The American Civil religion is not what some people have called it. What one man called it a societal religion in which the larger society is actually defined as an object of alternate concerned by the individual. Clearly the ancient faith of American Civil religion is not in the larger society and certainly not as an object of ultimate concern. It is Faith in certain fundamental propositions about the nature of human beings which are believed to derive ultimately from God. If the larger society does not conform to them so much the worse for you. But surely you will say the American Civil religion depends on how many people believe it supposed surveys show that fewer. None of the American people any longer share this face. It's of course is perfectly possible. It would not prove that the American Civil religion never existed. But only that it has become what we call a dead religion. Existing in certain texts, but without living at hearings. This is certainly a historical possibility. But it would not merely mean. That certain quaint beliefs no longer find adherents. It would mean that the American Nation as Washington Jefferson and Lincoln understood. no longer exists I suspect that such a nation to would have a civil religion. But it would be a different civil religion because it would be a different Nation. That was Professor Robert bellah of the University of California Berkeley last week on home for the weekend Professor Bellows set the stage for a 5 program series on the Civil religion in America in explaining the Civil religion. Bella spoke not as inventor of the concept, but as discoverer of what others like to tocqueville and Abraham Lincoln had written Today in the second of five programs on the Civil religion in America will hear from to South Dakota humanists and also Professor Bellows responses to questions. This series broadcast is taken from a forum held at Dakota State College in Madison, South Dakota. Last fall The Forum was sponsored by the Lutheran Student Center and the Newman Center of Madison and by the United Ministries in higher education in South Dakota and was made possible by a grant from the South Dakota committee on the humanities. We Begin today's program with excerpts from the responses of two South Dakota human us to dr. Bell has prepared remarks first Professor David fee of the religion department at South Dakota State University in Brookings I know Church religion. I know Church religion extended to the society the giving of our money for the poor charity. I know Church religion and Lutheran. Hospitals that restore Savage cases of leprosy overseas, I no crop Church rural overseas program. I know love thy neighbor. but the Civic thing I don't know exactly what it is. Unless profesor Bella means that the the social reality itself is a gift of God is a Grace. I'm asking for clarification. The grace of God may not be simply through the church or to put it another way. I cannot convince my students that Lincoln was a religious man. Does Lincoln did not go to church? I take that back. He was not a formal member he would sneak into the basement. I believe the Central Presbyterian Church listen through the heating grates a bit, but had no formal. Church commitment Yes, he's the prophet. But the Civil order so in some sense the hand of God. This is not a sermon but just trying to find out the hand of God is in the common life. That's news to me. Is civil religion and adjunct of Christianity? Vice versa. Where are there? No Christianity with there be no civil religion or would we have one anyhow, because the Civil order is inherently at bottom religious because it operates under ultimate. I'm used to Ultimate Through the Bible to the sacraments. author authorities But in some sense the society as under Transcendence ultimate. Start a little bit of question. I would ask for clarification. on that a couple of questions and they're also clarifications. I wonder if it can survive nationalism. American Civil religion may be passing as Professor Elemental in one of his articles for the global civil religion. But I wanted to send to the nation. A nation-state I take that back the nation state. Is that shaky? As the Civil religion and that's one reason the Civil religion is shaky. The nation-state is shaky. And that people are finding their meanings in more of a private sphere. The nationalism maybe getting weak America is a nation. 4 smaller Civic or civil units I mention a few I don't know quite what to make out of women's lib. I suspect it has something to do with my makeup. I'm not sure what to make of red Power. gay power gray power Brown power kid Power Who else the fragmentation and breaking down into smaller regions societies where people in narrower terms can Define for themselves? What is important to them? I suspect every one of those little groups as a myth is a mini civil religion. Sun myth that integrates and tells him who they are and makes it all worthwhile. But I wonder if in fact there are smaller now civil religions smaller civil communities. The right to Define oneself understand I think what are Bella saying about this utilitarian self-interest? I don't want I don't think to say that if I'm saying that I'd like to be shown. That's what I'm saying. Then I got to go think some more. But maybe places the nation and things like political Liberty. There's kind of a psychosocial Liberty that people are interested in to Define themselves from their inside out. With like-minded people of what it is to be black and maybe for now the national cohesion is not possible. kill people feel secure in the smaller little societies with their own myths I don't know if you know we have been treated very a number of amendments. You cannot discriminate a person against the person on the basis of his race is Creed national origin is color. a religion Now, I wonder if we won't see another National Amendment the right to Define oneself precisely in terms of your race or religion or national origin your section. I'm not be denied to you. So I mean by the smaller communities. Having Integrity to them. To be defended the little civil religions. Where did y'all decide who women are? The right to be by myself as a woman and to decide what that means. Shall not be abridged. And to be black if that means the afro and the gown and the giving of their children African names no more George Booker, Washington and Willie Green. Now they give their children African names. So the society sorta looks like it's going to pot. Breaking down, where are the overarching ultimate meanings that tell us who we are. Maybe people are heading to us on a smaller scale. And we'll see another civil religion. That was humanist David a fee associate professor of religion at South Dakota State University in Brookings with some of his reactions to Professor Robert Bella's comments on the Civil religion in America for another humanist perspective. Let's listen to Daniel rice campus Minister and assistant professor of religion and philosophy at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell, South Dakota. I want a very briefly suggest some public policy issues, which I think in some ways are related to what's happening in America with American Civil religion that I want to be just suggestive and not dwell on this very much and some of these issues may be more related to civil religion in my mind and they are in yours, but for purposes of discussion and thought I want to suggest into you. Obviously one that comes to mind immediately at least for me is the whole prayer in public school issue. Since the Supreme Court decision about that. That's a problem for many Americans. If in fact we do have a civil religion with play such an important role in our history and supposedly ought to today. Why is it that we can't pray in school and I expect that many people who support up a prayer Amendment would see themselves within the Civil religion Camp. I don't I'm thinking in particular of George Washington's letter to the Hebrew Community but there's a problem there I think and that is as a religious people. How do we institutionalize are religion and at the same time allow for the diversity of views and opinions, which was so essential in the minds of Jefferson and Washington and others that seems to me to be a fundamental dilemma, which we come back to again and again, Another way that becomes a problem for us in America I think is is what we do with church properties. Well, most of us may be fairly comfortable with the tax-exempt status the church buildings have but what about income-producing properties? So there's a look at that in terms of the lawn and what what First Amendment really means in terms of not establishing law as it might hinder the relationship for the function of the church in our society. Foreign policy issues are much more difficult difficult to get a hold of one that's looming on the horizon now is a bill before I both bodies of the Congress which will state is a sense of the United States Senate and House of Representatives that the possession of food is a right for all human beings centers Hatfield and representative Fraser are introducing that bill. I can see that fitting into what I understand to be one of the themes of American Civil religion. That is that somehow we do stand under the Judgment of God is a nation and when there are one quarter of the world's population for a malnourished or that maybe that's probably a very conservative figure and we have so much food that really more than we need and weed more than is healthy for us. What kind of moral obligations does that put upon us as As Americans? What civil rights is a is an issue that doctor Bella discusses in his book and it seems to me that both an appeal to the Civil religion and an appeal to the church's is one of the reasons why we have voting rights. The Voting Rights bill was passed in the 1960s. what's happening now in terms of civil rights in our cities is an interesting problem, isn't it forms of busing I wonder how that fits into the scheme of of American Civil religion or if that's even an even an issue for most of the people in Boston or wherever Abortion is another issue that seems to me to in which the person's on both sides of that argument whether you're in favor of an amendment to the Constitution or not drop on some of the strains of the American Civil War religion. An eye for national health insurance seems to me that issue seems to be a broadening of the concept in the Declaration of Independence life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. What do we really mean by life? We talked about the quality of life. And again that it seems to me that some kind of understanding and religious moral terms is necessary for us to come to some kind of agreement about what we mean is America's by quality of life with what we were serious enough about or believe ought to be incorporated into law and into our public policy and our institutions. and of course their whole host of civil liberties issues that I think a rise out of the Civil religion tradition and one way of putting that is that I understand with the founding fathers were saying it was saying that government derives its Authority from the people. And it seems to me that Watergate has warned us that that the Article of Faith is not embraced a very fondly by some of our leaders. So well, those are those are some ways very quickly that it seems to me that We need to we need to return to some kind of consensus about American Civil religion. If there ever was one there may not have ever been one. But at least I'm interested in how we bring religion to Bear upon those kinds of questions. I suspect that in the halls of Congress and that in living rooms. And in taverns that those kinds of issues are argued not very often on the basis of what religion might have to say about them. That's it seems to me that that's a tragic State of Affairs. So I want to move quickly now to see some broader questions and I'd really be interested in hearing doctor Bello. What's happening in your view with civil religion in America now today, where are we at? Really and what are the future seems some of the things that I see? In the present and I don't mean to preempt your answer but it seems to me that those people who are interested in any kind of religion today seemed to be caught up in things like the Jesus movement pretty early young people Eastern religions and the focus of those from my point of view is on a private istic religion a personal and private experience with God and their notion of punishment or judgment only applies to their personal relationship with God in their private lives, and it does not in any way have anything to do with our public stances in our public policy. On the other hand the more secular folk. I suspect don't really believe any longer in Divine punishment. And that's no longer operative visit as a check on our public actions. Then what really is left of civil religion seems to me that was at least historically important part of that and what made it work. the last lie I want to Espresso disease about a civil religion that and some of the things I've said May indicate that I I think it ought to continue to play an important role in American life, even though it may not be at the present. Price as I look back at history from from my rather limited point of view. I become rather uneasy about the role that religion played in American Life. I wonder if both civil religion and church religion have an off intended to move rather quickly and easily to a kind of position which Robert Jewett call zealous nationalism and nationalism, which has been disastrous both for us and for much of the world that seems to be me to be a real danger if we do believe in ourselves even as the almost chosen people. Then can we somehow see ourselves also is almost righteous and exempt from the restraints. Which other person's of Nations has to adhere to that seems to me to be part of our history and Vietnam is still too fresh in my mind for me to be at ease with how we use religion to justify causes which are not in our best interest and are not certainly not from my point of view. Can I be justified in a Biblical kind of way and would be questionable on both the biblical on utilitarian grounds. So Well, I want to thank dr. Bella for defining what I see is the lifting up what I see is the best out of the Civil religion tradition and I think he's saying is not simply the best but what what is essential there and holding that up before us because I feel us a kind of political depression myself not not necessarily an economic when I'm more concerned about our political depression that are economic depression. And at this point in time. I'm thankful to you. Cabela for lifting up the best and what I think maybe the essential in our past, thank you. You heard humanist Daniel rice campus Minister and assistant professor of religion and philosophy at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell South Dakota with his reaction to Robert Bella's remarks on the Civil religion in America in the next part of today's home for the weekend program the second in a series of five broadcast on the Civil religion. In America, we turn again to Robert bellah professor of sociology and comparative studies at the University of california-berkeley. And this segment doctor Bella responds to questions raised by the to South Dakota humanist beginning with a discussion of zealous nationalism. I just would come back to. to Franklin statement If men are as wicked rip Americans are as wicked as they are with religion. Just wait. They don't have it. The worst forms of zealous nationalism that we have ever seen in the face of the globe were violently and irreligious. Andy Christian and certainly Auntie the kind of universal statements about Humanity with your basic to the Civil religion. So just getting rid of religion is not going to get rid of zealous nationalism. That sense that me and people like me people the same color. I am or speak the same language I do or live in the same place. I do are better than other people and therefore have a right to inflict violence on those other people when they get in my way of my groups way sad to say is one of the oldest features of human existence. You can find it among primitive tribes. It was not created. By biblical religion and I think mr. Jewett's but goes considerably too far in the In His Image application of that not Direction I think I'll wait just a few other questions before ending up with a question of where is a civil Religion Today. One question that was asked to me privately during the coffee hour is when Jefferson said all men are created equal didn't mean to leave out women. I think I can answer that question unequivocally that he used man or men in the generic sense to mean human being. In the English language the word man or men has two different and distinct meanings today when we are very Alert 2 questions of women's Liberation. Sometimes it is difficult to use the word man without the immediate notion that somehow it excludes women and maybe today we should be sensitive to that. Jefferson I don't mean to say that Jefferson was not a male chauvinist. I'm reasonably sure that he shared the general views of his day. If I'm sure send some of you seen that marvellous correspondence between Abigail Adams and John Adams and Rich Abigail says here you doing all this big stuff for men. Why don't you include women and their constitutional rights and voting and so on? I doubt the Jefferson would have differed from John Adams in his feeling that women at that point. At least we're not ready for full constitutional participation. So I don't want to say that he didn't but that did not mean. That Jefferson felt there was a any difference in terms of fundamental. human structure in terms of those basic rights between men and women David raised several important questions including in a way this last question. Nationalism is a complex issue in America. There is an important sense I would argue in which The basic civil religion is not nationalistic at all. It's political it believes in a political Society. But it does not exalt. the particular virtues of any cultural or ethnic Group which could be defined in a national sense now in fact and in practice Americans have often been nationalistic and placed the values of particularity above the values of universality. But I think that it is one of the virtues of the basic civil religion which helps defend us against perverse nationalism. That is Jefferson as thinking set of Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence. There is a basic commitment to a universal truth which applies to all human beings and all times and in all places and if some of you know, the history of the Declaration of Independence in the world, since it was issued how many different people around the globe have picked up document up and found Hope and meaning it? In Japan after the opening of the country in 1868. One of the first things to be translated was the Declaration of Independence and it helped spark the first movement for democracy and civil rights in Japan. Play the Vietnam the movement for free Vietnam which began during the second world war under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh issued its first Manifesto, which was almost a literal translation of the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence document. To others is no people in the world ever picked up mine comp document to justify their struggle for freedom. But the Declaration of Independence has run throughout the world that has been a gift not only to America but to All Peoples and that it seems to me it's something we can be proud of in this tradition and not have to apologize for not have to talk about zealous nationalism. At least at that point, even though in many other context context. We have indeed fallen into that. Send. Now is the nation-state crumbly this is back to David again. I would say that the nation-state today is more powerful than ever before in history United States the Soviet Union each of them have the power to destroy the world. China and Japan are not very far behind. People talk about multi-national corporations, but I'll tell you one thing multinational corporations that have their headquarters in New York are American corporations. The power in the control is right here in Japanese multinationals have their headquarters in Tokyo and their jet Japanese corporations. The power of a nation-state the power of economic power of a certain combinations of Corporations based in Nations is still out solutely enormous. The very great danger is that the dissolution the coming apart of any sense of national morality and National commitment and National meaning at the very moment when the nation-state exercises such a vast military political and economic power is one of the great dangers which we Face by David ask as many of us can't we forget about the nation can't we celebrate the particularity of the small local ethnic? What not group the various types of power? but I think that partly what David said that the American Civil religion came to Consciousness at the point when it ceased to be taken for granted when it was in trouble when many people didn't know what it was and didn't believe that it had any validity is in spite of all the noise in the future are also true of the smaller subgroups. Ethnic communities now are far weaker than they were 50 years ago. The struggle for ethnic identity now is to recover an ethnic identity which is battered and bruised and weak not strong and self-confident. This is even true in groups like the black community the black communities and our major cities are not coherent via viable vibrant. Call activities they are Riven with their own conflicts with their deep problems. The black church has provided the heart of the black community in the black church along with white churches is not able to fulfill its Community farming created function as it has in the past and for all the political slogan izing. No political organization among blacks has been able to replace the black church. American Indian tribes are losing their sense of their own particularity in their own culture in a sense the rise of Indian identity as a Pan American phenomenon is a response to the loss of tribal identity. So it isn't only national identity. It's every local identity the tremendous rapidity of social change the ability. The fact that we are all exposed constantly to a single culture through the tube every tradition the great tradition the small tradition ethnic tradition the racial tradition, every tradition in America is under continuous pressure. Is eroding is disappearing? I would like to celebrate the particular groups and all their special virtues. I don't think it's ever been necessary in America. To make a choice a final choice between one's particular group and The American Nation at least whenever the sentiments such as those of Washington to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport have held Sway and they have all possible to combine those loyalties impossible. I think in this again is in response to David because Christians have not believed there were two different cards. They've been able to see in the fundamental commitments. I think of the American polity and effort to realize ethical Norms, which can be found in the Bible. They have not had to choose as some Churches having some states in the modern world. Between their political Tradition at its highest and their religious tradition because their political tradition has grown out of their religious tradition not without temperature again. I think the Vitality of the Civil religion depends on the Vitality of church religion unless there is a continued interaction unless the churches are alert to every form of idolatry and I must also say sometimes vice-versa cuz the churches can fall into their own idolatries. The religious situation is unhealthy And the decline of a sense of the real meaning of civil religion and unfortunately at the moment goes hand-in-hand with the decline of the sense of the meaning of any religion Church religion or any Village. so as to where we are today, I think the situation is quite ominous. I think they be undermining. Of our basic values the commitment to what it means to be a free people of what it means to live in a society where the government depends on the consent of the governed is weakened by relativism by concerns for immediate payoff. I have a feeling there are many Americans who would be willing to sell at Heritage of Liberty. If they thought they could get a secure job and a few thousand dollars more a year. They could spend our time with our families and going fishing and hunting. They would be delighted to have a benevolent bureaucracy run things for them that reminds me to another Point. David said spoke of Charity and immediately and passing defined it as giving to the pool. Unfortunately, that is a terrible debasement of a great work. charity comes from the Latin Caritas, which is translated in our Bible today by the word love. The charity that John Winthrop was talking about is not the charity of impersonal bureaucratic welfare. It means the loving concern of every member of society for every other. from that point of view when I contrast that's a Rockefeller statement. I would say that I am as unhappy as he is about some of the forms that quote-unquote charity take in our society today. But those forms are a perversion. Have the classic Christian meaning of charity. Just removing. However, even those inadequate forms of concern that we show for people in distress entirely and letting them star. Which I'm afraid some people Mister rockafellas persuasion are price quite prepared to do would be a violation of Charity in its Christian sent. So the issue is complex and not simple. But it does seem to me. For all the importance of celebrating many other things besides the national tradition and I think these other things are important and help us keep in Balance the national tradition, but after all in the 200th year of our history we might spend some time thinking about our nation. Because if we don't if we have really lost those commitments, which I stated in the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence. Then the next time that we have a president who tries to undermine the Constitution who tries to rule through direct prerogative and arbitrary decision without taking into account the consent of the people if that president is popular and loved as mr. Nixon never was if he is intelligent to a degree, which I think mr. Nixon never was and if he has clever or friends and assistance. I'm not so sure that he wouldn't get away with it. Somebody said it wasn't the system that worked. To get rid of the subversive. Acts of the Nixon Administration it was the tape recorder that worked. The somewhat cynical view but I'm afraid there's some truth to it a people which has lost the meaning of what it is to be a free people. Which believes only in gratification? And in the relativity of Morality In which the only good I can speak of is a good IHOP in the fuel is good, but it isn't good objective lien. If you feel differently that's just a question of individual choice of people which has reached that state is not a people which is very well prepared to defend what it classically means to be a republic if you ask me. What is the state of the American Civil Religion Today I would say it is in dire trouble. After Bella responded to the humanists reactors at the Madison South Dakota Forum. He also fielded questions from the audience. The question was why did some people greet my initial paper on civil religion with hostility? I would say there are two camps that didn't like it. Most of them academics of course being a professor. I talked mainly to academics there's one group that I would call but I have called before the enlightenment fundamentalist. We think the worst thing in the world is religion and anything to do with it is just an a form of poison and further more than a minute to talk about religion that started seeing the Spanish Inquisition and every type of intolerance and persecution and everything else. But those people to bring in religion in the concentration of American politics is very perverse thing to do. But the absolute opposite of that are those people in the religious Camp usually heavily influenced by Neo Orthodox theology for whom any notion that religion is an integral and central part of a political order is immediately interpreted as National paganism. State worship. Can you get the image of the Nazis? The fact of the American Civil religion has never been anything like that. I tried to stake but I haven't always been understood. So those who wish their politics untainted with religion or who wish their religion untainted with politics find this idea. Very painful. The next question posed to Bella was what is the case for or against a growing Global civil religion. The power of the nation-state is very great. I I wish that I could see. Any kind of counterbalancing power? Among the nations of the world as a whole. But I don't see it at the moment. It seems to me there is very little that we can look to that transcends the nation-state that has any effective power or any great symbolic significance. The United Nations was greeted by many of us at its Inception with enormous hope but unfortunately that hope has not been fulfilled. Not that I want to abandon it. But let's be realistic it is not where power is exercised. It does not have the symbolic resonance to call forth the loyalties of human beings on this Earth. I would very much like to see the day when we had a genuine sense of International Community. Which could call forth the loyalties of human beings in Transcendence of the nation-state but I think realistically at the moment that is not what we have. I think rather what we need to do. is stress the sense that no nation is apart from the rest of the world that no Nation can find its salvation and its happiness in isolation from the rest of the world. the point that was made this evening that We have obligations to the hungry not only in America, but all over the world as long as we have more than enough to eat. That sense through our national strength to try to find some understanding and contribution to the rest of the world. I would wholeheartedly support. But I think realistically we have to operate within the structures that do wheel defective power. And unfortunately, I don't Advocate it. But I have to recognize it that the power today lies in the nation state and therefore we must begin by humanizing the World by trying to humanize the nation state. The last question posed to doctor Bella on today's program deals with education the substance of that question. How can we transmit the values of the Civil religion to the young a nation which purports to be a democracy which does not educate its citizens to be Democratic. He's digging its own grave. From that point of view there are many agencies in a democracy which have the responsibility. For that form of education and of course classically the public schools have had that role very heavily. The school's particularly the primary and secondary schools in the last 10 to 15 years. I think more than any other institution in American society have been buffeted and battered have had to take the brunt of tremendous problems cultural changes racial issues the Vietnam War and I know of no other institution in American life where morale has been more damaged for the sense of what they're about has been more undermined and where the capacity to transmit any sense of what the American tradition is and means has been more damaged. And I think one other thing has to be said during the 1950's during the Heyday of Armenia of anti-communism in pre-World ISM. There was such an effort to teach so-called americanism in the public schools. That an orderly unbelievable picture of this country such as it never was without any realism. I mean making Parson Weems & the Cherry Tree look like a piker. A glorification in glamorization of America was was put into the public schools, which helped to create. I think the disillusion generation of the sixties because when people got into any kind of confrontation with the reality of America, it was in such a contrast to the problem that they've been fed that it helped to contribute to the collapse that we saw in the sixties and in which we still are. I mean, it's as much a danger to try to create a simple-minded conformist americanism. As it is to forget completely Animania of debunking that there was some damn pretty good things about this country and some pretty great principles behind it. The school system is a major Institution for transmitting these values but it has to be done in intelligent way in a critical way and a realistic way such that people don't come out of it feeling simply disillusioned and taken advantage of and had because of all the lies they've been told but have some real sense of respect for what tradition is all about, but it doesn't only education the churches have a function the churches have to speak not only about private piety, but about public happiness in the society in the highest sense. And the churches have to help create a citizenry, which will be responsible in a Democratic Society. Again, I think critically skeptical and all the rest, but they have a row. Our political leadership among other things has to be an educated leadership that has to contribute to the molding. of sentiments and values I mean if you more than anything else when you look at figures like Jefferson and Lincoln, they were great educators of America. They demanded the highest standards and help to bring Americans up to their level. I am by no means holy cynical about our present crop of politicians. But I do think if more of them were capable in the first place of grasping the real meaning of the tradition and helping educate us all and its highest standards that too is needed. So in short, I think the problem of how do we transmit these values in a way that they can be critically adult fashion not in a childish kind of conformist Orthodoxy, but in a critical intelligent adult way the apprehended and understood is a very important issue. You've been listening to the second in a series of five broadcast on the Civil religion in America. Today's program feature. Dr. Robert Vela Professor sociology and comparative studies at the University of California Berkeley who has written and lectured extensively on the concept of the Civil religion. Earlier in the program. You also heard to South Dakota humanists David fee associate professor of religion at South Dakota State University in Brookings and Daniel rice campus Minister and assistant professor of religion and philosophy at Dakota Wesleyan University in Mitchell. This series is drawn from a forum held in Madison South Dakota last fall and sponsored by the Newman Center and the Lutheran Student Center of Madison South Dakota and the United Ministries in higher education in South Dakota with funds provided by the South Dakota committee on the humanities next week. You'll hear dr. Norman Jewett of Morningside College in Sioux City discuss what he calls the Captain America complex. Stay tuned for the regional calendar of events.