious reality as generally portrayed or revealed based on the experience of the American people. Sherrill states that civil religion is not based on patriotism when placed in reference to the topic of love and commitment to an individuals country but rather civil religion is linked to the religious significance and traits of the nation. It is a concept that is used to add to the idea of patriotism that the governing body in connection to the civil order is sanctified in particular ways with spiritual or religious significance.

On the overview of civil rights and civil religion, Martin Luther King stated in 1963 that "And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."

Civil Religion and Diversity

Most Americans view the creed as a very crucial component of their national identity. The creed on the other hand was given birth by the products of the distinct Anglo-Protestant culture in relation to the founding settlers. The crucial components as discussed by Samuel P. Huntington, ("The Hispanic Challenge," Foreign Policy magazine) relative to culture include the English language; Christianity; religious commitments; concepts based on English under the rule of law and also including the responsibility of the people in charge and the different rights of individuals. This is not forgetting the dissenting protestant values based on the issue of individualism, work ethics and the general belief that human beings possess the ability and relative responsibility to trying the creation of a heaven on earth.

A Harvard Professor by the name Samuel Huntington proceeded to taking the highly controversial view that the American creed is the cause of Anglo-Protestant culture. The creed is considered a term that the professor Huntington used in the place of civil religion. In his article, "The Hispanic Challenge," the professor develops an argument that mass migration to the United States in connection with the ideology of diversity and multiculturalism and the undermining of Americas national creed and the threatening related to its basis as a nation.

"We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not know, we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life and all of history stated by George W. Bush in the State of the Union Address in the year 2003. Bush kept on mixing the language of his faith with civil religion and by so doing manages it deftly within the same breath. Bush states in 2002 National Prayer Breakfast that faith gives the assurance that our lives and history possess a moral design.

The basis of civil language can be implemented to informing, motivating and inspiring. It can also be used as a controlling factor based on manipulation and deceiving. It can represent the best in terms of national character while on the other hand degeneration into egoism.