From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and PoliticsWilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2001 M08 23 - 293 páginas Prompted by the shattering of the bonds between religion and the political order brought about by the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau devised a “new” religion (civil religion) to be used by the state as a way of enforcing civic unity. Emile Durkheim, by contrast, conceived civil religion to be a spontaneous phenomenon arising from society itself — a non-coercive force expressing the self-identify or self-definition of a people. In 1967, the American sociologist Robert Bellah rediscovered the concept and applied it to American society in its Durkheimian form. Ever since Bellah’s publication, most authors have sought to explain civil religion in terms of an alleged “spontaneous” integrative role for society. They have emphasized the religious and cultural dimension of the concept, but failed to give due consideration to its political-ideological foundations. Thus, the coercive potential of civil religion has received little attention or has been wrongly relegated to Third World countries. Cristi provides a critique of the civil religion thesis, and identifies the most basic deficiencies of literature on this topic. By contrasting Bellah’s Durkheimian conception with Rousseau’s original formulation, the author discloses the dubious conceptual and empirical basis of the former. She demonstrates the need to rethink Bellah’s thesis in the light of a reinterpretation of Rousseau’s and Durkheim’s classical approaches, and substantiates her critique with a brief comparative survey of state-directed civil religions, and with an informative case study of civil religion in Pinochet’s Chile. |
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... religion and politics in the United States . The speeches , which often mentioned God , revealed a profound religious spirit in American society . “ What we have , ” Bellah noted , “ is a collection of beliefs , symbols , and rituals ...
... religion included many Christian symbols and themes , it was “ neither sectarian nor in any specific sense Christian ” ( 1967 : 8 ) . An important aspect of the American political tradition , he observed , is the belief that Americans ...
... symbols and rituals in the United States that transcends and neutralizes differences in beliefs and values of American cit- izens , irrespective of their religion or social position . From Bellah's standpoint , civil religion ...
... religion. They have not only accepted the Durkheimian proposition that a stable society is based on a commonality of shared beliefs and symbols, but have also embraced the idea that the general integrative function of civil religion is ...
... religion is assumed to be, by definition, an essen- tially integrative force in society. I dispute the idea that civil reli- gion is a set of religious symbols which by definition serves to integrate society. Civil religion may give ...
Contenido
1 | |
15 | |
47 | |
Chapter 3 The Problem of Legitimacy Power and Politics | 91 |
Chapter 4 StateDirected Civil Religions in Comparative Perspective | 135 |
A Case Study | 165 |
Chapter 6 Civil Religion and the Spirit of Nationalism | 187 |
Durkheim versus Rousseau Revisited | 223 |
Notes | 243 |
References | 265 |
Index | 285 |
Otras ediciones - Ver todas
From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and ... Marcela Cristi Vista previa limitada - 2006 |
From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and ... Marcela Cristi Vista de fragmentos - 2001 |
From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and ... Marcela Cristi Sin vista previa disponible - 2001 |
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Referencias a este libro
European Culture in a Changing World: Between Nationalism and Globalism Daniel Meyer-Dinkgräfe Vista previa limitada - 2004 |
Recognizing Religion in a Secular Society: Essays in Pluralism, Religion ... Douglas Farrow Vista previa limitada - 2004 |