Neo-Paganism as a Civil Religion

What is it about?

In Robert Bellah’s 1967 understanding, the concept of civil religion expresses a transcendent religion that belongs to everyone in America – whether Protestant, Catholic or Jewish. While other nations may also possess civil religious beliefs, symbols and rituals that furnish a religious dimension to the entirety of national life, Bellah’s American civil religion comprises the institutionalization of concepts of transcendence and the sacred in connection with the American nation. Its particular religious principles provide a transcendent standard against which the country is to be assessed, and while the national motto of “In God We Trust” suggests a non-denominational confidence in God’s protection of the United States, this belief has been thrown into doubt through the debacle of the Vietnam War, the crisis of Watergate and, more recently, the 2004 Presidential election and the 911 catastrophe.

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Why is it important?

In lieu of Bellah's delineation of civil religion, the questions arise concerning how much does contemporary Western paganism participate in American civil religion, and how much does the language of contemporary Goddess Spirituality, earth spirituality and/or nature religion constitute a form of ‘pagan civil religion’? These questions are important in comprehending the the kind of New Religious Movement (or NRMs) that Contemporary Western Paganism can be assessed to be. The question itself concerning civil religion in America is whether the institutionalization of sacred beliefs about the nation – even the idolatrous worship of the nation – conflicts with the country’s constitutionally enshrined separation of church and state.