Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-11T08:48:36.221Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Contesting Civil Religion: Religious Responses to American Patriotic Nationalism, 1919-1929

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

Michael Lienesch
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Since the publication fifty years ago of Robert N. Bellah's classic article “Civil Religion in America,” the concept of civil religion has provoked continuing debates among scholars who study religion and American culture. This essay is a contribution to these debates and an attempt to move beyond them. It considers American civil religion as theory and as practice, examining its meaning through an investigation of how it functioned at an important and too little studied point in its past. Arguing that civil religion is both a cultural and a political construct, it shows how at the close of World War I, a loosely linked network of civic, military, and patriotic groups came together to create a sacralized form of patriotic nationalism and incorporate it into the American civil religious tradition. Contending that the relationships between civil religion and more conventional forms of organized religion are often close and at times contentious, it examines how religious bodies of the time were instrumental in supporting this process and intractable in resisting it. Proposing that civil religion can come in a variety of sometimes competing versions, it discusses the conflicts over civil religious practices that ensued within American churches during the next decade, relying on reports from the time to describe how these conflicts divided church leaders, denominations, and congregations. Finally, working from the premise that civil religious beliefs, symbols, and rituals are invariably involved in the political process, it examines how they became increasingly used for partisan purposes over the course of the decade, raising issues about the relationship between church and state. In closing, it comments on the enduring character of civil religion, and speculates on its continuing importance for American religion and politics.

Keywords

Robert N. Bellahcivil religionpatriotic nationalismUnited States history
Type
Research Article
Information
Religion and American Culture , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Winter 2018 , pp. 92 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture 1967

References

Notes

For their comments and encouragement on earlier versions of this work, the author wishes to thank Kevin M. Kruse, Melissa Matthes, Andrew R. Murphy, David Sehat, Joel Winkelman, Molly Worthen, and the anonymous referees at Religion and American Culture.

1. See Bellah, Robert N., “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus 96 (1967): 1; 4; 18.Google Scholar For background on the concept, see Beiner, Ronald, Civil Religion: A Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2011).Google Scholar

2. On the early “civil religion debate,” see American Civil Religion, ed. Russell E. Richey and Donald G. Jones (New York: Harper & Row, 1974). See also Bortolini, Matteo, “The Trap of Intellectual Success: Robert N. Bellah, the American Civil Religion Debate, and the Sociology of Knowledge,” Theory and Society 41 (2012): 187–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Bellah, Robert N., “Comment,” Sociological Analysis 50 (1989): 147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Bellah, Robert N., The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in a Time of Trial (New York: Seabury Press, 1989), 139-63.Google Scholar

4. For an overview of the debate, see Hammond, Phillip, “The Sociology of ACR: A Bibliographic Essay,” Sociological Analysis 37 (1976): 169-82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gehrig, Gail, “The American Civil Religion Debate: A Source for Theory Construction,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 20 (1981): 51–63 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mathison, James A., “Twenty Years after Bellah: Whatever Happened to American Civil Religion?” Sociological Analysis 50 (1989): 129-46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hammond, Phillip E., “Forum: American Civil Religion Revisited,” Religion and American Culture 4 (1994): 1–23 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Angrosino, Michael, “Civil Religion Redux,” Anthropological Quarterly 75 (2002): 239-67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For more recent applications, see Santiago, Jose, “From ‘Civil Religion’ to Nationalism as the Religion of Modern Times: Rethinking a Complex Relationship,” journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 48 (2009): 394–401 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Roof, Wade Clark, “American Presidential Rhetoric from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush: Another Look at Civil Religion,” Social Compass 56 (2009): 286–301 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gorski, Philip S., “Barack Obama and Civil Religion,” Political Power and Social Theory 22 (2011): 177–211 Google Scholar; Williams, Rhys H. and Fuist, Todd Nicholas, “Civil Religion and National Politics in a Neoliberal Era,” Sociology Compass 8 (2014): 929-38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Michael Kazin, “Trump's Civil Religion Has an Angry God,” Foreign Policy, January 20, 2017, http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/20/trumps-civil-religion-has-an-angry-god-inauguration-populism/.

5. Gorski, Philip, American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2017), 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. Catherine L. Albanese, “Echoes of American Civil Religion,” The Immanent Frame, February 12, 2010, http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2010/02/12/american-civil-religion/. See also essays by Richard Amesbury, Philip S. Gorski, David Kyuman Kim, Pamela Klassen, Ebrahim Moosa, David Morgan, and George Shulman in “Reconsidering Civil Religion,” The Immanent Frame, 2010, http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/reconsidering-civil-religion/. Recent collections on the topic include Holy Nations and Global Identities: Civil Religion, Nationalism, and Globalisation, ed. Annika Hvithamar, Margit Warburg, and Brian Arly Jacobson (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2009); Civil Religion in Political Thought: Its Perennial Questions and Enduring Relevance in North America, ed. Ronald Weed and John von Heyking (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2012); and The Rhetoric of American Civil Religion: Symbols, Sinners, and Saints, ed. Jason A. Edwards and Joseph M. Valenzano III (Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2016).

7. Murphy, Andrew R., “Civil Religion for a Diverse Polity,” Political Power and Social Theory 22 (2011): 231; 233.Google Scholar

8. See Bellah, , “Civil Religion in America,” 5–6.Google Scholar See also Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, On the Social Contract, trans, and ed. Kress, Donald A. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987), 96–103.Google Scholar

9. For Bellah on Durkheim, see Bellah, Robert N., “Durkheim and Ritual,” in The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim, ed. Alexander, Jeffrey C. and Smith, Philip (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 183–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Durkheim, Emile, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (New York: Free Press, 1915), 474-79.Google Scholar

10. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” 3-4.

11. Cristi, Marcela, From Civil to Political Religion (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001), 12; 13.Google Scholar

12. See Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” 16-19.

13. See Haberski, Raymond Jr., God and War: American Civil Religion since 1945 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2012), 11–12.Google Scholar

14. On the Committee on Public Information, see Vaughan, Stephen, Holding Fast the Inner Lines: Democracy, Nationalism, and the Committee on Public Information (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980).Google Scholar

15. “Would Reduce Public Offices,” (Louisville) Courier-Journal, December 11, 1919.

16. See Demerath, N. J. III and Williams, Rhys H., “Civil Religion in an Uncivil Society,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 480 (1985): 154-66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Cristi, , From Civil to Political Religion, 224-30.Google Scholar

17. On the proliferation of civic associations in the postwar period, see Skocpol, Theda, Munson, Ziad, Karch, Andrew, and Camp, Bayliss, “Patriotic Partnerships: Why Great Wars Nourished American Civic Voluntarism,” in Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development, ed. Katznelson, Ira and Shefter, Martin (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002), 151-69.Google Scholar

18. Pierce, Bessie Louise, Citizens' Organizations and the Civic Training of Youth (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933), 3.Google Scholar For a discussion of these and related groups, see also Hapgood, Norman, Professional Patriots (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1928)Google Scholar; Nielsen, Kim E., Un-American Womanhood: Antiradicalism, Antifeminism, and the First Red Scare (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2001)Google Scholar; and Delegard, Kirsten Marie, Battling Miss Bolsheviki: The Origins of Female Conservatism in the United States (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. See Ellis, Richard J., To the Flag: The Unlikely History of the Pledge of Allegiance (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005), 50–80.Google Scholar

20. See Beale, Howard K., Are American Teachers Free? An Analysis of Restraints upon the Freedom of Teaching in American Schools (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), 523-29.Google Scholar

21. See Pierce, Bessie Louise, Public Opinion and the Teaching of History in the United States (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1926), 93–98.Google Scholar

22. See Kammen, Michael G., A Machine That Would Go of Itself: The Constitution in American Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 232.Google Scholar See also Lienesch, Michael, “Creating Constitutional Conservatism,” Polity (2016): 387–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. See Ebel, Jonathan H., Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Powell, Garland W., Service for God and Country (Indianapolis: Cornelius Printing Co., [1924]), 7.Google Scholar

25. “Report of the Committee on American Citizenship,” Annual Report of the American Bar Association 45 (1922): 421.

26. Beck, James M., “A Rising or a Setting Sun?” Constitutional Review 8 (1924): 14.Google Scholar

27. Morrow, William W., “The Americanism of the Constitution of the United States,” Constitutional Review 4 (1920): 32.Google Scholar

28. “Report of the Committee on American Citizenship,” 421.

29. Gorski, , American Covenant, 222.Google Scholar See also ibid., 30-36.

30. Powell, , Service for God and Country, 142.Google Scholar

31. “Calls Constitution ‘Our Holy of Holies,'” New York Times, March 7, 1928; Wade, Martin J. and Russell, William F., The Short Constitution (Iowa City: American Citizen Publishing Co., 1921), 207.Google Scholar

32. Powell, , Service for God and Country, 44.Google Scholar On the National Flag Conferences, see Ellis, , To the Flag, 50–80.Google Scholar Meeting yearly, the Flag Conferences also concentrated on transforming Francis Bellamy's earlier version of the pledge into the nation's “Pledge to the Flag,” making changes to the wording and providing a uniform salute (right hand “extended, palm upward, toward the Flag”). See ibid., 65-67. In addition, inspired by President Harding's complaint that too many citizens did not know the words to “The Star Spangled Banner,” conference activists began what would become an eight-year effort to have the song officially declared the national anthem. See ibid., 62-63.

33. Adams, W. I. Lincoln, “The Proper Teaching of History,” Official Bulletin of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution 17 (December 1922): 19.Google Scholar On textbook investigations, see Pierce, , Public Opinion, 254-68.Google Scholar

34. See [William Tyler Page], The Book of the American's Creed ([Garden City, N.Y.]: Country Life Press, 1921). The book was “Issued Under the Auspices of National Patriotic Organizations.” The Sons of the American Revolution sold “tastefully printed” copies of the creed at the price of $4.00 per hundred and $30.00 per thousand. “Announcements,” Official Bulletin of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution 16 (October 1921): 9. On attempts by the American Legion to require the American's Creed in schools, see Pierce, , Citizen's Organizations, 42.Google Scholar The ABA created its own Citizenship Creed: “I believe that we Americans have the best government that has ever been created—the freest and the most just for all the people.” Beale, , Are American Teachers Free? 533.Google Scholar The “Ten Commandments of Patriotism,” penned by two U. S. Navy officers, also circulated in conservative publications of the period. See “The Ten Commandments of Patriotism,” Woman Patriot 17 & 18 (September 1 and 15, 1922).

35. McCamant, Wallace, Murphy, Ethel Allen, and Frayser, Nannie Lee, Constitution Week Celebration in Louisville ([Louisville, Ky.: Constitution Week Committee], 1923), 5.Google Scholar

36. “An Inspiring Text,” American Legion Weekly 1 (October 10, 1919). On the role of the American Legion in creating an ecumenical “religion of the nation,” see Ebel, , Faith in the Fight, 182-87.Google Scholar

37. Although a Christian term, in this essay “church” is intended to include institutions and practices from other religious traditions as well.

38. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” 1.

39. See Mead, Sidney E., The Nation with the Soul of a Church (New York: Harper and Row, 1975)Google Scholar; Cherry, Conrad, God's New Israel: Religious Interpretations of American Destiny (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971)Google Scholar; and Tuveson, Ernest L., Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America's Millennial Role (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968).Google Scholar See also Hatch, Nathan O., The Sacred Cause of Liberty: Republican Thought and the Millennium in Revolutionary New England (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Noll, Mark A., America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Porterfield, Amanda, Conceived in Doubt: Religion and Politics in the New American Nation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40. Haberski, , God and War, 5.Google Scholar Catherine Albanese contends that in the United States, “civil religion is a recent name for religious nationalism.” Albanese, Catherine L., America: Religions and Religion (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1981), 283–309.Google Scholar

41. Angrosino, “Civil Religion Redux,” 248.

42. Wilsey, John D., American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Assessing the History of an Idea (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 25.Google Scholar

43. See Abrams, Ray H., Preachers Present Arms: A Study of the War-Time Attitudes and Activities of the Churches and the Clergy in the United States, 1914-1918 (Philadelphia: Round Table Press, 1933)Google Scholar; Piper, John F. Jr., The American Churches in World War I (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985)Google Scholar; and Mathews, Shailer, Patriotism and Religion (New York: Macmillan Co., 1918).Google Scholar

44. See “All Creeds to Pay Honor to War Dead,” New York Times, May 30, 1920.

45. See “Many to Preach on Patriotism,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1921. See also “Prepare for Flag Day,” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 1923; “Asked to Observe Constitution Day,” Washington Post, August 7, 1921; and “Christian Church Fittingly Observes Independence Day,” Atlanta Constitution, July 18, 1926.

46. “An Inspiring Text,” 12. For background on the American Legion's National Americanism Commission and its programs, see Pencak, William, For God and Country: The American Legion, 1919-1941 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989), 3–23.Google Scholar Working together with the National Education Association and the United States Bureau of Education, the Legion also asked all religious groups to recognize the Sunday of Constitution Week as God and Country Day, with sermons “dealing with education and its relation to the service of God and country.” “Special Sermons Start Local Education Week,” Washington Post, November 19, 1923.

47. Cited from the Wheeling Intelligencer, June 20, 1922, in Hennen, John C., The Americanization of West Virginia: Creating a Modern Industrial State, 1916-1925 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996), 136.Google Scholar

48. Annual Report of the Allied Patriotic Socieites, Inc., December 5, 1923, 3; Dwight Braham to Governors of the American States, January 16, 1923, both in American Civil Liberties Records and Publications (hereafter ACLU Records), Subgroup 1, Reel 52, Vol. 331.

49. See “To Plead for Patriotism,” Los Angeles Times, February 17, 1923. See also “Present Flag to Church,” New York Times, April 15, 1929.

50. “Events of State Societies,” Official Bulletin of the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution 18 (1923): 49.

51. “Massing of Colors Brightens Fifth Avenue,” New York Times, November 7, 1927.

52. “Jefferson—Franklin—Adams: These Men Who Drew Up the Declaration of Independence Were Unitarians,” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1926.

53. “Sermons of Patriotism Resound from Pulpits,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1928. See also “Will Praise Constitution,” Los Angeles Times, September 15, 1923.

54. Martin, S. I., “The American Legion and the Church,” American Legion Weekly 4 (July 28, 1922): 25.Google Scholar See also “Keeping Step with the Legion,” American Legion Weekly 4 (October 20, 1922): 14, and “Legion Starts Drive to Enroll Every Ex-Yank,” Chicago Daily Tribune, May 3, 1920.

55. See Hennen, , Americanization of West Virginia, 136-37.Google Scholar

56. “‘True Americans,’” Los Angeles Times, July 18, 1925. See also “Churches Observe Constitution Day,” (Baltimore) Sun, September 17, 1923; “‘Divine Patriotism’ Will Be Discussed at Second Baptist,” Atlanta Constitution, November 6, 1926; and “Several Pastors to Preach on Flag and Father's Days,” Washington Post, June 15, 1929. For a discussion of ethnic church civic celebrations in the postwar period, see Alexander, June Granatir, Ethnic Pride, American Patriotism: Slovaks and Other New Immigrants in the Interwar Era (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004).Google Scholar In 1921, the American Defense Society announced the celebration of America Day, to be celebrated each May 1 as a counterpoint to radical May Day activities, but the event never gained popular support. See “America Day to Spike Red Plan,” (Louisville) Courier-Journal, April 21, 1921.

57. Cited in Newell, Jonathan, “Billy Sunday's 1923 Evangelistic Campaign in Columbia, South Carolina,” Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association, 2008 (Columbia: South Carolina Historical Association, 2008): 48.Google Scholar

58. “In Memoriam at Churches,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1927.

59. Clark, John Brittan, The Red, or the Red, White and Blue (New York: American Defense Society, 1923), 7.Google Scholar The service was described by the American Defense Society as being part of “a vigorous campaign by the churches in behalf of Americanism and against Bolshevistic and revolutionary doctrines.” Ibid., n.p.

60. “The Faith of the Founders,” New York Times, July 5, 1926.

61. “Churches Observe Constitution Day,” (Baltimore) Sun, September 17, 1923.

62. “Revive Prayer by Washington,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 1926.

63. Powell, , Service for God and Country, 38.Google Scholar

64. “Flag Is Called Symbol of Ideals of This Nation,” Nashville Tennessean, June 13, 1921.

65. On Bellah, see Gorski, “Barack Obama and Civil Religion,” 181-83.

66. Chernus, Ira, “Civil Religion,” in The Blackwell Companion to Religion in America, ed. Goff, Philip (Chichester, U.K.: Blackwell Publishing, 2010), 67.Google Scholar

67. See Wuthnow, Robert, “Divided We Fall: America's Two Civil Religions,” Christian Century 115 (1988): 395-99Google Scholar, and Wuthnow, Robert, The Restructuring of American Religion (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), 241-67.Google Scholar See also Marty, Martin, “Two Kinds of Civil Religion,” in Richey, and Jones, , American Civil Religion, 139-57.Google Scholar

68. See Kao, Grace Y. and Copulsky, Jerome E., “The Pledge of Allegiance and the Meanings and Limits of Civil Religion,” journal of the American Academy of Religion 75 (2007): 121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

69. See Remillard, Arthur, Southern Civil Religions: Imagining the Good Society in the Post-Reconstruction Era (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011).Google Scholar

70. Demerath and Williams, “Civil Religion in an Uncivil Society,” 165-66; 166.

71. See Sittser, Gerald L., A Cautious Patriotism: The American Churches and the Second World War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 17.Google Scholar See also Allen, Devere, The Fight for Peace (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930), 47–54.Google Scholar On prewar religious opposition to preparedness, see Kazin, Michael, War against War: The American Fight for Peace, 1914-1918 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017), 99–103.Google Scholar

72. Shepherd, J. W., “Should Christians Engage in War?” Christian Leader 34 (July 20, 1920): 5.Google Scholar See Casey, Michael W., “From Pacifism to Patriotism: The Emergence of Civil Religion in the Churches of Christ during World War I,” in The Stone-Campbell Movement: An International Religious Tradition, ed. Casey, Michael W. and Foster, Douglas A. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 472.Google Scholar

73. “Memorable Services at Nation's Capital,” Federal Council Bulletin 5 (December 1921-January 1922): 15. “Patriotism is not enough,” a statement made by the martyred British nurse Edith Cavell, was often quoted in antiwar sermons of the time. See, for example, “Thousands Honor Nation's Founders,” New York Times, April 20, 1925. On multiple meanings attributed to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, see Ebel, Jonathan H., G. I. Messiahs: Soldiering, War, and American Civil Religion (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2015), 46–68.Google Scholar

74. “For a Spiritual Meaning of Armistice Day,” Federal Council Bulletin 5 (October-November 1922): 15.

75. “Says Memorial Day Arouses War Spirit,” New York Times, May 27, 1929.

76. See Beale, , Are American Teachers Free? 73 Google Scholar; Ellis, , To the Flag, 86–89 Google Scholar; and Pierce, Bessie Louise, Civic Attitudes in American School Textbooks (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930), 241.Google Scholar

77. “Urges Christian Pacifism,” New York Times, July 12, 1928.

78. See Bainton, Roland, “The Churches and War: Historic Attitudes Toward Christian Participation,” Social Action 11 (1945): 34.Google Scholar

79. See “Churches Unite for Disarmament,” Federal Council Bulletin 4 (June-July 1921): 77. See also Gulick, Sidney L., The Christian Crusade for a Warless World (New York: Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, 1923), 163-64Google Scholar; Sittser, , A Cautious Patriotism, 18–19 Google Scholar; and Allen, , The Fight for Peace, 47–54.Google Scholar

80. “Pressing for a Warless World,” Federal Council Bulletin 4 (October-November 1921): 111-13. See also “Duty of the Churches,” Federal Council Bulletin 5 (December 1921-January 1922): 22.

81. See “Peace Sunday, June 5, To Be Observed Here,” (Baltimore) Sun, May 21, 1921; “Churches to Observe Disarmament Sunday,” (Baltimore) Sun, June 4, 1921; and Pierce, , Citizens' Organizations, 147-49.Google Scholar

82. “What the Churches Can Do Now,” Federal Council Bulletin 5 (February-March 1922): 13. See also “The Washington Conference,” Homiletic Review 84 (January 1922): 113-14.

83. “The World Court Campaign Gains Momentum,” Federal Council Bulletin 6 (November-December 1923): 3. See also “Churches Call America to Enter World Court,” Federal Council Bulletin 6 (September-October 1923): 3-4.

84. Kendall, A. B., “True Patriotism: What It Is and Does,” Herald of Gospel Liberty 114 (October 5, 1922): 15.Google Scholar

85. “Sees World Remade by Woman in Politics,” (Baltimore) Sun, October 4, 1920.

86. See “Churchgoers Hear Sermons on Labor,” New York Times, September 5, 1921; “Pleas for Child Welfare Heard,” (Louisville) Courier-journal, January 30, 1922; “Labor Sunday Held in Churches of City,” (Baltimore) Sun, September 3, 1923; “To Discuss Child Labor,” New York Times, January 25, 1925; “Child Labor Ban Urged in Pulpits,” New York Times, January 26, 1925; and “Labor Sunday Observance,” Federal Council Bulletin 8 (September-October 1925): 28.

87. See “'Anti-Lynching Day’ Is Set by Churches,” New York Times, October 29, 1927.

88. “Eloquent Tribute Paid to Our Flag,” Los Angeles Times, June 18, 1923.

89. “Plans New Bible of and for America,” New York Times, February 28, 1924. See also “St. Mark's Reveres Stars and Stripes,” New York Times, February 25, 1924.

90. See Gorski, , American Covenant, 202-22.Google Scholar See also Murphy, “Civil Religion for a Diverse Polity,” 226.

91. Williams, Rhys H., “Civil Religion and the Cultural Politics of National Identity in Obama's America,” journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 52 (2013): 254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

92. Jonathan D. Sarna, “Forum: American Civil Religion Revisited,” 21. See also Amanda Porterfield, ibid., 9-10; James G. Moseley, ibid., 17-18; and Sarna, ibid., 19-23.

93. “Calls Declaration Miracle of God,” New York Times, July 5, 1926; “Holmes Asks New Declaration to Defy Capitalistic Control,” New York Times, July 5, 1926.

94. “Memorial Sermons in Churches Today,” New York Times, May 30, 1926. See also Gulick, Sidney L., “The Local Church in the Crusade for Peace,” Federal Council Bulletin 7 (September-October 1924): 16.Google Scholar

95. See “Today's Programs in City's Churches,” New York Times, January 27, 1929.

96. “Several Pastors to Preach on Flag and Father's Days,” Washington Post, June 15, 1929.

97. “Thousands Honor Nation's Founders,” New York Times, April 20, 1925.

98. “Fear Defense Day If It Glorifies War,” New York Times, September 8, 1924. See also “Churches against Mobilization Day,” Christian Century 41 (July 3, 1924): 862; “More Protests against Mobilization Day,” Christian Century 41 (August 7, 1924): 1023; “Church Press against Mobilization Day,” Christian Century 41 (August 7, 1924): 1028; and “The Trend of Events,” Herald of Gospel Liberty 116 (September 25, 1924): 5.

99. “An Affront to the Church and to the Nation,” Herald of Gospel Liberty 117 (May 21, 1925): 4.

100. “A Fourth of July Call to Sanity,” Herald of Gospel Liberty 119 (June 30, 1927): 4. See “Veterans Protest Pacifist Memorial,” New York Times, October 17, 1926. See also “Armistice Day: Contrasts and Contradictions,” Federal Council Bulletin 10 (December 1927): 3-4.

101. “Americanism Recipe Is Given,” (Louisville) Courier-Journal, April 29, 1920.

102. See “Pinks Rebuked by Evanston Rally,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 31, 1924. See also “No Insult to Flag, View of N.U. Faculty,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 25, 1924.

103. “Legion Hits P.T.A. and Church Body,” Atlanta Constitution, November 23, 1926. In 1928, American Legion officials also brought pressure on churches in the South to cancel speaking engagements by the pacifist Sherwood Eddy of the YMCA. See “Legion Will Try to Cut Pacifists’ Audiences in U.S.,” Atlanta Constitution, January 30, 1928. As late as 1929, the organization was requesting public investigation of organizations with pacifist leanings, including the Federal Council of Churches. See “Legion Demands Pacifist Inquiry,” New York Times, October 3, 1929.

104. “Bosheviki Bore into the Churches,” New York Times, February 16, 1921; “Admits Attack on Interchurch Drive,” New York Times, July 15, 1920. On Civic Federation claims of socialism in the churches, see “Socialism or Social Reform in the Church—Which?” National Civic Federation Review 5 (January 1, 1920): 15-20; Harre, T. Everett, “Revolution in U.S. Preached to Methodist Clergy,” National Civic Federation Review 5 (July 10, 1920): 11, 20–21 Google Scholar; and “Purifying Politics—A Field for the Churches,” National Civic Federation Review 5 (November 25, 1920): 14–15, 23-24. See also correspondence between Conde B. Pallen of the National Civic Federation and John A. Ryan, Director of the Department of Social Action of the National Catholic Welfare Conference, in ACLU Records, Subgroup 1, Reel 52, Vol. 331.

105. See Nielson, , Un-American Womanhood, 124-30.Google Scholar The entire list is printed in ibid, 143-57. See also Delegard, , Battling Miss Bolsheviki, 159-71.Google Scholar

106. “Calls on Columbia to Oust Professor Hayes,” New York Times, January 17, 1927. In an earlier speech to the Committee on Militarism in Education, Hayes had decried the development of a “religion of nationalism” with its “shrines, images, icons, and relics,” referring to the Liberty Bell and the “cult for worship of the flag, with very curious liturgical forms.” See “Prof. Hayes Derides Patriotic Cults,” New York Times, January 16, 1927. See also “Misquoted, Says Hayes,” New York Times, January 18, 1927. See also Hayes, Carlton J. H., Essays on Nationalism (New York: Macmillan Co., 1928), 107-20.Google Scholar

107. See Beale, , Are American Teachers Free? 73 Google Scholar; Pierce, Civic Attitudes in American School Textbooks, TAX; and Ellis, , To the Flag, 86–89.Google Scholar

108. “Flays Churches for Armistice Day Message,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 9, 1926. See also “Legion Chaplain Condemns Church Attitude to War,” Atlanta Constitution, August 6, 1924.

109. “Ministers Favor Preparedness; Decry Pacifism,” Christian Century 43 (May 27, 1926): 690.

110. “People Called to Stand for True Americanism,” Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1924.

111. “Minister Calls Church Council Foe of Religion,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 25, 1927.

112. “Unpatriotic Intelligentsia,” Moody Monthly 28 (July 1928): 519. The article was reprinted from the Better America Federation Bulletin. On patriotic nationalism in early fundamentalism, see Marsden, George M., Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1991), 50–53.Google Scholar

113. Adams, Frank D., “Dedicating the Living,” Universalist Leader 25 (May 27, 1922): 5.Google Scholar

114. Moldenhawer, J. V., “Patriots and Christians,” Federal Council Bulletin 12 (February 1929): 7–9.Google Scholar See also the comments of Episcopal Bishop Ashton Oldham in “Kellogg Lauds Church World Peace Efforts,” Washington Post, October 22, 1928.

115. See, for example, “Methodist Conferences for Social Advance,” Christian Century 44 (December 22, 1927): 1530.

116. “Who Are the True Patriots?” Federal Council Bulletin 11 (May 1928): 24.

117. “Fosdick Sees Honor in D.A.R. Blacklist,” Neiv York Times, May 28, 1928. See also “Baptists Denounce Blacklist Issued in ‘Guise of Patriotism,’” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 19, 1928.

118. “Urges New Society to Offset D.A.R.,” New York Times, April 23, 1928.

119. See, for example, “Methodist Church Body Votes Refusal to Aid War,” Washington Post, May 15, 1924; “Defense Day Is Deplored in M. E. Vote,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 4, 1924; “Lutheran Church for Just War,” New York Times, October 28, 1924; “World Court Urged by Church Council; All Wars Decried,” Washington Post, October 25, 1925; “Congregationalism Votes to Excommunicate War; Consolidate Boards,” Christian Century 42 (November 5, 1925): 1385.

120. “Bishop Opposes Singing National Airs in Church,” (Louisville) Courier-Journal, October 12, 1919. See also “Fears Patriot Songs Lack in Sacred Themes,” Chicago Daily Tribune, October 12, 1919.

121. “Flag Is Not above the Cross, He Says,” New York Times, April 12, 1926. See also “Cross and Flag,” Atlanta Constitution, May 17, 1926.

122. See “The Episcopal Convention,” Washington Post, October 23, 1928. See also “Letters to Editor,” Washington Post, October 21, 1928; “Bishops Adopt July 4 Service,” New York Times, October 17, 1928; “Both Houses Adopt July 4th Prayer,” Washington Post, October 17, 1928.

123. “Bishop Freeman on the Symbolism of the American Flag,” Washington Post, November 12, 1929. See “A Bishop's Insult,” Washington Post, November 8, 1929.

124. “Pacifism Is Anarchy,” Washington Post, May 10, 1925. See also “Pastor and Flock in Flag Dispute Agree to Part,” Reading Times, April 30, 1925.

125. Hammond, Philip E., “Religion and the ‘Informing’ of Culture,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 1 (1963): 254.Google Scholar

126. See Wimberley, Ronald C. and Christenson, James A., “Civil Religion and Church and State,” Sociological Quarterly 21 (1980): 38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

127. See Wimberley, Ronald C., “Civil Religion and the Choice for President,” Social Forces 59 (1980): 44–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Wimberley, Ronald C. and Christenson, James A., “Civil Religion, Social Indicators, and Public Policy,” Social Indicators Research 10 (1982): 211-13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

128. See, for example, Chapp, Christopher B., Religious Rhetoric and American Politics: The Endurance of Civil Religion in Electoral Campaigns (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Manis, Andrew Michael, Southern Civil Religions in Conflict: Civil Rights and the Culture Wars (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; and McDougall, Walter A., The Tragedy of U.S. Foreign Policy: How America's Civil Religion Betrayed the National Interest (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2016).Google Scholar

129. Porterfield, “Forum: American Civil Religion Revisited,” 11.

130. “Pertinent Pulpit Paragraphs,” Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1920.

131. “Minister's Speech for Harding Stirs Methodist Pastors,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 15, 1920. For other examples, see “Dr. Wise Advocates Coolidge's Defeat,” New York Times, November 3, 1924; “Memorial Services Held in Churches,” New York Times, November 12, 1927; and “Coolidge Navy Plan Assailed by Pastor,” New York Times, November 19, 1928.

132. See “The Church and the Voter,” Homiletic Review 88 (June 1924): 456. See also Gidlow, Liette, The Big Vote: Gender, Consumer Culture, and the Politics of Exclusion, 1890s-1920s (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 51–52.Google Scholar

133. “Pastors Urged To Get Voters to the Polls,” Washington Post, October 4, 1924. See Tippy, Worth M., “Get Out the Vote!” Federal Council Bulletin 7 (September-October 1924): 12.Google Scholar

134. “The Church and the Voter,” Homiletic Review 88 (July 1924): 6. Church members were also asked to take a “Voter's Pledge” promising to register and vote. See “The Church and the Voter,” Homiletic Review 88 (October 1924): 264-69. The Christian Herald, an interdenominational publication, advised churches to set aside a portion of their service on Sunday, October 26, for a discussion of the duties of citizenship. It also offered the church in each state with the highest percentage of voters a trip to the inauguration and “a handsome pulpit Bible, suitably inscribed.” “Getting Out the Christian Vote,” Christian Herald 47 (September 27, 1924): 787.

135. “Predicts Passing of Slacker Voters,” New York Times, November 9, 1924.

136. On the partisan character of the campaign, see McGerr, Michael E., The Decline of Popular Politics: The American North, 1865-1928 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 195-97.Google Scholar

137. “Pledged—2,000,000 Ballots in Homiletic's Campaign,” Homiletic Review 88 (November 1924): 358.

138. See “Dry Convention Closes,” New York Times, September 20, 1920. Preaching on Second Constitution Day, in 1926, to delegates of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union meeting in Los Angeles, Methodist pastor E. E. Helms described those advocating proposals to permit the states to hold referenda allowing the sale of alcohol as “traitors to our Constitution.” (“While true Americans sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner,’” Helms told his audience, “traitors to our Constitution are singing ‘How Dry I Am!’”) “Opposers of Nation's Law Denounced as Traitors,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 1926.

139. “Plea by Manning for the Dry Laws,” New York Times, February 23, 1925. See also “Law Breakers Held Unfit to Honor Dead,” New York Times, May 28, 1928; “Today's Programs in City's Churches,” New York Times, June 30, 1929.

140. “Drys Will Appeal to Church Members,” New York Times, October 1, 1928.

141. “Loyalty Crusade Planned,” Los Angeles Times, August 23, 1929. See also “Join in Church Plea for Respect for Law,” New York Times, July 1, 1929.

142. “Ruth Bryan Owen Urges Dry Pledge as Ritual of Flag,” Washington Post, April 15, 1929.

143. See “Ku Klux Call at Church on Bid of Pastor,” (Baltimore) Sun, April 17, 1922; “Ku Klux Enter Church Tent; Have Paper Read,” (Louisville) Courier-Journal, September 24, 1922; “Ku Klux Klansmen Invade a Church,” New York Times, October 23, 1922; “Church Split by Act of Ku Klux,” (Louisville) Courier-Journal, November 19, 1922; “Ku Klux Klansmen March into Church,” New York Times, December 19, 1922. For pastors who opposed Klan participation in services, see “Preacher Says Klan Can't Hide Sins in Church,” Chicago Daily Tribune, April 9, 1923, and “Pastor Berates Klansmen on False Americanism,” Chicago Defender, September 19, 1925. On the anti-Smith campaign in the South, see Bailey, Kenneth K., Southern White Protestantism in the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), 92–110.Google Scholar

144. Cited in Isidor Wise, “‘Over the Devil's Back,’” American Israelite, August 26, 1926.

145. “Pastor Holds It Duty of Pulpit to Talk Politics,” Los Angeles Times, October 22, 1928.

146. “All Saloons in World to Go If Hoover Wins, Says Sunday,” Washington Post, November 3, 1928.

147. “Nation to Observe Flag Day June 14,” New York Times, June 5, 1927.

148. “Leaders in 3 Faiths Urge Clergy to Aid in Flag Observance,” Washington Post, May 29, 1927.

149. See “Washington Urged Religious Concord,” New York Times, February 20, 1928; “Extol Washington in Diverse Tribute,” New York Times, February 23, 1928; and “Smith and Hoover Praised by Robbins,” New York Times, July 2, 1928.

150. “Deputies Name Dr. Phillips as Head of House,” Washington Post, October 11, 1928. See also “Ministers Attack Campaign Bigotry,” Nezv York Times, October 8, 1928.

151. “Dr. Wise Sees Smith Hit by ‘Unholy War,’” New York Times, October 1, 1928.

152. “Ceremonies in City Honor Columbus,” New York Times, October 12, 1928.

153. “Van Dyke Assails Campaign Bigotry,” New York Times, September 2, 1928.

154. See Charles Palmerston Anderson, “The Church and the World,” Federal Council Bulletin 11 (November 1928): 5. On the consequences of the campaign for southern white Protestant churches, see Bailey, , Southern White Protestantism, 107-10.Google Scholar

155. See “Vast Crowd Honors Flag at Ceremony,” Washington Post, June 10, 1929.

156. “Hoover Inspires Sermons,” Los Angeles Times, March 2, 1929.

157. “Says Memorial Day Arouses War Spirit.” See also “Obedience to Law Is Urged by Bishop,” Washington Post, May 27, 1929.

158. “Roosevelt Assails Militaristic Patriot,” New York Times, November 11, 1929. See also Isetti, Ronald, “The Moneychangers of the Temple: FDR, American Civil Religion, and the New Deal,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 26 (1966): 678-93.Google Scholar

159. Bellah, , The Broken Covenant, 142.Google Scholar See also Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” 16-19.

160. See Williams and Fuist, “Civil Religion and National Politics in a Neoliberal Era,” 932-35.

161. Roof, “American Presidential Rhetoric from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush,” 300.

162. On the national anthem, motto, and pledge, see Pierard, Richard V., “The Role of Civil Religion in American Society,” in Oxford Handbook of Church and State in the United States, ed. Davis, Derek K. (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 2010), 490-92.Google Scholar See also Kruse, Kevin M., One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York: Basic Books, 2015).Google Scholar On new memorials, see Gardella, Peter, American Civil Religion: What Americans Hold Sacred (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 323-44.Google Scholar On civil religion and presidential rhetoric, see Domke, David and Coe, Kevin, The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 61–64.Google Scholar

163. See Angrosino, “Civil Religion Redux,” 260-65.

164. See Kruse, , One Nation under God, 165–294.Google Scholar

165. See Haberski, , God and War, 243-54.Google Scholar

166. See Murphy, Andrew R. and Gutterman, David S., Political Religion and Religious Politics: Navigating Identities in the United States (New York: Routledge, 2016), 22–49 Google Scholar; Webster, Gerald R. and Leib, Jonathan I., “Religion, Murder, and the Confederate Battle Flag in South Carolina,” Southeastern Geographer 56 (2016): 29–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Arthur Remillard, “Protests, Pigskin, and Patriotism: Colin Kaepernick and America's Civil Religions,” OUPblog, September 17, 2016, http://blog.oup.com/2016/09/patriotismkaepernick-america-religions/.