Obama and the American Civil Religion from the Political Left

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 . …