Consider This from NPR - Does America Have Its Own 'Civil Religion?'

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

Much is said about how divided the U.S. is these days. But perhaps there is still something that unites Americans. Longtime NPR correspondent Tom Gjelten reports on what he calls the country's "civil religion" — a collection of beliefs, based on freedom, that should apply to every American equally. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

America is a nation of immigrants, so how does one define the American identity? That's a question kids in the Scouts BSA, formerly known as the Boy Scouts, have to consider when they earn their citizenship merit badge. Are we a country that's united by a nationality? Cheryl Rapetti is teaching a merit badge class for a group of Scouts at an outdoor classroom in Alexandria, Virginia. And one young man offers this up. I would say that the thing that really holds America together,

it's our values, kind of like freedom and like respect to everybody. This is the lesson that many people are taught about what it means to be American. It's about accepting American values. It's a philosophical idea, not one of ethnic identity. It is difficult to become German. It is difficult to become Swedish because those identities are not ideas. This is writer Shadi Hamid, whose parents came to America from Egypt. Becoming American means that you believe in the American idea, and at least in theory, that's open to any immigrant who is able to come here. Consider this.

Much has been said about how divided we are, but perhaps there is still something that unites us. Coming up, longtime NPR correspondent Tom Jelton on America's civil religion. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Monday, Memorial Day, May 31st. This message comes from NPR sponsor, NetSuite by Oracle. The bigger your company grows, the faster you sync with outdated software. Right now, NetSuite is offering a one-of-a-kind special financing program.

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a podcast from NPR and KQED. It's Consider This from NPR. Our correspondent Tom Jelton recently retired after 38 years with NPR. He was one of the network's pioneering international correspondents, first in South America, then Eastern Europe. And he reported on the transition in former Soviet countries as they embraced democracy. At the biggest textile factory in Tirana, Albania's capital, a statue of Joseph Stalin stood in the factory courtyard until last year. He covered the Gulf War and then eventually made his way back to the U.S. to a post at the Pentagon. In fact, he was reporting live from the building when it was hit on September 11th.

Well, Bob, I certainly can confirm that there was a direct hit on the Pentagon by an aircraft. I saw it. I didn't see it happen, but I saw the aftermath of it. Now, with all of that in the rear view, Tom Jelton chose to spend the last six years of his career reporting on faith. I saw it as a way to connect with people personally

and see my country in a different light. These stories have been, for me, ways to humanize people. Tom liked reporting stories that challenged preconceived ideas about religious people. For instance, the story of a young Muslim woman named Aqsa Mahmood. She was born in Pakistan, raised in Georgia. I am so grateful to have been a Muslim growing up in the South. Only in the South could you say to your friend

and be like, hey, you know what? I got to pray. And they'd be like, of course. Like, they talked about God in a very personal way. Like, their relationship with Jesus made me want to have a close relationship with God. I'll be honest. We have this stereotype of Southerners, evangelicals being intolerant. Here was a Muslim

girl who actually felt more comfortable in the South because her friends there were more open talking about faith. It really challenged those stereotyped ideas. Tom says the religion beat changed him as a reporter, as a person. I think during these last six years, I have become more attentive to people of faith, more respectful of all those people who take their faith and belief seriously, more than I was before. I think that has been, for me, an important change. But as he prepared to file his final story, it wasn't the typical faith traditions that were on Tom's mind. He was thinking more about what it means to be American,

about the religious zeal many people feel toward the country, blending faith and patriotism, sometimes with dangerous results. We saw some of that on January 6th. Thank you, Heavenly Father, for gracing us with this opportunity. With all that divides us, Tom wondered, is there anything that still unites us as Americans? Many would say, like that Boy Scout we heard earlier, that the values of freedom and respect are what binds us. But that doesn't ring true for everyone. Because of the xenophobia that Asian Americans are facing, because of the backlash against African American civil rights, we're seeing that this kind of citizenship, this kind of an intrinsic right to be in the U.S. to enjoy its freedoms is not really for everyone. Lynn Itagaki is a professor at the University of Missouri, and she says the U.S. does have its own kind of civil religion.

But that doesn't mean there is harmony in the congregation. Tom Jelton takes it from here. For an idea to define a country, it has to have real power, the kind of power a religion has for its believers. This is what's at stake in America these days. The country does have something like a national religion with something like a national prayer. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. The pledge is recited with hands on heart.

There is similar reverence for the national anthem. Itagaki sees these gestures as indicating ritual occasions, and she does consider them legitimate. Standing for the president or standing for fallen soldiers. And so we have these regular expressions of devotion, just like a religion. But Itagaki is among those now calling for a more critical view of this civil religion, with attention, for example, to the nation's origin when white Europeans violently displaced the native population. The U.S. is a white settler, colonialist state. It was founded that way.

In the U.S. civil religion, the founders have a status like saints, and the texts they produced serve as a kind of scripture, laying out the principles by which the nation is to be guided. But many of the founders were slaveholders. Does that fact discredit the American idea, the country's civil religion? Shadi Hamid, as the son of immigrants, hopes that will not happen. If we completely do away with key founding figures and we start problematizing the founding documents, which are part of the American civic faith, then the American idea doesn't have a lot to go on.

Foundations matter. Critics of America's civil religion generally agree the principles in those documents are sound, but their application has been problematic. To complicate things, the American idea has gotten linked to a kind of Christian nationalism, most recently during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol when the Senate chamber was violently occupied. Jesus Christ, we invoke your name. Amen. Amen. The audio there recorded by a writer for the New Yorker magazine.

Among those upset by that scene at the Capitol was Miles Wirtz, a theology professor at Abilene Christian University. When you have someone who, like you saw on January 6th, someone who gets up into the Senate declaring that the violence that is being done on that day is being done in the name of God, then that's when I think we find religious language has gone amok. In fact, the events of January 6th, because of all the Christian symbolism displayed that day, have brought a general backlash against religious nationalism in the country. Wernst fears it's calling into question even the notion of a civil religion in America. He notes that some of the most eloquent apostles of the American idea,

like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., actually spoke from a Christian tradition. In his speeches, he frequently uses references to scripture, and he's not speaking specifically to Christians, but using these things as more basic moral instruction. A reaction against any religious language Wernitz says can be taken too far. My concern is that in trying to get rid of the Christian nationalist versions, that the other things which might have some social benefit might get swept out as well. The question here is the continued viability of America's civil religion,

whether it can still inspire the nation the way it's supposed to. Washington, D.C. is still the home base. Students from around the country come here as they found a pilgrimage to get an appreciation of their heritage. I always tell my student that, you know, we started schools way back when because we wanted children to understand our government. Nicole Sardi, a fifth grade teacher in Eagle, Idaho. And what was important about our government and why America is an awesome country and why people want to come here. An important stop on this civic pilgrimage is the National Archives, where students can see firsthand the nation's founding texts.

Sardi's class couldn't take the trip this year because of the pandemic, but they did get a virtual visit. In the National Archives Rotunda, this is where you can find some of our most famous documents. Katie Munn of the archive staff led the online tour. This is where you can find the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We call these documents the Charters of Freedom. But these Charters of Freedom are just a part of the archive holdings. There are also records here of the battle for women's suffrage and the civil rights movement. If there is scripture for America, it is being updated. I think about the American civil religion as an evolving tradition.

Sociologist Philip Gorski at Yale University says the tradition should incorporate other people, other saints, alongside the founders. People like Frederick Douglass, the social reformer Jane Addams, Martin Luther King Jr., and others more recent, to keep the civil religion meaningful for an increasingly diverse nation. I sometimes liken it to a river whose banks grow wider over time and which is changed by the landscape that it flows through, instead of, for example, thinking about it as some kind of pristine spring

that we have to return to again and again. The preamble to the U.S. Constitution begins with the words, We the people. The American people today may not be quite whom the founders had in mind back then, but the country's civil religion needs to speak to everyone here now. NPR religion and belief correspondent Tom Jelton retired after 38 years with the network. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.