Word.ws English Dictionary

American civil religion

American civil religion noun: an interpretation of the United States' Christian-derived values and nationalist attitudes as a monotheistic nonsectarian civil religion that fosters social and cultural integration.

Noun

American civil religion (uncountable)

  1. An interpretation of the United States' Christian-derived values and nationalist attitudes as a monotheistic nonsectarian civil religion that fosters social and cultural integration.

Origin of American civil religion

The concept goes back to the 19th century, but was popularized in its current form by sociologist Robert Bellah in his 1967 article "Civil Religion in America".

Questions about American civil religion

What does American civil religion mean?
American civil religion means an interpretation of the United States' Christian-derived values and nationalist attitudes as a monotheistic nonsectarian civil religion that fosters social and cultural integration.
What part of speech is American civil religion?
American civil religion is a noun.

Words near American civil religion in the dictionary

  1. American cheeses
  2. American cheetah
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  4. American chestnuts
  5. American chop suey
  6. American civil religion
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Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: American civil religion (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “American civil religion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/american_civil_religion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.