Graduate Theological Union, Pacific Coast Theological Society event
Fall Meeting 2024: Retrospective and Relevance of Robert Bellah in Today’s World
November 8, 2024
The gathering in the fall of 2024 at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) was a crucial event in the Bellah Legacy Group’s deliberations with the Graduate Theological Union to co-host the Robert Bellah Lectureship in “Religion and Public Life.” It demonstrated the long history of Bellah with the GTU and the significant interest in Bellah’s work today in the Bay Area and Beyond, especially with younger scholars. Numerous members of the Bellah Legacy Group participated in the event. Facilitated by Harlan Stelmach, one of Bellah’s students at the GTU. Galen Watts, a presenter and member of the Bellah Legacy Group, is a Bellah scholar with a close history with some of Bellah’s co-authors of Habits of the Heart. Ann Swidler, a co-author of Habits of the Heart with Bellah, was present to receive the Pacific Coast Theological Society’s annual book award for Challenging Modernity. Mark Juegensmeyer, a former colleague of Bellah’s at the University of California participated in the discussion. On camera, on Zoom, Richard Madsen and William Sullivan with Ann Swidler provided capstone comments at the end of the event. Sam Porter, the long-time organizer of the Bellah website attended via zoom from Oregon. Bellah’s daughters, Hally Bellah Gunther and Jennifer Bellah McGuire joined the event and the banquet following the presentations to sign copies of Challenging Modernity. Special thanks to the Board of the Pacific Coast Theological Society, long affiliated with the GTU, for sponsoring the event.
https://www.pcts.org/meetings/2024/Fall.html
Held in Dinner Boardroom on second floor of the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library at Graduate Theological Union (GTU), 2400 Ridge Road, Berkeley, California
Robert Bellah’s Muse Liberty: Narratives about the American Past and the Future, We shall Ride this Storm Through
By Angela Lintz Small
The Polarization of the US and the Challenge of Modernity: Bellah and Gorski
By Russell M. Jeung
Response to Russell Jeung and Angela Lintz Small
by Galen Watts
Note: Reproduced and reformatted from talking-point notes
Introduction
It is a bit strange to speak here today. I am a Canadian. Bellah’s work resonated with me, in spite of my growing up in Toronto. His work speaks to deep human concerns and needs. Moreover, I believe that Bellah’s work, including his work on America, remains profoundly relevant to those of us who grew up outside of America’s borders. As colleague Mark Juegensmeyer, a fellow member of the Bellah Legacy Group reminds me, we live in a global society. My goal is to channel my inner-Bellah by addressing questions that Bellah would no doubt want addressed today.
1. What has become of American civil religion? Should it be revived? Can it be revived?
2. Resisting colonization. How do we reconcile respect for diversity with the need for solidarity?
3. Individualism and anti-institutionalism as barrier to civic repair in America?
4. What are the sources of moral solidarity in American (modern) society? In Global Society?
Questions and Tensions:
What has become of American civil religion? Should it be revived?
Can it be revived?
“…the American civil religion is not the worship of the American nation but an understanding of the American experience in the light of ultimate and universal reality.”
–Bellah, The Broken Covenant
Bellah worried in the 1970s that the civil religion was nothing but an “empty and broken shell.” Third Time of trial. Like Russell and Angela have addressed, when he looked at society, he saw a radical betrayal of America’s civic ideals of equality and justice such as anti-Asian hate and xenophobia“yellow peril orientalism”; lynchings, slavery, segregation, mass incarceration. This is not new in American life; this is a longstanding story of civic betrayal. We might see Bellah’s muse as the statue of liberty.
Critics of “civil religion” have said it fails to take account of pluralism, of difference, of diversity. But Bellah, the Durkheimian, said we need a national tradition. What do we do? Leave. Give up. Other traditions will come in.
In American Covenant, Philip Gorski argues that American civil religion is the only way forward against American Religious Nationalism (ARN), Trumpism, “Mr. Liberty” as a secularized Christian nationalism on the right, and American Radical Secularism (ARS)on the left.
The argument seems sound, until you look at the reality on the ground: Are the traditions of civic republicanismand biblical religion antidotes to utilitarian and expressive Individualism capable of fueling the civil religion today? I don’t know if these make up “second” languages anymore; they seem to be third, maybe fourth, languages at best.
Resisting colonization. How do we reconcile respect for diversity with the need for solidarity?
Today, is “Fragmentation Theory” and notions of weak “value fields/spheres” the result of individualism run amok? Is the tension betweenpluralism, fragmentation vs. solidarity and community (civil religious languages of biblical religion & civic republicanism)?
Utilitarian individualism is the language of the economic sphere. We have the colonization of other value spheres by the economy / market.
For example, Harvey Cox’s Market God: we approach all spheres of life with a consumer mentality (romantic relationships, friendship, art, and religion, children).
What will I get out of this? How does this advance my self-interest? (commitment and community have profoundly corroded)
Politicization of everything, for example, American Religious Nationalism (ARN) vs. American Radical Secularism (ARS) have been colonized by the political sphere.
Therefore, polarization. We approach all spheres of life with a partisan mentality (our cultural tastes, our friendships, our careers, our choice of consumer goods, our religious/nonreligious commitments).
The religion value sphere is a weak field. In the modern world it has been reduced to a proxy for economic advancement or political partisanship.
Resonance is lost in much of life.
Individualism and anti-institutionalism as barrier to civic repair in America?
Moral Pluralism and anti-institutionalism
Meanwhile, expressive individualismhas fueled a thousand and one subcultures. In my own work, I have tried to argue that expressive individualism has done much more good than Habits of the Heart gives it credit; it was central second-wave feminism, the gay liberation movements, environmentalism, and multiculturalism.
But I see now that expressive individualism, in rejecting tradition and institutions, has contributed to moral pluralism (the internet has only exacerbated this) – to the fragmentation of the sacred – as well as fueled a deep anti-institutionalism and anti-traditionalism in modern life.
For now we have the sacralization of work, of sport (mountain climbing, extreme sports), new gurus (Jordan Peterson; Andrew Huberman), sacralization of technology and digital utopianism (Silicon Valley).
According to Philip Gorski we have “the surfeit of meanings.”
Anti-institutionalism a barrier in America
Although the “strong society, weak state” structure of the United States in 1800 has given way to the “weak society, strong state” reality of America in the twenty-first century, these voluntarist, anti-government ideals have endured, according to Steve Tipton.
Anti-institutionalism and anti-tradition runs deep today.
Populism is on the rise; populism is premised upon a rejection of “The establishment” in favor of “the people.” It rejects elites, expertise, and institutions.
There is a profound suspicion of “Society” on all sides of the ideological spectrum.
The right (religious nationalism) associates society with “elites” – the media, academic, the government bureaucracy, the arts. These are corrupt, “the swamp.” They have brought nothing but tyranny. Government overreach, cultural condescension, moral puritanism.
The left (radical secularism) associates society with the forces of racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Nationalism and patriotism have been rejected. American institutions and traditions cannot be preserved but must be torn down.
It is the corrosion of a positive vision of the American project, of American society…
Again, Bellah saw “civil religion” as a means to addressing this… A society needs traditions that span the entire society – that is the Durkheimian insight at the core of Bellah’s thought.
THE PROBLEMS:
· Against colonization by economy (utilitarian individualism)
· Against colonization by politics (the ARN and ARS)
· Against anti-institutionalism and moral diversity without solidarity
· Against nationalism chauvinism
· Expressive individualism has fueled anti-institutionalism
What are the potential sources of solidarity in American (modern) society? In Global Society?
ANGELA: We need traditions and institutions that can span ideological, racial, and religious/nonreligious divides…
RUSSELL:“re-story America” – YES! What are the sources of moral solidarity? Can non-Christian traditions be used? Can Asian-American narratives be used?
o Against colonization by the economy: traditions and institutions that push back against marketization (socialism – Bernie Sanders)
o Against colonization by politics (the ARN and ARS): How do we foster civic friendship, cooperation across differences, in a profoundly polarized society? We need to revive non-political traditions and institutions… (Robert Putnam) … (“hearing to speech” (Clare Fischer))
Seeking to engage the Other; contact theory.
o Against ARN and ARS, & moral diversity without solidarity: Maybe it won’t be called a “civil religion,” but it can braid together different traditions/stories, not just the original ones (non-Christian/Asian American) into “the American story.”
§ Russell: Braiding together the stories of Asian Americans (like you–yours is a chapter in the story of civil religion!)
§ Angela (your story of being a mixed-race person of color is also a chapter!)
o Against nationalism chauvinism: Of global solidarity? How do we balance the competing commitments to our families, to our nation, and to our fellow humans?
e.g., Bellah on religion in human evolution.
o What are the immanent sources of renewal and civic innovation before us? (Durkheim)
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Nationalism, for all its faults, has been the source of solidarity that made possible the post-war welfare states, that has been central to cross-class solidarity (T.H. Marshall)
In his mature years, Bellah began to theorize how a more macro, global solidarity might be achieved. Religion in Human Evolution was his attempt to forge a global tradition, a narrative, with which to situate the human story. But there are no institutions, at present, to enforce this.
These are all good options, in my view, but they will only work if we can foster solidarity…
DIFFICULT QUESTIONS TO PONDER
A sociological view of America
In light of the above, it seems to me obvious that the colonization by the economic and political spheres must be resisted. We need to carve out space for thinking about friendship, love, art, religion, and nature as neither serving the ends of politics or economics. But as being intrinsic goods.
We live out the traditions of our society, whether we realize it or not. Even when we think we have shed those traditions, we may well be reviving them in a new form. Traditions, and the institutions provide individuals with a framework of moral meaning with which to understand both themselves and their society. Traditions orient our hopes and dreams and fuel our indignation and righteous anger. Traditions both constrain and enable.
Americans fail to appreciate the importance of institutions and social practices. A commitment to individual freedom blinds them to their interdependence, to their social debts. On the conservative right, this leads to a blindness to the importance of government institutions, of the role that social services play in ensuring individual freedom and community flourishing.On the secular left, this leads to a blindness to the role of traditions and norms in fueling their own critiques, and in motivating others to live up to ideals.
Polarization is both affective and ideological.
There is a decline in the humanities, in internal goods, in intrinsic value, in what is considered the good life.Utilitarian individualism prevails with a blindness to class consequences. There is a loss of meaning, of transcendent hope, of cosmic connection. This is a longstanding story—and I don’t know how much we can hope to change it.
Backlash, yes but also “front lash,” the strategic effort to change the debate and agenda, building a new movement believing that “the arc of history is long, but bends toward justice.”
According to Bellah, “Nothing is ever lost.” It is quintessentially American to seek to “start anew.” This is the revolutionary spirit of the country. As a Canadian, for whom moderation and middle-of-the-roadedness is instinctive, I find this perplexing, yet hopeful.