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"American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion" Study Notes

Overview: American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion

  • Central thesis: America is seen as a special moral force, a nation ordained for greatness, literally described as born an errand from God; the divine sanction of America's enterprise is a recurring motif.
  • The claim of exceptionalism is not singular: it blends religious, secular, political, economic, conservative, and liberal visions of mission.
  • European gaze in the 1800s framed America as a singular project: break from corrupt origins, the idea that individuals could be free, and a magical national mission.
  • There are multiple mission variants:
    • Secular: saving the world for democracy; e.g., World War II rationale.
    • Political/economic: building enduring democratic institutions in Europe, restoring democracy in Japan and Germany.
    • Religious/evangelical: missions that blend faith with state aims (e.g., end tyranny, expand freedom).
  • Example of religious-secular fusion in late modern policy: the claim that divine prompting justified U.S. action abroad (e.g., rhetoric around ending tyranny in Iraq under Bush).
  • Gender and global feminism: global freedom has a gender dimension; universalist notions of women’s autonomy collide with cultural relativism (e.g., female genital autonomy universally vs respecting local traditions).
  • The Bush era is used as a case study: the president’s personal religious transformation and Laura Bush’s advocacy for women in Afghanistan/Iraq, showing a double dimension of freedom (gender rights + political freedom).
  • Complex interplay: the same notion of freedom is used to justify intervention and modernization in the name of universal rights while navigating respect for diverse cultures.
  • A warning against simplistic moral histories: there is distrust of over-simplified readings of American history (settler colonialism, white supremacy, slavery, misogyny).
  • Empirical interrogation: if one claims the U.S. is defined by settler colonialism, one must also account for long-term democratization milestones (women’s suffrage, working-class suffrage, civil rights, LGBTQ+ rights).
  • The pursuit of a “perfectional union” (the ideal of a perfected union) is juxtaposed with the messy, ambivalent history of the nation.
  • The narrative tone shifts across periods (1600s–1700s vs post-9/11), with an emphasis on how tone signals stance: cautious, humble exceptionalism rather than triumphant swagger.
  • The critique of grandiose narrative: the United States is portrayed as pragmatic—necessary for global order in an imperfect world—especially when facing Russia, China, and other global challenges.

Civil Religion: Basics and Functions

  • Civil religion is the idea that, despite church-state separation, the U.S. civic public life contains a religious dimension that informs national life.
  • Core claims of civil religion:
    • There is something larger than individual pursuit of pleasure and wealth that anchors the civic order.
    • In moments of crisis, civil religion mobilizes collective memory and purpose to defend or advance the nation’s future.
    • The rights of man are presented within a theistic frame, deriving from God and situating the individual within a broader cosmic order.
  • Evidence from inaugural rhetoric: presidents invoke denominational language and religious motifs to situate national identity within a transcendent frame.
  • Recurrent motifs across leaders (e.g., Wilson, Kennedy) show continuity in the civil-religious vocabulary, suggesting that certain metaphors persist over time.
  • The interpretation challenge: what Trump does or does not say matters; the rhetoric around civil religion can be both explicit and implied (the power of intimations and metaphors).
  • Key debate: is civil religion a religion or merely rhetoric? It can be believed by adherents or merely instrumental; the rhetoric can outlive the beliefs of elites.
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