Questions
What Is American Civil Religion?
Summary: American civil religion (ACR) is the public use of religious language, symbols, and ideas—God in inaugural addresses, “in God we trust,” national holidays—to give moral meaning to the American political project without lending credibility to any specific religious tradition; its apparent openness to faith masks a competitive relationship that subtly subordinates religion to the nation.
American civil religion (ACR) refers to the public use of religious language, symbols, and ideas to give moral meaning to the American political project. It involves shared beliefs, rituals, and symbols including, but not necessarily limited to, references to God in presidential speeches, national holidays like July 4th and Thanksgiving, the recitation of the pledge of allegiance, and phrases like “in God we trust.” The purpose of ACR is to provide a transcendental dimension to American public life without lending credibility or legitimation to any specific religious tradition. The expressions acknowledge a higher power and frame the nation’s history and mission in moral or sacred terms.
The difficulty with ACR involves its tolerance for specific religious traditions, including Christianity. This apparent openness toward religion conceals its competitive relationship with it. In seeking to preserve a sacred, religious sense without legitimating any specific religious tradition, it has the effect of diminishing the theological claims of specific religious traditions by subsuming them under itself. In other words, ACR is its own advocate seeking to justify and elevate itself at the expense of specific religious claims. By treating all religious traditions as sources for its own symbolic vocabulary rather than as authorities over it, ACR implicitly subordinates them to itself. ACR borrows the language of transcendence while refusing the accountability that comes with specific theological commitments.
ACR’s tolerance makes it particularly difficult for Christians to navigate. Because ACR feels hospitable, it can be difficult to recognize it as functioning as a rival claim to our loyalty. Sociologist Robert Bellah underscores this dynamic noting, “The American civil religion was never anticlerical or militantly secular. On the contrary, it borrowed selectively from the religious tradition in such a way that the average American saw no conflict between the two. In this way, the civil religion was able to build up without any bitter struggle with the church powerful symbols of national solidarity and to mobilize deep levels of personal motivation from the attainment of national goals.”
What Bellah sees as ACR’s positive disposition to religion and characterizes as not being “anticlerical or militantly secular” is the problem with ACR. It asserts itself as a friend while actually working against the sort of deep, unqualified discipleship that God requires. The absence of open hostility does not neutralize the rivalry. It masks it. ACR competes with Christianity not through persecution but by absorbing its language while redirecting loyalty to the nation.
It is not that love for nation is incompatible with Christianity, but that love for nation must be nested in love for the Triune God. ACR’s goal is to prompt us to love our nation on its terms. Christians are called to love their nation on God’s terms, allowing our unqualified loyalty to the Triune God to shape the way we interact with our nation.
Key Takeaways: ACR as Rival Loyalty
- Definition: Public use of religious language and symbols to give sacred meaning to the American political project without legitimating any specific tradition.
- Bellah’s Framing: Robert Bellah notes that ACR was never anticlerical but borrowed “selectively from the religious tradition”—a feature Spencer argues reveals ACR’s competitive relationship with Christianity.
- The Subtle Subordination: ACR treats religious traditions as sources for its symbolic vocabulary rather than authorities over it—borrowing transcendence while refusing theological accountability.
- The “So What”: Love of nation must be nested in love of the Triune God; ACR prompts us to love the nation on its terms, while Christians are called to love it on God’s terms.
About the Author — James Spencer, PhD, is a theologian, author, and host of the Thinking Christian podcast, where he writes and speaks on Christian formation, political theology, and technology. He holds a PhD in Theological Studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and completed the Institute for Educational Management at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He serves as President of the D.L. Moody Center in Northfield, Massachusetts, as adjunct faculty in Wheaton College’s MA in Leadership program, and as an Associate Research Fellow at the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, Christianity.com, and Sojourners; he has been quoted in The Telegraph; and he is a regular guest on Stand in the Gap Today with the American Pastors Network. His forthcoming book is Digital Discernment (InterVarsity Press, Fall 2026). Learn more at jamesgspencer.com.