Analysis Of The Causes Of The American Civil Religion

Civil religion is a unique social phenomenon of the Western countries, especially notable in the USA. The paper aims at analyzing the forming causes of United States civil religion, through the following five aspects such as: premise condition, theoretical basis, driving force factors, social atmosphere, emotion link, which form the civil religion, in order to reveal the political nature of the United States civil religion to give china's ideological and political education with enlightenment.Part I discusses the premise condition that civil religion forms. Separation of church and state which is the distinctive form of government system is the premise condition forming civil religion. It's not only appropriately handled the Church-state relations, but also has provided space for its development. Part II discusses the theoretical basis that civil religion forms. From Puritan ideology, Enlightenment philosophy and Rome political theory, thus three aspects have set forth the theory foundation that civil religion forms. Contract is the core of Puritan ideology. Natural rights thinking and thinking of freedom and equality in Enlightenment philosophy, as well as the public interest and civic virtue implied in Roman political theory are theoretical sources which civil religion formed. Part III is the driving force factor that civil religion forms. The author has tried to explain that Revolutionary War hastens citizen religion; north-south civil war and added a new connotation of the times to civil religion. Part IV from the social atmosphere which forms civil religion start, having analyzed the wide range of religious beliefs, scale religious organization, socialization activities, and universalization concepts. These factors all shown that America is essentially a religious country. Part V points out that the unique human spirit is the emotional ties that form civil religion. That myth, creed, rituals, patriotic are the sources of religious building, emotional support, emotional expression, the maximum performance.The main body of the paper concludes that the fundamental task of American civil religion serves for social politics. Civil religion is a means of civic education. U.S. government attaches great importance to the role of civil religion and creatively transfers religious beliefs and practices into a political force in order to achieve the objective of ruling the country by God.-...