Rhetoric of American Civil Religion

Jason A. Edwards is associate professor of communication studies at Bridgewater State University. Joseph M. Valenzano III is associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Dayton.

In this edited volume, Edwards (Bridgewater State Univ.) and Valenzano (Univ. of Dayton) offer a sampling of studies about civil religion to establish a contemporary starting point for understanding the topic. In 12 chapters, a variety of noted scholars discuss the elements, development, and literature regarding the different forms of civil religion. Authors examine a range of viewpoints and artifacts, including biblical texts, abolitionist rhetoric, presidential rhetoric, feminist perspectives, philosophical perspectives, and Islamic discourses. In a particularly intriguing chapter titled "Sinners and Saints," John P. Koch (Univ. of Puget Sound) discusses the relationship among public memory, civil religion, and the presidency of the US. There are myriad volumes covering the topic of civil religion; this book adds to the literature by establishing that this topic has not been readily defined by scholars, thus contributing toward a refining of how civil religion has been constructed and manifested in American culture. The book is a suitable companion reader and supplemental text for courses that examine the rhetoric of religion. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

• IntroductionWhat is Civil Religion?Jason A. Edwards and Joseph M. Valenzano, III1. The Exodus: The Textual Heart of American Civil ReligionTheon E. Hill2. “Glory in the Fight:” Frederick Douglass and the Revival of Republican Civil ReligionSarah A. Morgan Smith3. Civil Religion as Communal Democratic Sentiment: An Emersonian PerspectiveAndrea Terry4. Lighting “Human Spirit Lamps”: Frances Willard, the Conscience of Reform, and American Civil ReligionAngela Lahr5. Billy Graham’s Cold War Rhetoric: Evangelical and Civil Religious RevivalMarissa Lowe Wallace6. In God (and Capitalism) We Trust: Identification Through Division in 1950s Civil ReligionBethany Keeley-Jonker7. Civil Religion as Christian Religion: Francis Schaeffer’s Liberal FundamentalismEric C. Miller8. Sinners and Saints: Public Memory, Civil Religion, and Citizenship at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential MuseumJohn P. Koch9. Civil Religion or Mere Religion? The Debate Over Presidential Religious RhetoricDavid Weiss10. Discovering Self in the Absence of Privacy: Race, Religion and the Imagined BilaliansSher Afgan Tareen11. Barack Obama and the Expansion of American Civil ReligionKevin Coe, David Domke, and Penelope Sheets12. What Binds This Nation Together: Barack Obama’s Secular Messianic Style in His Second Inaugural AddressCatherine L. LangfordIndexAbout the Contributors