| Samuel Goldman is an associate professor of humanities at the University of Florida. As religious polarization increases, so has the conflict between two visions of America’s identity. Vice President JD Vance has described America as a “Christian nation” that must return to its religious roots. Meanwhile, the Congressional Freethought Caucus led by Reps. Jared Huffman (D-California) and Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) insists on the “secular character” of the U.S. government. Both sides get America wrong. Rather than an embrace of Christian nationalism or an affirmation of secularism, the United States needs a revival of American civil religion — a system of belief distinct from Christian orthodoxy and secular neutrality. America has never been strictly secular. It is true that the Constitution bans religious tests for federal office, that the First Amendment prohibits a nationally established religion and that some of America’s early leaders insisted on America being a place for religious dissenters and minorities of all kinds. Yet secularists project a modern concept of neutrality onto a very different kind of society. Some founders were openly heterodox. But a greater number of statesmen were conventional Christians, as were the majority of ordinary citizens. Civic and moral formation were seen as inseparable from religious instruction. Religious tests and state establishments dating back to the colonial period persisted for decades after the Constitution was ratified. Advantage, Christian nationalists? Not so fast. If early Americans wanted to affirm Christianity in national laws, they could have done so. But repeated legislative efforts to proclaim the U.S. a Christian nation failed. State-level preferences for specific churches, or Christianity in general, were gradually removed. The influence of religion, however, did not recede with disestablishment and increasing pluralism. To the contrary, Americans spoke of their faith with a frequency and vehemence that horrified foreign visitors such as Fanny Trollope (mother of the Victorian novelist), who lamented that America’s “want of a national religion, supported by the state” — such as England had in its established church — encouraged “insane and hypocritical zeal.” How would a country with a largely secular national government remain suffused by religious belief, rhetoric and symbolism? In an influential essay published almost six decades ago, sociologist Robert Bellah offered an explanation. Supplementing the teaching and rituals of churches, America had a “civil religion,” he wrote, that was neither secular nor strictly Christian. It can be seen in the practice of concluding oaths with “so help me God,” in presidential calls for national thanksgiving and in the motto “In God We Trust.” Though American civil religion overlaps with Christianity, it is not precisely Christian — at least if “Christian” refers to belief in Jesus. Rhetoric surrounding the independence movement and constitutional founding, for example, draws more heavily from the Hebrew Bible than from the New Testament. This Hebraic quality, with its themes of national covenant and liberation, is a reason Jews could easily see themselves as Americans. The sources of civil religion aren’t exclusively biblical either. Both Jews and Christians would balk at the comparison of a political leader to God. Yet a famous fresco in the Rotunda of the Capitol depicts the “apotheosis” of George Washington. The example of classical republics left deep marks on American civil religion. The eclecticism of American civil religion invites accusations that it is incoherent and shallow. Yet Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address and second inaugural speech are among the most profound meditations on sacrifice and redemption ever written. Washington became a sacred father to the nation, Lincoln its martyr. Eventually, Lincoln was joined by Martin Luther King, Jr., who deployed Christian arguments in ways that were intelligible and inspiring even to nonbelievers. The sort of rites observed in the Lincoln Memorial, Arlington National Cemetery and other sacred places won’t satisfy everyone. To the frustration of Christian nationalists, American civil religion doesn’t conform to the doctrines of any particular church. At the same time, it is too deeply rooted in biblical and Greco-Roman traditions to be replaced with an abstract idea. It is a kind of creed, but one expressed in specific stories, images and places rather than in a laundry list of rights Civil religion is not a magic spell for producing consensus. Like adherents of other religions, Americans can fight bitterly over the meaning and priority of the same symbols. And it is uncertain whether civil religion can survive if its origins are forgotten. There is a strong case for restoring biblical and classical sources to educational prominence — not to convert but to prepare students for membership in what sociologist Philip Gorski calls an “American covenant.” Despite these challenges, a revival of American civil religion seems more promising than any alternative. America’s Christian majority is not going to disappear. But neither are its significant minority of non-Christians and substantial cohort of Christians uncomfortable with Christian nationalism. To borrow Lincoln’s words, civil religion might be “the last best hope” for a divided people. 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