Holy Nations and Global Identities (International Studies in Religion and Society)

Holy Nations and Global Identities International Studies in Religion and Society Editors Lori G. Beaman and Peter Be...

Author: Annika Hvithamar | Margit Warburg and Brian Arly Jacobsen

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Holy Nations and Global Identities

International Studies in Religion and Society Editors

Lori G. Beaman and Peter Beyer, University of Ottawa

VOLUME 10

Holy Nations and Global Identities Civil Religion, Nationalism, and Globalisation

Edited by

Annika Hvithamar, Margit Warburg and Brian Arly Jacobsen

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Holy nations and global identities : civil religion, nationalism, and globalisation / edited by Annika Hvithamar, Margit Warburg, and Brian Arly Jacobsen. p. cm. — (International studies in religion and society ; v. 10) ISBN 978-90-04-17828-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Civil religion. 2. Nationalism. 3. Nationalism—Religious aspects. 4. Religion and state. 5. Globalization. 6. Globalization—Religious aspects. I. Hvithamar, Annika. II. Warburg, Margit. III. Jacobsen, Brian. IV. Title. V. Series. BL98.5.H65 2009 322’.1—dc22 2009027557

ISSN 1573-4293 ISBN 978 90 04 178281 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Introducing Civil Religion, Nationalism and Globalisation ........... 1 Annika Hvithamar and Margit Warburg PART I

CIVIL RELIGION AND NATIONALISM Chapter One Hierarchy and Covenant in the Formation of Nations ........................................................................................ Anthony D. Smith

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Chapter Two Durkheim’s Political Sociology. Civil Religion, Nationalism and Globalisation .................................................... Marcela Cristi

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Chapter Three American Civil Religion as State-Mythology ... Niels Reeh Chapter Four Nationalism and Civil Religion. What is the Difference? ...................................................................................... Annika Hvithamar

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PART II

CIVIL RELIGION IN NATIONSTATES Chapter Five Nationalism and Religion: The Case of Japanese Nationalism and State Shintō ...................................................... Atsuko Ichijo

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Chapter Six Dominion of the Gods: Religious Continuity and Change in a Canadian Context ........................................... Roger O’Toole

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Chapter Seven Civil Religion in the Danish Parliament .......... Brian Arly Jacobsen

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contents

Chapter Eight Scandinavian Folk Churches, Chauvinism and Xenophobia ..................................................................................... Pål Ketil Botvar

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Chapter Nine Civil Religion in an Age of Changing Churches and Societies. A look at the Nordic Situation .......................... Pål Repstad

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Chapter Ten Operationalising the Concept of Civil Religion: Cross-Cultural findings from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia and the United States of America .................. Sergej Flere

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PART III

CIVIL RELIGION IN A GLOBAL ERA Chapter Eleven In and Out of Place: Varieties of Religious Locations in a Globalising World ............................................... Eileen Barker

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Chapter Twelve Nationalism as Civil Religion and Rituals of Belonging before and after the Global Turn ............................. Ulf Hedetoft

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Chapter Thirteen Transnational Civil Religion: The Fourth of July in Denmark .................................................. Margit Warburg

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Contributors ........................................................................................

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Index ....................................................................................................

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INTRODUCING CIVIL RELIGION, NATIONALISM AND GLOBALISATION Annika Hvithamar and Margit Warburg The first years of the 21st century have seen religion and in particular political religion gaining influence in the wake of globalisation and nationalistic responses to globalisation. Moreover, in democratic secular states, religion has become a more pertinent political issue of concern to the nature and role of the state. Holy Nations and Global Identities. Civil Religion, Nationalism and Globalisation is a compilation of works addressing some of the issues underlying this complexity. It brings together theoretical explorations and original case studies on civil religion, nationalism and globalisation from scholars of different fields and creates a basis for future scholars to develop and elaborate on the theories and methodologies of the subjects under investigation. In particular, we have aimed to provide insights from historians, political scientists, sociologists and sociologists of religion. Traditionally, these scholars from different fields have been interested in the same issues, but nevertheless have worked relatively isolated from the developments in their neighbouring disciplines. The aim of this book is to promote fruitful cross-fertilisation amongst the different disciplines contributing to the study of these complex issues, which we here have delineated with the concepts of civil religion, nationalism and globalisation. It is therefore our hope that the book will reach both scholars interested in these subjects and university students who follow courses in sociology of religion, comparative nationalism and related subjects. Civil Religion In the sociology of religion, the concept of civil religion describes phenomena for which the nation is the focal point of sacralisation. Globalisation has presented the nation-states of the 21st century with new challenges, and the continued interest in civil religion is at least partly spurred by the question of how civil religion develops and

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annika hvithamar and margit warburg

changes when an emerging global identity becomes tangible among more and more people. This is a fundamental question, because civil religion has always been linked to issues of national cohesion and the legitimisation of the individual state. When Jean-Jacques Rousseau introduced the term civil religion in 1762, it designated a philosophical construction through which he attempted to understand the role of religion within a frame of Enlightenment thinking. It was never implemented in this form, except perhaps for a brief period in 1794 during the French Revolution when Maximilien Robespierre institutionalised the Cult of the Supreme Being as the new state religion of the French Republic.1 From a Rousseauian perspective, civil religion is “political religion”—it is a deliberate justification of citizens’ solidarity with their state by referring to higher, unquestionable principles (Cristi 2001, 16–30). Rousseau’s civil religion also legitimises that the liberal, tolerant state must resort to violence when it is challenged by those who are disloyal to the state (Fourny 1987). Disloyal citizens can be expelled or put to death; not because they are heretics to the religious tenets of Rousseau’s civil religion, but because they are subversive to the state. Thus, Rousseau prescribed a drastic “solution” for a recurrent problem of the liberal, democratic state, suggesting how to deal with those citizens who deny the very basis of this state. In particular, this part of Rousseau’s treatise on civil religion is a long-lasting embarrassment (Cristi 2001, 26–30). It can be read as an open door to totalitarian rule in the “best interest of the people”. The idea of a civil religion as a transcendental legitimisation of a particular state intrigued subsequent philosophers, political scientists and sociologists, and it can be clearly discerned for example in Émile Durkheim’s thinking on religion and society (Pickering 2001). Durkheim and others, however, did not use the term civil religion; perhaps because it was so clearly associated with Rousseau’s work. It was therefore a conspicuous and bold move when Robert N. Bellah in 1967 used the term civil religion in his classic article “Civil Religion

1 Rousseau imagined that this civil religion would allow individual freedom in religious beliefs (apart from some basic doctrines). The Cult of the Supreme Being was totalitarian, however, because it did not allow religious freedom, for example, to worship Catholic saints. The Roman Imperial Cult resembles Rousseau’s civil religion in the sense that the purpose of it was not to control the beliefs of the people, but to control their loyalty to the state.

civil religion, nationalism and globalisation

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in America” (Bellah 1967). Bellah refers, of course, to Rousseau when he proposes the existence of an American civil religion that overarches the diverse creeds of Americans, expressing their common belief in America’s special relation to God. However, for Bellah this civil religion is not a philosophical construction, but an empirical entity obvious from both politics and public sentiment in the USA. In many respects, Bellah considers American civil religion to be a Rousseauian political religion, with for example the Declaration of Independence, the American constitution and certain presidential speeches (e.g., Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address) as “sacred scriptures” (in Bellah’s words). However, from the outset in his 1967 article, Bellah also argues for considering civil religion a Durkheimian religious dimension of society, and he suggests that it had been overlooked in research because it was foreign to the prevailing Western concept of religion as organised religion (Bellah 1967, note 1). He repeatedly returns to a Durkheimian interpretation of American civil religion, for example, when he suggests that the presidential addresses under study were in concord with popular sentiments about the characteristics and destiny of the United States. The Durkheimian perspective also lies behind Bellah’s notion that Thanksgiving Day, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, together with the more minor celebrations of Veterans Day and the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, “provide an annual ritual calendar for the civil religion” (Bellah 1967, 11). With his references to both Rousseau and Durkheim, Bellah lays a double track of Rousseauian and Durkheimian interpretations of civil religion today; however, he does not state this distinction explicitly, and this to some extent has confused later discussions of civil religion (Cristi 2001, 114–136; Cristi and Dawson 2007). Both interpretations, however, seem necessary for understanding and analysing civil religion in many cases (Cristi 2001, 223–242; Warburg 2008). Bellah’s proposal of an American civil religion ignited a lively and sometimes heated debate on the meaning of civil religion. Bellah’s understanding of civil religion with its Durkheimian legacy was soon criticised for mainly reflecting the ideology of the old Protestant elite of the USA and for downplaying conflicts and the influence of special interests in American civil religion (Hughey 1983, 157–170; Mathisen 1989). Some of this criticism ultimately reflects the division of views on religion represented by Émile Durkheim and Max Weber (Hughey 1983, 171–173; Furseth 1990; Cristi and Dawson 2007). Despite this

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criticism—and the altogether rejection by some sociologists, notably Richard Fenn (1976)—the idea of civil religion in contemporary modern societies has been widely accepted in sociology. The point here, however, is not to review the many, slightly diverging definitions and characterisations of civil religion. Definitions provided by John Coleman and Meredith McGuire, respectively, seem to express the primary view among scholars that civil religion provides a link between citizens, their nation and a transcendental providence: Civil religion is a special case of the religious symbol system, designed to perform a differentiated function, which is the unique province of neither church nor state. It is a set of symbolic forms and acts, which relate man as citizen and his society in world history to the ultimate conditions of his existence. Civil religion is, however, not always or usually clearly differentiated either from the church or from the state (Coleman 1970, 69). Civil religion is the expression of the cohesion of the nation. It transcends denominational, ethnic, and religious boundaries. It includes rituals by which members commemorate significant national events and renew their commitment to the society. Such rituals and representations are religious in that they often represent the nation—the people—as a higher and more valuable reality than mere (i.e., human) social contract and convention (McGuire 1997, 191).

Both definitions agree that civil religion empirically is a conglomerate of myths, rituals, symbols and texts that hallow the people or the nation by reference to something transcendental, usually called God. There is, however, a subtle difference between the two definitions, which reflects the double track of Rousseauian and Durkheimian interpretations of civil religion. Coleman’s definition leans towards the Rousseauian interpretation: “designed to perform a differentiated function” for the state (our emphasis). McGuire’s is more Durkheimian; she characterises civil religion as the expression of the cohesion of the nation (our emphasis). We would lastly like to highlight a particular aspect of the concept of civil religion: i.e., civil religion is not an insider’s term, unlike the labels of traditional religions, e.g., Roman Catholicism, Judaism or the Baha’i Faith. It is inconceivable that citizens of a country would label themselves adherents of the civil religion of that country, even in situations when they, individually or communally, sacralise the nation or their own belonging to the nation. Nor would these citizens by themselves identify their attitudes and acts as “civil religious”. Borrowing the categories of emic and etic from linguistics (Pike 1967), civil religion is not an emic term, that is, an insider’s term; it is purely etic, an outsider’s


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term. Civil religion is, in fact, an academic, abstract construction only (Warburg 2008).2 Civil religion is a sui generis hybrid of religion and national communality, which has proved its usefulness in the sociology of religion for the analysis of a range of diverse empirical cases where the nation or its people are linked to something transcendental. This is why the concept is intricately intertwined with nationalism. Nationalism The academic study of nationalism is also of recent origin. Although Carlton Hayes and Hans Kohn pioneered investigations of nationalism in the first half of the 20th century, it was not until the 1980s that the study of nationalism had a widespread breakthrough. Hayes and later Kohn were occupied with questions of national typologies and tried to go beyond the national stereotypes of warm-blooded Italians, cold Scandinavians and hardy Russians in order to find the reasons and backgrounds for national ideologies (Hayes 1937; Kohn 1946). Kohn considered Europe to be divided into Western and Eastern parts (Kohn 1946, 329–34). In the West, the nationalist movements had their basis in already existing states, in contrast to Eastern Europe, where most states were only created after the dissolution of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires and the partial dissection of the Tsarist Empire after World War I. The nationalist movements in Eastern Europe therefore pre-empted or arose simultaneously with the creation of states in Eastern Europe. This historical difference between Eastern and Western Europe meant that the nationalists in the West concentrated on democratic and political ideals and the development of a state, which was to be a rational centre of common legislation. The rights of the individual were the focus of attention. In Eastern Europe, where the states had been created along with the nationalist movements, Kohn claims that the nationalist ideologies were more focused on the myths and history of each nation coupled with a critical attitude concerning Western cultural development and liberalism and rationalism, which were seen as Western attributes.

2 Recently, however, the term civil religion has begun to find more popular use, for example in the public press, where the term is sometimes used in current discussions of national coherence, immigration and globalisation.

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Typologies like Kohn’s in different guises have been used continuously in the study of nationalism (see for instance Seton-Watson 1977 or Greenfield 1992). However, when the study of nationalism had its second coming in the 1980s, the focus shifted towards the origin of nationalism. Whereas nationalists themselves usually look upon the nation as a perennial entity, a main goal for the scholars of nationalism was to uncover the historical origin of the nation in the modern age. However, while the ideology of nationalism is comparatively new and belongs to the 19th century, the question of when nations appeared has not yet been settled. Some scholars, like Ernest Gellner, propose that nations were first evident during the age of industrialisation and claim that the idea of a common identity between all citizens in a given area was new to this time period (Gellner 1997, 25–29). Others, like Hugh Seton-Watson, move the timeline back to 16th century England and France, when these two nations started to consolidate themselves as sovereign states due to the prolonged conflicts between their kings (Seton-Watson 1977, 21). Benedict Anderson goes even further and claims that the origin of nations can be traced back to the Reformation and the spread of literature in vernaculars (Anderson 1983, 37ff ). And Anthony D. Smith and John Armstrong conceive of nations even in antiquity (Smith 2004, 127–153; Armstrong 1982, 283–299). “What is a nation?” was the question posed by the French philosopher Ernest Renan in 1882. His reply was that it is “a soul, a spiritual principle. Only two things, actually, constitute this soul, this spiritual principle. One is in the past, the other is in the present” (Renan 1992, 54, authors’ translation). As one of the first modern definitions of a nation—and as an epitome of nationalist ideology—this pinpoints the kinship of nationalism and religion. The transcendence of the nation, the imagination of a community with a common past and future and the willingness of individuals to commit themselves to the nation are the trademarks of nationalism. However, these phenomena have their parallels in religions. When nationalism reached its peak in the 19th century, it borrowed symbolics, myths and rituals from religion, and often the official religion of a particular state was brought under control of the new ideologies (Burleigh 2005, 112ff ). During the 19th century, a new kind of symbolics came into vogue. Images of “chosen peoples” and “Christian frontiers” became part of a new national identity. Public schools taught national history with an emphasis on the creation of the superior, sovereign nation and the battles for survival and independence. Further, national


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symbols, national museums, national theatres, national flags and national anthems created holy nations all over Europe. With the end of World War II and the demise of the European colonial empires, new states emerged in Africa and Asia. Although the creation of national myths and rituals in these states at first was seen as the death agony of nationalism, the break up of the Soviet Union and the Communist states of Central Europe as well as a strengthened nationalism in Asia showed that all over the world nationalism was still a force that could rally people round the flag. Thus, the sanctification of the nation has continued up till today. The role of religion in nationalism is debated. In early studies, nationalism was seen as the successor of religion (Kedourie 1960). The Enlightenment thinkers claimed the religious systems were superfluous, and thus nationalism was the rationalistic, modern, humanistic ideology. In the beginning of the 1980s, Anderson noted how nationalism not only borrows features from religious systems, but also specific traits such as myths, rituals, sacred texts, priests and prophets (Anderson 1983, 141ff ). The notion of political religion was the topic of later studies, where the roles of particular religions in several nationalisms were the focus, either as “religious nationalisms”, “religious antiglobalism” or “clashes of civilizations” (Juergensmeyer 1993, 40, 2005, 135ff; Huntington 1996, passim). The nationalisms of today are changing. Whereas the ideologies of nationalism fit the age of the nation-states, today the ever-increasing process of globalisation challenges the idea that the nation should be the centre of gravity for the loyalty and fervour of citizens. Globalisation Globalisation is a construct that describes the modern world undergoing an increase of scale, which is leading to an unprecedented global interdependency among peoples and nations. It is a historically unique process, which may be traced back several hundred years, and it began to accelerate around 1870 (Robertson 1992, 60; Campbell 2007). In the late nineteenth century, people worldwide were beginning to feel the impact of international economy, and for the first time in history, instant long-distance communication (telegraph, radio) between people became possible. Interrupted and partially reversed by two world wars and a recession in between, globalisation resumed its earlier pace starting in

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the 1960s. Today, globalisation implies, among other things, a liberated and intensified flow of money, goods, people and ideas across borders (Scholte 2000, 41–61). The large-scale, world-wide migration of the late twentieth century is one of the salient features of globalisation. Changes evident in earlier historical periods do have some structural similarity to globalisation; for example, the integration of the cultures around the Mediterranean during the Roman Empire is such a parallel (Tiryakian 1992; Turner 1992; Gilhus 2008). However, what distinguishes globalisation of today from, say, the age of the Roman empire is that cross-cultural interaction between societies as well as between individuals now takes place on a global scale and with an unparalleled intensity, supported by innovations in transport and communication. Furthermore, present-day globalisation is to an unprecedented extent a multidimensional phenomenon with several independent developments operating in combination (Beyer 2006, 28–29). In terms of culture, globalisation means that no community and no individuals today can escape the fact that to an increasing extent they encounter the “others” and are presented with alternative attitudes towards even fundamental issues of society and with different ways of doing things (Beyer 1994, 2–4). Some of these alternatives are attractive, some are repulsive, but with certainty they are conceived of as pertinent (Warburg 2006, 85–86). This interaction between the local and the global results in what Roland Robertson and JoAnn Chirico call relativisation, which may lead to cultural homogenisation as well as heterogenisation (Robertson and Chirico 1985). Globalisation, however, does not imply pre-determined evolution; globalisation is a particular historical process, and globalisation theories do not imply simple cultural homogenisation like the earlier “westernisation” or “modernisation” theories (Ferguson 1992, 79–82; Simpson 1991, 6). Because of its profound economical, cultural and political impact, globalisation threatens to empty the nation-state of its traditional functions, including its control over the economy and its citizens as subjects of national law. This threat may lead to nationalistic anathemas of globalisation, as for example illustrated by an interview with the Serbian philosopher Mihajlo Marković (Eriksen and Stjernfeldt 2005). In the interview, Marković suggests globalisation results from a sinister Anglo-American conspiracy dominated by leading circles of businessmen, bankers and intelligence services. He maintains “the


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ideology of globalisation is nothing but a new type of dominance that succeeds the Hitler-type of dominance through occupation and plunder”. Against this threat, “the hardest resistance will arise from a national community. . . . I have therefore realised that patriotism is a fact, a real political force.”3 Now, Marković is not just a university philosopher—on the contrary. He is one of the principal authors of the notorious Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, which inspired and legitimised much of the Milošević regime’s military endeavours to fulfil the declaration of the Memorandum: “The establishment of the Serbian people’s complete national and cultural integrity, regardless of which republic or province they may live in, is their historical and democratic right.” Globalisation is also a challenge for liberal, democratic states, which in general are ideologically open for a liberalised world economy and strengthened international collaboration. With its weakening of the state’s grip on domestic economy, globalisation may undermine the integrative forces of national democratic citizenship, leaving an increasing proportion of citizens in marginalised sub-groups (Habermas 1996). However, those who are less fortunate players in the great globalisation game relativise their situation as well, and some come to extreme conclusions with respect to the national society. Either the national society becomes the object of a nationalistic, myopic worship seeking to ward off the cultural and demographic effects of globalisation, or the national society is regarded as irrelevant or even hostile to the pursuit of fortune and meaning in life. Both reactions create tensions in the fabric of the traditional European nation-states, thereby threatening the precious Gemeinschaft component in the modern welfare Gesellschaft. Since the civil religion of a democratic state in many ways is a symbolic representation of citizen Gemeinschaft, globalisation challenges civil religion in its traditional form centred on the nation-state. Thus, in this age of globalisation it seems pertinent to juxtapose the three concepts named in the sub-title of this book: Civil religion, nationalism and globalisation.

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All quotations are translated from the interview, which was reported in Danish.

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Holy Nations and Global Identities. Civil Religion, Nationalism and Globalisation This book is divided into three parts. Part I, Civil Religion and Nationalism, concentrates on theoretical questions in the study of civil religion and nationalism, focusing on the relationship between the two and how further research may be developed. Part II, Civil Religion in Nation-States, presents new case studies of civil religion in nation-states today, challenged as they are by migration and globalisation. Part III, Civil Religion in a Global Era, analyses these challenges of globalisation and the chapters provide original cross-cultural analyses and examples. The case studies are selected in order to cover a wide range of geographical areas. Studies of civil religion have most often been based on material from the USA. Holy Nations and Global Identities broadens the horizon to Canada, Great Britain, the Balkans, Japan, Scandinavia and the ancient Middle East. In Part I, Anthony D. Smith opens by defining the central concepts of nations, national identity and ethnie. In a sweeping historical analysis, drawing on examples from Europe, Asia and Africa, Smith then traces the development of the notion of “sacred cultural communities” and creates a classification of three kinds of sacred communities: hierarchical, covenantal and civic. The development of these communities is pursued from pre-modern to modern times. This enables the author to trace continuities and ruptures between the religious elements in pre-modern ethnic groups and modern nations. The aim is to discuss the prevalence of sacred legacies and the need to create contemporary sacred entities, symbols and focal points and thus “build Jerusalem” in modern global societies. Whereas Smith focuses on the historical development of religion and nationalism, Marcela Cristi concentrates on the development of the ideas of Durkheim and Rousseau. She examines Durkheim’s work on civil religion, nationalism and “internationalism”, advocating the point of view that Durkheim foresaw the development of a universal morality. According to Durkheim, religious institutions had lost power, but the functions fulfilled by religion were not declining. Instead, the state performed the role as “the organ of moral discipline” and the facilitator of “the new religion of humanity”, which should be capable of uniting humankind. According to Cristi however, Durkheim underestimates how the state controls civil religion in a way she calls the coercive


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Rousseauian power. She makes a distinction between “self-serving nationalism” and civil religion, where the latter is seen as the positive, embracing form of national faith. In conclusion, Cristi advocates for a closer scrutiny of the differences and similarities of the “Durkheimian” and the “Rousseauian” concepts. Niels Reeh brings the concept of the state further into the discussion. He argues that it is the states that have the agency in both civil religion and nationalism. It is therefore important to scrutinise the creation process of sovereign states. As states need self-definitions in order to be accepted as independent states, it is necessary for them to create a legitimating base. This is how state-mythologies—a term that Reeh finds more fitting than civil religion—become relevant as legitimising devices. In his chapter, the national holidays of the United States serve to exemplify this proposition. The distinction between civil religion and nationalism is the subject of Annika Hvithamar’s chapter. She claims that the study of nationalism and civil religion is the story of two different research traditions. Political scientists and historians have dominated the study of nationalism, and sociologists of religion have dominated the study of civil religion. Throughout the last part of the 20th century, each field has developed theories of their own, but students of nationalism have focused on the historical development of nationalist ideology and the fading of religion, whereas scholars of civil religion have been interested in those aspects of nationalism that claim a special relationship with the divinity. The lack of interdisciplinary studies has meant that many sociologists of religion tend to treat civil religion in an ahistoric light, whereas many historians regard the religious elements of nationalism as pseudoreligion or a secularised version of religion. Hvithamar concludes that a combination of the research traditions would lead to a more yielding understanding of the fluidity of the concept of religion and the connection between the development of modern nations and the development of civil religion. The theme of Part II is the relationship between civil religion and the contemporary nation. Nationalism and civil religion have been apparent in the history of Europe and America, but nationalism is not unknown in the rest of the world. Atsuko Ichijo describes how the Meiji oligarchs chose Shintō as a resource that stabilised the Japanese state and nation amid the profound social changes of the Meiji restoration. It secured the continuity while embracing the new era. Ichijo

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discusses whether it makes sense to apply the concept of civil religion in a Japanese environment with the Shintō-religion as a civil religious base for the Japanese government. The instrumentalisation of Shintō in the service of the Japanese state was a response to the globalisation process, and she concludes that it is an answer to the quest of the particular in an increasingly homogenising world, more than it is a civil religion. Realising that today’s state apparatus is confronted with globalisation and market solutions as well as an increased ambition of self-government within the national churches, Pål Repstad outlines the research in civil religion conducted in the Nordic countries. In his chapter, he restates that the national majority churches of the Nordic countries have served as civil religions in their respective countries. Also, he argues that it is possible to find local civil religions in the Scandinavian regions, where not only the nation, but also the local community is celebrated. The traditional church-related civil religion is thereby challenged by forms of civil religion, which may better absorb religious and ethnic minorities. Repstad concludes that the civil religions of the Nordic countries mostly are invisible, although they can be stimulated during crises, and as such they are more of a potential force than an active one. Drawing on substantial quantitative survey data, Pål Ketil Botvar discusses the national factor in the Scandinavian debate on the church-state relationship. Bellah’s classical thesis of the integrative power of civil religion is put to a test, as Botvar investigates the relationship between membership of the national churches on the one hand and chauvinism and xenophobia on the other. Drawing on his findings, Botvar deduces that a certain similarity exists between the attitudes of the populations of the Nordic countries, and that core-members and non-active members of the churches are the least xenophobic and chauvinistic, whereas more infrequent churchgoers are the most xenophobic. The relative tolerance of the core-members is attributed to church leaders, who regularly interact in inter-confessional cooperation and thus publicly advocate open-mindedness towards immigrants and foreigners. However, Botvar concludes that in order to be integrative and meet a globalised society, Nordic civil religions must change and be capable of absorbing and acknowledging other ethnicities and other religious worldviews. Political religion has mostly been studied in states under authoritarian rule; however, Brian Arly Jacobsen analyses the use of politi-


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cal religion in a democratic state. Jacobsen focuses on the Danish Parliamentary opening tradition as an illustrative example of political religion from a Rousseauian perspective. In Jacobsen’s case study, civil religion is a political religion fixed by the state and for the state. This political religion is the mould for a specific uniform group identity and legitimises an existing political order and state ideology. He concludes that the use of a religious ceremony conducted by the national church as part of the Parliamentary opening is a type of political religion, which excludes rather than includes immigrants and thereby contributes to the process of their exclusion from Danish society. Most empirical studies of civil religion focus on one specific nation and are usually based on qualitative, rather than quantitative data. In his contribution, Sergej Flere seeks to compare civil religious statements in the Roman Catholic Slovenia, in the predominantly Muslim environment of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the mainly Serbian Orthodox Serbia, and in a predominantly Protestant segment of the USA. He operationalises the concept of civil religion in a cross-cultural setting and detects a strong correlation between authoritarian personalities and civil religious answers. The respondents thus seem to represent an exclusive form of civil religion and not the inclusive, tolerant form praised by civil religious ideologists from Bellah and on. Whereas the Nordic countries historically have been characterised by their mono-religiosity, Canada provides an opposite example. Binational in origin and encouraging substantial immigration, Canada has had to integrate many different national and religious identities. In his chapter, Roger O’Toole traces the evolution, character and underlying significance of the Canadian religious landscape and examines the current dynamics of the Canadian national narrative. Through a statistical approach, O’Toole assesses the depth of secularisation, the persistence of an encased Christian cultural hegemony, the ambiguities and contradictions of multicultural ideology and its implementation, and the impeded emergence of a national civil religion. While other scholars have claimed the Canadian civil religion nonexistent or crumbling, O’Toole finds evidence for a potentially vibrant civil religion, globally oriented towards the sacrality of human rights and with the national courts as the central temple. Part III goes beyond national borders and examines civil religion in a global era. Eileen Barker’s contribution analyses the various ways that religious identities are assigned. She discusses how religion often

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is considered to be “in place” somewhere and “out of place” elsewhere, and how the concept of civil religion is among the forms of religion that is both a uniting and dividing force. With globalisation, new ways of adhering to religions have manifested themselves. Barker reflects on whether the trend will lead in the direction of peaceful and tolerant civil religions or result in the state becoming involved in internal or external conflicts. While discussing this trend, she boldly considers if these external conflicts are indeed “clashes of civilizations”. Contrary to Smith, Ulf Hedetoft claims that nationalism is a replacement for religion, although nationalism has “proto-religious traits”. In his discussion of the persuasive force of the nationalist ideology, he distinguishes between the classical period from 1880–1945 and the period from 1945 up till today, where “the global turn” has altered the content of the nation-state. In the classical period, the national rituals of heroism, sacrifice, honour and glory were created. After World War II, Hedetoft argues, the nation-state has had a “totem crisis of national sacrality”. Instead of the old ideals, the global turn has created, if not new sacred bonds, at least a wish for new trans-national identity configurations. Civil religion is intimately connected to the nation, but this close bond seems to be weakened by two major trends of globalisation: migration and the increasing internationalisation of politics. In the final chapter, Margit Warburg analyses the joint Danish-American civil religious festival held in Denmark to celebrate the Fourth of July. This example shows that the sharing of civil religious ideas across borders is possible. Warburg emphasises that with globalisation there is an increasing emphasis on “universal” value systems, such as human rights, and this harbours potential world civil religious elements. On the basis of a general globalisation discussion, Warburg argues that the emergence of one world civil religion as originally envisaged by Bellah is hardly conceivable. Civil religion in its concrete manifestations in the globalising world therefore may best be analysed as a composite of components from local and transnational civil religious elements. This book originated from the conference Religion Out of Place held at the University of Copenhagen in the autumn of 2005. The best of the contributions were selected and more scholars were invited to complete the field. We wish to express our gratitude for the financial support


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provided as a result of the University of Copenhagen’s research priority area “Religion in the 21st Century”, from the project “Migration, Globalisation and Religious Change among Danes, Domestically and Abroad”, supported by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities, and from the PhD Research Programme of Religion and Society, the University of Copenhagen. We hope that the impediments of bringing together scholars who are not native English speakers are not too visible. In this connection we would like to thank Deborah Licht, who with great care has purged the manuscript of various idiomatic blunders. We also wish to thank Bo Alkjær for his skilful help during the final editorial process. References Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities. London & New York: Verso. Armstrong, J. 1982. Nations before Nationalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil Religion in America, Dædalus 96: 1–21. Beyer, Peter. 1994. Religion and Globalization. London: Sage. —— 2006. Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge. Burleigh, Michael. 2005. Earthly Powers. The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War. New York: HarperCollins. Campbell, George Van Pelt. 2007. Religion and Phases of Globalization. In Religion, Globalization and Culture, ed. Peter Beyer and Lori Beaman, 281–302. Leiden: Brill. Coleman, John A. 1970. Civil Religion, Sociological Analysis 31: 67–77. Cristi, Marcela. 2001. From Civil to Political Religion. The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Cristi, Marcela and Lorne L. Dawson. 2007. Civil Religion in America and in Global Context. In The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, ed. James A. Beckford and N.J. Demerath III, 267–292. Los Angeles: Sage. Eriksen, Jens-Martin and Frederik Stjernfelt. 2005. Patriotismen som revolutionær kraft [Patriotism as a revolutionary force], Weekendavisen, 5–11 August 2005. Featherstone, Mike and Scott Lash. 1995. Globalization, Modernity and the Spatialization of Social Theory: An Introduction. In Global Modernities, ed. Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, 1–24. London: Sage. Fenn, Richard. 1976. Bellah and The New Orthodoxy. Sociological Analysis 37:160– 166. Ferguson, Marjorie. 1992. The Mythology about Globalization. European Journal of Communication, 7: 69–93. Fourny, Diane. 1987. Rousseau’s Civil Religion Reconsidered. The French Review 60: 485–496. Furseth, Inger. 1990. The civil religion debate—some of its premises and foundations. Rapport 6, Instituttet for Sosiologi. Oslo: Oslo University. Gellner, Ernest. 1997. Nationalism. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Gilhus, Ingvild Sælid. 2008. Orbis terrarum Romanorum est: Globalization Processes in the Roman Empire. In New Religions and Globalization. Empirical, Theoretical and

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Methodological Perspectives, ed. Armin W. Geertz and Margit Warburg, 131–144. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. Greenfield, Liah. 1992. Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Hayes, Carlton, J.H. 1937 (1. ed. 1926). Essays on Nationalism. New York: The Macmillan Company. Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. The European Nation State. Its Achievements and Its Limitations. On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship. Ratio Juris 9: 125–137. Huntington, Samuel. 1996: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Hughey, Michael W. 1983. Civil Religion and Moral Order. Theoretical and Historical Dimensions. Westport: Greenwood Press. Jones, Donald G., and Russell E. Richey. 1974. The Civil Religion Debate. In American Civil Religion, ed. Russell E. Richey, and Donald G. Jones, 3–18. New York: Harper and Row. Juergensmeyer, Mark. 1993. The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State, Los Angeles: University of California Press. —— 2005. Religious Antiglobalism. In Religion in Global Civil Society, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer, 135–148. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kedourie, Elie. 1960. Nationalism. London: Hutchinson. Kim, Andrew E. 1993. The Absence of Pan-Canadian Civil Religion: Plurality, Duality, and Conflict in Symbols of Canadian Culture. Sociology of Religion 54: 257–275. Kohn, H. 1947. The Idea of Nationalism. New York: The Macmillan Company. Mathisen, James A. 1989. Twenty Years After Bellah: Whatever Happened to American Civil Religion? Sociological Analysis 50: 129–146. McGuire, Meredith B. 1997. Religion. The Social Context. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Pickering, W.S.F. 1990. The Eternality of the Sacred: Durkheim’s error. In Emile Durkheim. Critical Assessments of Leading Sociologists. Third Series. Volume II, ed. W.S.F. Pickering, 103–122. London: Routledge. Pike, Kenneth Lee. 1967. Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of Structure of Human Behaviour, 2nd ed. Hague: Mouton. Renan, Ernest. 1994. Qu’est-ce qu’une nation? Et autres essais politiques. Textes choisis et présentés par Joël Roman. Paris: Presses Pocket. Robertson, Roland, and JoAnn Chirico. 1985. Humanity, Globalization, and Worldwide Religious Resurgence: A Theoretical Exploration. Sociological Analysis 46: 219–242. Scholte, Jan Aart. 1996. Beyond the Buzzword: Towards a Critical Theory of Globalization. In Globalization: Theory and Practice, ed. Eleonore Kofman, and Gillian Youngs, 43–57. London: Pinter. ——. 2000. Globalization. A Critical Introduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Seton-Watson, Hugh. 1977. Nations and states. An enquiry into the origins of nations and the politics of nationalism. Boulder: Westview Press. Simpson, John H. 1991. Globalization and Religion. Themes and Prospects. In Religion and Global Order. Religion and the Political Order 4, ed. Roland Robertson, and William R. Garrett, 1–17. New York: Paragon House. Smith, Anthony D. 2004. The Antiquity of Nations. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tiryakian, Edward A. 1992. From Modernization to Globalization. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 31: 304–310. Turner, Bryan S. 1992. The Concept of “The World” in Sociology: A Commentary on Roland Robertson’s Theory of Globalization. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 31: 311–318.


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Wallace, Ruth A. 1977. Emile Durkheim and the Civil Religion Concept. Review of Religious Research 18: 287–290. Warburg, Margit. 2006. Citizens of the World. A History and Sociology of the Baha’is from a Globalization Perspective. Leiden: E.J. Brill. —— 2008. Dannebrog: Waving in and out of Danish Civil Religion. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 21 (2): 165–184.

PART I

CIVIL RELIGION AND NATIONALISM

CHAPTER ONE

HIERARCHY AND COVENANT IN THE FORMATION OF NATIONS Anthony D. Smith For many people, nation and nationalism are nineteenth century phenomena that have no place in a global era. On the one hand, they view with disgust and alarm recent examples of ethnic conflict and national antagonism. Furthermore, they continue to affirm the “real”, long-term obsolescence of nations and nationalism. Today’s world, they argue, is too interdependent, its economies too intertwined and its mass communications too all-encompassing to permit the finitude of national boundaries and the exclusivity of national pride. Ours is a hybrid world, with multiethnic, multi-faith, polyglot societies, such as used to hold sway in pre-modern and pre-nationalist epochs. Today, accelerating technological change, trade and currency flows, migration rates, patterns of labour mobility, cultural intermingling, secularisation and rationalism all militate against ethnic unity, national communities and nation states. In such a world, nations and nationalism at best, to use Eric Hobsbawm’s words, can be a “complicating factor” and no longer the “major vector of change” that they once had been.1 I do not wish to deny the massive globalising trends that have engulfed large areas of our planet, though these are not as new as we often suppose. Instead, I am concerned only with the impact of such change on the forms and traditions of nations and national identities, and here I think that we can discern two kinds of responses to the thesis that globalisation is rendering nations obsolete. The weaker response is that national states, and hence nations, are adapting to changed conditions by opting for an inclusive, secular “civic” nationalism, either of the slightly ironical and half-believed variety found in Britain, or of the more strident, aggressive, secularist type recently on display in France. The stronger response is that nations, and in some cases national states,

1 See Hobsbawm 1992, ch. 6. On the obsolescence of the national state, see Horsmann and Marshall 1994.

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are actually being revitalised by the great global changes, and that the problems of immigration, in particular, are forcing many people in the West to rethink and reconnect with national identities that their forbears had often taken for granted. In other words, for all the civic veneer, there is still considerable attachment to an “ethnic” conception of the nation and its homeland, and a desire to adapt and make use of its deep cultural resources in a rapidly changing world.2 It is this stronger response that forms the context of my argument here. For at the root of these persisting popular ethnic and territorial attachments lie certain sacred cultural resources, which derive from pre-modern social and cultural traditions, legacies of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The primary goal is to outline these legacies, and more particularly the sacred traditions to which they gave rise, and illustrate how they continue to sustain and shape the persisting sense of national identity in the modern world. My suggestion is that the antiquity, longevity, scope and sacrality of these traditions go a long way to explaining both the persistence of nations and the forms that they take. Theories and Definitions This is an important issue, and before addressing it, I need to introduce the broader theoretical context. I will start with some preliminary observations about the phenomena of nationalism, nation and national identity. l. Nationalism refers to a particular kind of ideological movement that seeks to attain and maintain autonomy, unity and identity for a human population, with some of its members deeming it to constitute an actual or potential “nation”. As such, it needs to be distinguished from “national sentiment” or national consciousness, which is a feeling of belonging to a given nation and a desire to increase its status, power and prosperity. Whereas national sentiment may be found in many epochs, the ideological movement of nationalism, I argue, is an early modern and modern phenomenon, and is rarely, if ever, apparent before the sixteenth century. 2

For the “ethnic-civic” debate, see Miller 1995; also the critique in Yack 1999.

hierarchy and covenant

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2. Nation as a concept is both a category of collective identity and a historically variable form of human community, i.e., the result of certain broad processes. Ideal-typically, it can be defined as a named and self-defined human community whose members possess a homeland, cultivate myths, symbols and memories, create and disseminate a public culture, and share and observe common laws and customs. Nations, in principle, can be found in every historical epoch, but in practice they tend to flourish mainly in the early modern and modern eras, initially in Europe. 3. The concept of national identity is closely related. It can be defined as the reproduction and reinterpretation of the pattern of myths, symbols, memories, values and traditions of a national community, and the identification of individuals with that pattern and its resulting heritage. These processes of reproduction, selection, reinterpretation and transmission of a shared national identity are vital in ensuring the persistence of nations, but they in turn draw on certain cultural resources or “sacred foundations”—traditions that are at once usable and sacred. 4. One further concept needs to be described here, that of ethnie or ethnic community, which I define as a named human community with myths of common ancestry, historical memories and one or more elements of shared culture, including a link with a particular territory and a measure of solidarity. While few nations are directly related to antecedent ethnies, many of them draw on the cultural resources of such ethnies, or seek to model themselves on them. This is especially true of ethnically conceived nations and ethnic nationalisms.3 Yet, to an older generation of scholars, it seemed natural to assume that every bounded group boasting a collective name, history and culture should be regarded as a nation, and that nationalism was simply the national sentiment of nations under threat—a position recently revived by some medievalist “neo-perennialist” historians, who claim to find evidence of at least some nations already in the Middle Ages. In contrast, historians of the modern world, as well as most political scientists, adopt

3 There is a vast literature on definitions of these terms. See, especially, Connor 1994, ch. 4, and Smith 2001, ch. 1.

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a “modernist” stance. They tend to regard as nations only those politicallegal communities that are autonomous, possess borders, are legitimated (if not created) by nationalism and, above all, boast mass participation in the social and political life of the nation. As a result, nations are held to be recent and novel formations, unknown in the ancient or medieval worlds of empires, city-states and world religions.4 It goes without saying that distinctive histories and cultures, as I have myself argued, are important for the creation and definition of nations; the same is true for autonomous political-legal communities and citizenship. But the perennialist who sees nations everywhere, in every age, is operating with a definition of “nation” that is too loose and vague to be helpful, for it is one that can include every ethnic group and caste, and even some city-states. On the other hand, the modernist operates with a highly restricted conception of “nation” derived from modern Western experience, which, as such, tends to rule out a priori non-Western “ethnic”, as well as pre-modern, types of cultural communities from the category of “nation”. In this conception, non-Western and pre-modern collective cultural identities become simply negative mirror-images of the modern West, rather than being understood and treated in their own right and context. The result is that although the modernist conception adequately defines the modern nation found in the West, it is of little use in delineating the features of other possible kinds of nation.5 Perhaps more importantly, these arguments tend to deflect attention from dimensions and issues that, I believe, are much more central to our understanding of ethnicity and nationhood, dimensions that have been neglected by both major paradigms. I am referring in particular to the dimensions of community and territory, without which it would be impossible to conceive of nations or, for that matter, of ethnies.

4 For a recent modernist statement, see Connor 2004; for the “neo-perennialist” argument, see Hastings 1997. 5 The view that the modernist conception is too restricted is advanced by Smith (2002). Routledge (2003) contends that modernists tend to use the past as a mirrorimage of modernity and the modern nation.


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Hierarchical Traditions As noted, nations are forms of human community that are generated by the combination of certain broad social processes. These processes include: l) Self-definition, a process by which a named “we” is increasingly differentiated from named “others”; 2) Cultivation of myths, symbols and memories, by which a founder heritage of distinctive cultural elements is acquired and transmitted to future generations; 3) Observance and dissemination of common laws and customs, through increasingly standardised procedures and institutions; 4) Creation and dissemination of a distinctive public culture, through shared rituals, symbolic codes and education; and 5) Territorialisation, by which popular memories and attachments are located in a territory conceived to be a sacred homeland. Here I want to focus on the last two processes, and especially on the formation and dissemination of a distinctive public culture. In particular, I am concerned with certain contrasts and oppositions in these processes that create different types of ethnie and/or nations, and which, I argue, continue to exercise considerable influence today. Starting with the formation of distinctive public cultures, already in antiquity, three principles of sacred cultural community can be discerned: the hierarchical, the covenantal and the civic. As a form of ranked sacred order, hierarchy can be used to describe many different kinds of communities and states, but essentially it denotes an order that has been sanctified because it is felt to mirror and embody the celestial order on earth. Hierarchy comes in different forms. In one version, the ruler is a god himself and is assisted by priests and nobles who partake of his sanctity and assist him in his divine role. More commonly, the ruler is the god’s representative on earth, issuing commands in his name and exercising his authority in his territories, again with the assistance of clergy and nobles. When an ethnic community is more or less coextensive with the state, it too partakes of this kind of order, and its mode of solidarity and culture is infused with the principle of hierarchy. Ancient Egypt provides a prototype of this in its purest form. Here, the Pharaoh was

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regarded as a god and embodied Maat, the Truth, and for long periods the priests of Re exercised immense influence in the sacred order of Egyptian society. Mesopotamian society illustrates the alternative form of hierarchy. Here the ruler was often accorded divine honours. However, he was himself the human representative of the god, receiving from the god’s hand the code of laws that implemented this form of sacred rule on earth, as Hammurabi received his code from the hand of Shamash, the sun-god.6 Typical of this kind of hierarchical solidarity is the case of Sasanid Persia, from the third to seventh centuries of the Common Era. In this empire, state and church became closely linked after the priest Kartir reformed the old Mazdaist cult, instituting the Zoroastrian religion with its fire-altars, temples and religious officials. This allowed the state religion to be used in an attempt to subjugate and bind an ethnically and religiously heterogeneous population to the dominant Persian ethnie and its Zoroastrian creed. The rulers only had limited success in this project, and even powerful kings like Chosroes II failed to unite the population. Nevertheless, despite large-scale popular revolts, power remained firmly in the hands of the great landed nobles and priests; and Chosroes and his successors were able to inspire a cultural and historical revival that was to bear fruit later in the New Persian literature, and especially in the epic myths of Iranian ancestry embodied in Firdausi’s Shahnameh (Book of Kings).7 Late medieval Muscovy and early modern Russia are further examples of the ethnic hierarchical principle. After the fall of Constantinople and his marriage to the niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Ivan III sought to legitimise his primacy in the Russian-speaking territories by adopting some of the Byzantine ritual and regalia, and by publicising the Russian realm as the sole remaining bastion of Christian Orthodoxy. In the next century, this was reinforced by a new ideal, that of Russia as the “Third Rome”, and the belief that Russians, because of the purity of their Orthodox faith, constituted a chosen people. Hierarchical solidarity was further boosted by Ivan IV’s coronation ceremony and

6 For ancient Egypt, see Trigger et al. 1983. On Babylonia, see the monumental studies of Frankfort 1948 and Jacobsen 1976. The influence of ancient religious pantheons and their relationships with later empires and civilisations are analysed by Armstrong (1982, ch. 3). 7 On ancient Achaemenid and Sasanid Persia, see the detailed analysis in Frye 1966; and more recently, Wiesehofer 2004.


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by the image of the Tsar as the father of his people. It was further strengthened by the various Church Councils, the composed works of the Metropolitan, including The Book of Degrees of the Imperial Genealogy, and the daily liturgy and public ceremonies, such as Palm Sunday, all of which tended to unite state and church. Nevertheless, acquisition of a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire in the subsequent decades accompanied an increasing divergence between Tsar and people, polity and ethnie, in which hierarchical political solidarity was often counterposed with a more egalitarian covenantal community of the Russian people.8 As this example demonstrates, the hierarchical principle could express and sustain a belief in ethnic election through the ideal of an ethnic and political mission. Often, the latter principle amounts to no more than testifying to the true faith and embodying it in a distinctive public culture. But it may also support expansion of the kingdom in order to bring the true faith to the heathen. We can see this mission at work most clearly in Christian kingdoms—in medieval France, Spain, Hungary, Serbia and Russia. But it can also be found to a certain extent in Islamic states, notably in Safavid Persia, and as far away as Tokugawa Japan, albeit shorn of doctrinal and expansionary aspects. Thus, while the Judeo-Christian component of hierarchical solidarity and missionary election is undoubtedly the most vivid, widespread and dynamic, it is not the sole example in ethnic election and its consequences.9 Covenant and Election The ideal of a covenant between a deity and his people is most readily associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition. While not in practice incompatible with hierarchy, the covenantal principle implies a more egalitarian conception of the community and a more intensive and intimate form of sacred communion between its members. In this conception, the deity chooses a community to carry out his will by separating itself from others and devoting its members to the sacred task 8 For the history of early modern Russia, see Crummey 1987; the divergence of state/Tsar and people is highlighted by Hosking 1993. 9 For the centrality of the Judeo-Christian tradition, see Hastings 1997. This view overlooks Japanese and Muslim societies, notably Safavid Iran and the Arabs, who, though united in a wider umma, often displayed a missionary ethnoreligious impulse.

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of performance and witness entrusted to it. The task in question varies in detail, but it usually involves regulating the life of the community and the individual through a moral and ritual code that sanctifies the community, and through it, the world.10 There is more than one version of the covenantal principle. In cases where it is combined with some form of hierarchical solidarity, the covenant is often effectuated through some agent of the community, usually the church. This was true of early Christian Armenia, where from the early fourth century, the Holy Apostolic Church served as the fulcrum of the covenant between Christ and His people. This is hardly surprising in view of the missionary founder’s close kin relationship with the Armenian ruling house, reinforced by the attempts of Gregory’s successors to retain unity among Armenia’s great landed magnates through the offices of the Apostolic Church and in view of its culture of scriptural devotion and holy martyrdom for church and kingdom.11 But the covenant may also be effectuated directly by “the people” as a kin community. This is the Sinaitic ideal in the Old Testament. Though Moses acted as an intermediary, the whole people of Israel are recorded as witnessing God’s presence and agreeing to His will, as detailed in the law code handed down by Moses: “And he [Moses] took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient” (Exodus 24:7). It is the people who are to be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). It is with the people as a whole that God enters into the covenant, an understanding that inspired periodic movements of renewal in later times. On the other hand, a hierarchical element appears from the start: Moses singled out the Levites after the people betrayed God by worshipping the golden calf, and commanded them to guard the sanctuary and the ritual code, thus laying the basis for

10

Fuller discussions of the covenant and its connections with the myth of ethnic election can be found in Hastings 1999 and Smith 2003, chs. 3–4. 11 On the Armenian Church, including the role of the covenant, see Garsoian 1999, ch. 12; Nersessian 2001; and for the history of ancient and early medieval Armenia, see Redgate 2000, esp. chs. 4–6. On the history of martyrdom in early Christian Armenia, as recorded by the historian Elishe, see Thomson 1982, Introduction.


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the later Temple hierarchy; and he also instituted the High Priesthood from the sons of Aaron.12 The hierarchical elements witnessed in the Armenian Church are also found in medieval Ethiopia, but again within a covenantal context. The accession of the “Solomonic” dynasty in 1270, which consciously harkened back to the earlier Semitic Christian kingdom of Aksum, was legitimated through a central myth recorded in the fourteenth century epic, the Kebra-Negast (Book of Kings). In this national epic, Menelik, son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, returns to Jerusalem as an adult and steals the Ark of the Covenant, and with it God’s blessing of His chosen people is transferred to Ethiopia and its people. The great kings of this dynasty used the myth to effect a thoroughgoing moral and cultural reform, using Judaic elements of Christianity, and expanding the borders beyond those of the original kingdom.13 More modern counterparts of the covenantal traditions emerged after the Reformation among Protestant communities. Some of the most vivid expressions come from Scotland and Holland. Covenanting became an important part of the Scots religious tradition from the later sixteenth century, culminating in the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643. As Colin Kidd observes, the Covenanters saw themselves as a latter-day Israel entering into a solemn compact with God to renew the church and commonwealth. In Holland, too, Old Testament analogies, like the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites, readily presented themselves to Calvinists who fled, north to the United Provinces, from the control of the repressive Catholic Habsburgs. More generally, a growing national sentiment saw the Dutch as a chosen people delivered by God and blessed by Him so long as they adhered to God’s commandments. Philip Gorski cites the floats that celebrated William of Orange’s triumphal entry into Brussels in 1577 after defeating the king of Spain, which depicted David slaying Goliath, Moses with his rod freeing the Israelites, and Joseph freeing Jacob and his children from oppression. Schama also cites a parallel with the freeing of Israel from Egyptian and Babylonian oppression, in Adriaan Valerius’ Neder-Lantsche

12 The episode of the golden calf is recounted in Exodus 32. For a brilliant analysis linking the Exodus and Sinai with revolutionary developments in seventeenth century England and eighteenth century United States, see Walzer 1985. 13 On medieval Ethiopia and its covenantal myth, see Levine 1974, ch. 7, and Ullendorff 1988, ch. 2.

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Gedenck-Clanck (The Netherlands Anthem of Commemoration) of 1626, with its fervent prayer for deliverance.14 Here, already, we stand on the threshold of the age of nationalism, the ideological movement to attain and maintain autonomy, unity and identity on behalf of a population deemed to constitute an actual or potential nation; and perhaps it is no accident that ethnies with a covenantal sense of chosenness, even if confined to only part of a population, play an important role in the genesis of nationalism. At the same time, covenant is not a simple alternative to hierarchy. The two principles are often found in varying combinations. Already in ancient Israel, the covenant made with the congregation of the people is supplemented, and framed, by anointed kingship. The people, we are told, sought to have “Kings to lead them in war, like other peoples” and the Lord was reluctantly persuaded. But the two principles were in tension. The prophets reaffirm the covenant: “I will be thy king [saith the Lord]; . . . I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath.” (Hosea 13:10, 11) In Armenia, another kingdom hemmed in by great powers, this time by Persia and Byzantium, hierarchy and covenant are more closely intertwined. Nevertheless, the great nobles and commanders, the ancient historian Elishe records, sacrificed themselves in battle for the holy covenant and for the people, as had their great model, Judas Maccabeus, in his struggle with Antiochus Epiphanes’ Syrian Macedonians. But the tension was not resolved. It reappeared in the Netherlands in 1576 and again in 1582, where, according to Gorski, political pamphlets reminded the people of the priority of the Hebraic covenant and the accountability of kings to God and the people. And Michael Walzer reminds us that the Exodus story and Sinai covenant fuelled powerful republican sentiments and actions in both seventeenth-century England and late eighteenth-century America.15

14 See Kidd 1999, 128. Williamson (1979, ch. 3) gives a fuller exposition of the religious background in sixteenth-century Scotland. On the Netherlands, see Schama 1987, ch. 2, especially p. 98 on Adriaan Valerius; and Gorski 2000. 15 Gorski (2000, 1435) also stresses the role of the myth of the Batavian republic in the Dutch revolt.


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Civic Traditions A third form of public culture, at once secular and sacred in content, has become increasingly important in the modern West. This is the tradition of the civic commonwealth, associated with classical antiquity. Though city-states were common in the ancient near East, notably in ancient Sumer, northwest Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and Canaan, the specifically civic and republican implications of this form of public community were not realised until the rise of the classical polis in ancient Greece after the demise of the tyrants, and in republican Rome after the expulsion of the kings. The idea of a self-governing body of citizens, however, restricted the franchise in some cases, and the autonomous system of government answerable to no outside power, human or divine, marked a new stage in the evolution of collective political identity and community. Nevertheless, in many ways, this too was a form of sacred cultural community and civic religion. Not only did each city-state have its patron deity and myths of sacred origin; its distinctive rituals and festivals, such as the Panathenaic festival of Athens, testified to the powerful influence of Olympian and chthonian religion in classical Greece. On the other hand, though the citizens might have felt protected by their guardian deities, theirs was a secular compact, not a covenant with God; and their ideal was not the attainment of holiness and self-discipline under the divine law, but the pursuit of civic liberty. This implied civic duties and responsibilities in the public sphere, and the creation of a community of citizens bound by laws allegedly given by ancient lawgivers, like Solon, Lycurgus and Numa, not by the gods. This stands in stark contrast to the Law of Moses handed down by the Lord, or the covenant mediated by an apostolic church. In the classical democracies, especially, principles of civic equality and liberty supplanted aristocratic hierarchies, and residence and ethnic ancestry replaced noble birth as the criteria of citizenship and office, at least in some periods.16 Of course, men of noble birth and landed wealth continued to exercise influence, even in the most radical democracies. In the Roman case, the centuries-long tension between patricians and plebeians created an

16 On the Greek polis, see Andrewes 1971; on ancient Athens, see the unusual account in Cohen 2000.

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uneasy balance at the expense of radical reform, and afforded an entry point for the political ambitions of victorious generals, who competed with the senatorial class and each other for the spoils and wealth of empire. Nevertheless, quite early in the principate, the myth of stoic virtue and austere republicanism was disseminated, and through the works of Livy, Tacitus and others, exerted a continuing attraction for intellectuals and clerics of later European kingdoms.17 This tradition of communal self-government and civic liberty was taken up by the popular classes and their intellectuals in the medieval Italian communes from the eleventh century onwards, as these citystates, often refounded on the ruins of old Roman civitates, sought to emulate Roman forms like the consulate and acquire Roman liberties and patriotism. Once again, a stream of civic legal enactments were set within the framework of Christian theology, ritual and worship, binding them within a wider realm of Christendom that excluded Jews, heretics and Muslims. Similar identifications with ancient forms are found among northern burgher communes and the Imperial free cities. By the sixteenth century, the liberties of the free Swiss cantons in their Eidgenossenschaft, against their Habsburg overlords, as well as a variety of assemblies, diets and estates general, often looked back to classical forms and models, and provided some alternatives to the dominant hierarchical structures of European kingdoms and principalities.18 Territorialisation If the different traditions of public culture helped to shape the various kinds of national identities, processes of identification with specific historic territories powerfully under-girded the formation and persistence of national public cultures. At the heart of nationalist doctrine stands the relationship between a chosen community and its homeland, but well before the advent of nationalism, the notion of land and its exclusive possession can be found in various expressions of collective sentiment, going back to ancient Egypt, Israel and Armenia. Indeed, the idea of desiring and needing to be buried in one’s native land is exemplified by the second millennium B.C.E. Tale of Sinuhe, the Egyptian official who

17

For national identity in republican Rome, and its later myths, see Gruen 1994. For the Italian city-republics, see Waley 1969; for the Swiss cantons and their struggle, see Im Hof 1991. 18


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had fled into exile in Palestine and had prospered there, but in old age yearned for his homeland and its burial rites.19 Two kinds of territorialisation of nations and their cultures can be usefully distinguished. The first is diffuse and regionalised. Here the community forms through the aggregation of distinct city-states into a larger whole, as in ancient Sumer or Phoenica; or through the union of distinct regions, as in modern Italy or Germany. Boundaries, too, are often ragged, as in ancient Greece or early modern Germany and Poland. Some ancestral or adopted lands lack clear definition, being, as it were, misshapen or even non-contiguous; one thinks of medieval Greater and Lesser Armenia, or modern East and West Pakistan following Partition. Borders may fluctuate considerably around a stable sacred core, often following the fortunes of war, as they did in medieval Ethiopia or in early modern Russia. Here, a people’s sense of belonging to a sacred territory is mediated through vivid attachments to their regions and regional cultures.20 At the other end of the continuum is the compact, well-defined nation, with clearly demarcated borders, a fixed centre and sacred landscapes. Before the modern epoch, only some island or mountain ethnies—Japan, Iceland, Tibet—possessed anything resembling this nationalist dream of compactness and intimacy, and only in certain periods, unless of course it was imposed by superior force, such as when the Pharaohs fused the two Egypts, Rome forged Italic unity and the Tokugawa Shoguns the exclusive national unity of Japan. Tribal confederacies—Aramean, Israelite or Arab—rarely managed to achieve such unity, and if so, only for short periods, as testified by the subsequent division into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, despite well proclaimed borders and vivid sacred attachments. Nor have islands and mountains sufficed on their own to maintain unity; Ireland’s political divisions before and after the Norman incursion are well known, not to mention those of medieval Japan. Yet in both, there was a considerable measure of cultural cohesion, sacred memories, strong popular attachments and a sense of exclusive ownership of the land.21

19 For the Tale of Sinuhe, see Grosby 2002, 31; see also Smith 2003, ch. 6, on territorialisation. 20 On medieval Ethiopia, see Levine 1974. For a wide-ranging analysis of the Russian empire, see Kappeler 2001. Medieval Armenia is discussed by Redgate 2000. 21 On Japan, see the discussion in Oguma 2002. For Ireland’s unity and divisions, see Moody and Martin 1984, 60.

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These examples show that compactness of ethnic or national public cultures is not simply a matter of political centralisation, important though that clearly is. The state and its wars may seek to weld territories and populations into political unions, but without a measure of public cultural sharing or sacred identity, they are unlikely to achieve the ideal of compact, intensive and intimate nationhood, which some ethnic leaders and nationalists have sought to attain. In other words, for a deep territorialisation of sacred memory and popular attachment, a true union of land and people through the naturalisation of history and the historicising of nature—key processes in the formation of nations—some elements of shared culture and a fund of shared myths and sacred memories are needed, such as the kind that arose in early modern Switzerland.22 Of course, in different periods, ethnies and nations may oscillate between the two poles of compact and regionalised unions, depending on state policies, military outcomes and the strength and sanctity of pre-existing regional cultures. Even in ancient Egypt, squeezed along the Nile by deserts to the east and west, there were periods of central breakdown and regional government in the administrative nomes; and the same was true of a generally compact Japan, particularly in the sixteenth century. One might be tempted to link community and territorialisation in terms of polar opposites, and think that hierarchy bred compact territorialisation; examples included ancient Egypt, early modern France and Japan. Conversely, covenantal public cultures appear to accompany a more diffuse and regionalised territorialisation, of the kind witnessed in early Israel and in the late sixteenth century Netherlands. But even here, things are not always straightforward. As noted earlier, a covenanted ethnie based on the Jerusalem Temple emerged in the fairly compact territory of the later kingdom of Judah, and a similar union of fairly compact territory and covenanted community briefly emerged in Cromwellian England. Conversely, we find a more diffuse form of hierarchy in, for example, sprawling Kievan Rus and the medieval German-speaking lands—with examples of these permutations apparent in most periods of history.23

22

See the fine analysis by Zimmer and Kaufmann 1998. See also the discussion in Smith 2003, ch. 6. For a different perspective, see Anderson 1991, ch. 10. 23 On which, see Lehmann 1982. For the regionalisation of the “intermediate” period Egypt, see Trigger et al. 1983.


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Continuity of Public Cultures Given these complexities and combinations, can the study of the processes of territorialised public culture throw light on the formation and persistence of nations? I think it can; as I hope to show, the distinctions between hierarchical, covenantal and civic traditions of public culture remain relevant to the modern world of nations and national states. This is apparent in cases representing continuity of the forms of ethnic public culture, as well as in cases of severe rupture and discontinuity. Of course, this distinction is not absolute. Even in those cases that manifest the greatest measure of continuity, there are critical moments of rupture. For example, the hierarchical form of ethnic community and public culture instituted in England, first by the Anglo-Saxon kings, then by the Normans and continued by the Tudors and the Anglican Church, was decisively broken and for a period replaced by covenantal forms of society and politics under the Protestant Commonwealth. Puritans, like Milton and Cromwell, fused their exclusive faith with a new concept of the militant nation by depicting the English as God’s firstborn, a worthy successor to ancient Israel. In this, they built on a longstanding sense of English national identity from at least the fourteenth century, which had flourished more recently in the Elisabethan period. However, the failure of this new vision’s political expression in Army rule convinced many of the need to return to some, though not all, of the earlier hierarchical forms of public culture, like monarchy, peerage and Anglicanism. Henceforth, these forms were grafted onto a new concept of an elect English, and later Anglo-British, nation of civil liberty—a concept that was to fuel not only the revolution of 1688, but also the more egalitarian late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century movements—Jacobin, Chartist and Christian socialist.24 Till recently, Japan also has evinced a similar near-continuity of hierarchical ethnic forms, despite periods of political dislocation and fragmentation. In this context, the revolution of certain samurai clans, which led to the restoration of the Meiji Emperor, was essentially a form of conservative neo-traditionalism that sought to revive and use an ancient institution to sanctify Japan’s rapid modernisation. In this

24 On the English nationalism of Cromwell and Milton, see Kohn 1940; Greenfeld 1992, ch. 1. For a trenchant critique, see Kumar 2003, ch.5, esp. 108–114. For Protestant Anglo-British nationalism, see Colley 1992.

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connection, the revival of Shinto family cults, the union of popular religion with Shinto and its cult of the war dead, notably in the Yasukuni shrine, and the linking of both of these to the worship of the Emperor as father and protector of the “family-nation” aimed to consolidate a type of nation that was deeply imbued with earlier hierarchical forms. This enabled reforms to be implemented that would allow Japan to survive and compete with the West. Nevertheless, the catastrophic defeat and suffering of the Second World War shook the Japanese national fabric and for a time seemed to encompass the collapse of the old order’s hierarchical principle, but only to see it partially reincarnated in the deferential, conservative forms of Japanese society and politics, and in its self-conception as a unique “victim” nation.25 At the other extreme, the United States, despite strong hierarchical elements in an exclusive white Protestant society, in both the north and south, has sought to adhere to the original covenantal form of its union. Even though it was built upon strong pre-existing regional and provincial cultures, the union was based on national ideologies with significant covenantal and civic components, most clearly expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and reiterated in subsequent generations. That there were sound political and economic reasons for a more than temporary union to mobilise the people to fight the war against Britain is beside the point. In rejecting traditional hierarchies and opting for a republic and the protection of civil and political liberties, the revolutionaries were building on the earlier covenantal example of English parliamentarian revolt and the Puritan commonwealth, and adapting it to a civic tradition of public culture, modelling their republic on that of republican Rome. These ancient traditions have helped to shape the development of an open, pluralist but enthusiastic society intent on following its popular civic and democratic path, oscillating between a strongly separatist stance of purity reminiscent of the original Israelite covenant and an expansionist and missionary confrontation with a “profane” world.26

25 Besides, the Emperor survived, along with a conservative sense of Japanese “uniqueness”; on which, see Yoshino 1992. For a penetrating account of recent exclusive Japanese self-understanding, see Oguma 2002. 26 On the millennial sense of American destiny, see Tuveson 1968; and notably the “sublime” American landscapes, see Wilton and Barringer 2002. For an original analysis of early American nationhood, see Kaufmann 2002.


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Discontinuity of Public Cultures It appears as if these examples offer some support for the proposition that the traditions of hierarchy, covenant and civic public culture continue to shape the ethos of modern nations. But can the same be said of those nations where there has been a clear rupture and discontinuity in the forms of their public cultures? As proposed earlier, a combination of hierarchical public culture and compact territorialisation might produce a conservative, aristocratic and monarchical type of nation. From the medieval period onwards, ancien regime France manifested just such a hierarchical public culture, with a strong tradition of sacred kingship (“the most Christian king”) and a sense of public duty in defence of the realm. Moreover, by the early modern period, the kingdom had attained a relatively compact territory, the so-called hexagon, itself based on the Roman province of Gaul and its Frankish successor. Though a strong regionalism persisted in outlying areas, along with regional cultures, the growing dominance of Parisian language and culture, and the slow penetration of the centralised absolutist state, created a relatively unified public in the cities. By the eighteenth century, there was a growing sense of secularising nationhood in reaction to earlier religious conflicts.27 This new national sense was articulated by a stratum of intellectual modernisers who looked to England’s liberal revolution, as well as to the principles of civic patriotism and liberty of the ancient city-states. In eighteenth-century France, this new sense of identity stimulated a revolutionary political and largely middle class movement against hierarchy and monarchy in favour of the unfettered expression of the will of the nation. For a short period, from 1789 to 1794, a popular covenantal element surfaced. This was exemplified in a new-old symbolism of mass oaths, pageants, festivals and martyrdoms, in which the representatives of the people acted out a salvation drama of the nation and displayed a quasi-religious devotion to the patrie in front of the assembled people, in forms that became increasingly classical and republican.28 From that moment on, politics in a centralising and compact French homeland oscillated between the poles of ethnic hierarchy and civic 27

The early development of the French sense of nationhood, and the role of royal and sacred elements, are analysed in Beaune 1985. For the eighteenth century’s secularising nationalism, see the excellent account in Bell 2001. 28 On these civic-religious festivals, see Kohn 1967.

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religion, sometimes violently, as in the Dreyfus Affair. We see this in the characteristic monuments, statuary and architecture of the period, as well as in the cult of St. Joan, a Catholic saint from the ancien regime, who is at the same time a symbol of popular liberty. In the twentieth century, similar conflicts were often manifest in the tension between strong Presidents and the Assembly and in the quest for a national destiny manifested in the figure of the heroic father of the nation, punctuated by sudden eruptions on behalf of popular liberty against the existing bureaucratic order. Because of the high degree of territorialisation, the centrality of Paris and its culture, and the strength of popular attachments to the variety of French landscapes, this quest and its ensuing conflicts have been that much more potent.29 In modern Germany, the combinations of public culture have yielded yet more radical and violent outcomes, despite its more regionalised and diffuse territorialisation. From the thirteenth century onwards, the political domain of the Holy Roman Empire, together with attachment to the German language and culture, had begun to engender a measure of consciousness of being German-speaking and “Deutsch”. By the sixteenth century, a vivid sense of the significance of the German language and German cultural leadership had emerged among some humanists and millennial revolutionaries. But it was neither widespread nor deep-rooted. The breakdown of the Empire after the Thirty Years War, the division of its German-speaking lands into a few great absolutist states and a large number of smaller principalities, together with the pervasive influence of French culture, appeared to spell the end of anything resembling a German-speaking state or nation outside Austria, even though a diffuse German consciousness persisted in some circles. Fragmentation and hierarchy appeared to exclude covenant and limit civic and national sentiment.30 However, the example of the French Revolution, the shock of Jena, and the growing appeal of a predominantly literary Romanticism soon stimulated an inchoate movement of resistance to Napoleon. This was spurred on by ideas of radical civic reform and national renewal among some intellectuals in the various German-speaking states of Central Europe, which in turn led to some striking, if rather limited, 29

On the French pursuit of grandeur, often associated with Bonapartism, see Gildea 1994. For the variety of French landscapes, see the essays in Hooson 1994. 30 For early German self-definitions, see Scales 2000, and on German Renaissance humanists, see Poliakov 1975, ch. 5.


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displays of German brotherhood in the Volunteers Corps at Leipzig in 1813 and in the quasi-religious celebrations held at the Wartburg castle in 1817 and at Hambach in 1832. The revolutionary year of 1848 marked a moment of German covenant and civil reform, but divisions among the deputies in the Frankfurt Parliament over the definition of Germany and its ragged territories enabled the old hierarchies to reinstate themselves swiftly, and paved the way for Prussian unification and domination of most of the non-Habsburg Germanspeaking lands. In effect, the Prussian design of Bismarck tacitly adopted much of the agenda of a Kleindeutsch German nationalism, but without its liberalism. However, if monarchical hierarchy appeared to triumph in the Second Reich, with its official celebrations of the victory at Sedan, popular movements harking back to the compacts of the French Revolution provided a continual and powerful undercurrent. We see this in the monuments paid for by public subscription, the growing cult of medievalism and the quintessential German genius of Dürer and Luther, the Volkisch literary movement, and the uses of German and Scandinavian mythology for Wagner’s communal festival of the arts; and later in the racism of the Pan-German League and various Volkisch fringe circles.31 Though, on the face of it, a compact of racially pure Germans, what Himmler called “a union of German-Germanic tribes”, appeared to be the essence of Hitler’s vision of Nazism, it was framed by an even stronger version of hierarchy, that of an imperial race state with a command structure under its Fuhrer. In Nazism’s carefully choreographed rallies and orchestrated mass demonstrations, with their vast processions, marching songs, banners and lighting, “ethnic” Germans renewed their oath to obey their Leader and die for the Fatherland in fraternal unisonance. This amounted to a secular parody of the ancient covenant, which nonetheless drew on older religious motifs and rituals for new pagan political and racial ends, in what George Mosse terms a mass “civic religion”. At the same time, Nazi political control was ensured, not only by elite SS discipline and a radical racial ideology, but also through a series of overlapping hierarchies—of party, state, SS and army—that sought to counterbalance the centrifugal and divisive

31 The Volkisch writers are analysed in Mosse 1964. Mosse 1975, ch. 3 examines manifestations of German Romantic nationalism, including the construction of commemorative monuments. See also James 2000, ch. 4.

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forces of regionalism, class and confession. Indeed, one could argue that Germany’s very lack of compact boundaries, and the continuing vitality of her regions and their cultures, required a greater degree of centralisation and a heightened elite sense of an all-German landscape and territory subsuming those of its länder, to create a cohesive, allGerman national public culture.32 Communist Eastern Germany preserved this combination of political hierarchy and ideological covenantalism, albeit for diametrically opposed reasons, especially in the later attempts by the regime to harness selected popular episodes from German history for ideological legitimacy and bonding with the people. This was in marked contrast to the economic rationalism and capitalist revival of Western Germany, whose leaders appeared to turn their backs on the double menace of charismatic populism and imperial hierarchy in so much of recent German history. In their place, the dream of European integration seems to have offered the German elite an alternative destiny, one free of quasi-religious nostalgia and yearning for ethnic intimacy, with the promise of release from the demons of the past into a wider, but wellregulated, neo-liberal order. The hope that this attempt to submerge past particularism in a post-national Europe reflects the ideals and sentiments of the majority of Germans is far less certain.33 With its lack of clear boundaries, Russia resembled Germany, but its heartland or core ethnic area was more compact and clearly defined. As noted, the early modern Muscovite and Russian state developed as a typical patrimonial hierarchy, with church and state interdependent and the Tsar as sacred ruler and father of his people. But a deep schism in the Orthodox Church following the modernising reforms of the Patriarch Nikon saw an outburst of covenantalism among the various sects of Old Believers, many of whom migrated from the centre to found settlements in distant places, while others vowed to die by immolation rather than suffer humiliation at the hands of the authorities. Some of these sects and settlements persisted well into the nineteenth century, drawing a sizeable minority of the population away from the hierarchical state, and emphasising the growing divide between a westernising

32

On Nazi political symbolism, see Mosse 1975, and 1994, ch. 5; also James 2000, ch. 6. 33 For Communist East Germany, see Staab 1998, and on East German historical myths, see Fulbrook 1997.


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and increasingly desacralized hierarchical state and a sacred ethnic Russian society.34 Later in the nineteenth century, Tsarist social reforms and modernisation from above, coupled with increasing peasant revolts across far-flung territories, undermined the hierarchical ideal and created the conditions in which coteries of radical populist and Marxist intellectuals could preach the brotherhood of the people and the equality of the subject peoples that made up the Tsarist empire. The First World War destroyed the traditional hierarchy of Tsarism, propelling these rival movements into the foreground, and ultimately the Bolsheviks into the seat of power. Proclaiming the fraternal rule of soviets of workers and land to the peasants, Lenin’s Bolsheviks were able to emerge victorious from the Civil War, only to be overtaken by an even more rigorous secular-historical version of hierarchy embodied in a Communist Party controlled by a central Committee, Politburo and General Secretary. Here the interests of an all-powerful state were camouflaged by the new civic religion of proletarian rule, and in the cataclysm of the Great Patriotic War, wedded to a newly-found Russian ethnic nationalism. In the course of a few decades, Russian society and the Russian state had moved from a traditional, if modernising, hierarchy through a revolutionary period of covenantal solidarity to a new socialist form of republican equality under tight bureaucratic Party control, only ultimately to collapse into its separate ethnic nations aspiring to new non-communist state hierarchies.35 Conclusion As a single chapter covering such a wide field, this outline of a few historical cases can only serve as an illustration of my main themes. In so brief an overview, I cannot pretend to furnish an explanation of why particular nations developed as they did or why they assumed the varying characteristics that we recognise. I have had to overlook or omit a host of economic, political and social factors that were undoubtedly relevant to the formation and character of these and other nations. However, this is partly because I believe progress in this field requires a

34

On these traditionalist sects, see Hosking 1997, 72–73. For the Tsarist legacy and intellectuals’ movements, see Pipes 1977; and on the Soviet period, see Hosking 1985. 35

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comparative historical and sociological method informed by a theoretical approach. The hope is that this approach can illuminate research on specific cases by isolating key variables and dimensions. The approach adopted here, that of an historical ethno-symbolism, is one that seeks to trace both continuities and ruptures between relevant ethnies and nations in terms of persistence and change in their repertoires of myths, memories, symbols and values, and in the key social and symbolic processes that combine to produce communities that approximate the ideal type of “the nation”.36 Here I have focused on the process of creating and disseminating different kinds of public cultures and their accompanying territorialisation. They constitute, I would argue, the dominant forms of public culture in a large number of cases of the formation and persistence of modern nations, and lend support to the view that ethnic and sacred elements continue to sustain national identities in the modern world. I am certainly not arguing for a simple linear continuity of different types, from pre-modern to modern epochs, but rather an oscillation and a complex interplay between these types. The same holds for the shape and attachment to territory in the evolution of the “homeland”, where a linear pattern can rarely be discerned, a fact that should make us wary of the assumption, entertained by some nationalists, that nations must be compact, solidary and homogeneous. This was certainly not the case, as noted, in Germany; nor has it been true of Switzerland, divided as it is by language, religion and cantonal loyalty.37 One final point can be made in connection with the forms of public culture. Nationalism, the ideological movement, sounds peculiarly covenantal and popular in its thrust; and in its first flush, it may well be so. It is rarely, however, a mass movement of the whole ethnic community, and only sometimes the movement of a large minority. Instead, we usually witness a small minority aiming to speak for the ethnie, or in the name of “the people” as a whole, to whom it desires to extend covenantal and civic rights. As for its object, the nation comes in all shapes and sizes. Some nations, or rather their public cultures, are

36 Accounts of “ethno-symbolic” perspectives are given in Smith 1999, Introduction, and in Hutchinson 2000. Armstrong (1982) provides a path-breaking application of this approach to the longue durée of pre-modern Islamic and Christian civilisations. 37 The history of Swiss unification and pluralism is recounted by Im Hof (1991). For an illuminating analysis of the period since the eighteenth century, see Zimmer 2003.


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hierarchical; others are popular and even egalitarian. Some, though not all, forms of nationalism may view the nation as an egalitarian form of comradeship; but the national reality is often at odds with this vision. At the same time, nationalism is sometimes able to blend covenantal and civic ideals with a hierarchical, even monarchical, tradition of public culture through a revival of a sense of ethnic community. The chameleon-like beauty of nationalism allows for the creation of a civic religion of the people and aspirations “to build Jerusalem” in every kind of society, using the sacred legacies and ethnic traditions of their different pasts.38 References Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Andrewes, Anthony. 1971. Greek Society. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Argyle, W. J. 1976. Size and scale as factors in the development of nationalist movements. In Nationalist Movements, ed. Anthony D. Smith. London: Macmillan. Armstrong, John. 1982. Nations before Nationalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Beaune, Colette. 1985. Naissance de la Nation France. Paris: Editions Gallimard. Bell, David. 200l. The Cult of the Nation in France, 1680–1800. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cohen, Edward. 2000. The Athenian Nation. Princeton: Princeton University Press Colley, Linda. 1992. Britons: The Forging of a Nation, 1707–1837. New Haven: Yale University Press. Connor, Walker. 1994. Ethno-Nationalism: The Quest for Understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press. —— 2004. The timelessness of Nations. In History and National Destiny, eds. Montserrat Guibernau and John Hutchinson. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 35–47. Crummey, Ian. 1987. The Formation of Muscovy, 1304–1613. London and New York: Longman. Frankfort, Henri. 1948. Kingship and the Gods. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Frye, Richard. 1966. The Heritage of Persia. New York: Mentor. Fulbrook, Mary. 1997. Myth-making and National Identity: the Case of the GDR. In Myths and Nationhood, eds. Geoffrey Hosking and George Schopflin. London and Boston: Routledge, 72–87. Garsoian, Nina. 1999. Church and Culture in Early Medieval Armenia. Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum. Gildea, Robert. 1994. The Past in French History. New Haven: Yale University Press Gorski, Philip. 2000. The Mosaic Moment: An early Modernist critique of Modernist theories of nationalism. The American Journal of Sociology 105, 5, 1428–1468.

38 For the argument that nationalism in the Habsburg Empire represented minority movements, see Argyle 1976, which provides a corrective to Connor’s 2004 view of “mass” nationalism.

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Greenfeld, Liah. 1992. Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Grosby, Steven. 2002. Biblical Ideas of Nationality, Ancient and Modern. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns. Gruen, Eric. 1994. Culture and National Identity in Republican Rome, London: Duckworth. Hastings, Adrian. 1997. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hooson, David, ed. 1994. Geography and National Identity, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Horsmann, Matthew and Marshall, Andrew. 1994. After the Nation-State. London: Harper Collins. Hosking, Geoffrey. 1985. A History of the Soviet Union. London: Fontana Press/ Collins. —— 1993. Empire and Nation in Russian History. Baylor University, Waco, Texas: Markham Press Fund. —— 1997. Russia: People and Empire, 1552–1917. London: Harper Collins Publishers. Hutchinson, John. 2000. Ethnicity and modern nations. Ethnic and Racial Studies 23, 4: 651–69. Im Hof, Ulrich. 1991. Mythos Schweiz: Identität-Nation-Geschichte. Zurich: Neue Verlag Zürcher Zeitung. Jacobsen, Thorkild. 1976. The Treasures of Darkness. New Haven: Yale University Press. James, Harold. 2000. A German Identity, 1770 to the Present Day. London: Phoenix Press. Kappeler, Andreas. 2001. The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History. Harlow: Pearson Educational Publishers. Kaufmann, Eric. 2002. Modern Formation, Ethnic Reformation: the Social sources of the American Nation. Geopolitics 7, 2:99–120. Kaufmann, Eric and Zimmer, Oliver. 1998. In search of the authentic nation: landscape and national identity in Canada and Switzerland. Nations and Nationalism 4, 4: 483–510. Kidd, Colin. 1999. British Identities before Nationalism: Ethnicity and Nationhood in the Atlantic World, 1600–1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kohn, Hans. 1940. The Origins of English Nationalism. Journal of the History of Ideas I: 69–94. —— 1967. Prelude to Nation-States: The French and German Experience, 1789–1815. New York: van Nostrand. Kumar, Krishan. 2003. The Making of English National Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lehmann, Jean-Pierre. 1982. The Roots of Modern Japan. London: Macmillan. Levine, Donald. 1974. Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Miller, David. 1995. On Nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Milner-Gulland, Robin. 1999. The Russians. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Moody, T.W., and F.X. Martin, eds. 1984. The Course of Irish History. Revised and enlarged edition, Cork: Mercier Press. Mosse, George. 1964. The Crisis of German Ideology. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. —— 1975. The Nationalisation of the Masses. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. —— 1994. Confronting the Nation: Jewish and Western Nationalism. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Nersessian, Vrej. 2001. Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art, London: British Library. Oguma, Eiji. 2002. A Genealogy of “Japanese” Self-Images, trans. David Askew. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.


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Pipes, Richard. 1977. Russia under the Old Regime. London: Peregrine Books. Poliakov, Leon. 1975. The Aryan Myth. New York: Basic Books. Redgate, Anne. 2000. The Armenians. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Routledge, Bruce. 2003. The antiquity of nations? Critical reflections on the ancient Near East. Nations and Nationalism 9, 2:213–33. Scales, Len. 2000. Identifying “France” and “Germany”: Medieval Nation-Making in Some Recent Publications. Bulletin of International Medieval Research 6: 23–46. Schama, Simon. 1987. The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. London: William Collins. Smith, Anthony D. 1999. Myths and Memories of the Nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— 2001. Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History. Cambridge: Polity Press. —— 2002. When is a nation? Geopolitics 7, 2:5–32. —— 2003. Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Staab, Andreas. 1998. National Identity in Eastern Germany. Westport, CT: Praeger. Thomson, Robert. 1982. History of Vardan and the Armenian War, trans. R. Thomson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Trigger, B.G., B.J. Kemp, D. O’Connor, and A.B Lloyd. 1983. Ancient Egypt, A Social History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tuveson, E.L. 1968. Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Ullendorff, Edward. 1988. Ethiopia and the Bible. British Academy, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Waley, Daniel. 1969. The Italian City-Republics. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Walzer, Michael. 1985. Exodus and Revolution. New York: Harper Collins, Basic Books. Wiesehofer, Josef. 2004. Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD. London and New York: I.B. Tauris. Williamson, Arthur. 1979. Scottish National Consciousness in the Age of James VI. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers Ltd. Wilton, Andrew, and Tim Barringer, eds. 2002. American Sublime: Painting in the United States, 1820–80. London: Tate Publishing. Yack, Bernard. 1999. The myth of the civic nation. In Theorising Nationalism, ed. Ronald Beiner, 103–18. Albany NY: State University of New York. Yoshino, Kosaku. 1992. Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry. London: Routledge. Zimmer, Oliver. 2003. A Contested Nation: History, Memory and Nationalism in Switzerland, 1761–1891, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHAPTER TWO

DURKHEIM’S POLITICAL SOCIOLOGY. CIVIL RELIGION, NATIONALISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM Marcela Cristi In the French sociological tradition, the idea of a universal secular religion can be traced back to Henri de Saint-Simon and Auguste Comte, but its full crystallization is found in the mature work of Émile Durkheim (Featherstone 1990, 4). Durkheim’s ideas were shaped by a number of political and military events that shook the very foundation of French society. The military defeat in the war with Prussia in 1870 and the losses of Alsace and Lorraine the following year affected him deeply. Durkheim hoped to implement a new moral and universal regulation of society and contribute to the regeneration of the French nation. The latter was essential for providing a solid base for the Third Republic (1870–1940) and helping France recover, morally and politically, from the defeat and humiliation of the Prussian affront. Patriotism and nationalism, as sources of moral and social coherence in modern society, were for him important aspects of the process of recovery. Robert Bellah has aptly referred to Durkheim as a great philosopher of moral order, and as “a high priest and theologian of the civil religion of the Third Republic”. He sees him as a prophet “calling not only modern France but modern Western society generally to mend its ways in the face of a great social and moral crisis” (Bellah 1973, x). Bryan Turner has rightly noted that sociology, since its emergence in the nineteenth century, has been characterised by “a tension or contradiction between a science of particular nation-states and a science of global or universal processes” (Turner 1990, 343). In this respect, Durkheim’s sociological approach is no exception. A number of commentators, however, have characterised classical sociological theory as lacking a “global” vision, being “blind to globalisation processes” or as having an entirely “methodologically nationalist” orientation (Inglis and Robertson 2008, 6–7). It is thus claimed that classical sociology’s assumptions are no longer relevant to postmodern societies

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(Turner 2006, 133).1 Given the fact that the key unit of sociological analysis, “society”, has been “ipso facto” equated with the study of a given national state, the classical model has become inapplicable to a globalised world (Smith 1983, 26; Beck 2000, 24). In this chapter, I challenge these claims by examining Durkheim’s ideas on civil religion, nationalism and internationalism. I begin with a brief definition of the concept of civil religion, tracing its roots to the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile Durkheim and Robert Bellah. This is followed by a discussion of Durkheim’s ideas on patriotism, which he perceives as the civil religion of modern times. While it would be inaccurate to deny that Durkheim’s writings were intended to serve nationalist objectives, I show that his political sociology was not circumscribed by problems affecting France alone. Rather, he is open to a global and cosmopolitan vision, which he expresses in his notion of moral individualism, a notion that transcends both the individual and a given nation-state. Next, I examine his ideas concerning the morality that ought to regulate modern international relations, and his hope for the formation of a supra-national community and universal morality. Durkheim assigns a fundamental role to the state, not only as protector of public morality, but also as the institution entrusted with the implementation and furtherance of individual rights. I finish this chapter by addressing two issues that, in my opinion, have not received adequate attention in the literature, namely the use of civil religion as a political resource and the relationship between civil religion and nationalism. While many have denied the claim that civil religion and nationalism can be equated, I hold that they cannot easily be dissociated, and reject the idea that only “less advanced” types of civil religions can be linked with nationalism. Genesis of the Civil Religion Concept Civil religion consists of a set of social and cultural principles, values and rituals oriented toward the civil and political order. The religious aspect might be derived from attempts to infuse the civil order with a transcendent

1 For more on the notion of methodological nationalism, see Chernilo (2008, 2007, 2006), Inglis and Robertson (2008), Turner (2006), and Robertson (2000). These scholars present a defence and a reassessment of classical sociological theory.

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purpose and legitimacy by using explicitly religious symbols, often rooted in the dominant religion of the nation. Conversely, the religious dimension might be based in mutually meaningful public rituals and symbols that come to be seen as sacred by members of the group. In From Civil to Political Religion (Cristi 2001), I argue that the civil religion phenomenon may be conceptualised as a phenomenon that manifests itself in two forms: as “culture” and as “ideology”. These forms are not opposites; they are part of a continuum. At one end is the Durkheimian/Bellah approach that conceives civil religion as a spontaneous social product that expresses the values and beliefs of the society as a whole. As such, it is supposed to be a source of collective identity, and an integrative force providing legitimation to civil actions. At the other end, is the Rousseauan model, conceived as a manufactured political resource, i.e., a tool designed to ensure the legitimacy of the state. Rousseau advocates that state authorities ought to promote civic virtues and political unity to bind individuals to the state. The sovereign is fully justified in using coercion to enforce compliance with the tenets of faith. In Rousseau’s theoretical account, civil religion is a potential instrument of oppression. Rousseau introduces the notion of civil religion in The Social Contract. He fears the erosion of religious ties, but at the same time argues that Christianity destroyed the unity between spiritual and temporal power by giving individuals “two codes of legislation, two rulers, and two countries”. Yet believing that “no State has ever been founded without a religious basis” (1762a/1973, 272), Rousseau fills this void and attempts to restore the link between religion and the political order by postulating “a purely civil profession of faith” by which the state could impose civic unity. The articles of this religion are for the sovereign to establish: . . . not exactly as religious dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good citizen or a faithful subject. While it can compel no one to believe them, it can banish from the State whoever does not believe them . . . not for impiety, but as an anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and of sacrificing, at need, his life to duty. (ibid., 276)

Its dogmas are to be “few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary”. They include belief in the existence of a divinity, the afterlife, rewards for the just and punishment for evil, the sanctity of the social contract, and a love of the country and its laws. Citizens

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are forced to accept the canons of this new faith on pain of banishment or death. Rousseau writes, “if anyone, after publicly recognizing these dogmas behaves as if he does not believe them, let him be punished by death” (ibid., 276).2 In Rousseau’s model, civil religion is consciously imposed and promoted by the state, which deliberately constructs transcendent values to legitimise itself. In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim’s work on the origins of religion, one finds the essence of his ideas on civil religion. Religion, Durkheim argues, arises spontaneously out of the collective identity of the group. In totemic societies, organised in clans, god and society “are only one”. The clan simultaneously symbolises both (1912/1961, 236). The religious and civic unity of the clan is best observed during periodic gatherings. It is in the midst of “effervescent” gatherings, and “out of this effervescence itself”, that the idea of religion emerges (ibid., 250). This fundamental social event, the assembly of the clan, inspires religious feelings and contributes to the maintenance of social integration. Durkheim observes that every gathering is a religious feast and every feast, including those that have non-religious foundations, shares certain qualities of the religious ritual. Out of these celebrations, beliefs and rituals the social group “reaffirms itself ”. Durkheim sees the totemic cult as a “great moral” and collective force. It unites individuals, not only by kinship or ties of blood, but “by a community of interests and tradition”. When the clan assembles to celebrate, individuals become “conscious of their moral unity” (ibid., 432). In modern society, the religiously based conscience collective fades away, but the sense of the sacred remains. It might be attached to ideas, flags or heads of states rather than to rocks, springs or ancestral animals (Wuthnow 1994, 2), as human beings have an infinite capacity for “creating sacred things out of ordinary ones”. Durkheim notes the sacred character that has been attributed to nobles and princes and the unique deference given to them (Durkheim 1912/1961, 243–244).

2 Sociologists have not paid much attention to this aspect of Rousseau’s work, but outside the sociological field, no concept of Rousseau’s political theory has been more severely criticised than his philosophy on civil religion. His ideas on this topic have been judged to be the intellectual cradle of totalitarianism (Macfarlane 1970, 12). Others have considered Rousseau’s chapter on civil religion “unfortunate” and “an embarrassment” (Noone 1980, 133, 152), responsible “for heralding modern despotism” (Merquior 1980, 36).


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Civic feasts produce a state of enthusiasm and excitement that are akin to the religious state (Durkheim 1912/1961, 427). Participating in public festivities, whether in primitive or modern times, reinforces identification with and commitment to values. For this reason, “all parties, political, economic or confessional” periodically hold meetings so that their followers can regenerate their enthusiasm and their “common faith” (ibid., 240). The moral unity of a collectivity can be enhanced through ceremonies and gatherings where individuals together reaffirm their common sentiments. Thus, all groups need to uphold “at regular intervals the collective sentiments and collective ideas which make its unity and its personality”. Gatherings, in turn, are revitalised through rites, which are ways of behaving that spring to life only at the heart “of the assembled groups” (ibid., 22, 475). The modern individual may experience “collective effervescence” through values such as patriotism and national loyalty, but the sentiments felt in these circumstances are closely related to the religious sentiments experienced by Australian aborigines. Durkheim suggests that the modern form of totemism is found in nationalism—a clearly new and distinct type of collective activity. As Susan Purdy notes (1982, 309), from Durkheim’s perspective, patriotic feelings toward the nation are, to a certain extent, the modern equivalent of the moral solidarity experienced through loyalty to the clan. Taking a social approach to explain the religious phenomenon, Durkheim observes that religion develops out of a pre-existing sense of moral community. Religion is a set of collective representations, rituals and practices. In contrast to Rousseau, he conceives civil religion as a spontaneous, non-coercive expression of popular self-identity. Because it organically arises from the group itself, it is the power of society that acts upon the individual. In his conception, as long as individuals join together to form groups, there will always be some common faith between them, since religion is part of the symbolic self-understanding of every society or collectivity. Durkheim never invoked a divinity, and did not even use the term civil religion itself. Rituals and ceremonies impart a sense of sacredness to the community, and emphasise the moral force of the collectivity itself.3

3 Yet, one may argue that, in essence, the history of a group or nation is socially and historically created and always requires a certain degree of indoctrination and socialisation. In other words, it does not emerge “naturally” and spontaneously. Thus,

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Bellah’s work, particularly his classic article “Civil Religion in America” (1967), is also an essential part of the civil religion literature. Contemporary discussions of civil religion usually begin with a reference to this well-known essay. William Swatos suggests that except for Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic, “there is no single article in the social scientific study of religion that has created so extensive a subsequent literature” (2004, 193). Bellah argues that civil religion in America is independent of political and religious institutions. His model of civil religion includes a conception of God—an “instrumental God, which is called upon for blessing, watchfulness, moral sanctification, and security in secular matters” (Bennett 1975, 81). While American civil religion uses Christian symbols and themes, it is not necessarily Christian. Its symbols and sacred myths infuse American society with transcendent goals and legitimacy, providing a unifying ethic for Americans—to carry out “God’s will” on earth. Bellah claims that since the early days of the Republic, the intersection between culture, religion and politics has produced a uniquely American civil religion. Puritans identified themselves as Israel, as the chosen people, and America as the chosen Land. The irony of America history, Reinhold Niebuhr has argued, is that this Puritan belief soon shifted from an “emphasis upon a divine favor to the nation, to an emphasis upon the virtue which the nation had acquired by divine favor” (1952, 70). This transmutation has given rise to a “sense of mission and purpose about American politics which leads to moral involvement and concern beyond the nation’s borders and produces recurring millennial strains domestically” (Bennett 1975, 87). Patriotism: A National Civil Religion Durkheim never actively participated in political action (Bellah 1973, xvi), nor did he make a major contribution to political theory, or write a systematic treatise on politics. Yet, as Anthony Giddens has noted, one may extract from his writings a coherent picture of his political ideas, particularly from lecture notes published after his death (1986, 1). Durkheim was deeply concerned with what he thought to be a moral

civil religion, even in its Durkheimian form, can be manipulated in the interests of the collectivity, group, nation etc.


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crisis precipitated by an increasingly complex modern society. Since the French Revolution, life in France had been haunted by social and political upheavals. During a period of eighty-one years (1789–1870), there were eight regimes (three monarchies, two empires and three republics) and fourteen constitutions (Bellah 1973, xvi). What is more, he witnessed the devastating defeat of France at the hands of Prussia. France’s standing in the world was attributed to the internal weakness, social dislocation and disunity of the nation. French political life had become a battlefield for the forces of anti-clerical Republicanism and ultra-conservative Catholicism, threatening to destroy the very fabric of society. Left- and right-wing coalitions found their expressions in a variety of intellectual and political organisations, confronting each other in the press, in academic journals and even in the streets. The French Republic, far from enjoying a universal consensus, was “extremely fragile” and had proven unable to provide a solution to political divisions (Terrier 2006, 293). At the centre of the conflict, and crucial to French politics, was the issue of laïcité, the official doctrine of the Third Republic. Although the term itself appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, its origins can be traced back to the French Revolution, which had attempted, but failed, to establish a secular and even aggressive anti-Christian political order.4 Under Napoleon’s 1801 Concordat with Rome, Catholicism had been recognised as the religion of the great majority of French citizens, while the Protestant and Jewish confessions were granted a measure of recognition. As a result, Catholic religious orders flourished in the nineteenth century (Saunders 2008, 153–154). Ardent defenders of Republicanism, conscious of the religious and political issues confronting the Republic, and of the weak foundations on which it rested, sought to establish a democratic regime free of what they thought was a socially corrosive doctrine. Having seen “the republic collapse a number of times, and be overturned by authoritarian regimes”, they were determined to defend it (Terrier 2006, 303).

4 Ferdinand Buison (1841–1932), director of Primary Education, helped create France’s system of universal and secular primary education in the 1880s. In an article entitled “Laïcité”, published in 1878, he writes: “Ce mot est nouveau et, quoique correctement formé, il n’est pas encore d’un usage courant . . . La laïcité ou neutralité de l’école à tout les degrés n’est autre chose que l’application à l’école du régime qui a prévalu dans toutes nos institutions sociales” (cited in Terral 2007, 257). For more on the doctrine of laïcité, see Laborde (2002) and Bauberot (1998).

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Of particular importance was the removal of religion from the public square for, in their view, it undermined the moral basis of French society and was a permanent impediment to the progress of civilisation. Hence, they sought to replace the conservative teachings of Catholicism with a secular and democratic ethic (Bellah 1973, xxxviii). The late 1870s and early 1880s saw a series of anticlerical legislative reforms and the laicization of primary education. The government created a system of public education that exceeded the Catholic school system, which until the early decades of the 19th century dominated French education. Several measures soon followed the French laic Laws, such as the removal of crucifixes from all public institutions, classrooms and hospitals. To the anticlerical and secularising threats, the Church responded by mobilising its supporters through massive public manifestations of faith, the formation of Catholic syndicats, and the promotion of “the droits de Dieu against the ‘sacrilegious’ pretension of the droits de l’homme” (Harris 2007, 180–181). These tensions reached a climax during the Dreyfus Affair, in 1884, fully consolidating Catholic right-wing solidarity. Anti-Dreyfusars, most of them Catholics, monarchists and anti-Semites, aligned themselves against the Republic. In the context of these confrontations between the Church and the Republic, the doctrine of laïcité emerged victorious, leading to two legislative cornerstones aimed at associational and church-state relations: the Law on Associations (1901) and the Law on the Separation of Church and State in 1905. Under the law of 1901, religious associations were subjected for the first time to the regulations common to all others. This law suppressed or exiled nearly all of the religious orders in France. Both laws resulted in a decisive victory for the supremacy of civil power and republican principles. A secular “public space came into being, for the purpose of governing a religiously and ideologically divided population” (Saunders 2008, 152). Deeply worried about the decline in national unity, Durkheim and other eminent intellectuals of the time sought to “revive the republican project by fundamentally reworking its foundations” (Terrier 2006, 294). One of Durkheim’s key concerns was his attempt to understand and explain the morality required to restore national cohesion. In his view, moral rules were essential conditions of social solidarity and indispensable to the security of the state (1893/1964, 398). Compulsory universal education and symbolic patriotic measures were also deemed essential to bind citizens to the state. Durkheim came to see national


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rituals, ceremonies and symbols “as the key feature of the new integrative system replacing Christianity” (Turner 1990, 347), and moral individualism as the “only system of beliefs which can ensure the moral unity of the country” (Durkheim 1898/1973, 50). For Durkheim, the Republic’s inability to bring cohesion and perhaps even its capacity to endure, were the result of the deep moral crisis corroding the French nation. In his role as Professor of Education at Sorbonne and Advisor to the Ministry of Education, he stressed the need for a new moral code that would promote and restore the social integration of the Third Republic. Following his own idea that “the duties of the individual toward himself are, in reality, duties toward society” (Durkheim 1893/1964, 399), he made explicit that his duty, as a scientist and educator, was to rebuild the Republic on a secular, rational and democratic basis. He became, in fact, the éminence grise behind France’s educational reform. Thus, from early on in his intellectual career, he felt called to go beyond traditional teaching. “He must teach a doctrine, have disciples and not just students, play a role in the social reconstitution of a France wounded in defeat” (in Bellah 1973, xii). Durkheim’s sociology of nationalism and his attempt to encourage and preserve French national self-consciousness are apparent in his teaching, writings, and in his own patriotic efforts during the First World War (Lukes 1973; Mitchell 1990; Wallace 1990, 1973; Giddens 1986; Bellah 1973). But one ought to distinguish his version of nationalism from the one espoused in the 1890s by right-wing conservatives, such as Paul Déroulède, Maurice Barrès and Charles Maurras, who were anti-republicans and found strong allies in the church and in the army. They advocated nationalism based on the “iron union between God and the Fatherland (patrie) [and] abhorred the evils of pacifism and internationalism” (Llobera 1994, 145). While Durkheim had a “strong love of France and of the French tradition”, especially its democratic and humanist values, he rejected narrow nationalism. In fact, he “opposed any teaching which would suggest that France was superior to other nations” (Bellah 1973, xvii). As a prophet of the Third Republic, there is no denying that he lent support to nationalism, but he held a conception of the “historical patrie tempered by a commitment to republican values” (Llobera 1994, 144). The patrie was meant to be the basis for pacifism, internationalism and the values of humanity. National greatness was valued only to the extent that it embodied universal ideals.

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Durkheim defines nationality as “a group of human beings, who for ethical or perhaps merely for historical reasons desire to live under the same laws, and to form a single state . . . when this common desire has been persistently affirmed, it commands respect, and is indeed the only solid basis of a state” (1915, 40). One can speak of a nation when state and nationality “overlap, merge, or are absorbed into one” (Llobera 1994, 147). For Durkheim, to be part of a national community is to be a good patriot and a moral citizen. If citizens are to embrace a republican spirit, they require a particular kind of instruction. Education plays a fundamental role in the inculcation of patriotism, which he defines as “the ideas and feelings as a whole which bind the individual to a certain State” (Durkheim 1950/1992, 73). The school ought to mould the character of its citizens, and prepare every new generation for a life of civic responsibility. Its most fundamental goal is the formation of moral, patriotic citizens (Mitchell 1931/1990, 121; Wallace 1973, 4). Durkheim advocates a secular, moral and, above all, national French education—the French spirit of patriotism should be spread across the land (Durkheim 1925/1961, 3). In his lecture “The Moral Greatness of France and the School of the Future”, delivered in 1916, Durkheim praises the public school system for fulfilling its moral task. The war had proven Frenchmen to be heroic, noble and ready to sacrifice their lives for the nation. The war had shown the “moral greatness of France”. But this idea needed to be engrafted in every heart and fixed in the conscience collective of every French individual, not only in times of crisis, but also in times of peace (Durkheim 1916/1979, 159). Education, at all times, should be infused with moral ideals. To rekindle a patriotic spirit, Durkheim proposes to train students for collective life and future citizenship, and to instill in each child a feeling of “continuity” and belongingness (Mitchell 1931/1990, 122). Young people should be taught to act morally, develop a spirit of self-discipline, cultivate civic virtue and act in the public interest by doing their duty. Durkheim saw in patriotism the civil religion of modern times (Wallace 1990, 220). Durkheim suggests that “when we undertake to secularize moral education, it is not enough to cut out; we must replace” (1925/1961, 11). “We must discover”, he says, “the rational substitutes for those religious notions that for a long time have served as the vehicle for the most essential moral ideas” (ibid., 9). He insists that “the transcendental quality of morality” must be retained by establishing a new sort of religion, not concerned with the salvation of individuals, but rather with universal


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principles of justice and respect for humanity. “Society must . . . have before it an ideal toward which it reaches. It must have some good to achieve, an original contribution to the moral patrimony of mankind” (ibid., 13). While the ideas of the patrie and patriotism are necessary elements for ensuring solidarity with one’s state, this social bond has to be connected to a higher ideal. For, “if the idea of humanity is missing, the result [is] chauvinistic nationalism instead of patriotism” (Chernilo 2008, 38, 2007, 28). We have seen that Rousseau, recognising a socio-political need, designed civil religion to encourage patriotism—a love of the nation and its laws. In contrast, Durkheim found patriotism to be the civil religion of modern times. But in the final analysis, both presented a proposal that required instruction, indoctrination and a measure of state control. The essential difference between the Rousseauan and the Durkheimian approaches is the degree to which the civil religion ideals are accepted voluntarily. For Durkheim, civil religion is a consensual and cultural phenomenon. National pride and patriotic sentiments are conceived as grassroots phenomena. In Rousseau’s model, by contrast, civil religion is a state ideology imposed from above. Moral Individualism: A World Civil Religion For Durkheim, the malaise of modernity, or its “sick condition”, was the result of the profound structural changes that had occurred in a very short period of time (social and religious differentiation, increasing moral density and a highly differentiated division of labour). In The Division of Labour, he laments that “our faith has been troubled; tradition has lost its sway; individual judgment has been freed from collective judgment.” Institutional functions have been “disrupted” and have not had time to adjust. The organisation of the new social life has been unable to fulfil “the need for justice which has grown more ardent in our hearts” (1893/1964, 408–9). The fulfilment of this need is a moral task proper to the state. In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, he notes that he may have resolved “one of the gravest conflicts” of modernity, a conflict that would have been unthinkable to the ancient world: that is, the tension between two “equally high-minded kinds of sentiment”—those toward a particular nation and the State that represents it, and those that express the human ideal and humanity in general. If the idea of divided loyalties

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never occurred to pre-modern individuals, it was because one cult alone was permitted—this was the “cult of the State, whose public religion was but the symbolic form of the State” (1950/1992, 72). Durkheim conceives the state as the guardian of public morality. But morals do not exist a priori in the individual conscience. They are the “product” of society and have strength only insofar as society itself is stable and organised (ibid., 74). Thus, the state cannot be just “a spectator of social life (as liberals would have it)” (ibid., 72). As the organ of moral discipline, it “must be present in all spheres of social life and make itself felt” (ibid., 65). While it must be an effective “organising centre”, for its role is to regulate social life, the state has a nobler moral mission—the protection and advancement of moral individualism. A democratic state, Durkheim argues, has moral authority only to the degree that it guarantees and advances the self-realisation, the dignity and the rights of the individual. This is the essence of its moral function. Durkheim predicts a transformation of the sacred in modern society. The profound social and structural changes that had taken place would also affect the way the sacred is experienced. He envisions that the sacred will eventually be located within the individual. Social solidarity and integration in the modern world will consist of the bonds between increasingly interdependent yet autonomous individuals. This type of integration, finds its expression in “individualized symbols of the sacred” (Beckford 1989, 26). In modern society, the conscience collective is more diffused, leaving an “open place for a growing multitude of individual differences”, but there is one belief that has become strengthened and universalised—the sacredness attributed to the individual. The individual, Durkheim notes, is becoming “the object of a sort of religion” (Durkheim 1893/1964, 172). The human person has come to share the “transcendent majesty” and the religious respect that all churches “lend to their gods” (1898/1973, 46). The creation of this world religion, which he variously called the “religion of humanity”, the “religion of the individual”, the “cult of man”, or “moral individualism”, was of the utmost importance, for sooner rather than later “members of a single social group will have nothing in common among themselves except their humanity, except the constitutive attributes of the human person (personne humaine) in general.” This modern form of individualism originates from a desire for greater justice and from “sympathy for all that is human”


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(Durkheim 1898/1973, 51, 48–49). Durkheim was optimistic that moral individualism would become the basis of the “moral catechism” of modernity, the source of a new morality. He even admits the possibility that the religion of humanity would eventually replace all other religions (1898/1973, 48). The crucial problem of moral authority in modern society can be found in the “confrontation of egoism and moral individualism” (Giddens 1986, 11). Durkheim concedes that some varieties of liberalism are egoistic and threaten the common good by encouraging the individual to be self-seeking and self-interested. Moral individualism has to be distinguished from the “utilitarian egoism of Spencer and of the economists”, which reduces society “to nothing more than a vast apparatus of production and exchange”. By contrast, moral individualism involves a morality of cooperation and a profound respect for humanity. It is not the “glorification” of the self, but of the human individual in abstracto (Durkheim 1898/1973, 44, 48). Each person is the repository of the sacred and the symbol of modern morality. Moral individualism, at its “most abstract level”, refers to humanity in general rather than to individuals of any particular nation-state (Giddens 1986, 21). It stresses “freedom and dignity, not happiness, as highest social ends” (Terrier 2006, 294). Durkheim acknowledges that religious institutions have been gradually losing social and political power. Yet, he does not claim that the “functions which had traditionally been fulfilled by religion [are] also in decline” (Beckford 1989, 26). While religion’s influence has diminished, it will never completely wither away. Religion has for him a permanent and universal existence. It is an essential feature of any human society. But religion is not static; “the religion of yesterday” cannot be that “of tomorrow” (Durkheim 1898/1973, 51). So no matter what form religion may take, societies will continue to possess a moral and religious foundation. The resurgence of a universal religion will become a reality once the “moral mediocrity” and the “moral cold” of the modern age are overcome. He was indeed hopeful that local nationalism will eventually be replaced by internationalism, or by the “religion of humanity” (Giner 1993, 32; Wallace 1973, 9). Durkheim proposes a secular and universal view of social integration. Societies should aim for a higher ideal leading up to more justice and to the elimination of “external inequalities which are the source of . . . evil” (1893/1964, 409).

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Central to Durkheim’s thesis is the idea that patriotism and a universal religion of humanity are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they are linked together in a reciprocal fashion. While it is true that French citizens have obligations to France that they do “not have the right to cast off ”, it is equally certain that beyond France, there is another patrie “in the process of formation, enveloping our national country: that of Europe, or humanity” (in Lukes 1973, 350). For it is not national but “human aims that are destined to be supreme” (Durkheim 1950/1992, 73). It would be “a cause for despair”, he writes, “if one were condemned to think of patriotism only in terms of putting France above all” (in Lukes 1973, 546). By linking members of a particular society with humanity in general, each particular nation-state would serve as the agency through which the human ideal will be put into effect. Durkheim, in short, expresses the need to move beyond narrow nationalism so as to bring into accord “national patriotism with world patriotism”. Patriotic and national sentiments act as a “stepping-stone to internationalism” (Wallace 1990, 222). Nationalism per se is neither evil nor should it be rejected. There is nothing wrong with having national pride, “nothing can be more warranted”. But societies can have their pride not on account of their power but rather for “being the most just, the best organized” and for exhibiting “the best moral constitution” (Durkheim 1950/1992, 75). By conceiving the nation as the “partial embodiment of the idea of humanity”, Durkheim “harnessed” the idea of national pride “to the . . . general ideals of humanity”(Giddens 1971, 101, fn23). He also pointed in the direction of a global culture, in which “all men [would] form one society, subject to the same laws” (1893/1964, 405). In so doing, he “anticipated the modern debate about republicanism, patriotism and cosmopolitanism by almost a century” (Turner 2006, 141). Nationalism and International Relations Durkheim advocates distinguishing cultural nationalism from political nationalism. The latter, in his view, is best illustrated by the German case. He denounces German nationalism as “pathological”, “immoral” and indicative of a “tribal or pagan” mentality. In Germany, the state was conceived entirely as a system of power, not as a moral entity, whereby national interests were placed above the idea of humanity (Wallace 1990, 221; Llobera 1994, 154). This conception he sees expressed in the works


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of German intellectuals, like Heinrich von Treitschke, the historian and political writer, whom Durkheim conceives as “a typical representative of German collective ideas and sentiments” (Llobera 1994, 152). Applauding the rising power of Germany, Treitschke argued that the power of the state should acknowledge no constraints and pursue its ambitions through war. The state is essentially power and is above “morality” and “international law.” Because war is inevitable and necessary, the state has every right to become strong, and make full use of its power, for otherwise it would be absorbed by other states. In contrast, for Durkheim state sovereignty is relative. It is dependent on a variety of moral forces, public opinion and international treatises. The state cannot be above morality. Rather, it is the centre of morality. Its primary objective is to lay the foundations for justice and fraternity among human beings. Its grandeur follows from the strength of its moral obligations (Llobera 1994, 153–156; Giddens 1986, 22–23). In Durkheim’s view, German nationalism violated the principles of internationalism, and the morality that ought to regulate modern international relations. A truly progressive and democratic state is part of the “totality of other states . . . it is part of the great human community” (1915, 45). Durkheim was hopeful that if all the nations of the world developed a global human consciousness, international relations would be more effective. The national state, as a moral agency, should be the champion of individual rights, and be “a special point of view on humanity” (in Mitchell 1931/1990, 122). For only the state “has sufficient authority and collective power to create and protect individual rights” (Turner 1992, xxxiii). The state is “the organ of moral discipline” (Durkheim 1950/1992, 72). A Global Community and Universal Morality The idea of a decline of national difference and the eventual formation of a supra-national community is a recurrent theme in Durkheim’s writings.5 In his course “The Teaching of Morality in the Primary School”,

5 It is interesting to note that Rousseau and Bellah also envisioned a world where egoistic principles could be transcended. Rousseau advocates the idea of a universal general will of humanity (MacFarlane 1970, 109), while Bellah argues that the world community needs “a global concord” for its survival—a global order of civility and justice. He alludes to a “transnational sovereignty”, that would require the “incorporation

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he argues for the “possibility of a non-exclusive patriotism committed to internationalist ideals”. In “Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism”, he insists that national ideals should be broadened and universalised (Lukes 1973, 118, 350). And in his lecture “Civic Morals”, he returns once more to the idea of a universal morality, based on the dignity of the human person, insisting that no matter how much individuals may be attached to their native lands, “they all today are aware that beyond the forces of national life there are others . . . unrelated to conditions peculiar to any given political group” (Durkheim 1950/1992, 72). Durkheim’s lectures, in short, show a “concern for the problems of global social order and a form of government which might ultimately transcend the limitations of the nation-state” (Turner 1992, xxxi). Particularly before the war, he was optimistic that internationalism would eventually triumph and the national conscience collective would be substituted with a universal conscience collective. The modern individual would break free of “local” or “ethnic” chains and rise above particular interests so as to approach “the universal”. Although in later writings Durkheim’s optimism seemed to have waned, he remained hopeful that “it is the tendency of patriotism to become, as it were, a fragment of world patriotism” (1950/1992, 72, 75. See Giddens 1986, 22). In short, he envisions the religion of humanity as a universal and powerful integrative force. It falls upon the state to “organize the cult, to be the head of it and to ensure its regular working and development”. While the state is to be the head, the new religion of humanity “transcends” the state and any particular nation, and must be recognised by states, nations and individuals alike. Thus, the role of each state is not to prove its power and expand its frontiers, but to fulfil their obligations to humanity. He further adds, “if the State had no other purpose than making men of its citizens, in the widest sense of the term, then civil duties would be only a particular form of the general obligations of humanity” (Durkheim 1950/1992, 70, 74). Individuals, he writes, “have long dreamt of finally realizing . . . the ideal of human fraternity”, when international relations will no longer be governed by war, when relations between nation-states will be of vital international symbolism into our civil religion, or, perhaps . . . it would result in American civil religion becoming simply one part of a new civil religion of the world” (1967, 18), which would include and “transcend” American ethical commitments and values (Bellah 1980, xiv).


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“pacifically regulated”, when collaboration between societies will be the norm, and when they will be “subject to the same laws” so that we can all “live the same life” (1893/1964, 405). He recognises that this ideal is far from being realised, for this new morality, the one that is “necessary to us is only in the process of formation” (ibid., 409). Yet, he hoped that societies, at least “of the same type”, would carry the ideal of human fraternity. “If the formation of a single human society is forever impossible, a fact that has not been proved, at least the formation of continually larger societies brings us vaguely near the goal.” Before the First World War, he was confident that European nations were moving in the proper direction, for there was a “spontaneous” tendency to form a European society (ibid., 405–406). In short, Durkheim affirms simultaneously the love for one’s country (the national ideal) and the love for humanity (the human ideal). In so doing he attempts to reconcile the allegiance to a particular nation-state with the requisite of universality. There is no fundamental opposition between the two discourses. Rather, they complement each other. As Giddens (1986, 29) notes, there is a “basic compatibility, in the modern world, between national ideals, patriotism, and the growth of a pan-national community” (see also Spitz 2005, 26; Wallace 1990, 221). Durkheim thus remains convinced that even the modern, atomic individual needs a common religion, and locates this common faith in the need for greater justice and sympathy for humanity. “Just as ancient peoples needed, above all, a common faith to live by, so we need justice . . . this need will become ever more exacting” (Durkheim 1893/1964, 388). Civil Religion and State Power The authoritarian conceptualisation of the state, as an organ of moral discipline, does not seem to have troubled Durkheim. He assumes that the state always acts in the collective interest. But the state is not an abstract entity. It is organised and run by political elites, by real human beings, exercising real power. Unfortunately, political reality points at human imperfections and failures. As Rousseau once observed, “man” is a creature often full of vices and always full of faults (1762b/1974, 333). Moreover, the state at times might itself act amorally, as it did in France during the Dreyfus affair (Lukes 1973, 334). Durkheim fails to acknowledge the potential coercive power of the state, or the possibility

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of state oppression. He does not take into account that the morality of a particular state today may be considered criminal tomorrow or the morality of one group may be condemned by others (e.g., Pinochet in Chile, Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, Apartheid in South Africa). From Durkheim’s standpoint, what determines the lack of state despotism is the existence of other independent sources of institutional power that can counteract the potential coercive power of the state. The state becomes coercive only when other institutional structures are not fully developed, i.e., they do not have enough autonomy. Hence, state absolutism is either not a “problem” or significantly “limited” by the presence of professional and occupational associations that act as a bridge between the individual and the state. As Turner observes, while for Durkheim the danger of political despotism could be avoided by the presence of intermediary associations, there was still the problem of political loyalty. How could loyalty to the state be built and reinforced? Durkheim’s answer is simple. Political commitment naturally comes through patriotism. Patriotism reinforces the ties binding each individual to others, and to the state. Patriotism is a civil religion, where the object of veneration is the nation and the state. Thus, “it is possible to talk about a ‘cult of the state’ in which citizens are, as it were, the worshipers” (Turner 1992, xxxiv–xxxv). Durkheim’s reluctance to reject all patriotism as national egotism and chauvinism has been used as evidence of his narrow-minded nationalist philosophy. The idea of professional associations also “left him open to the charge . . . of proto-fascist tendencies” (Llobera 1994, 139–141). Yet to accuse him of heralding totalitarian nationalism is to ignore Durkheim’s writings on this issue. And, as Llobera has noted, it is also to ignore the central place that human values had for Durkheim in modern society. Indeed, several distinguished scholars have refuted the charge that Durkheim’s political thought is inherently conservative. This portrayal has been based on “selective misreading” of his writings (Lukes 1973; Bellah 1973; Giddens 1986). The depiction of Durkheim as an anti-liberal, “right-wing nationalist, a spiritual ally of Charles Maurras and a forerunner of twentiethcentury nationalism, even fascism” (Lukes 1973, 338), reflects an inadequate understanding of the whole of his work (Bellah 1973; see also Pearce 2001). Still, there are some obvious problems and even contradictions in his theory, especially if we consider the role he assigns to the state


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for moulding patriotic citizens. Social integration is not so spontaneous after all, nor is it the sense of belonging or the moral bond attaching citizens to the collectivity and the state. Certain sentiments necessary for the social order require reinforcement, not only through civil rituals, but also through a strong État Educateur. The idea of a national (moral) community has to be inculcated, taught and transmitted from generation to generation. Individuals are induced to acquire civic responsibilities by a moral authority exercised by the state. Durkheim insists that the moment education turns into an “essentially social function, the State cannot but be interested in it”. In fact, “all that is educational must to some degree be subordinate to its action” (Durkheim 1938/1986, 177). He acknowledges the role political leaders play in fostering the growth of religious feelings within their states. This leaves open the possibility that in some national contexts, religious allegiance might be coerced. Moreover, stressing the “sacred” character of the nation may lead to fanatical devotion to a particular collectivity and, by the same token, encourage hostility to other collectivities, nations or states. It also leaves open the possibility of any society “setting itself up as god or for creating gods”. Durkheim admits this happened during the early years of the French Revolution. Ideas that were purely secular in nature were transformed overnight into “sacred things”. A religion emerged that had its altars, rituals, symbols, dogmas and even a holy calendar. Yet, it was shortlived “because the patriotic enthusiasm which at first transported the masses soon relaxed” (1912/1961, 244–245). Durkheim recognises that this is a specific case in which France, the nation and its revolutionary ideas became the object of a cult. History teaches us that it was not to be the last case (see Cristi 2001). Although there is little doubt that Durkheim’s brand of nationalism is pacifist, humanitarian and anti-militaristic, it may lead, whether intentionally or not, to an aggressive type of national chauvinism. National self-glorification is a dangerous tool in the hands of leaders with a specific agenda. It may foster the rejection of national minority groups or even encourage international aggression. This helps explain why some authors have argued that Durkheim’s conception of the nation and the state “came dangerously close to the very thing he condemned” (Schoffeleers 1978, 14). It may also be the reason why some people reject the notion of a civil religion, “out of fear that symbols of transcendence will be perverted to the uses of the state” (Novak 1992,

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302). This brings us to an issue of profound political resonance—the use of civil religion as an instrumental political ideology. Civil Religion as a Political Resource Given the power of the civil religion to mobilise political support on the grounds of faith, and given the fact that the nation is endowed with sacred attributes, it should come as no surprise that the religious authority conferred by civil religion may be used for a great variety of political programmes and nationalist agendas. Leaders may employ the machinery of the state (the presidency, political speeches, solemn occasions) or other instruments of coercion (legislation, the judicial and police systems, and education) to pressure people to display patriotism or support for a particular course of action. The symbols, rituals and principles of a civic faith may be manipulated to legitimise the existing political order and inspire loyalty among political subordinates and allies (Cristi and Dawson 2007, 277). Or, political leaders may shape their understanding of civil religion to advance their own political agendas, or as a means for sustaining and encouraging special sectarian interests (Parsons 2004, 861). Yet, the acknowledgment of the political potential of civil religion has been either limited or largely ignored. Only a few scholars have pursued the idea that civil religion “may be both a spontaneous grassroots phenomenon and a consciously imposed creed manufactured by political leaders” (Cristi and Dawson 2007, 278). Stjepan Meštrović rightly argues that civil religion is not “bona fide religion nor ordinary patriotism”. Rather, “it is a new alloy formed by blending religion with nationalism” (1993, 125). Fascism, for example, used religion’s symbolism and rhetoric as a legitimising tool to draw Italians to its values (Parsons 2004). Under Fascism, Italian civil religion, “pushed nationalism to its very limit, to a totalitarian nationalism, in which humanity and the individual disappear and nothing remains but the nationality, which has become the one and the whole” (Kohn 1944/1967, 20). Franco in Spain and Pinochet in Chile did something similar. Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War were presented as fighting heresy and atheistic communism. Likewise, the Chilean coup d’etat has been aptly referred to as “Le Coup Divin”, because of the equation of its rule with the will of God (Bastien 1974). The democratically elected government of Salvador Allende was destroyed in the name of a holy war against atheistic Marxism. Pinochet, through


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a systematic campaign of intimidation and propaganda, “was cast as a messianic figure, the saviour of Chilean democracy and the Catholic faith” (Cristi and Dawson 2007, 280). But the use of civil religion as a political resource should not be associated only with totalitarian regimes. Democratic societies also employ the machinery of the state to encourage patriotism and national solidarity. In the United States, for example, despite claims that American civil religion is differentiated from politics (Gehrig 1981; Coleman 1969), both Republicans and Democrats “use a civil religious discourse to frame their political visions” (Demerath and Williams 1985, 160). During the McCarthy era and the Nixon presidency, civil religion was used as a state tool—against the so-called red menace, in the former case, and in defence of the Vietnam War in the latter. The war was justified and legitimised “by appeals to the principles of American civil religion” (Rouner 1986, 137). More recently, President George W. Bush, particularly during his first term in office, consistently used a religious discourse to legitimise the war on terrorism. Furthermore, Sheldon Ungar (1991) has convincingly shown the link between civil religion and politics in the United States in the context of the nuclear arms race before the collapse of the communist bloc. Not surprisingly, civil religion tends to change in tone and shades depending on specific contingent political realities. In periods of “creedal passion” (Huntington 1981), civil religion is more “pronounced” bordering always on nationalism (Minkenberg 1997, 65). It may even burst into spontaneous collective patriotic fervour in “response to real or imagined threats” to national security, only to be submerged again into the national subconsciousness (Canipe 2003, 306). In short, it seems “beyond dispute” that the religious discourse “can be employed by the state to mask and sometimes advance raw power” (Goldzwig 2002, 109). Thus, the contention that civil religion is not “an ideology intended to reinforce the authority of the state or cast a halo over institutions” (Bellah 1976, 167), or that it is “an outlet neither for propaganda nor factional ideology within a state” (Bennet 1979, 112 n14), does not always hold ground. I am not arguing that all civil religious rhetoric is always cynically used and manipulated for personal gains or votes. What I postulate is that governments and political leaders may use (and even abuse) civil religion as a political resource. “God-talk” may become at times a resource harnessed at will to serve national or political interests. This would also contradict the claim that civil religion

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“is primarily a cultural phenomenon, and only secondarily a matter relating to government” (West 1980, 29). Whether it leans primarily toward a cultural (the Durkheimian model) or a political type (the Rousseauan approach) depends on the time, place and a host of other social and political factors. The Link Between Civil Religion and Nationalism All nationalisms involve a state ideology, a sacralisation of the national culture, a “spiritual core” and an ideology that justifies it (Mead 1974, 59). The nation, as one of the most powerful “repositories of symbols”, comes to have religious significance and even “replace religious institutions” in the collective consciousness of the people (Marty 1974, 140). One hardly needs to be reminded that Hayes (1960) has called nationalism “a religion”. What Hayes characterises under “nationalism: a religion” bears a strong resemblance to any discussion of civil religion. Nationalism, like all traditional religions, has its myths and its dogmas. It has a god—the “god of a chosen people”. Nationalism involves “not simply the will, but the intellect, the imagination, and the emotions” of the people. Like other religions, it is eminently social, and its central rituals and public ceremonies are essential for binding the collectivity together. Its “driving force is a collective faith, a faith in its mission and destiny” (Hayes 1960, 164–65; see also Hudson 1970).6 Despite evidence indicating that civil religion provides an ideological framework for nationalism, American scholars, in particular, have repeatedly denied this claim. They have been anxious to separate civil religion from self-serving nationalism. Only a few scholars, and often not sociologists, have acknowledged that civil religion is or may be the worship of the nation and that it can be equated with national selfglorification (Richardson 1974). Some have acknowledged the threat posed by civil religion of becoming a self-glorifying and politically useful nationalism, “as it does when a particular regime or policy is defended in civil religious terms as an absolute, unquestionable good” (Wuthnow 1994, 131). However, American scholars, in general, have insisted that civil religion does not mean “worship of the state or nation” (Mead 1974, 61) and that it is not a form of national 6 For more on the question of nationalism, see Hobsbawm (1990), Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983), Gellner (1983), Kohn (1944/1967).


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self-worship (Bellah 1970, 168; 1967, 18). It is neither “intrinsically idolatrous” (Hughes 1980, 76), nor is it “the same as the glorification of the status quo” or the “absolutising of the ‘American way of Life’ ” (Novak 1992, 144). In short, most scholars of American civil religion have taken the position, advanced by Sidney Mead, that civil religion in America “is not to be equated with crass American nationalism” (Wilson 1974, 119). Despite these claims, the two notions are connected in more ways than scholars are willing to recognise. In fact, civil religion is so close to the spirit of nationalism that it is somehow difficult to extricate the two.7 Even Bellah (1974, 257) has recognised that American civil religion can be idolatrous at times. But he suggests that this happens “when the gap between the nation and its ideals is closed, so that the dimension of transcendence is lost and America falls into laudatory self-congratulation”. Bellah assumes that when the gap is closed, it is a misuse of civil religion. Thus, “Richard Nixon . . . misuse[d] civil religion; but Abraham Lincoln and John Kennedy used it properly” (Richardson 1974, 164).8 Insofar as there is a “pathology”, it is not found in civil religion per se, but rather in the unscrupulous behaviour of those responsible for its proper functioning. Who decides though if civil religion is well used or misused? As Richardson rightly notes, the misuse of civil religion is not merely the result of some individuals using it improperly. Rather, such misuse is very likely to be engendered by “the very structure of civil religion itself ” (1974, 164). Thus, national self-glorification is not civil religion’s error but the unavoidable manifestation of civil religion itself. For example, civil religion in the United States includes the belief that America is the new Israel and tends to ascribe sacred meanings to secular symbols and national myths. Quasi-religious claims (both implicit and explicit) are made about American national character, about the validity of America’s actions, and its place in history and in the world. In short, it is a celebration of the nation’s culture and way of life (Wilson 1971; Richey and Jones 1974). These claims certainly

7 It is worth noting that the Social Sciences and Humanity Index does not have a single entry on civil religion until 1979. Starting in 1980–1981, civil religion is listed as “Religion” with a reference to “see also Nationalism and Religion”. Only in 1993–1994 does the term become its own subject heading. 8 For more on Nixon’s civil religion, see Henderson (1972), Wimberley (1980), Donahue (1975).

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are important components of cultural nationalism.9 They provide the most fundamental assumptions on which the nation and its political order are legitimated. National and religious sentiments are thus “fused” and nationalism itself turns into a “religion or a substitute for religion” (Hayes 1960, 10). In the final analysis, it is hard to distinguish civil religion, at least in its cultural form, from cultural nationalism. Both stress collective identity, both refer to the ethos of a people, and both are a “state of mind” (Kohn 1944/1967, 10). The Evolutionary Fallacy Authors such as John Coleman (1969) and Donald Jones and Russell Richey (1974) assume that only certain forms, i.e., less “advanced” types of civil religion, may be responsible for bolstering a nationalist ideology, or give rise to the “religion of patriotism” (Jones and Richey 1974, 16). Coleman claims that civil religions in Western society exhibit three evolutionary phases: undifferentiated, secular nationalism and differentiated. Undifferentiated, the most “primitive” type, can be either state-sponsored or church-sponsored, as in State Shintō in Japan in the 1800s, or in cases where the church performs the role of civil religion. Secular nationalism is illustrated by the former Soviet Union, Turkey under Atatürk, whereby nationalism came to serve as civil religion replacing Islam, and France during the French Revolution. The third phase corresponds to a civil religion differentiated from both church and state. The United States, in Coleman’s view, uniquely illustrates the case of a differentiated civil religion, representing the most advanced stage of religious evolution. Its “peculiar genius”, he claims, is to be “general enough” to embrace all religions and peoples and yet “specific” enough to provide a “clear statement of the role and destiny” of every American as a citizen and of the nation in relation to questions “of ultimate meaning and existence” (Coleman 1969, 70–75; see also Bellah 1980).

9 I make a distinction between cultural and political nationalism. The former refers to loyalty or devotion to one’s nation and cultural traditions. The latter politicises the sense of national consciousness. It is territorial and exclusionary and it requires active participation of the state. It exalts one nation above all others, and places primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supranational groups. Similarly, Turner (2001, 149–50) distinguishes between “liberal and iliberal” versions of nationalism. The former expresses “cultural identity”, the latter is nothing more than a nationalist political movement.


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Coleman recognises the dangers inherent in “less advanced” civil religions—the danger that civil and religious liberties of minorities will be jeopardised, the failure to provide national symbols that would integrate minority groups and the undue pressures exerted on them. But what he attributes to undifferentiated types of civil religion (exclusion of minorities, clash of loyalties etc.) are problems endemic to any civil religion, American civil religion included. For instance, it is doubtful that Americans of African and Native American descent ever subscribed to the “history of salvation” designed by the Americans of European descent: “what is seen by the latter as a journey to the promised land was to the former the way to a profoundly degrading life of slavery” (Schoffeleers 1978, 20). The problematic exclusion of religious or ethnic minorities is not to be found in the evolutionary phases of civil religion. Rather, it is more a result of the structural characteristics of civil religion itself, and of the pluralist nature of most modern nation-states, which embrace a variety of ethnic groups that do not share a common historical past or common values. The history that civil religion interprets and represents is often the history of the dominant culture. Moreover, by linking only “less evolved” civil religions to nationalism, Coleman fails to realise that any civil religion, at any stage of its evolution, may be used for political purposes, encourage national chauvinistic tendencies and engender division rather than unity. Simply put, the nationalist impetus may come to dominate the rhetoric, ideals and values of the discourse of any civil religion. The revival of conservative religious groups in America, for example, is a case in point. Conservative Protestantism not only shrouds its political claims in nationalist terms, but connects “the a priori approval of the Almighty with the actions of the American body politic” (Demerath and Williams 1985, 164–65; see also Wuthnow 1988). Thus, even in the United States, the political linkage is never missing nor the potential for manipulation. Peter Berger’s suggestion that America has produced a political religion that resembles more a “national ideology than a transcendent religion” seems to me quite correct (Gehrig 1981, 60).10 Leo Pfeffer has stated that “idealistically, not realistically”, it is true, as Bellah has 10

Berger distinguishes two forms of American religion. Cultural religion is based on shared American values and serves to reinforce cultural integration. Political religion, a manifestation of cultural religion, but within the polity, performs the function of social control (Berger 1961, 39–72).

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repeatedly insisted, “American civil religion is not the worship of the American nation but an understanding of the American experience in the light of ultimate universal reality.” He reflects, however, that “the more civil religion is used to pursue national purposes, the less true [Bellah’s claim] will . . . be” (Pfeffer 1968, 364). It should be underlined that the emphasis on the instrumental aspect of civil religion—a national ideology to pursue national or political goals—by no means prevents understanding civil religion as culture-bound, i.e., loyalties and ideas expressed in everyday life concerning a people’s identity, values, and traditions. Clearly, the concept of civil religion touches the “tangential but no less important issue of nationalism” (Demerath 1994, 114). But, paradoxically, while other systems of beliefs such as communism and fascism have been included in the literature as types of civil religion, nationalism per se has not. As belief systems, both civil religion and nationalism provide identity, meaning and purpose for the collectivity. Both define the way the group conceives of itself, its historic past and future aspirations. Both attempt to mobilise feelings of collective belonging and civic loyalty, and provide the essential definition of who the chosen ones are—“who belongs to the nation and who does not” (Wuthnow 1994, 131). True, civil religion’s nationalist tendencies may be attenuated or aggravated in response to particular national and historical conditions. They may also be dependent on, or vary according to, a particular political regime (democratic and undemocratic) and the appropriation of the civil religious discourse by politically powerful individuals. Civil religion, thus, may vary in its political, religious or nationalistic intensity, depending on a society’s particular history and social and political circumstances. Perhaps this is the reason why civil religious endeavours are “episodic” (Marty 1974), “with periods of weakness and ultimate failure, although not necessarily total disappearance” (Markoff and Regan 1982, 348). Linking religion proper with nationalism is by no means a novel idea. From its beginnings in Western Europe, nationalism has been conceived as having some of the qualities of religion (Hayes 1960, 164). Social scientists have long been aware of the alliance between national consciousness and religion (Hobsbawm 1990, 124), and of the close connection that appears to exist between nationalist and religious movements. Both are essentially cultural forces with profound


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political resonance (Kohn 1944/1967, 23). Yet, the linkage between civil religion and nationalism has not received similar attention. Conclusion Turner is correct in arguing that Durkheim’s cosmopolitan vision not only challenged the nationalist current of his day (2006, 133), but also expressed the tension between a “global science of humanity and a ‘local’ discipline in the service of the nation-state” (1990, 344). The counter argument that Durkheim was not concerned with the problems of global social order, is indeed difficult to sustain. If some contemporary scholars continue to portray Durkheim’s legacy as lacking a global dimension, this is due in large part to a simplistic and misleading reading of his overall body of work. The result has been the perpetuation of Durkheim’s portrayal as the archetypal conservative thinker whose sociology was primarily concerned with problems of order and stability affecting the French nation and hence as inevitably “wedded” to methodological nationalism (Inglis and Robertson 2008, 6). As the above discussion suggests, Durkheim’s political sociology, his formulation of the basis of modern morality and social solidarity, should be read as embracing both national and global ideals. First, by linking the notions of patriotism and nationalism with that of cosmopolitanism, his social theory transcends the particularity of national loyalties and nation-states. From his perspective, to borrow James Joyce’s words, “in the particular is contained the universal” (cited in Keohane 2008, 278). Second, the sacredness he attributes to the individual and the inviolability of human rights highlight moral values that apply to humanity in general. If individuals have the right to individual respect, it is because they “partake of humanity” (Durkheim 1898/1973, 48). It is thus humanity that is sacred and worthy of respect not a particular individual. Each of us embodies something “divine”. This idea of the “human person” as sacred and divine is universal “unalterable and impersonal”. Third, Durkheim came to see moral individualism not simply as a key feature of the process of modernisation, but as a new religion fulfilling the growing need for the core values of modernity—freedom, humanism and egalitarianism. Durkheim is aware that the modern diversity of values, beliefs and individual experiences defies the capacity of traditional religions to unite whole societies into moral communities. Thus, he anticipates a new faith, a new body of collective beliefs, endowed

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with the necessary moral authority required to safeguard a universal order of civility, human rights and justice. In addition, Durkheim’s notion of how the religious phenomenon is produced remains instructive and relevant to contemporary sociological analysis. From his point of view, phenomena held to be religious consist of collective representations that render aspects of group identity sacred. Collective beliefs, rituals and practices inevitably assume a religious character, for the “sacred principle” is nothing other than society or the collectivity “transfigured and personified” (Durkheim 1912/1961, 388). If this is the case, civil religion (in its Durkheimian form) may develop in any context—local, national or international—as long as it involves a measure of sacralisation sufficient to establish its presence.11 Furthermore, his predictions of the restructuring of the sacred, the emergence of a global conscience collective and the globalisation of human rights have proven to be correct. In the West, “rights talk” has come to dominate social and political discourse. The human person has indeed become the carrier of inalienable rights and dignity, and has thus acquired a sacred status. To be sure, the twentieth century witnessed a world in which nationalistic passions, fierce inter-ethnic hostility and religious warfare seemed to have been far more salient than internationalism. Yet, the globalisation of human rights, the recent shifts from national to international rights and laws, the emergence of environmentalism and other global movements, such as Doctors Without Borders, Green Peace and Amnesty International lend support to Durkheim’s vision of a universalistic notion of humanity (Casanova 2001. See Featherstone 1990, 6–7, Robertson 1990, 27). Finally, I have addressed in this chapter two important issues that, in my opinion, deserve more serious attention. First, the bulk of the literature fails to note the crucial theoretical distinction between the version of civil religion influenced by Durkheim and that proposed by Rousseau. The former emphasises shared values as the bond of society, and focuses on the use of civil religion to promote a non-coercive societal integration. The latter model, by contrast, stresses domination within society and focuses on the manipulation of civil religion in the context of power imbalances and political interests. Second, despite 11

This has not always been understood by students of civil religion. The tendency has been to equate civil religion with a national religion or religious tradition. For an illustration of a civil religion applied locally, see Parsons (2002, 2004). The author examines and interprets various Sienese expressions of civil religion.


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repeated claims that civil religion and nationalism are not connected, I have attempted to demonstrate that there is a close affinity between these two notions. Whether or not one finds this relationship distressing, depends on the type of nationalism the civil religious rhetoric advocates; that is, whether it ceases to be a “soft” cultural phenomenon binding people together through collective rituals and practices, to become a state-managed and state-planned political tool, where a “hard”, divisive and even xenophobic ideology is imposed on citizens to serve national or ethnic interests. In either case, the Durkheimian-Rousseauan axis is valuable for explaining this shift. References Bastien, Ovide. 1974. Le coup Divin. Montreal: Editions du Jour. Bauberot, Jean 1998. La Laïcité française et ses mutations. Social Compass 45(1): 175–187. Beck, Ulrich. 2000. What Is Globalization? Cambridge: Polity Press. Beckford, James A. 1989. Religion and Advanced Industrial Society. London: Unwin Hyman. Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil Religion in America. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 96, 1–21. —— 1970. Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-Traditional World. New York: Harper and Row. —— 1973. Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —— 1974. American Civil Religion in the 1970s. In American Civil Religion, eds. Russell B. Richey and Donald G. Jones, 255–278. New York: Harper and Row. —— 1976. Comment on Bellah and the New Orthodoxy. Sociological Analysis, 37, (2), 167–68. —— 1980. Introduction to Varieties of Civil Religion by Robert N. Bellah and Phillip E. Hammond, vii–xv. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Bennett, Lance W. 1975. Political Sanctification: The Civil Religion and American Politics. Social Science Information, 14 (6), 79–102. —— 1979. Imitation, ambiguity, and drama in public life: civil religion and the dilemmas of public morality. Journal of Politics, 41, 106–33. Berger, Peter L. 1961. The Noise of Solemn Assemblies. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor. Canipe, Lee. 2003. Under God and Anti-Communist: How the Pledge of Allegiance Got Religion in Cold War America. Journal of Church and State, 45, 2 (Spring), 305–23. Casanova, Jose. 2001. 2000 Presidential Address: Religion, the New Millennium, and Globalization. Sociology of Religion, 62, 4, 415–41. Chernilo, Daniel. 2006. Social Theory’s Methodological Nationalism: Myth and Reality. European Journal of Social Theory, 9(1):5–22. —— 2007. A Quest for Universalism: Re-assessing the Nature of Classical Social Theory’s Cosmopolitanism. European Journal of Social Theory 10(1):17–35. —— 2008. Classical Sociology and the Nation-State. Journal of Classical Sociology, 8(1): 27–43.

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Coleman, John A. 1969. Civil Religion. Sociological Analysis 30, 1, 67–77. Cristi, Marcela. 2001. From Civil To Political Religion. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Cristi, Marcela and Lorne L. Dawson (2007). Civil Religion in America and in Global Context. In The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion James A. Beckford and N.J. Demerath III eds., 267–292 London: Sage. Demerath III., N.J. 1994. The Moth and the Flame: Religion and Power in Comparative Blur. Sociology of Religion, 55 (2), 105–17. Demerath, N.J. and Rhys H. Williams. 1985. Civil Religion in an Uncivil Society. Annals of the American Academy, 480, 154–65. Donahue, Bernard F. 1975. The Political Use of Religious Symbols: A Case Study of the 1972 Presidential Campaign. The Review of Politics, 37 (1), 48–65. Durkheim, Emile. 1893/1964. The Division of Labour in Society. Trans. by G. Simpson. New York: Free Press. —— 1898/1973. Individualism and the Intellectuals. In Emile Durkheim: On Morality and Society, ed. Robert N. Bellah, 43–57. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —— 1912/1961. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Trans. Joseph Ward Swain. New York: Collier Books. —— 1915. L’Allemagne au-dessus de tout. Paris: Collin. —— 1916/1979. The Moral Greatness of France and the School of the Future. In Durkheim: Essays on Morals and Education, ed. W.S.F. Pickering, 158–161. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. —— 1925/1961. Moral Education. Trans. Everett K. Wilson and Herman Schnurer. New York: Free Press. —— 1938/1986. L’Evolution pédagogique en France. In Durkheim on Politics and the State, ed. Anthony Giddens, trans. W.D. Halls, 174–76. Cambridge: Polity Press. —— 1950/1992. Civic Morals. In Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, trans. Cornelia Brookfield. London: Routledge. Featherstone, Mike. 1990. Global Culture: An Introduction. In Global Culture Nationalism, globalisation and modernity, ed. Mike Featherstone, 15–30. London: Sage. Gehrig, Gail. 1981. American Civil Religion: An Assessment. Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Monograph Series, No. 3. Romeoville, IL: Lewis University. Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Giddens, Anthony. 1971. Capitalism and Modern Social Theory: An Analysis of the Writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber. Cambridge University Press. —— 1986. Introduction to Durkheim on Politics and the State. Translated by W.D. Halls, 1–31. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giner, Salvador. 1993. Religión Civil. Revista española de investigaciones sociológicas, 61, 23–55. Goldzwig, Steven R. 2002. Official and Unofficial Civil Religious Discourse. Journal of Communication and Religion, 25, 102–114. Harris, Ruth. 2007. The Assumptionists and the Dreyfus Affair. Past and Present, 194, 175–211. Hayes, Carleton J.H. 1960. Nationalism: A Religion. New York: Macmillan. Henderson, Charles P. 1972. The Nixon Theology. New York: Harper and Row. Hobsbawm, E.J. 1990. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobsbawm, E.J., and Terence Ranger. 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hudson, Winthrop. 1970. Nationalism and Religion in America. New York: Harper and Row. Hughes, Richard T. 1980. Civil Religion, the Theology of the Republic, and the Free Church Tradition. Journal of Church and State, 22 (1), 75–87.


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Huntington, Samuel P. 1981. American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Inglis, David and Roland Robertson. 2008. The Elementary Forms of Globality: Durkheim and the Emergence and Nature of Global Life. Journal of Classical Sociology, 8(1), 5–25. Jones, Donald G., and Russell E. Richey. 1974. The Civil Religion Debate. In American Civil Religion, ed. Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones, 3–18. New York: Harper and Row. Keohane, Kieran. 2008. Moral Education and Cosmopolitanism: Meeting Kant and Durkheim in Joyce. Journal of Classical Sociology, 8(2), 262–282. Kohn, Hans. 1944/1967. The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background. New York: Collier Books. Laborde, Cécile. 2002. On Republican Toleration. Constellations, 9(2), 167–183. Llobera, Joseph R. 1994. Durkheim and the national question. In Debating Durkheim, ed. W.S.F. Pickering and H. Martins, 134–158. London: Routledge. Lukes, Steven. 1973. Emile Durkheim, His Life and Work. London: Allen Lane Penguin Press. Macfarlane, L.J., 1970. Modern Political Theory. London: Thomas Nelson & Sons. Markoff, John and Daniel Regan. 1982. The Rise and Fall of Civil Religion: Comparative Perspectives. Sociological Analysis, 42 (4), 333–54. Marty, Martin E. 1974. Two Kinds of Two Kinds of Civil Religion. In American Civil Religion, ed. Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones, 139–57. New York: Harper and Row. Mead, Sidney E. 1974. The Nation with the Soul of a Church. In American Civil Religion, ed. Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones, 45–75. New York: Harper and Row. Merquior, J.G., 1980. Rousseau and Weber: Two Studies in the Theory of Legitimacy. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Meštrović, Stjepan G. 1993. The Road from Paradise: Prospects for Democracy in Eastern Europe. Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press. Minkenberg, Michael. 1997. Civil Religion and German Unification. German Studies Review, XX, 1 (February), 63–81. Mitchell, Marion M. 1931/1990. Emile Durkheim and the Philosophy of Nationalism. In Emile Durkheim: Critical Assessments, ed. Peter Hamilton, vol. 4, 113–27. London: Routledge. Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1952. The Irony of American history. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Noone, John B. 1980. Rousseau’s Social Contract: A Conceptual Analysis. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Novak, Michael. 1992. Choosing Presidents: Symbols of Political Leadership. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Parsons, Gerlad A. 2002. Perspectives On Civil Religion. Burlington, USA: Ashgate. —— 2004. From Nationalism to Internationalism: Civil Religion and the Festival of Saint Catherine of Siena, 1940–2003. Journal of Church and State, 46 (4), 861–885. Pearce, Frank. 2001. The Radical Durkheim. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Pres Inc. Pfeffer, Leo. 1968. Commentary. In The World Year Book of Religion. The Religious Situation, vol. 1, ed. Donald R. Cutler, 360–365. Boston: Beacon Press. Purdy, Susan S. 1982. The Civil Religion Thesis as It Applies to a Pluralistic Society: Pancasila Democracy in Indonesia (1945–1965). Journal of International Affairs, 307–16. Richardson, Herbert. 1974. Civil Religion in Theological Perspectives. In American Civil Religion. Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones, eds., 161–184. New York: Harper and Row. Robertson, Roland. (2000). Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture. London: Sage.

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Robertson, Roland. 1990. Mapping the Global Condition: Globalization as the Central Concept In Global Culture Nationalism, globalisation and modernity, ed. Mike Featherstone, 15–30. London: Sage. Rouner, Leroy S. 1986. To Be at Home: Civil Religion as Common Bond. In Civil Religion and Political Theology, ed. Leroy S. Rouner, 125–137. Notre Dame: IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1762a/1973. The Social Contract and Discourses. Trans. G.D.H. Cole. London: J.M. Dent & Sons. —— 1762b/1974. Émile. Trans. Barbara Foxley. London J.M. Dent & Sons. Saunders, David. 2008. Anticommunautarisme and the government of religious difference. Economy and Society, 37(2), 151–171. Schoffeleers, Mathew. 1978. Clan religion and civil religion: on Durkheim’s conception of God as a symbol of society. In Religion, Nationalism and Economic Action. Assen: Van Gorcum. Smith, Anthony D. 1983. Nationalism and Classical Social Theory. British Journal of Sociology, 34, 19–38. Spitz, Jean-Fabien. 2005. Le moment républicaine en France. Paris: Gallimard. Swatos, William H. 2004. Book Reviews. Implicit Religion, 7 (2), 193–198. Terral, Hervé. 2007. Laïcité religieuse, antireligieuse, a-religieuse: L’évolution de l’école française entre 1880 et 1918. Social Compass 54(2), 255–265. Terrier, Jean. 2006. The idea of a Republican tradition: Reflections on the debate concerning the intellectual foundations of the French Third Republic. Journal of Political Ideologies, 11(3), 289–308. Turner, S. Bryan. 1990. The Two Faces of Sociology: Global or National?. Theory, Culture and Society, 7, 343–58. —— 1992. Preface to the Second Edition. Professional Ethics and Civic Morals by Emile Durkheim. Trans. by Cornelia Brookfield, xiii-lxxiv. London and New York: Routledge. —— 2001. Cosmopolitan Virtue: On Religion in a Global Age. European Journal of Social Theory, 4(2), 131–152. —— 2006. Classical sociology and cosmopolitanism: a critical defence of the social. The British Journal of Sociology, 57(1), 133–151. Ungar, Sheldon. 1991. Civil Religion and the Arms Race. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 28 (4), 503–24. Wallace, Ruth A. 1973. The Secular Ethic and the Spirit of Patriotism. Sociological Analysis, 34 (1), 3–11. —— 1990. Emile Durkheim and the Civil Religion Concept. In, Emile Durkheim: Critical Assessments, vol.4, ed. Peter Hamilton, 220–25. London: Routledge. West, Ellis M. 1980. A Proposed Neutral Definition of Civil Religion. Journal of Church and State, 22, 1 (Winter), 22–40. Wilson, John F. 1971. The Status of “Civil Religion” in America. In The Religion of the Republic, ed. Elwyn A. Smith, 1–21. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. —— 1974. A Historian’s Approach to Civil Religion. In American Civil Religion, ed. Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones, 115–138. New York: Harper and Row. Wimberley, Ronald C. 1980. Civil Religion and the Choice for President: Nixon in “72”. Social Forces, 59, 44–61. Wuthnow, Robert. 1988. The Restructuring of American Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. —— 1994. Producing the Sacred: An Essay on Public Religion. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.

CHAPTER THREE

AMERICAN CIVIL RELIGION AS STATEMYTHOLOGY Niels Reeh History turns into myth, once it is remembered, narrated, and used, that is, woven into the fabric of the present. (Assmann 2000: 14)

In her book From Civil to Political Religion, Marcela Cristi rightly criticises Bellah for not taking the political aspect of civil religion into account, suggesting that the analysis could be strengthened by distinguishing between two types of civil religion, namely civil religion as culture and civil religion as ideology (Cristi 2001). The present contribution agrees with Cristi’s critique of Bellah’s approach, but not with her solution. Instead, I suggest that civil religion can be better understood if more attention is paid to the state and its relations with other states. As such, the state will not be seen only as the government of the United States, for example. Instead, the political body of the state will be regarded as a complex collective agent that is comprised of the government, but also by those individuals with the right to access the political process, i.e., the citizens (Reeh 2009; Højrup 2003). Following this conception of the state, it will be suggested that civil religion could be understood as a mythological/historical definition of the American state, apparent internally as well as externally. This selfdefinition can be considered a kind of speech-act (Austin 1962). Some events are remembered through conscious celebration, for instance, with national holidays, and some events are attempted to be forgotten or obliviated through lack of mentioning (Assmann 2000). Further, it is argued that these speech-acts are constructed in a contested process in which there is a power-struggle over which events to remember. In effect, civil religion will be seen as the answer to the following question: how have we become the collective that we are now? This question is answered in the recollection of important events, internally (for instance through the remembrance of Martin Luther King) as well as externally (for example through remembrance of the War of Independence). One consequence of this approach is that civil religion will always be both political and cultural. In contrast to Cristi’s position, this

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applies whether it is formulated from “the top” or “the bottom” (Cristi 2001). Presidential inaugurations and the use of Thanksgiving Day as a protest by Native Americans will illustrate this point. A second consequence of the introduction of this conception of the state is that one can account for the widespread existence of references to other states within civil religion. The We of American Civil Religion The starting point for Robert Bellah’s analysis was the following quotation from John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address of January 20, 1961: We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change. For I have sworn before you and Almighty God the same solemn oath our forebears prescribed nearly a century and three quarters ago (Bellah 1967, my italics).

From here, Bellah went on to examine the reference to God (Bellah 1967). In contrast to this, the present contribution will begin by paying more attention to the grammatical subject of the first quoted sentence, namely the we. This we is not the only one that can be found within the central texts of American civil religion. Another we for instance can be found in the American Declaration of Independence, namely the speaking subject. We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.-And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor (The American Declaration of Independence 1776, my italics).

The grammatical subject or the we of the Declaration of Independence is the voice of the American state that declares its existence to other states

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and demands their recognition. In this declaration, the representatives construct the we as the electorate of the United States of America. The we can be regarded as an attempt to speak on behalf of the American people, i.e., the holders of the sovereignty of the American state. In the perspective that is advanced here, the we has relevance beyond this declaration and the formation of the American political decision-making. Most important in the context of civil religion is that this we entails a self-definition. The we cannot be just anything. On the contrary, the we, as an I, is a specific entity with a biography or a mythic history. This mythic history includes a selective recollection of the history of the American state. One important part of this self-definition is the collective recollection of the important historical relations with other states, which have so often been settled and defined through war. The fact that various wars in American history play a crucial part in American civil religion can therefore be accounted for. A second important part of civil religion is that it is a definition of who comprises the we, for instance Native Americans (Thanksgiving Day), Americans of African descent (Martin Luther King Day) etc. In the following, it will be proposed that civil religion can be analysed as a historical legitimation of the internal and external sovereignty of the state in question. And the case of American civil religion will be used as an example to illustrate the points outlined above. Civil Religion in America (revisited) In the American case, the collective national remembrance can be seen in the national holidays to which Bellah rightly called attention. Apart from Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, the national holidays are a collective remembrance of important events in American history in the same manner as it has been argued that the Old Testament is an account of the civil religion of the nation of Israel (Hammond 1976: 171). In the following, the official US government website An Overview of U.S. Holidays (America.gov 2008a) is used as an expression of the official state-sanctioned commemoration of the past. The reason for this choice is that this website is an officially authorised narration of a central part of what Bellah calls civil religion and that this narrative is formulated and controlled by the US government. It is thus a dynamic narrative and at the same time it is not just any narrative. The national holidays can be contested but are nonetheless a crucial part of the structure behind

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the annual collective commemoration of the past and simultaneous definition of America. The question is whether the national holidays can be seen as an official answer to who belongs to the American political body, i.e., the American state. The official historical narrative that is found in the national holidays can be said to begin with Columbus landing in the New World. The official website states that: Columbus . . . initiated the lasting encounter between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere (America.gov 2008b).

The next event that is celebrated is Thanksgiving Day. Here, the website states: Arriving at Plymouth Colony . . . too late to grow many crops, and lacking fresh food, the Pilgrims suffered terribly during the winter of 1620–1621 . . . The following spring, local Wampanoag Indians taught the colonists how to grow corn (maize) and other local crops unfamiliar to the Pilgrims, and also helped the newcomers master hunting and fishing. Because they harvested bountiful crops of corn, barley, beans and pumpkins, the colonists had much to be thankful for in the fall of 1621 . . . In the autumn of 1621, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony held their first Thanksgiving. They invited their Wampanoag benefactors who arrived with deer to roast with the turkeys and other wild game offered by the colonists (America.gov 2005).

In this way, the hostilities between the original inhabitants and the immigrants are forgotten and the peaceful coexistence of the two groups is constructed and remembered. The presence of the immigrants is legitimised, since they were welcomed and perhaps it becomes less difficult to take possession of the new territory. The website also mentions and remembers that: In 1988, a Thanksgiving night ceremony of a different kind took place at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. Among the more than four thousand people gathered there were Native Americans representing tribes from all over the country and descendants of the later immigrants. The ceremony acknowledged publicly the Native American role in the first American Thanksgiving, a feast held to thank the Indians for sharing the knowledge and skill without which the first Pilgrims would not have survived (America.gov 2005).

Here, official recognition is bestowed upon the Native American as having played an important role in the official mythic history of the U.S.


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In terms of Independence Day, the website is rather silent about the historical context and does not mention the war against Great Britain. However, it is remarked that: Independence Day has provided some of this nation’s most stirring words of freedom. In 1788, Founding Father James Wilson addressed a Philadelphia gathering that was possibly the largest July 4 celebration in the young nation’s history. He exhorted his fellow citizens to ratify the proposed Constitution. “A people, free and enlightened,” he said, “establishing and ratifying a system of government . . . A WHOLE PEOPLE exercising its first and greatest power—performing an act of SOVEREIGNTY, ORIGINAL and UNLIMITED” (America.gov 2008c).

Here, the creation of American sovereignty is celebrated. On the website, describing Washington’s Birthday Holiday Honors First President, we are reminded that although: Many states designate the holiday as Presidents’ Day, and merchants offer Presidents’ Day sales. The federal holiday, however, remains Washington’s Birthday. It is but one way in which Americans celebrate the life of the man often called the “father of his country” (America.gov 2008d).

Here, we are reminded that the US has a father who was the commander of the United States armies in the War of Independence and the first president of the United States (America.gov 2008d). On the website, describing Memorial Day Holiday Honors American War Dead, we are told that Memorial Day began as a recollection of soldiers who died in the American Civil War but that is has been expanded so that it now is an honor to “those who died defending their nation” (America.gov 2008e). Likewise, Veterans Day is presented as a tribute to those who fought and survived in the Wars for their country (America.gov 2008f). Here it is remembered that: The earlier, more narrowly focused Armistice Day [which was replaced by Memorial Day] commemorated the end of fighting in World War I under the armistice implemented at 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918—“the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first Armistice Day just a year later, setting the characteristic tone of the U.S. observances in years to come. He said that the holiday would be “filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations” (America.gov 2008f).

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Again war plays a significant role. If we look at the narrative, so far, it tells the story of the birth of the US as a sovereign state. And here war is important since it is through wars that states define themselves territorially. According to the narrative that can be read from the national holidays, the historical relationship with Europe seems to be much more prominent than for instance the relationship with Canada and Mexico, perhaps because these states did not pose a serious threat to the US. From this point on, the narrative may be said to be oriented towards the internal definition of the US. With regard to Labor Day, it is stated that: Labor Day . . . is the nation’s official commemoration of its workers’ contributions to national strength, prosperity and well-being (America. gov 2008g).

Here we are reminded that the American workers are important for the strength, prosperity and well being of the U.S. The same argument applies to the Martin Luther King Day. Here it is stated that: King was pivotal in persuading his fellow Americans to end the legal segregation that prevailed throughout the South and parts of other regions, and in sparking support for the civil rights legislation that established the legal framework for racial equality in the United States (America.gov 2006).

This can be seen as an official recognition of the inclusion of the former slaves into the American state and in addition we are reminded that there is racial equality in the US. The history of the American state is thus defined and remembered collectively. This remembrance comprises the most important events that have defined the American state and its sovereignty, internally as well as externally. These holidays are thus an expression of what Durkheim saw as society’s celebration of itself. The state, i.e., the electorate, is thus defined through a selective use of its history. Reformulating Jan Assmann’s quote above, it might be said that history becomes myth through the collective remembrance and the collective oblivion. Some events are remembered and some are obliviated through a constructive process. American civil religion is the majority’s narration of the American history. Further, it might be said that civil religion is not given once and for all and that it therefore can be a contested field. An example could be the American Indians who protested in 1998


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on Thanksgiving Day, calling it a “National Day of Mourning” (Da Costa-Fernandes 1998). In this case, a group was dissatisfied with the official narration of the American history and thus used Thanksgiving as a day of protest. These (and other) skirmishes are not mentioned and recollected in the official narrative in the American case. They are consciously or unconsciously left to oblivion. With regard to Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, these two national holidays do not include a celebration of the American state and its history. These two holidays must then be seen as having a different function that does not relate to civil religion. Perhaps these two national holidays can perhaps be seen as days for private activities. What emerges from this analysis thus is a narrative that tells the mythic-historical story of the American state, i.e., how it has become what it is and who it is that is or owns that state. In short, it is an answer to the question “who are we”. A Reconsideration of Society and State Within the sociological studies of civil religion, the development of civil religion is expected to follow a general cultural evolutionary pattern that primarily is tied to an overall process of differentiation within the society (Bellah 1967; Coleman 1970; Gehrig 1981). From this it seems to follow that the formation and development of civil religion is a phenomenon that is internal to a given society. The concept civil religion is thus often seen as a set of transcendent ideals that performs an integrative function in the society (cf. Bellah 1974). At the root of this is the conception that a society is formed out of a fusion of its elements, and is held together by a cohesive force or some kind of ‘glue’, part of which is the civil religion. Bellah’s conceptualisation of civil religion seems to be founded on Durkheim’s notion of solidarity. According to the Durkheimian perspective, it is the division of labour and thus the differentiation that binds the individuals of modern societies together—the greater the differentiation and the wider the division of labour, the greater the mutual interdependence of the individuals. If this theory is correct, we may predict that globalisation, with the increased trade and hence interdependence of, for instance, China and the US, will lead to solidarity between the two. In a globalised world, with a high degree of mutual interdependence, everyone should have solidarity with everybody and hence the formation of a global state should be possible.

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The likelihood of any such development seems however remote if confronted with the reality of international politics. The divergence between the mentioned reality of international politics and Durkheimian sociology points to a fundamental problem with the conceptual framework of Durkheimian sociology (Reeh 2009). This does indeed seem to be a general problem, since the overwhelming bulk of sociology regards society as a fusion of different classes, institutions, individuals or modes of production (Kaspersen 1994). In short, the Durkheimian tradition could be said not to have accounted for the problem of social order in a satisfactory manner. The argument put forth here thus is that sociology of religion should reconsider the dominant Durkheimian conceptions of society and state. A Fission Perspective of the State In order to analyse the state as a complex collective agent, the suggestion here is to adopt the fission perspective of the state developed by Thomas Højrup and others (Højrup 2003; Kaspersen 2004). This theoretical outlook has been developed within the field of ethnology in order to understand the connections between the state-system, the state and the possible life-forms that a given state allows and stimulates in its territory. With this theoretical background, the state becomes a collective agent in an environment of other collective agents. Højrup’s theory is thus not developed with regard to civil religion, but does nonetheless provide important insights in terms of the concept of cultural memory (Assmann 2003). According to this fission perspective, a state is not brought together by a fusion of its internal elements, as it is in the Durkheimian tradition with its notion of solidarity. Instead, a state is constituted by its relations to other states. The essential feature of Højrup’s approach is that the state is forged in the struggle for recognition with other states (Højrup 2003). Instead of a fusion based on solidarity, it is the external pressure exerted by its neighbours that conditions the state and holds it together. The term fission perspective derives from the fact that a state harbours different interests, groups and forces that would generally tend to separate if there were no external pressure. A state is defined as a political organisation capable of preventing other states from intervening in its domain, for which reason it is recognised by other states as a state with a domain (Kaspersen 2004). In other words,


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a state is defined by its social relationships with other states. It is from this dynamic social relationship with another collective that the collective we springs. In order to uphold your sovereignty, it is necessary to distinguish yourself from the other. You have to define yourself. In the American case, America was defined as the new Israel, whereas Great Britain was defined as the oppressive Egypt (Kohn 1961, 665; Stokes 1950; from Bellah 1967, note iv and v). The point thus is that the struggle between states is a struggle that is accompanied by discursive war with ideological, cultural and religious elements. From this vantage point, the state can be analysed as an agent in the state system—always bearing in mind that any independent and sovereign organisation that can prevent other organisations from intervening in its domain will qualify for definition as a state. As opposed to Weber, the monopoly of violence within a state’s territory is thus not considered the sole definition of the state (Weber 1947, 154). The inter-state relationship is competitive and is understood theoretically through the concept of war that can be found in the work “Vom Kriege” (Clausewitz (1980), i.e., the Prussian General and father of modern military tactics Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831)) and G. W. F. Hegel’s concept of mutual recognition. Against this theoretical background, the state can be regarded as a survival unit among other survival units (Elias 1994, 514). And the relationship between states is competitive and is understood in terms of latent conflict and even war. According to Clausewitz, peace is here a pause in the war, during which the two parties guard against each other and try to prepare themselves for further hostilities. A real war is still a possibility. An analogy to the relationship between states is a game of chess. Even though there may be moves in which no pieces are slain, the two players organise their pieces for both attack and defence. From Højrup’s perspective, the pause during the war is interpreted through Hegel’s concept of mutual recognition, from the Phänomenologie des Geistes (Hegel 1980), where the emergence of self-consciousness at the individual level is developed. This mutual recognition is transferred to the state (Højrup 2003). A conception of we cannot be formed without the concept of them. In this sense, the state becomes a collective subject that is defined in a competitive relationship to other states. The struggle for recognition between states is crucial, and an existential struggle is played out through the course of history. States that are not capable of defending themselves are often in the longer run absorbed by other states. States

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have to keep up with other states if they want to survive. If a state wants to be recognised as a state by other states, the state has to engage itself in a struggle for recognition. If not, it will not be respected, its borders will be transgressed etc. In this existential struggle, a state will tend to use those means that are considered most efficient in the particular historical context. And so, in this perspective, the defence of a state becomes an extremely broad category, including ideology, culture and religion (Reeh 2009). The State as a Complex Collective Agent To see the state as an agent is not a novel perspective. In Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, Weber wrote: A compulsory political association with continuous organization will be called a ‘state’ if and in so far as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim to the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in the enforcement of its order. (Weber 1947: 154)

According to Weber, the state is an example of a closed social relation, called a corporate group, which is capable of social action (Weber 1947: 145). The important point is that for Weber, as well as Højrup, the state becomes comprised by those individuals who are partakers in the political process and that the individuals that comprise the state have solidarity with each other (Weber 1947, 143–144; Højrup 2003). In a democratic state, the electorate or the citizens comprise the state. This is not to say that everyone is equal and has equal weight in the political process. Rather, in a democracy, there is a complex power struggle in which some have a privileged position, the majority rules the minority and does thus define the state etc. However, even the American president has to legitimise his political actions. The president has to appeal to and persuade the electorate and the Congress, which is dependent on the electorate for re-election. What emerges from this is that the individuals who are members of a given state identify themselves with the state for instance through ideological concepts, such as the nation. Ultimately, the American people hold the sovereignty. It is their state. This may or may not be the case under state forms that are non-democratic, i.e., where the people do not have access and responsibility for the political process. The point here is that identification with the state and the consequent


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formation of a collective “we” in contrast to “others” is crucial and that this identification between inhabitants and the state is promoted in a democracy, since the citizens actually do have the possibility of influencing the political process. This identification between individual and state is discernible both in ordinary political discussions regarding the matters of their state and in collective commemorations of the mythic-historical past of the state, in which the state and its sovereignty are defined and legitimised. With regard to identification with the state, one typical example from the political discourse will suffice. In their summary, “The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce” thus wrote: If we succeed in matching the very high levels of mastery of mathematics and science of these Indian engineers—an enormous challenge for this country—why would the world’s employers pay us more than they have to pay the Indians to do their work? . . . only if we could offer something that the Chinese and Indians, and others cannot (NCEE 2006, 5, my italics).

This indicates that there is a collective “we” that is formulated against the “others”, i.e., the other states. We have to take political action in order to keep up with the others. This kind of argument would be senseless if this we is not accepted by all the partakers in the political process including the citizens who recognise themselves as this American we. Thus, it can be argued that the American electorate recognises itself as a collective that acts and reacts to other potentially hostile or at least competitive agents. The international state-system is a field, a set of relations or a social system in which the states engage each other. The increasing economic competition from India and China or the external relations with these countries is used in a political debate in order to legitimise political action. The sociological consequence of this is that the formulation of this collective “we” has to be taken into account. The state is thus not just a structure, but also a collective agent. This approach resembles Norbert Elias’ concept of “survival unit” (Elias 1994, 514). The crucial point is that this collective agent that we call a state relates to and competes with other collective agents and that this inter-state relationship has profound sociological consequences for the phenomenon of civil religion (see also Højrup 2003 and Reeh 2006).

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niels reeh On the Discursive War of Independence and on the Reference to God

As argued above, the international state-system can be likened to a system of social relations in which the acting states struggle for mutual recognition. Although the dynamic between a state and its most significant others is of crucial importance, the specific history of, for instance, the American state has to be taken into account. A general element in civil religion is the fact that it is a collective commemoration and oblivion of the historical experiences of the state in question. It is an intricate blend of fact and fiction (Assmann 2000). It is a continuous cultural construction, but it is not a construction out of the blue. The definition of America, what is American and what it is not, is created through a contested interpretation of history. In order to show this, some of the most central elements in the contested but official narration of American history or the American foundational myth will be outlined in the following. According to the narrative in the national holidays, the historical context in which the American civil religion first was constructed was the War of Independence (1775–83) against the British Crown. The War of Independence was accompanied by a discursive war of independence and legitimacy. In the Declaration of Independence (1776), it is argued that the British King is a tyrant who has not been willing to listen to the just demands of the American people. The representatives of the American people argued that it was legitimate to dissolve the bonds with Great Britain and to declare their independence as a sovereign state. The Declaration of Independence invoked the liberal part of the natural law discourse of John Locke and others that argued that it was legitimate to revolt against a tyrant (Locke 1996, § 233; Hume 1978, 563). And so it can be argued that the American state identity and ideology were formulated in opposition to the colonial British empire of 1776. The Declaration of Independence was a claim or a demand for recognition by other states. France accepted the claim and recognised The United States of America as a sovereign state in 1778 by which the US became a player in the international state-system. An important point to be noted here is that the United Colonies declared themselves to be states and that they intended to do something. The representatives themselves saw the US as an agent.


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As mentioned, the demand for independence included a reference to the liberal part of the natural law discourse. Hence, the formulation of the claim for legitimate and independent sovereignty was embedded in the natural law tradition that was the dominant political discourse of the 18th century. The United States thus became underpinned by the God of nature or the Creator of all men. It became a republican version of the legitimate state of the 18th century. The new state relied on the protection of “Divine Providence”. In short, God was behind the free people of America in the war against the tyranny of Great Britain. Even though the legitimation and the sovereignty of the American state were first formulated almost 250 years ago, and even though the American state has been redefined many times since, the model still holds today. An example of this can be seen in a speech by President George W. Bush. Two days after the attack on September 11, 2001, he said the following: Good evening. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. . . . America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining. . . . America and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and security in the world, and we stand together to win the war against terrorism. Tonight, I ask for your prayers for all those who grieve, for the children whose worlds have been shattered, for all whose sense of safety and security has been threatened. And I pray they will be comforted by a power greater than any of us, spoken through the ages in Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.” This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world (George W. Bush, 9/13/2001).

As noted in this speech, the American “way of life” and American “freedom” are once again under attack, this time from terrorists. The war invokes a self-definition that can be seen as an echo of the American foundational state-myth. A we is formulated and America is defined in contrast to the terrorists. As with the Declaration of Independence, where America “relies on the protection of Divine

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Providence”, so Psalm 23 is used to remember that God is with America even in the “valley of the shadow of death”. America is depicted as the defender of freedom and all that is good and just in our world. It may be noted that this is an expansion of the Declaration of Independence, which only defends freedom in America. Now America is to defend freedom not only in America but also “in our world”. Power struggles over Past and Present George W. Bush’s speech is not just a declaration of the war against terror, since the declaration of the war against the external terrorists has internal consequences. Bush states that all Americans will unite and go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in this world. If you do not unite and go forward, you are simply defined as not American or perhaps un-American or unpatriotic. This example clearly shows that the central concepts of American civil religion are used in the present political discourse and that it thus is a political instrument used by the political leadership. The definitions of America that are formed on the basis of references to the mythic-historical origin of America thus have political consequences in the present. A crucial point here is that the political use of civil religion is not a one-way street. It is contested and it is not a discourse that is monopolised by the American presidency. On the contrary, this type of discourse is also used as a way of criticising President George W. Bush. As a comment to George W. Bush’s Inaugural Address in 2005, one commentator thus stated that: “It is the most un-American speech I’ve ever heard a chief executive give to the United States” (Vidal 2005). This is not to suggest that the American president and other politicians and commentators say that ordinary people have equal opportunities. The President and others like members of the Congress etc. occupy privileged positions, from where political discursive power can be exerted. But the example is quoted to stress the point that the citizens do have a possibility of influencing the political process however remote it may be. This includes a possibility for influencing the definition of what is American and what is not and hence how America is to be defined. Marcela Cristi has argued that “civil religion manifests itself in two forms, namely as ‘culture’ (the Durkheimian civil approach) and as ‘ideology’ (the Rousseauan ‘political’ approach)” (Cristi 2001: 4). One problem in this approach is that Cristi seems to regard the Rousseauan


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political type of civil religion as something that is “essentially a coercive political device” (Cristi 2001: 7). This may stem from the fact that Cristi analysed the dictatorship of Pinochet’s Chile. In a democratic setting, this is however not an adequate interpretation since it exaggerates the power of the Presidency and reduces the American citizens to a passive flock that has no possibility of talking back. There is definitely a possibility of talking back or a civil religion from below against for instance the government. But this need not be understood as a cultural civil religion since this also can be political, i.e., attempting to influence the definition of America. One advantage of the conception of the state as described above thus is that civil religion becomes a contested field in which different players try to influence the construction of civil religion from their different positions. More importantly, Cristi’s model does not pay sufficient attention to the external relations of the state, which has been a principle concern of the present chapter. In American civil religion, this crucial insight can be gained from the above-mentioned examples of references to the external historical relations with other important states, such as the British Empire or the modern terrorist. In addition, the collective we that is formulated in the external relations also has internal consequences and is for instance the first word in the American Constitution which reads: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America (Constitution of the United States 1787).

From this perspective, civil religion becomes a mythic-historical narration of the American we. It is thus not limited to specific institutions, such as the public schools, the presidency, the Supreme Court etc. (Hammond 1976). Rather, civil religion is simultaneously formulated in the interplay between its citizens and in a struggle for recognition with significant other states. Civil religion can thus be seen as state mythology that simultaneously defines and legitimises the sovereignty of the American state internally as well as externally. This pertains both to the formative texts of the American state, to the official but contested collective remembrance of the past, to George W. Bush’s political use of references to the definition of the America and some

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of the criticisms that have been raised against the President. Civil religion thus becomes an arena in which both centripetal and centrifugal forces have their part to play. A further outcome of the analysis above is that the we plays a central role, which shows that the state is regarded as an agent that defines itself with the selective use of its own history. In doing so, the state in many ways resembles an individual and civil religion becomes a contested collective biography. Concluding Remarks Firstly, it may be said that the present approach has chosen not to focus primarily on the religious referent of civil religion. The reason for this is that such a focus could diverge the attention from the formulation of the collective we and the legitimation of the sovereignty of the state, which is a crucial element in civil religion. Here, it has been proposed that we should analyse civil religion as involved in a dynamic between the external and internal definition of the identity of the state in question. This point is crucial since this dynamic can explain why the historical relations with foreign states are such a prominent feature of, for instance, the American state mythology. In the present contribution, it is suggested that the fission-theoretical approach is able to take this dynamic into account and to take the staging of a collective we seriously. This is crucial since a we de facto is formulated and functions as a grammatical subject in the examples from John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address of 1961, the American Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, in the ordinary American political discourse, and since an American we, understood as a definition of who the Americans are, can be seen, for instance, in readings of the National Holidays. Secondly, the fission perspective on the state can contribute to an understanding of the contested nature of state mythologies. This approach thus regards conflicts over the civil religion or the state mythology as part of a complex power struggle concerning the symbolic definition and legitimation of the state. Civil religion or state mythology thus becomes an integral part of the symbolic legitimation of the sovereignty of a state. This legitimation may change over time. Such a change must be analysed within the external and internal historical context of a given state in which the struggle for recognition vis-à-vis other states can account for


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the external side (especially the territorial claims) of the state mythology, whereas a national power struggle concerning the symbolic definition can account for the internal side (who are partakers in the state) of the dynamic in which the state mythology constantly is reformulated. The consequence of this argument may be far reaching, since this implies that sociology should pay far more attention to the state as an agent and the central dynamic that lies beneath a phenomenon such as civil religion. Thirdly, it has been suggested that civil religion can be seen as the mythical history of the state understood as a collective agent that includes both the government and the electorate. The commemoration of the mythical history of the American state can be regarded as a mythology or perhaps even as a religion of a collective agent as opposed to a religion of an individual. In America, as well as in other places, this is blurred by an overlap between the dominant creed and the religion or the myth of the state. There is however a crucial difference since the agent found in civil religion is the collective political body and not the individual. The individual only has a place in civil religion as a member of the collective. In this sense civil religion can be understood as the mythology or the religion of the state as a collective political body. This concept of state religion is thus not the same as state religion understood as an enforced religious confession on the individual level, as was the case, for example, under the absolutistic regimes in Europe before the introduction of democracy. Perhaps civil religion can therefore be understood as a phenomenon in democratic states or more precisely in states where a we is formulated, i.e., with a strong identification between the individual and the state. This opens up the possibility of regarding civil religion as a sub-type of state-religion that is found in democratic state-forms (and is dependent on the characteristics of the specific democratic state-form), whereas other types of state-religion will be found for instance in feudal, absolutistic state-forms etc. An analysis of civil religion must be linked with the specific state-form of the state in question. Finally, it should be stressed that the purpose of the present contribution has been to suggest a fission-theoretical approach to the study of civil religion in America as well as elsewhere. According to the proposed perspective, the state should be seen as a complex agent among other agents or states, where the members of the state or the citizens tend to have a collective awareness and identification with their state. A crucial part of this identification is a power struggle over the definition of the

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state in which its historical genesis (internally as well as externally) is central simply because it has important political implications as an answer to questions like who is a member of the American state, who is not, what are American values and what are not. The answers to these questions are constantly contested and reformulated with reference to history. From the present perspective, American civil religion is not primarily a narration of the relation between God and the American nation. Instead, civil religion in America is seen as a narration of selected historical experiences of the US that become woven into the fabric of the present (internally as well as externally) as an officially recognised myth of the American state. References America.gov (2005) ‘Thanksgiving Day a Time for Reflection, Gratitude’. Available at http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/2005/November/20051108163712 jmnamdeirf0.3664057.html (28 February 2008). —— (2006) ‘Americans Celebrate Achievements of Martin Luther King Jr.’. Available at http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-%09english/2006/January/20060109162734 jmnamdeirf0.3977777.html (28 February 2008). —— (2008a), ‘An Overview of U.S. Holidays’. Available at http://www.america.gov/ st/diversity-english/2008/January/20080113151228abretnuh0.5784265.html (28 February 2008). —— (2008b) ‘Columbus Day Commemorates Explorer’s Arrival in New World’. Available at http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/October/2007101117 0524pssnikwad0.9747736.html (18th November 2008). —— (2008c) ‘U.S. Independence Day a Civic and Social Event’, Available at http://www .america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/June/20060628141729JMnamdeirF0.745434 .html (18 November 2008). —— (2008d) ‘Washington’s Birthday Holiday Honors First President’. Available at http://www.america.gov/st/diversity-english/2008/February/2008021 4182328liameruoy0.3151819.html (18 November 2008). —— (2008e) ‘Memorial Day Holiday Honors American War Dead’ Available at http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2006/May/20060524125235 jmnamdeirf7.503909e-02.html (21 November 2008). —— (2008f) ‘Veterans Day Honor Those Who Have Served’. Available at http://www.america.gov/st/diversity-english/2008/November/20071109124825emohkcabhplar0.2962 .html (21 November 2008). —— (2008g) ‘Labor Day Marks Appreciation of U.S. Workers’. Available http://www .america.gov/st/diversity-english/2008/August/20080828161659xlrennef0.1218683 .html (21 November 2008). Assmann, J. (2003) ‘Religion and Cultural Memory’, Stanford, Stanford University Press. —— (2000) ‘Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism’, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Austin, J.L. (1962) ‘How to do Things with Words’, Oxford: The Clarendon Press. Bellah, R. (1967) ‘Civil Religion in America’, Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 96: 1–21.


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—— (1974), ‘American Civil Religion’, in R. E. Richey and D. G. Jones American Civil Religion, New York: Harper. Bush, G.W. (2001) Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation. Available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911–16.html (15 January 2008). Clausewitz, C. (1980) ‘Vom Kriege’, Bonn, Dümmlerbuch. Coleman, J. (1970) ‘Civil Religion’, Sociological Analysis, 31, 2: 67–77. Constitution of the United States (2008). Available at http://www.britannica.com/eb/ article-9116843/Constitution-of-the-United-States (15 January 2008). Costa-Fernandes, Manuela Da (1998) ‘American Indians stage peaceful Thanksgiving protest in Plymouth’, SouthCoastToday.com, New Standard. Available at http://archive .southcoasttoday.com/daily/11-98/11-27-98/a01sr010.htm (14 January 2008). Cristi, M. (2001) ‘From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics’, Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Elias, N. (1994) ‘The Civilizing Process’, Oxford: Blackwell. Gehrig, G. (1981) ‘The American Civil Religion Debate: A Source for Theory Construction‘, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 20/1: 51–63. Hammond, P.E. (1976) ‘The Sociology of American Civil Religion ‘Sociological Analysis 37:169–182. Hegel, G.W.F. (1807) Phänomenologie des Geistes, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag. Hume, David (1978) A Treatise of Human Nature, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Højrup, T. (2003) ‘State, Culture and Life-Modes’, Aldershot: Ashgate. Kaspersen, L.B. (1994) ‘Samfunds- og statsbegrebet i sociologien’, Dansk sociologi,1. —— (2004) ‘How Denmark Became Democratic’, Acta Sociologica, 47/ 1: 71–89. Kohn, H. (1961) The Idea of Nationalism. New York: Macmillan Co.: p. 665. Locke, J. (1975) An Essay concerning Human Understanding, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Reeh, N. (2006) Religion and the State of Denmark—state religious politics in the elementary school system from 1721 to 1975: an alternative approach to secularization, Copenhagen: Unpublished Ph.D.-dissertation University of Copenhagen. —— (2009 forthcoming) ‘The Teaching of Religion and the State of Denmark—an overview of the Danish state politics on religion in the elementary school system from 1721 to 1900: an alternative approach to secularization’, in Social Compass 56,2: 179–188. Stokes, A.P. (1950) Church and State in the United States, vol. 1, New York: Harper & Co: 467–8. NCEE (2006) ‘Executive Summary Tough Choices or Tough Times’, by The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. Available at http://www.skillscommission.org/pdf/exec_sum/ToughChoices_EXECSUM.pdf (January 15 2008). Vidal, G. (2005) ‘Gore Vidal on Bush’s Inaugural Address: “The Most Un-American Speech I’ve Ever Heard”’. Available at http://www.democracynow.org/article. pl?sid=05/01/25/1458238 (15 January 2008). Weber, M. (1947), ‘The Theory of Social and Economic Organization’, New York: The Free Press.

CHAPTER FOUR

NATIONALISM AND CIVIL RELIGION. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? Annika Hvithamar In John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a central incident portrays the Chinese housekeeper Lee philosophising about how different translations of the Bible use different phrasing. The specific passage he is referring to is Genesis 4:7, where God speaks to Cain after Cain’s sacrifice to Him was not accepted. Lee explains how a single verb is not consistent across translations: . . . Then I compared the translations we have—and they were fairly close. There was only one place that bothered me. The King James Version says this—it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, “if thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him.” It was the “thou shalt” that struck me, because it was a promise that Cain would conquer sin. [. . .] Then I got a copy of the American Standard Bible. It was very new then. And it was different in this passage. It says. “Do thou rule over him.” Now this is very different. This is not a promise; it is an order (Steinbeck 1952, 261).

Then Lee explains how he has been studying Hebrew, together with Chinese scholars, for two years in order to find out which Hebrew word lies behind the translations and concludes: “And this was the gold from our mining: ‘Thou mayest’. Thou mayest rule over sin” (ibid., 263). The different translations of this passage are the leitmotiv of East of Paradise: whether humans have free will and have control over their own sins. I will not delve deeper into this philosophical question, but just note how the replacement of one verb—and especially the interpretations of this verb—can substantially change the meaning of a whole story. The aim of this chapter is to suggest that historically we have been dealing with the same kind of translation issues in the study of nationalism and civil religion. At first glance, there seems to be little difference between the concepts of “ideology of nationalism” and “civil religion”. They both describe ideologies for which the idea of a nation is

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sanctified, and they both indicate that in this process dogmas, myths and rituals are included that resemble the ones we know from religious systems. But a closer look concerning the way that the concepts have been interpreted, or rather by whom they have been interpreted, shows that these interpretations are quite diverse. The stories of “nationalism” and “civil religion” are very much the accounts of two different traditions of research. I will demonstrate this in the following pages by comparing some of the most influential and most cited books and articles published concerning the study of nationalism and the study of civil religion, analysing the way the authors use the concepts of “nationalism” and “civil religion”. I will concentrate on the principal and most cited works in these fields, as it is first and foremost these books and articles that have shaped the discourse. The aim is to show how interdisciplinary studies of civil religion and nationalism might fertilise new insights concerning both of these concepts. The Concept of Nationalism When the academic study of nationalism took off in the first half of the 20th century, the resemblance between nationalism and religious traditions was obvious to the scholars studying the phenomena. The historian Carlton Hayes, who in 1916 wrote one of the first books that initiated the academic study of nationalism (A Political and Social History of Modern Europe), several times returned to the subject of the “religious sense” of nationalism. In his Essays of Nationalism from 1926, he argues that nationalism is distinctive from other kinds of ideologies because of the emotions associated with the nationalistic theme—the willingness to live, fight and die for a nation. In this respect, nationalism is aligned with religion. Hayes describes these phenomenological affinities between religion and nationalism, which he condenses in this way: The religious nationalist not only is disposed subjectively to acknowledge his dependence on the national god, but also he is ready to acknowledge such dependence objectively through acts of homage and adoration. Nationalism, like any religion, calls into play not simply the will, but the intellect, the imagination, and the emotions. The intellect constructs a speculative theology or mythology of nationalism. The imagination builds an unseen world around the eternal past and the everlasting future of one’s nationality. [. . .] For nationalism, again like any other religion, is to a large extent a social function, and its chief rites are public rites,

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performed in the name of and for the salvation of the whole community (Hayes 1926, 105).

Hayes continues with a description of American nationalism, where he defines how the national anthem, inauguration speeches, traditions, holidays etc. are akin to religion (ibid., 108ff ). Finally, he concludes that although confessional religions have not ceased to exist, these confessional forms of religion have adapted to the nationalist religion and in the future they are more likely to disappear than is nationalism (ibid., 123). In sum, Hayes very early notices the similarities between religion and nationalism. Much later, in 1960, he dedicates a whole book to the subject, Nationalism: A Religion, in which he traces the religious elements of nationalism through history, from the tribes of the Celts, Jews and Ostrogoths through the French revolution and to the formation of modern nations. In the secularist tone of the time he concludes: Modern and contemporary nationalism, I repeat, appeals to man’s “religious sense”. It offers a substitute for, or supplement to, historic supranational religion. Persons indifferent or hostile to the latter are apt to find a compensatory satisfaction and devotion in this-worldly nationalism, that is what is essentially a religion of modern secularism (Hayes 1960, 176).

Hayes is well known as one of the founding fathers of the academic study of nationalism. But his thoughts on the resemblances between nationalism and religion are remarkably unnoticed in the research history of the 20th century. When the study of nationalism had its second coming in the 1980s, it was not so much “the religious sense” of nationalism that was the focal point. Rather, research focused on when the development of the modern nationalist ideology began, what constituted a nation, and how nationalism came to be the new overarching system for the global world. As such, the focus has since been on how nationalism functions, not so much on why the myths, rituals, communities and ideas have had such a substantial impact. The Trinity of the Eighties In 1983, three books were published that have been regarded since then as the trinity of the modernist approach to research on

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nationalism.1 The philosopher and anthropologist Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism, the historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger’s The Invention of Tradition and the political scientist Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities. They all touch, although only slightly, on the subject of affinities between contemporary religious systems and national ideologies. In his book, Ernest Gellner briefly mentions religious ideologies and clerisies as being capable of ruling, guiding and structuring society (Gellner 1983, 11–18, 49). However, their importance, he claims, is disappearing with the development of industrialism and thus of nationalism, where the religious organisations are subordinated to the state in order to create a homogeneous, national high culture. “Modern man is not loyal to a monarch or a land or a faith, whatever he may say, but to culture” (ibid., 35). In his last work, finished in 1995, Gellner kept to this conviction. He claimed that “protestant-type religion” was one of the most important features of the transformation into the nationalist state, as Protestantism advocates the diffusion of literacy through its focus on translations of scripture into the vernacular.2 Nevertheless, Gellner concludes that the development of Protestantism and the development of nationalism ought to be seen as two separate processes, as the “age of nationalism” is also an “age of secularism”: Nationalists love their culture because they love their culture, not because it is the idiom of their faith. They may value their faith because it is, allegedly, the expression of their national culture or character, or they may be grateful to the Church for having kept the national language alive when otherwise it disappeared from public life; but in the end, they value religion as an aid to community, and not so much in itself (Gellner 1997, 77).

1 The term “modernist” was evoked by Anthony D. Smith in The Ethnic Origins of Nations in order to distinguish between the different approaches to the subject of nationalism (Smith 1986). The modernist approach to nationalism focuses on the novelty of the idea of nationalism and the development of the nationalist ideology in the 18th and 19th centuries. In a modernist approach to nationalism, the relevant issue is that nations can be invented and are constantly invented. 2 Gellner defines a religion as being protestant-type “if it eliminates or radically diminishes mediation between the laity and the transcendent, and in effect turns all members of the religious community into priests [. . .]. Second it tends to focus on faith, doctrine and scripture, to the detriment of ritual and ‘works’. In order to believe in his faith, the believer has to know what it is; as he is his own priest, he has to have access to it; and as it happens to be available in the holy writ, he has to be able to read” (Gellner 1997, 76).


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Even though Gellner in the same book states that the above argument requires qualification, as Poles, Serbs, Croats and Bosnians are very much definable by their religion, he is convinced that “it is questionable whether we are dealing with a belief, as opposed to a symbol of identity” (ibid., 78). Religion, according to Gellner, is thus a system that is well defined, characterised by belief and easy to separate from other types of systems. Nationalists do not value religion as something in itself, but only as something that promotes the nation. Eric Hobsbawm, who is much more preoccupied with the power structures of nationalism than whether it is felt or not, treats the role of religion as an example of how communities were structured in the era of proto-nationalism.3 In his writings, which represent a Marxist point of view, religious systems are seen as forces that are allies of the builders of nationalism, in order to create a homogeneous culture. Hobsbawm’s idea of religion can be summed up precisely in the following sentence from his later work Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Religion is an ancient and well-tried method of establishing communion through common practice and a sort of brotherhood between people, who otherwise have nothing much in common (Hobsbawm 1990, 68).

Although with this sentence Hobsbawm very much describes the community-building force of, e.g., religious rituals or beliefs and thus agrees with Anderson’s notion of an imagined community (see below), he does not make this connection. Instead, his point is to show that the traditional religions do not serve as a form of proto-nationalism, as they are either too universally oriented or too narrowly defined (ibid., 72). Benedict Anderson is probably the modernist scholar who by far gives religion the most consideration. In Imagined Communities, he describes the religious systems of the Middle Ages at length, as well as presents how nationalism overtook certain attributes of religion: liturgies, sacred texts, prophets and dogmas. Still, in accordance with Charles Hayes, his point in doing this is to show how the global structure of nationalism assumed the role of religion: Essentially, I have been arguing that the very possibility of imagining the nation only arose historically when, and where, three fundamental cultural

3

For Hobsbawm, proto-nationalism refers to the period before the French revolution, where it is not possible to talk about nations as an overarching global system, but when an ethnic group of a certain geographical area to some degree would have political identification, language and religion in common (Hobsbawm 1990, 47ff ).

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annika hvithamar conceptions, all of great antiquity, lost their axiomatic grip on men’s minds. The first of these was the idea that a particular script-language offered privileged access to ontological truth, precisely because it was an inseparable part of that truth. It was this idea that called into being the great transcontinental sodalities of Christendom, the Ummah Islam and the rest (Anderson 1983, 36).

In Anderson’s view, religion is a static system, represented by the dominant religious systems of the old world; a system that can act by itself, but also can be overruled when a more powerful system, like nationalism, appears. Hobsbawm, Gellner and Anderson all conclude that nationalism took over structural aspects of (traditional) religion: the ability to unite large groups of people on ideological grounds, the close relationship with the ruling classes and, in the case of Protestantism, the encouragement to disperse literature in the vernacular. They also agree that with the advent of the ideologies of nationalism in the 19th century, religious systems lost their position as overarching systems for organising the worldviews of their adherents: whereas earlier everybody belonged to a religion and defined themselves according to religious categories, they now belong to a nation. Religious worldviews have been secluded in the private realm and represent worldviews that the individual has a right to have, not something an individual would necessarily want to have. Furthermore, they conclude that confessional religion is often used as an ally to nationalism, and that religious organizations of Europe in the nationalistic era of the 18th and 19th centuries therefore were adapted to fit the goals of a national state or movement. In this process, the religious worldviews succumbed to the nationalistic aims, wherefore the nationalistic 19th century also brought about the national churches of Europe. In this modernistic view of nationalism, religion as such is simply not important as an overarching force of today. The books of the above-mentioned scholars have become standard works for the study of nationalism and their interpretations have dispersed into the academic literature of the field. In later contributions from other researchers in the field (e.g., Breully 1985; Greenfield 1992; Brubaker 1996), the focus is on the decline of religious systems (or in the words of the authors, the decline of “religion” per se). The ideology of nationalism is the driving force of the global society. At the time these above-mentioned scholars were publishing their work, interdisciplinary studies were even more limited than today. The


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discussion among sociologists of religion concerning secularisation, which took place during the same period, was thus largely ignored (e.g., Luckmann 1967; Berger 1967; Dobbelaere 1981; Wilson 1982). This discussion could have substantiated the argument concerning the role of nationalism in society as a force in the differentiation of society and individualisation of religious belief. The same could be said for discussions among religion scholars concerning the definitions of religion, taking place at the same time—a discussion that could have added to the differentiation between the concepts of “religion”, “religious systems”, “religious organisations”, “religious symbols”, “religiosity”, “the holy” etc. (e.g., Berger 1967; Geertz 1973; Smart 1978; Eliade 1983). Finally, the concept of civil religion, as a present-day way of organising the relationship between society and individual and endowing this relationship with a transcendent value is not taken into account. As the scholars of nationalism focus on the similarities between religion and nationalism, instead of on the differences, and on the uniqueness of the historical period, instead of the degree of applicability to other periods, they become insensitive to the fuzziness of the concept of religion—e.g., the fact that religious institutions may fade in importance without individual religiosity disappearing. The Ethno-Symbolist Approach to Nationalism The work of sociologist Anthony D. Smith on the relationship between religion and nationalism is an exception to the rule, in terms of the books from the 1980s on nationalism. Smith treats the affinities between religion and nationalism at length. In particular, he analyses how contemporary nationalisms draw on a legacy of religious systems (e.g., Smith 1992, 1997, 1999). Thus, he argues that even though contemporary nationalism is a product of the modern era, the basis for nationalism goes back to pre-modern times and to the social groups and ethnicities that (for some modern nations, although far from all) facilitated modern nationalism. Also, he analyses how concepts such as “chosen peoples”, “sacred homelands”, “glorious deeds” etc. have the same symbolic value in nationalistic ideologies as in religious systems. In his monograph Chosen Peoples, Smith describes how nationalism can be defined as a “religion of the people” (Smith 2003, 42). This terminology does not mean that it is necessarily a popular religion of a given population, but that the object of devotion is “the sacred

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community of the people”, instead of a deity (Smith 2003, 32ff ). The religion of the people has the “cult of authenticity” as the main focal point and four basic tenets: a myth of ethnic election, a long-standing attachment to a “holy land”, a yearning for a golden age and a belief in a glorious destiny for the people. In short, this is the community, the territory, the past and the future (Smith 2003, 31). With Smith’s approach here, the reasons why nationalism has such great appeal to people are explained by pointing out the relevance of the past. Thus, even though the traditional religious systems cease to be the dominant political force of the world, memories and traditions, cults and myths continue to create meaning both for the populations of a given area and for their rulers. Smith’s treatment of nationalism has been referred to as a perennialist or even primordialist point of view by the modernist school, claiming that he looks upon nations as a perennial phenomenon in the history of mankind and thus adds essentialism to the concept of nations, which cannot be found in empirical studies. But as Rogers Brubaker argues, it is no longer possible to talk of such a school in the study of nationalism. It is agreed that nations, in the way we comprehend them, are modern (Brubaker 1996, 15). In his own description, Smith explains his position as ethno-symbolist, as he focuses on the longue durée, the ethnicity and the cultural components (e.g., the symbols used) of the groups examined (Smith 1999, 8ff ). The difference between the “modernists” and the “ethno-symbolists” in the study of nationalism could be described as the difference between an etic and an emic approach.4 Modernists explain nationalism from the outside and concentrate on measurable empirical facts, whereas ethno-symbolists describe nationalism from within, on the basis of the conceptions of their adherents. The two schools do not exclude each other, but it is the latter that is more useful when the goal is to examine the factors that mobilise strong emotions among adherents. In Chosen Peoples, Smith sums up three tendencies in the study of nationalism in regards to religion. One tendency is to consider 4 The terms etic and emic were fist coined by the linguist Kenneth L. Pike and indicate whether the focus is on an approach that describes observations from the outside, without regarding them as meaningful elements in a system, or whether the focus is on an approach that regards a meaningful element in relation to other meaningful elements. Later, they became anthropological terms that describe how the researcher relates to his or her object in relation to the value system of the examined group. See, e.g., Lett 1990.


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nationalism as the heir of religion; that is, to look upon religion basically as a system that organises and structures society, and thus as a system that, with the advance of rationalism, is outscored by a new secular system—nationalism. Another tendency is to view religion as an ally of nationalism, where already existing religious confessions are used and adapted for nationalistic purposes as an ethnic religion. The third tendency is to regard nationalism as a secular system that takes over the functions of religions, as a “religion ersatz”, and the myths and rituals that we know from religious confessions (Smith 2003, 13ff ). However, the overall picture of the study of nationalism indicates that researchers have not been very interested in the subject of religion. Studies of nationalism tend to focus on the historical, social and political sides of nationalism, which is not surprising, as students of history and political studies have dominated the study of nationalism. Maybe this is the reason discussions have concentrated on the word “nation”—when it came into being, what it consists of and how it works, and not so much what a diverse and fluent concept the word “religion” covers. In Smith’s work, the question of the religious sources of nationalism is taken into account. Oddly enough, the academic research on the subject of religion is not considered, though. Even though Smith adheres to the last of the above-mentioned approaches to studying the relationship between religion and nationalism, his perspective is aligned with Rousseau and Durkheim—not with contemporary research on the study of religion. Although his first works on nationalism and religion are written in the same years as an ongoing debate about the nature and content of civil religion (see below), civil religion is not mentioned. Moreover, even though he concludes that “nationalism [. . .] is best seen as a form of culture and a type of belief-system whose object is the nation conceived as a sacred communion” (ibid., 254), he does not test this thesis with studies of belief systems other than Emile Durkheim’s work from 1915. This is symptomatic for the study of nationalism. An examination of the literature indicates that the use of the word “religious” is rarely questioned. The meaning of concepts like “sacred”, questions concerning differences between religion as confessional religion and religion as religious nationalism and the continuing co-existence of traditional (and non-traditional) confessional religions and nationalism are all themes that studies of nationalism seem to back away from today. When nationalism is compared to religion, it is designated with terms such as “quasi-religious” (Hobsbawm 1983, 284), “ersatz and heterodox

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religion” (Smith 2003, 13),5 “political religion” (Smith 2003, 252) etc., but the differentiated meaning of the concept is not elaborated. And in terms of their impressive reference lists, the only subjects that are not in abundance concern the study of religion. Although scholars of nationalism agree that the content of nationalism is connected to religion (whether it is the demise of religion, the transformation of religion into nationalism or the political use of religious elements), there is little connection between the study of nationalism and the study of religion. For scholars of nationalism, the understanding of the concept of religion is taken for granted. The Concept of Civil Religion Differences and similarities between various types of religions and religious phenomena, on the other hand, are areas that the study of religion has examined for more than a century, since the academic study of religion developed at European universities at the turn of the 19th century.6 As a result, the study of religion has built up theories that describe, analyse and compare religious concepts, systems, individuals, groups, symbols, rituals and myths. This has, among other things, led to a consciousness of the fluidity and changeability of religious systems, beliefs and organisations. In 1967, the American sociologist Robert Bellah wrote the influential article “Civil Religion in America” and thus introduced a new term to the comparative study of religion. In Bellah’s formulation, civil religion is at its best “a genuine apprehension of universal and transcendent religious reality as seen in or, one could almost say, as revealed through the experience of the American people” (Bellah 1967, 12). Civil religion, Bellah claims, acts as an integrating force in American society, because it unites people from all kinds of faiths in “a set of beliefs, symbols and rituals that I am calling the American civil religion” (ibid., 3–4). For Bellah, civil religion is a suitable form of religion in a culture such as found in America, where religion, because of the multireligious composition of the population and the 1st amendment of the Constitution, is not supported by the state in the public space, but encouraged in the private sphere. Also, according to Bellah, some kind of religion will 5 In the citation, Smith is describing Elie Kedourie’s work (Kedourie 1960, 1992). See also Rieffer 2003 esp. 217–18 and 223–227. 6 See Sharpe 1975 for the development of the study of religion.


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always be present in society in order to be able to celebrate the community in a Durkheimian fashion. Although disputed, Bellah’s article has been seminal to the study of religion.7 The debate has focused on the content and structure of civil religion. To what degree is the civil religion thesis applicable to states other than the USA, with its specific church-state tradition? Which myths and rituals in a given country could be described as part of a civil religion? Is civil religion primarily concerned with civil order in society or with state ideology? Is civil religion developing from beneath as an expression of societal celebration or from the top as a state-imposed ideology?8 In the sociological study of religion, there is still no agreement on the universality or applicability of the thesis, but it is used as a comparative concept to describe religious belief, where ethnicity or nation plays a more prominent role than does confessional religion. In contrast to the study of nationalism, the rise of the nation-state has never been a focus for the study of civil religion, nor has there been much debate on how religion is associated with the 19th century idea of nationalism. If nationalism is taken into account, it is as an example of the secularisation or radicalisation of religion, not so much as a concept connected to civil religion.9 Following the publication of Bellah’s classic article, his concept of civil religion has been applied to a variety of states all over the world, with historical paths and/or religious traditions different from those of the USA. This application often cites a short article by John A. Coleman, who in 1970 examined three different types of civil religion: undifferentiated civil religion, which can be either church centred (Greece) or state centred (antique Rome); secular nationalism (the Soviet Union); and differentiated civil religion (the USA). In this way, he used the idea of civil religion as a comparative concept, something that can be found in any society.

7 See, e.g., Fenn 1972, 1976, where the applicability of civil religion to all levels of society is discussed and the potential of civil religion to create societal integration is criticised. 8 See, e.g., Bellah and Hammond 1980; Gehrig 1981; Dobbelaere 1986; Furseth 1994; Cristi 2001. 9 See, e.g., Wilson 1966; Dobbelaere 1983. However, McGuire (2001) makes the connection, although she mainly cites studies of nationalism conducted by sociologists of religion. Recently, Michael Burleigh also has combined studies of nationalism and civil religion in his study of the role of religion in European politics up till 1914 (Burleigh 2005).

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On the basis of his studies, Coleman suggests a definition centred on the relationship between the state and the religion on one hand and civil religion on the other hand: Civil religion is a special case of the religious symbol system, designed to perform a differentiated function, which is the unique province of neither church nor state. It is a set of symbolic forms and acts, which relate man as citizen and his society in world history to the ultimate conditions of his existence. Civil religion is, however, not always or usually clearly differentiated either from the church or from the state (Coleman 1970, 69).

The focus is not on which historical periods foster civil religion,10 what political systems invent the ideology or if civil religion in the nationalist era is of a different kind than civil religion in ancient Egypt or antique Rome, but on phenomenological aspects and on the relationship between the religious system and the state. In addition, Meredith McGuire analyses how the civil religions of different groups can be conflicting—how the dogmas of what the nation should ideally be like differ within a society. She illustrates her thesis with examples from Northern Ireland, where she claims that the conflicts between the Protestants and the Catholics are not as much about different religious worldviews, but about conflicting notions of the ideal Ireland, with different myths, legends, rituals and symbols that can be traced back in history. As the religious part of the conflict is more about the right to Ireland and is sometimes in conflict with official, international versions of the two types of Christianity, it is not religious, but civil-religious: The Protestant and Catholic national visions of Northern Ireland appear to fit our model of civil religion, albeit in a different form from that of civil religion in the United States. Both Protestant and Catholic versions are mutually exclusive images of the nation. Both entail extensive myths, legends, rituals and symbols of a long history of growing separation of peoples. Both civil religions entail imagery of the “chosen people”. [. . .] The efforts of nonsectarian political groups, concerned clergy on either side, and various ecumenical peace groups to defuse the religious antagonism in Northern Ireland are typically thwarted because the conflict is less between particular religions than between two civil religions (McGuire 2002, 234–5).

10 Inger Furseth comments on a rise of civil religion in Norway during national crises (Furseth 1994, 46–51).


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Marcela Cristi has contributed to the theoretical equipment of civil religion with her study of civil religion in Pinochet’s Chile. Here she makes the distinction between a societal “Durkheimian” type of civil religion, which is concerned with the sacred dimension of national society and a “Rousseauian” type of civil religion, which is concerned with the legitimisation of the state: Whereas in Durkheim’s work the problem is posed in the context of morality, in Rousseau’s writings the issue is primarily political. While Durkheim suggests that every society naturally possesses a religious foundation, Rousseau simply claims that every society needs one. [. . .] It is my contention that while Rousseau coined the term civil religion, he created, in fact, a political religion for the use and benefit of the state. (Cristi 2001, 45–46)

Cristi thus stresses the active role of the state in the creation of a legitimising ideology for the nation. Cristi also notes that both Rousseau and Durkheim write in an intellectual milieu favourable to the development of nationalist ideologies (ibid., 188), but in her perception nationalism is the aggressive version of patriotism. Whereas “a healthy love of their country” or a “national pride” needs to be installed in every citizen, “the dark side of nationalism and its excesses” ought to be avoided (ibid., 198). Thus, she makes a distinction between the ideology that shapes the need for patriotic feelings among the citizens, the nationalist ideology and the creation of the idea of civil religion.11 To sum up, scholars of civil religion have been preoccupied with civil religion as a comparative phenomenon: something that is common to humankind regardless of historical development. Further, studies of civil religion have concentrated on whether it is an integrative or disintegrative force in society. Furthermore, in discussions of definitions of religion, the term civil religion is seen as a way to describe the fluidity and changeability of how we understand religion. Civil religion is not seen as a “surrogate religion”, but rather as a specific kind of religion, which may be connected to the secularisation thesis. Thus civil religion is one of many forms of religion existing alongside and mixed with traditional confessional religion. Finally, scholars of civil religion

11 See, however, Marcela Cristi’s contribution to this volume especially pp. 68–70, where she discusses the proximity between the notion of “civil religion” and the notion of “nationalism” and the tendency among American scholars to neglect the connection between the two concepts.

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have studied the structural elements of civil religion, especially how the relationship between societal civil religion and state civil religion has been ordered and whether it exists differentiated from churches and/or from states. Civil Religion in a Nationalist Era In order to thoroughly understand the concept, it is necessary to consider when the idea of such a civil religion emerged: the coining of the term “civil religion” did not happen in a cultural void. In Du Contrat Social, Jean Jacques Rousseau was attempting to formulate the basic forms of religion in the society of the enlightenment. Rousseau sought to define a civil, reason-based religion, which was integrative and supported the coherence of society, and which acknowledged the existence of a transcendent being and perceived the society as sacred. And which was tolerant. Also, with the idea of civil religion, Rousseau was trying to separate the concept of religion from the institution of the then powerful Catholic Church. Thus, a central aspect of civil religion, in a Rousseauian sense, is its independence from traditional dogma and ritual, but more importantly independence from the religious hierarchy and organisation of traditional religion. During the period Rousseau was writing Du Contrat Social, modern European nations were being formed, as well as ideas of national constitutions, national parliaments, obligatory school education for the whole population and national armies. It is also in the same era that a spiritualisation of the nation began to take place. Nineteenth century romanticism imagined the nation and the people as holy, their history as sacred and the nation as protected by God. Thus, Rousseau foresaw the way in which the ideology of nationalism came to be linked with religion. Furthermore, Bellah’s analysis of civil religion is not secluded from historical processes. What Bellah describes is a specific cultural and historic phenomenon: the United States in the first half of the 20th century; a setting where people from different countries had immigrated to and created a new state, in a historical period when nationalism spread from Europe to other parts of the world. The transcendent calling to which the American nation was responding to was thus a calling that was also felt in other parts of the world. Furthermore, Bellah describes a specific location where a new state was created and new rituals and


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myths were invented on the background of several confessional faiths. Whereas Rousseau was living in mono-cultural France with the Roman Catholic Church as the only normative religion, Bellah was surrounded by a multiplicity of confessions. Later, when the study of civil religion moved to other areas of the world and other periods of time, there were changes to the concept of religion as well as the historical period examined. Finally, Bellah wrote his analysis in a period when the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement and the emergence of new forms of religious movements were dividing the American public and thus changing the alleged agreement concerning which rituals and myths are constitutive of the American Nation—what he later describes as The Broken Covenant (Bellah 1975). Whereas scholars of nationalism have not treated the concept of “religion” critically enough or differentiated enough, scholars of civil religion rarely have considered the historiography of the word “nation” to any great degree. The basic argument of the nationalist study, the recent origin of nationalism, is not taken much into account by theorists of civil religion. Nor is the debate on the legitimising sentiments of nationalism proposed by, e.g., Hayes and Smith. Rather, nationalism is seen as a self-serving ideology imposed from above and without relevance for religious studies, whereas civil religion is something qualitatively different and altruistic, rising from below. Thus, Bellah and his followers see American civil religion as a concept that is unique to the Americans rather than a concept that characterises the American kind of nationalism. One reason why there has not been more exchange between the fields is probably because scholars from both areas have only been involved in interdisciplinary study on a very small scale. Reading through the reference lists of the major works in the two traditions, it is remarkable how little they seem to have been able to learn from each other. Starting with Bellah, he does not even refer to Hayes’ analyses of the religious traits of nationalism, especially the American kind, which Hayes discusses at length. Nor has the discussion of when it is meaningful to speak of a nation as a historical unit, which has been so dominant in the study of nationalism since the beginning of the 1980s, ever really been part of the discussion among civil religion theorists. On the other hand, it is rare to find references to the studies of civil religion conducted by distinguished scholars such as Bellah, Hammond, McGuire etc. in the publications of nationalism researchers.

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In order to describe the differences between civil religion and nationalism, it is necessary to consider the following: when the concepts were developed; where they are applied in the world; whether we are studying an accommodation of traditional confessional religion to a national, and now also global, era; and whether we are examining a new nonconfessional religious phenomena. For example, Coleman gives examples of civil religion across location and time, but at the same time he concludes that most civil religions are either church centred (as in Greece) or state-centred (as in antique Rome). However, does it make sense to use the concept concerning a culture where notions of “a tolerant, integrative, reason based religion” or nations in a modern sense have not developed? Or does it make sense to talk about civil religion in Greece, when the official rituals and myths are so closely connected to one confessional faith, Orthodox Christianity, that Greek citizens from other religious worldviews are excluded? Or for that matter, is it really possible to speak about civil religion in Europe, where most states have majority religions, which are either functioning as regular state religions (such as in Denmark, Norway, Greece, the United Kingdom and Malta) or as religions that have long historical bonds with the state, and where the majority of the population in a more or less vague fashion consider themselves related to one church (as, e.g., in Russia, France, Italy and Poland)?12 Or would it make more sense to regard this as an expression of how the religious institutions accommodated to nationalism? This is not necessarily nationalism in an aggressive nation-building context (although it can be—as we have seen in Ireland and ex-Yugoslavia), but rather as Michael Billig has put it, as “banal nationalism”, where certain ubiquitous symbols (e.g., the national flag, the constant mentioning of national epithets in newspapers etc., according to Billig) create, uphold and maintain a national identity (Billig 1998, 93ff ). Could the constant presence of national church buildings, religious experts at national ceremonies and the inclusion of the national religion in constitutions and holiday calendars not be called the same? Or is civil religion really a different concept?

12 See Pål Repstad’s chapter pp. 199–214 on this issue, discussing how the Nordic national churches have served as integrative institutions with traces of civil religion, but also how this situation is changing, as the relatively homogeneous societies of Scandinavia are becoming increasingly pluralistic. See also Warburg 2005.


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Civil Religion and Nationalism in a Global Era If we are to delineate the concept of civil religion from other kinds of communal religions, the concept has to be delimited as a particular form of nationalism, which, in a functional definition, can be demarcated as religion. This may integrate and unite citizens of different religious observances and have the celebration and endurance of the nation as implicit or explicit dogma. Therefore, this kind of religion is founded in the age of nationalism, when the nation states arise. Finally, as with nationalism, it has both a “Durkheimian” and a “Rousseauian” aspect, as there is a dialectical relationship between the features that are imposed from above and the features that are communally expressed.13 If we stick to this “minimalist” version of civil religion, it is also easier to outline changes in the civil religions that have occurred with globalisation. Whereas the civil religion of the United States at the time when Bellah wrote his article could be formed as a mixture of “ProtestantCatholic-Jewish” kinds of religions, as the vast majority of citizens were affiliated with these confessions, things changed when Iraqi and Indian nationalities, for example, were incorporated into American society. In many European countries this is even more obvious. It could be said that most European nations have not had the need for a separate civil religion, when the national religions did the job. The Nordic Countries in the 19th (and the better part of the 20th) century were homogenous societies and the connection between church and nation was positive, seen from the perspective of integration. Today, the situation is different. With increased immigration and a growing part of the population that does not belong to a religious group, confessional rituals cannot function in a civil religious way, as a growing percentage of the population then will be outsiders to these expressions of national belonging. Today, as the Nordic Countries, as well as countries in many other parts of the world, are becoming multicultural, the privileged positions of the national majority churches may function as exclusivist factors. If a citizen needs to belong to the Lutheran church in order to be considered a Danish citizen, this will pose problems for immigrants from states with a majority of Muslims, Buddhists or Orthodox Christians. Therefore,

13 For the use of ‘Durkheimian’ and ‘Rousseauian’, see the introduction to this volume pp. 1–5 and Cristi (2001: 114–136).

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as Margit Warburg (2005) has proposed, the civil religion of a given nation will have to change when the composition of the inhabitants is altered because of migration. In order to make newcomers become members of the civil religion of a nation, they must become part of it. In a global era, Rousseau’s idea of civil religion, as a non-confessional and tolerant version of religion, has again become a prospective vision to meet the needs of a globalised, multicultural, multi-confessional society. The question is, however, if this peaceful and inclusive version of religion is where global society is heading. Conclusion In this chapter I have focused on the main contributions to the study of civil religion and nationalism, as these are the studies that have influenced the bulk of the work in the area. What the analysis shows is that the two concepts differ in the way they are used by their respective scholars, but that the real difference is in the outlook, academic backgrounds and traditions of the researchers in each field. As such, and to return to the opening of this chapter, the differences between the concepts are in their translations more than in their roots—but translations may alter, and even blur, the meaning of the words. Therefore, in order to understand each other and to avoid a static conception of either of the concepts, perhaps it is time to let globalisation reach the academic fields. There can be nationalism without religion, there can be religion without nationalism, but the idea of civil religion is closely connected to the idea and the emergence of the ideologies of nationalism. Hopefully scholars of nationalism will acknowledge that religious systems are changeable and fluid. And hopefully scholars of civil religion will acknowledge the inheritance of the concept from the age of nationalism and limit the analysis of religious phenomena to differentiated civil religion instead of applying the term as a purely comparative tool. Then the vast studies, empirical as well as theoretical, which both academic fields produce, could be used to gain deeper insight into this varied and fluid phenomenon. Perhaps then “We mayest” get closer to a common acceptable definition of civil religion and nationalism.


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References Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil Religion in America. Daedalus 96: 1–21. —— 1970. The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial. New York: Seabury. Bellah, Robert N., and Phillip E. Hammond. 1980. Varieties of Civil Religion. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Berger, Peter. 1967. The Sacred Canopy. Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion. NY: Garden City. Billig, Michael. 1998. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage. Breuilly, John. 1985. Nationalism and the State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brubaker, Rogers. 1996. Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Burleigh, Michael. 2005. Earthly Powers. The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War. New York: HarperCollins. Coleman, John A. 1970. Civil Religion. Sociological Analysis 31 (2): 67–77. Dobbelaere, Karel. 1981. Secularisation. A multi-dimensional concept. Current Sociology, 29 (2): 1–216. —— 1986. Civil Religion and the Integration of Society: A Theoretical Reflection and an Application. Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 13 (2–3): 127–146. Eliade, Mircea. 1978ff. History of Religious Ideas, vol. I–III. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fenn, Richard. 1972. Toward a New Sociology of Religion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 11 (1): 16–32. —— 1976. Bellah and the New Orthodoxy. Sociological Analysis 37 (2): 160–67. Furseth, Inger. 1994. Civil Religion in a Low Key: The Case of Norway. Acta Sociologica 37, 1: 39–54. Gehrig, Gail. 1981. The American Civil Religion Debate: A Source for Theory Construction. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 20 (1): 51–63. Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. —— 1997. Nationalism. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic. Hammond, Philip, ed. 1985. The Sacred in a Secular Age. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hayes, Carlton. 1916. A Political and Social History of Modern Europe. New York: The MacMillan Company. —— 1926. Essays of Nationalism. New York: The MacMillan Company. —— 1960. Nationalism. A Religion. New York: The MacMillan Company. Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger. 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kedourie, Elie. 1960. Nationalism. London: Hutchinson. —— 1992. Politics in the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lett, James. 1990. Emics and Etics: Notes on the Epistemology of Anthropology. In Emics and Etics. The Insider/Outsider Debate, Newbury Park, ed. Thomas N. Headland, Kenneth L. Pike, and Marvin Harris. Luckmann, Thomas. 1967. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New York: MacMillan.

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McGuire, Meredith. 2002. (1st edition 1994): Religion. The Social Context. Belmont: Wadsworth. Rieffer, Barbara-Ann J. Religion and Nationalism: Understanding the Consequences of a Complex Relationship. Ethnicities (3): 215–243. Sharpe, Eric J. 1975. Comparative Religion. A History. London: Duckworth. Smart, Ninian. 1973. The Phenomenon of Religion. New York: Herder & Herder. Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. —— 1992. Chosen Peoples: Why Ethnic Groups Survive. Ethnic and Racial Studies 15(3): 436–56. —— 1997. The “Golden Age” and National Renewal. In Myths and Nationhood, ed. G. Hosking and G. Schöpflin, 36–59. London: Routledge. —— 1999. Ethnic Election and National Destiny: Some Religious Origins of Nationalist Ideals. Nations and Nationalism 5, no. 3: 331–356. —— 1999. Myths and Memories of the Nation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— 2003. Chosen Peoples. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Steinbeck, John. 1952. East of Eden. New York: Bantam Books F. Warburg, Margit. 2005. Dansk civilreligion i krise og vækst [Danish Civil Religion in Crisis and Growth] Chaos. Dansk-Norsk tidsskrift for religionshistoriske studier 43: 89–108. Wilson, Bryan. 1966. Religion in a Secular Society: A Sociological Comment. London: CA Watts. —— 1982. Religion in Sociological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

PART II

CIVIL RELIGION IN NATIONSTATES

CHAPTER FIVE

NATIONALISM AND RELIGION: THE CASE OF JAPANESE NATIONALISM AND STATE SHINTŌ Atsuko Ichijo There are two main approaches for describing relationships between religion and nationalism: one from a religious studies perspective and the other from a nationalism studies perspective. The former approach often describes the relationship within the context of civil religion, a continuing discussion sparked by Robert Bellah’s seminal piece on the topic (Bellah 1967). Although it has been pointed out that the issue of nationalism is often neglected for a variety of reasons in the literature on civil religion, it is also acknowledged that the concept of civil religion is the key to investigations of the relationship between nationalism and religion in religious studies (Cristi 2001, ch. 6). In studies on nationalism, which are largely, but not too explicitly, are built on the secularisation thesis, the question asked is whether or not nationalism is a secularised form of religion. The “nationalism as a secular functional equivalent of religion” thesis is most forcefully proposed by Benedict Anderson, but has been discussed by other scholars (Anderson 1991; Rieffer 2003; Smith 2003). This chapter is based on the latter’s approach at the outset, in that it is primarily concerned with whether the “secular functional equivalent” thesis is useful or not in investigating the relationship between nationalism and religion. However, because the chapter approaches the subject from the perspective of nationalism studies, perhaps it can illuminate some aspects of the study of civil religion that need further elaboration. It is clear the overall topic needs to be narrowed down because it represents such a vast issue. This chapter starts its journey with the following assumption: if nationalism is secularised religion, different types of religion should produce different types of nationalism because there are so many different manifestations of what we call “religion”. There are monotheism and pantheism, founded, natural, popular, organised and folk religions, to mention but a few of the religious systems. Given that religion is deeply embedded in any society

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or culture, the sheer variety of manifestations of religion should be reflected in other areas of life. This assumption is explored in the case of Japan, more precisely Japan between 1868 and 1945, focusing on the relationship between state Shintō and nationalism of pre-World War II Japan. The Japanese case is chosen mainly because it is often described as exceptional, and also because Shintō, which loomed large in pre-World War II Japan, is not a monotheistic religious tradition. The Japanese case, as we shall see, brings up complex insights in regards to the hypothesis that different religions produce different nationalisms. In fact, the argument presented in this chapter is that because state Shintō is very similar to Western religions, the original hypothesis is impossible to test in the Japanese case. However, the realisation that the Japanese case is not suitable for testing the original hypothesis leads to another question: why did the Meiji government have to turn Shintō into something closer to monotheism called state Shintō? Prompted by this question, a further examination is undertaken focusing on the relationship between nationalism and religion in the case of Japan. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the implication of the Japanese experiences with civil religion and globalisation and provides an outline of further enquiry needed to deepen our understanding of the issue. The Japanese Case: Exceptional Nationalism? The Japanese case in general is seen as somewhat exceptional both in “lay” and professional discussions, and by both Japanese and nonJapanese people. One example is found in nihonjinron, “discussions of the Japanese”, a particular genre of literature that emerged in the 1970s in Japan. The flourishing of nihonjinron has attracted the attention of a number of scholars, including Kosaku Yoshino and Harumi Befu, who have pointed out that the persistence of the myth of Japanese uniqueness is at the core of nihonjinron. The main message of nihonjinron is that “the Japanese are different and they are unique”, and this message is enthusiastically consumed by both Japanese and non-Japanese public (Yoshino 1992; Dale 1986). With regard to Japanese nationalism in particular, Sandra Wilson notes that references to the Japanese case are almost non-existent in contemporary theoretical discussions of nationalism. Wilson speculates that this is due to the fact that the Japanese case does not conform to

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any “of the best-known models of nationalism” and partly due to the widely held perception that pre-World War II Japanese nationalism was negative, something to be denied (Wilson 2002, 1). However, a careful analysis of the Japanese case reveals that the nationalism of pre-World War II Japan was not that different from other cases. A wide range of adjectives have been used to describe this Japanese nationalism—ethnic, exclusivist, racist, imperialistic, militaristic, expansionist, fascist, oppressive, to name just a few. Clearly, it has never been categorised as “liberal”, “anti-colonial” or “republication” nationalism. But this does not make nationalism of pre-World War II Japan an exception or something unique; none of the adjectives listed earlier can be applied exclusively to the Japanese case. For example, one widely-circulating claim is that nationalism of pre-World War II Japan was expansionist and imperialist. It was certainly expansionist and this tendency became clear rather early in the form of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895, just a few decades after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 which kick started the modernisation processes in Japan in earnest. The fact that the expansionist or imperial inclination emerged so strongly in a relatively short period of time since Westernisation/modernisation started is perhaps surprising and exceptional. Comparing the Japanese case with the Turkish and Chinese cases, John Breuilly has concluded that only “the Japanese case can be regarded as a case of successful reform nationalism” (Breuilly 1982, 218). But the Japanese government found itself in the age of imperial expansion when it finally decided to embrace Westernisation and modernisation, and it was imperative for the government to emulate what Western powers were doing in order to join the winners club and avoid being turned into a colony (Bellah 2003, 39). However, the expansionist or imperial policies that were pursued by the Japanese government of the time were not different in essence from other governments’ policies. It was, in other words, a “normal” reaction to the situation. Similarly, the claim that the nationalism of pre-World War II was exceptionally exclusivist, racist, and overall ethnic, is an overstatement. The population of Japan was, and still is, very homogeneous compared to other nations in the world. The membership of the nation as specified in the current Nationality Law is predominantly determined according to “blood and soil” criteria, which are often held to be the hallmarks of ethnic nationalism such as birth (until 1985, by the paternal line only). It is fair to place Japanese nationalism, both pre- and post-World War II, close to the ethnic pole of the

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ethnic-civic continuum of the conception of nationhood. Broadly speaking, with ethnic nationalism, the nation is conceived as an organic being that is bound together by blood whereas in civic nationalism, the nation is often seen as a group of willing individuals who have chosen to come together to form a nation in order to pursue a variety of purposes, such as revolution, democracy or independence. The implications of this are that ethnic nationalism is equated with being exclusive and irrational whereas civic nationalism is identified with liberalism and rationality. However, the Japanese case is not the only case in which the emphasis is placed on “blood” as countless case studies have revealed. Moreover, it has been argued that the conception of nationhood in pre-World War II Japan was in fact not based on the idea of the Japanese as a homogenous group (Oguma 1995). Eiji Oguma has demonstrated that in the pre-World War II period, the dominant and official idea of Japanese nationhood was that it was heterogeneous and that it was a collection of different peoples who were tied together thanks to the emperor’s benevolence. This was an official ideology created and propagated by the Japanese government partly in order to come to terms with the reality of empire building. Because of the early onset of the territorial expansion of Japan, the population under Japanese rule quickly and undeniably became multi-ethnic. At the same time, the Japanese ruling class was trying to differentiate Japan from the Western powers by way of employing a different rhetoric of legitimation of power: the emperor’s benevolence. Combined, they produced the official ideology that the Japanese nation was heterogeneous and therefore making this diverse population “Japanese” was considered to be a task of utmost importance for the state. This is very similar to what other nations have experienced; thus, the Japanese case, even in its supposedly extreme form, cannot be considered exceptional. The nationalism of pre-World War II Japan was certainly stateoriented, militaristic, totalitarian and expansionist, but so were other cases of nationalism. It is difficult to argue that it was a unique kind of nationalism. If anything, pre-World War II Japanese nationalism appeared to share a central tenet with most other cases of nationalism of the time; i.e., nations are the most important unit of human groupings, and therefore their importance has to be safeguarded by specific means. Among these were securing political independence, and establishing and maintaining the nation’s identity. Further, the people who


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happened to belong to the nation should give their ultimate loyalty to the nation and to the state that represents the nation. Already at this stage of the analysis, the Japanese case challenges the very fundamentals of our initial assumption that differentiated forms of religion produce different forms of nationalism. Religion and Nationalism in Pre-War Japan There is another important aspect of the Japanese case that has profound implications concerning the initial assumption/thesis here: state Shintō was not so different from other, especially “Western”, religions such as Christianity, Judaism and Islam in that it was almost monotheistic in its nature (Hardacre 1989; Abe 2005). This stands in stark contrast to “traditional”, “folk” or “popular” Shintō, which cannot be classified by any means as monotheistic. Moreover, state Shintō was the kind of Shintō that was envisaged in the formulation of my initial assumption/thesis that different types of religion produce different types of nationalism. However, it is clear that state Shintō was closer to monotheism than folk Shintō was. This was the case because state Shintō was constructed as such. Why did this occur? Because the Meiji oligarchs wanted to create a Japanese monotheistic religion that was on par with Western monotheistic religions in order to assist state- and nation-building (Hardacre 1989; Abe 2005, ch. 2; Bellah 2003, 35–40). This was, in other words, a classic case of the state’s manipulating religion, customs and traditions for the purpose of state- and nation-building. The Meiji oligarchs were aware, through reports from missions to Europe and the US (sent to study many, if not all, aspects of modern society), that Western modern states were founded on the history or tradition of strong religious allegiance, described by one as “the absolute faith in God” (Abe 2005, 67–76). The separation of church and state of course was noted and the importance of freedom of religion was pressed upon the Meiji government by the Western powers. Nevertheless, the architects of the new Japanese state (and nation) were convinced that the religious aspect was the key to the success of the modern states in the West since they saw religion as the most effective tool for the nationalisation of the masses (Abe 2005, ch. 2). This may or may not be correct, but that is not the issue here. The point is that the perspective of the Meiji oligarchs was that religion was essential in modern state—and nation—building and they acted upon this belief.

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In order to build a new modern state and create a modern nation to carry the state, the Meiji oligarchs thought that something similar to Christianity was essential to mould the people of Japan into a unified and self-aware Japanese nation. Furthermore, in order to function as a spiritual or psychological pillar of the Japanese nation, this needed to function like Christianity did in the West, to foster strong loyalty. There were at that time three major religious or spiritual traditions to choose from in Japan: Shintō, Buddhism and Confucianism. Taoism was also available and was already a part of the lives of the people of Japan, but it is not included in the current analysis, since it was/is hardly treated as a coherent religious tradition by either scholars or the public. Which of the three traditions was most suitable for legitimising the emperor’s direct rule (emperors did not rule Japan from 1192 till 1868, but remained a symbolic force until the Meiji Restoration renewed the role of the emperor) and instilling a strong sense of belonging to the Japanese nation and loyalty to the Japanese state? It was Shintō, for reasons I will describe in more detail later in this chapter. Thus, it was on this basis—state-building, nation-building and the need to legitimise the emperor’s direct rule—that state Shintō was created. Toshimaro Abe points out that state Shintō should be called “Ten-nokyo” (Emperor-ism), because it was not much like the Shintō that had previously been practised (Abe 2005, 99). Shintō is a pantheist and folk religious or spiritual tradition that does not have a founder, coherent dogma, sacred scriptures or hierarchical church organisation. In Shintō, anything that inspires awe, called kami, is worshipped—be it ancestors, exceptional individuals, nature or bad spirits (Ono 1962, 6–8). Since Shintō had never been centrally organised until the Meiji Restoration, different deities were worshipped according to the local needs. The most important deity for anyone was his/her own ancestors. According to the Shintoist mode of thinking, the dead stay with the living as spirits and careful tending of their needs results in protection and good fortune. For the imperial family, their ultimate ancestral deity was, and still is, the sun goddess, Amaterasu. However, for a long while, it was the emperor’s personal ancestral deity and had very little to do with others—commoners and warriors, and the majority of aristocracy—who had their own ancestral deities to look after. Waterfalls, huge rocks and mountains were, and are, worshipped as having some mystical power. Mountains, it seems, were particularly significant for many people in ancient Japan (Hori 1968, ch. 4). There are many shrines that are


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dedicated to the mountain itself and some shrines even do not have an altar because the mountain behind the shrine is the deity itself. The belief was that bad spirits were born when someone died with a huge amount of resentment, and they would cause havoc. One way to deal with bad spirits was to turn them into deities of some sort and worship them, and they were then pacified. The most famous example of this is the case of Sugawara-no-Michizane (845–903 BCE), an exceptionally talented scholar-politician of a relatively low rank, who in the end died in exile because he lost a power struggle with the powerful Fujiwara clan. After his death, there were famines, freak weather patterns and diseases in Kyoto, where the court was located, and elsewhere in Japan. When the four Fujiwara brothers all died during an epidemic, it was believed that the spirit of Sugawara, who died disappointed and with much resentment towards the “winners”, was causing all these disasters; a shrine dedicated to him was hastily built to pacify his bad spirit. Sugawara was made into a deity of disaster and thunder, and all of the disasters affecting the people in Kyoto stopped. What this incident signifies is Shintō’s fundamental idea about the dead; they are all “deities” in that they can influence the lives of the living. If the dead are causing problems for the living, the Shintō way of dealing with this is to re-deify these “problematic” spirits as beneficial ones so that the bad spirits will be calmed and change their nature. Because of Sugawara’s academic achievements, the shrine is now known as a place to pray for success in academic endeavours. Even today, thousands of youngsters flock there to pray for their success at exams. Although this is indeed a short and rather cursory description of Shintō, it should suffice to illustrate that Shintō is a very different religion from the Christianity of the West which the Meiji oligarchs wanted to emulate. State Shintō of course drew from both Shintō as practiced and observed by ordinary people in various parts of Japan and the imperial household Shintō, which was, and still is, an essentially private religious practice of the imperial family and some aristocrats, based on ancestor worship (Hardacre 1989; Abe 2005, ch. 2). State Shintō however is different from the type of Shintō I have just described, and is best summarised as a monotheistic form of religion with the imperial system at its core. The backbone of this new invention or fabrication is a peculiar form of ideology that demands the unity of church and state (or majority religion and secular power), which the pre-World War II

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Japanese government chose to propagate. This unity should be realised in the emperor and his direct rule. The emperor was seen as the chief priest in Japan, but was not to be active in politics in a conventional sense. He was supposed to rule through prayer. His main duty was to pray for the peace and prosperity of the country and the people to his ancestral deities which were made into “national” deities. By demonstrating his devotion to his ancestral deities, by the act of worship, he would remind his subjects how much their ancestors were indebted to the emperors of the past, i.e., the emperor’s ancestors. And once reminded of their past indebtedness, the subjects would rediscover the strong feeling of gratitude to the emperor and his ancestors, which they might have forgotten during the long reign of warriors, and be willing to come together and support the newly installed state, and by doing so would become a nation. In turn, this nation was considered a big family since every member of the Japanese nation was there thanks to the emperor’s ancestors and the emperor’s devotion to his ancestral deities. The nation and state were thus fused in this line of thinking to form a quasi-organic entity with the emperor at its pinnacle (Bellah 2003, 39). In order to promote this particular ideology cum religion, the Meiji government set about first separating Shintō from Buddhism (by then Shintō and Buddhism had been fused for 1,200 years) and then organising Shinto shrines across Japan into a centralised, hierarchical system (Hardacre 1989; Abe 2005, 98, ch. 2). Each shrine was ranked in one of five strata that were introduced by the government and governed by a body at the central government. Shinto priests were then made into civil servants or semi-civil servants, and were placed under the authority of the government. It was indeed a nationalisation of Shintō which previously had been highly localised. With the organisation of shrines, a kind of hierarchy was also introduced in the world of deities. The sun goddess, the ultimate ancestral deity of the imperial family, was made the top deity and others were deemed to be subordinate to the sun goddess. Efforts were made to connect numerous deities to the sun goddess. Here, ancient writings, such as Kojiki (712) and Nihonshoki (720), which were written mainly to legitimise Japanese independence at that time vis-à-vis China, came in handy. A few “doctrines”, such as the Imperial Rescript on Education (1890), were written up and published to explain why the Japanese nation as a whole was indebted to the emperor and his family, the new object of worship. These became the foundation of the new worldview propagated by the Meiji government.


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State Shintō therefore acquired a certain dogma, sacred scriptures, the “only god” and a hierarchical church organisation—and was thus more like Christianity than folk Shintō. To recap, the Japanese case illuminates a major problem concerning the initial assumption/hypothesis of this chapter. In short, the above discussion indicates that the Japanese case is not suitable for testing the initial assumption/thesis that different forms of religion produce different forms of nationalism. Since pre-World War II Japanese nationalism was not fundamentally different from other cases of nationalism and since state Shintō was more like Christianity than folk Shintō was, the case of pre-World War II Japan does not provide suitable material for testing the assumption that different forms of religion produce different forms of nationalism. What the case does suggest, in regards to the relationship between nationalism and religion, is that if nationalism is political religion, it is a form of political monotheism. If nationalism is not political religion, one can of course draw different conclusions, which should then be explored further in separate analyses. To put it simply, it is monotheism, not just any religion, which is conducive to nationalism. Perhaps because of its nature, monotheism lends itself well to centralisation, a tendency that is undoubtedly one of the major characteristics of the modern state. Or perhaps it is because nationalism is a modern phenomenon. Nations may or may not be ancient or medieval, but nationalism is modern, and monotheism may have something that is essentially modern, for the “modernity” we know is built on the Judeo-Christian traditions. Obviously these are just speculations that require careful examination, an endeavour that this short chapter would not be able to address. Despite the unexpected twists that the Japanese case has thrown into the discussion, it has also produced a different question, which is helpful in exploring the relationship between nationalism and religion; namely, why did the Meiji oligarchs choose Shintō as the spiritual backbone for the Japanese nation? The rest of the chapter examines this question. The Japanese Case Continued: Why Shintō? Why then did the Meiji oligarchs choose Shintō? Buddhism was strongly associated with the old ways which the Meiji government wanted to discard. After all, it had been the de facto state religion since around the seventh century when the Yamato regime decided

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to embrace it wholeheartedly after pro-Buddhist clans won the battle for power. Under Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868), Buddhist temples were the key institutions for organising and ruling the masses across the country. Everyone was required to register with a Buddhist temple in order to prove that they were not Christian, an officially banned faith, births and deaths were recorded by Buddhist monks and the records were kept in the temples. Under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Buddhism in Japan in general turned itself into what is often called “funeral Buddhism”; Buddhism was there primarily to look after the dead (Abe 1996, 48–58). The association of Buddhism with funerals and deaths might not have appealed to the newly established government intent on starting something new (Abe 2005, ch. 2). Another factor that should not be overlooked is the influence of the Nativist School. The Nativist School emerged in the eighteenth century under the Tokugawa Shogunate and their thinking is widely seen as a precursor of modern Japanese nationalism (Yoshino 1992, 46–49). Against the convention of the time, when learning meant studying Chinese classical texts, the Nativist School argued for the need to concentrate on the study of some Japanese ancient writings, mainly Kojiki, Nihonshoki, and Manyoshu, all of which were compiled in the eighth century, and to accord a superior status to studying it. The Nativist scholars advocated going back to the “true ways” of ancient Japan, the ways that were “true” because they were original and not contaminated by foreign, i.e., Chinese influences. The Nativist scholars disliked Buddhism as well as Confucianism because they thought these had corrupted the Japanese mind which used to know the “true ways” (Abe 2005, 62–64). According to the Nativists, by regaining the “true ways”, Japanese people could be the most noble and superior people in the world since other peoples had forgotten their true ways. The Nativist scholars believed that all peoples of the earth, in the beginning, knew their own “true ways”; but all of them, except the Japanese, had forgotten the “true ways” because they allowed foreign influences to corrupt their minds. It is clear that there is a trace of a kind of Romanticism in the Nativists’ thinking, deep and acute concerns with one’s own roots, which can be translated into concerns with purity, originality and authenticity. This is not the place to explore the intellectual genealogy of the Nativist school however. The point is that the Meiji oligarchs might well have been influenced by the Nativist ideas and therefore Shintō appeared


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more appealing than Buddhism in their eyes, because it was supposed to be pure and represent the essence of being Japanese. Confucianism remained influential and still exercises substantial power over Japanese people and society, but it was rejected as the spiritual pillar of the newly established Japanese state by the Meiji oligarchs (Abe 2005, 61). It was not favoured partly because the Nativists disliked it as something foreign as noted earlier. More specifically, the Meiji oligarchs were not fond of a particular idea in the Confucian tradition, the idea of revolution. In Confucianism, when the mandate from the heaven is deemed to have expired, anyone could take over power with whatever means, and the act of taking over power, i.e., of destroying the existing social order under this particular circumstance is deemed to be legitimate. The Meiji oligarchs greatly disliked this idea, because it was not a convenient mode of thinking in terms of legitimising the imperial rule. The transfer of power from the Tokugawa Shogunate to the emperor might be legitimised by Confucianism, but there is nothing that necessitates the return of the emperor’s direct rule in Confucian teaching. Anyone with the right qualities could have taken over the government. For these reasons, although a number of teachings from the Confucian tradition were eagerly adopted by the Meiji government, Confucianism itself was not turned into a state religion. What then did Shintō offer to the Meiji oligarchs that was not offered by Buddhism or Confucianism? First of all, it was an old tradition, which nevertheless was not contaminated by associations with the old ways, like Buddhism was. To the Meiji oligarchs, who were building something new without losing some sense of continuity (after all, the Meiji Restoration was not deemed to be a “revolution”), Shintō was probably ideal for the central role because it could bring a sense of continuity while being presented as marking a new start. There are two more specific aspects that Shintō provided: uniqueness and transcendence. Shintō, being a folk religion, was, and is, undoubtedly an indigenous faith; no other people had, or have, it. In the world of nations, according to classical nationalist ideas, each nation has to be a unique individual. A nation’s individuality can be expressed in a number of ways, but having its own religion on top of its own language, customs and other characteristics must be advantageous. Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism could not offer the aura of uniqueness that Shintō provided because they were all foreign. Shintō, therefore, was best suited for supplying this quality, which was demanded by the influences of Romanticism.

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Secondly, Shintō could provide a sense of transcendence. Although Confucianism and Taoism are weak on this aspect, Buddhism can also provide a strong basis for a sense of transcendence. After all, Buddha’s teaching is all about achieving transcendence, away from this life full of suffering. So what did Shintō offer that Buddhism did not? Buddhism is perhaps, first of all, too otherworldly. Salvation in Buddhism is getting out of the cycle of reincarnation, and often it was translated into a belief in a better life after death. Many sects that acquired huge followings in Japan concentrated on preparing oneself to avoid going to hell. In addition, as mentioned earlier, under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Buddhism was strongly associated with death and life after death. It was created to specialise in the issues of the other world. Death, needless to say, is the worst kegare (literally meaning “the weakening of life power”, interpreted as “contamination”), and being primarily associated with kegare would undermine Buddhism’s capacity to be the spiritual pillar of the new state and nation, the very opposite to kegare. On the other hand, Confucianism and Shintō governed this world. They provided discipline in everyday life for the majority of people in Japan as to what to do, how to behave, how to live and so on. It is therefore rather illogical to suggest that Shintō provided a sense of transcendence since it is strongly oriented to “this world”. Two points can be made in this regard. First, in Shintō, this world and the other world are more entangled than in the other religious traditions available in Japan. The dead, the ancestors, were believed to be with the living. If transcendence means something beyond this world, Shintō perhaps provides a kind of transcendence, a transcendence as a lived reality. Secondly, the influence of the Nativist School is apparent (for instance, see Yoshino 1992, 46–50). What is important here is their idea of the “unbroken imperial line”. Popular Shintō and the imperial household Shintō were quite different in terms of the identity of the deities that were worshipped. But the two shared similar, albeit quite under-developed, belief systems and mythologies. These two were fused in state Shintō mainly on the basis of the Nativist idea of the unbroken imperial line. According to the Nativist scholars, Japanese people had not lost completely their original “true ways” like others in the world because of the unbroken imperial line. The emperor, or more precisely the imperial family, was there in Japan with Japanese people right from the beginning and he was still there. Because his family was there from time immemorial, they had not lost the original, pure mind that knew the “true ways”. The imperial family, therefore, was the ultimate guard-


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ian of “Japaneseness”. Here the timelessness of the imperial family is implied with time stretching back into the indefinite past. It also appears to extend into the future, again, indefinitely. When popular Shintō was fused with imperial household Shintō in the form of state Shintō, the timelessness of the imperial family was then extended to apply to the Japanese nation; the Japanese nation has been there right from the beginning and would continue to be there because the unbroken imperial line would ensure the preservation of the “true ways”. Buddhism and Confucianism could not have provided this sense of timelessness or transcendence. This observation echoes Anthony D. Smith’s assertion that the sense of the sacred (that which is separated from the profane) is essential in the foundation of national identity (Smith 2003, 3–5). And if this sacredness can be established as being particular to an ethnic group, it becomes even more potent. The Japanese case outlined above appears to fit Smith’s thesis. In Shintō, or more precisely in state Shintō, the sacredness of a particular family was extended to the whole population, thus making the nation itself sacred and timeless. Japanese nationalism before World War II therefore can be seen as an act of collective worship by the Japanese people of themselves, which happened to take the form of emperor worship. In this instance, as Smith points out, Durkheim’s insight seems to be the most appropriate explanation (Smith 2003, 26–28). If religion is about society worshipping itself, nationalism is certainly a form of religion since it worships the nation. Concluding Remarks: Civil Religion, Nationalism and Globalisation The relationship between nationalism and religion from the perspective of nationalism studies in the case of pre-World War II Japan was outlined in the preceding paragraphs. Although it was clear early in the analysis that with the chosen case it is impossible to test the initial assumption/thesis about the relationship between different kinds of nationalism and different kinds of religion, the examination of the Japanese case has provided another hypothesis; i.e., monotheism is conducive to nationalism, a hypothesis that requires further investigation. The Japanese case has further highlighted certain aspects of nationalism and national identity that Anthony D. Smith has recently focused on: the sense of authenticity and the “sacredness” of the nation. State Shintō appears to have supplied both; it provided a

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sense of authenticity by absorbing popular or folk Shintō and a sense of the sacredness of the Japanese nation by projecting the “unbroken imperial line” to the collection of various peoples of Japan as a whole. This short chapter is by no means the definitive account of nationalism and religion in Japan. It has nonetheless suggested new hypotheses that merit further investigation. What then are the implications of the discussion here in terms of the other themes of the book, civil religion and globalisation? State Shintō as civil religion has been discussed notably by Robert Bellah, and drawing on his argument Marcela Cristi has classified it as belonging to the category of what she calls “civil religion à la Rousseau”, which is state-sponsored and operates to attribute a sacred character to the polity (Cristi 2001, 142). This observation is not very different from what is argued in the current chapter, without evoking the idea of civil religion. The question is then whether the introduction of the concept of civil religion would enhance the analysis of the Japanese case as it has been developed here. The short answer is negative. According to Cristi, state Shintō is in fact political religion that should be differentiated from a Durkheimian conception of civil religion. Cristi contends that there is “a certain affinity between civil religion and nationalism” and it is the Rousseauan version of civil religion that she appears to be concerned with in this particular regard (Cristi 2001, 221). It is not too far fetched to infer that the case this chapter has addressed would be treated by Cristi as a case of nationalism rather than civil religion, because state Shintō was largely the main instrument of political legitimation. State Shintō is clearly a political religion and furthermore is a Rousseauan version of civil religion. But is it nationalism at the same time? The question then becomes that of the distinction between political religion and nationalism, and as far as the case of state Shintō has revealed, they are one and the same. Nationalism is indeed a secular functional equivalent to religion. This is a daring suggestion that has not been fully explored in this short chapter; rather, this chapter has provided some ground work for pursuing the question. The interesting area of enquiry would then be whether there was any sign of the emergence of a “civil religion à la Durkheim” in Japan of the same period, and if so, what is its relationship with state Shintō and nationalism in general. In this way, the utility of the concept of civil religion outside the United States could be tested. Also, this would be an endeavour to shift the focus of enquiry from the state-dominated level to the more “popular”, “lay” level, the area that is often neglected in many sociological studies.


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Relating the case of pre-World War II Japan to the concept of globalisation is easier. One can argue that the development of state Shintō and nationalism between 1686 and 1945 was in fact one of the typical responses to globalisation: the quest of the particular. The speed and degree of globalisation in the late nineteenth century might not have been comparable to that which is experienced today. However, the Meiji government was faced with the unprecedented task of navigating Japan into a newly found (from the Japanese perspective) world order. The old Sino-centric world order had to be abandoned and a new way of dealing with the outside world as well as the internal world had to be sought and adopted quickly. The Meiji oligarchs chose Shintō as a resource that would anchor the Japanese state and nation in a particular place amid profound social change which we may call an earlier phase of globalisation. It secured the continuity while embracing the new. The plan worked. Within a few decades after the “opening up” of the country, Japan became one of the industrial and military powers of the world. It managed globalisation successfully and succeeded to become one of the world leaders, albeit for a short period of time. References Abe, Toshimaro. 1996. 日本人はなぜ無宗教なのか (Why are the Japanese non-religious?). Tokyo: Chikuma Shoten. ⎯⎯ 2005. 宗教は国家を超えられるか：近代日本の検証 (Can Religion Supersede the State?: An Investigation of Modern Japan). Tokyo: Chikuma Shote. Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and the Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil religion in America. Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 96: 1–21. ⎯⎯ 2003. Imagining Japan: The Japanese Tradition and its Modern Interpretation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Breuilly, John. 1982. Nationalism and the State. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Brown, David. 2000. Contemporary Nationalism: Civic, Ethnocultural and Multicultural Politics. London: Routledge. Burns, Susan L. 2003. Before the Nation: Kokugaku and the Imagining of community in Early Modern Japan. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Cristi, Marcela. 2001. From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Dale, Peter. 1986. The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. London: Croom Helm. Hardacre, Helen. 1989. Shintō and the State, 1868–1988. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hori, Ichiro. 1968. Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ignatieff, Michael. 1994. Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. London: Vintage.

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Oguma, Eiji. 1995. 単一民族神話の起源：＜日本人＞の自画像の系譜 (The Origins of the Myth of the Homogeneous Nation: The Genealogy of the Self-Portrait of the “Japanese”). Tokyo: Shinyo-sha. Ono, Sokyo. 1962. Shinto: The Kami Way. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Company. Rieffer, Barbara-Ann J. 2003. Religion and nationalism: Understanding the consequences of a complex relationship. Ethnicities 3(2): 215–242. Smith, Anthony D. 2003. Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilson, Sandra. 2002. Rethinking nation and nationalism in Japan. In Nation and Nationalism in Japan, ed. Sandra Wilson, 1–20. London: Routledge-Curzon. Yoshino, Kosaku. 1992. Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER SIX

DOMINION OF THE GODS: RELIGIOUS CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN A CANADIAN CONTEXT Roger O’Toole The past may be another country, but every society is a unique palimpsest of historically imprinted layers that have been overlaid, erased, obscured, distorted, preserved, exhumed and reconstituted in various ways. Thus, when attempting to comprehend new or unfamiliar forms of religion that seek placement in contemporary society, the sociologist cannot ignore the pre-existing religious legacy that, forged over many generations, broadly prescribes the character of “normal” religion in the national life (see Table 1). For this reason, even a brief account of the manner in which major religious traditions from Asia, Africa and the Middle East have attempted to put down roots in Canadian soil over the last three decades must address the persistence and pertinence of the national religious inheritance that looms in the background of all spiritual importation and innovation. In focusing on the most recent and significant manifestations of out-of-place religions in the Canadian context, the present essay outlines the particular character of this inheritance and its role in the evolution of state strategy with respect to religious affairs. The Spiritual Dominion Nothing symbolises the importance of religion in the national narrative of Canada better than the choice of the word “dominion” to designate the new nation’s independence under the British crown, and the selection of the phrase A mari usque ad mare to serve as the official national motto in 1867. Both formulations intentionally transmit a deeply spiritual message inseparable from their more obvious celebration of Victorian nationalism, imperialism, monarchism and materialism. Drawn from Psalm 72, they express nothing less than a millennial vision of a just and virtuous society that, under the dominion of the Lord, harnesses its powers in accordance with the dictates of holy writ (Westfall 1989). In

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roger o’toole Table 1. Religious Affiliation in Canada 2001

Christian Buddhist Hindu Jewish Muslim Sikh Other Religions All Religions No Religion

76.7% 1.0% 1.0% 1.1% 2.0% 0.9% 0.5% 83.1% 16.2%

Total Canadian Population N = 29,639,030 Source: Statistics Canada (2003)

the decades in which Canada achieved political independence, extended the reach of a new federal state, promoted unprecedented economic and demographic expansion, and integrated the far-flung regions of its vast territory, there was a remarkable growth and intensification of religious activity, which unapologetically intruded into social, political and economic spheres to an extent that secured Christianity a tenacious influence on the national life (O’Toole 1982). The history of religion in Canada is overwhelmingly the story of the penetration and dissemination of Christianity, mainly in its Roman Catholic and Protestant forms (Choquette 2004). Moreover, since the earliest European settlement, the internal theological, liturgical and organisational divisions within Christianity have been embedded in ethnic rivalries. Thus, just as ethnicity has been described as “the skeleton of religion in America” (Marty 1973), this metaphor may also be deemed entirely appropriate in a Canadian setting. Canada’s origins lie in a historic conflict and compromise between two peoples (“races”) embracing different languages and religions. Moreover, each ethnos involved in this conjunction perceived itself as a “chosen people” whose presence (exile) in a strange land was sacralized and spiritually endorsed by appropriate ecclesiastical authority. The prevailing notion (shared by Catholics and Protestants alike) of a Christian society as a harmonious enterprise in which social, political and religious spheres were distinguishable but inseparable found formal expression, after the British conquest, in the prolonged legal establishment of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches in English and French Canada respectively. While this colonial system of peaceful co-existence between pillarised

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religious monopolies legitimated and perpetuated the cultural divide between the anglophone and francophone populations, it paradoxically provided a skeletal structure of church-state relations that permitted and sustained conciliation, compromise and co-operation between hereditary enemies. Widely condemned in both Great Britain and the nascent United States, such tolerance, born of immediate necessity, launched a longterm official strategy “that both acknowledged ethnic and religious differences and worked toward their co-existence” (Christiano, forthcoming). The pragmatic, utilitarian and decidedly unphilosophical character of this legislation, which chartered an evolution toward nationhood, is often hailed as an emblematic blueprint of a perennially prudent and un-ideological domestic agenda dedicated to “peace, order and good government” rather than to the promulgation of self-evident truths or universal political principles (Lipset 1990). Thus, in almost exotic contrast to the constitutional separation of church and state in the US, truncated but persistent loci of fusion between religion and polity retain significance as potential sources of protracted constitutional negotiation in Canada. Most politicians, therefore, have learned to approach religious matters with circumspection, sensitivity and an openness to that spirit of creative compromise and ad hoc inventiveness that has generally proven effective in the past. A necessary prelude to the assessment of recently arrived nonChristian immigrant religions is a recognition of the prior centuries of European migration that ensured the indisputable dominance of the Christian worldview during Canada’s rise as a modern state (Knowles 1997). The notion of this country as fundamentally the creation of immigrants is a core tenet of national mythology, which is dramatically reinforced by the current national distribution of religious affiliation and an exploration of its roots in the mass immigration that transformed Canada between confederation and World War I (see Table 2). During this half-century, the national population doubled and the most conspicuous contours of the contemporary religious landscape emerged as enthusiastic encouragement of immigration from the “mother country”, supplying the basis for nation-building and British imperial expansion. Thus, Irish immigrants eroded the francophone Roman Catholic monopoly while newcomers from other parts of the United Kingdom swelled the ranks of Protestantism, mainly through affiliation with

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roger o’toole Table 2. Major Religious Groups in Canada (%) (1871–1911)

Year

Canadian population (N)

Methodist in % of population

1871 1881 1891 1901 1911

3,689,257 4,324,810 4,833,239 5,371,315 7,206,643

15.4 17.2 17.5 17.1 15.0

Presbyterian Anglican in % of in % of population population 14.8 15.6 15.6 15.7 15.5

13.3 13.3 13.4 12.7 14.8

Baptist in % of population 6.7 6.9 6.2 5.9 5.3

Total % of Romanpopulation Catholic in % of population 40.4 41.4 41.2 41.5 39.3

Source: Census of Canada

transplanted branches of the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. These religious organisations were conspicuous in their efforts to complement the co-ordination of government and economic institutions by comparable consolidation of diverse and growing spiritual resources. This process was especially evident in a Protestant context, where, as numbers increased, a series of alliances and mergers gradually forged numerous smaller groups into a restricted assembly of larger denominations. This degree of Christian consolidation (in stark contrast to the situation in the US) was manifest in the fact that more than 90% of Canadians claimed affiliation with one of the five largest churches, while 84% owed allegiance to one of the four largest (see Table 2). Gradual relaxation of Canadian immigration laws during the twentieth century allowed the entry of increasing numbers of immigrants from places other than the British Isles. At first, such newcomers were drawn from northern Europe and the Ukraine, which increased the ranks of Protestantism and Orthodoxy respectively; but particularly after World War II, major expansion of the already burgeoning Roman Catholic presence was fuelled by increasing immigration from southern and eastern Europe. In the late 1950s, the scene was set for significant increases in non-European (and non-Christian) immigration when official racial, cultural and religious preferences in immigrant selection were deemed unnecessary and undesirable. In the same spirit, in the 1970s, Canada officially adopted a policy of multiculturalism, which encouraged “New Canadians” to preserve and perpetuate the languages and cultures of their homelands. In so doing, it formally rejected the idea of an assimilationist “melting pot” and adopted the already widely used

90.6 94.4 93.9 92.9 89.9


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Table 3. Changing Composition of Immigrant Religious Affiliation in Canada. Period of immigration (%) Before 1961 1961–1970 Total immigrants Roman Catholic Protestant Christian Orthodox Christian, not incl. elsewhere Jewish Muslim Hindu Buddhist Sikh No religion Other religions

1971–1980

1981–1990

1991–2001

100.0 39.2 39.2 3.8

100.0 43.4 26.9 6.3

100.0 33.9 21.0 3.8

100.0 32.9 14.5 3.0

100.0 23.0 10.7 6.3

1.3

2.2

3.8

4.9

5.3

2.7 0.2 0.0 0.4 0.1 11.0 2.1

2.0 1.3 1.4 0.9 1.1 13.5 1.0

2.2 5.4 3.6 4.8 3.9 16.5 1.1

1.9 7.5 4.9 7.5 4.3 17.3 1.3

1.2 15.0 6.5 4.6 4.7 21.3 1.4

Source: Statistics Canada (2003)

metaphor of a “mosaic” in order to describe the essential character of Canadian society (Kelley and Trebilcock 1998). Integral to such a model, naturally, was the notion of a religious mosaic not confined to variations on the Christian theme and including spiritual traditions once the targets of Christian missionary wrath. No such diversified vision had inspired the fathers of confederation who had engineered the mechanics of religious tolerance and co-existence, but, a century later, the concept of a multicultural mosaic pervaded Canadian social and political discourse and signalled new attitudes toward religion and immigration (see Table 3). Of course, no mosaic requires equal representation of components or precludes their hierarchical arrangement. Within the Canadian religious mosaic, therefore, the presence of Christianity compared to that of other religions (or no religion) is so dominant as to be frequently broadly described as hegemonic. (Inspection of Tables 1 and 4 reveals a distribution of religious identification that still traces the contours of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries template described in Table 2.) Despite the much heralded inroads of secularisation at the beginning of the twenty-first century, nearly three-quarters of Canadians still claim to be Christians of either Roman Catholic or Protestant persuasion and of the 83.1% of the national population

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claiming adherence to a religion, 92.3% are Christians. Furthermore, the most recent national census reveals a continuance of Christian consolidation, in which over three-quarters (77.8%) of all Christians claim affiliation with the three largest denominations (Statistics Canada 2003). These figures are naturally subject to many interpretations, but they do offer a useful reminder of the underlying “normal” circumstances under which out-of-place religions seek placement within the Canadian religious mosaic. Non-Christianity and its Placement While the proportions of various kinds of Christians in the national stock-taking are directly affected by the religious affiliations of immigrants, the same is true, in an even more obvious way, of the major non-Christian groups that increasingly merit placement on the religious map of Canada. In the opinion of some Canadians and, indeed, in the estimation of many of those who comprise them, such groups remain cartographically and culturally out of place, although they have increasingly found a place in the intricate social webs of urban and suburban life. Since the 1970s, immigrant religion has taken a highly visible and exotic form consistent with more culturally and ethnically inclusive immigration policies. In the process, the links between religion and ethnicity have been simultaneously underlined and blurred as the most recent waves of newcomers from Asia, Africa and the Middle East seek to find their place and define their identities in a new society (see Table 4). The largest gains in religious affiliation in Canada between 1991 and 2001 occurred among Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists. Thus, Muslims more than doubled in number (increasing from less than 1% of the national population to 2%), while Hindu and Sikh adherents both increased by 89% and Buddhist adherents increased by 84%. As Table 3 makes clear, this growth rate is largely explicable based on the decadeby-decade increase in the proportion of these religious affiliations in successive waves of immigrants. Impressive as such growth has been, however, it must be emphasised that, in terms of a national population of just under thirty million, the actual numbers of people affiliated with these religions are far too small to challenge or weaken the hold of the historically-rooted mainstream Christian churches (Bibby 2000; O’Toole 1996). This is not to say that the presence of adherents to these


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Table 4. Major Religious Groups in Canada, 1991 and 2001 Total Canadian Population N = 29,639,030 (2001) N = 26,994,025 (1991)

2001

1991

Number

Number

Roman Catholic 12,793,125 Protestant 8, 654,845 Christian 479,620 Orthodox Christian not incl. 780,450 elsewhere Muslim 579,640 Jewish 329,995 Buddhist 300,345 Hindu 297,200 Sikh 278,415 No Religion 4,796,325

Percentage

Change 1991–2001

43.2% 29.2% 1.6%

12,203,625 9,427,675 387,395

45.2% 34.9% 1.4%

4.8 –8.2 23.8

2.6%

353,040

1.3%

121.1

2.0% 1.1% 1.0% 1.0% 0.9% 16.2%

253,265 318,185 163,415 157,015 147,440 3,333,245

0.9% 1.2% 0.6% 0.6% 0.5% 12.3%

128.9 3.7 83.8 89.3 88.8 43.9

Source: Statistics Canada (2003)

new religions is of no significance. On the contrary, the statistics belie their impact, not just on the religious scene but also in the national consciousness. Their increasingly visible presence is surely a key issue in a mainly subdued but intermittently enlivened and intense national discussion of immigration and citizenship, which parallels (in form, if not ferocity) current debates in Western Europe. The fact that affiliates of these four religions combined only constitute 5% of the Canadian population tends to be overshadowed by the fact that, of the nearly two million people entering Canada as immigrants between 1991 and 2001, no less than 32% (approximately a third) were Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists. This figure seems especially striking if it is noted that Catholics (the largest religious immigrant and national grouping) comprised only 23% (about a quarter) during that period. Moreover, one third of all immigrants now living in Canada (33.6%) entered the country in that decade. The social visibility of these religions is enhanced by the fact that adherents are largely immigrant in composition (approximately three-quarters of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists and two-thirds of Sikhs), thus they thereby exhibit heavy demographic concentration and disproportionate geographical placement in specific regions and large urban centres.

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One fundamental way in which non-Christian immigrant religiosity may be distinguished from its Christian counterpart is that, in a sense, it is required to accept a definition of religion (and thereby of itself) embedded in an essentially Christian worldview. This definition derives both from the history of European and North American church-state relations and the inexorable process of social differentiation that has assigned the sphere of religion a progressively more attenuated, circumscribed and confined place in the social structure. It is not, therefore, so much a product of Christian hegemony as a “relatively recent, highly selective and somewhat arbitrary historical (re)construction” rooted in the processes of modernisation and globalisation (Beyer 2001, 2003, 334–335). Acceptance of such a model of religion with its necessary correlates of toleration, pluralism, relativism, competition and, indeed, the right to choose a religion may prove extremely difficult for those coming from social settings in which religion permeates social relations to a high degree and within which, for example, an attempt to isolate and delineate specifically religious activity would be regarded as a curious and perplexing endeavour. In this respect, the act of defining religion is no mere manoeuvre in an interminable academic debate, but attains legal and political significance as the basis of all official efforts to draw the boundaries of a certain range of activities through the identification, inclusion, legitimation, regulation, limitation and exclusion of specific organised bodies (Beckford 1999). From one perspective, such defining (or re-defining) of non-Christian religious traditions may be viewed, in the Canadian context, simply as the first step in a process by which specific religious resources are redeployed by immigrants in ways that facilitate their communities’ adaptation to the host society. As Paul Bramadat (2005, 13) has commented, religion is not simply part of the “baggage” that immigrants bring into Canada: it is something that is never re-located but always re-created. From another, more cynical, perspective, re-definition and re-imagining of religious traditions according to the Western model may also facilitate governmental identification, surveillance and control of minority groups in the process of social and political incorporation. It may also paradoxically produce the sort of collective social struggle it seeks to avoid (Weller 2004). In a recent provocative theoretical discussion, Lori G. Beaman (2003, 311) challenges the conclusions of currently fashionable “rationalchoice” and “market” analyses by questioning the presumed existence of religious “free markets” in Canada and the US, contending that “reli-


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gious choice exists only within a narrow range of products”. Believing that sociologists have been overly eager to take diversity for granted and to apprehend and applaud “substantive plurality” and a “flourishing margin” beyond the religious mainstream, she argues that, in fact, there still exists a powerful Christian hegemony that has experienced little erosion by minority religions (Beaman 2003, 312–316). Such hegemony continues to exert “a persuasive pull, against which religious minorities are in tension” and “works to erode, marginalize and support the persecution of religious groups who fall outside the mainstream” (Beaman 2003, 314, 316). In this regard, those under greatest threat are immigrant religions: “the potential flash point for religious persecution” (Beaman 2003, 317). Beaman seeks to “encourage a deconstructing of religious diversity and pluralism” in order to show that authentic freedom of religion does not extend to religious minorities and to draw attention to the fact that such groups face “conflict, struggle and discrimination” especially when challenging or attempting to expand the boundaries of “normal religion” (Beaman 2003, 316, 321). Observing that Christian hegemony “binds, restricts and excludes in ways that have yet to be fully explored”, she seeks to uncover the manner in which “mainstream religion works to keep religions on the margin precisely there”, that is, to stay in their proper place beyond the pale (Beaman 2003, 321). Drawing upon the arguments of John Roth and Immanuel Wallerstein, Beaman documents her claims by the explication of a small number of legal decisions (three Canadian and one American) in cases concerning minority religious practices. Her conclusions are unequivocal: these case-studies illustrate the manner in which courts “marginalize minority religious groups, thus maintaining the status quo” and demonstrate a consistent legal pattern of “preservation of the religious mainstream” (Beaman 2003, 318). Beaman’s basic contention concerning the inherent limitations on religious competition and the unequal status of competitors in the Canadian religious market is, of course, not new. Indeed the notion of the hegemony or encasement of the major Christian denominations has been emphasised by the present author among others (Bibby 1985; O’Toole 1996). What is distinctive, however, is her assertion that such hegemony threatens, or actually impairs, the fundamental religious freedom of all minority religions (Christian or non-Christian); a conclusion that has been forcefully challenged. As Beaman’s critics have noted, her selected examples are readily offset by counter-examples and in no way establish an indisputably consistent pattern of judicial

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rulings. Furthermore, even the decisions that she cites may arguably be explained and justified as necessary for protection of the prerogatives of the state or defence of the integrity of other spheres of interest within society (such as educational, occupational or health systems), which might have been compromised by an alternative ruling. All judicial decisions, by their very nature, are subject to widely different interpretations and (rightly or wrongly) it is not difficult to offer explications of Beaman’s case-studies that do not include an intent (conscious or unconscious) to marginalise minorities nor preserve the mainstream by legally privileging certain forms of religion. Beaman claims that “case law is an important barometer of the treatment of religious minorities” and (more specifically) the “degree to which immigrants are protected in their religious practices is an important barometer of the extent to which North American society is willing to consider diversity that moves beyond varieties of Christianity and shades of white” (Beaman 2003, 318). However, it is far from clear to other observers that Canada is notably delinquent in its legal, political, social and cultural responses to ethno-religious diversity. Anthony Gill (2003, 327–328), for example, asserts bluntly that the degree of religious freedom available to North American minority religious groups is “historically unprecedented when viewed in a broader context”. While in no doubt as to religion’s potential as a resource for both social inclusion and exclusion, Peter Beyer sees nothing surprising or deeply disturbing from a global perspective in either “tendencies toward regional hegemony of one religion” or “attempts to limit what counts as religion and the power or reach of the counted religions” (Beyer 2003, 337). In his opinion, religions, like all other major substructures of contemporary society, are inevitably subject to some degree of limitation and it is only to be expected that modern states will try “to limit the number of religions and what legitimate religions can claim” (Beyer 2003, 337). But (as noted earlier), such a limitation is conceivably at least as concerned with the competition between institutional societal systems as with the exclusion of specific subgroups or Christian hegemonic motives and involves no necessary intent to contain religious pluralism. Indeed, it might even be perceived as an effort to encourage such pluralism by “limiting any one group’s range of influence” just as the desire to grant a wide range of power and influence to religion in general may require “clear limitation of the religions that can be legitimate” (Beyer 2003, 337).


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Thus, it may be suggested that, throughout the world, nation-states will reasonably and necessarily place some restrictions on specific religious practices under certain circumstances while re-affirming a sincere overall commitment to freedom of religion. In the Canadian context, the evolving legal limits defining the place of certain minority religions may reasonably be understood without resort to the notion of a programmatic stifling of religious freedom fuelled by Christian animosity. In fact, according to Beyer, the largely immigrant religions of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism have had “little trouble being recognized as religions entitled to free exercise” (Beyer 2003, 335; Bramadat 2005, 5; Biles and Ibrahim 2005, 169). To cast doubt on Beaman’s bleak assessment of religious freedom in Canada is not to endorse complacency regarding the prospects of minority religions, especially those mainly comprised of recent immigrants. The fact is that any new religious group seeking to establish itself as a legitimate and credible participant in a well-entrenched and historically resonant national pattern of religious affiliation is likely to “find the going extremely tough” (Bibby 2000, 237). Nonetheless, even if ethnicity and immigrant status compound the problems faced by Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and others, there is little doubt that these groups have skilfully utilised the considerable freedom and opportunity afforded by Canadian society to establish a presence of growing significance on the ecumenical religious scene in the country’s major urban centres. Religious Diversity, Multiculturalism and National Identity Detailed empirical studies of the interface between ethnicity and religion among non-Christian immigrants to Canada have only begun to emerge in the last few years and limitations of data (particularly of a longitudinal nature) necessitate cautious circumspection in this area of research. Generalisations are hazardous and it is not yet clear which aspects of immigrant religious experience are unique to Canadian circumstances and which are part of a global pattern. It is also easy to underestimate the social differentiation and ethnic diversity within specific immigrant religious communities. In addition, it is sometimes forgotten that such minority religions exhibit the same range of attitudes and behaviours among their affiliates as do mainstream churches: within their ranks are to be found the devout, the indifferent and the disbelieving.

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Over the coming years, as a second generation comes of age, scholars of many different ethnic and religious backgrounds will continue inquiries now underway by asking the members of ethno-religious minorities “where they think they belong and what such belonging means in their lives”, not only in terms of Canada but of the varieties of “otherlands”, “elsewheres” and imagined communities that prove relevant to respondents’ identities (Bramadat 2005, 17). From transnational and global perspectives, researchers will explore how immigrants and their offspring maintain attachment to more than one place in the formulation and fusion of their identities as Canadians, members of diaspora populations and affiliates of minority religions. They will also, if they heed the lessons of history, anticipate that “the power of these transnational ties to inform Canadian ethno-religious identities” will not diminish easily or rapidly (Bramadat and Seljak 2005, 230). Discussion regarding the overall impact and precise significance of non-Christian immigrant religions will doubtless intensify as their numbers expand and their profile is sharpened. In this context, efforts will proceed to determine whether such groups face essentially the same challenges in retaining their members, indoctrinating the young and resisting secularity as do Christian organisations or whether “the kinds of tensions one finds within these communities have no simple analogies in Euro-Canadian Christian communities” (Bibby 2000; Bramadat 2005, 5). With respect to tensions arising between these communities and the wider society, it seems very likely that future disputes and controversies will offer intriguing opportunities for research into the role of political and legal institutions in the exclusion and inclusion of non-Christian immigrant religions. By far, the most likely sites of contention are public education, public health and women’s rights, but religious disputes may well erupt in apparently unlikely places (Sweet 1997; Seljack 2005; Stephenson 2005). In concluding their recent valuable overview of non-Christian immigrant religions in Canada, Paul Bramadat and David Seljak (2005, 225) observe that the primary pattern that emerges from their research and that of their collaborators is “the movement from ascribed or at least relatively fixed modes of religious and ethnic self-identification to increasingly elastic and negotiable forms”. Such re-negotiation and alteration of identity is rooted in a gradual re-articulation of traditional beliefs and values that inspires a re-definition of roles, a re-adjustment of institutions and a re-creation of religious communities. Although these authors are by no means uncritical with respect to either Canada’s


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reception of non-Christian immigrants or beliefs and practices of some of these immigrants, which seriously conflict with Canadian values, practices or laws, their statement is remarkably positive and optimistic in tone. Indeed, there could be no more laudatory assessment of the actual and potential adaptability of these groups to Canadian life in a manner appropriate to the nation’s official policy on multiculturalism (Day 2000). Speculating enthusiastically that within such communities may be witnessed “the emergence of a new, more fluid, and fully Canadian mode of self-understanding that combines ancient, modern, local and international religious and ethnic traditions with contemporary popular culture”, Bramadat and Seljak remind their readers that the wider society itself undergoes changes “as these communities integrate themselves into (the) physical and psychological geography” of Canadians (Bramadat and Seljak 2005, 226–227). Of course, not all scholars or citizens will endorse the accuracy of this account or its apparent approbation of the spirit of “reasonable accommodation” prescribed by Canadian human rights codes. Nonetheless, as a key conclusion to the most comprehensive general depiction of religion and ethnicity in Canada, it provides a notable point of departure for future (sanguine or cynical) examinations and analyses of non-Christian religious minorities in Canada and other Western societies. For over three decades, “multiculturalism” as an official national policy has specifically included religion in its fundamental terms of reference. The 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of conscience and religion, while the preamble to the 1988 Multiculturalism Act recognises diversity of religion as a fundamental characteristic of Canadian society. Interestingly, however, researchers within the two most important federal ministries responsible for immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism have persuasively argued that, throughout the evolution of this policy, religion has been essentially ignored as a form of diversity and as a potential factor in government policy and planning (Biles and Ibrahim 2005). Indeed, even in obviously energetic, innovative and creative policy research initiatives intended to formulate an official model of diversity and pluralism that is of particular relevance in an urban context, the topic of religion is conspicuous only by its absence. As noted above, reticence regarding involvement in, discussion of, or even acknowledgement of religious matters is a longstanding Canadian political tradition with many justifying rationales and cautionary precedents. Historically, religion was avoided primarily as a perennial source of bitter social conflict, whereas in more recent

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(and more secular) times it has tended to be disregarded as increasingly irrelevant and insignificant. Currently, an increasingly uneasy awareness of religion’s growing relevance in global politics appears to have combined with a hazy secularism to reinvigorate the old political perception of religion’s potential for social disruption and divisiveness. It has also resulted in growing political adherence to a new notion of a de facto separation of religion and state, which effectively reduces religion to the status of a purely personal and private matter. In concrete terms, religious organisations are not consulted, for example, in matters concerning immigration policy other than with respect to refugees. The co-operation of the federal government with religious groups, therefore, is essentially restricted to practical issues of immigrant settlement and sponsorship, although in these activities, specialised agencies affiliated with religious groups are the recipients of government funding. This is a state of affairs that is regarded by John Biles and Humera Ibrahim as misguided and counter-productive. In their view, Canadian governments have steadfastly refused “to address religion and differences across religions, or even similarities among religions” and, as a result, “have fallen short in addressing the multiple roles that religion and faith-based communities can play in policy discussions” (Biles and Ibrahim 2005, 169). Lamenting that this failure to take religion seriously in the formulation of social policy has diminished understanding, impeded dialogue and impoverished debate among religious communities and others, they also suggest that it has placed Canada at a severe disadvantage compared to many other advanced industrial nations, while rendering problematic its enlightened international reputation. In asserting that “despite increased diversity in Canada, public discourse surrounding immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism has marginalized religion and religious communities” and that such marginalisation will have a detrimental effect on the nation as a whole, Biles and Ibrahim (2005, 164) raise a highly important issue. Their diagnosis, needless to say, is unlikely to go uncontested whether by politicians, policy analysts, scholars or citizens, and at least some of those who share their concerns may doubt the wisdom of some of the remedies they suggest. Typically, social policy professionals and professional politicians accustomed to taking pride in Canada’s enviable record in collecting religious statistics have habitually evaded serious contemplation of the possible practical implications of these data for public policy. Thus, whether the assertions, criticisms and proposals of Biles and Ibrahim


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will attract the attention of Canadian politicians and policy analysts (particularly those with special responsibility in the fields of immigration, citizenship and multiculturalism) and provoke timely and prolonged meditation on the shifting significance of the religious factor is open to question. Moreover, even if such meditation occurs, it appears unlikely to inaugurate a notable alteration of informally established government policy. Politicians and policy-makers may well celebrate religion as a traditional vehicle of transnationalism and diversity; acknowledge its enhanced visibility in less familiar forms; and accept its status as a social factor in its own right (distinct from race and ethnicity). They are far less likely, however, to heed the advice of Biles and Ibrahim and launch a “project of deprivatisation”, which will bring religion “into the public realm again” (Biles and Ibrahim 2005, 169). Nor are they likely to make any efforts to “break down the popular belief in the entrenched division of church and state” and “recognize the continuing function of Christianity in Canada as a shadow establishment or de facto national religion” (Biles and Ibrahim 2005, 169), as such initiatives would entail a radical rejection of conventional wisdom, entrenched sentiments and long-established practice. The reluctance of the politically powerful (now and in the future) to act intentionally to extend or enhance the presence, power or influence of religion (or religions) in public life is perfectly understandable in terms of a political and administrative culture in which invocation of a tacit notion of church-state separation is but the latest tactic in the avoidance of religious issues. In this context, a prevailing sense that religious controversies are potential political quagmires cannot have been mitigated by recent, highly publicised battles over the possible introduction of Islamic sharia law into provincial courts (in Quebec and Ontario) and the provision of tax refunds to parents of children attending religiously affiliated private schools (in Ontario). Furthermore, it should surprise nobody that those in government might fear the danger of initiating a self-fulfilling prophecy by drawing public attention to religion (in the manner of a previous focus on race), while identifying it as an “issue” or a potential source of problems or conflicts. Such concerns might reasonably be expected to dispel adventurous interventionist policy proposals involving a harnessing of the resources of religious organisations in the larger national interest or the accumulation of religious social capital as a means of enriching Canadian life. In promoting religion’s greater prominence in official multicultural policy-making, Biles and Ibrahim explicitly embrace a conception of

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multiculturalism as “critical discourse” on the basis of which Canadians “should not shy away from conflict and challenges; instead they ought to welcome them as opportunities to learn” (Biles and Ibrahim 2005, 162). It would be surprising indeed if Canada’s leaders, who for reasons of social harmony have persistently indicated their “unwillingness to lend faith communities a defined position in political debate” (Biles and Ibrahim 2005, 163), were to undertake the risks of social engineering (especially with respect to religion) grounded in this recent theoretical version of the multicultural ideal. Furthermore, it appears doubtful that public consultation would elicit enthusiasm for policies that perceive social conflict as a price worth paying for learning experiences. Biles and Ibrahim complain that by “steadfastly refusing to address religion . . . Canadians and their governments create more problems than they solve” (Biles and Ibrahim 2005, 168). However, faced by a murky utilitarian balance sheet of social goods and ills, politicians, sociologists, policy analysts and citizens may well question this judgement, particularly with respect to the treatment of immigrant religious groups. Moreover, the warning issued by these authors that a reticence to intervene directly in religious matters and confront new religious realities “seriously puts Canada considerably behind many other countries around the world including most of Europe and the United States” (Biles and Ibrahim 2005, 169) appears likely to be received with widespread scepticism both within Canada and beyond its borders. It is unclear in what precise ways the calibre of national responses to emerging religious realities is to be calculated, but even those who doubt that Canada leads the world in multiculturalism are unlikely to view its record, with respect to the reception, settlement and integration of non-Christian religious minorities, as disastrous or even notably deficient in a comparative global context. Multiculturalism, National Identity and Civil Religion In an era of globalisation and transnationalism, contemplation of newly emerging religious groups within the particular pluralistic setting of Canadian society necessarily revives concern with perennial issues of social order, societal integration and nationhood, while simultaneously inviting reconsideration of the more specific notion of a Canadian civil religion.


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Academic analysis of civil religion, in the sense of a “set of beliefs and rituals related to the past, present and/or future of a people (“nation”) which are understood in some transcendental fashion” (Hammond 1976, 171; Bellah 1967), in Canada, is essentially a subgenre of a timehonoured public discourse concerning national identity. In this broader debate, intellectuals, journalists and pundits have variously detected the basis of (actual or potential) overarching national symbols and rituals of a transcendent mythology in sublime landscape, historical narrative, art, literature, sport and even in such governmental initiatives as medicare and multiculturalism (O’Toole 1995; Sinclair-Faulkner 1977; Kim 1993). Scrutiny of Canadian civil religion proper began on a negative note with Robert Bellah’s authoritative assertion that historical, social and cultural circumstances had “militated against not only the emergence of a Canadian civil religion but of any very clearly defined sense of national identity” (Bellah 1980, xiii; Lipset 1990, 83–84). This judgement, of course, was based on the research of William Stahl (Stahl 1979, 1981), who assiduously traced the rise and fall of a national civil religion (1867–1917), the key components of which were the symbols and rituals of monarchy and parliament ruling explicitly by the grace of God (Stahl 1984, 241–242). In Stahl’s estimation, this political creation inspired of a problematic pluralism, successfully supplied a transcendentally legitimated identity, which complemented more parochial cultural sources of self before eventually proving incapable of quelling ethnic and religious animosities in the interest of a higher national destiny (Markoff and Regan 1982, 343, 348). Consequently, this author asserts (twice) that “Canadian civil religion lies broken and lifeless” (Stahl 1981, 3, 271) and, although he ponders the reappropriation and revitalisation of its symbols, he acknowledges this as “an awesome task” (Stahl 1981, 3, 284). Robert Blumstock approaches civil religion as an ideological construct whose presence could be discerned within certain wistful, nostalgic and pessimistic meditations on Canadian nationhood (Blumstock 1993; Grant 1965). Perhaps due to an indigenous practised ability “to withstand the ambiguity of uncertainty”, civil religion had not, in his opinion, “found much favour in Canada”, nor, as the nation evolved, was it likely to do so (Blumstock 1993, 190, 193). Andrew Kim explains why this is so in an insightful overview of the chief factors preventing national unity and hindering the crystallisation of a definitive Canadian identity (Kim 1993). For him, the factors that inhibit the development of

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a unifying civil religion include strong political and economic regionalism, a persisting cultural barrier between two linguistic solitudes, a lack of convincingly emotive or widely shared symbols and the inexorably pervasive influence of the United States. Thus, though civil religion might once have furnished “the basis on which the individual needs of identity and membership, and the societal needs of cohesion are mutually met” (Kim 1993, 269–270), a revived or reinvented religious legitimation of social order and national identity in this manner, in his view, is inconceivable as a pan-Canadian phenomenon. While acknowledging that “it is usually argued that Canada does not have a civil religion”, Harry Hiller has more recently apprehended intimations of its persistence in church-sponsored unity vigils conducted prior to the 1995 Quebec referendum (Hiller 2000, 169). In his view, these anxious gatherings, held in the shadow of impending national dissolution, involved fleeting churchly reassertion of a long eroded civic role of ministry toward those who assumed “that faith in God and faith in Canada were in some sense yoked” (Hiller 2000, 177). Nevertheless, although Hiller describes certain religious organisations’ restrained endorsement of political stability and continuity in the context of “the historic Anglo vision of the nation” (Hiller 2000, 184), he contemplates the vestigial remains of a national civil religion without implying any possibility of its revival. The “search for an elusive national unity remains”, but will never engender a unifying national civil religion because postmodernism “renders even the search for civil religion obsolete” (Hiller 2000, 182–183). Hiller’s assessment of civil religion’s fate amidst accelerating postmodern fragmentation and loss of narrative presents a useful point of transition to current debates about Canadian identity, national unity, citizenship and multiculturalism (Bliss 2006; Gregg 2006; Biles 2002; Kymlicka 2001; Bissoondath 1994; Bibby 1990). Consistent with civil religious reasoning, some social critics regard multiculturalism as a policy that “excludes any vision of the kind of society that it wishes to create”, subverts national cohesion and offers only an incoherent and dissipated mosaic of “mutual solitudes” (Bissoondath 1993, 372–373). Other observers recognise an irreversible and irreparable fragmentation of Canadian society, but offer a decidedly more sanguine appraisal of its prospects (Fulford 1993; Gwyn 1995; Ibbitson 2005). Most notably, for some of these writers, postmodernity is already so socially ubiquitous that the possibility of Canada “evolving beyond the traditional nationstate, transcending, bursting the old wineskin and becoming one of


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the world’s first working non-nations” must be seriously entertained (Bliss 2006, 5). While a conception of Canada spearheading postmodern social innovation in this manner undoubtedly underscores Hiller’s explication of the obsolete nature of a national civil religion, it also suggests an entirely novel way in which the phenomenon of civil religion might conceivably attain increasing relevance in Canadian life. The solution to this apparent paradox is to be found in Robert Bellah’s early ruminations on the possibility of “a new civil religion of the world” rooted in “a viable and coherent world order” and reflecting “the emergence of a genuine transnational sovereignty” (Bellah 1967, 18). This alternative version of civil religion, especially in a form which sacralises human rights (Reader 2003; Spickard 1999), seems likely to prove appealing to a Canadian liberal pluralist elite, schooled in the rhetoric of rights and freedoms, whose nation’s courts already “in many ways have replaced the churches as the conscience of the nation” (Egerton 2000, 108). However, whether such a global civil religion will emerge (with or without a powerful Canadian presence) is still, in the early years of the twenty-first century, a matter for prophecy rather than prediction (Wallerstein 2005, 132–133). References Beaman, Lori G. 2003. The Myth of Pluralism, Diversity, and Vigour: The Constitutional Privilege of Protestantism in the United States and Canada. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42(3): 311–325. Beckford, James A. 1999. The Politics of Defining Religion in Secular Society: From a Taken-for-Granted Institution to a Contested Resource. In The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts and Contests, eds. Jan G. Platvoet and Arie L. Molendijk, 23–40. Leiden: Brill. Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil Religion in America. Daedalus 96(1): 1–21. —— 1980. Introduction to Varieties of Civil Religion, eds. Robert N. Bellah and Phillip E. Hammond, vii–xv. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Beyer, Peter. 2001. What Counts as Religion in Global Society? From Practice to Theory. In Religion in the Process of Globalisation, ed. Peter Beyer. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag. —— 2003. Constitutional Privilege and Constituting Pluralism: Religious Freedom in National, Global and Legal Context. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42(3): 333–339. Bibby, Reginald W. 1985. Religious Encasement in Canada: An Argument for Protestant and Catholic Entrenchment. Social Compass 32(2–3): 287–303. —— 1990. Mosaic Madness: The Poverty and Potential of Life in Canada. Toronto: Stoddart. —— 2000. Canada’s Mythical Religious Mosaic: Some Census Findings. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 39(2): 235–239.

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Biles, John. 2002. Everyone’s a Critic. Canadian Issues, February: 35–39. Biles, John, and Humera Ibrahim. 2005. Religion and Public Policy: Immigration, Citizenship and Multiculturalism—Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? In Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, eds. P. Bramadat and D. Seljak, 154–177. Toronto: Pearson Longman. Bissoondath, Neil. 1993. A Question of Belonging: Multiculturalism and Citizenship. In Belonging: the Meaning and Future of Canadian Citizenship, ed. William Kaplan, 368–387. Montreal and Kingston: McGill—Queen’s University Press. —— 1994. Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada. Toronto: Penguin. Bliss, Michael. 2006. Has Canada Failed? National Dreams that Have Not Come True, Literary Review of Canada 14(2): 3–5. Blumstock, Robert. 1993. Canadian Civil Religion. In The Sociology of Religion: A Canadian Focus, ed. W.E. Hewitt, 173–191. Toronto and Vancouver. Bramadat, Paul. 2005. Beyond Christian Canada: Religion and Ethnicity in a Multicultural Society. In Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, eds. P. Bramadat and D. Seljak, 1–29. Toronto: Pearson Longman. Bramadat, Paul, and David Seljak. 2005. Toward a New Story about Religion and Ethnicity in Canada. In Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, eds. P. Bramadat and D. Seljak, 222–234.Toronto: Pearson Longman. Choquette, Robert. 2004. Canada’s Religions. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press. Christiano, Kevin J. forthcoming. Personal Liberty, Social Difference, and the Dynamics of Devotion: Voluntary Religion and State Regulation in the United States and Canada. In Religionskulturen-Glaubensgemeinschaften, eds. Jürgen Gebhardt and David A. Martin. (Publikationen der Bayerischen Amerika-Akademie, 6). Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag. Day, Richard. 2000. Multiculturalism and the History of Canadian Diversity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Egerton, George. 2000. Trudeau, God, and the Canadian Constitution: Religion, Human Rights, and Government Authority in the Making of the 1982 Constitution. In Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity: Canada between Europe and America, ed. David Lyon and Marguerite Van Die, Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. Fulford, Robert. 1993. A Post-Modern Dominion: The Changing Nature of Canadian Citizenship. In Belonging: The Meaning and Future of Canadian Citizenship, ed. William Kaplan, 104–119. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Gill, Anthony. 2003. Lost in the Supermarket: Comments on Beaman, Religious Pluralism, and What it Means to be Free. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 42(3): 327–332. Grant, George. 1965. Lament for a Nation: the Defeat of Canadian Nationalism. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Gregg, Allan. 2006. Multiculturalism: A Twentieth-Century Dream becomes a TwentyFirst Century Conundrum. The Walrus 3(2): 38–47. Gwyn, Richard. 1995. Nationalism Without Walls: the Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Hammond, Phillip E. 1976. The Sociology of American Civil Religion: A Bibliographic Essay. Sociological Analysis 37(2): 169–182. Hiller, Harry. 2000. Civil Religion and the Problem of National Unity: The 1995 Quebec Referendum Crisis. In Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity: Canada between Europe and America, eds. David Lyon and Marguerite Van Die, 166–185. Toronto, Buffalo, London: University of Toronto Press. Ibbitson, John. 2005. The Polite Revolution: Perfecting the Canadian Dream. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.


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Kelley, Ninette, and Michael Trebilcock. 1998). The Making of the Mosaic: A History of Canadian Immigration Policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Kim, Andrew E. 1993. The Absence of Pan-Canadian Civil Religion: Plurality, Duality, and Conflict in Symbols of Canadian Culture. Sociology of Religion 54(3): 257–275. Knowles, Valerie. 1997. Strangers at Our Gates: Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy, 1540–1997. Toronto: Dundurn Press. Kymlicka, Will. 2001. Politics in the Vernacular: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lipset, Seymour M. 1990. Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada. New York and London: Routledge. Markoff, John, and Daniel Regan. 1982. The Rise and Fall of Civil Religion: Comparative Perspectives. Sociological Analysis 42(4): 333–352. Marty, Martin E. 1972. Ethnicity: the Skeleton of Religion in America. Church History 41(1): 5–21. O’Toole Roger. 1982. Some Good Purpose: Notes on Religion and Political Culture in Canada. Annual Review of the Social Sciences of Religion 6: 179–217. —— 1995. Myth, Magic and Religion in Secular Literature: the Canadian Case. Journal of Contemporary Religion 10(3): 367–377. —— 1996. Religion in Canada: Its Development and Contemporary Situation. Social Compass 43(1): 119–134. Reader, John. 2003. The Discourse of Human Rights—A Secular Religion? Implicit Religion 6(1): 41–51. Seljak, David. 2005. Education, Multiculturalism and Religion. In Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, eds. P. Bramadat and D. Seljak, 178–200. Toronto: Pearson Longman. Sinclair-Faulkner, Tom. 1977. A Puckish Look at Hockey in Canada. In Religion and Culture in Canada/Religion et Culture au Canada, ed. Peter Slater. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press (Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion). Spickard, James V. 1999. Human Rights, Religious Conflict, and Globalisation—Ultimate Values in a New World Order. International Journal on Multicultural Societies 1(1): 2–19. http://www.unesco.org/most/vl1n1spi.htm. Stahl, William A. 1979. Symbols and Ethics: An Approach to the Civil Religion Debate. Union Seminary Quarterly Review 34(4): 229–238. —— 1981. Symbols of Canada: Civil Religion, Nationality, and the Search for Meaning. Berkeley CA: Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation (Graduate Theological Union). Statistics Canada. 2003. Religions in Canada, 2001 Census Analysis Series (Catalogue Number 96F0030XIE2001015), Ottawa. Stephenson, Peter H. 2005. Health Care, Religion, and Ethnic Diversity in Canada. In Religion and Ethnicity in Canada, eds. P. Bramadat and D. Seljak, 201–221. Toronto: Pearson Longman. Sweet, Lois. 1997. God in the Classroom. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2005. Render unto Caesar?: The Dilemmas of a Multicultural World. Sociology of Religion 66(2): 121–134. Weller, Paul. 2004. Identity, Politics and the Future(s) of Religion in the U.K.: The Case of the Religion Questions in the 2001 Decennial Census. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 19(1): 3–21. Westfall, William. 1989. Two Worlds: The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth Century Ontario. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

CHAPTER SEVEN

CIVIL RELIGION IN THE DANISH PARLIAMENT Brian Arly Jacobsen On the first Tuesday in October, the Folketing—the Danish Parliament— begins its session year.1 The Folketing’s first meeting is initiated with a series of traditional ceremonies. Some of them are part of the Constitution, while other traditions are part of the parliamentary protocol and the standing orders of the Folketing. The opening traditions merge the celebration of the nation-state Denmark, the Folketing, the Danish democracy and the dominant religion in Denmark—the Danish Evangelical Lutheran church—in a series of rituals that exemplify a sacral church-state ritual. This chapter discusses how the nation-state draws on religious rituals and symbols, confirming a common conception of the nation and its connection with the state and the people living in Denmark. The parliamentary opening rituals are analysed as civil religious rituals that are specifically designed to support the political order of the state (Cristi 2001, 25). If civil religion, as the sociologist Marcela Cristi suggests, “attempts to force group identity and to legitimize an existing political order, by injecting a transcendental dimension or a religious gloss on the justification” (ibid., 3), it is relevant to examine the opening tradition as a component of Danish civil religion. Rituals and symbols play an important role in the formation of the nation-state and political elites employ rituals and symbols to legitimate their authority: “Without rites and symbols, there are no nations,” writes American anthropologist David Kertzer in his book Ritual, Politics, and Power (Kertzer 1988, 179). Further, in order to understand political processes, it is essential to study how rituals and symbols operate in politics, how political actors intentionally and unintentionally manage rituals and symbols, and how these ritual and symbolic aspects relate to the material bases of political power.

1 Cf. the Constitution’s section 36, subsection 2 (Constitutional Act of Denmark 1953).

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Cristi broadens the concept of civil religion in From Civil to Political Religion (2001). Whereas civil religion is usually seen as spontaneously created by society (cf. Bennett 1979, 114; Gentile 2005, 30), Cristi shows how civil religion is also deliberately created by the state. She introduces a continuum, for which Robert N. Bellah’s bottom-up model constitutes one end of the continuum and Rousseau’s top-down model constitutes the other end. Rousseau’s concept of civil religion implies that it is a state-formulated political idea, deliberately constructed to govern the people in a nation-state (Rousseau 1998, 129–138). Cristi designates this idea as a political resource (Cristi 2001, 4) or as a political religion: “Civil religion as understood by Rousseau is a political religion to be fixed by the state, for the state” (ibid., 138). Cristi’s empirical material, however, covers only one authoritarian state, drawing on an extensive study of civil religion in Pinochet’s Chile (1973–1990); but what happens when Rousseau’s top-down model of civil religion is used to analyse civil religion in a democratic state such as Denmark? Italian historian Emilio Gentile also differentiates between the concepts of “political religion” and “civil religion”, where the former is “a form of the sacralisation of politics of an exclusive and integralist character” and the latter is “a form of sacralisation of a collective political entity” (Gentile 2005, 30). Political religions deny any form of coexistence with other political ideologies, whereas civil religion is not identified with the ideology of a particular political movement (idem). The Danish case shows, contrary to Cristi’s case, how the concept of political religion and civil religion can be used to analyse public parliamentary rituals in a democratic nation-state. It is suggested that the opening rituals represent a civil religion more than a political religion, as they attempt to impose an exclusive group identity and to legitimise an existing political order by implementing a transcendental dimension or a religious touch on the Parliament’s opening ritual. National Identity The parliamentary opening rituals are closely connected with the construction of a Danish national identity. Three arguments underline this claim. The first argument maintains that the opening rituals make use of various national components, which constitute an understanding of the political elite’s cohesion with the Danish state and people as a distinct coherent people with their own state and government (Smith 2001,

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5–20). Secondly, the governmental head and its civil servants articulate the plural pronoun we in official speeches and publications and talk about the existence of an “us”. This presumes an idea of a community binding us together and which makes us different from them. Thirdly, the construction of, on the one side, us the Danes and, on the other side, them “the foreigners” or “the others” is closely related to the idea of a Danish nation-state. Hence, I wish to provide a brief description of a Danish national self-representation on the basis of a constructivist understanding of the concept of nation and Danish national identity. The aim is to provide a comprehension of Danishness that has been sedimented over time, but not to attempt to draw a static picture of what makes up “the Danish” people. The concept of a nation presumes the existence of other nations—or at least other people who are not members of the nation. National identity is thereby always constructed in relation to others whom individuals demarcate from your community. Holding a constructivist point of view, my understanding is that neither “nation” nor “Danishness” can be defined on the basis of objective or natural criteria (Billig 1995, 60–73; Hobsbawn 1983, 264–245, 271–278). Following this view, the Danish nation and nations in general must be defined as “an imagined political community, imagined both inherently limited and sovereign” (Anderson 1983, 25). According to this understanding, the concepts of “nation” and “Danishness” are always negotiable. Among researchers holding a constructivist view on the concept of the Danish nation, there is general consensus that Danish national identity can be said to have developed a close affinity to the Danish language as well as to the national-romantic idea of the nation and the people as being of one extended lineage, interrelated by a deeply felt culture in the shape of common descent and common religion and traditions (Østergård 1992). At the same time, “Danishness” is equivalent to a number of political values connected with democracy and the Danish Constitution, Grundloven, but also with a welfare society and social justice. Concepts such as language, religion, the people, democracy, rule of law and the welfare state are presented as central in the articulation of a Danish self-representation in constructivist analyses of Danish national identity (Overgaard 2000; Knudsen 1998; Østergård 1992). For most Danish people, the Danish nation constitutes a very real community with an almost natural appearance. The nation is thus a political and cultural community, providing the individual with an identity; i.e., a national identity shared with other Danes. It is part and

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parcel of the concept of nation that the nation should be its own sovereign state. Hence, the understanding is that it is a political community (Overgaard 2000, 74–75). The presence of the national state church is, or at least has been, important for the preservation of the social cohesion in the Danish society. One could also argue that it is, and has been, the ruler’s intention to use the national state church as a means to create social cohesion. National rituals such as the parliamentary opening rituals touch something very fundamental and deeply felt (Hall 1996, 613), that is, the Danish national identity and the understanding of what it means, and how you have to act to be Danish or, more precisely in this context, a Danish Member of the Parliament.2 How the boundaries of “Danishness” are drawn has decisive significance for the level of inclusion in the Danish community. The Opening of the Folketing The opening rituals of the constituent assembly in 1848 represent the parliamentary opening rituals and have continued every year at the opening of the popularly elected parliament.3 A sermon has been part of the opening rituals since the opening of the constituent assembly in 1848. The first sermon was given by the Bishop of Zealand, Jacob Peter Mynster (1775–1854). He initiated the Assembly with the following words: The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in!4 As we now should take advantage of the solemn, responsible road to the place whereupon the people’s eye watch, whereupon your eyes too watch, thou heavenly and earthly Lord! (Mynster 1848, 3 (author’s translation)).

Symbolically, he wants the Lord to preserve the constituent assembly’s entrance and exit of the building, as if the rooms where the negotiations should take place, necessitating a transition from one normal condi-

2 “Danish” in this context is only understood as a juridical concept. Individuals need Danish citizenship to be Members of the Parliament. 3 There were common voting rights only for “men” of unblemished reputation over 30 years, who fulfilled certain criteria such as not being a servant without own property, had not received benefit from the state etc. (§ 35, Constitutional Act of Denmark 1849 (author’s translation)). Voting rights therefore were very limited. The first popular election took place in December 1849. 4 Quote from Psalms 121, 8. This blessing is also used in the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s baptismal rite.


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tion to an anomalous condition characterised by uncertainty.5 It was an uncertainty caused by disturbances among certain parts of the population who advocated for constitutional changes and by the beginning of the civil war in the Danish state from 1848–1850 (Rerup 1992, 357–379). The model for the opening ritual seems to imitate the opening rituals of the Assembly of the Estates of the Realm, which in 1831 achieved consultative status for the King. Bishop Mynster’s sermon at the provinces Assembly of the Estates of the Realm in Roskilde Cathedral July 7th 1842 is an example of that (Mynster 1842). Today, the opening rituals have a structure, such that they can be considered a series of rituals that together make up a civil religious ritual. The sequence of the rituals is described in the following. Prior to the opening of Parliament, the Folketing holds a service in the Christiansborg Palace Chapel. The chapel does not belong to the Folketing, therefore the protocol is to obtain a permit with the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs, which at the same time announces the name of this year’s priest. All Members of the Parliament, as well as their spouses and the members of the government are invited to the service. After the service, the Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs hosts a social gathering—in Danish literally called a “church coffee”—in the restaurant of the Folketing. The royal family and the establishment of Denmark, including the bishop of the Copenhagen diocese and the Priest, are invited to the opening of Parliament, which on this day is well-decorated with Dannebrog, the Danish national flag.6 According to the Constitution’s section 38, the Prime Minister holds his/her opening address, which is partly a description of Denmark’s present situation, and partly a description of the headlines of the bills the government intends to propose during the coming session. The Prime Minister always ends the opening address with the words: May I suggest that we open the parliamentary session with three cheers for Denmark. Long live Denmark!

5

Cf. Arnold van Gennep’s The Rites of Passage (1960, 3; 10–12). Margit Warburg has shown that the Danish national flag, Dannebrog, is a central symbol for Danes, and its myth of origin is also seen as civil religious (Warburg 2008). 6

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brian arly jacobsen The Members of the Parliament respond with three cheers (www. folketinget.dk 2005 (author’s translation)).

In this way, the call confirms the national identity of the Members of Parliament. At the same time, the ritual emphasises the Members’ status as legislators, which from their own perspective is for the benefit of the nation-state and the people. Thus, the ritual is exclusive in relation to foreign nations, while at the same time it strengthens the identity of the social group. This ritual assigns meaning not only for the Members of Parliament and the distinguished guests, but also for the Danish people who follow the live transmission on national TV or on the radio. The transcendental dimension of the opening ritual is explicit in that the service is held in the Christiansborg Palace Chapel. The royal family’s presence in the Folketing at the opening—which today is very unobtrusive compared with the first decades of the Constitution—injects a religious gloss more implicitly because of the state’s official setting of the monarch as “by the grace of God”.7 Together these elements constitute civil religion by legitimising an existing political order, through a religious gloss on the Parliament’s opening ritual (Warburg and Jacobsen 2007). The cheer has changed several times since the first opening of the Danish Parliament in 1849. During the first years after the approval of the Constitution, Parliament saluted the King with nine “long live the King” (Rigsdagstidende 1850, 8). The cheer changed after a major alteration in the governmental head in 1901, where parliamentarianism was introduced in Denmark (Knudsen 2006, 147–53). This also led to a change in the cheer introduced by the new members of the governmental party Venstre (The Liberal Party). The cheer also praised the Constitution: “long live the King and the Constitution” (Rigsdagstidende 1902/03, 15–16), followed by the members’ nine cheers. In 1924, the first Social Democratic Prime Minister Thorvald Stauning (1873–1942) changed the call fundamentally from the above-mentioned to the present call. The former Prime Minister from the liberal party Venstre, Klaus Berntsen (1844–1927), protested against this change by shouting the former cheer “long live the King and the Constitution” from

7

“By the grace of God” is a label that is used commonly and as an introduction to every bill in Denmark. With the present Queen, it is: “We Margrethe the Second, by the grace of God Queen of Denmark, hereby make known, Folketinget has passed and We have by Our Consent confirmed the following Act.”


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his seat in the Parliament.8 It is not unreasonable to suggest that the call changed because of the Social Democrat’s opposition towards the monarchy and the Constitution of that time. The present Constitution was approved in 1953. The change in the cheer shows how the opening rituals both represent continuity and transformation from the opening of the Danish Parliament in 1849 until the opening rituals obtained their present form in 1924. The changes in the rituals have followed major transformations in political leadership and reflect both how rituals develop because of political historical reasons and the importance of rites and symbols for the nation-state. The changing of the rituals is and has been a way to demonstrate who is in power. Before analysing the ritual more closely, however, it is necessary to take a look at the setting of the opening rituals as well as the history of these institutions. The Christiansborg Palace Chapel The Christiansborg Palace Chapel is also the royal chapel and the present building was consecrated at a mass on Whitsunday, May 14th 1826. The official 1000th anniversary of Christianity’s introduction in Denmark by the monk and Bishop Ansgar was celebrated at the same event (Frydendal 1998, 9–17). The chapel was under the royal confessor’s jurisdiction until 1926. It was on this occasion of assignment to the new responsible authorities, with the state government as the chief authority, and thereby not the King, that the Parliament in 1927 moved the opening service from the naval church Holmen to the Christiansborg Palace Chapel.9

8

Klaus Berntsen was Prime Minister from 1910–1913 and Minister of Defence from 1920–1922. The change of cheer caused debate in Parliament during the opening debate, where the liberal party Venstre and the conservative party Det Konservative Folkeparti protested against the change (Rigsdagstidende 1924, Overordentlig samling: IX; Rigsdagstidende 1924–25, IX, sp. 186–187, 625–627, 800–801, 1074–1076 etc.). 9 Not since 1884, when Christiansborg burned, had Parliament arranged an opening service in the chapel. From 1884 to 1897, the opening service was held in Copenhagen’s Cathedral, and after this it was moved to the newly built Frederik’s Church. In 1917, the service was moved to Holmen’s Church, where the opening service took place until 1927 (Johannsen 1983, 7–18). After this, it has only been interrupted in 1992 and 1997, when the chapel was first restored, then burned, and then rebuilt again. Between 1992 and 1997, the opening service was held in Holmen’s Church.

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The chapel was not used by the royal family from 1930 to 1965, with the only exception when King Christian X was lying in state (castrum doloris) in 1947.10 The family has used the chapel on several occasions since 1965, for example when it was used by the royal family for a special service for Queen Margrethe the II’s 60th birthday on April 16th 2000, at Queen Ingrid’s castrum doloris on November 10th of same year and at the baptism of the heir to the throne, Prince Christian, on January 21st, 2006. Although there have been political and institutional disruptions throughout the 20th Century, the opening rituals have continued within the same institutional setting. In 1850, King Frederik VII renounced part of the royal house, Christiansborg, to the Folketing. After the palace fire in 1884, the Folketing found temporary premises in military barracks until the third Christiansborg palace was finished in 1928 (Frydendal 1998, 9–17). It was originally the intention that the royal family should live side by side with the Folketing, the Prime Minister’s and Foreign Minister’s offices and the Supreme Court in Christiansborg. However, after a Constitutional crisis in 1920, King Christian X chose to live at Amalienborg Palace, and since that time the royal family has resided there. The architecture of Christiansborg represents the constitutional idea of united power, from absolute monarchy’s king transferred to the palace of the realm for Danish parliamentary monarchy, where “Legislative authority shall be vested in the King and the Folketing conjointly. Executive authority shall be vested in the King. Judicial authority shall be vested in the courts of justice”, as it is written in the Constitution’s section 3 (Constitutional Act of Denmark 1953). The architectural style is historicist neo-baroque and the buildings’ weight and solidness emphasise the palace’s significance as the nation’s political centre. Christiansborg Palace Chapel was not intended to be the most important church for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, but it is obvious that the chapel had a central position as a royal chapel until 1926, and a central position in the national self-comprehension. The chapel

10 The reason the royal family stopped using the chapel in this period is not known, but one could speculate that it is because of the Social Democratic Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs N. Peter L. Dahl’s (1869–1936) altering of the chapel’s position from a royal chapel to a democratised parish church. In 1965, the chapel was taken out of use from the parish structure and has since been under the jurisdiction of The Palaces and Properties Agency, which is a national property agency under the auspices of the Danish Ministry of Finance.


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has had increasing significance since the year 2000, due to the royal institution’s use of the chapel on important occasions. The Bishop of the Copenhagen diocese, Erik Norman Svendsen, who lead the christening of the Heir to the Danish Throne, Prince Christian (born 2005), January 21st, 2006, underlined this view by stating, in an article in the newspaper Berlingske Tidende the day before the baptism, that: The Christiansborg Chapel is a national church. It has no clergyman or members of staff. There are no Sunday sermons and the chapel has no parish ties either. The Palace Chapel is only used by the Parliament at the opening the first Tuesday in October. But it is first and foremost considered the royal family’s chapel (author’s translation).

This statement underlines both the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s position as a national church, and the royal institution’s interconnection with the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Danish political system. It shows how components of the nation-state’s ideology are sedimented institutionally, constitutionally and culturally. Before examining this interconnection, the institution of the priest’s sermon will be analysed, as it is an important part of the opening ritual. The Sermon of the Opening The sermon is not a High Mass with communion and the Sacrament; this means that it does not primarily address the individual Christian and her/his religious needs. The sermon primarily emphasises the connection between Lutheran Christianity and the Danish democracy, which clearly appears in the different sermons given by different prominent clergymen the first Tuesday in October over the years. An example is Bishop of Aarhus Kjeld Holm’s sermon from the opening service in 1998, where he begins the sermon with Matthew chapter 7, verse 15–21 (on false prophets). The Bishop is using the text to preach about power (democracy and legislators), grace and forgiveness, and he asks the Members of the Parliament the following question: The question we must constantly ask ourselves—and if we do forget, Christianity will remind us—is this: would you leave decisions to the powers that be or would you leave it to grace and forgiveness? (Sermon by Bishop Kjeld Holm at the opening service 1998 (Holm 1998; author’s translation)).

The clergyman is here placed in a privileged position, where what is said can have significance for how people think about the world. The

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social situation is established by both the ritual, but also by the speaker’s position, which is identified with a particular position. So for whom does the clergy talk on behalf? In the excerpt from the Bishop’s sermon, first person plural pronouns are used several times. It is an inclusive “we”, whose purpose is to confirm a particular group identity, in this case the Danish Christian identity. The inclusive “we” (or derivations such as “our”), which the sermon-genre to a considerable degree makes use of, is a significant linguistic characteristic in this genre. This “we” shows that the sermon is not directed to just anybody, but specifically the participants in this ritual. Another example of the use of this inclusive “we/our” is Vicar Hans Lützhøft’s (1857–1943) sermon from the opening service in Copenhagen’s Cathedral in 1900: Our people have become very focused on entertainment. The yearning for mammon plays an ever growing part in our lives and this yearning is supported by all those many people at home, who denounce God and who want to dissolve the sacred bonds of matrimony and family life. Our parliamentary institution with its great power also has a great responsibility. They can achieve great things so long as they fight for Truth and Justice and support the spiritual lead that alone can enhance the people’s spiritual life, which is the church (Sermon by Vicar Lützhøft published in Politiken, October 2nd 1900, p. 2; author’s translation).

The context of this sermon—the opening service for the Members of the Parliament—extends this “we/our”, focussing on more than just a general sermon. It concerns the Evangelical Lutherans, the Danish people, “our people”, as Lützhøft express it, who in the vicar’s reading are closely linked to the Danish state-church and the nation. The Dean Christian Winther’s sermon from the opening service in 1930 expresses the relationship like this: One day, a foreigner from one of the great nations said to me that she was greatly impressed by the fact that Danes like one another, and she admired the extensive public care and private charity. We talked about the reasons for this. The fact that we are a small nation. That we care for and about one another. That we have a generous nation with no end of possibilities for a common welfare compared to so many other places and that there is something in the character of our people which may be conveyed here. But all this that must and can be done presupposes the freedom (and liberty) bestowed on us, so that we respect what is personal: as people, as Christians and in spiritual and material matters. (Sermon by Christian Winther, published in Kristeligt Dagblad, October 8th 1930; author’s translation)


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Winther characterises the Danish nation as a small, generous, prosperous people who care for one another, and at the same time it reflects the character of the people in an essential way. The precondition for the given character of the people is a freedom/liberty that makes it possible to respect the Christian and spiritual individual’s personal relationships. Again, there are several plural pronouns, which include not only participants of the opening service, but the entire Evangelical Lutheran people. At the same time, the inclusive “we” becomes exclusive towards other religious groups in the Danish society, due to the inherent insistence on the truth in the Evangelical Lutheran Church as well as the sermon’s insistence on dichotomising Danes and non-Danes as essentially different. The priest’s sermon is also significant because of the pulpit’s position as a national platform. The priest’s complex use of demonstrative markers in the sermon, for instance “we” and “us”, reproduces the difference between minorities and the majority and it does not acknowledge religious and ethnic pluralism in the Danish society. As cultural theorist Stuart Hall observes, stereotypes of “us” and “them” help to maintain the social and symbolic order, by establishing who is included and who is excluded in a particular society: It facilitates the “binding” or bonding together of all of Us who are “normal” into one “imagined community”; and it sends into symbolic exile all of Them—“the others”—who are in some way different—“beyond the pale” (Hall 1997, 258).

In this way, the first part of Parliament’s opening ritual—the sermon— both integrates the dominant religion in Denmark—the Evangelical Lutheran Church—with the legislative assembly and the state and at the same time it implicitly identifies Danes as being Lutherans. Members of the Parliament also express this sentiment. A Parliament member of the Socialist People’s Party, Kamal Qureshi, articulates this in an interview: We talk much about Denmark as a secularised society. Denmark is generally believed to be a society in which there is a sharp separation between politics and religion and this [the opening service] is precisely a confirmation of what it is not. On the contrary, it is the obvious linkage between democracy and religion. The consequence is that there are some—so to speak—right members of Parliament for whom the opening service is for—in other words, the Christians. Then there are those who are outside, i.e., those who are not Christians or who belong to a

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brian arly jacobsen different faith so that they cannot participate (Interview with Kamal Qureshi June 10th, 2005; author’s translation).

Thus the dominant religion is used to justify and legitimise the nationstate, and thereby leave people with other religious or non-religious affiliations outside the state celebration of Parliament and Danish democracy through and with the state-sponsored religion—the Evangelical Lutheran Church. This is not a new issue resulting from the presence of the recently new immigrant groups in Denmark, primarily from nonChristian countries. Minority groups such as atheists, Jews, Catholics and members of Christian free-churches, throughout the history of the Danish Constitution, have articulated majority-minority issues related to parliamentary affairs, such as the opening rituals. The Priest of the Opening The Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs decides which priest is going to preach, and usually one of Denmark’s ten bishops is chosen.11 Nevertheless, theological professors and principals of educational institutions and theological seminaries also have obtained access to the pulpit of the opening services. Primarily, the top of the ecclesiastical hierarchy gains access to the Chapel’s pulpit. Thus, the elite of the clergymen are given access to speak to the political elite. Being a priest at the opening service is a prestigious assignment; here, priests have an opportunity to give the legislators a Christian moral lecture. The choice of priest is seldom disputed, but in 2003 the liberal Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs chose the priest Thomas Kristensen, from the Inner Mission, which is the largest revival movement within the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church. The choice was questioned by the liberal party’s spokesman Jens Rohde, who informed the newspaper Politiken on October 8th 2003 that “it is simply too dark with Inner Mission. The opening of the Folketing is a day of celebration.” In

11 Greenland and the Faroe Islands have their own church. Greenland’s Church was given independence from the Danish Church in 1905, but is still a diocese under this. The Faroe Island’s Church was given full independence on July 29th, 2007 (Kirkeministeriet 2007). They have their own bishops, but work in close co-operation with the Danish Church. The priest at the opening sermon in 2005 was the Chairman of the Landsting (Home Rule of Greenland) and clergyman Jonathan Motzfeldt.


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October 2007, a Muslim Member of Parliament, Kamal Qureshi, openly criticised the opening service and stated the following to the Danish News agency Ritzau: “I mean—you attend church on Christmas Eve, the mosque during the Ramadan and the Synagogue at the Sabbath. But for the opening of Parliament you go to the Folketing and not the Palace Chapel. If you want to keep politics and religion separate, then you do not begin the parliamentary year by going to the Palace Chapel.” The chairman of Parliament at that time, Christian Mejdahl from Venstre, defended the tradition and in the newspaper Nyhedsavisen on October 2nd stated: “It’s a splendid tradition and there is absolutely no need to change it.” The dispute lead to a public debate on whether the opening service was appropriate or not and on the relation between religion and politics. In the same article, the clergyman and Member of Parliament for Dansk Folkeparti (The Danish People’s Party) Jesper Langballe stated that Qureshi’s contestation was “nonsense” and that: Qureshi is Muslim, you see, and knows nothing about Lutheran Christianity. It is only in intellectual circles, in the editorial offices of the newspapers and among certain politicians at Christiansborg, that people don’t realise that church attendance is not a confusion of politics and religion. As Bertel Haarder [at that time the Minister of Ecclesiastical affairs] so beautifully has put it, in the Palace Chapel we gather based on what we agree about and in the hall of the Folketing we gather based on what we disagree about (Nyhedsavisen October 2nd 2007; author’s translation).

Besides these outbursts, no politicians have explicitly questioned the opening rituals occurring in the Palace Chapel. This suggests that if the ritual’s content becomes too religious, then it will be too controversial for many parliamentary members and they will not continue to participate in the tradition. Thus, these traditions do not constitute civil religion any more, but serve only as a political religion (Cristi 2001, 4, 138; Gentile 2005, 19–32). Many Members of Parliament either do not attend the opening service or attend on pragmatic grounds. For example, the Social Democratic Member of Parliament Mogens Jensen clearly expresses his sentiment concerning the opening traditions in an interview: I have a very pragmatic relationship to the church (. . .) I see it as an institution that is part of the Folketing’s opening, which means consequently that you also attend the opening service. You have some kind of ceremony, which has been there for many years, and when it is like that, I don’t think that there is any reason not to be present. This is because of the beautiful church chambers, the fantastic music and singing and I think that the clergyman’s sermon is mostly worth listening to (. . .) It

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brian arly jacobsen is symbolically outwardly in the public, contributing to strengthen the coherence between the state, the royal institution and the church in Denmark. There is no doubt of this fact (Interview with Mogens Jensen, September 8th 2006, author’s translation).

Mogens Jensen is aware of the ritual’s ideological effect, even though he chooses a pragmatic attitude. This attitude has not been the case always. In the beginning of the 20th century, politicians from the Social Democrat Party and the Social Liberal Party explicitly questioned the opening tradition service on several occasions during the parliamentary opening debates. For example, the prominent Social Democrat Frederik Borgbjerg (1866–1936) on October 12, 1905 stated that: It is bad enough that the confession-free Parliament negotiations are opened with a service—this Parliament in which Christians, free thinkers, Jews and heathens can be seated; and I ask the Ministry [of Ecclesiastical Affairs] if it is not time to abolish this old and antiquated custom (Rigsdagstidende, 1905–06, sp. 177, author’s translation).1213

As mentioned earlier, when the ritual became controversial, e.g., when the church gained power over the ritual, it lost its effect as a civil religion and turned into a political religion—a characteristic of the ritual, in this period. After the first Social Democratic government in 1924 criticised the opening service, few thereafter criticised the first part (the sermon) of Parliament’s opening ritual. Given the governmental influence, the Social Democrats chose to tone down their criticism of the state-church relation for a more pragmatic attitude toward the statechurch relationship. This has been the dominant policy in ecclesiastical affairs since then. Following this, the ritual was not discussed for several decades; it lost its position as a controversial issue and the ritual was thus transformed into a civil religion—again. The Opening Rituals in Four Nordic Parliaments Opening rituals in the other Nordic countries are similar in certain ways. As Table 1 shows, the opening rituals in the four Nordic countries are similar, as regards the place of the national church in the opening ritual, the presence of the Head of State, her/his co-operation at the

12 Frederik Borgbjerg criticised the opening service on several occasions, e.g., May 10, 1922 (Rigsdagstidende sp. 6865). 13


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Table 1. Opening rituals in four Nordic parliaments Denmark Foundation The Constitution, for the ritual the protocol and the standing order of the Folketing. The Service Prior to the Folketing opening in Christiansborg Palace Chapel.

Opening of Parliament

Norway

Sweden

Iceland

The Constitution and the protocol.

Parliamentary procedures and tradition.

The Constitution and tradition.

Before the opening there is a service in Stockholm’s Cathedral in the presence of the royal family.

Prior to the Althingi’s opening in Reykjavik Cathedral.13

The King officially opens the Swedish Parliament. Prior to and in between speeches there is a performance of the royal anthem (which calls on God in the fifth stanza: You Lord of heaven, stay with us), the national anthem and a couple of other pieces of music. The royal family sits together with the party spokespersons and the Prime Minister at the forefront in the Pleni Hall.

The President opens the Ting, and asks the Members of the Ting to rise and commemorate their native soil. The Prime Minister shouts: Honour be to our President and our native soil. Long live Iceland (Four cheers).

Service on the same evening as the parliament opens its session year in Oslo’s Cathedral, invited by the bishop of Oslo. The King officially The royal family, opens Stortinget. the Danish state The royal family elite, including attends. Singing the Bishop of of the royal the Copenhagen anthem after the diocese, and the King’s arrival at priest at the preceding service. Stortinget’s Hall. The Prime Minister At the end, the president/ ends his opening chairman of the address with the Storting states the words: May I following: God suggest that we Save the King and open the our Nation. Singing parliamentary session with a long of the national live Denmark. The anthem. Members of the Parliament respond with three cheers.

Source: folketinget.dk (2005); althingi.is (2005); stortinget.no (2005); riksdagen.se (2005); Arbetsgruppen för riksdagsceremonielet Promemoria (2000)

13 Members of Parliament, ministers and president arrive at the house of the Althingi on the day of the opening and stand in two rows. Then the Members of Parliament walk in a procession with the bishop of Iceland and the president in the front to the cathedral. After the service, they return to the Althingi and officially open the Parliament (Gunnarsdóttir and Jónsdóttir 2004, 13).

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opening and the nation’s position in the singing of the national anthem or by “a long live . . .” The similarity of the opening rituals underlines the cultural connections in the Scandinavian region. Among other things, it points to the period of the Reformation, when the church in the Nordic countries shifted from a papal to a principal church, following the principle cuius regio eius religio: “whose the region, his the religion”. In other words, the religion of the King or other ruler would be the religion of the people.14 Thus, the King became the summus episcopus and combined in one person the supreme ecclesiastical and state powers; he became therefore both the symbol of the State as well as the religious head.15 This has been confirmed through rituals that involved the King, the national church and the legislative or consultative assemblies that existed before the constitutive assemblies in the Scandinavian countries. The State’s official and dominating religion with these means was legitimising the state authorities, which also meant that the State authorities had to control the state religion by integrating the dominating religion in the state juridical system. This is done through rituals, such as the opening ritual examined here. This shows that symbols and rituals are crucial to politics, but “does not [necessarily] mean that people simply view the world in the way their culture and its guiding myths dictate. What is crucial, though, is the fact that power must be expressed through symbolic guises. Symbolism is necessary to prop up the governing political order” (Kertzer 1988, 174). In other words, it is important for the state authorities to show the people, through rituals and symbols, that they are legitimised by the dominating religion of the people or the dominating national ideology (e.g., national myths). In this case, the Constitution, Parliament (democracy) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church appear to be important components in the national ideology. How is this relationship articulated in the Constitution?

14 Cuius regio eius religio was terminology first articulated at the Peace of Augsburg in 1555—a peace treaty between the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the Protestant Schmalkaldic League (Harrison et al. 2001, 36–39). 15 Summus episcopus is the justification of the Protestant idea that the ruler of the land was the ruler of the church—the supreme bishop (Betz 1998, 1866–1867). Cf. also the Jurist Henrik Zahle’s interpretation of this (Zahle 2003, 162–165).


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The Constitution and the Evangelical Lutheran Church The Evangelical Lutheran Church’s position as the people’s church—or the state’s church—and the King’s belonging to this are written in the Constitution’s § 4, “The Evangelical Lutheran Church shall be the Established Church of Denmark, and as such shall be supported by the State”, and § 6, “The King shall be a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church” (Constitutional Act of Denmark, 1953).16 The Church’s official relation to the state is included in the Constitution from 1849. With the 1849 Constitution, the Danes obtained both freedom of religion and a state church. The Constitution gives the citizens full freedom of religion, as well as making it clear that “the Evangelical Lutheran church is the Danish people’s church, which is supported [subsidized] by the Danish State” (§ 4, Constitutional Act of Denmark 1953).17 The concept of the Danish Folk Church is only ascertained, which means that the Constitution’s section 4 does not establish a new church called the Danish Folk Church, but acknowledges that the existing Evangelical Lutheran church is the church in which the majority of the population are members. Instead of the King as the head of the church, with the Constitution from 1849, it was agreed that the Constitution of the Established Church should be laid down by statute. The consequence was that the legislators attained power over the church. But the concept the Danish Folk Church also originates from the Constitution as an official concept. The concept is much discussed, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church should be understood as a proper state church. In his book Folkekirke? Kirken i det danske samfund (2005),18 the prominent former Bishop of Roskilde Jan Lindhardt advocates for the existing church-state arrangement and at the same time argues that the Danish Folk Church is a state-church:

16 This is the official translation from the Parliament’s webpage (folketinget.dk 2008). 17 The translation differs from the above quoted § 4 in the Constitution. The first quote is the official translation from the Parliament’s webpage (folketinget.dk 2008), whereas the second quote is my translation of the same § 4, which mentions folkekirken—the Danish people’s church or The Danish Folk Church—in the official translation as the Established Church of Denmark. The term Established is not an accurate translation. 18 Which is translated to: Folk Church? The Church in the Danish Society.

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brian arly jacobsen [. . .] with a state church, you also get a church state. [. . .] What we get is a state with church tasks. We are so used to this, that we no longer regard these tasks as church related. And that is why it is so easy for Danes to follow the word of the Bible: Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s. In Denmark, you see, God and Caesar have the same address and that is Christiansborg (Lindhardt 2005, 48, author’s translation).

Jan Lindhardt therefore sees the church and the state as inseparable. Furthermore, he argues that the Danish welfare state is constructed on the unity and dynamics between state and church, and if they are separated, it will harm the benefits of state welfare, such as free healthcare and education. The Danish welfare state is basically an Evangelical Lutheran church-state, according to Lindhardt and many other people. Lindhardt’s thoughts are provoking. His publication and the subsequent attention on his discussion of the relationship between concepts such as the Danish Folk Church, state-church, church-state, nation, the monarchy and the welfare-state reflect that the Constitution’s regulations on church, state and monarchy are not only theoretical and historical discussions, but are the focus of topical debate. Lindhardt’s theologization of politics and the (welfare) state leads to what sociologists Roland Robertson and JoAnn Chirico call the “politicization of theology and religion, on the one hand, and the ‘theologization’ of politics, on the other” (Robertson and Chirico 1985, 239). And they further argue in favour of the “ubiquity” of civil-religious problems in societies worldwide, on the basis of the requirement placed on societies to define themselves—identify their basic national values and ideas—in the competitive environment of globalisation (ibid., 238–239). Lindhardt’s politisation of religion and religionification of politics is an example of this view. In a wider context, their view on civil-religious problems and the pressure on societies to define themselves can be applied to the Danish case as well. The support to and awareness of the need for rituals and symbols such as the opening rituals, which confirm the civil religion vis-à-vis political religion, strengthen the nation-state in a global competitive environment. But if the civil religion turns into a political religion whose ideology narrows the possibility for every Danish citizen to participate due to the ritual’s mono-ethno-religious content, it may raise problems for minorities to fully integrate in the political institutions. This problem is becoming more visible due to increasing immigrant groups with religious affiliations other than the majority of the Danish population.


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The Politisation of Religion During the last 40 years, immigration has created new minority groups in Denmark, and in most of the Western world. The religious landscape has been transformed, and now consists of more than 100 different religions, where different Muslim groups are the largest minority religions. Representatives from different ethnic and religious minorities are making more and more claims for religious equality. At the same time, more and more Danes with other ethnic and/or religious backgrounds are elected to the Folketing. They too are making claims for more religious equality, through the proposal of bills in the Parliament. In an interview, Member of Parliament Naser Khader formulates the problem like this: The state must be released from the church in the same way that the Danish People’s Church must be released from any kind of ministerial interference. This is what applies to the other “so-called acknowledged” religions in Denmark (Interview with Naser Khader June 7th, 2005, author’s translation).

Migration has become a main factor in the religious and political changes in the beginning of the 21st century, which can be seen not only in Denmark but also in most of the Western world. It finds expression in the Folketing, where a growing component of the parliamentary debates is concerned with religious questions, especially questions concerning Muslim minority groups’ integration into the Danish society (Jacobsen 2006). At the same time, various religious groupings are increasingly trying to influence the political agenda. The tension of the two positions, the conflation of politics and religion, on the one hand, and the secularist Westphalian inspired position on religion and politics, on the other hand, are part of a wider global process. According to Peter Berger, our age seems to be witnessing a “desecularization” of religion, a global desecularization of the world, an increase in antisecular movements and discourses which are disillusioned by the modernity project and which insist on the political potential of religious conceptions and forms of praxis (Berger 1999, 1–18). This public revitalisation of religion is being expanded equally over continents as well as over religious traditions. In spite of the fact that these phenomena and movements differ considerably as far as political methods and goals are concerned, their respective appearance and increasing popularity help politicise religion as a global tendency (Robertson 1992, 42–43).

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The opening service is an establishment of a civil religious practice. The beliefs and rituals are related to the past, the Christian heritage, the present Christian state, the small but great Danish nation, and a future for the Danish people, which, according to believers’ perceptions, are understood in a transcendental fashion. The opening tradition is an official ritual with public access, which legitimises and underlies the structure and organisation of the state’s relationship to the dominant religion—the Evangelical Lutheran Church—as it is written in the Constitution § 4. In the first years after the passing of the Constitution, it might have had an exclusively integrative national function, as civil religion demands in Bellah’s version (Bellah 1967). And, it might have had the same function after 1924 when the Social Democrats and the Social Liberal Party stopped their criticism, up to recently. It now works both as an integrative as well as a disintegrative ritual. It is integrative for the people who identify themselves with the Evangelical Lutheran Church and disintegrative for the people outside the church. The latter group increased during the 20th Century. Approximately 98% of Denmark’s population were members of the state-church at the beginning of the 20th century. The membership rate in 2006 was 83% and has gradually been falling by about 0.3% every year in the last decade (Stift.dk 2007; Statistisk Tabelværk V. A.3, 1903). The opening ritual was disputed after the first two Social Democratic members were elected to Parliament in 1884. They generally did not participate in the opening service or stand up for the royal family when they entered the Parliamentary hall, as is the tradition, for ideological reasons. During the years after the passing of the Constitution the ritual changed. The first Social Democratic Member of Parliament participated in an opening service in 1900 (Politiken, October 2nd), and when the Social Democrats took over government for the first time in 1924, they also took over the existing opening rituals and participated generally on equal standing with the rest of the Members of the Parliament. The question is whether it makes any sense for Members of Parliament with other ethnic and/or religious backgrounds to participate in opening rituals that confirm the majority religion’s monopoly position in the Danish national-state. Members of Parliament Kamal Qureshi and Naser Khader indicate that it gives no meaning for them to participate in the first part of the opening ritual. Thus, it is reasonable to suggest that the opening ritual as civil religion has become political religion. It


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attempts “to force group identity and to legitimise an existing political order, by injecting a transcendental dimension or a religious gloss on the justification”, as suggested by Cristi (2001, 3). The ritual over the years has balanced between being a civil religion and a political religion because of the constitutional and traditional merging of state, royal institution, democracy and religion. For some time it has been both civil and political religion, but is more and more tipping to the analytical construct of political religion. Hence, rituals such as these separate “us” from “them”, the Danish nation-state from all others, and make its (democratic) culture unique and irreplaceable: “In that sense, the nation becomes the source of collective meaning, and hence ‘sacred’ ” (Smith 2003, 40). References althingi.is. 2005. The Icelandic Parliaments website, www.althingi.is. Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Arbetsgruppen för riksdagsceremonielet Promemoria 2000. Eduskunnan Kanslian Julkaisu 8/2000 [Working group for Parliamentary ceremony]. Bellah, Robert. 1967. Civil religion in America. Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1 (96): 1–21. Bennett, W. Lance. 1979. Imitation, Ambiguity, and Drama in Political Life: Civil Religion and the Dilemmas of Public Morality. The Journal of Politics 41 (1) 106–133. Berger, Peter. 1999. The Desecularization of the World. A Global Overview. In The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, ed. Peter Berger, 1–18. Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public Policy Center. Betz, Hans Dieter (hrsg). 1998–. Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Handwörterbuch für Theologie und Religionswissenschaft. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism, London: Sage. Cristi, Marcela. 2001. From Civil to Political Religion. The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics. Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Frydendal, Flemming. 1998. Christiansborg Slots historie [The History of the Castle of Christiansborg]. In Christiansborg Slotskirke, ed. Slots- og Ejendomsstyrelsen, 9–17 København. folketinget.dk. 2005. The Danish Parliaments website: www.folketinget.dk. —— 2008. www.folketinget.dk/pdf/Constitution.pdf Accessed 7 March 2008. Folketingets informationssystem 2005. www.folketinget.dk. —— 2006. www.folketinget.dk. Folketingets årbog og registre. 1988–. Schultz Information Tidligere udgivet: København, Folketinget, Informations- og Dokumentationsafdelingen. Sammenlægning af: Folketingsårbog, og Folketingstidende. Folketingstidende 1967–2002. København. Schultz Information. Gennep, Arnold van. 1960 (1908). The Rites of Passage. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Gentile, Emilio. 2005. Political Religion: A Concept and its Critics—A Critical Survey. In Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 6 (1) 19–32.

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Gunnarsdóttir, Hildur Gróa, and Solveig K. Jónsdóttir. 2004. Althingi. Compiled by the secretariat of Althingi. www.althingi.is/pdf/enska.pdf. Hall, Stuart, ed. 1996. The Question of Cultural Identity. In Modernity. An Introduction to Modern Societies, ed. S. Hall and D. Hubert, 595–634. London: Blackwell. —— ed. 1997. Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices, London: Sage. Harrison, Dick and Marie-Louise Rodén. 2001. Europa 1600–1800. København: Roskilde Universitetsforlag. Hobsbawm Eric, and Terence Ranger. 1986. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holm, Kjeld. 1998. Opening Sermon [unpublished]. Interview with Member of Parliament for Socialdemokraterne (the Social Democrats), Mogens Jensen September 8th, 2006. Interview with former Member of Parliament for Det Radikale Venstre (The Danish Social-Liberal Party), Naser Khader June 7th, 2005. Interview with Member of Parliament for the Socialist People’s Party, Kamal Qureshi June 10th, 2005. Jacobsen, Brian. 2006 Religionernes genkomst på den politiske dagsorden. [The Return of Religions on the Political Agenda], Tidsskriftet Politik, 1 (9) 26–37. Johannsen, Birgitte Bøggild. 1983. Christiansborg Slotskirke. [The Chapel of Christiansborg]. In Danmarks Kirker, København. 7–18. København: Nationalmuseets Forlag. Kertzer, David. 1988. Ritual, Politics, and Power. London, New Haven: Yale University Press. Kirkeministeriet 2007. www.km.dk. Knudsen, Fabienne. 1998. Integrationsdebatten i Danmark og Frankrig [The Debate on Integration in Denmark and France]. Esbjerg: Sydjysk Universitetsforlag. Knudsen, Tim. 2006. Fra enevælde til folkestyre. Dansk demokratihistorie indtil 1973 [From Absolute Monarchy to Democracy. Danish history of democracy until 1973]. København: Akademisk Forlag. Lindhardt, Jan. 2005. Folkekirke? Kirken i det danske samfund [Folk Church? The Church in the Danish Society]. Højbjerg: Hovedland. Lützhøft, Poul. 1900. Politiken, October 2nd 1900, 2 (Newspaper). McGuire, M. 1997. Religion. The Social Context (fourth edition). USA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. Mynster, Jakob Peter. 1842. Prædiken holden i Roskilde Domkirke ved Aabningen af Provindsialstændernes Forsamling den 7de Julii 1842 [Sermon held in the Cathedral of Roskilde at the Opening of the Provinces Assembly of the Estates of the Realm 7 July 1842]. København: Universtetsboghandler Reitzel. —— 1848. Prædiken ved Aabningen af Rigsforsamlingen den 23de October 1848 [Sermon at the Opening of the Constituent Assembly 23 October 1848]. København: Universtetsboghandler Reitzel. Overgaard, Søren. 2000. Nationalismebegrebet [The Concept of Nationalism]. In Kernebegreber i Statskundskab, ed. Tim Knudsen. København: Gad Jura. Retsinformation: www.retsinformation.dk. Rerup Lorenz. 1992. Folkestyre og danskhed. Massenationalisme og politik 1848–1866. [Democracy and Danishness. Mass Nationalism and Politics 1848–1866]. In Dansk Identitetshistorie bd. 3. Folkets Danmark 1848–1940, ed. Ole Feldbæk. 337–442. København: C.A. Reitzels Forlag. Rigsdagstidende, Forhandlinger i Folketinget 1852–53, 1905–06; 1921–22; 1924 Overordentlig samling; 1924–25, J.H. Schultz, København. riksdagen.se 2005. The Swedish Parliaments website, www.riksdagen.se.


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Robertson, Roland, and JoAnn Chirico. 1985. Humanity, Globalization, and Worldwide Religious Resurgence: A Theoretical Exploration. In Sociological Analysis 46. 219–242. Robertson, Roland. 1992. Globalization. Social theory and global culture. London: Sage. Roussseau, Jean-Jacques. 1998. (1762). The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right. London: Wordsworth Classics of World Literature. Smith, Anthony D. 2001. Nationalism. Theory, ideology, history. Cambridge: Polity Press. —— 2003. Chosen Peoples. Sacred Sources of National Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Statistiske Bureau, Det. 1903. Folketællingen i Kongeriget Danmark, den 1ste Februar 1901 [The Census in the Kingdom of Denmark 1 February 1901]. København: Det Statistiske Bureau, (Statistisk Tabelværk V. A.3). Stift.dk. 2007. Kirkestatistik [Church statistics], www.stift.dk. stortinget.no. 2005. The Norwegian Parliaments website, www.stortinget.no. Zahle, Henrik. 2003. Menneskerettigheder. Dansk forfatningsret 3 [Human Rights. Danish Constitutional Law 3]. København: Christian Ejlers’ Forlag. The Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs. 2005. private e-mail correspondence with The Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs. Warburg, Margit, and Brian Arly Jacobsen. 2007. Ceremoni. Demokratiet har Gud på sin side [Ceremony. Democracy has God on its side]. Politiken. Analysis. October 2nd 2007. 8. Warburg, Margit. 2008. Dannebrog: Waving in and out of Danish Civil Religion. In Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 21(2) 165–84. Winthers, Christian. 1930. Kristeligt Dagblad [The Christian Daily], October 8th 1930. Østergård, Uffe. 1992. Peasants and Danes: The Danish National Identity and Political Culture. Comparative Studies in Society and History 34 (1) 3–27.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SCANDINAVIAN FOLK CHURCHES, CHAUVINISM AND XENOPHOBIA Pål Ketil Botvar The majority churches of Scandinavian countries are often considered important integrating national symbols. However, Sweden formally abolished the state-church system in 2000, and debates on relations between state and church in the other Scandinavian countries, especially Norway, are intensifying.1 The “national factor” is one of the topics in this debate. Some commentators are worried that the majority church will cease to function as an integrating national symbol if it is split from the state. Others are more concerned about the idea of religious equality, a principle they consider to be in conflict with a state-church system. Thus, the debate has concentrated on the institutional level. But how does the existing organisational system function on the individual level? What views does the general public have on the majority church and its relations to the state? Is a formal split between church and state likely to alter the public’s attitude? In this chapter, I analyse the link between people’s relations to the majority church, on the one hand, and their views on the nation and on immigrants, on the other. The research question is whether a close relationship with the church and certain attitudes towards the church model make people more inclined to have negative views concerning immigrants. If, for example, those who support the folk church also have negative attitudes towards immigrants and people whose faith is non-Christian, this would undermine the ability of the church to function as an integrating national symbol. However, such assumptions have to be empirically tested. Although this is a controversial subject, it is nevertheless highly relevant to the public debates currently taking place in Denmark and Norway. Using data from the survey “National Identity 2003”, conducted

1 The political parties represented in the Norwegian Parliament agreed in April 2008 that a loosening of the ties between Church and State should take place in 2013. This would require a change in the Constitution.

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in Denmark, Norway and Sweden by the International Social Survey Programme in the autumn of 2003, I examine the relationship between these factors on the individual level.2 Before 2000, the three Scandinavian countries had rather similar church-state systems, as each country had a national church with special privileges granted by the state. But in 2000, Sweden took a step away from this model when it decided formally to divide the church and the state. It is not clear how much the Swedish case really differs from the other two after the formal changes took place in 2000, since the Swedish church still is a majority church and as such has a privileged position. Nevertheless, the Swedish situation is considered by many to be different from the rest of the Scandinavian countries. The fact that over a period of four years some 300,000 Swedes actively have resigned from the Swedish Church shows that the relationship between the people and the church is vulnerable to such formal changes in the organisational system. The different historical backgrounds of the three nations may influence the way people look at the role of the church. The national revivals of the 19th century took quite different paths in the three Scandinavian countries. According to Øyvind Østerud (1991), Norway and Sweden represent differing forms of nationalism, while Denmark could be placed somewhere between these two. In Norway, the nationalistic movement was a grass-roots movement led by representatives of politically active peasants. The leaders of the pietistic laymen’s movement were also engaged in the process. Nationalist ideology was combined with the struggle for democracy and freedom from Swedish oppression, while in the Swedish case, the dominant form of nationalism was aristocratic and conservative (Østerud 1991, 200). Thus, the Swedish folk church, as a national symbol, is associated with conservatism and elite groups. Such a form of nationalism is not easily transformed into civil religion.

2 The data utilised in this article were documented and made available by the Zentralarchiv für empirische Sozialforschung, Köln. Independent institutions in each country collected the data for the ISSP. The Danish survey was conducted by the Dept. of Economics, Politics and Public Administration, Aalborg University. The Norwegian Social Science Data Services (NSD) conducted the Norwegian survey. The Swedish survey was conducted by the Department of Sociology, University of Umeå. Neither the original researchers nor the Zentralarchiv bear any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations presented here.

scandinavian folk churches

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During the 20th century, some of the Lutheran churches in Scandinavia gradually gained more and more freedom vis-à-vis the state. Nonetheless, the state still had some formal power over the church, for instance when it came to appointing new bishops and setting the church budget. Both in Denmark and in Norway, the Monarch is the formal head of the national Lutheran church. When there are national anniversaries and celebrations, representatives from the church appear with the royal family and together symbolise the unity of the nation. Thus, the national churches of Scandinavia, since the 19th century, have served as the main religious symbols of the Scandinavian nations and as the caretakers of the national rituals. The Folk Churches as Civil Religion Several Scandinavian sociologists of religion have described the folkchurch culture as the Scandinavian counterpart to American civil religion (Sundback 2000; Gustafsson 1991; Riis 1989; Aagedal 2000). Their argument is that the folk churches fulfil the same functions as civil religion does in the United States. This argument has both theoretical and empirical problems. Theoretically, the problem is related to the different meanings that the concept has when it is used to describe the American and Scandinavian situations. The French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first to refer to the concept of “civil religion”, but it was the American sociologist Robert Bellah who applied the concept to the contemporary situation in his now legendary article “Civil Religion in America”, from 1967. In this article, Bellah describes civil religion not as a state religion but rather as expressions that sacralise national values and turn them into a kind of religion. American civil religion becomes a common ground for all Americans—Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists. The god who is referred to in American civil religion is not any specific narrow denominational god, not even a Christian God, but a unifying god, the god-above-us-all. According to Robert Bellah (1967), civil religion is “an institutionalized collection of sacred beliefs about the nation”. One of the core elements of American civil religion is the view that America has a special role in history, a destiny to spread freedom and justice around the globe. Bellah identified the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement as three

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decisive historical events that influenced the content and imagery of civil religion in the United States. Sociologists of religion, discussing the Scandinavian case, have addressed Bellah’s conception in the following ways. Göran Gustafsson (1991, 159), for example, argues that we can also find the view in Scandinavia that the Nordic countries have a special mission in the world. This idea is articulated in discussions on the Nordic welfare model and also on the role of Scandinavians in various peacekeeping operations around the world. However, these views were more widespread in the 1960s and 1970s than they are today (Gustafsson 1991, 162; Warburg 2005a). Susan Sundback (2000, 36) uses the civil religion thesis to explain the fact that eight out of ten Scandinavians are members of the national Lutheran churches in spite of increasing religious individualism. In these countries, being a member of the church is almost the same as being a member of society. When you are a Dane, for instance, it feels natural to be a member of the Danish Folk Church. However, changes in the state-church system may lead to attitudinal changes, as are apparent in the case of Sweden. There are several plausible explanations for the high membership rates in these national churches. When membership in the church is free or it is impossible to avoid paying church taxes, as is the case in Norway, it is rational for individuals to remain members of the church even if the church does not mean very much to them in their daily lives. In Sweden and Denmark, it is at least possible to reduce the church tax by resigning from the church. During a lifetime, there are certain situations where most of us need assistance from the church, weddings and funerals are among the obvious examples. We do not need the civil religion thesis to explain the high membership rates in the Scandinavian folk churches; it is enough to consider more trivial rational choice arguments. The fact that a declining percentage of the population holds membership in the folk churches is another argument against labelling them as civil religions. After the church’s formal split with the state, a substantial number of Swedes left the church. For the first time in Swedish history, the national church only accounts for about 75 percent of the population among its members (Holbek 2005). In the 1970s, membership was 90 percent of the population. At the same time, non-Christian religions are growing and more and more people are not members of any religious


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community or organisation. The same development is seen in Norway and Denmark, albeit to a lesser degree. At the same time that the national churches are losing popular support due to declining membership rates, the conflicts within the churches appear to be intensifying. The liberal and conservative wings are struggling over particular theological questions. In Norway, the most volatile conflict involves the question of ordaining gay and lesbian priests. This conflict came to a head in 2004 when the conservative bishop Ole Kristian Kvarme became the new bishop for Oslo, contrary to the wishes of liberal groups in the church and most political parties in Parliament. The government at the time, led by the Christian Democrat Kjell Magne Bondevik, decided that the candidate receiving the most votes in the church election process should become bishop. Traditionally, the government has chosen freely one of the three top candidates for bishop. Such struggles within the church lead to polarisation within the church and declining popular support, and make it more difficult for the church to fulfil civil religious functions. According to Bellah, one of the main functions of civil religion is to connect people across confessions and denominations. To act as a type of civil religion, the folk church and the folk-church culture therefore have to be inclusive and tolerant. Whether or not this is the case is debatable; therefore, it should be tested empirically. Even if the Scandinavian folk churches are related to religious confessions, it is possible nevertheless that the churches contribute to integration and solidarity in society. In order to fulfil this purpose, the church has to be tolerant. In an article on civil religion in Scandinavia, Sundback (2000, 63) describes the religion of the folk church as tolerant and inclusive. To demonstrate this, she notes that immigrants are welcome to join the national Lutheran church. However, in most Scandinavian countries, it is rather uncommon for immigrants from non-European countries to join the national church. This type of occurrence could be considered evidence of how difficult it is to be accepted as a citizen in the Scandinavian countries when you look different and come from a different part of the world. If you have to become a Lutheran to be accepted in the Scandinavian societies, this does not suggest a high level of tolerance. In the following, we investigate the degree of tolerance and inclusivity in the folk-church culture in Scandinavia by taking a closer look at the empirical data.

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pål ketil botvar Data and Method

As mentioned above, the empirical evidence presented here is based on a national survey on identity conducted in the three Scandinavian countries in 2003. The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) administers this survey, which contains questions on national identity, immigration and immigrants, and church and religion. The material therefore is well suited for investigations in this field. The Norwegian survey contains a few more questions on religion and church than do the other two surveys, which makes it even more pertinent than the other two datasets, because it enables us to examine more closely religion and national identity. The focus here is on whether there is a connection between people’s relations to the folk church, on the one hand, and the phenomenon of ethnocentrism and xenophobia, on the other. This question has been raised in the Norwegian debate regarding future relations between church and state (Vårt Land 2003). The goal is to study members of the national churches in terms of their attitudes towards chauvinism and xenophobia. In order to fulfil civil religious functions, the folkchurch culture has to be inclusive and tolerant. This also means that the bearers of the folk-church culture must demonstrate a certain degree of tolerance. On the institutional level, the national churches have taken a critical stance on the government’s policies concerning immigration and integration of refugees and asylum-seekers (Kirkerådet 2005). In Denmark, more than 200 priests in the Danish folk church used their Christmas sermons to criticise the government’s immigration policy (Kristeligt Dagblad 2005). Representatives of the church usually advocate a more humane and liberal policy in this field. Some congregations within the national church have even used churches and church offices as hiding places and safe havens for refugees and asylum-seekers who risk being sent back to uncertain situations in their homelands (Vetvik 1996). However, the focus of this analysis is not on the institutional level, but rather on the individual level of belonging to the national churches. The last decenniums have brought increasing immigration to the Scandinavian countries. Facing globalisation and thereby a change in the demographic composition of their national societies, the Scandinavian countries have also been the scene of increasing hostility towards immigrants.

scandinavian folk churches Social structure: Age Gender Places of residence Education Political party

189 Chauvinism

Relation to the church Xenophobia

Figure 1. Relation between factors in the model

Most empirical studies of people’s attitudes on immigration and immigrants are based on psychological theories, such as the hypothesis that relative deprivation leads to xenophobia (Stouffer 1949; Hernes and Knudsen 1990). However, very few of the studies conducted in the Nordic countries have taken religion into account as a factor that might explain the observed variation in attitudes. In this chapter, I more closely examine the religious factor as a possible predictor of attitudes towards immigrants. In the analyses, I use both church attendance and views on the church-state system as independent variables, together with a set of ordinary sociological variables (cf. Figure 1). I assume that these variables are relevant in explaining variations in chauvinistic and xenophobic attitudes. To study the phenomena of chauvinism and xenophobia, I have constructed additive indexes on the basis of particular questions in the survey. Similar questions and indexes have been used in other international studies (Knudsen 1997; Knutsen 1997a, 1997b, 2000; Hjerm 1998, 2004; Gundelach 2002). The chauvinism scale is based on agreement or disagreement with four statements: a. I would rather be a citizen of (COUNTRY) than of any other country in the world. b. The world would be a better place if people from other countries were more like (COUNTRY NATIONALITY). c. Generally speaking, (COUNTRY) is a better place than most other countries. d. People should support their country even if the country is in the wrong. The xenophobia index is based on agreement/disagreement with the following questions:

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a. Immigrants increase crime rates. b. Immigrants are generally good for (COUNTRY’S) economy. c. Immigrants take jobs away from people who were born in (COUNTRY). d. Immigrants improve (COUNTRY NATIONALITY) society by bringing in new ideas and cultures. The reliability of these indexes is confirmed by Cronbach’s Alpha test. Cronbach’s Alpha is used to measure internal consistency in the index. The Alpha scores are high for these scales, concerning all three countries, and range between .66 and .79. Empirical Analysis In the first part of the analyses, I focus on the right side of the model (Figure 1), looking at the three factors of church-relation, chauvinism and xenophobia. In the second part, I conduct a multivariate analysis, in which the effects of the background variables are taken into account. By doing this, the possible effect of the religious variables on the dependent variables in the model (chauvinism and xenophobia) can be isolated. With some exceptions, the membership figures of the national churches are rather similar in the three countries. However, the Swedish membership rate for the national church is especially low in our material (68 percent). According to official statistics, the actual percentage is a bit higher than apparent from the survey figures, 77% (2005). The findings from the survey could be an indication that more people intend to withdraw their membership from the Church of Sweden. The figure for the Danish folk church is a bit higher than the official figure (87% vs. 83%), while the Norwegian survey results resemble the official statistics (84%). Church attendance is also very much at the same level in the three countries. Most Scandinavians go to church once a year or every other year, when attendance in connection with baptisms, funerals and weddings are excluded. As we will note later, we find strong support for the specific folk-church culture in the “once-a-year” or “more-seldom” groups. The findings in Table 1 indicate that chauvinism or ethnocentrism is most widespread in Denmark (12 indicates a high level of chauvinism). Xenophobia, on the other hand, dominates in Norway. This


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Table 1. Mean scores on the chauvinism index (0–12) and the xenophobia index (0–12) Chauvinism-index

Norway

Denmark

Sweden

Mean Score N

6.36 1469

7.27 1322

6.00 1186

Xenophobia- index Mean Score N

6.38 1469

5.97 1322

5.67 1186

Source: ISSP 2003

means that there is no one-to-one relationship between chauvinism and xenophobia. There is, however, a significant statistical relationship between these two variables. Only in Norway is there a significant statistical relationship between church attendance and xenophobia. Those people who attend church once a year or more seldom have the most negative attitudes towards foreigners, whereas both active churchgoers and the group of passive church members are more positive towards foreigners. The same tendencies can be seen in Denmark and Sweden, but not as clearly as in Norway. The members of the population who go to church about once a year, usually during special holidays, are to a large extent also the bearers of the folk -church culture. Those who go to church several times a year, but not on a monthly basis, are the ones who agree most with the statement that the state-church system guarantees that the church is open to people who do not share all Christian beliefs (Botvar 2006). In regards to chauvinism, the connection again is most clear in Norway; those who go to church often are usually the most chauvinistic. In Denmark, those who go to church several times a year are the most chauvinistic. In Sweden, chauvinism is most common among those who go to church less often than once a year. However, neither in Denmark nor in Sweden are these patterns statistically significant. Nevertheless, when comparing nations, churchgoers in Denmark appear to be more chauvinistic than are Norwegian churchgoers. This conclusion rests on the assumption that the scale captures exactly the same phenomena in the three countries. Only the Norwegian data allow interpretation of people’s attitudes towards the state-church system. In Table 2, it is apparent that the people who go to church once a year or a little more often than that,

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pål ketil botvar Table 2. Church attendance, xenophobia score, and views on the state-church system For state-church system

Undecided

Against statechurch system

Sign.

At least monthly Several times a year Once a year More seldom Never/practically never

6.64 6.24

6.50 6.41

5.73 5.64

.224 .124

6.78 7.20 6.99

6.58 6.56 6.62

5.94 6.08 5.80

.000 .000 .000

Total: N = 1469

6.81

6.57

5.89

.000

Source: ISSP 2003 Norway

what we might call the sporadic churchgoers, are the ones that are most in favour of the present state-church system. One interpretation of this pattern is that those who feel that they belong in the folk church, but do not want to be a part of the core social milieu in the local congregation, feel that their positions as moderate active members are threatened by any change in the organisational structure of the church. Only in the group of passive church members, those who hardly ever attend a church, do we find a clear majority in favour of a split between church and state. Table 2 includes three variables: churchgoing, xenophobia and views on the state-church system. From the data presented in this table, it is clear that those who are in favour of the present situation, a statechurch system, more often have negative or hostile attitudes towards immigrants. Those who support the state-church system are more xenophobic than are those who favour a split. However, there are significant differences within those groups of people who go to church once a year or less. One possible interpretation of this finding is that many of those who are in favour of the present state-church system, but go to church very seldom, generally look at the state church as a kind of safeguard against the growing number of immigrants. This very well could be one of the reasons why they continue to be members of the national church, even though they show little interest in the church’s activities. To ensure that the view people have on the state-church system is a factor predicting hostile attitudes towards immigrants, I conducted a multivariate analysis of the Norwegian data. This analysis takes into


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Table 3. The effect of different independent variables on the xenophobia scale (1–12). Linear regression Independent variables Gender (woman = 1, men = 0) Age (18–79) Place of residence (rural = 1, urban = 0) Education (high = 1, low = 0) Attendance (never = 1, at least monthly = 5) Political party (right wing party = 1, other = 0) View on state-church system (negative = 1, positive = 5) Chauvinism scale (1–12) Proportion of overall variance explained by the independent variables (adjusted r 2)

Standardized Beta

Significance

–.06 –.01 –.01

.008 n.s. n.s.

–.16 –.02

.000 n.s.

.31

.000

.14

.000

.27 .31

.000

Source: ISSP 2003 Norway. N = 1426

account background variables and also the above-mentioned attitude scales. Looking at the last row of the table, it is apparent that almost one third of the variation of respondents’ xenophobia scores is accounted for by the independent variables in the model. The other feature to note from this table is that five variables have significant effect after controlling for the other variables. Voting for the right wing party (the Progress Party: Fremskrittspartiet) and chauvinism both have strong associations with xenophobia. The right wing party in Norway has been critical of the immigration policies of a number of Norwegian governments during the 1980s and 1990s. It is hardly surprising that identifiers with Fremskrittspartiet score more highly on this scale than do respondents with other party preferences. In Denmark, the Danish People’s Party (Dansk Folkeparti) plays the same role as the Progress Party does in Norway. Education level and opinions about the state-church system have moderate but clearly significant effects. Thus, those who have a university degree score low on the xenophobia scale and those without a degree score high on the scale. Those who are positive towards the state-church system have more xenophobic attitudes than do those

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who want to loosen the bonds between state and church. Gender has a small, but still significant effect. This means that women are a little less likely than are men to have negative attitudes towards immigrants when all other factors are taken into account. Even if the standpoint for or against the state-church system has a moderate effect on xenophobia, the church and state should not overlook this factor. The indirect consequences of the state-church system on people’s attitudes towards immigrants ought to be a topic in the ongoing debate on the future relations between state and church in Scandinavia. Some groups within the church may use the state-church model as an argument against immigration of people with religions other than Christianity into Scandinavia. In some cases, the present state-church system could foster such attitudes. If this really is the case, it should be seen as a problem for both state representatives and representatives of the national church. Conclusion Several conclusions can be drawn from the analyses of the survey results. First, although there are some similarities between the three countries, there are also significant differences. The church-membership rates are quite similar in the three countries, although the rate in Sweden is declining. Church attendance is also very much at the same level. Chauvinism appears to be at the highest level in Denmark and the lowest in Sweden. Xenophobia, on the other hand, is most widespread in Norway. Concerning xenophobia, Sweden is again ranked third. Only in the Norwegian data are there clear relationships between church attendance and chauvinism and xenophobia. One interesting point is that while the direction of the relationship between church going and chauvinism is a positive one, the direction of the relationship between church going and xenophobia is negative. Thus, it is obvious that chauvinistic people do not quite overlap with the group having xenophobic attitudes. The civil religion thesis is based on the assumption that the Scandinavian countries resemble each other in the religious field and therefore can be treated as a unity. Some of the findings suggest that certain dimensions of nationalism, such as chauvinism, are more widespread in people who have a relationship to the folk church than among passive members or those who are not members at all. This


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could be interpreted as evidence supporting the civil religion thesis. But the analysis also provides results that counter this thesis. The evidence indicates that those who have a close relation to the folk church, and especially those who support the traditional organisational model of the folk church, tend to have more hostile attitudes towards immigrants than do others. The Norwegian respondents to the survey included the greatest percentage in favour of a separation between church and state among the most active churchgoers, and among the most passive ones. Among those who go to church several times a year (between 2 and 10 times), a vast majority does not want to change the state-church system. People who attend church about once a year (i.e., when baptisms, weddings and burials are excluded) are more likely to want to keep the system as it is than are others. Data from the Norwegian survey indicate that many of those who attend church between 2 and 10 times a year agree with the statement that the state-church system is a guarantee of tolerance within the church and that different theological positions are accepted. This tells us that certain strata in the population see the state church as taking care of the religious needs of the majority. It is a paradox that the same people who want the church to be tolerant and open towards people with a weak faith have the most negative attitudes towards foreigners. Pushed to its extreme, one could claim that the existence of a statechurch system seems to be used as an argument against the immigration of people who follow non-Christian religions. Does the state-church system foster xenophobia? We can not answer this question solely by looking at the survey data. To understand fully the mechanisms behind the patterns we have detected, we need more research, most likely based on in-depth interviews. A relationship between xenophobic attitudes and support to the state-church system can be seen as a problem both for the church and for the state. Neither of them wants to be a part of a process that legitimises xenophobic attitudes. In all three countries, xenophobic attitudes are more widespread among people who do not go to church on a regular basis than they are among the core members. The relatively tolerant attitudes of the core members can be explained by the pro-immigration position that is held by the leaders in the folk churches. The church leaders stress the need for tolerance and solidarity, and have taken a critical stance towards the government’s immigration policy. Those who often go to

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church are most influenced by church teachings. However, people who feel that they belong to the church but are not core members appear to be more exposed to xenophobic attitudes than are those who are more on the periphery of the church and never go to church. We might say that xenophobic attitudes are most common among those groups who most clearly represent the folk-church culture. These findings are relevant with respect to the civil-religion thesis in regards to Scandinavia. Tolerance is necessary if the folk-church culture is to function according to the civil religion thesis. It is becoming increasingly problematic to claim that the folk churches constitute the religious glue that holds the nation together. What is evident is that the folk-church culture does not fit in with Bellah’s perspective on civil religion. In this tradition, civil religion represents a common religion that is unifying and tolerant, and provides a banner under which we all can practise our religions. There are two possible conclusions we can draw: either the thesis that the folk churches constitute the civil religion of Scandinavia must be abandoned or we have to change our perspective and look at civil religion as something different from the folk-church culture and which (partly) exists outside the folk churches. This corresponds with an argument made by Margit Warburg in her study of civil religion in Denmark (Warburg 2005b, 2008). References Aagedal, O. 2000. Den nasjonale dimensjonen i Den norske kyrkja. Kyrkjerådets Stat/ kyrkje-utval, sept. 2000. —— 2003. Nasjonal symbolmakt. Rapport 55. Makt- og demokratiutredningens rapportserie. Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil Religion in America. Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 96: 1–21. —— 1975. The broken covenant: American civil religion in time of trial. New York: Seabury Press. Botvar, Pål Ketil. 2006. Statskirkemodellen—mellom sivilreligion og nasjonalisme. In Endring og tilhørighet. Statskirkespørsmålet i perspektiv, ed. Ulla Schmidt. Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag. Botvar, Pål Ketil. 2007. Statskirke på lokalplan: Er høringssvarene påvirket av sosiale og kulturelle forhold i kommunene? In Mellom prinsipper og pragmatisme. Analyser av høringen om staten og Den norske kirke, ed. Inger Furseth and Hans Stifoss-Hanssen. Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag. Furseth, Inger. 1990. The civil religion debate—some of s premises and foundations. Report 6 1990, Department of Sociology, University of Oslo, Norway. Furseth, Inger and Stifoss-Hanssen, Hans. 2007. Mellom prinsipper og pragmatisme. Analyser av høringen om staten og Den norske kirke. Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag.


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Gundelach, Peter. 2002. Det er dansk. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag. Gustafsson, Göran. 1991. Tro, samfund och samhälle. Sociologiska perpsektiv. Stockholm: Libris. Hernes, G., and K. Knudsen. 1990. Svart på hvitt: Norske reaksjoner på flyktninger, asylsøkere og innvandrere. FAFO-rapport 109. Oslo: FAFO. Hjerm, M. 1998. National Identities, National Pride and Xenophobia: A Comparison of Four Western Countries. Acta Sociologica Vol. 41, No. 4: 299–408. —— 2004. Death of the nation? Paper to the ASEN conference at LSE, London, April 2004. Holbek, J.A. 2005. Statskirke og tro i de nordiske land. In Farvel til statskirken? En debattbok om kirke og stat, ed. Didrik Søderlind. Oslo: Humanist forlag. Kirkerådet 2005. “Når så vi deg fremmed og tok imot deg?” Kirkelig ressursdokument om asyl- og flyktningpolitikk, inklusiv Vedtak fra Kirkemøtet 2005. Knudsen, K. 1997. Scandinavian Neighbours with Different Character? Attitudes Toward Immigrants and National Identity in Norway and Sweden. Acta Sociologica vol. 40, No. 3: 223–243. Knutsen, Oddbjørn. 1997a. Dimensjoner ved nasjonal identitet i Norge. Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning nr. 4, 1997: 529–561. —— 1997b. Politiske konsekvenser av variasjoner i nasjonal identitet i Norge. Norsk statsvitenskapelig tidsskrift nr. 13: 429–458. —— 2000. Nasjonal identitet som partipolitiske konfliktlinjer i Norge. Norsk statsvitenskapelig tidsskrift nr. 1 2000: 51–97. Kosterman, R., and S. Feshbach. 1989. Toward a measure of patriotic and nationalistic attitudes. Political Psychology 10: 257–274. Kristeligt Dagblad 01–04–2005 (Danish newspaper) “Politik på prædikestolen skaber splid”. Norges offentlige utredninger. 2006. Staten og Den norske kirke. NOU 2006:2. Plesner, Ingvil Thorson 2006. Skal vi skilles?—veier videre for stat og kirke. Oslo: Forlaget Press. Riis, Ole. 1989. The Role of Religion in Legitimating the Modern Structuration of Society. Acta Sociologica 32:2, 137–153. Schmidt, Ulla. 2006. Endring og tilhørighet. Statskirkespørsmålet i perspektiv. Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag. Stouffer, Samuel A. 1949. The American Soldier. New York: Princeton. Sundback, Susan. 2000. Medlemskapet i de lutherska kyrkorna i Norden. In Folkkyrkor och religiös pluralism—den nordiska religiösa modellen, ed. Göran Gustafsson and Thorleif Pettersson. Stockholm: Verbum. Søderlind, Didrik, ed. 2005. Farvel til statskirken? En debattbok og kirke og stat. Oslo: Humanist Forlag. Vetvik, E. 1996. Kirkeasyl—religion og politikk på norsk. Norsk statsvitenskapelig tidsskrift nr. 2, 1996: 163–178. Vårt Land 10–11–2003 (Norwegian newspaper). “Riktig analyse av kirkedebatt” (Interview with Trond Bakkevig, leader of the church-state commission in The church of Norway). Warburg, Margit. 2005a. Dansk civilreligion i krise og vækst. Chaos Dansk-norsk tidsskrift for religionshistoriske studier 43, 2005: 89–108. —— 2005b. Gudspåkaldelse i dansk civilreligion. Er det andet end folkekirkens Gud, der påkaldes? In Gudstro i Danmark, ed. M.T. Højsgaard, and H. Raun Iversen. København: Forlaget Anis.Warburg. —— 2008. Dannebrog: Waving in and out of Danish Civil Religion. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 21 (2): 165–184. Østerud, Øyvind. 1991. Nasjonalstat og nasjonalisme. In Statsvitenskap. Innføring i politisk analyse, ed. Øyvind Østerud. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. —— 1994. Hva er nasjonalisme? Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

CHAPTER NINE

CIVIL RELIGION IN AN AGE OF CHANGING CHURCHES AND SOCIETIES. A LOOK AT THE NORDIC SITUATION Pål Repstad This chapter represents a continuation of a lecture given at a conference for church historians and sociologists in Oslo, almost fourteen years ago, about civil religion in the Nordic countries (Repstad 1995). Some of the topics of that lecture are repeated here, and some reflections upon recent developments are added. At that time, in 1994, the conclusion was that traces of civil religion could be found in the Nordic countries, mainly associated with their state and folk churches. Nevertheless, the intention was not to exaggerate the significance of Nordic civil religion, neither for social and political integration nor for prophetic and critical functions. In Inger Furseth’s words from an empirical study of civil religion in Norwegian history, this is civil religion in a “low key” (Furseth 1994). In this chapter, I summarise some of the Nordic contributions to the discussion about civil religion in the Nordic countries. I also add some tentative comments on possible consequences for civil religion in these countries, especially regarding three trends: 1) the increased ambitions of the national churches in terms of self-government, 2) the changes in the state apparatus as a result of increased globalisation and increased significance of market solutions, and 3) the increased ethnic pluralisation of the Nordic populations. I must stress at the outset that I have never done any empirical research on civil religion, in the Nordic countries or elsewhere. My role here is to review and reflect upon the work of others. Although this may give me a certain intellectual freedom, as I have no obligation to defend vigorously any conclusions, it is also a disadvantage that fills me with some uneasiness confronting this task. I feel that I am a bit parasitic in this discussion, but I will try to give credit to those who deserve it and who have spent more time than I have in this field of research.

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pål repstad Civil Religion—the Concept

Robert Bellah introduced the concept of civil religion at a conference in 1966, with his content analysis of the religious dimension of the inaugural speeches of American presidents from George Washington to Lyndon B. Johnson (Bellah 1967, 1972). It is important to bear in mind that there are two aspects of Bellah’s original reference to civil religion: one concerning this kind of religion’s capacity for social and political integration, and one critical-prophetical, activated when people do not live up to the standard expected of a chosen people; i.e., in Bellah’s words, when the covenant is broken. In more recent usage, the critical aspect has often been forgotten, and we are left with a more one-sided and banal civil religion, simply the religious glorification of a nation. It is also clear to me from the original usage of the word that Bellah and his associate Philip Hammond had a contextual and normative message for America, a message about ideals of integration, and also about peace-making as part of America’s historical mission, although not peace-making by any means. This is not meant to discredit the analytical value of the concept, but maybe we can understand better the broad discussion about civil religion that arose from Bellah’s introduction of the concept. Robert Bellah’s The Broken Covenant, published in 1975 (originally presented as lectures in 1971), uncovers several critical perspectives on America. In the original pact, the original self-understanding, the founding fathers of America were committed to hard work, but not to becoming rich necessarily. However, according to Bellah, the present economic system in the United States worships the classical sins of mankind, undermining the basic values upon which America was founded. For Bellah, civil religion was never the worship of what went on at any time in the name of the nation (1975; cf. Riis 1985, 11). In my discussion here about the Nordic countries, I try to focus on the critical as well as the integrative elements of civil religion. It must be emphasised that not only the prophetic part, but also the integrative aspect contain normative ideals. Behind the seemingly more descriptive dimension of civil religion’s capacity to integrate people of different backgrounds, it is possible to trace an ideal that people should participate in society in harmonious ways and learn how to handle diversity in a smooth manner. I must also add some other general remarks on the meaning of civil religion. I am not a functionalist. I do not think that there is or has to be a civil religion in any society. It is an empirical question and of

a look at the nordic situation

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course also a question of interpretation to determine to what extent such a religion is present in a society. Secondly, in this context I adhere to a substantial definition of religion. Out of consideration for intellectual clarity, I do not think we should employ too broad a concept of civil religion. I argue a little more for that position below, and do it with references to the Nordic context. Some Nordic sociologists of religion have used their imaginations in quite exciting ways, looking for civil religion based on broad and functional definitions of religion. For example, Göran Gustafsson describes civil religious elements in the Swedish folkhemsideologi, a set of ideas about Swedish political and social life marked by close cooperation between public and private interests for the common good. This ideology was at its peak in the golden age of Scandinavian Social Democracy from 1950 to the early 1970s, according to Gustafsson. It was, and partly still is, seen as a model of a society fit for ideological export to other parts of the world. In these ideas, Gustafsson finds traces of civil religion (2000, 184). Similar ideas refer to Norwegian society as well. In a major work on Norwegian history in the twentieth century, the historian and theologian Berge Furre (1991) employs the concept “the social democrat order” referring to the co-operative and growth-oriented years from the end of the Second World War until about 1970 in Norway, a period marked by a Social Democrat hegemony in national politics and the culmination of industrial society. Even if Furre himself does not use the concept, it is possible—based on a wide concept of religion—to develop theories of civil religion associated with these ideas of the good Norwegian society, which according to some was at its best around 1960. Admittedly, the material standard of living was lower than it is today, but social and economic inequalities were smaller, there was a strong sense of solidarity among people and an innocent optimism about the future. Furthermore, some also find civil religion in a widespread understanding of the international role of the Nordic countries as small, peaceloving democratic countries with a strong sense of human rights and with a flexible ability to participate in the international scene. From this perspective, the Nordic countries are seen as realising a special mission in international society, as agents of human rights, peace, negotiations and reconciliation between coarser countries. One example of this is Norwegian politicians’ frequent references to Norway as a humanitarian great power.

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The critical element in Bellah’s description of civil religion is often present in this kind of discourse. The Nordic countries have been given special privileges (peace, prosperity, solidarity), and from this follow certain obligations. For example, in regards to Denmark, it is my impression that the government’s support for the American military intervention in Iraq was seen by many opponents as a sign that Denmark was leaving the path of its historical mission. Furthermore, in Norway (and probably in the other Nordic countries as well), increased social and economic inequality, and a more liberalistic and market-oriented state, have been criticised many times as leading away from essential Norwegian characteristics and obligations. Sometimes this criticism is presented in a nostalgic way. In 2002, Norway’s oldest pop singer/songwriter (or rather troubadour), then 75-year-old Odd Børretzen, had a very big hit in the charts with the bluesy song “Hvor ble Einar Gerhardsen av?” [Whatever became of Einar Gerhardsen?] Einar Gerhardsen was a Labour Party leader and Norway’s Prime Minister for almost the whole period from 1945 to 1965. In his time, he was a controversial politician, but some decades later, to Odd Børretzen and many others, Gerhardsen seems to have become a sort of supra-political father figure, a symbol of a simpler and poorer, but also a warmer, more caring and more egalitarian Norway (Repstad 2005a). Broad definitions of religion may provide entertaining results, and I have to confess that I myself have been tempted and fallen. In a comprehensive essay about civil religion, Ole Riis (1985) tried to identify old and new national myths. He identified some new myths and heroes in the world of sports. He compared the emotional reactions of Danish spectators during the European football championship in 1984 to Durkheim’s descriptions of the Arunta tribal communities. According to Riis, Danish football heroes, as well as cheering, goodnatured supporters in the 1980s, maintained and strengthened a special Danish sense of identity, worth and destiny, in a way that Riis says (in a probably intentionally vague manner) functions in connection with civil religion. Riis defines some of the essence of this Danish collective self-understanding in the following way: the best victories in the sports field are in accordance with a fundamental pattern of national mythology, where the underestimated Danes win their victory through playful improvisations, rather than through a tactically, thoroughly programmed system (Riis 1985, 24). Reading Riis’ essay some years later, I was strongly tempted to perform a similar civil religious improvisation concerning the playing style


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of the Norwegian national football team, which had some unexpected international successes in the 1990s, for instance qualifying for the World championship in 1994. Thus, I wrote: . . . the egalitarian and disciplined playing style of the Norwegian team, where well-rehearsed tactics and systems have had a tendency to make the co-operative performance of the team as such much better than the additive sum of the qualities of each individual player (Repstad 1995, 164f ).

Further, I added that I could have said something spirited about Norwegian cultural self-understanding along the same lines. However, I hesitated to put such reflections within a religious frame of reference. Sport is not religion. I am not saying that sport is always superficial and that religion is always existential and serious. Both sport and religion come in many varieties and many degrees of subjective seriousness. I am not saying that sport is without interest for sociologists. It can be. But we do not have to call it religion. The main difference between religion and sport lies in the transcendental reference of the former. My sceptical attitude toward a broad and functional understanding of civil religion is grounded in the fear that if everything man is deeply committed to is to be called religion, we will veil many important distinctions, and we will close the door to many interesting options for analyses. Perhaps most importantly, we lose by definition the opportunity to study whether a transition takes place from religious to secular legitimations of a nation, a political regime or a social or political movement. So, from the point of view of research strategy, I find a substantive definition of civil religion most fruitful, reserving the concept for phenomena with an element of transcendence, postulating implicitly or explicitly a reality beyond thisworldly rationality. This results in a certain dullness, but it is preferred over that more spirited, but also more sloppy discourse. Civil Religion in the Nordic Countries—Maintained by the Folk Churches? In the study that introduced the civil religion discussion in America, Protestants, Catholics and Jews could accept this kind of religion. Robert Bellah noted that American civil religion focused on God, not on Jesus Christ, and even less on confessional particularities. The communication took place between God and the nation or the people, and was not channelled through any specific religious organisation.

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Many sociologists of religion see the situation in the Nordic countries as different, because of the large folk churches, with a majority of the population as members. There seems to be widespread agreement in the Nordic countries that whatever may exist of civil religion (at least substantively defined), is maintained by the state and folk churches. Inger Furseth’s study from 1994, “Civil religion in a low key: The case of Norway”, is still one of very few empirical studies of civil religion in the Nordic countries. I present some of her conclusions here in order to take the discussion further. She is generally interested in whether civil religion can be traced in Norway, and especially interested in seeing if civil religion flourishes in times of national crises. Her data and methods are quite similar to Bellah’s original study, but in addition to a content analysis of statements from important national political leaders, she also includes statements from national religious leaders. She analyses statements made by the King, the Prime Minister, government members, members of the Parliament, leaders of the resistance movement during the German occupation of 1940–45 and, as I mentioned, also religious leaders. Her material from “ordinary years” is from 1938, 1958 and 1978, and the years of national crises are 1905—the year of the dissolution of the union with Sweden—and 1945—the year of the liberation from the Germans. She also analysed two or three years following these two important years in Norwegian history. Statements legitimating the nation and referring to a God or a transcendent principle were counted as manifestations of civil religion. The statements must have been expressed in public speeches at important national events. Furseth found civil religion on some occasions, but very little of it in the presumably stable years. An important finding is that civil religion statements are expressed almost exclusively by religious leaders. There are more indicators of civil religion in 1945 than in 1905. In Furseth’s view, this is accounted for by the more real presence of war, violence and threats of violence in 1945. In 1905, there are some manifestations of civil religion in the national rituals, especially in the crowning of the Norwegian King Haakon. There are also references to civil religion in many speeches by Christian leaders in 1905, but there is a striking lack of civil religious statements from Norwegian political leaders. The pattern is the same in 1945: civil religious interpretations of the liberation of Norway from the Christian leaders and to some extent from representatives of the monarchy (King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav), but nothing of that sort from the national political leaders. A more case-oriented


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historical approach might have given a more nuanced picture. In 1905, political statements supporting an autonomous Norway were read in all churches on Sundays before the referendum about the dissolution of the union, and nationalistic Christian hymns were very popular that year (Thorkildsen 1994). However, broadly speaking, Inger Furseth’s conclusion about civil religion in a low key is well founded. One of her most interesting conclusions is the confirmation of a proposition that religious leaders are the most important “organizational vehicles” (Hammond 1980) for civil religion. This can be related to the fact that the political elites in the Nordic countries throughout most of the twentieth century were liberals and social democrats. They were relatively secularist, or at least religiously indifferent, and strong proponents of religious tolerance, seeing religion as a private matter. Generally speaking, members of the political elite have been more secular than the populations they governed. Even Norway’s Prime Minister Bondevik, for some years up to 2005, who was an ordained clergyman from the Christian People’s Party, was very careful not to present his political visions within a narrow religious framework. Furseth’s study as well as more impressionistic essays by other sociologists and theologians, such as Susan Sundback (1984, 2000) and Jens Glebe-Møller (1984), support the thesis that the Nordic countries’ civil religion is rooted in the majority folk churches. The rhetoric of everyday politics is not very strongly marked by signs of civil religion. Even discussions about important national issues, such as the question of membership in the European Union, have been framed in a secular, rational discourse. This has usually also been the case with contributions from Christian leaders. They have argued on the basis of general ethics, not in a specific Christian framework. Explicit references in the EU debate to God’s plan for the Norwegian people have been reserved for marginal fundamentalist and charismatic groups. In 2005, Norway commemorated 100 years of independence from Sweden. Two Norwegian social scientists, Olaf Aagedal and Ånund Brottveit, have examined the official attempts to celebrate (or rather mark) this event. They note that a celebration of an anniversary is a collective event presupposing a certain common and shared interpretation and memory. In this case, such a shared interpretation is hardly present. Accordingly, “it is difficult to know what one should say “hooray” to, whether Norwegians can shout “hooray” without insulting the Swedes, and so on” (2005, 92). In addition, current political correctness is full of warnings against a self-celebrating national chauvinism, and there

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was also some uneasiness in pro-EU political elites in Norway, who were worried that the anniversary might be used to stimulate anti-EU sentiment. The result was a rather half-hearted series of events in 2005 (Brottveit and Aagedal 2005, 2006). What was the role of the church and religion in the 2005 celebrations? There was an initiative from the National Council in the Church of Norway to mark Norwegian independence on a Sunday in June, but the initiative came late, and much was left to local initiatives. Despite this, quite a few churches marked the anniversary in some way or another on Sunday, June 12. In the general celebrations, it is my own impression that references to religion were quite sparse. If this is correct, the 2005 events seem to have the same profile as those studied by Inger Furseth: little focus on religion from political leaders at great turning points in Norwegian history. Despite secularisation and privatisation of religion, we can still find national manifestations of civil religion in the Nordic countries, with the majority churches actively participating. Both church and political leaders support such manifestations in a sort of informal coalition. On the church side, many advocates of the folk church support the maintenance of civil religion. The modern folk church has a programmatic character, according to Susan Sundback (1984): the hope of the folk church adherents is that secularisation can be limited through the visibility of an open folk church with low thresholds, which is present at important occasions in people’s lives, and as an interpreter of shared feelings at critical national events. Nordic liberal and social democrat political elites, throughout the twentieth century, shifted from having critical and hostile attitudes towards religion, through religious indifference, and sometimes to a wish that the churches would manifest themselves more in the direction of civil religion. In some cases, they see a strong folk church and civil religion as barriers against more sectarian manifestations of religious sentiments. Another motive expressed by some social democrats is that people need a tolerant church to take care of their religious needs. In other words, people need religious welfare, and a welfare state should offer it to them. Signs of civil religion are still present for instance on national holidays, at celebrations at the end of the school year, at many events involving the monarchy, and at the opening of the national assemblies. Furthermore, the national churches have often taken responsibility in


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times of catastrophe, organising common arenas for expressing grief, for instance after the disasters of the Scandinavian Star, Estonia and the tsunami. Civil Religion in the Future What will happen to civil religion in the Nordic countries in the future? The Nordic countries are becoming more pluralist, probably also more secular, at least in some ways. Heikki Mäkeläinen formulated an analysis predicting the weakening of the folk churches as vehicles of civil religion, from a Finnish perspective in 1984. According to him, the great majority of the population were nominal members of the national church. Legal constraints in religious matters had been practically non-existent for a long time, and the churches were gradually expanding their internal self-government. Mäkeläinen noted that the state churches in earlier times had such total authority that there was no need for a civil religion in its own right, as a legitimating and integrating force in society. Today this authority has been eroded, mainly by revivalist movements and secularisation. Accordingly, Heikki Mäkeläinen predicted that this development would increase the need for a civil religion outside and independent of the folk churches. Margit Warburg has provided recent additions to this discussion. She describes several instances when God is called upon in connection with the fate of Denmark, which may take place relatively independent of the state church. One example is Queen Margrethe’s traditional greeting to all Danes through her television speech every New Year’s Eve: “May God protect Denmark” (Gud bevare Danmark). According to Warburg, this leaves room for including images of God other than the old Evangelical Lutheran one (Warburg 2005a, 98). Another example Warburg provides is the fact that Danes use many national and historical songs that refer to God for community singing at many social occasions outside church contexts (Warburg 2005b, 130–132). In a recent article, Warburg (2008) continues to look for symbols of civil religion. She has studied the various uses of Dannebrog, the Danish national flag, in contemporary Denmark. Some of these uses she places inside civil religion, others outside. In sum, over the last few years Margit Warburg has made a good case for the fruitfulness of tracing civil religion outside the national churches in the Nordic countries as well.

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We can distinguish between a weakened significance of civil religion as a result of increased secularisation in the population, and a weakening of its significance created by tensions between civil religious manifestations and trends in our societies, such as, increased self-government in the churches, increased globalisation and increased ethnic pluralisations. In the final part of this chapter, I focus on the last three factors. Concerning secularisation and the future of civil religion, it is evident that civil religion will be weakened if more and more people never interpret events in a transcendent framework. The situation in the Nordic countries is not easy to sum up, but a predominant cultural Christianity still seems to be present. Even if regular participation in organised religion is low, a majority still make use of the religious rituals from cradle to grave. But religious individualism will likely continue to manifest itself, probably just as much among people on the political liberal right wing as among those on the left. This may cause difficulty, at least for a high profiled civil religion stressing the substantively religious elements. Ambitions of Stronger Church Autonomy In recent years, we have seen a movement towards more self-government in all the Nordic national churches. This development is most visible in Sweden, partly also in Finland, with Denmark somewhat lagging behind and Norway and Iceland in-between. The trend is not new. Revivalist movements in the majority churches throughout their whole existence have presented various combinations of criticism and pragmatic adaptations regarding the folk church, for being too liberal in moral and dogmatic issues. Popular support for the most conservative and counter-cultural Christian movements, such as the traditional bedehus movement in Norway, seems to be shrinking. Charismatic movements have some followers, but their influence over public matters and in the media is modest. It is possible that loosened ties between church and state will marginalise the civil religious functions of the majority churches, because the church will not want to be a producer of political legitimacy for the state. Up to now, however, there is no evidence that the formal end of the state church system in itself will have dramatic consequences for the church’s role in civil religion. Maybe the status of being a majority church is more decisive here than are the formal relations to the state apparatus. Swedish church leaders seem to be eager


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to convince people that nothing has really changed, and that people can still relate to the good-old open folk church. In Norway, which still has a state-church system, a recent interview study (Gulbrandsen 2002; Repstad 2005b) of Norwegian elite groups showed that members of the state-church elite group (bishops, deans, national church council members and central church bureaucrats) are the most radical of all Norwegian elites, including among others the economic, the political and the media and culturally elite groups. Members of the church elite are most concerned about local government, environmental issues, international poverty, and most in favour of the welfare state, most positive concerning immigration and so on. Here we may actually have an example of an organisational vehicle for civil religion including the prophetic element. However, the situation is not without tension. There probably always will be some friction between organised, confessional religion and civil religious functions for the national churches in the Nordic countries. On the one hand, the church will be tempted to cast itself as a central symbol of unity, enjoying broad popular contact. On the other hand, particularly the more theologically conservative or pietistic Christians will tend to feel a certain uneasiness about having to adapt to the inclusive, ceremonial rules of the game. There are limits to how clearly one can express oneself at civil religious occasions, even when the church formally stages these. Just as it is very rare nowadays in a crowded church for clergy on Christmas Eve to thunder against people’s poor turnout for worship during the rest of the year, it is not very comme il faut to adopt a strongly charismatic or confessionalist rhetoric profile at a royal wedding or when people turn to the churches in times of grief. To the extent that the prophetic and critical aspects of civil religion will be manifested at all on such occasions, they will probably be in the form of a subdued and non-provoking appeal for people to live up to national common standards that everybody in principle agrees upon. In Denmark, there is an example of this will to harmonise, showing that manifestations of civil religion in the state church even have some flexibility and some room for modernisation. In 1979, a left socialist female minister in the state church of Denmark, Margrethe Auken, rephrased some parts of a ritual prayer in a church service and made it less royalist and more critical to all in power. A parliamentary discussion followed, and not very long after, the Ministry of Church Affairs opened up for three alternative wordings of this prayer, one of which

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was markedly less royalist and nationalist than the old version (Riis 1997, 113–118). Globalisation and Shrinking State Power It is not only churches that are changing. In recent years, we have witnessed several different processes challenging the power and autonomy of the national political systems. However, I will not go into a detailed description of these changes. In essence, power is being transferred away from the national states, partly to international economic and political agencies, partly to markets and to civil society. What will be the consequences for the importance of civil religion? Will a weakening of the national states dissolve any trace of civil religion in the Nordic countries? I do not think so. Firstly, I believe that there is a mismatch between rhetoric and practice concerning the privatisation and marketisation of state affairs, both from the attackers and the defenders of the Nordic welfare states. These state apparatuses are still quite big and quite important, and people relate to them, both psychologically and on a practical level. For many historical reasons, the Nordic populations are comparatively state-friendly. Secondly, I think that globalisation as a state of mind can easily be exaggerated. Only a small minority of Nordic citizens are everyday Europeans or world citizens. To be able to take a holiday in faraway places hardly makes you less Swedish or Norwegian. Many people with tourist experiences still have local ties. So far, attempts at creating a European or even a global symbolic universe, more or less civil religious in character, have not been convincingly successful. Maybe the most successful attempts in the Nordic countries have been the introduction of universal human rights connected with the United Nations, but in the foreseeable future, my guess is that the national state will continue to be an important reference for any civil religion. I would like to add, however, a reference to some interesting reflections by Jose Casanova (2001). According to Casanova, the sacralisation of humanity, announced by Saint-Simon, Comte and Durkheim, has indeed arrived, in the shape of the triumph and global expansion of human rights. But the prediction from these founding fathers of sociology that the old gods would die in these processes has not come true, Casanova states. On the contrary, the old religions have gained new religious life by becoming the carriers of the process of the sacralisation of humanity. Casanova’s main example is the adoption in the Catholic


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Church of the discourse of human rights after the aggiornamento under Pope John XXIII. For me, it is an open and interesting question whether this tendency can be called civil religion on a global level. I am tempted to add a remark in connection with civil religion in the Nordic countries. The regional, sub-national level may be at least as important as the supra-national level as a competitor for attention. One interesting manifestation that seems to be increasingly popular in Norway are the regional historical dramas that are staged and played at regional festivals, especially in summer. Many of these artistic performances combine professionals and local amateurs, and many of them have civil religious elements, refreshing chains of memories back to regional historical (or mythologised) events. Christmas or advent concerts in churches seem to have a similar civil religious role on the local level. In a recent study based on observations from nearly 30 such concerts in 2006 and 2007, Anne Løvland and I have concluded that especially the local amateur concerts before Christmas—an increasingly popular event in all the Nordic countries—serve as an arena for local pride and social integration. As one chaplain said to the audience after a long evening with local choirs and other local contributors: “And we have managed all this in Vennesla!” (Løvland and Repstad 2008). Quite another matter is how important civil religion really is today as a producer of political legitimacy and support for the political regime. The old criticism from the 1970s against civil religion as a main producer of such legitimacy, most elaborated from Richard Fenn (1974) and Stephen Lukes (1975), is still relevant. It is easy to overstate the significance of value consensus and emotional fellowship in holding societies together. The neo-Durkheimian tradition plays down coercion, political power, pragmatic compliance, everyday inertia and the production of welfare as important alternative vehicles for maintaining social order. It would take a very nearsighted sociologist of religion to ignore that political stability could be delivered from many sources other than more or less ritualised civil religion. Ethnic and Religious Pluralism: A Challenge to Civil Religion? My last point brings us back to the integrative functions that Bellah found so important in American civil religion. The Nordic countries have often been described as relatively homogeneous, culturally speaking. Admittedly, this picture of homogeneity has sometimes veiled

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internal ethnic tensions, but in international comparison the picture is not completely wrong. Since the 1970s, increased immigration, especially from the south and the east, has introduced an environment with more ethnic and religious pluralism. What have the consequences of this been for civil religion? Theoretically, several alternative lines of development can be imagined. Attempts may arise to create a new civil religion independent of the Christian churches, taking account of the new pluralism and looking for common ideals. Another possible line of development is a strengthening of a Christian civil religion, consciously opposing other religions, especially Islam. A third possible outcome could be the removal of all religious elements from the public sector, stressing that religion is a private matter that has nothing to do with the state or public arena. Finally, an adjustment of the Christian civil religion of the state churches may be seen as the solution, giving room also for other religions, as well as secular humanism, at civil religious occasions. One can imagine the presence not only of bishops, but also of imams at the solemn opening of the parliamentary session. Elements of all these options can be found in the empirical Nordic world today. Some might see the recent Norwegian attempt at creating a more open and tolerant subject in school, first called “Christianity, religion and life-views”, and then from 2008 “Religion, ethics and lifestance”, as an example of the first strategy of finding a new civil religion, a new space for dialogue and a broader arena for identity building. Others, however, will see this more critically as an attempt to secure a continued Christian dominance through a tactical openness. To what extent can we see attempts at strengthening Christianity as the Nordic civil religion, with a polemic edge against other religions? My general impression is that this strategy is politically too controversial, both among political leaders and in the church, to become a serious candidate for becoming the new civil religion. Maybe this strategy is more accepted in Denmark than in the other Nordic countries, because in Denmark it has more legitimacy among some intellectuals (including a small proportion of the clergy). Although the French solution—to remove any trace of religion and church presence from the public arena—would have support from some liberal intellectuals, it would be quite controversial, given the Nordic countries’ old and strong traditions for cultural Christianity. There is a difference between nurturing a civil religion in a low key and actively removing it altogether. Thus, maybe the most probable line of develop-


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ment will be a gradual opening of the public arena for other religions and life-views at solemn occasions in the lives of the nations. References Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil Religion in America. Daedalus 96: 1–21. —— 1972. Beyond Belief. New York: Harper & Row. —— 1975. The Broken Covenant. New York: Seabury Press. —— 1976. Response to the Panel on Civil Religion. Sociological Analysis 37: 153–159. Brottveit, Å., and Olaf Aagedal. 2005. Kampen om fortida. Unionsjubileet som nasjonal identitetspolitikk. Sosiologi i dag 35 (3): 79–106. —— 2006. Kunsten å jubilere. Dyrekjøpte erfaringer fra unionsjubileet. Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift 23(2): 118–132. Casanova, Jose. 2001. Religion, the New Millennium, and Globalization. Sociology of religion 62 (4): 415–441. Fenn, R. 1974. Religion and the Legitimation of Social Systems. In Changing Perspectives in the Scientific Study of Religion, ed. A.W. Eister. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Furseth, Inger. 1994. Civil Religion in a Low Key: The Case of Norway. Acta Sociologica 37:39–54. Furre, Berge. 1991. Vårt hundreår: Norsk historie 1905–1990. Oslo: Det norske samlaget. Glebe-Möller, Jens. 1984. Civil Religion and State Church Religion. In The Church and Civil Religion in the Nordic Countries of Europe, ed. B. Harmati, 56–62. Geneva: Lutheran World Federation. Gulbrandsen, Trygve et al. 2002. Norske makteliter. Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk. Gustafsson, Göran. 2000. Tro, samfund och samhälle. Örebro: Libris. Revised edition. Hammond, Phillip E. 1980. The Conditions for Civil Religion. In Varieties of Civil Religion, ed. Robert N. Bellah and Phillip E. Hammond. San Francisco: Harper & Row. Lukes, Steven. 1975. Emile Durkheim: His Life and Work. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Løvland, Anne and Pål Repstad. 2008. Julekonserter. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Mäkeläinen, H. 1984. Church and Civil Religion in Finland—the Future. In The Church and Civil Religion in the Nordic Countries of Europe, ed. B. Harmati, 49–54. Geneva: Lutheran World Federation. Repstad, Pål. 1995. Civil Religion in Modern Society. Some General and Some Nordic Perspectives. Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 8 (1): 159–175. —— 2005a. Norway—An Egalitarian Society? In Norway: Society and Culture. ed. E. Maagerø and B. Simonsen, 28–40. Kristiansand: Portal forlag. —— 2005b. Why the Norwegian church elite is politically radical—some possible explanations. Informationes Theologiae Europae. Internationales ökumenisches Jahrbuch für Theologie 13: 75–79. Riis, Ole. 1985. Om samfundsreligionen. Religionsvidenskabeligt Tidsskrift 6: 3–29. —— 1997. Religion og politik. In Egne veje. Festskrift til Per Salomonsen, ed. P. Rasmussen et al., 113–127. Aalborg: Aalborg universitetsforlag. Sundback, Susan. 1984. Folk Church Religion—a kind of Civil Religion? In The Church and Civil Religion in the Nordic Countries of Europe, ed. B. Harmati, 25–40. Geneva: Lutheran World Federation. —— 2000. Medlemskapet i de lutherska kyrkorna i Norden. In Folkkyrkor och religiös pluralsm—den nordiska religiösa modellen, ed. G. Gustafsson and T. Pettersson, 34–73. Stockholm: Verbum. Thorkildsen, Dag. 1994. Nasjon og religion. Kirke og kultur 99 (3): 233–248.

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Warburg, Margit. 2005a. Gudspåkaldelse i dansk civilreligion. In Gudstro i Danmark, ed. M. Højsgaard and H. R. Iversen, 125–141. Copenhagen: Anis. —— 2005b. Dansk civilreligion i krise og vækst. Chaos. Dansk-norsk tidsskrift for religionshistoriske studier 43: 89–108. —— 2008. Dannebrog: Waving in and out of Danish Civil Religion. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 21 (2): 165–184.

CHAPTER TEN

OPERATIONALISING THE CONCEPT OF CIVIL RELIGION: CROSSCULTURAL FINDINGS FROM BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, SERBIA, SLOVENIA AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA1 Sergej Flere Civil religion is a concept of interest not only for sociology of religion, but also of relevance for sociology in general. The roots of the notion of civil religion can be traced to Jean-Jaques Rousseau and Émile Durkheim; its modern assertion was developed by Robert Bellah (1967) and recently was redirected by Marcela Cristi (2001) and others. The predominant assumption is that civil religion is a necessary integrative cultural element in every society, at least in modern societies, where it is discernible from other such elements. Civil religion integrates society by offering a set of values, norms, beliefs and attitudes common to its members, by which the society is sacralized, that is, its substance is comprehended in a transcendent way. Thereby society attains a transcendent mission, while its political authority attains a charismatic dimension. The construct of civil religion has been contested. For example, does it relate to a clear and separate set of social phenomena? Is it a useful tool in social science analysis? And how, if at all, can it be analysed empirically (Gehrig 1981; Bellah 1998; Cristi 2001; Furseth 1990, 1994)? Furthermore, can it be studied cross-culturally? Attempts to study it have been minimal, almost always setting the United States as a point of comparison (Cole and Hammond 1974; Furseth 1990, 1994). Although much work has been done in the area of conceptualising civil religion (for a review, see Furseth 1990), few have attempted to operationalise the concept, so as to be able to observe civil religion empirically (Wimberley 1979; Furseth 1990). 1 This contribution is an edited version of my paper read at the Religion Out of Place conference at the University of Copenhagen in August 2005. It has since been published with a co-author, Miran Lavrič, in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46 (2007): 595–604, entitled “Operationalizing the Civil Religion Concept at a Cross-Cultural Level.”

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The problem is further complicated by options to conduct analyses of various levels of civil religion (official teachings and legitimation formulae vs. folk civil religion; Cristi 2001), the dynamics of civil religion during the history of a single state or political regime, and the issue of social stratification differences and variances in civil religion (e.g., elite and popular civil religion; Greeley 1972). There is consistent evidence in the application of the concept of civil religion that it entails some linking of the political authority of the nation/state/ethnic group with some principle that is higher than the empirical, observable and human, tending towards finding a transcendent explanation and legitimation. However, such a linkage in defining civil religion does not suffice in itself. On the one hand, the linkage may lean toward a sacralisation of secular political power, regardless of whether it is “democratic”, “totalitarian” or “despotic”—i.e., autonomous of religion proper.2 On the other hand, the linkage may lean toward the standard meaning of religion, legitimising political authority. In this case, civil religion loses its specificity in terms of religion and demonstrates a strong link with institutional religion, regardless of whether this is theocratic, caesaropapistic or just favouring a particular religious system. As Bellah interpreted the notion of civil religion with regard to the United States, such a civil religion is of an organic and spontaneous nature, understood within a functionalist perspective. Disputing this point of view, Cristi and others have reasserted the Rousseauan idea that such a “religion” is basically created in a planned, conscious manner, to legitimise and strengthen regimes. According to this line of argumentation, civil religion has basically an instrumental nature. As the power is always precarious, it is persistently in need of being legitimised. However, we will not try to distinguish between what Cristi has called the Rousseauan and Durkheimian interpretations of civil religion (see Cristi, in this volume). Another issue, already noted above, concerns whether civil religion is part of a more general religiosity, certainly including standard forms and components of religiosity, or whether it is something contrary, a

2 The invocation of metaphysical principles and notions into political life, as is the case in civil religion, cannot be considered convergent with substantial, rational and empirically founded discourse in political life (see Cristi, in this volume). In American literature, it seems that civil religion is complementary to and functionally associated with democracy (e.g., Maddigan 1993).

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substitute, an alternative to religion in the standard meaning of the term (i.e., “church religion” using the wording of Wimberley et al. 1976). Although Bellah is known to have conceptualised civil religion as closely linked to general religiosity, this link is debatable. Considering civil religion today, one must take into account that traditional religiosity and religiosity in general, at least in Europe, are precarious, often secularised and at least shallow. Furthermore, historically there have been attempts to do away with standard religion and replace it by secular ideologies, political idolatries and world views. Although Bellah’s definition is of a substantial nature, and although he does not seem to allow for secular political ideology to be covered by the umbrella of civil religion, it still falls short of operationalisation. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to operationalise the concept more clearly by linking political authority, the state, the “destiny” of the state and nationality to transcendence, or at least to a higher, supra-human principle. By doing this, we touch on the issue of nationality, which again is a culturally variable issue. It is not the same “substance” in France as it is in the United States, as the latter, “the nation”, was formed of settlers, whereas in Europe (allegedly), ancient roots are the basis of the self-comprehension of “the nation” (Smith 1989). Furthermore, there are substantial empirical differences among the observed three Balkan environments, as Islam has an adverse stand towards the Western notion of nationality, favouring the universal Muslim community, the ummah (Ataman 2003; Hassan 2006). The situation is not totally dissimilar to Catholic Christianity, even though the latter allows for “natural communities” and “partial churches” within the Catholic Ecclesia. Doctrinal positions and social facts do not coincide and religion has often been an important resource in nation building. Thus, we shall be observing with a narrower understanding of civil religion, as linking a people’s, a nationality’s or a state’s destiny to the theistic, the ecclesiastical and the religious community. In this chapter I present an attempt to operationalise civil religion and test this operationalisation cross culturally. I address this issue in an empirical way, with intentions of examining limited trans-cultural validity. This is done by comparing civil religion in four countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia and the US. The Balkan samples are geographically close, but confessionally diverse. The goal is to observe civil religion by administering a survey with scalable questions in a predominantly Roman Catholic environment, a predominantly Muslim environment (the part we are analysing almost exclusively so),

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a predominantly Serbian Orthodox environment, and a predominantly Protestant, but denominationally varied, environment. My aim is to demonstrate the existence of civil religion as a distinct phenomenon, discernable from confessional religion as well as political ideologies. Additionally, the structure of civil religion and its link to some other expectedly kin phenomena are demonstrated. Methods The survey data used here came from a more extensive survey of religiosity, consisting of 80 individual questions. The population included four groups of university students in Maribor, Slovenia (Roman Catholic environment, n = 468), Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Muslim environment, n = 439), Niš, Serbia (Eastern Orthodox environment, n = 427) and Auburn, Alabama, US (predominantly Protestant environment, n = 450). Data collection was carried out in the spring of 2005 at the respective universities, almost exclusively among students of the social sciences and humanities and almost exclusively among first- and second-year students. The average age was 21.3 (S.D. = 1.5), all national samples being close to these statistics.3 The proportion of male respondents varied from 34 percent in Bosnia and Herzegovina to 48 percent in the US.4 Data collection was carried out with the support of teachers and teaching assistants at the specified institutions.5 Among the questions asked, seven Likert-type items were used as a scale pertaining to civil religion, all scaled in the positive direction (agreement implying the presence of civil religion), which the respondents answered on a scale from 1 to 5. The intention was that these items indicate the degree of understanding of civil religion, although not mixed with national ideology. The items could not relate to events concerning the history and situation of individual environments, specific events, personalities or functionaries (e.g., the president could not be

3 It is possible that some more senior students or students from other faculties were present at the interviewing sites at the time the survey was conducted. 4 Female students prevail in social studies and the humanities. 5 Appreciation is expressed to Dr. Ivan Cvitković, Dr. Jasna Muftić and Dino Abazović of the University of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), to Dr. Dragoljub Đorđević and Dragan Todorović of the University of Niš (Serbia and Montenegro) and to Dr. Alexander Vazsonyi of Auburn University, Alabama (USA).


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invoked, as the countries involved have very different institutions with the title of state president, with Bosnia and Herzegovina having none). Nor could the position of individual religious entities in political life be invoked, as they differ, more socially, culturally and historically than legally. Therefore, the items needed to be of a very general nature. The test items included in the scale of civil religion are as follows: 1. “Our country would never have emerged or survived without the help of God.” This item represents civil religion, as it indicates the nation’s/country’s/state’s special relationship to God and His special protection. 2. “Our country has a special covenant with God.” This item is similar to the first item, directly invoking the covenant theme, which is central to Bellah’s concept. 3. “It is not really possible to be a good patriot without being a true follower of my religion.” This item presupposes the superiority and uniqueness of the individual and the individual’s religion and church in reference to the meaning of patriotism. It is not necessarily contrary to R. Niebuhr’s idea of the pluralistic parity of denominations or tolerant denominationalism, where differences between denominations are belittled (Niebuhr 1929); that is, if religion here refers to a construct broader than denomination, as our respondents were instructed (particularly in the American sample). This item could address commitment to civil religion. 4. “It might be said that our country does not comply with all of its religious duties.” This is another statement that would stem from Bellah’s idea of covenant. It expresses his idea more directly than item number two. 5. “Each individual of my nationality should belong to my religion.” This item also should be considered an expression of the attitude concerning the need to link closely one’s religious and national loyalty, projecting it to the entire society. 6. “My church has been very important for the survival of my nation through history.” This item pursues from the circumstance that throughout the past, churches played important historical and political roles. Endorsement of this item suggests a positive attitude towards such a role for the church. 7. “God has intervened in the history of my nation by testing its true faith.” This item is somewhat more general than the covenant theme

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is and indicates God’s omnipotence, but also God’s special care or attention for a particular nation. Thus, it may be a statement that is generally indicative of civil religion. The items of this scale are original, drawn from the theory of civil religion, assuming a monotheistic religion is present. The statements address various facets of civil religion using Bellah’s definition, with the invocation of country, state and nation. Some of the items are derived directly from theoretical sources (Bellah 1975; Gehrig 1981; Wimberley et al. 1976), whereas others are the product of the author’s imagination. The statements are designed to tap various elements of what empirical civil religion might be, though one cannot expect the existence of universalities only contained in civil religion. Thus, four types of nations with majority religious communities were included in this study. There is an ethnically distinct dominant religion (Serbian Orthodoxy), one allowing for ethnicity as a “natural community” (Roman Catholicism), one belittling nationality (Islam; Ataman 2006) and the American environment known for a variety of stands on this issue, tending towards ethnicities amalgamating into “the first new Nation” (Lipset 1979). Besides these typological differences between the environments, situational circumstances also vary: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia were involved in a war fought in their country, fresh in the minds of the respondents, whereas this is not the case for Slovenia or the US. Thus, the results are expected to vary, with various factors interacting and making it difficult to interpret the findings. In the analyses presented here, only respondents declaring themselves adherents of the prevalent religions in their environment are included (N = 1,451): Roman Catholics in Slovenia (n = 361), Muslims in Bosnia (n = 392), Orthodox Christians in Serbia (n = 396), and Protestants in the US (n = 302). The sample is limited in this manner, with the supposition that it is meaningful to study civil religion in relation to the majority religion. Presence of Civil Religiosity: Description The average scores of agreement presented vary by item and by environment, and are shown in Figure 1. Overall, the average scores are highest in the US sample, especially with regard to the statement “Our country has a special . . .”, which


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God has intervened in the history of my nation My church has been very important for the survival of my nation. Each individual of my nationality should belong to my religion Our country does not comply with all of its religious duties. It is not possible to be a good patriot without being a follower of my religion Our country has a special covenant with God. Our country would never have survived without the help of God

1 US Protestants

Serbian Orthodox

2 Bosnian Muslims

3

4

5

Slovenian Catholics

Figure 1. Averages of presence of civil religion items, by country-religious samples

rings more American specific. Respondents from the Serbian Orthodox environment had the second highest scores overall, ranking first on the two statements indicating a possible anti-denominationalist perspective (especially “My church has been . . .”). This is in keeping with a Christian Orthodox understanding of confessional belonging being coextensive with ethnic/national identity. The converse seems to be the case for the Slovenians, who on average score low on all questions linking religion and nationality. This is in keeping with civil religion being “low key” in Western Europe (Furseth 1990). The Homogeneity and Consistency of Civil Religion In addition to this descriptive level of observation, we attempted to test the issue structurally, both internally (whether this is a single, uniform phenomenon) and externally, concerning the relationship with religiosity and traditionalism. Traditionalism should be considered along with religiosity in this analysis, owing to the fact that “conservatives are more inclined toward civil religion” (Christenson and Wimberley 1978, 79), and conservatism suggests a self-aware maturity of traditionalism (Mannheim 1967).

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Table 1. Component matrix and alpha coefficients for civil religion items, for overall and religious-country sub-samples. Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis

Our country would never have emerged or survived without the help of God. Our country has a special covenant with God. It is not really possible to be a good patriot without being a true follower of my religion. It might be said that our country does not comply with all of its religious duties. Each individual of my nationality should belong to my religion. My church has been very important for the survival of my nation through history. God has intervened in the history of my nation by testing its true faith. Variance explained by component 1a Cronbach’s Alpha for 7 civil religion items a

Overall sample

Slovenian Catholics

Bosnian Muslims

Serbian Orthodox

US Protestants

0.773

0.778

0.629

0.802

0.722

0.775

0.831

0.685

0.790

0.738

0.750

0.767

0.750

0.711

0.700

0.637

0.585

0.656

0.444

0.577

0.644

0.637

0.714

0.600

0.528

0.620

0.656

0.526

0.526

0.790

0.812

0.816

0.743

0.821

0.804

51.8%

50.1%

45.7%

46.9%

49.9%

0.84

0.85

0.80

0.80

0.82

1 component extracted.

Note: Components indicate a linear combination of observed variables and serve to summarise them, pointing to a homogeneity of the variance within a factor/component. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient is the ratio of the average inter-item covariance to the item covariance and serves to measure consistency reliability of a scale based on the summarisation of items. Cronbach’s Alpha is a commonly used test of internal reliability. It can be understood as a form of addition or accumulation of the reliability coefficients. It is usually higher than any of the single correlations, which is part of the test. Cronbach’s Alpha increases with the average correlation and with the number of elements in the test—the more items in the test the higher the reliability is. An alpha of 0.80 is typically employed as a rule of thumb to denote an acceptable level of internal reliability.


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The homogeneity of the seven statements was studied by exploratory factor analysis. Reliability was assessed with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient, a standard statistical measure of the reliability of scalable items which are constructed to measure a single latent variable, in this case civil religion. The reliability was tested both at the level of the overall sample and at the level of each sub-sample. The data presented in Table 1 indicate that the items all meet scale requirements as to factor homogeneity and consistency; the values of the alpha coefficients are quite high, above 0.80. Alpha greater than 0.70 is the generally recognised level for acceptable reliability of a scale. Thus, the 7-item construct seems to pertain to a single phenomenon, which we may call civil religion. Factor analysis indicated that one factor explained about half of the variance, suggesting one dominating latent variable (civil religion). Imposing a multi-factor solution makes no sense, owing to the Eigenvalue dropping from 3.86 to 0.82 from the first to a second factor (overall sample), indicating a clear inflexion. This also indicates that there are no other important latent variables explaining the variance, only noise. This is further support for the reliability of the scale. Correlates and Predictors of Civil Religion In what structure does civil religion fit? We have mentioned the possibility of civil religion having various relationships with religion proper: on the one hand, it could be linked to it, on the other, it could be a replacement, substitute, surrogate, or a completely different and independent phenomenon. Pantić (1988) conducted one of the rare studies on an environment where religion was officially disfavoured and denigrated, in particular pertaining to the population of Belgrade, the former Yugoslavian metropolitan area. Even in such circumstances, he found that civil religion was positively linked to religious belief and that its being a surrogate for religion was secondary. One of the analyses conducted examined whether and how civil religion is associated with the two dimensions of religiosity, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic social religiosity and traditionalism. These dimensions can all be constructed from combinations of different items in the survey. In particular, we examined whether intrinsic and extrinsic religiosity and traditionalism are related to civil religion. Intrinsic and extrinsic religion are terms derived from G. Allport’s attempt to

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Table 2. Principal component analysis of religiosity dimensions and traditionalism items, overall sample. Rotation method: Varimax with Kaiser normalisation (rotation converged in 6 iterations) Statement

Our country would never have emerged or survived without the help of God. (civil religion) Our country has a special covenant with God. (civil religion) It is not really possible to be a good patriot without being a true follower of my religion. (civil religion) It might be said, that our country does not comply with all of its religious duties. (civil religion) Each individual of my nationality should belong to my religion. (civil religion) My church has been very important for the survival of my nation through history. (civil religion) God has intervened in the history of my nation by testing its true faith. (civil religion) I enjoy reading about my religion. (intrinsic religion) It is important to me to spend time in private thought and prayer. (intrinsic religion) I have often had a strong sense of a Divine presence. (intrinsic religion) I try hard to live all my life according to my religious beliefs. (intrinsic religion) My whole approach to life is based on my religion. (intrinsic religion) Tradition is a major guidance at the crossroads in my life. (traditionalism) Our ancestors may have been less knowledgeable in science, but they were wiser than most contemporaries. (traditionalism) Customs observed by our ancestors should be practiced even when it’s difficult for me to grasp their meaning. (traditionalism) I go to church mainly because I enjoy seeing people I know there. (social extrinsic religion) I go to church mostly to spend time with my friends. (social extrinsic religion) I go to church because it helps me to make friends. (social extrinsic religion)

Component Intrinsic Civil Traditionalism Extrinsic religion religion social religion 0.561

0.574 0.715 0.746 0.633 0.683 0.436

0.398

0.482

0.633

0.779 0.805 0.771 0.762 0.779 0.304

0.672 0.734

0.806

0.833 0.865 0.481

0.618


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capture authentic, mature, non-instrumental religious sentiment, where one lives one’s religion (intrinsic; Allport and Ross 1967). This is in contrast to extrinsic religion, which is psychologically and socially instrumental religious sentiment, thus allegedly inauthentic, where one “uses his religion” for extra-religious (social and psychological) purposes (Allport and Ross 1967). We do not address the psychological extrinsic dimension here, as it confounds with intrinsic religiosity, considering the social extrinsic one, which may be of interest in this context, as civil religion is part of the broader social context of the individual. Traditionalism is the value orientation that provides special and uncritical merit to the past, its institutions, mores and behavioural and social patterns (Shils 1981). The factor analysis was complemented by a correlational analysis of the items referring to civil religion, intrinsic and extrinsic social religion and traditionalism. The traditionalism items were composed by the author and attained an alpha of 0.81 in the overall sample. The alpha for pro-trait intrinsicness (the 5 items from Gorsuch and McPherson 1989) was 0.70 and for social extrinsicness (the 3 items from Gorsuch and McPherson 1989) it was 0.75. The data in Table 2 indicate that civil religion is a distinct phenomenon in relation to the others observed, all hypothetically kin phenomena. All observed dimensions load on different factors. Nevertheless, the item “Our country would never . . .” overlaps with intrinsic religion owing to the inference of God’s omnipotence. The cross load of “My church has been very important for the survival of my nation through history” into traditionalism is also explainable, owing to its invocation of the “sacred past”, but this item is also strongly present in the civil religion component. Otherwise there are no relevant outliers. In Table 3 we present the above constructs’ associations with the above phenomena. Data in Table 3 point to two basic findings: firstly, in all instances but one, there is a positive and significant association between civil religion and two other phenomena under observation: intrinsic religiosity and traditionalism, providing evidence for a positive link between the phenomena. This firmly positions civil religion among attitudes closely linked to these two phenomena. Secondly, there is no significant association between civil religion and social extrinsic religiosity among Protestant Americans, which may result from the special position of this orientation among Protestants, in contrast to other religions where it may be authentic (Cohen et al. 2002).

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Intrinsic religious orientation Social extrinsic orientation Traditionalism

Slovenian Catholics

Bosnian Muslims

Serbian Orthodox

US Protestants

0.594**

0.431**

0.507**

0.323**

0.464**

0.352**

0.356**

0.074

0.625**

0.435**

0.594**

0.645**

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

The associations presented in Table 3 are very strong for the Slovenian Catholics, a religiously moderate environment. Possible Explanations of Civil Religion: Where Does It Stem From? We should endeavour to expose civil religion’s origins. However, there are no historical, institutional or political explanations at our disposal that we could test. There are explanations, such as theories of the rise of nationalism and the secularisation theories. We have no data in our survey to test for an association between nationalism and ethnocentrism with civil religion, even though this would be a promising area. Belief in God as a predictor variable is a test of the link between religious belief and civil religion, but it may be viewed as a link between civil religion and secularisation if secularisation is considered simply as “diminution in credence in the supernatural” (Wilson 1976, 15). This is a reduction of the secularisation thesis, particularly as it was developed later (Dobbelaere 1984). Nevertheless, the thesis could be tested. If we observe by examining individual samples, looking for a relationship between magnitude of belief in God in the environment, as a rough measure of secularisation, we find the following: Besides discerning that belief in civil religion is always lower than belief in God in the observed environments, one could state that belief in civil religion is lower where belief in God is lower as well. Belief in civil religion diminishes along with the diminution of belief in the transcendent, in line with the secularisation thesis. The Slovenian Catholics attain low scores in both cases, whereas the rise from thereon is unequal. In particular, the tendency of joint variability is not apparent among the


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5 4,5 4 3,5 3 2,5 2 1,5 1 0,5 0 Slovenian Catholics

Serbian Orthodox Belief in God

US Protestants

Bosnian Muslims

Civil religion

Note: scale format for both items 1–5 in pro-trait direction.

Figure 2. Means for belief in God and for civil religion, by country-religious samples

Bosnian Muslims, who do not attain a civil religion score “adequate” to their highest level of belief in God. This is easily explained by situational features, that is, by their yet unconsolidated statehood, as well as by the noted Islamic position on nationality. Additionally, we examined several social-psychological variables that might have predictive value in the analysis of civil religion, and which were available from our survey. These included: authoritarianism,6 i.e., which one would expect to be of major explanatory relevance (regarding similar phenomena, see Altemeyer 1981; Altemeyer and Hunsberger 2004), social control,7 self control (Grasmick et al. 1993),8

6 Authoritarianism was studied using the four items from Lane (1955), replacing his last statement with the statement “Every girl should enter marriage virginous, as this guarantees marital harmony’, a statement that today could be interpreted as both authoritarian conventionalist and aggressive. The Cronbach alpha was 0.56. 7 Social control was studied using 15 items which were constructed for this study, focusing on attachment and commitment to both parents individually and to school at the age of 14, by way of recollection of respondents. Special recognition for the formation of this instrument is given to Alexander Vazsonyi of Auburn University. Social control was almost factor homogenous at exploratory examination and factor homogeneity was achieved for this purpose (factor one score analysis). 8 Self-control was investigated using nine items covering all dimensions of T. Hirsch’s concept of self-control, as developed by Grasmick et al. (1993). The items were almost

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Table 4. Correlations between civil religion and predictor variables, entire sample Civil religion Belief in God Authoritarianism Self-control Social control at 14 Religious socialisation Religious pressure

0.441** 0.512** 0.151** 0.195** 0.394** 0.566**

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

as well as two variables associated with religiosity, though not part of it, i.e., religious socialisation (upbringing)9 and religious pressure.10 The last two variables can also be expected to be closely linked to civil religion, as we have found that civil religion is closely associated with intrinsic religiosity. All correlations indicate significance at 0.01 levels: • There is a very strong association between civil religion and authoritarianism. • There is a strong link between civil religion and the two para-religious variables, religious pressure and religious socialisation, confirming that civil religion is strongly associated with religion in the social component of religiosity. • There is a moderate positive, but significant association between civil religion and social control at the age of 14 (with the exception of the Bosnian sample, where there was warfare going on at the time and the father could have been absent, schools could have not been functioning etc.), as well as self-control.

factor homogenous at exploratory examination and factor homogeneity was achieved for the purpose of this analysis by applying the factor number one factor scores. 9 Religious socialisation was an index prepared for this study consisting of four items pertaining to home socialisation and religious instruction during childhood. It was factor homogenous at exploratory inspection. 10 Religious pressure was studied by a 5-item instrument derived from Altemeyer (1988), to which pressure regarding national identity was added. It was factor homogenous at exploratory examination.


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Civil religion is contextualised as a social phenomenon associated with numerous social-psychological variables in a predicted manner. Its associations with society are not exhausted by the presented variables. One can speculate why the association for authoritarianism is stronger than for belief in God, but I opine that the finding is not of a chance nature. Civil religion has to do with the integrative and thus conservative forces in social life, as well as with its social psychological foundations, including social control and social pressure. Conclusions The study provides evidence that civil religion is a phenomenon that can be discerned and studied cross culturally. The contours have been delineated within a perspective of comprehension of the nation/state’s transcendent nature. Our statements and conclusions follow the Durkheimian and Bellahian notion, mentioning the basic components, as well as some others, particularly the item “My church has been . . .”, which indicates the “vehicle” of civil religion in the church institution. These contours are evident in the descriptive and further statistical analysis, which enable us to speak of the measurement of civil religion. Civil religion appears as a phenomenon that contains cross-cultural uniform elements and dimensions, at least within monotheistic, Abrahamic contexts. The Jewish religion has not been studied, but there is no reason to believe that our operationalisation would not function with such a sample. Possibly in western and northern Europe one might expect a less pronounced situation than the one apparent in this study, where we were examining societies that have had a pronounced counter-secularisational, post-communist rise in religiosity (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia), a rather stable majority-religiosity (Slovenia) and the well-known high religiosity of the United States. Civil religion is closely linked to dimensions of religiosity proper, which is indicated particularly by its correlation with intrinsic religious orientation and belief in God, but less so with extrinsic religiosity. Perhaps other operationalisations of civil religion might not fit so well with religion proper, but our findings may be interpreted as pointing in the direction of authoritarian religion being the home of civil religion. Pantić’s findings—that civil religion is associated with other forms of religiosity—in this respect are important. The fact that we found general elements of civil religion across cultures points toward this phenomenon being well rooted in the

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culture of varied contemporary societies, having probably an integrative function and arising predominantly as a spontaneous element. (This does not exclude that it may additionally be manipulated, articulated and moulded by the political elite, media and other social and political actors.) We found sound indications that civil religion is closely associated with and probably stems from authoritarianism, quite within the basic Adorno et al. (1950) meaning, but it also seems to be linked to general socialisation (social control by parents at age 14) and inclination towards subordinating social integration (self-control). We did not address the issue of the kind of socialisation producing it. Nevertheless, it would seem that civil religion is part of a wider system of social control in society, linked both to socialisation in general and particularly religious socialisation, though most markedly to current religious pressure. We did not examine the link between civil religion and political preference, as that would be very difficult in a cross-cultural study. However, we think that the authoritarism-civil religion association suggests expectations of some positive correlation between civil religion and rightist political preferences, which is also in accordance with findings of Wimberley and Christenson (1978) and findings on authoritarian religion by Altemeyer and Hunsberger (2004). We did not examine the distribution of civil religion by social strata. The strong association between civil religion and authoritarianism suggests that civil religion would be wider spread among groups known for authoritarianism (Lipset 1959). References Adorno, T., E. Frenkel-Brunswick, D. Levinson, and N.R. Stanford. 1950. The Authoritarian Personality. New York (Harper and Brothers). Allport, G.W., and J.M. Ross. 1967. Personal religious orientations and prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 5:432–43. Altemeyer, B. 1981. Right Wing Authoritarianism. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. —— 1988. Enemies of Freedom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Altemeyer, B., and B. Hunsberger. 2004. A revised religious fundamentalism scale: the short and sweet of it. International Journal of Psychology of Religion 14:47–54. Ataman, M. 2003. Islamic perspective in ethnicity and nationality: diversity or uniformity? Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 23:89–104. Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil religion in America. Daedelus 96, 1–21. —— 1968. Response. In The Religious Situation, ed. D. Cutler, 388–393. Boston: Beacon.


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—— 1975. The Broken Covenant. American Civil Religion in Time of Trial, New York: Seabury. —— 1998. Religion and Legitimation in the American Republic. Society 35:193–201. Christenson, J.A., and R.C. Wimberley. 1978. Who is civil religious? Sociological Analysis 39:77–83. Cohen, A.B., D.E. Hall, H.G. Koenig, and K.G. Meador. 2005. Social versus individual motivation: implications for normative definitions of religious orientation. Personality and Social Psychology Review 9:48–61. Cole, W.A., and P.E. Hammond. 1974. Religious pluralism, legal development and societal complexity: rudimentary forms of civil religion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 13:177–89. Cristi, Marcella. 2001. From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics. Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfred Laurier University Press. Dobbelaere, K. 1984. Secularization theories and sociological paradigms: convergences and divergences. Social Compass 31:199–219. Furseth, Inger. 1990. The Civil Religion Debate: Some of its Premises and Foundations, Oslo: Oslo University Institute for Sociology. —— 1994. Civil religion in a low key: the case of Norway. Acta Sociologica 37:39–54. Gehrig, Gail. 1981. The American Civil Religion Debate: a Source for Theory Construction. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 20: 1:51–63. Gorsuch, R.L., and S.E. McPherson. 1989. Intrinsic/extrinsic measurement: I/E revised in single item scales. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28:348–354. Grasmick, H., C. Tittle, R. Bursik, and B. Arneklev 1993. Testing the core empirical implications of Gottfredson and Hirschi’s general theory of crime. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 30:5–29. Greeley, A. 1972. Denominational Society, Glenview: Scott, Foresman. Hassan, R. 2006. Globalisation’s challenge to Islamic ummah. Asian Journal of Social Science 34:311–334. Lane, R.E. 1955. Political personality and electoral choice. American Political Science Review 49:173–190. Lipset, S.M. 1959. Democracy and working class authoritarianism. American Sociological Review 24:482–502. —— 1979. The First New Nation. The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective. New York: W.W. Norton. Maddigan, M.M. 1993. The establishment clause, civil religion and the public church. California Law Review 81:293–350. Mannheim, K. 1967. Essays in the Sociology of Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Pantić, D. 1988. Klasična i svetovna religioznost. Beograd: Institut Društvenih Nauka. Shils, E. 1981. Tradition. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Smith, A.D. 1989. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. Vazsonyi, A., L. Pickering, and M. Junger. 2001. An empirical test of a general theory of crime: a four-nation comparative study of self-control and the prediction of deviance. Journal of Research in Crime and Deviance 38:91–131. Wimberley, R.C., D.A. Clelland, T.C. Hood, and C.M. Lipsey. 1976. The civil religion religious dimension: is it there? Sociological Forces 54:890–900. Wimberley, R.C., and J.A. Christenson. 1978. Who is civil religious? Sociological Analysis 39:77–83. —— 1979. Continuity and the measurement of civil religion. Sociological Analysis 40:59–62.

PART III

CIVIL RELIGION IN A GLOBAL ERA

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IN AND OUT OF PLACE: VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS LOCATIONS IN A GLOBALISING WORLD1 Eileen Barker The perception of religion as “out of place” rests on an underlying assumption that there is a way in which religion could (and should) be in place.2 The concepts of both civil religion and nationalism can suggest that there is a place for religion that is closely tied to a particular society or nation. There are, however, several other ways in which religion and society might be related, just as there are several ways they might not be related. At a time when the diverse processes associated with globalisation are increasingly crossing, penetrating, negotiating and undermining the integrity of national boundaries, it is not surprising that what can be seen as “religion in place”, from one perspective, can be seen as “religion out of place”, from another perspective. Using Max Weber’s (1949) concept of “ideal types”, this chapter considers a variety of ways in which religion might be located with reference to the state, the society and the individual. These relationships fall into three broad groupings: the criteria determining whether religion is “in place” or “out of place” are based on responses to three related but separate questions. What is the legal/political relationship between church and state? What are the socio-cultural relations between religion and the society? What are the different theological criteria for conferring a religious identity upon an individual?

1 I would like to thank the Nuffield Foundation and Leverhulme Trust for their generous help in funding the research upon which this chapter is based. 2 The concern in this chapter with the placing (in or out) of religion arose from my addressing the original working title of this book, which was Religion Out of Place. Civil Religion, Nationalism and Globalisation.

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eileen barker Church/State Relations: The Political Connection3

The variety of more or less formal political relations between state and religion have been variously described and analysed from a number of perspectives. For present purposes, however, only two points need to be made. First, the variety of potential relationships is considerable; and, second, these options do not necessarily function in practice in the manner in which they are predicted to do in theory. Religion, in one way or another, may be official in one place but unofficial in another. A few examples can illustrate this diversity. Sometimes religion trumps the state, at other times the state holds all the cards, and in yet other situations the two realms are more or less balanced or almost entirely separate. One obvious scenario in which religion holds the upper hand is when, as in Saudi Arabia or contemporary Iran, the state is defined as a theocracy, ruled by God. The less devout or more sceptical, however, might suspect that the fate of the country is in fact determined according to the interests of the ruling elite. A different scenario occurs when there is an Established Church. The church may be strong and powerful or it may be relatively weak, with little influence on political decisions, which is more frequently the case in contemporary Western societies, as with the Church of England. Alternatively, a country, according to its constitution, may have no established religion, yet its “National Church” is recognised as being of special importance and able to exert some considerable, if unofficial, influence on the political scene. This has become increasingly the situation in Russia over the past two decades. Further, different scenarios exist as a result of conditions, such as those in Germany, in which the state favours two or more religions, or as in Lithuania and the Slovak Republic, i.e., countries that instituted a hierarchy of accepted religions that can enjoy a sliding scale of influence and privilege. Sometimes a country declares itself to be a secular state, but there is one particular religion that plays a significant role in affairs of state, as is the case in both Israel and Turkey. It may be that a nation’s Constitution decrees that there is to be a clear separation of church and state, and yet, as in the United States of America, there is an energetic

3 Church here refers to the religion(s) of a country, whether it is associated with churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, shrines, gurdwaras or any other places of worship.

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combination of religion and politics, with forceful lobbies promoting a vast array of religious interests. France adopted a different position, in 1905, when it enacted a strict law of laïcité, with the avowed intention, thereby, of enabling all religions (and secular ideologies) to flourish without state interference. Alternatively, there are atheistic nations, such as North Korea, actively promoting a secularist ideology. Some of these countries, for example China and Vietnam, permit certain specified religions a limited freedom, while others have suppressed any religious practices whatsoever (as in Albania during the rule of Enver Hoxha). There is, however, abundant evidence that no state has been successful in entirely eliminating its citizens’ religious sentiments. Once the external controls are lifted or weakened, religion has a tendency not only to re-emerge in the public arena, but also to reveal that it was never completely excluded; it managed to survive under even the most stringent conditions of repression and persecution. It had found a place even when, officially, it had none. Religion and Society: Socio-cultural Relations A second approach for describing the place religion holds in a society does not have underlying legal connotations such as those described in the previous section. The different types of relationships depicted here can be recognised by anyone; they tend, however, to be formulated by scholars, rather than by the individual members of a society or even the politicians, although the latter may be aware of the potential of different options and might attempt to manipulate these. Here we draw on a number of thinkers, starting with Rousseau, who have described ways in which a socio-cultural relationship between religion and society might be realised—one, but only one, option being what Rousseau and Bellah, following him, call civil religion. (1) Rousseau’s Religion of Man “The pure and simple religion of the Gospel” is how Rousseau (1968: 181) conceptualised his “religion of man”. This is a religion that has none of the external trappings normally associated with religious practices and institutions. It is a private, inwardly directed religion. Its followers do not seek this-worldly rewards, but desire only to lead good, honest lives, accepting whatever their lots may be in this life, in the hope that in the next life they will be received into paradise.

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As much as Rousseau respects the moderation and incorruptibility of such believers, he concludes that (despite their willingness to fulfil their civil duties) by distancing themselves from the body politic, they have removed one of the principal means of holding society together. “I know”, he writes, “of nothing more contrary to the social spirit” (ibid., 182). Whereas a follower of the “religion of man” will fulfil his duty and accept whatever God’s providence bestows upon him, Rousseau warns that this man will be unconcerned with the fortunes of the state and disinclined to stand up against those who, unlike him, are not truly religious, but rather who are disrupting the lives of others in the pursuit of their own evil ends. Furthermore, Rousseau adds, while the “religion of man” may produce obedient soldiers prepared to serve their country, they are soldiers “without a passion for victory; they know better how to die than how to conquer” (ibid., 184). To those who might question this conclusion by arguing that the Christian troops who fought in the Crusades were powerful and valiant soldiers, Rousseau’s riposte is that “since the Gospel never sets up any national religion, holy war is impossible among Christians” (ibid., 185). Those who fought in the Crusades, therefore, were not really Christians—they were, rather, citizens of the church, fighting for its spiritual homeland, and, as such, they are better described as following a “religion of the citizen”. (2) Rousseau’s Religion of the Citizen The “religion of the citizen” is not susceptible to the weaknesses that Rousseau sees in the “religion of man”. From a political perspective, it is a theocracy, and from a social perspective it might be described as a type of national (or even nationalistic) religion, given that a key characteristic is that it is established in a single country. It gives that country its Gods; . . . it has its dogmas, its rituals, its external forms of worship laid down by law; and to the one nation which practices this religion, everything outside is infidel, alien, barbarous; and it extends the rights and duties of man only so far as it extends its altars (ibid., 181).

Historically, Rousseau classifies the religion of the early Pagans as this type. As they would not have agreed to subordinate themselves to someone who was just another human, men originally had no kings, but were ruled by Gods (ibid., 176); and as two alien societies could not

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obey the same master (and two warring theocracies could not follow a single commander), each state kept to its own Gods, and no distinction was made between its Gods and its laws. As long as this situation continued, there were no wars centring on religion. The provinces of the Gods were determined . . . by the frontiers of nations. The God of one people had no rights over other peoples. The Gods of the Pagans were in no sense jealous Gods; they divided the empire of the world between them (ibid., 177).

Consequently, since each religion was associated exclusively with the laws of the state that prescribed it, and since there was no means of converting people, except by subduing them, the only missionaries were conquerors (ibid., 178). However, when the Jews refused to recognise any God but their own, this was taken as a sign of rebellion by their conquerors—a problem that was exacerbated with the emergence of later faiths such as Christianity and Islam, and, Rousseau contends, has continued to be exemplified ever since. Because of its theocratic nature, the “religion of the citizen” meets with Rousseau’s approval in so far as it makes the homeland the object of its citizens’ adoration and it teaches citizens that the service of the state is the service of the tutelary God; to die for one’s country is to become a martyr, and to break the law is to be impious. However, Rousseau does not unequivocally support this type of religion in that he declares it to be based on error, lies and deception, burying what he considers the true worship of God in empty ceremonial. Furthermore, it invites exclusivity and bloodthirsty intolerance “so that men breathe only murder and massacre, and believe they are doing a holy deed in killing those who do not accept their Gods” (ibid., 182). (3) Rousseau’s Religion of the Priest The third type of religion described by Rousseau is the “religion of the priest”, which gives men “two legislative orders, two rulers, two homelands, puts them under two contradictory obligations and prevents their being at the same time both churchmen and citizens” (ibid., 181). By introducing the concept of another Kingdom (the Kingdom of God in Heaven) and by drawing a sharp distinction between the theological and the political, the “religion of the priest” undermines the concept of the state as a single unity, and thereby, according to Rousseau, “has made any kind of good polity impossible in Christian states, where

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men have never known whether they ought to obey the civil ruler or the priest” (ibid., 179).4 Believing that everything which destroys social unity is completely worthless, Rousseau assumes that the divisive “religion of the priest” is so manifestly bad that it would be a waste of time to embark upon the pleasurable task of demonstrating this fact. However, he does suggest that there is a type of social religion that avoids the negative excesses of the “religion of the citizen”, while retaining its more positive functions. (4) Rousseau’s Civil Religion The ideal, according to Rousseau, is when citizens follow a religion that makes them love their duty to the state and fellow citizens—but the precise contents of that religion, he argues, should be no concern of the state. It is, thus, the sovereign’s function to ensure a profession of faith “not as religious dogmas, but as sentiments of sociability, without which it is impossible to be either a good citizen or a loyal subject” (ibid., 186). The positive dogmas of this “civil religion” must be simple and few in number: “The existence of an omnipotent, intelligent, benevolent divinity that foresees and provides; the life to come; the happiness of the just; the punishment of sinners; the sanctity of the social contract and the law” (ibid., 186). To these Rousseau adds a single negative dogma: “no intolerance”. Intolerance, he proclaims, is something that belongs to the religions we reject. Given this sentiment, it might appear somewhat paradoxical that Rousseau also declares that the sovereign can banish from the state those who do not profess this faith, not because of impiety, but because they will be antisocial beings. Anyone who professes to believe but does not behave as though he does, should be put to death for having committed what Rousseau considers the greatest of all crimes: that of lying before the law. In short, Rousseau’s argument is that all religions which themselves tolerate others must be tolerated, provided only that their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of the citizen. While nationalism in the sense of honouring and serving one’s nation (a civil religion) is

4 Mohammed is praised for bringing unity to his political system, although Rousseau states this was later undermined.

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a positive position, an exclusive national religion (that of the citizen) is not. (5) Durkheim’s Cult of Man The elementary forms of religious life found amongst Australian aborigines, and as described by Durkheim (1968), overlap in many ways with Rousseau’s “religion of the citizen”. Both depict societies comprised of a single religion promoting internal cohesion, with what Mary Douglas (1970) later would call a strong group structure. Durkheim, however, sees religion as more specifically presenting a mirror image of the particular tribe or society, as represented by its totem. Like the pagan societies about which Rousseau writes, there is a particular god (or pantheon) for a particular society. “If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion” (Durkheim 1968, 419). Religion is created by society and it is society divinized. But as a society becomes subject to an increasing division of labour, with increasing specialisation and differentiation, Durkheim argues that a “cult of man” emerges in which the god to be idealised and worshipped is man. Originally society is everything, the individual is nothing. Consequently the only social feelings are those connecting the individual with the collectivity; society is its own aim. Man is considered only an instrument in its hands . . . But gradually things change. As societies become greater in volume and density, they increase in complexity, work is divided, individual differences multiply, and the moment approaches when the only remaining bond among the members of a single human group will be that they are all men . . . [S]ince human personality is the only thing that appeals unanimously to all hearts, since its enhancement is the only aim that can be collectively pursued . . . [it] thus rises far above all human aims, assuming a religious nature (Durkheim 1952, 336).

(6) Bellah’s Civil Religion In many ways, Robert Bellah’s conception of civil religion, as a “public religious dimension [which] is expressed in a set of beliefs, symbols and rituals”, is an elaboration of the civil religion outlined by Rousseau (Bellah 1967, 4). However, there are also significant differences, partly because Bellah is considering a particular civil religion—the one found in the United States of America. However, while it is clear that Bellah’s civil religion is particular to the USA, it is also clear that it is not tied to

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any one specific religion. It transcends any particularity, but embraces a circumscribed generality and, by doing so, it reinforces and legitimises the political regime. While actors in the political scene may not publicly endorse or appeal to their personal denominations, as members of their personal denominations they can claim membership of the civil religion and thereby justify what it is that they are doing in its name. The President’s oath of office “extends not only to the people but to God” (ibid., 4), the other side of the coin being that they are bound by the rubrics of the civil religion so long as they are in office (ibid., 8). Bellah makes it clear that the separation of church and state does not mean the political realm is denied a religious dimension (ibid., 3). Religion is conceived as being wider than church, and politics is conceived as wider than state, with civil religion relating both to the political society and to private religious organisations (ibid., 3). This clearly can have positive functions for uniting the nation—that is, as long as private beliefs are encompassed by the civil religion. At the same time, civil religion is not the same as “religion in general”, and it has to be specific enough to be saved from empty formalism and, thus, capable of serving “as a genuine vehicle of national religious selfunderstanding” (ibid., 8). However, while most Christian denominations—Protestant, Catholic and, perhaps, Jewish5—may be embraced by American civil religion, not all systems of beliefs held by all American citizens are included. Some individuals such as atheists, most Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims, and pretty well all members of new religions (the Nation of Islam, the Church of Scientology and Wicca for example) are excluded according to the general understanding of the mainstream society. Others, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, are more likely to exclude themselves.6 The boundaries determining which religions are “out of place” may shift with social changes, such as successive waves of immigration and gradual transformations in cultural values, but at any one time there

5 Bellah (1968, 12) cites Robert Lowell’s analysis of the Gettysburg Address as being “Hebraic without being in any specific sense Jewish. The Gettysburg symbolism . . . is Christian without having anything to do with the Christian church.” 6 Jehovah’s Witnesses, although law-abiding so far as their religious beliefs allow, do draw the line at voting or saluting the American (or any) flag; and are prepared to go to prison rather than bear arms. During the Nazi regime, thousands died in concentration camps although, unlike Jews or Roma, they could have been released had they agreed to swear allegiance to the regime.

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are relatively well-defined borders recognised at either a conscious or unconscious level by citizens on either side of the boundary. It is an indication of the effectiveness and specificity of American civil religion that those whose private (but publicly known) beliefs lie outside the national sacred canopy are extremely unlikely to be elected President. At the time of this writing (2007), while there is an ongoing debate whether Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church), stands a chance of being elected as President, there seems to be general agreement that a secular humanist or even an agnostic would stand no chance at all. The idea of a Muslim running for the office is not even discussed. (7) Bellah’s Global Civil Religion According to Bellah, American civil religion evolved as the country developed from a dependent colony to an independent United States, gradually acquiring a system of democracy and other values that, he believes, have become the envy of less developed countries, with, since World War II, America having come to see itself as having to accept responsibility for fighting “tyranny, poverty disease and war itself ” (ibid., 17). Nonetheless, Bellah warns, America has found itself relying on its military power rather than its intelligence, and without “an awareness that our nation stands under higher judgement, the tradition of civil religion would be dangerous indeed” (ibid., 17). Bellah, however, is hopeful. He has a vision of the emergence of a viable and coherent world order. This, he argues, would require the incorporation of international symbolism into American civil religion—or, perhaps, American civil religion (“a light to all the nations”) becoming simply one part of a new civil religion of the world—a global civil religion that would be the fulfilment, rather than the denial, of American civil religion. So far, he believes “the flickering flame of the United Nations burns too low to be the focus of a cult, but the emergence of a genuine trans-national sovereignty would certainly change this” (ibid., 18). (8) Huntington’s Clashing Civilisations An alternative perspective is offered by Samuel Huntington (1996), with his theory of the “Clash of Civilizations”. Although he is concerned with clashes between groups, rather than bonds uniting the groups,

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Huntington’s ideas are just as pertinent to the issue of the relationship between religion and society as are those of scholars who are primarily concerned with the cultural glue that unites within national boundaries. He does not share Bellah’s optimism about the possibility of a world civil religion, nor does he see the “cult of man” as providing an interwoven umbrella with the potential for uniting all humanity. Moreover, he does not recognise as fundamental a sacred canopy reflecting and endorsing the nation state. Nation states may remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but, he argues, that the great divisions among humankind will not be primarily ideological or economic, but between culturally defined civilisations—civilisations being “the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes them from other species” (Huntington 1993, 23). Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion. The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy. These differences are the product of centuries. They will not soon disappear. They are far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and political regimes (ibid., 24, italics added).

Huntington points out that one of the most significant consequences of defining social units in terms of religion is that the boundaries are more intransigent and less negotiable than if they are drawn according to economic, political or even ethnic criteria. It is relatively easy to redistribute wealth or power; a person “can be half-French and halfArab, and simultaneously a citizen of two countries. It is more difficult to be half-Catholic and half-Muslim” (ibid., 27). Furthermore, Bellah suggests that many of the ideas that developed through the triumph of the American civil religion (individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state) often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist or even Orthodox cultures. “The very notion that there could be a “universal civilization” is a Western idea, directly at odds with the particularism of most Asian societies” (ibid., 34). For the relevant future, Huntington concludes, there will be no universal civilisation, but instead a world with different civilizations, each of which will have to learn to coexist with the others” (ibid., 48).

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Religion is considered “out of place” only when it deserts the cultural parameters of a particular civilisation, rather than when it transcends a particular nation. (9) Sen’s Cross-cutting Ties There have been many critics of Huntington’s thesis, from a number of different perspectives. Amartya Sen argues forcefully against Huntington’s focus on civilisations, both because it ignores the heterogeneities within civilisations, which, rather than being monolithic, are full of internal inconsistencies and conflicts (Sen 1999, 16), and because it underestimates the permeability of the boundaries. Cross-cutting relationships of trade, finance, the arts and migration undermine the potential for any serious clash of civilisations, with different individuals and groups having vested interests in preserving a reasonable relationship with those in other civilisations. Rather than seeing society as having long been separated into traditional civilisations, Sen suggests that the current climate in the West, brought about partly through mass migration, is in danger of creating religiously based groupings. He warns against what he calls the “solitarist” fallacy (as exemplified by Huntington, and certain communitarian and multi-cultural theories), which assumes that human identity is formed by membership of a single social or religious group. This results, Sen says, not in multiculturalism, but in “plural monoculturalism”, a system in which: Muslim organisations are in charge of all Muslims, Hindu organisations in charge of all Hindus, Jewish organisations in charge of all Jews and so on. . . . In downplaying political and social identities, as opposed to religious identities, the [British] government has weakened civil society precisely when there is a great need to strengthen it (Sen 2006).7

(10) Colin Campbell’s Shifting Civilisations While Huntington sees the focus of religious/political relations as surpassing that of the national, identifying seven or eight major civilisations, Colin Campbell (2007) paints the global scene with an even broader brush. For him, a basic distinction should be drawn between Western

7 Quoted in Kenan Malik’s review, Prospect Magazine 125, August 2006. http://www .prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7583.

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and Eastern civilisations, with the West encompassing all the religions of “The Book”—including Islam. Unlike Huntington, who postulates an increasing consolidation or strengthening of civilisations, citing such processes as “Asianization” in Japan, the “Hinduization” of India and the “re-Islamization” of the Middle East, Campbell writes about the “Easternization” of the West, arguing that Western civilisation has embraced an entirely new worldview since (roughly) the end of the Second World War. Belief in a transcendental personal god has been replaced by belief in an impersonal divine force; “dualistic materialism has been replaced by metaphysical monism as the dominant theodicy or worldview within the West” (Campbell 2007, 339). It is beyond the scope of this chapter to present the intricacies of Campbell’s challenging thesis, but it is worth noting that at least one respected scholar questions the relative stability assumed by the previous types by claiming that the whole of Western civilisation could change within half a century to the extent that it is “increasingly dominated by a worldview that is essentially Eastern in character, the traditional Western values and beliefs having been demoted to a secondary position” (ibid., 319). Theological Allocations of Religious Identity Rather than delineating the formal relationships between the institutions of religion and the body politic as constructed by legislators, or the less formal socio-cultural constructions described by scholars, this section considers briefly a variety of ways in which religions themselves decree who is religiously in or out of place.8 These individual religious identities may or may not coincide with other socially constructed identities—a nation or society may play a significant role, but it may not. Individuals may opt in or out of religious space with more or less ease or difficulty. (1) The Cosmic Religion The cosmic religion, which overlaps with a large part of what has been called the New Age movement, dispenses with all boundaries. It affirms that it is the birthright of all humanity to be part of cosmic spirituality.

8

These types are described in more detail in Barker (2006).

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Understandably, religions and societies that depend on strong boundaries can see such a worldview as threatening their very existence, for religion is not so much out of place as appropriating all space. (2) The Global Religion Although the name might suggest that the global location is similar to the cosmic religion, global religions require an acceptance on the part of the individual concerned to become part of the religion; once this has been done, members consider it part of their duty to proselytise and take their truth to the four corners of the earth. A clear distinction is drawn between true believers and non-believers, who may be separated into the saved and the damned. Various new religions and most branches of the Pentecostal Church fall into this category. (3) The National Religion The national religion has geopolitical boundaries. If one is a citizen of a particular nation, one is automatically expected to be a member of the National religion. For a national religion such as the Russian Orthodox Church (despite the fact that there are more members outside Russia than inside its geographical boundary), to leave one’s religion can be considered not so much heresy as treachery. Both foreign and indigenous new religions are considered indisputably “out of place”. (4) The Religious Community This is a trans-national religion that may have strong roots in particular societies as a theocracy or a national religion, but it extends well beyond geo-political boundaries, sometimes overlapping with Huntington’s civilisations. The Roman Catholic Church is one such community, the Islamic Ummah another. As with a national religion, membership is usually through birth, with apostasy being denounced, although conversion may be encouraged. (5) The Cultural Religion Religions for which membership is culturally located are not necessarily bound by political or geographical areas, but by a shared culture that is not confined to religion alone, though associated with it. This differs from the previous type in that the appeal is not primarily religious. There is, for example, an expectation that English men and women

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belong to the Church of England; even if they never attend church and are not formally members.9 At the same time, it is not dependent on geo-political boundaries as much as the national religion, and it is perfectly possible to opt out and join another religion. In this sense, despite the fact that it is an established church, the Church of England is more like a denomination, while the Russian Orthodox Church fits more easily into the ideal type of a Church. (6) The Biological Religion The biological religion confers membership through birth, as though there were a special strand of DNA that transmits the religious gene from one generation to the next. In some religions, such as Orthodox Judaism, it is the mother’s line that carries the religion; in others, such Zoroastrianism, it is the father’s line. (7) The Religious Lineage The concept of a religious or spiritual lineage is common in both Hinduism and Buddhism, where devotees can be initiated into a “divine line” on the path to enlightenment by a teacher, guru or Master. There are also several African diasporic religions, such as Voodoo, Santeria or Candomblé, which operate with a religious lineage. Anthropologists use the concept of “fictive kin” to describe the creation of family relationships, where blood ties do not exist, enabling individuals to construct support structures to replace conventional bonds that have been destroyed. In contemporary Western society, one can find new religions offering almost instant enlightenment, with the allocation of membership to the lineage requiring remarkably little effort on the part of the novitiate. (8) The Individual Religion The individual religion emphasises personal choice and commitment. This type of religion does not engage in the kind of proselytising that one finds in the global religion of evangelical Christians, but is more

9

In a random national sample administered in 1998, I found more nonmembers (29 percent) who felt they were ‘C of E’ than formal members of the Church (26 percent).

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likely to be of the opinion that “many are the ways”, and that it is the responsibility of each individual to find his or her way of developing a relationship with his or her god. The Society of Friends or Quakers provide an example of such a perspective. (9) The Inner Religion The inner religion celebrates “the Divine Spark within”. It overlaps with what is sometimes referred to as “the new spirituality”, sharing, perhaps paradoxically, several characteristics with the cosmic type, eschewing social boundaries based on religious distinctions. Indeed, many of those belonging to this type of religion describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious”. (10) The Virtual Religion As its name implies, virtual religion operates mainly or entirely on the Internet. Here individuals can construct their own credentials of membership, and these may bear little or no resemblance to their “normal” identities. Examples include CyberCoven.org, the Church of Virus,10 the Church of St Pixel11 and, on a somewhat less serious note, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.12 Concluding Comments Obviously, there are many other ways of drawing distinctions between the places religions are found, and clearly there are overlaps in the types that have been depicted, with several “real religions” crossing the boundaries between two or more categories. Ideal types, however, are intended to provide analytical tools with which we might examine compatibilities and incompatibilities of different phenomena and the dynamics of processes that may occur under changing circumstances. There can be little doubt that the processes of globalisation disrupt religion in contemporary society in many ways. Some of these processes encourage the spread of national and civil types of religion, but

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http://www.churchofvirus.org. http://www.stpixels.com/view_releases.cgi. http://www.venganza.org.

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there are several other options. Belonging to a global community may be experienced as a release for some; but it can be alienating for others. Further, there are clear indications that religion can act as a force for resisting globalising tendencies by offering firmly rooted identities in the particularities of “local localities” to counter the anonymity of global universals. The feeling that globalisation undermines a nation’s identity can encourage loyalty to a national Church that is seen as the bearer of the country’s past (and future) cultural heritage. This is clearly the case with, for example, the resurgence of Eastern European Orthodoxies and the demands that Thailand’s Constitution should name Buddhism as the national religion. Although the values of individualism and freedom of choice have existed for centuries, and although the vast majority of the world’s population still follow the religion of their forefathers, people are increasingly changing or abandoning the religion in which they were raised. One reason for this is the breakdown of traditional behaviour patterns and the growth of individual mobility—both geographical and social. Children are increasingly unlikely to live in the same village or town as their parents or, due to a rapidly changing occupational structure, to have the same types of jobs. There were few biochemists, electronic engineers or call-centre agents in our grandparents’ time. Given their radically different experiences, it is not surprising that the answers to questions of ultimate concern that satisfied our grandparents are unlikely to satisfy our grandchildren. Not only has globalisation brought about a demand for (or at least an openness to) alternative beliefs and practices, it has also increased the supply of potential options available to any one individual. Previously unknown patterns of migration and the unprecedented spread of the mass media (including the rise of the Internet) are resulting in an unprecedented visibility of alternative beliefs and life-styles. The presence of these options may raise doubts and weaken beliefs. Alternatively, the challenge to previously taken-for-granted beliefs can result in their becoming stronger than they were before. Whatever the outcome, there is likely to be some innovative consciousness raising. Commentators have pointed to the variety of trends in contemporary society, some of them arguing that one particular trend is “The Trend” of the future. It can also be argued that, short of the use of guns or other violent means of control, the trend of the future will be towards increasing diversity. One thing, however, is clear: with increasing glo-

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balisation, religion is increasingly unlikely to stay in the same place, and for many this will be perceived as religion being out of place. References Barker, Eileen. 2006. We’ve got to Draw the Line Somewhere: An Exploration of Boundaries that Define Locations of Religious Identity. Social Compass 53/2: 201– 213. Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil Religion in America. Daedalus 96: 1–21. Campbell, Colin. 2007. The Easternization of the West. Boulder: Paradigm. Douglas, Mary. 1970. Natural Symbols, London: Barrie & Rockcliff. Durkheim, Émile. 1952. Suicide: A Study in Sociology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; originally published in 1897. —— 1968. 1st published 1915. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. London: George Allen and Unwin. Huntington, Samuel P. 1993. The Clash of Civilizations. Foreign Affairs, Summer: 22–49. —— 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rousseau, Jean-Jaques. 1968. 1st written c.1743. The Social Contract. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Sen, Armatya. 1999. Democracy as a Universal Value. Journal of Democracy 10/3:3–17. —— 2006. Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny. London: Allen Lane. Weber, Max. 1949. The Methodology of the Social Sciences. New York: Free Press.

CHAPTER TWELVE

NATIONALISM AS CIVIL RELIGION AND RITUALS OF BELONGING BEFORE AND AFTER THE GLOBAL TURN Ulf Hedetoft The aim of this chapter is to examine certain religious dimensions of nationalism in historical perspective, giving special attention to what I have elsewhere termed the “profane sacrality” of national identity (Hedetoft 1990a, 1995). According to this analysis, national identity functions as both a formal and substantive replacement of public-collective religiosity, following the modern privatisation of religious belief. “Die Nation fordert wie Gott liebende Hingabe” (“the nation requires, like God, loving, unselfish devotion”), as the German political philosopher Erhard Stölting approvingly suggested in the mid-1980s (Stölting 1988). George Mosse refers to nationalism as a “cult of death” (Mosse 1990). And Anthony Smith, following both Carlton Hayes and Emile Durkheim, in more pacific, less dramatic terms, conceptualises the nation as a “sacred communion of citizens, a willed and felt communion of those who assert a moral faith and feel an ancestral affinity” (Smith 2000). This is a formulation obliquely echoing Ernest Renan’s well-known definition of the nation as a daily plebiscite in which citizens continuously reaffirm and commemorate their sense of belonging to the national community based on its “past glories” and “heroic deeds” (Renan 1882/1990). Or in Michael Herzfeld’s potent formulation, “the secular equivalent of salvation is the idea of a patriotic and democratic community, one that tolerates neither graft nor oppression” (Herzfeld 1992, 6). The key question addressed in this chapter pertains to the specifics of this national belief system. First, how is “loving, unselfish devotion” expected (even in a sense required) to be practically and symbolically manifested by and maintained in the minds of citizens—through various kinds of ritual acts of belonging—as a seemingly essential and transcendent bond between its members and between nation and state? Moreover, how is nationalism as a civil, political religion currently affected by transnationality and globalisation?

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After first considering the rationale, modalities and rituals/discourses of nationalism-as-religion, the major portion of this chapter is devoted to an analysis of the ritual sacrality of belonging in the phase of nationalism proper (between 1880 and 1945), as well as in the present age of globalisation. It is argued that significant transformations (of function, form and content) have taken place, notably as regards rituals of death and unselfish suffering—transformations implying that national religiosity now finds itself positioned, uneasily, between the pompousness of state ritualism, the mundane quality of civic allegiance, the nostalgia of past glory, and the complexities and asymmetries of transnational belonging. Positioning Nationalism as a Modern Belief System As regards the meaning of religion and religiosity, I follow Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle’s succinct formulation in their paper “Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Revisiting Civil Religion” (1996): “a system of cosmological propositions grounded in a belief in a transcendent power expressed through a cult of divine being and giving rise to a set of ethical prescriptions” (Marvin and Ingle 1996, 1)—although one might sensibly quibble with the authors over the use of “ethical” rather than the more precise term “moral”. As for nationalism, in an abstract sense it is the necessary idealism of the self-created state, as the highest instantiation of the zoon politikon and its communal spirit. It is intimately tied to the function of the state as the incubator and representative of the “general interest”, the volonté générale, positioned above and beyond the ordinary self-interested concerns of the common person—the preserver and guarantor of order, harmony, solidarity and identity (Hall 1998; Hedetoft 1995; Rousseau 1762/1950; Schieder 1992). By virtue of this position as societal authority and ultimate arbiter, the state can and will legitimately issue demands on members of the community (subjects or citizens) for loyalty, obedience, sacrifice, self-abnegation, devotion, belief and trust built on the morality of community and cultural togetherness. The most common forms and methods used to impose and enact these virtues are practical and symbolic existentialism in ritualised form—its highest manifestation being personal death in an ulterior cause and for the greater good in national wars. The prototype of this person is the almost allegorical figure of the citizen-soldier (Hedetoft 1995, part I, chapter 2). Along

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this symbolic avenue, the state transforms into the secular embodiment of the transcendent being of “normal” religions, the power through which people recognise themselves as full human beings, indirectly and vicariously encapsulating their highest, noblest, most moral and transcendently spiritual values, but only and always in a form separated from and elevated above their grubby material and social existence (Kapferer 1988; Nora 1984–1991; Samuel 1989). Hence, pacific, moral idealism (devotion and neighbourly love) and voluntary, totemic blood sacrifice—as Marvin and Ingle state, nationalism is “that set of beliefs and persons for which we ought to shed our own blood, if necessary” (ibid.)—both enter into the normative dialectics of national sacrality, mediated by and made sense of through rituals, symbols, and cultist acts of faith and belonging. Here we primarily encounter, as Marvin and Ingle rightly point out, the Christian father/son figure in national apparel (Marvin and Ingle 1996, 4). The morality and virtuousness of Christianity are deeply intertwined with the figure of the sacrifice of the beloved son by the all-powerful father, for the good of humanity—reflecting the right of state, as a prerogative consequent of its monopoly of violence, to sacrifice its own in order, in almost totemic fashion, to preserve the community and its special features and unity. This explains the creation and sacrality of martyrs, the term applied to members chosen, by the collective or its leaders, to suffer and die for the survival and continued cohesion of the community.1 The highest moral personality characteristic, therefore, is heroism, willingly assumed martyrdom as practised evidence of faith and belonging or—at a more general level and at less serious personal costs—the celebration by state and nation of those who (more or less willingly, or ambiguously, such as Christ’s reaction of feeling abandoned by his heavenly father) represent these virtues in the public space. This allows for a distinction between practical (“transformative”, in Marvin and Ingle’s terminology) and symbolic (“commemorative”) ritualism, and different relations of dominance between them in different epochs: whereas the former is in focus in the classical period of nationalism, symbolic forms have the upper hand after World War II, particularly in the present age of globalisation. In turn, “real”, privatised religiosity 1

This does not imply that such Christian topoi are a necessary condition for a mentality of nationalistic submissiveness and self-negating existentialism, only that they play a significant role, both symbolically and pragmatically, in Western nation states based on Christian virtues.

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becomes harnessed to and subordinated to this sacrality of nationalism. This is the rationale of the secular separation of church and state, and the reason why Islam in many transnational variants represents a slap-inthe-face, a provocation, to modern political regimes, readily associated with terrorism. Submission and blood sacrifice are not unequivocally kept within national boundaries, and religion verges on becoming a political authority in its own right, rather than subordinating itself to national political ends. Finally, at this level of abstraction, we might inquire into the reasons for the centrality of ritualism, the civic sacrality of nationalism and its forms and expressions of faith and attachment. Here we are referring to the nature and inherent properties of rituals; these are basically symbols in collective practice, social enactments of belonging, faith and identity, and repeated narratives of communality (Kapferer 1988; Kertzer 1988; Smith 1986; Turner 1969). They are simple, iterative and formal displays of “us-ness”, spun into webs of cultural meaning (Geertz 1973). They cannot be decoded without a cultural key, and therefore refuse to give away their secrets at first glance. Their meaning can only be grasped by knowing about their historical, cultural and socio-political contexts. In particular, their core meaning and role are intimately connected with the temporal dimension of the national community, with the present enactment of the past and with creating an imaginary bridge between past, present and future. Some scholars rightly argue that in this way rituals create a suspension of time through the (repeated) enactment of the past in the present and the dramatisation of collective memory (Boswell and Evans 1999; Czaplicka and Ruble 2003; Voigt 1989). It is just as important, however, that rituals (like state funerals, the commemoration of dead soldiers and heroic deeds, royal parades, and the singing of national anthems) have the capacity to override reason while appealing directly to emotional responses of a sentimental, nostalgic, pitiful, proud or jubilant nature—in other words, appealing to empathy, catharsis and identification. This is also why rituals are able to combine the realm of the profane with that of sacrality and faith, and thus the imaginaries of life and death, fatality and eternity (Anderson 1983/1991). In turn, this seems to be, at least in part, because humans might be generically predisposed to magic, myth-making and ritualism in order to imbue earthly problems and processes with a higher inscrutable purpose (Boyer 2001; Turner


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1994)—and partly because ritualism, by its very form, orchestrates and enacts the elements of self-abnegation, lack of free will, subjection under a collective order and affective attachment, which national allegiance and religious conviction have in common (Hayes 1960). Regarded thus, ritualism precedes religion and religiosity, which in turn precede and underpin nationalism. From this historical perspective, therefore, ritualism appears as a form of proto-religiosity, and religious devotion as proto-nationalism. Types and Forms of Ritual Sacrality in the Classic Phase of Nationalism (1880–1945)2 All of this is significant for understanding the appeal and effectiveness of national rituals in the transformative phase of nationalism between 1880 and 1945. Not only was the period peppered with numerous smaller and larger wars demanding extreme sacrifices of ordinary people, it was also characterised by the decline of collective religiosity, the more or less complete (depending on the country) separation of church and state, the pursuit of market-oriented goals, the belief in science and rationality, and especially the forging of strong, militaristic, and totalitarian states and political cultures in Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and the USSR—in other words by all the stark ideological and cultural contradictions of historical modernity (Barkey and von Hagen 1997; Delanty 1995; Doyle 1986; Gellner 1983; Hobsbawm 1990; Weber 1948/1994). In this context, nationalism and its rituals offered an alluring substitute for traditional religion and the relativism of modern life as well as a haven of imagined security, order and existential meaning. Not all nationalist processes ran in parallel, and there are exceptions due to uneven development or other circumstances. In general, however, the most significant crucibles for the creation of European nationalism as an all-societal and all-encompassing phenomenon of political, cultural and existential identity included the following: the imperial process represented by international competition and mutual grievances in Europe between ca. 1880 and 1914, the concomitant political discourses of national history, memory, glory and future

2

This section draws on my discussion in Hedetoft 2008.

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goals, and peoples’ acceptance of the soldierly virtues they were asked to internalise and demonstrate. War and rituals related to war proved to be an invaluable nationalistic mobiliser (see, for example, Hedetoft 1990b; Horne 1997; Mosse 1975), and the images of particular national self-identities became virtually inseparable from the mental construction and cultural representations of negative Otherness. Together with the economic promise of modernity, these developments imparted to nationalism and national identity a historically unprecedented legitimacy and paved the way for the effectiveness of state-orchestrated, proto-religious ritualism. The most important implication of all this is that rituals associated more or less directly with states and state interests in the international system were predominant during this period. This applies equally to liberal-democratic, fascist and socialist regimes. The liberal-democratic regimes were still in the making and many were simultaneously colonial powers. The fascist regimes had a built-in propensity for rituals of power, race and manliness. And the socialist regimes, particularly in the Stalinist version, cultivated other forms of authority, sacrifice and anti-materialistic discipline. In a context of ruthless international competition, all three forms of rule—empires of different hues—came to rely for popular support and legitimacy on heavily stylised public demonstrations of power and identity, on ritualised cults of personality and on public representations of cultural unity. Only smaller and less powerful states in the developed world (like Denmark or Norway) or countries in the third world aspiring to emancipate from colonial rule (like India or Senegal) represented more pacific forms of national ritualism, rooted in cultural history and traditions, though also here some were clearly “invented” for the needs and purposes of the moment.3 It is possible to identify five sub-categories of religiously inspired rituals of belonging in this explicitly nationalistic period. The first consists of rituals of state proper, that is, rituals directly orchestrating the cult of the ruler, affirming the exceptional virtues of the regime, symbolising transitions and continuities from one ruler or government to another, or displaying the grandeur and mission of the state in relation to past

3 Like the Highland tradition in Scotland, Négritude in Senegal and the Viking myth in Scandinavia.


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successes and future goals in the context of international competition (Edelman 1985; Kertzer 1988; Voigt 1989; Woshinsky 1995). This sub-category includes British celebrations of imperial monarchy (for instance, Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897; Cannadine 1983); the personality cults erected around dictators like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin (Burleigh and Wippermann 1991; Kenez 1985; Kershaw et al. 2001); military parades and other public displays of stately pomp and circumstance (Kidd and Murdoch 2004; MacKenzie 1984); and regime changes, like the Norwegian celebrations of new-found statehood in 1905, or the ritual formality of the transition from Weimar to Nazi rule in 1933 (Voigt 1989). These are all examples of the state celebrating and commemorating itself, of projecting and presenting itself to its titular people—or peoples, in the case of colonising states—and, to some degree, of the people responding and participating of their own accord. The second and most important sub-category encompasses practical, transformative blood sacrifices, rituals of heroic self-abnegation and death for the national cause (Hedetoft 1990a; Kidd and Murdoch 2004; Marvin and Ingle 1996, 1999; Mosse 1990; Winter 1998), such as those related to both the factual practices and rituals of militarism and war, cults of the Unknown Soldier, the inauguration of public monuments in honour of heroic acts carried out in wartime and “beyond the call of duty”, the awarding of medals for bravery, the initiation of national holidays or museums commemorating the wartime dead, and the political use, in demagoguery and inflammatory practices of various kinds, of such extreme idealism to extol the incomparable racial virtues of the state and highlight the satanic nature of the enemy. During this period, this type of ritual practice is no doubt the most significant in a majority of national settings; it squares both with the inclement state of international relations and the objective of shaping an imagined unity of state and nation. Rituals of war, death and suffering constitute the litmus test of national identity, since they orchestrate this unity as frictionless and popular allegiance to state objectives as absolute—precisely as religious belief and devotion in their purest form are beyond argument and relativism. The third sub-category includes rituals of national sportsmanship in international competitive environments. These rituals share certain features with rituals of war: both display national identity in concrete practice, both rely on giving one’s utmost to the national cause, and both can take the form of events where medals are bestowed, the

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national anthem is played, and the national flag is raised and waved in honour of athletes vicariously embodying individual nation states (Hedetoft 1995, 2003a; Allison 1993). In addition, the ritualism of sport can be engineered in such a way that it helps support political goals by cross-fertilising with political rituals. The Nazi regime’s use of the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936 is only the most blatant deployment of sport for political ends in this period, when sport was often unashamedly subordinated to political interests, as regards preparations for war, the inculcation of masculine virtues (“muscular Christianity”, in Charles Kingsley’s contemporary formulation) in young people, and the demonstration of the racial qualities and superiority of the national “stock” (see, e.g., Mangan and Walvin 1987; Pearson 1901; Searle 1976). The fourth area concerns precisely such ritualism of moral value and national allegiance, notably in institutions of education and socialisation. The discipline required of loyal subjects and citizens, the moral virtues of selfless dedication to higher goals, the necessary knowledge of national history, and the balanced combination of moral and physical skills (mens sana in corpore sano) were imparted to young people by means of curricula and teaching methods in which ritualism—symbolic and repeated enactments of loyalty, devotion, asceticism and discipline—played a dominant role (Baden-Powell 1908/2004; Weber 1976). From bodily rigour in physical education, through mechanical repetition of Latin declensions and German prepositions, to oaths of allegiance and displays of admiration for the nation’s founders in history, rituals of belonging were pervasive as a necessary instrument in the formation of national character, political identity and useful skills. This was true, with variations and different emphases, for all states and all classes within them, and increasingly so as primary education became a common public good during this period. The fifth sub-category embraces everyday rituals of cultural symbolism. These include more or less formalised practices like celebrating the nation in song (e.g., the Welsh choir tradition), saluting the flag or using the flag for a variety of everyday purposes, commemorating the local/family dead, observing national red-letter days (Constitution Day, Memorial Day, religious holidays), participating in cultural events (e.g., Hindus collectively bathing in the Ganges river to cleanse themselves spiritually), helping needy people, celebrating personal rites of passage in a national spirit, dressing in a particular “national” way,


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participating in national movements and associations (e.g., in defence of the national language), or even little things like going about one’s daily routines in a ritualistic way informed by national traditions and cultural habits (see variously, Giles and Middleton 1995; Hermand and Steakley 1996; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Mosse 1975; Wever et al. 2004). Some of these practices originate in the elite cultures of a particular nation state, others in contemporary national symbols or events, and yet others in folk traditions, which now became attributed with national meaning, sometimes by way of the intermediary of “proper” religious allegiance or events. Ritualism and National Identity after World War II and the Global Turn4 Although World War II marks the end of the formative years of nationalism, it very nearly destroyed the idea of nationalism at the same time. This is, of course, a paradoxical statement. The first half implies that nationalism as a template of identity formation between people and state provided a benchmark of legitimate and “deep” political and cultural organisation for the future. The second half suggests the opposite, namely that nationalism had proved itself to be a destructive principle, and that by the end of World War II its political legitimacy and usefulness had been eroded and nearly exhausted. What is interesting about the post-War phase is that in a very real sense both statements are true—and the way they are true has consequences both for the assessment of national ritualism before the War and for its forms and permutations after the War. There is a direct link between the negative, dysfunctional and ultimately destructive components of European nationalism and the imperative, directive and militarised forms of ritualism characteristic of the period between 1880 and 1945. The nationalisation of the masses was preponderantly a political, top-down project, simultaneously undertaken in a number of different sovereign entities, for very similar reasons, and in roughly comparable forms. To a large extent, it was exclusive, building on clear-cut territorial, political and cultural demarcations 4 For clarification of the concept of the global turn, see the discussion in Hedetoft 2003b.

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against the Other and historically on mentalities of imperial rule and racially justified hierarchies of superiority and inferiority. It is little wonder, therefore, that the nationalisation of the masses, significantly underpinned by stylised rituals of belonging, had chauvinist and revanchist implications like fascism, racism, ethnic cleansing and all-out international war, as well as more pacific, imaginary, and seemingly innocuous forms of patriotic, quasi-religious attachment to kith and kin, landscapes, traditions, persons, events and symbols. The immediate impact of World War II in this sense was to decouple the negative from the positive elements. By virtue of the defeat of Nazism—which was simultaneously the political embodiment of the most imperative forms of national ritualism—it managed to delegitimate, in Europe more than in the US and parts of the Third and Fourth Worlds, the identity of the strong, authoritarian state and the unabashed modalities of ritualism connected with the semi-religious cult of the dictator, with honourable death in the national cause, and with explicit racism as an ideology underpinning national identities. On the other hand, the victors were nation states proud of their national identities. In addition, a new international order emerged, based on national independence and decolonisation, formalised in a number of international institutions, and underpinned by the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948)—adding new moral impetus to nationalism and fuelling new symbols and rituals of belonging, eventually in the defeated European states as well. The ideological tenor of this more moderate, open and democratic form of national identity was less hostile and chauvinistic, more egalitarian and cooperative than in the formative phase of nationalist modernity. It did away with the all-dominant militaristic and imperative nature of ritualism evident in the prior phase, leading to a significant reshuffling in the order of priority of the different subcategories of rituals of belonging, and embedding these more solidly in the everyday imaginary and the “banal” practices of people, as well as in institutions of democratic governance and civil society (Billig 1995; Miller 1995; Tamir 1993; Wiebe 2002). In some ways, this has implied a normalisation of rituals of belonging. Older forms have survived, in some national contexts more than others, but the relationship of dominance and importance among them has shifted, new forms have been added, and the collective political and semiotic implications have changed. This last change


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is not due mainly to the internationalisation addressed here, but to processes of globalisation proper, which in many ways embody a serious challenge to the proto-religious dimension of nationalism, since they threaten to erode some of its conditioning variables and bring about what René Girard has called a “sacrificial crisis” and Marvin and Ingle term a totem crisis: “when there is uncertainty about [any of] the essential borders that demarcate our group” (Marvin and Ingle 1996, 4). The remainder of the paper briefly examines the changes and challenges that exist in this domain. When dead American soldiers are returned to the USA from Iraq or Afghanistan, it happens secretly, under the cover of darkness, and as far as possible out of the public eye. This is an important indication that traditional forms of both heroism and martyrdom for the national cause are ailing, even in the nation state that can otherwise afford the luxury of overt national pride, militaristic traditions, and extensive internal as well as external sovereignty. The root cause of this development is not that the American people in general have lost interest in evidence of US military achievements or proof of heroism in the national cause, but rather the disaggregation between this idealism of sacrificial nationhood and its perceived non-existent political and moral reality. America’s civic religious values have been denuded of their reality correlate. The mythology of national identity finds no confirmation in factual developments at the level of state, since the actions and policies of the Bush administration have been stripped of their historical, moral and mythical legitimacy. In a more general sense, it is the decoupling of nations from states, the attendant distrust between masses and elites, the mutation of borders, the decline of territorial sovereignty, and the difficulties of maintaining ethnically exclusive Us/Them dichotomies in increasingly diverse societies that have placed the sacrality of national attachment in jeopardy, made secrecy an expedient instrument for keeping public opinion quiescent, and eroded the deferential structures that used to keep dissent and dissatisfaction in check. Hence, even in the USA, the citizen-soldier is in a very real sense passé, not as a nostalgic memory or ideal national figure, but as an institutional fact and a celebrated centre of real, practical, transformative, existential action (Kennedy 2005). Armies are now professional rather than conscripted. Militarism and the cult of citizenries’ muscular defence of their respective fatherlands are

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today sentimentally commemorative (keeping memories of moral and just wars of the past alive) rather than facts of contemporary political and cultural life. Ascribed martyrdom is out of sync with postmodern life and mentality (in the case of Islam, it is, as we know, vehemently denounced),5 lacks the necessary authority to reinstate it to a position of legitimacy, and is certainly dysfunctional as a magic cleanser and unifier of the national community—if nevertheless tolerated as a prerogative of political leadership. And legitimate heroism has been largely relegated to the civic, domestic, even private realm of practice and virtuous deeds. In this sense, we are witnessing a second privatisation of the sacred realm—now in the form of a separation of the virtues of national existentialism between the political and the private, or at least the civic sphere (cf. Habermas and Ratzinger 2005). Modernity privatised religion; now globalisation is privatising its replacement as well. In the meantime, statesmen introduce new demands on civic loyalty and national cohesion, and new forms of enemy imagery—legitimated by reference to the need for heightened securitisation of the state due to an environment characterised by graver global risk. These bifurcations are rooted not just in the erosion of sovereignty due to globalisation and the weakening legitimacy of the national (as a totalising framework for the wishes, interests and aspirations of the citizen), but also in the ever more apparent asymmetries of power, conflicts and identity structures in the global arena (which also, of course, originate in globalising processes). The threatening Other is no longer a symmetrical Other, as the “war on terror” specifically and Western Islamophobia generally testify. In that regard, the Cold War and its neat lines of bipolar confrontation are a thing of the past. Today, identities that unite people in existentialist, trans-empirical terms spring from a complex bundle of national, transnational, religious, cultural and mythical origins. In many cases, the “enemy” is no longer a tangible and visible entity, but a more shadowy existence, which in a few cases may have some real substance, but more often is a figment of paranoid Western imagery or the result of politically trumped-up moral panic of

5 The difference results from the fact that while martyrdom within “our own” cultural imagery is regarded as old hat, misguided, but nonetheless understandable, in the Western idiom of Muslim Orientalism, martyrdom is ascribed with a quality of evil intent and irrationality of mind that ostensibly takes it beyond the terms of our imagination, and can hence only be denounced (I am indebted to Philip Schlesinger for calling my attention to this point).


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ontological emergencies—Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben’s “state of exception” elevated to the status of permanence, or Kant’s perpetual peace transformed into its opposite (cf. Agamben 2005; Kant 1984/1795; Schmitt 1996/1932). All such reactions to the new asymmetries of identity structures and concomitant sentiments of ontological insecurity are obviously, inter alia, attempts at retaining the profane sacrality of modern national identities and reinstating a situation of “totem legitimacy”. The same applies to the current fashion, in numerous countries, to adopt the American way and ask naturalised citizens—even non-citizens with temporary or permanent residence permits—to take oaths of allegiance to their new political community in formalised ritual events. The threats of globalisation engender, of course, national counter-reactions of an affective nature. But the compulsiveness of the reactions and their background—they take place because of increases in the number and depth of transnational identity configurations (e.g., multiple allegiances) and in the context of a waning legitimacy of national political leadership due to objective changes in the global political-economic landscape—indicate that if the proto-religious element of nationalism is to survive in highly developed, “Christian” nation states, it can only happen in civic, symbolic and cultural forms that are detached from politically exclusivist imagery and decoupled from bombastic and directive rituals of heroism, sacrifice, honour and glory.6 Whether or not this is a realistic scenario or a utopia is a moot question that needs to be resolved. The answer may well rest on the success of different states managing globalisation and migration challenges, in economic and human terms, without resorting to either culturalistic racism or exclusive securitisation discourses to solve the conundrum of how to balance cohesion with openness, collective identity with individual self-fulfilment. What seems to be beyond doubt is that the “totem crisis” of national sacrality—its “claim to transcendence” (Herzfeld 1992, 6)—cannot be overcome by revitalising old solutions or revisiting the imperative teleologies of classical modernity. Furthermore, the alternatives currently in view are not convincing: democracy is a meagre substitute for heroic deeds; anti-immigrant populism holds 6

The situation is probably somewhat different in other types of nation states, particularly those that, in diverse ways, effect a more intimate connection between religious affiliation and national identity (like Hindu nationalism in India, Islamic nationalism in Pakistan, or Jewish nationalism in Israel).

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little long-term salience, its opportunistic and mean-spirited nature being too clearly in evidence; “civilizational” values like tolerance and human rights are either too “thin” or too trans-national; and, finally, “proper” religiosity as a public, civic unifier cannot be awakened from the dead without jeopardising the very modernity of nations, which it is meant to rescue. People in this modern age may still feel a need for identification with a belief system of stable belonging and transcendent promise. Increasingly, however, this basically social need is out of sync with the forms and institutions of people’s civic and political affiliation—something that is apparent in respect to: “indigenous” Europeans shopping around in the marketplace of neo-religious offerings; Muslims hurt by public denigrations of the prophet they have chosen as an object of worship and an authoritative model for social behaviour; cultural elites trying to convince both themselves and others that universal democratic organising principles are evidence of specific national virtues; and believers in multiculturalist solutions advocating—against increasingly negative odds—a new balance between ethnic particularism and political allegiance. As William Butler Yeats poignantly stated in his poem The Second Coming, almost a century ago, “things fall apart, the centre cannot hold”. As he suspected, however, he was only partly right. European modernity had a substitute for religious devotion in store for the 20th century, a new terrible, yet compelling centre “slouching towards Bethlehem to be born”—the civil religion of national identity. The question is whether today, in a postmodern age characterised by qualitatively different global challenges, nationalism can reinvent itself to continue playing this role, or if we are facing a future when the universally accepted centre of identity and belonging is decomposing into its constituent fragments without any recognisable replacement. References Agamben, Giorgio. 2005. State of Exception. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Allison, Lincoln, ed. 1993. The Changing Politics of Sport. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Anderson, Benedict. 1983/1991. Imagined Communities. London: Verso. Baden-Powell, Robert. 1908/2004. Scouting for Boys. A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship. Edited by Elleke Boehmer. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Barkey, Karen, and Mark von Hagen, eds. 1997. After Empire: Multiethnic Societies and Nation-Building. The Soviet Union and the Russian, Habsburg, and Ottoman Empires. Boulder: Westview.


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Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage. Boswell, David, and Jessica Evans, eds. 1999. Representing the Nation: A Reader. London and New York: Routledge. Boyer, Pascal. 2001. Religion Explained. The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books. Breuilly, John. 1982. Nationalism and the State. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Burleigh, Michael, and Wolfgang Wippermann. 1991. The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cannadine, David. 1983. The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the “Invention of Tradition”, c. 1820–1977. In The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, 101–164. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Czaplicka, John J., and Blair Ruble, eds. 2003. Composing Urban History and the Constitution of Civic Identities. Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/The Johns Hopkins University Press. Delanty, Gerard. 1995. Inventing Europe. Houndmills: Macmillan. Doyle, Michael W. 1986. Empires. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Edelman, Murray. 1985. The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Second and revised edition. Urbana: The University of Illinois Press. Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Giles, Judy, and Tim Middleton, eds. 1995. Writing Englishness 1900–1950. London & New York: Routledge. Habermas, Jürgen, and Joseph Ratzinger. 2005. Dialektik der Säkularisierung—über Vernunft und Religion. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder. Hall, John, ed. 1998. The State of the Nation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hayes, Carlton. 1960. Nationalism: A Religion. New York: Macmillan. Hedetoft, Ulf. 1990a. War and Death as Touchstones of National Identity. Aalborg: The European Research Programme, Aalborg University. —— 1990b. War, Race, Soccer, Immigration: Observations on the Systematic Configuration of English and Alien Characteristics in Great Britain at the Turn of the 19th Century. In Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining, ed. Flemming Røgilds. Studies in Cultural Sociology no. 28, 76–92. Copenhagen: Akademisk Forlag. —— 1995. Signs of Nations. Aldershot: Dartmouth. —— 2003a. Serving Two Masters: Sport between Nationalism and Globalism. The Global Turn. National Encounters with the World. Chapter 4, 65–88. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. —— 2003b. The Global Turn. National Encounters with the World. Aalborg: Aalborg University Press. —— 2008. National Rituals of Belonging. In Nations and Nationalism. A Global Historical Overview. Eds. Guntram H. Herb and David H. Kaplan. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO. Hermand, Jost, and James Steakley, eds. 1996. Heimat, Nation, Fatherland. The German Sense of Belonging. New York: Peter Lang. Herzfeld, Michael. 1992. The Social Production of Indifference. Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracy. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1990. Nations and Nationalism Since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, eds. 1983. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Horne, John, ed. 1997. State, Society and Mobilization in Europe during the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Kant, Immanuel. 1984/1795. Zum Ewigen Frieden [Perpetual Peace]. Stuttgart: Reclam. Kapferer, Bruce. 1988. Legends of People, Myths of State. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Kenez, Peter. 1985. The Birth of the Propaganda State: Soviet Methods of Mass Mobilization, 1917–1929. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennedy, David M. 2005. “Bring back the citizen-soldier.” International Herald Tribune, July 26. Kershaw, Ian, Gerhard Wilke, and Detlev Peukert. 2001. The “Hitler Myth”: Image and Reality in the Third Reich. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kertzer, David I. 1988. Ritual, Politics and Power. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kidd, William, and Brian Murdoch, eds. 2004. Memory and Memorials. The Commemorative Century. Aldershot: Ashgate. Mangan, J.A., and James Walvin, eds. 1987. Manliness and Morality. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Marvin, Carolyn, and David W. Ingle. 1996. Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Revisiting Civil Religion. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 64 (4), Winter, 767–780. ——1999. Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacKenzie, John. 1984. Propaganda and Empire. The Manipulation of British Public Opinion 1880–1960. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Miller, David. 1995. On Nationality. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mosse, George E. 1975. The Nationalization of the Masses. New York: H. Fertig. ——1990. Fallen Soldiers. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nora, Pierre et al. 1984–91. Les Lieux de Mémoire. Paris: Gallimard. Pearson, Karl. 1901. National Life from the Standpoint of Science. London: Adam and Charles Black. Renan, Joseph Ernest. 1882/1990. What is a nation? [original title “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?”]. In Nation and Narration, ed. Homi Bhabha. London: Routledge. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1762/1950. The Social Contract and Discourses. New York: Dutton. Samuel, Raphael, ed. 1989. Patriotism. The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, vols. I–III. London: Routledge. Schieder, Theodor. 1992. Typologie und Erscheinungsformen des Nationalstaats in Europa. In Nationalismus und Nationalstaat, ed. Otto Dann and Hans-Ulrich Wehler. 65–86. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Schmitt, Carl. 1996/1932. The Concept of the Political, translated by George Schwab. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Searle, G.R. 1976. Eugenics and Politics in Britain, 1900–1914. Leyden: Noordhoff International Publishing. Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell. —— 2000. The “Sacred” Dimension of Nationalism. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29 (3), 791–814. Stölting, Erhard. 1988. Die Wiedervereinigung als Droge Potentiale des Nationalismus. In Von der Gnade der geschenkten Nation, ed. Hajo Funke. Berlin: Rotbuch. Tamir, Yael. 1993. Liberal Nationalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Turner, Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-structure. Chicago: Aldine Publishing. —— 1974. Dramas, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Voigt, Rüdiger, ed. 1989. Symbole der Politik. Politik der Symbole. Opladen: Leske + Budrich.


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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TRANSNATIONAL CIVIL RELIGION: THE FOURTH OF JULY IN DENMARK Margit Warburg Civil religion is a construct linked to issues of national cohesion and the legitimation of the state. This was the meaning when Jean-Jacques Rousseau introduced the term in 1762 in his classic treatise, Du Contrat Social: Now it certainly matters to the State that each Citizen have a Religion which makes him love his duties; but the dogmas of this Religion are only of concern to the State or to its members insofar as the dogmas bear on morality, and on the duties which anyone who professes it is bound to fulfill towards others (Gourevitch 1997, 150).

For Rousseau, civil religion is a tool to justify and augment citizens’ solidarity with their state by referring to higher, unquestionable principles (Cristi 2001, 16–30). Rousseauian civil religion is a “top-down” civil religion. Robert N. Bellah (1967), of course, referred to Rousseau when he revived and re-interpreted the concept of civil religion in his likewise famous and debated article, “Civil Religion in America” (Bellah 1967). Bellah shows that references to God have been an integral part of American political life ever since the foundation of the republic, and that this reference was used by several presidents in their calls for support in decisive political moments. In this respect, American civil religion was created and sustained in “top-down” processes. However, from the outset, Bellah also argued for considering civil religion a Durkheimian religious dimension of society—a “bottom-up” civil religion.1 Unfortunately, Bellah’s dual interpretation of the concept of civil religion was not made explicit in “Civil Religion in America”, and this lack of clarity became the substance of an important, later criticism of 1 Bellah’s arguments are mainly elaborated in footnote 1 in “Civil Religion in America”; however, they are also implicit premises for several examples of what he considers expressions of American civil religion, cf. page 3 in “Introducing Civil Religion Nationalism and Globalisation” in this book.

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Bellah’s understanding of civil religion (Cristi and Dawson 2007).2 I shall return to this issue below. The very idea of the existence of a civil religion in contemporary modern societies, however, has been widely accepted in sociology—one exception is Richard Fenn, who opposed it in a debate with Bellah (Fenn 1976; Bellah 1976). Most of the theoretical discussions of civil religion and many of the examples in the literature are placed in an American context (Bellah 1967; Jones and Richey 1974; Bourg 1976; Gehrig 1981; Mathiesen 1989; Cristi 2001, 47–89; Cristi and Dawson 2007). Very early on, however, the question was raised whether modern civil religion is something particular to the USA, where the separation of state and church plays a prominent role in its history, or if the concept can be generalised to other nations (Coleman 1970). Studies of civil religion in the Nordic nation-states are influenced by the historical position of the Evangelical-Lutheran churches as state-sponsored majority churches and by the national, ethnic and religious homogeneity of the majority populations of these countries. The general conclusion from the discussion of civil religion among Nordic sociologists of religion is that the Evangelical-Lutheran national churches not only present citizens with Lutheran Christianity on a broad confessional basis, but also that the churches in many respects fulfil a role of civil religion (Harmati 1984; Riis 1985; Gustafsson 1997, 187–189; Sundback 2000; Warburg 2005a, 2005b). This, however, does not necessarily mean that Danish civil religion, for example, is completely contained within the frame of the Danish Evangelical-Lutheran church, and my studies of several national rituals in Denmark indicate that the two are only partially overlapping (Warburg 2005a, 2005b, 2006a). As I will show, this also holds for the case analysed in this chapter, the Fourth of July festival in Denmark. Transnational Civil Religion—Hypothetical or Real? The prevailing view in the civil religion discussion is that civil religion emphasises the divine providence of what is believed to be the special characteristics of a particular nation, and that therefore each nation-

2

Bellah’s “Civil Religion in America” raised a lively discussion in American sociology during the 1970s, and Bellah’s understanding of civil religion has been criticised from many angles (Hughey 1983, 157–173; Mathisen 1989; Furseth 1990). However, it is beyond the scope of the present paper to review this discussion here.

transnational civil religion

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state has its own civil religion—if it has any at all.3 With the nationstate standing as a cornerstone in civil religion, it therefore appears as a contradiction in terms to conceive of transnational civil religion. By transnational civil religion I mean a civil religion that does not just address the citizens of one nation, but several nations or, in a wider context, a truly international audience. The possible presence or emergence of transnational civil religion today must evidently be seen in the light of globalisation, which profoundly affects the role of the nation states relative to their citizens. The process of globalisation tends to dilute the traditional functions of the nation-state, including its control over the economy and over the legal status of its subjects. Thereby, globalisation undermines the integrative forces of national democratic citizenship and leaves an increasing proportion of citizens in marginalised sub-groups (Habermas 1996). Since the civil religion of a democratic state is a symbolic representation of citizen Gemeinschaft, globalisation challenges the civil religion centred around the nation-state. At the same time, globalisation has strengthened transnational ideologies, such as human rights, which have civil religious connotations and most probably will colour emerging transnational civil religious elements (Spickard 1999). The theme of globalisation and transnational civil religion will be expounded later in this chapter as a part of the analysis of the Fourth of July festival in Denmark. The apparent paradoxical juxtaposition of “transnational” and “civil religion” is intriguing for a researcher studying Danish civil religion, who has analysed the unique event of the Rebild festival. This festival is held every year in Denmark to celebrate the Fourth of July. In light of the fact that the Fourth of July is an American national holiday, not a Danish one, it is remarkable that since 1912 this day has been celebrated on Danish soil at an outdoor occasion that gathers thousands of Danes together with hundreds of Americans, mostly of Danish descent. It is the biggest Fourth of July celebration outside the USA. The festival is organised by a private committee; yet it is endorsed officially by the governments of both nations. The President of the USA delivers an address through the ambassador to Denmark, and 3

It has for instance been argued that Canada has no civil religion because of the historical tradition of a strong regionalism and the bipolarity of the French- and English-speaking population groups (Kim 1993). This conclusion, however, is modified by Roger O’Toole elsewhere in this book.

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the Danish government is represented by a senior minister who gives a speech. Military units from both countries are present, both flags are saluted, and the Queen of Denmark gives her royal support as protector of the organising society and as an occasional guest. Finally, God is invoked to bless both countries and their heads of state in an opening prayer. All together, the celebration is a most unusual blend of civil society, national authority and transcendent power, which may best be characterised as a joint civil religious ritual of Denmark and the United States. This example of the sharing of a civil religious event between two nations makes the Danish Fourth of July festival at Rebild interesting in the study of civil religion in general. It seems to be a genuine example of a transnational civil religious event, and it is as such that I shall analyse it. In this context, it is noteworthy that Bellah already in his first paper on civil religion pondered on the possible existence of transnational civil religion: So far the flickering flame of the United Nations burns too low to be the focus of a cult, but the emergence of a genuine trans-national sovereignty would certainly change this. It would necessitate the incorporation of vital international symbolism into our civil religion, or, perhaps a better way of putting it, it would result in American civil religion becoming simply one part of a new civil religion of the world. It is useless to speculate on the form such a civil religion might take, though it obviously would draw on religious traditions beyond the sphere of Biblical religion alone. Fortunately, since the American civil religion is not the worship of the American nation but an understanding of the American experience in the light of ultimate and universal reality, the reorganization entailed by such a new situation need not disrupt the American civil religion’s continuity. A world civil religion could be accepted as a fulfillment and not a denial of American civil religion. Indeed, such an outcome has been the eschatological hope of American civil religion from the beginning. To deny such an outcome would be to deny the meaning of America itself (Bellah 1967, 18).

Bellah envisages that a world civil religion might develop from what he calls the American experience, because this experience essentially concerns values that Bellah regards as indisputable “in the light of ultimate and universal reality”.4 This development would be spurred by the 4 The idea that an international “religion of humanity” centered around humanistic ideals may eventually emerge was already proposed by Émile Durkheim, to whom


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“emergence of a genuine trans-national sovereignty”, that is, a kind of world political superstructure. Bellah also tries to dismiss the national factor in American civil religion by declaring that it “is not the worship of the American nation”. Much later, Steven Tipton resumed Bellah’s discussion of a possible transnational civil religion in a form loyal to the ideas and values of Western democracies (Tipton 2005). Tipton notes with a diplomatic understatement that in 2005 it was “open to debate” if the world was seeing the emergence of “a genuinely trans-national sovereignty” which “promises new symbolic forms of civil religion” (Tipton 2005, 55). He draws attention to the important role of voluntary organisations of civil society as expressions of popular will to express rather diverse loyalties to entities other than the nation-state, and considers these organisations as important potential forces promoting global civil religion. Tipton also claims that respecting a diversity of “bottom-up” world-views, even those that do not conform to the Western ideals of individualist liberal democracy, would be more in line with Bellah’s stance on civil religion than the state-centred view of civil religion would be, which is implicated through the emphasis on a trans-national sovereignty. Thus, without mentioning it directly, Tipton notes that both Durkheimian, “bottom-up” and Rousseauian, “top-down” views could be discerned in Bellah’s concept of civil religion, also in relation to his visions of a global civil religion. Tipton, finally, envisages that in the future some common humanistic ideals would be central to “distinctive yet overlapping forms of civil religion emerging around the globe” (Tipton 2005, 65). In this chapter, I shall not pursue the more ideological aspects of Bellah’s and Tipton’s visions of the possible emergence of a world civil religion.5 Instead, I shall discuss their propositions in light of the Danish Fourth of July festival at Rebild. The specific civil religious elements will be emphasised in the detailed description of the festival. The case will show that a “genuine trans-national sovereignty” is no prerequisite (as

Bellah also refers in one of his later works as the “high priest and theologian of the civil religion of the Third Republic” (Bellah 1973, x, quoted by Wallace 1977). 5 Tipton clearly concurs with Bellah’s political views in “Civil Religion in America” when he uses ideological phrases such as “the challenge of responsible American action in a revolutionary world today”, “nationalistic aspirations and religious convictions of other peoples . . . require our respect”, and “Such recognition is no less essential to guide our aim to realize these rights in a just world of independent, equal, and self-governing states, and of interdependent peoples who need one another to bear the burdens of humankind” (Tipton 2005, 65).

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Bellah implied) for the development of civil religious elements shared by nations across borders and even worshipped by their citizens together. Furthermore, the sharing of common elements between national civil religions does not exclude the worship of the individual nations, an issue that Tipton does not consider. I agree with Tipton that there is no indication that Bellah’s one world civil religion incorporating and superseding all national civil religions will be realised in the near future. Instead, I therefore accept Tipton’s idea of “distinctive yet overlapping forms of civil religion”. I see these forms as a conglomerate of civil religious elements emerging from the partial sharing of civil religions of congenial nations. The Fourth of July festival in Denmark is such an example of this sharing. In the analysis of the Danish Fourth of July festival at Rebild, I shall stress the importance of the issue of “bottom-up” versus “top-down” processes in civil religion. This distinction was raised first by Hammond (1980) and by Demerath and Williams (1985), and later pursued by Cristi (2001, 114–136). Cristi suggests that the two types of interpretation are best used as ideal types, which are opposite in relation to the origin of the elements of civil religion (Cristi 2001, 11–13, 237–242). Both interpretations have obvious limitations when applied separately. The Durkheimian interpretation with its functionalist implications tends to emphasise concrete examples of civil religion as expressions of the traditions of the masses, adopting a majority-oriented, hegemonic and static view of civil religion. The Rousseauian interpretation pays attention to the political use of civil religious themes, but it does not take into account the issue of popular acceptance of such themes. Cristi and Dawson suggest, based on empirical studies from Chile under Pinochet, that if there are largely indifferent or negative reactions towards the introduction of a civil religion from above, it will most probably fail (Cristi and Dawson 1996). In many cases both interpretations seem to be needed for understanding and analysing concrete examples of civil religion (Cristi 2001, 223–242; Warburg 2008). As I have suggested in detail elsewhere, the two interpretations are best adopted as a pair of complementary views on a complex phenomenon instead of seeing the two interpretations as opposing views (Warburg 2008). The celebration of the Fourth of July in Denmark is a prime example of this need to pay attention to both a Durkheimian and a Rousseauian interpretation: The festival is not organised by the state, nor by the national church—it is organised by


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civil society, but both state and church are invited to play a prominent role in the programme. The Fourth of July Festival in Denmark The idea of celebrating the Fourth of July on Danish soil arose when a group of Danish-Americans met in Racine, Wisconsin in 1906 and decided to establish a Danish-American society with the purpose of maintaining and strengthening the cultural bonds between the emigrants and Danes in Denmark (Qvistorff 1987; Riismøller 1952). A Danish businessman in Chicago, Max Henius, became the prime mover in realising the festival. Helped by donations from Danish-Americans all over the USA, he was able to buy about one square kilometre of hilly heathland in Jutland south of Aalborg in a small hamlet called Rebild. This area was representative of those regions of Denmark that, because of their poverty, gave rise to a massive emigration to the United States in the years from the late 1860s to around 1910. A foundation was established and the area was donated to the Danish state as Denmark’s first national park, on the conditions that it would be preserved in its natural beauty and that the Danish-Americans could hold their annual rally in the hills (Qvistorff 1987, 54). The Rebild committee chaired by Max Henius was in charge of the inauguration of the Rebild National Park in 1912. The Danish King attended, and the rally attracted between ten and fifteen thousand people. There were speeches, community singing and greetings from President William Taft who served as honorary president of the Rebild committee. The rain poured down the whole day of the inauguration, and it was described, for posterity, with the following words: “This was the day when the heavens opened and gave the first Rebild Festival its real baptism” (Qvistorff 1987, 64). This sentence indicates a ritualisation of the inauguration of the Rebild festival—at least retrospectively. However, the sentence hits the nail on the head: Rebild National Park could not properly fulfil its purpose unless it reflected the history and mythology of the Fourth of July festival. To do so convincingly, it was necessary to take hold of the land ritually and establish what historians, following Pierre Nora, call a “site of remembrance” (lieu de mémoire) (Nora 1996, xvii).

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margit warburg Taking Hold of the Land in Rebild

The expression “taking hold of the land” was coined by historian Terence Ranger. He describes how the white missionaries and settlers in Zimbabwe in the 1890s consciously mapped existing holy places and paid attention to old traditions when they established new holy places of their own (Ranger 1987). This proved to be an effective way of claiming power over land and people. The Rebild committee also took hold of the land, drawing upon local traditions and creating a new site of remembrance. For example, according to a local myth, it was the giant wyvern, also called the Midgard serpent, which originally formed the Rebild Hills by the ferocious whipping of its tail. By 1913, Henius had built his own guest house on the slope of one of the hills, and he decorated its interior with motifs from Old Norse mythology, including a large illustration of the Midgard serpent (Qvistorff 1987, 15, 72). My interpretation of this decoration is that by painting the serpent on the inside of his house, Henius took hold of the land by symbolically controlling its creator. Max Henius also created another and more conspicuous reference to the mythological past of Rebild. According to tradition, in the twelfth century, a giant became angry about a newly erected church in a neighbouring village. He therefore took a big boulder from one of the hilltops and threw it at the church (Qvistorff 1987, 80). However, the giant missed his target, the boulder was lost, and the hilltop was deprived of its proper boulder. In December 1923, Henius corrected this by having a large boulder moved by sledge from the forest to the Rebild Hills, and he erected it on the same hilltop that was said to have lost its boulder because of the giant. Many Danes believe that the part of Jutland where Rebild is located was the homeland of the Cimbrians—the feared Germanic tribe that invaded Rome but was ultimately defeated in 101 BCE by Marius.6

6 The historical facts about the Cimbrians include the following. They were an ironage tribe that migrated in the second century BCE from Scandinavia, probably from Jutland, and wandered southwards into Roman territories. They defeated the Roman forces in several battles, of which the battle of Arausio in Southern Gaul in 105 BCE was one of the bloodiest in Roman military history with Roman losses amounting to 80,000. In 101 BCE, the Cimbrians crossed the Alps, and Rome now faced the most serious military threat since the second Punic War in 218–201 BCE. After some initial defeats, the Roman army, under the command of Consul Gaius Marius, annihilated the Cimbrians at the battle at Vercellae on the plain of the river Po in 101 BCE. In


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Henius seemed to have liked the idea of this Cimbrian homeland so much that he inferred that perhaps the Cimbrians came from the very locality of Rebild. He therefore had a sculptor shape the top of the boulder in the form of the sacred bull of the Cimbrians and applied an inscription on the base of the stone in fake runic script: “The Cimbrians set off from this region 120 years before the birth of Christ” (Qvistorff 1987, 104). With this act, Max Henius created a monument in Rebild, which may remind the Danes of their glorious past as emigrants, not only to America in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries but also further back in history, before the Vikings to the primordial mythological past of the iron age, where the names of the first Danish kings are remembered only through myth. In addition, Henius restored cosmic order by replacing the lost boulder. Max Henius’ next project was to strengthen the ties to America, and in 1934 the Lincoln Log Cabin near the main entrance to the park was inaugurated. It was built in a pioneer style with timber from all over the USA and paid for by Danish-Americans (Qvistorff 1987, 110–114).7 Inside, there is a museum with Native American and pioneer artefacts, all gifts from Danish-Americans. Outside stands a giant totem pole, a copy of the Kolteen Totem Pole in the Hyde Park Roosevelt Museum in New York state, carved by a Danish-American (Qvistorff 1987, 132). Later, several other projects took hold of the land, such as a statue of an emigrating Mormon family, commemorating the over 12,000 Danish Mormons who emigrated to the USA.8 A large proportion of the Mormons came from the relatively poor northern and western Jutland. Close to the Mormon statue there are busts of nobilities connected with the park, and in the hills there is a World War II memorial for allied pilots who were shot down over Denmark in the line of duty, i.e., supplying the Danish resistance movement with weapons. All Denmark, the Cimbrians are believed to have had their homeland in Jutland and to have worshipped the bull—at least according to Danish Nobel-prize writer Johannes V. Jensen, who came from an area close to Rebild and who wrote about the Cimbrians in a national epic. 7 The original house burned down in 1993 and was rebuilt in the same style the year after, see http://www.rebildselskabet.dk/default.asp?pageId=73&mainId=12&lang=UK. 8 It is with good reason that the Danish Mormon emigrants have their own monument in the Rebild Park. More than 12,000 Danish Mormons emigrated to Utah in 1850–1900. This number is high compared with the other Scandinavian countries, and in the late 19th century, Danes made up the second-largest national group in the Salt Lake Valley, after the British (Schmidt 1965, 14–15; Hvidt 1976, 108).

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these tokens of national history add to the symbolic significance of the park. The religious symbolism in Rebild Park is indigenous if anything, and it is represented by the pre-Christian, mythological Cimbrian bull and the Native American totem pole. There are no Christian symbols in the park, nor does the Lincoln Log Cabin museum have any reference to the Danish churches in the USA, despite the fact that they were and still are a cornerstone in Danish immigrant culture abroad. A survey of the archived festival programmes shows that, in the years just after World War II, the festival included no references to God, while in more recent years the programme included a common prayer, usually led by the Bishop of Aalborg.9 In 2004, an open-air Lutheran service was added as one of the warm-up events before the programme proper. So, besides native religions, Christianity now has a prominent place in the festival. The Festival Today In 2004, when I attended the festival, the programme began with the President of the Rebild Society striking the Liberty Bell. Then followed: • Hoisting of the Danish flag, saluted by Danish and American military personnel • Community singing: “Der er et yndigt land” (national anthem of Denmark) • Hoisting of the American flag, saluted by Danish and American military personnel • Community singing: “The Star-Spangled Banner” (national anthem of the USA) • A prayer This prayer was as follows:10

9 Danish Emigrant Archives, Aalborg. The archives are rather incomplete with regard to material on the Fourth of July festivals. The programmes for 1948 and 1949 did not include a prayer, while the programme in 1972 did. It is likely that once this prayer was introduced, it became a permanent feature of the festival, so from the present material it can be concluded that the common prayer was introduced between 1949 and 1972. 10 Prayer by Dean Arne Mumgaard, in the absence of the Bishop, 4 July 2004 (author’s translation).


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Eternal, almighty God, creator of heaven and earth. We thank you for the earth which you have created for us as our common home. We thank you for the countries and the people to which each of us belong. Thank you for the community in home, family and kin. Thank you for the many gifts of life. Give us love, courage and imagination to use your gifts properly, so that they may become a blessing and pleasure for all people. We pray to you for our fatherland, Denmark, and for the Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II, for Prince Henrik, for Crown Prince Frederik, and for Crown Princess Mary. We pray for the American people and for the President of the USA, George W. Bush. Bless our people and their leaders ever to work for peace and liberty, justice and reconciliation between all people on the earth, with which you have entrusted us.

The prayer was followed by the Lord’s Prayer and a blessing in English. Following the introductory ritual, the rest of the programme was a varied and comprehensive mixture of popular entertainment, music, speeches, the giving away of prizes and community singing. The performing artists were an equal mix of Danish and American popular artists. The programme ended as always with everybody singing Robert Burns’ “Auld Lang Syne” and its Danish equivalent, a paraphrased version in Jutland dialect, called “Skuld gammel venskab rejn forgo” and sung to the same tune.11 It is evident that the Fourth of July in Rebild is a civil religious ritual, with the hoisting of the flags, the singing of the national anthems and the prayer in which God is asked to protect the heads of state. The prayer is not a standard Evangelical-Lutheran prayer, but has a general, inclusive form that fits this inclusive civil religious ritual. The third line in the prayer, “We thank you for the countries and the people to which each of us belongs”, indicates that these countries and their people are God-given. Furthermore, the whole event takes place on a site that is full of references to the history and mythology of emigration from Denmark.

11

This Scottish song is popular and well-known in most of the English-speaking world. It is traditionally sung on New Year’s Eve in the USA. The Danish song was written in 1927 by the Jutland poet Jeppe Aakjær, with much inspiration from Robert Burns’ poetry.

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Highlights of the programme are, of course, the speeches by the invited speakers, a Dane and an American, and the two addresses from the American president and the Danish government, respectively. The address from the American president is usually read by the American ambassador to Denmark, and the address from the Danish government is read by one of its senior ministers if not the prime minister. These two addresses show that the festival at Rebild is not just a private rally, but is a civil religious event of considerable political significance. High-ranking politicians have participated as speakers or special guests, including Richard Nixon, Hubert H. Humphrey, George Romney, Ronald Reagan, George Bush senior and most Danish prime ministers (Qvistorff 1987, 138–142). The Rousseauian element in this joint Danish-American Fourth of July festival is pronounced, indeed, and the festival could not survive as a civil religious event, if the two governments decided not to be represented. In 2004 and 2006, the address from the Danish government was read by one of its senior Ministers, Bertel Haarder, who in both years emphasised the sharing of the democratic ideals between the USA and Denmark (Haarder 2004, 2006). In 2004, the Minister also urged the audience to remember the soldiers who fought and died sixty years ago at the allied invasion of France. They died in the thousands, he said, because their political leaders had decided that the democracies must stand up against aggression, tyranny, oppression and genocide. It was not an option for them to negotiate. The Minister then drew a parallel to the war in Iraq, where Denmark participated from 2003 to 2007 with combat soldiers and was one of the most faithful European supporters of the American military engagement in Iraq. He dismissed the opposition against the war and appealed to the European Union and the USA to stand together, because only then would they be strong enough to force dictatorships and oppression to yield. This tie between past military sacrifices and the Danish participation in the war in Iraq has been emphasised before by the Danish government at other civil religious events (Warburg 2006a). However, the introduction of politically controversial issues at such occasions may challenge its broad acceptance as a national uniting event. In the eyes of more leftist Danes, the Rebild festival stands as a symbol of uncritical support of the policy of the American government. During the Vietnam War, there were several demonstrations at the festival, and in 1976, at the bicentenary of the United States, a left-wing theatre troupe orchestrated a spectacular and well-remembered stunt at Rebild.


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Dressed up as Native Americans on horses, they rode, while yelling, into the area during the direct satellite transmission of the Queen’s speech (Solvognen 1976, passim, in particular 104–106). The episode is parallel to the conflicts during the 1970s between those Americans who accepted the war policy and those who opposed it. Both parties sometimes resorted to appeals directed towards national solidarity and how to interpret it. Meridith McGuire exemplifies this with competing slogans put on the rear bumper of cars: One set of bumper stickers during that period proclaimed, “America— Love it or leave it!” Another set of bumper stickers retorted, “America— Change it or lose it!” Are these expressions of the same civil religion? (McGuire 1997, 193).

A Joint, Transnational Civil Religious Ritual When Danes and Americans jointly celebrate the Fourth of July in Rebild National Park, the prevailing themes are the sharing of democratic values between Denmark and the United States, the will to fight for democracy and the bonds of migration—all set in a civil religious frame. The bonds of migration are reciprocal, emphasising, both in the park and in the rally itself, an image of Denmark as a nation of emigration and the USA as a nation of immigrants. The organisation of the festival is dependent on voluntary labour, and the financial support from the private Rebild Society is crucial. The popular support for the event is also important. Without the many people who gather in the thousands on the heathery hills of Rebild to watch the show, the festival would be meaningless. The number of participants has always been counted in the thousands. It reached a peak during the 1950s, with between 20,000 and 40,000 every year, and in the subsequent decades the number varied between 5,000 and 15,000 (Qvistorff 1987, 124, 128). Today, many Danes attend the festival, even if they have no special ties to the United States, nor to the Rebild area—it is a popular national festival, although the number of participants has declined considerably in recent decades. A Durkheimian interpretation of the festival, indeed, is appropriate here. The festival is a unique tradition. I know of no other comparable example where a large group of emigrants visit their country of descent to celebrate their new country on its national day, and this celebration is furthermore supported from the political summits of both countries.

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To illustrate the uniqueness of the Rebild festival, the following parallel can be drawn. A significant contingent of immigrants and their descendants in Denmark today are Kurds from the rather poor, rural Konya province in Turkey. Many of them arrived in the 1970s, a generation ago. The imagined parallel to the Rebild festival would be that Danes of Turkish-Kurdish background took the initiative to buy land in the Konya area and establish a local tradition of celebrating the Danish constitutional day. The tradition would be embraced by both the Turkish and Danish governments, high-ranking politicians from both countries would talk about the shared values of the two countries, and thousands of locals would participate in this public festival. This scenario is unrealistic for several reasons, of which the most important is probably that Denmark and other European countries do not welcome immigrants like the USA did in the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. However, not everything in the programme is mutual praise of Danish-American relations and common ground; Danish particularism also has its say at the Danish Fourth of July festival. Over the course of the years, several local Danish traditions have developed around the festival, which again shows the relevance of a Durkheimian “bottom-up” interpretation of the festival. For example, on the night of the Fourth of July, the city park in nearby Aalborg is illuminated in the night with long rows of garden torches, while music is played and beer served in the park, making it the site of a local popular festival. Another example is that the owners of a local abandoned limestone mine, which was developed into a museum and gallery with sculptures of anonymous Danish emigrants since the age of the Cimbrians, celebrate the Fourth of July by illuminating the mine corridors with 3,000 candles. The only other days the mine is illuminated by candles are Easter Sunday, a Sunday in December with a Saint Lucia parade, and the day after Christmas Day (Boxing Day), which is a Christmas holiday in Denmark.12 The 12 Pamphlet from Thingbæk Kalkminer and Bundgaards Museum, n.d., Skørping. In particular in Sweden, but also in Norway, Finland and Denmark, the Saint Lucia festival is celebrated around her feast on the 13th of December (the winter solstice according to the Julian calendar). A central ritual is a parade, in which young girls in long, white dresses carry lit candles in their hands. Such parades are often arranged by schools. Saint Lucia of Syracuse was a Christian martyr, who according to the legend was killed under Diocletian in 304. She is one of the very few saints celebrated in the predominantly Lutheran Nordic countries—the other is Saint John the Baptist at midsummer.


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candlelight event is a ritual juxtaposition of the two official Christian holy days of Easter and Christmas with the popular, but from a Lutheran perspective, heterodox ritual of Saint Lucia and with the secular Fourth of July, called the “Rebild Day”. This juxtaposition indicates that the Fourth of July has become a local holy day, which because of its national connotations also is a civil religious holy day. The Fourth of July festival in Denmark demonstrates that the sharing of civil religious elements between nations is possible. There is no transnational political sovereignty involved. In the course of the programme, when the flags are hoisted and the national anthems played, sometimes mainly Denmark is celebrated and sometimes mainly the United States, but there are also common political values that are expressed at this joint civil religious ritual. As mentioned, in 2004 (and also in 2006) the emphasis was on democratic values and the will to fight for them, if deemed necessary. The emphasis on shared democratic values goes hand in hand with the trend towards universally accepted civil and humanitarian values and rights, which has become more pertinent with globalisation. Such values and rights are accepted by an increasing number of United Nations member states—although for some states it is mostly lip service. At the same time, resistance has intensified towards accepting that such values and rights take priority over existing traditions, for example religiously inspired jurisprudence (Richardson 2007). This conflict between what could be called universalism and particularism, respectively, is a fundamental feature of globalisation itself, as will be expounded below. Globalisation and Transnational Civil Religions The Danish Minister ended his speech in 2004 by advocating the cherishing of national and cultural roots in this age of globalisation. In the Minister’s words: “The more globalisation makes us international, the more we also need to be national” (Haarder 2004). I shall discuss this statement in the following. Globalisation is first and foremost characterised by the present, rapid integration of the world economy facilitated by the innovations and growth of international electronic communications. All this has led to an increasing political and cultural awareness of global interdependence (Ferguson 1992; Featherstone and Lash 1995; Scholte 1996; Beyer 2006).

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However, what the Danish minister’s words imply and what globalisation scholars agree upon is that globalisation does not lead to simple cultural and political homogenisation like the earlier “westernisation” or “modernisation” theories predicted (Ferguson 1992, 79–82; Simpson 1991, 6). Globalisation leads to heterogenisation as well as homogenisation. The argument for both homogenisation and heterogenisation is that when globalisation brings foreign people, foreign goods and foreign customs in closer contact with local cultures, the local cultures are contrasted with the foreign, and all individuals involved must find their own position in this process. In a globalised world, communities and individuals can no longer avoid encounters with other cultures, whereby they are intimately confronted with foreign attitudes towards even fundamental issues of society and with different ways of doing things. Some of these alternatives will be attractive and some repulsive, but with certainty, they are of concern (Warburg 2006b, 85–86). In a seminal paper from 1985, sociologists of religion Roland Robertson and JoAnn Chirico proposed that the cultural interaction between the local and the global implies a relativisation of individuals as well as of societies (Robertson and Chirico 1985). Relativisation means that fundamental values and mental images of society and culture to an increasing extent are contrasted with a complex of different values and images, and that they—more or less explicitly—are interpreted, debated and acted upon in this context. As a result of relativisation, local cultural particularities often seem to be emphasised simultaneously with an acceptance of global cultural themes (Scholte 2000, 161–164). Roland Robertson coined the term “glocalization” as an apt expression of this simultaneous harbouring of these seemingly opposite trends (Robertson 1995). In 2004, when the Danish Minister Bertel Haarder stated in his speech that “the more globalisation makes us international, the more we also need to be national”, he grasped one of the essentials of globalisation: i.e., the dynamics of homogenisation and heterogenisation. He also drew his conclusions from a relativisation in the face of the homogenising forces of globalisation, namely to urge for a strengthening of national sentiments. The Danish Minister’s preoccupation with globalisation is part of a common pattern. In recent years, there have been trends of national particularism and xenophobia all over Europe, concurrently with a prevailing trend of universalism. Universalism means for example that civil and humanitarian values and rights—the modern equivalent of


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Rousseau’s morality and civil duties—are no longer a national matter only, but of increasing public concern, internationally. As early as 1992, Bryan Turner noted that this development is a feature of the globalisation of citizenship concepts (Turner 1992). Human rights and democratic reforms are today part of international politics, and the primarily Western nations advocating for reforms are helped in this by the rising influence of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in world politics (Krut 1997). A typical example in the context of human rights and democratic reform is the NGO Amnesty International, which works to free political prisoners and more broadly seeks to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights. As suggested by Susanne Rudolph, the rising interest in transnational political structures during the 1990s created a new and still tenuous transnational civil society (Rudolph 1997). The establishment of a transnational civil society is a prerequisite for and also corroborates Bellah’s vision of one world civil religion to appear in the future. It was Bellah’s prophecy that the ideals of a transnational civil society based on pluralistic principles might eventually form the core elements of a world civil religion. This future transnational civil society implies that we should see an increasing contingent of “world citizens” bearing forward the ideals of human rights, democracy and related principles. Other idealistic principles may be included in this conglomerate of civil religious elements, for example based on environmental issues. As discussed by Peter Beyer, environmental concerns are often conceptualised in religious terms, and religious environmentalism as a transnational movement grew significantly in the 1980s and 1990s (Beyer 1994, 206–224). Although transnational civil religious elements derived from the sharing of political principles and humanistic values among groups of nations may be a realistic future phenomenon, it is hardly conceivable in the foreseeable future that these different civil religious elements could converge into one world civil religion, as Bellah conjectured. I will discuss this in more detail in the following, using human rights as the touchstone. Human Rights and Civil Religion Historically, the modern concept of human rights is linked to the discussions of natural law of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,

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influenced by earlier Christian theological considerations on human nature and philosophical thinking stretching back to Aristotle and the Stoics. Human rights were manifested politically in the American Declaration of Independence from 1776 and the French Declaration of Human Rights from 1789. The heritage of religiously based natural law is evident in the American declaration with its famous words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”13 Thus, human rights are part of the core heritage of Western philosophical, religious and political thinking, and they have widely attained a kind of higher moral status. I agree with James Spickard that this seems to have lifted human rights above ordinary articles in international conventions, with the result that, in the eyes of many, “human rights beliefs are essentially religious” (Spickard 1999). The emergence of human rights as universal and binding principles for the member states of the United Nations implies that citizens are no more solely the subjects of the state, but that citizens of all the countries of the world are endowed with certain rights ranking above the laws and governmental practices of the state to which they belong (Richardson 2007). However, because of the historical, political and religious roots of human rights, they are not as universal as they were intended to be (Reader 2003). A typical example of the reluctance to accept universal human rights was the vogue among authoritarian rulers in several states in South East Asia in the early 1990s to emphasise “Asian values” in contrast to the “socially and economically decaying West” (Mendes n.d.). This decay among other things was ascribed to the Western emphasis on individual human rights and the relative neglect of collective rights. A fundamental factor explaining the resistance towards human rights is that universal human rights emphasise the given rights of the individual before the rights of the state or the right of God. Thereby, they are bound to collide with the world-view of not only authoritarian regimes but also, for instance, of Islamists or some right-wing Protestants. Thus, according to their logic, Islamists argue that in an Islamic state any acceptance of such a human-centred concept of universal human rights 13 www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration_transcript .html.


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would be a denial of the religious supremacy of Allah. A parallel view is adopted by a Danish right-wing Lutheran theologian and Member of Parliament. He argues against the concept of human rights precisely because it places humans and not God at the centre (Krarup 2006). In fact, it seems unlikely that the current interpretations of human rights in international law would ever be compatible with exclusive interpretations of many religious laws and traditions, be they Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, Jewish or Hindu. According to Bellah, the establishment of a world civil religion would be “the eschatological hope of American civil religion from the beginning. To deny such an outcome would be to deny the meaning of America itself” (Bellah 1967, 18). In American thinking—and in Western thinking generally—human rights would be an important source of inspiration for such a world civil religion. In light of the above discussion of human rights, it is hard, however, to envisage that an overarching sacred canopy of universally accepted civil religious elements can be based on human rights. A Conglomerate of Civil Religious Elements Sharing Universal Themes The analysis of the Fourth of July festival at Rebild suggests other forms of transnational civil religion than the one world civil religion prophesised by Bellah. A different form could be a conglomerate of transnational civil religious elements shared by a group of congenial nations. The Fourth of July festival in Denmark shows that the worship of a few nearly universally accepted civil religious elements in conjunction with the worship of local civil religious elements is possible without any conflict between Danish and American civil religion. Eventually, a world civil religious complex in the form of conglomerates of transnational civil religious elements may emerge from this process of sharing common civil religious elements among congenial nations. These shared civil religious elements would be derived from common humanistic and political values, of which the principles of human rights and democratic government are prime sources. Other elements based on for example environmental concerns may be included. It is here interesting to contrast this with Grace Davie’s thoughts on global civil religion. She envisages that in a European context “the building of a greater European identity and the growth of ecumenical

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endeavour are part and parcel of the same process” (Davie 2001). Even if she only considers a transnational civil religion of Europe, she is probably right in pointing out the religious factor in strengthening transnational European identity. This has also been discussed by Laudrup (2009). However, a stronger collaboration between the established churches of Europe is different from a Durkheimian civil religion emerging out of civil society, or from a Rousseauian civil religion that could span across the religions of Europe and include the non-Christian religions as well. Davie’s vision, rather, would lead to a Christian, church-sponsored construction of a modern European equivalent to the imperial cult of Rome. Whatever the specific outcome of the formation of transnational civil religious elements may be, there is a general conclusion to be drawn from the case study of the joint Danish-American Fourth of July festival in Denmark. This conclusion is that in the globalising world of today, expressions of civil religion above the national level are composites of components from both local and transnational civil religious elements, where the latter accommodate transnational ideals of human rights, democracy etc. The cases to study would be concrete examples of civil religious rituals and events where both national and transnational elements are important and co-exist. The Fourth of July festival in Denmark is an illustrative example of this. Such cases can show that although transnational civil religion may carry an inherent paradox in its wording, the concept has empirical foundation. References Bellah, Robert N. 1967. Civil Religion in America. Dædalus, 96: 1–21. —— 1973. Emile Durkheim on Morality and Society. Chicago: Chicago University Press. —— 1976. Comment on “Bellah and the New Orthodoxy”. Sociological Analysis 37: 167–168. Beyer, Peter. 1994. Religion and Globalization. London: Sage. —— 2006: Religions in Global Society. London: Routledge. Bourg, Caroll J. 1976. A Symposium on Civil Religion. Sociological Analysis 37: 141–149. Coleman, John A. 1970. Civil Religion. Sociological Analysis 31: 67–77. Cristi, Marcela. 2001. From Civil to Political Religion. The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Cristi, Marcela, and Lorne L. Dawson. 1996. Civil Religion in Comparative Perspective: Chile Under Pinochet (1973–1989). Social Compass 43: 319–338. —— 2007. Civil Religion in America and in Global Context. In The Sage Handbook of the Sociology of Religion, ed. James A. Beckford, and N.J. Demerath III, 267–292. Los Angeles: Sage.


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Davie, Grace. 2001. Global civil religion: A European perspective. Sociology of Religion 62: 455–473. Demerath, N.J. and Rhys H. Williams. 1985. Civil Religion in an Uncivil Society. Annals of the American Academy 480: 154–65. Featherstone, Mike and Scott Lash. 1995. Globalization, Modernity and the Spatialization of Social Theory: An Introduction. In Global Modernities, ed. Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, 1–24. London: Sage. Fenn, Richard. 1976. Bellah and The New Orthodoxy. Sociological Analysis 37: 160–166. Ferguson, Marjorie. 1992. The Mythology about Globalization. European Journal of Communication 7: 69–93. Furseth, Inger. 1990. The civil religion debate—some of its premises and foundations. Rapport nr. 6, Instituttet for Sosiologi. [Oslo: Oslo University]. Gehrig, Gail. 1981. The American Civil Religion Debate: A Source for Theory Construction. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 20: 51–63. Gourevitch, Victo, ed., trans. 1997. Rousseau. The Social Contract and other later political writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gustafsson, Göran. 1997. Tro, samfund och samhälle. Sociologiska Perspektiv [Religion, society and community. Sociological perspectives]. Örebro: Libris. Haarder, Bertel. 2004. “Rebild Tale 2004” [Rebild Speech 2004], unpublished manuscript. Copenhagen: Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs. —— 2006. “Tale ved Rebildfesten 4. juli 2006” [Speech at the Rebild Festival 4th July 2006]. Copenhagen: Danish Ministry of Education. Available at http://presse.uvm .dk/taler/index.htm?menuid=600510. Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. The European Nation State. Its Achievements and Its Limitations. On the Past and Future of Sovereignty and Citizenship. Ratio Juris 9: 125–137. Hammond, Phillip E. 1980. Pluralism and Law in the Formation of American Civil Religion. In Varieties of Civil Religion, ed. Robert N. Bellah, and Phillip E. Hammond, 138–163. San Francisco: Harper and Row. Harmati, Béla, ed. 1984. The Church and Civil Religion in the Nordic Countries of Europe. Geneva: The Lutheran World Federation. Hughey, Michael W. 1983. Civil Religion and Moral Order. Theoretical and Historical Dimensions. Westport: Greenwood Press. Hvidt, Kristian. 1976. Danes Go West—A Book about the Emigration to America. Skørping: Rebild National Park Society. Jones, Donald G., and Russel E. Richey. 1974. The Civil Religion Debate. In American Civil Religion, ed. Russell E. Richey, and Donald G. Jones, 3–18. New York: Harper and Row. Kim, Andrew E. 1993. The Absence of Pan-Canadian Civil Religion: Plurality, Duality, and Conflict in Symbols of Canadian Culture. Sociology of Religion 54: 257–275. Krarup, Søren. 2006. “Indfødsrettens mening” [The meaning of citizenship]. JyllandsPosten, 15 May 2006. Krut, Riva. 1997. Globalization and Civil Society. NGO Influence in International Decision-Making. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. Laudrup, Carin. 2009. A European Battlefield—Does the EU Have a Soul? Is Religion In or Out of Place in the European Union? Religion, State and Society, 37(1): 51–63. Mathisen, James A. 1989. Twenty Years After Bellah: Whatever Happened to American Civil Religion? Sociological Analysis 50:129–146. McGuire, Meredith B. 1997. Religion. The Social Context, 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Mendes, Errol P. n.d. Asian Values and Human Rights: Letting the Tigers Free. http:// www.cdp-hrc.uottawa.ca/publicat/asian_values.html#N_1_. Nora, Pierre. 1996. Realms of Memory, Vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Qvistorff, Helge V. 1987. A Rebild Saga. Fourth of July Festivals in Denmark through 75 Years. Skørping: Jysk Lokalhistorisk Forlag. Ranger, Terence. 1987. Taking Hold of the Land: Holy Places and Pilgrimages in Twentieth-Century Zimbabwe. Past and Present 117: 158–194. Reader, John. 2003. The Discourse of Human Rights—a Secular Religion? Implicit Religion 6: 42–51. Richardson, James T. 2007. Religion, Law and Human Rights. In Religion, Globalization and Culture, ed. Peter Beyer and Lori Beaman, 407–428. Leiden: Brill. Riis, Ole. 1985. Om samfundsreligionen [On societal religion]. Religionsvidenskabeligt tidsskrift, 6: 3–29. Riismøller, Peter. 1952. Rebild. The Fourth of July Celebrations in Denmark. Copenhagen: Hassings Forlag. Robertson, Roland. 1995. Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneity-heterogeneity. In Global Modernities, ed. Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, 25–44. London: Sage. Robertson, Roland, and JoAnn Chirico. 1985. Humanity, Globalization, and Worldwide Religious Resurgence: A Theoretical Exploration. Sociological Analysis 46: 219–242. Rudolph, Susanne Hoeber. 1997. Introduction: Religion, States, and Transnational Civil Society. In Transnational Religion and Fading States, ed. Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, and James Piscatori, 1–24. Boulder: Westview Press. Schmidt, Jørgen W. 1965. Oh, du Zion i vest. Den danske mormon-emigration 1850– 1900 [O, Thou Zion of the West. The Danish Mormon Emigration 1850–1900]. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger. Scholte, Jan Aart. 1996. Beyond the Buzzword: Towards a Critical Theory of Globalization. In Globalization: Theory and Practice, ed. Eleonore Kofman and Gillian Youngs, 43–57. London: Pinter. —— 2000. Globalization. A Critical Introduction. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Simpson, John H. 1991. Globalization and Religion. Themes and Prospects. In Religion and Global Order. Religion and the Political Order, vol. 4, ed. Roland Robertson and William R. Garrett, 1–17. New York: Paragon House. Solvognen. 1976. Rebild-Bogen. Undertrykkelse, teater, medier, meningsdannelse. En dokumentation for skole og hjem [The Rebild Book. Oppression, Theatre, Media, Opinion-shaping. A Documentation for School and Home]. [Copenhagen]: Demos. Spickard, James V. 1999. Human Rights, Religious Conflict, and Globalization. Ultimate Values in a New World Order. MOST Journal on Multicultural Societies 1. Available at http://www.unesco.org/most/vl1n1spi.htm. Sundback, Susan. 2000. Medlemskapet i de lutherska kyrkorna i Norden” [Membership of the Nordic Lutheran churches]. In Folkkyrkor och religiös pluralism—den nordiska religiösa modellen, Göran Gustafsson and Thorleif Pettersson (eds.), 34–73. Stockholm: Verbum. Tipton, Steven M. 2005. Globalizing Civil Religion and Public Theology”. In Religion in Global Civil Society, Mark Juergensmeyer (ed.), 49–67. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Turner, Bryan S. 1992. The Concept of “The World” in Sociology: A Commentary on Roland Robertson’s Theory of Globalization”. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 31: 311–318. Wallace, Ruth A. 1977. Emile Durkheim and the Civil Religion Concept. Review of Religious Research 18: 287–290. Warburg, Margit. 2005a Dansk civilreligion i krise og vækst [Danish civil religion in crisis and growth]. Chaos. Dansk-norsk tidsskrift for religionshistoriske studier 43: 89–108.


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—— 2005b. Gudspåkaldelse i dansk civilreligion [Invocation of God in Danish civil religion]. In Gudstro i Danmark, ed. Morten Thomsen Højsgaard, and Hans Raun Iversen, 125–141. Copenhagen: Anis. —— 2006a. Fra sørgemarch til sejrsmarch: Slaget ved Fredericia og dansk civilreligion i en globaliseringstid [From march of mourning to march of victory: The battle of Fredericia and Danish civil religion in a time of globalisation]. Chaos. Dansk-norsk tidsskrift for religionshistoriske studier 45: 129–147. —— 2006b: Citizens of the World. A History and Sociology of the Baha’is from a Globalisation Perspective. Leiden: E.J. Brill. —— 2008: “Dannebrog: Waving in and out of Danish Civil Religion”. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 21: 165–183.

CONTRIBUTORS Eileen Barker, Ph.D., Dr. h.c., FBA, OBE. Professor Emeritus of Sociology with special reference to the sociology of religion at the London School of Economics. She is also the founder and director of INFORM. Her publications include The Making of a Moonie: Brainwashing or Choice? (Blackwell, 1984) and New Religious Movements: a Practical Introduction (HMSO, 1989). Pål Ketil Botvar, MA. Researcher at Centre for Church Research, Norway. His publications include ‘The Civic Role of Individualised Religion. New Age and social capital’, Tidsskrift for kirke, religion og samfunn, 17 (2), 2004 and ‘The moral thinking of three generations in Scandinavia. What Role Does Religion Play?’, Social Compass, 2, 2005. Marcela Cristi, Ph.D., MA. Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. She is the author of From Civil to Political Religion. The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics (Wilfrid Laurier University Press 2001). Her publications, among others ‘Civil Religion in Comparative Perspective: Chile under Pinochet (1973–1989)’, Social Compass (1996), co-authored with Lorne Dawson focus on the relationship between religion and politics. Sergej Flere, Dr. Professor of Sociology at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. He has done research mainly in the area of religion and ethnicity. Recent publications are ‘Cross-cultural insight into the association between religiousness and authoritarianism’. Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 31 (2) and ‘New Age is not inimical to religion and traditionalism’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 48 (1). Ulf Hedetoft, Dr. phil. Professor of International Studies and Director of the Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is also Chairman of the scholarly association Nordic Migration Research (NMR) and director of The Academy for Migration Studies in Denmark (AMID). His publications include The Postnational Self. Belonging and Identity (University of Minnesota Press, 2002) and The Politics of Multiple Belonging. Ethnicity and Nationalism in Europe and East Asia (Ashgate, 2004).

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Annika Hvithamar, Ph.D. Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Studies of Religions and Education at University of Southern Denmark. She has done research mainly in the area of religion and contemporary Christianity, religion and national identity and the Russian Orthodox Church. Her publications include Recent Releases. Biblical Variations in Contemporary Cinema (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008) co-edited with Geert Hallbäck. Atsuko Ichijo, Ph.D. Senior Researcher in European Studies at Kingston University, United Kingdom. Her publications include When is the Nation: Towards an Understanding of Theories of Nationalism co-edited with Gordana Uzelac (Routledge, 2005) and Entangled Identities Nations and Europe co-edited with Willfried Spohn (Ashgate, 2005). Brian Arly Jacobsen, Ph.D. Research Assistant at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research is mainly in the area of religion and politics and religious minority groups in Denmark. His publications include Tørre tal om troen. Religionsdemografi i det 21. århundrede [Dry numbers on faith. Demography of Religion in the 21st Century] (Univers, 2007) co-edited with Margit Warburg. Roger O’Toole, Ph.D. Professor in Sociology at University of Toronto at Scarborough, Canada and is cross-appointed to the university’s interdisciplinary postgraduate Centre for the Study of Religion. His publications include The Precipitous Path: Studies In Political Sects (Peter Martin Associates Limited, 1977) and Religion: Classic Sociological Approaches (McGraw Hill Ryerson Limited, 1985). Niels Reeh, Ph.D. Assistant Professor at the Department of CrossCultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His research is mainly in the area of state, religion and religious education. He has published various articles in Danish on the subject of the relationship between history, state and religion and ‘The Teaching of Religion and the State of Denmark—an overview of the Danish state politics on religion in the elementary school system from 1721 to 1900: an alternative approach to secularization’ in Social Compass (2009). Pål Repstad, Dr. philos. Professor in Sociology of Religion at Department of Religion, Philosophy and History, University of Agder, Norway. He has

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conducted research in sociology of religion and sociology of welfare. His publications include the edited volume Religion and Modernity. Modes of Co-Existence (Scandinavian University Press, 1996), An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion (Ashgate, 2007) co-edited with Inger Furseth and articles on Norwegian religion in Social Compass (2003), Journal of Contemporary Religion (2008) and Religion (2009). Anthony D. Smith, Ph.D., MA. Professor of Ethnicity and Nationalism at Government Department, London School of Economics, United Kingdom. He has published extensively on the subject of the theories and history of nationalism. His publications include The Nation in History (Brandeis University Press, 2000), Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford University Press, 2003) and The Antiquity of Nations (Blackwell, 2004). Margit Warburg, Dr. phil. Professor at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Her research is mainly in the area of civil religion, migration and religion, globalisation and new religions. Her publications include Religion and Cyberspace (Routledge, 2005), co-edited with Morten T. Højsgaard, Citizens of the World. A History and Sociology of the Baha’is from a Globalisation Perspective (Brill, 2006) and New Religions and Globalization. Empirical, Theoretical, and Methodological Perspectives (Aarhus University Press, 2008) co-edited with Armin W. Geertz.

INDEX A mari usque ad mare 137 Aagedal, Olaf 185, 205–206 Aalbor 277, 280, 284 Abe, Toshimaro 125–128, 130–131 Adorno, Theodor W. 230 Afghanistan 263 Africa 7, 10, 137, 142 Agamben, Giorgio 265 age of nationalism 30, 115–116 age of secularism 102 Alabama 218 Albania 237 Allah 289 Althingi 173 n. 13 Amalienborg Palace 166 Amaterasu 126 Amendment 108 American Declaration of Independence 80, 94, 288 American Revolution 185 Anderson, Benedict 6–7, 102–104, 121 Anglican 35, 138, 140 Antiquity 6, 22, 25, 31, 104 Arausio 278 n. 6 Aristotle 288 Asia 7, 10, 137, 142 Assmann, Jan 79, 84 Auburn 218 Auken, Margrethe 209 authoritarian personalities 13 authoritarianism 227–230 Baha’i Faith 4 Balkan 10, 217 battle at Vercellae 278 n. 6 Beaman, Lori G. 144–147 Befu, Harumi 122 Belgrade 223 Bellah, Robert N. 2–3, 12–14, 47–49, 52, 61 n. 5, 69, 71–72, 79–81, 85, 108–109, 112–113, 115, 121, 134, 153, 155, 160, 178, 185–187, 196, 200, 202–204, 211, 215–217, 219–220, 237, 241–244, 271–272, 274–276, 287, 289 belonging 4, 22, 33, 65, 72, 115, 126, 134, 148, 175, 188, 221, 249–250, 253–256, 258, 260, 262–266 Berger, Peter 71, 177

Berntsen, Klaus 164, 165 n. 8 Beyer, Peter 146–147, 287 Bible 99, 176 Biles, John 150–152 Billig, Michael 114 biological religion 248 Bishop Ansgar 165 blood Sacrifice 254–256, 259 Blumstock, Robert 153 Bondevik, Kjell Magne 187, 205 Borgbjerg, Frederik 172 n. 12 Børretzen, Odd 202 Bosnia and Herzegovina 13, 217–220, 229 Bramadat, Paul 144, 148–149 Breuilly, John 123 British Crown 80, 90, 137 Brottveit, Ånund 205, 206 Brubaker, Rogers 106 Buddha 132 Buddhism 126, 128–133, 147, 248, 250 Buddhist(s) 115, 130, 142–143, 147, 185, 242, 244, 289 Bundgaards Museum 284 n. 12 Burn, Robert 281 Bush, George W. 67, 91–93, 263, 281–282 Campbell, Colin 245–246 Canada 10, 13, 84, 137–140, 142–144, 146–155, 273 n. 3 Candomblé 248 Casanova, Jose 74, 210 castrum doloris 166 Catholic(s) 2 n. 1, 38, 53–54, 67, 110, 138, 143, 170, 203, 242, 244 Catholic Ecclesia 217 Celts 101 Charles V 174 n. 14 Charter of Rights and Freedoms 149 chauvinism 12, 64–65, 188–191, 193–194, 205 Chile 64, 66, 93, 111, 160, 276 China 85, 89, 128, 237 Chirico, JoAnn 8, 176, 286 chosen peoples 6, 26, 29, 52, 68, 105–106, 110, 138, 200 Christ 28, 203, 243, 255, 279

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Christian 6, 13, 26–27, 32, 35, 37, 42 n. 36, 52, 130, 138–142, 144–148, 167, 169–170, 178, 185, 191, 204–205, 208, 212, 238–239, 242, 255, 265, 280, 284 n. 12, 285, 288–290 Christian free-churches 170 Christian People’s Party, Norway 205 Christian virtues 255 n. 1 Christianity 29, 49, 55, 110, 114, 125–127, 129, 138, 141, 146, 151, 167, 194, 208, 212, 239, 255, 260, 280 Christiansborg 163–167, 171, 176 Christmas Day 81, 85, 284 Christmas eve 171, 209 Church of Denmark 175, 209 Church of England 236, 248 Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 243 Church of Norway 206 Church of Sweden 190 Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster 249 Church of Virus 249 church-state system 184, 189 Cimbrian(s) 278–280, 284 Citizenship 9, 24, 31, 56, 143, 149–151, 154, 162 n. 2, 273, 287 citizen-soldier 254, 263 civil religion, “bottom-up” 160, 271, 275–276, 284 civil religion, a political resource 66–68 civil religion, Durkheimian conception of 49, 50–51, 134 civil religion and nationalism 68–73, 99–100, 107–108, 112–116 civil religion, “Rousseauian” type of 49–50, 111 civil religion, top-down model of 160 Clash of Civilizations 7, 14, 243, 245 clergy 25, 110, 168, 209, 212 Cold War 264 Coleman, John A. 4, 70–71, 109–110 collective memory 256 community human 23, 25, 61 Comte, Auguste 47, 210 confucian 131, 244 Confucianism 126, 130–133 Congress 80, 88, 92 constitution 3, 36, 53, 60, 83, 93–94, 108, 112, 114, 159, 161, 163–166, 170, 174–176, 178, 183 n. 1, 236, 250 Constitution Day 260

Constitutional Act of Denmark; See Grundloven Copenhagen 14–15, 163, 165 n. 9, 167–168, 215 n. 1 Copenhagen’s Cathedral 165 n. 9, 168 cosmic Religion totem 14, 241, 246–247, 263, 265, 279, 280 Cristi, Marcela 10–11, 79–80, 92–93, 111, 134, 159–160, 179, 215–216, 276 Cronbach’s Alpha 190, 223, 225, 227 n. 6 cross-cultural 8, 10, 13, 229–230 cuius regio eius religio 174 cult of authenticity 106 Cult of Man 58, 241, 244 Cult of the Supreme Being 2 Cultural Religion 71 n. 10, 247 cultural resources 22–23 CyberCoven.org 249 Danish Constitution; See Grundloven Danish Folk Church; See Church of Denmark Danish-American(s) 14, 277, 279, 282, 284, 290 Danish-American society 277 Danishness 161–162 Dannebrog 163, 207 Dansk Folkeparti 171, 193 Davie, Grace 289–290 Dawson, Lorne 295 Declaration of Human Rights 262, 288 Declaration of Independence (1776) 90 Denmark 14, 114, 159–160, 163–165, 169–170, 172, 176–178, 183–188, 190–191, 193–194, 202, 207–209, 212, 258, 272–274, 276–277, 279–285, 289–290 diaspora 148 Diocletian 284 n. 12 diversity 145–146, 149, 151, 200, 236, 250, 275 Divine Providence 80, 91, 272 DNA 248 dominion 137 Durkheim, Émile 2–3, 10, 47–48, 50–52, 54–65, 73–74, 84–85, 107, 111, 133, 202, 210, 215, 241, 253, 274 n. 4 Egypt(s) 25, 26 n. 6, 32–34, 87, 110 Elias, Norbert 87, 89 emic 4, 106

index emigrant(s) 277, 279, 283 emigration 277, 281, 283 England 6, 29 n. 12, 30, 34–35, 37 Enlightenment 2, 7, 112, 248 Estonia 207 ethnic 4, 22, 24, 27, 34–35, 39–40, 62, 123, 139, 148, 153, 177–178, 199, 211, 212, 216, 221, 262, 266, 272 ethnicity 24, 106, 109, 138, 142, 147, 149, 151, 220 ethnies 23–24, 30, 34 ethnocentrism 188, 190, 226 ethno-religious diversity 146 ethnos 138 ethno-symbolism, school of 42 ethno-symbolist 106 etic 4, 106 EU; See European Union Europe 5, 7, 10, 11, 23, 40, 60, 84, 95, 104, 112, 114, 125, 152, 217, 257, 262, 286, 290 European Union 205, 282 Evangelical Lutheran Church 166–167, 169–170, 174–176, 178, 272 Fascism 64, 66, 72, 262 Faroe Islands 170 n. 11 Fenn, Richard 4, 109 n. 7, 211, 272 Finland 208, 284 n. 12 Folkekirke; See Church of Denmark Folketing 159, 163–164, 166, 170–171, 177 folkhemsideologi 201 foreigner(s) 12, 168, 191, 195 Fourth of July 3, 14, 272–273, 276–277, 280 n. 9, 281, 283–285, 289–290 France 6, 21, 27, 34, 37, 47–48, 53–56, 60, 63, 65, 70, 90, 113–114, 217, 237, 282 Fremskrittspartiet 193 Furre, Berge 201 Furseth, Inger 110 n. 10, 199, 204–206 Gellner, Ernest 6, 102–104 Gemeinschaft 9, 273 Genesis 30, 96 Gentile, Emilio 160 Gerhardsen, Einar 202 Gesellschaft 9, 88 Giddens, Anthony 52 Gill, Anthony 146 Girard, René 263 Glebe-Møller, Jens 205

301

global turn 14, 261 n. 4 global 2, 7–8, 10, 14, 21–22, 47–48, 60–62, 73–74, 85, 101, 103–104, 114, 116, 146–148, 150, 152, 155, 176–178, 210–211, 243, 245, 247–248, 250, 264–266, 275, 285–286, 289 globalisation 1, 7–12, 14–15, 21, 47, 74, 85, 115–116, 122, 134–135, 144, 152, 176, 188, 199, 208, 210, 235, 249–250, 253–255, 263–265, 273, 285–287 globalising 14, 250, 264, 290 glory 14, 254, 257, 265 Great Britain 10, 83, 87, 90–91, 139 Greece 31, 33, 109, 114 Greenland 170 n. 11 Grundloven 161 Gustafsson, Göran 186, 201 Haakon, King 204 Haarder, Bertel 171, 282, 286 Hall, Stuart 169 Hayes, Carlton 5, 68, 100–101, 103, 113, 253 Hegel, G.W.F. 87 hegemony 13, 144–146, 201 Henius, Max 277–279 heroism 14, 83, 255, 263–265 Herzfeld, Michael 253, 267 heterogenisation 8, 286 hierarchy 25–27, 29–30, 34, 37–41, 112, 128, 170, 236, 244 Hiller, Harry 154 Hindu 142, 244–245, 289 Hinduism 147, 248 Hindus 142–143, 147, 185, 242, 245, 260 Hitler, Adolf 39, 259 Hobsbawm, Eric 21, 102–104 Højrup, Thomas 86–88 Holm, Kjeld 167 Holmen 165 homogenisation 8, 286 honour 14, 26, 259–260, 265 Hoxha, Enver 237 human rights 13–14, 73–74, 149, 155, 201, 210–211, 244, 266, 273, 287–290 Humphrey, Hubert H. 282 Huntington, Samuel 7, 67, 243–247 Hyde Park Roosevelt Museum 279 Ibrahim, Humera 150 Iceland 33, 173 n. 13, 208

302

index

identity national 6, 10, 13, 21, 22–23, 32, 35, 42, 114, 133, 153–154, 161–162, 164, 188, 221, 228 n. 10, 253, 258–259, 262–263, 265–266, ideology, multicultural 13 immigrant(s) 12–13, 82, 115, 139–140, 142–150, 152, 170, 177, 183, 187–190, 192, 194–195, 265, 283–284 immigration 5 n. 2, 13, 22, 115, 139–143, 149–151, 177, 188–189, 193–195, 209, 212, 242 immigration policy 150, 188, 195 imperialism 137 Independence Day 83 India 89, 246 Individual Religion 248 Ingle, David 254 Inner Mission 170 Inner Religion 249 integration 8, 40, 50, 55, 58–59, 65, 71 n. 10, 74, 109 n. 7, 115, 152, 177, 187–188, 199–200, 211, 230, 285 International Social Survey Programme 184, 188 internationalisation 14, 263 inter-state relationship 87, 89 Iraq 202, 263, 282 Ireland 33, 110, 114 Islam 70, 104, 125, 147, 212, 217, 239, 242, 246, 256, 264 Islamic 27, 42 n. 36, 151, 227, 244, 247, 265 n. 6, 288–289 Islamists 288 Islamophobia 264 Israel 28–30, 32–35, 52, 69, 81, 87, 236 Italy 33, 257 Japan 10, 27, 33–36, 70, 122–124, 126–130, 132–134, 135, 246, 257 Japanese 11, 12, 27 n. 9, 36, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 244 Jehovah’s Witnesses 242, Jensen, Johannes V. 279 n. 6 Jensen, Mogens 171, 172 Jerusalem 29, 34 Jesus Christ 203, 243 Jewish 53, 229, 242, 245, 289 Jews 32, 101, 170, 172, 185, 203, 239, 242 n. 6, 245 Johnson, Lyndon B. 200 Jones, Donald 70

Judaism 4, 125, 248 Jutland 277, 278, 279, 281 kami 126 Kant, Immanuel 265 Kedourie, Elie 7, 108 n. 5 kegare 132 Kennedy, John F. 80, 94, 263 Kertzer, David 159, 174, 256, 259 Khader, Naser 177, 179 Kim, Andrew 153–154, 273 n. 3 King Christian X 166 King Frederik VII 166 Kingsley, Charles 260 Kojiki 128, 130 Kolteen Totem Pole 279 Konya 284 Krarup, Søren 289 Kristensen, Thomas 170 Kurds 284 Kvarme, Ole Kristian 187 Kyoto 127 Labour Party 202 Langballe, Jesper 171 liberal 2, 9, 37, 90–91, 123, 155, 164, 165 n. 8, 170, 187–188, 205–206, 208, 212, 275 Liberty Bell 280 Lincoln Log Cabin museum 280 Lindhardt, Jan 175–176 Locke, John 90 Lützhøft, Hans 168 Lukes, Stephen 55, 60, 62–64, 211 Lutheran Christianity 167, 171, 272 Mäkeläinen, Heikki 207 Malta 114 marginalisation 150 Margrethe the Second 164 n. 7 Maribor 218, 296 Marius, Gaius 278 Marković, Mihajlo 8 martyrdom 28, 37, 255, 263–264 Marvin, Carolyn 254–255, 259, 263 marxist 41, 103 materialism 137, 246 McGuire, Meredith 4, 109 n. 9, 110, 113, 283 Meiji Government 122, 125, 128–129, 131, 135 oligarchs 11, 125–127, 129–131, 135

index melting pot 140 Memorial Day 3, 83, 260 memories 23, 25, 33–34, 42, 106, 211, 264 Meštrović, Stjepan 66 Methodist 140 Middle Ages 22–23, 103 Middle East 10, 137, 142, 246 Midgard serpent 278 migration 8, 10, 14, 21, 116, 139, 177, 245, 250, 265, 283 Milošević, Slobodan 9, 64 Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs 163, 166 n. 10, 170–171 minority group 65, 71, 144, 170, 177 minority religions 145, 147–148, 177 modernisation 8, 35, 41, 73, 123, 144, 209, 286 modernist, school of 106 modernity 24 n. 5, 57, 59, 73, 129, 177, 257–258, 262, 264–266 monarchism 137 monoculturalism 245 mono-religiosity 13 monotheism 121–122, 125, 129, 133 monotheistic 125, 127, 220, 229 monotheistic religious tradition 122 Moral Individualism 48, 55, 58–59, 73 Mormon; See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints Mormons; See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints Mormon Church; See Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints mosaic 141–142, 154 Motzfeldt, Jonathan 170 n. 11 multiculturalism 140, 149–150, 152–154, 245 Multiculturalism Act 149 multi-ethnic 27, 124 Mumgaard, Arne 280 n. 10 Muslim(s) 13, 27 n. 9, 32, 115, 142–143, 147, 171, 177, 185, 217, 220, 227, 242–243, 245, 264 n. 5, 266 Mussolini, Benito 259 mutual recognition 87, 90 Mynster, Jacob Peter 162–163 myth 4–7, 23, 25–26, 28 n. 10, 29, 30 n. 15, 31, 32 n. 17, 34, 40 n. 33, 42, 52, 68–69, 79, 84, 90, 95–96, 100–101, 106–110, 113–114, 122, 163 n. 6, 174, 202, 258 n. 3, 278–279 mythology 39, 93–95, 100, 139, 153, 202, 263, 277–278, 281

303

Nation 1, 4–7, 10, 12–14, 21–25, 30, 33–38, 41–43, 47, 49, 51–53, 55–57, 60–66, 68–70, 72–73, 81, 88, 96, 99–101, 102 n. 1, 103–107, 109–116, 123–126, 128–129, 131–135, 137, 150, 153, 159, 161–162, 164, 166, 168–169, 176, 178–179, 183–185, 191, 196, 200, 203–204, 213, 216–217, 219–220, 229, 235, 237–240, 242–247, 253–255, 259–263, 265–266, 272–274, 276, 283, 285, 287 national community 21, 23, 56, 253, 256, 264 national anthem of Denmark 280 national anthem of the USA 280 National Church 12–13, 104, 114, 167, 172, 174, 184–188, 190, 192, 194, 199, 206–209, 236, 250, 272, 276 National Day of Mourning 85 national festival 283 national religion 74 n. 11, 114–115, 238, 241, 247–248, 250 nationalism 1, 5–7, 9–11, 14, 21–24, 30, 32, 35 n. 24, 37 n. 27, 41–43, 47–48, 51, 55, 57, 59–61, 64–75, 99–109, 111–116, 121–125, 127, 129, 133–135, 137, 184, 194, 226, 235, 240, 253–258, 261–263, 265–266 nationalism, academic study of 5, 100–101 nationalism, ideology of 6, 99, 104, 112 nation-state 1, 7–10, 14, 47–48, 59–60, 62–63, 71, 73, 109, 147, 159–161, 164–165, 176, 179, 273, 275 Native American(s) 71, 80–82, 279–280, 283 Nativist School 130, 132 natural law 90–91, 287–288 nazi 39, 40 n. 32, 242 n. 6, 259–260 nazism 39, 262 New Age movement 246 New Year’s Day 81, 85 New York state 279 nihonjinron 122 Nihonshoki 128, 130 Nixon, Richard 67, 69, 282 Nora, Pierre 255, 277 Nordic countries 12–13, 115, 172, 174, 186, 189, 204–212, 255, 284 n. 12 Norse mythology 278 North Korea 237

304

index

Northern Ireland 110 Norway 110 n. 10, 114, 183–187, 190–191, 193–194, 201–202, 204–206, 208–209, 211, 258, 284 n. 12 Oguma, Eiji 124 Olav, Crown Prince 204 Olympic Games 260 Ontario 151 orientalism 264 n. 5 Orthodox 13, 26, 40, 114–115, 218, 220–221, 244, 247–248 Oslo 187, 199 Oslo’s Cathedral 173 Ostrogoths 101 Otherness 258 Pakistan 33, 265 n. 6 pantheism 121 parliament 39, 112, 153, 159–160, 162–165, 167–172, 173 n. 13, 174, 175 nn. 16–17, 177–179, 183 n. 1, 187, 204, 289 Peace of Augsburg 174 n. 14 Pentecostal Church 247 perennialist 24, 106 Pike, Kenneth L. 4, 106 n. 4 Pinochet 64, 66, 276 pluralisation 199, 208 pluralism 42 n. 37, 144–146, 149, 153, 169, 212 Po 278 n. 6 Poland 33, 114 political religion 1–3, 7, 12–13, 71, 108, 111, 129, 134, 160, 171–172, 176, 179, 253 politisation of Religion 176 Pope John XXIII 211 postmodernism 154 Presbyterian 140 priest 7, 25–26, 28, 47, 102 n. 2, 128, 163, 170, 187–188 primordialist 106 Progress Party; See Fremskrittspartiet prophetic 199–200, 209 Protestant(s) 3, 13, 29, 36, 53, 110, 138, 140–141, 174 n. 14, 203, 218, 220, 225, 242, 288 Protestantism 102, 104, 139–140 proto-nationalism 103, 257 public culture 23, 25, 27, 31–32, 34–38, 42–43 Quakers 249 Quebec 151, 154

Queen Ingrid 166 Queen of Denmark; See Margrethe the Second Queen Margrethe; See Margrethe the Second Queen Victoria 259 Qureshi, Kamal 169–171, 179 Racine, Wisconsin 277 Ramadan 171 Ranger, Terence 102, 278 Reagan, Ronald 282 Rebild 273–279, 281–285, 289 Rebild National Park 277, 280, 283 Rebild Society 280, 283 Reformation 6, 29, 174 regime liberal-democratic, fascist, socialist 258 relativisation 8, 286 religion 1–7, 9–14, 24, 26, 31, 36, 38–39, 41–43, 47–54, 56–60, 62–74, 79–81, 83–96, 99–116, 121–123, 125, 127–129, 131, 133–134, 137–139, 141–155, 159–161, 163–164, 169–172, 174–179, 184–189, 194–196, 199–213, 215–221, 223, 225–230, 235–251, 253–257, 264, 266, 271–276, 280, 283, 286–287, 289–290 Religion of Man 237–238 Religion of the Citizen 238–241 Religion of the Priest 239–240 religion, political 1–3, 7, 12–13, 71, 108, 129, 134, 160, 171–172, 176, 179, 253 religion, privatisation of 206 religious community 102 n. 2, 217 religious holidays 260, 285 religious lineage 248 religious pluralism 146, 212 religious symbolism 280 religious systems 7, 100, 102–106, 108, 116, 121 Renan, Ernest 6, 253 Revolution French 2, 38–39, 53, 65, 70, 101, 103 n. 3 Reykjavik Cathedral 173 Richey, Russell 70 riksdagen 173 ritual(s) 3–4, 6–7, 14, 25–26, 28, 31–32, 39, 48–51, 55, 65–66, 68, 74–75, 100–103, 107–110, 112–115, 153, 159–160, 162–174, 176, 178–179, 185, 204, 208–209, 238, 241, 253–260, 262, 265, 272, 274, 281, 284–285, 290

index ritualism 254–258, 260–262 Robertson, Roland 8, 176, 286 Robespierre, Maximilien 2 Rohde, Jens 170 Roma 242 n. 6 Roman Catholic 138–141, 217–218, 220 Roman Catholic Church 113, 138, 247 Roman Catholicism 4, 220 Roman Empire 8, 38 Rome 31, 32 n. 17, 33, 36, 53, 109–110, 114, 278, 290 Romney, George 282 Romney, Mitt 243 Roskilde Cathedral 163 Roth, John 145 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 2–3, 10, 48–51, 57, 61 n. 5, 63, 74, 107, 111–113, 116, 160, 185, 215, 237–241, 254, 271, 287 Rudolph, Susanne 287 Russia 26–27, 33, 40, 120, 236, 247 Russian 5, 26–27, 33 n. 20, 40–41, 247–248 Sabbath 171 sacrality 13, 22, 254, 255–256, 263, 265 sacred 7, 10, 13, 22–23, 25–27, 31, 33–34, 37, 40–43, 49–50, 52, 58–59, 65–66, 69, 73–74, 80, 103, 111–112, 126, 129, 133–134, 168, 185, 243–244, 264, 279, 289 sacrifice 13, 56, 99, 254–258, 265, 282 sacrificial crisis 263 Saint John the Baptist 284 n. 12 Saint Lucia festival 284 n. 12 Saint Lucia of Syracuse 284 n. 12 Saint-Simon, Henri de 47, 210 Salt Lake Valley 279 n. 8 Santeria 248 Sarajevo 218 Scandinavia 10, 114 n. 12, 185–187, 194, 196, 258 n. 3, 278 n. 6 Scandinavian 5, 12, 39, 174, 183–188, 190, 194, 201, 207, 279 n. 8 Scandinavian Star 207 Schmalkaldic League 174 n. 14 Schmitt, Carl 265 Scotland 29, 30 n. 14, 258 n. 3 second Punic War 278 secular 1, 21, 31, 39, 41, 47, 53–56, 59, 65, 69–70, 107, 109, 127, 134, 150, 203, 205, 207, 212, 216–217, 236–237, 243, 255–256, 285 secularisation 13, 21, 105, 109, 111, 121, 141, 206–208, 226

305

secularist 21, 101, 177, 205, 237 Sen, Amartya 245 Senegal 258 Serbia 13, 27, 64, 217–218, 220, 229 Serbian Orthodox 13, 218, 220–221 Seton-Watson, Hugh 6 sharia 151 Shintō 11–12, 36, 70, 122, 125–135 Shinto shrines 128 Sikhism 147 Sikh(s) 142–143, 147 Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 123 Skørping 284 n. 12 Slovenia 217–218, 220, 229 Smith, Anthony D. 6, 10, 14, 23 n. 3, 24 n. 5, 28 n. 10, 33 n. 19, 34 n. 22, 42 n. 36, 48, 102 n. 1, 105–108, 113, 121, 133, 160, 179, 217, 253, 256 Social Democracy 201 Social Democrat 165, 172, 178, 201, 205–206 social democrat order 201 social democratic 164, 166 n. 10, 171–172, 178 Social Liberal Party 172, 178 Socialist People’s Party 169 Society of Friends 249 Solvognen 283 Soviet Union 7, 70, 109 Spain 27, 29, 66, 257 Spickard, James 155, 273, 288 Sport 153, 202–203, 260 sportsmanship 259 Stalin, Josef 259 state 1–6, 9–14, 21 n. 7, 25–27, 34, 37–41, 48–51, 54, 56–58, 60–68, 70, 79–82, 84–91, 93–96, 102, 104, 108–114, 122, 124–129, 131–135, 137–139, 146, 150–151, 159–163, 165–166, 168–170, 172, 174–179, 183–186, 188, 192, 194–195, 199, 202, 204, 206–210, 212, 216–217, 219–220, 226, 235–240, 242, 244, 253–259, 261–265, 271–277, 279, 281, 288 state and church, separation of 272 state ideology 13, 57, 68, 109 state religion 2, 26, 95, 114, 129, 131, 174, 185 state-church 168, 172, 175–176, 178, 183, 186, 191–195, 209 Stauning, Thorvald 164 Steinbeck, John 99 Stockholm’s Cathedral 173 Stölting, Erhard 253 Stortinget 173

306

index

Sugawara-no-Michizane (845–903) 127 summus episcopus 174 Sundback, Susan 185–187, 205–206, 272 Supreme Court 93, 166 surrogate religion 111 Svendsen, Erik Norman 167 Sweden 183–184, 186, 190–191, 194, 204–205, 208, 284 n. 12 Swedish Church 184, 208 symbol 4, 7, 10, 23, 25, 38, 42, 49, 52, 55, 59, 65–66, 69, 71, 103, 106, 108, 110, 114, 153–154, 159, 163 n. 6, 174, 176, 183–185, 202, 207, 209, 241, 255–256, 261–262, 280, 282 symbolic codes 25 symbolism cultural 260 symbolism 37, 40 n. 32, 62 n. 5, 66, 174, 242 n. 5, 243, , 274, 280 Synagogue 171, 238 n. 3 Taft, William 277 Taoism 126, 131–132 Ten-no-kyo 126 territorialisation 25, 33–34, 37–38, 42 The Danish People’s Party; See Dansk Folkeparti Tipton, Steven 275–276 Tokugawa Shogunate (1603–1868) 130–132 tradition 11–12, 21–23, 27, 29, 31–32, 35–37, 43, 47, 57, 70 n. 9, 72, 74 n. 11, 86, 91, 100–101, 106, 109, 113, 116, 122, 125–126, 129, 131–132, 137, 141, 144, 149, 159, 161, 171–172, 177–178, 196, 211–212, 243–244, 258, 261–263, 273 n. 3, 274, 276, 278, 283–285, 289 traditionalism 221, 223, 225 transcendent 48, 50, 52, 85, 102 n. 2, 105, 108, 112, 153, 204, 208, 215–216, 226, 229, 253–255, 266, 274 transnational 14, 148, 254, 256, 264–265, 273–275, 285, 287, 289–290 trans-national 14, 243, 247, 266, 274–275 transnationalism 151–152 transnationality 253 tsunami 207 Turkish 123, 284 Turner, Bryan 8, 47–48, 55, 60–62, 64, 70 n. 9, 73, 256, 287

Ukraine 140 Ummah 104, 217, 247 UN Declaration of Human Rights 262 United Kingdom 114, 139 United Nations 210, 243, 274, 285, 288 United States; See United States of America United States of America 80–81, 90, 93, 236, 241 universal 10, 47–48, 53–56, 59–60, 61 n. 5, 62, 73–74, 139, 210, 217, 244, 250, 266, 274, 288 universalism 285–286 Unknown Soldier 259 USA; See United States of America USSR; See Soviet Union Utah 279 n. 8 value(s) 14, 23, 42, 48–51, 55, 62, 64, 66, 71–74, 96, 102–103, 105–106, 148–149, 161, 176, 185, 200, 211, 215, 223, 225, 227, 242–243, 246, 250, 255, 260, 263, 266, 274–275, 283–289 Venstre 164, 165 n. 8, 171 Vietnam 237 Vietnam War 67, 113, 282 Viking(s) 258 n. 3, 279 violence monopoly of 87, 255 Virtual Religion 249 volonté générale 254 von Clausewitz, Carl 87 Voodoo 248 Wallerstein, Immanuel 145, 155 War of Independence (1775–83) 90 war on terror 264 Warburg, Margit 3, 5, 8, 14, 116, 163–164, 186, 196, 207, 272, 276, 282, 286 Washington, George 3, 83, 200 Weber, Max 3, 52, 87–88, 235, 257, 260 Weimar 259 welfare state 161, 176, 206, 209–210 Western 3, 5, 24, 40, 47, 70, 72, 82, 122–125, 143–144, 149, 177, 217, 221, 229, 236, 244–246, 248, 255 n. 1, 264, 275, 279, 287–289 westernisation 8, 123, 286 Westphalian 177

index Wilson, Sandra 122 Winther, Christian 168–169 Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft 88 World championship 203 World War II 7, 14, 133, 140, 243, 255, 261–262, 279–280 xenophobia

307

Yeats, William Butler 266 Yoshino, Kosaku 122, 130 Yugoslavia 114 Zimbabwe 278 zoon politikon 254 Zoroastrianism 248

12, 188–195, 286 Østerud, Øyvind

184

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