Aarav Dagar is a rising junior from Tampa, FL majoring in History and Public Policy. This article was adapted from an essay originally written for Professor Jenny Wood Crowley’s course, “Religion and Politics in American History.”
Public religious dimension(s) are expressed in a set of beliefs, symbols, and rituals that I am calling American civil religion.” – Robert N. Bellah.
Civil religion consists of a wide range of beliefs, values, and actions that contribute to our sense of what it means to be American. While many link civil religion to a passion for American ideals, Donald Trump’s second presidency represents an interesting modern case study in how religious and political authority intersect in American life. On the surface, the practice of civil religion occurs simply whenever an American does something like wave an American flag or sing the national anthem at a baseball game. It is linked with displays of patriotism because our identity “between ideas of nationalism and religion [falls] under the concept of civil religion,” in the words of Stefano Fait, writing for the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. The Wounded Warrior Project concurs that flag-waving is an example of civil religion in action: “there’s probably no bigger symbol for patriotism in the U.S. than the American flag. We pledge our allegiance to it at school, government meetings, and citizenship ceremonies. We wave the symbol of freedom and liberty at parades and sporting events and even planted it on the moon.” Civil religion represents more than just a belief—it represents a commitment to this country that is rooted in deep historical convictions.
Observers of American democracy have long understood that, even as church and state remain formally separated, the spirit of divinity inflects how many Americans understand the civil responsibilities of democracy. As Alexis de Tocqueville articulates, “the Constitution is not based on the sovereignty of God, but rather on the sovereignty of the people.” But Tocqueville later writes that “the people reign over the American political world as does God over the universe,” implying a popular American conception that there is something divine and exceptional about their country. Tocqueville means that Americans almost draw inspiration for how to govern America based on an understanding of how God governs the world, even though American are ostensibly committed to the notion that God does not and cannot govern America. This vision for how America should be governed and portrayed as a community has survived the rise of atheism and the growth of non-Christian populations to the present day—it has endured because of civil religion. Scholar Robert Bellah argues that religiously infused beliefs about America’s governance have been transmuted into the rituals and practices that embody what it means to be American. For instance, Bellah argues that invocations of God in presidential addresses (not just by Trump, of course. President Biden invariably ended his speeches with “God bless America and may God protect our troops,” one line on which he was guaranteed not to stumble) signals a nod to the notion of God-like governance. But Bellah suggests that this procedure is often merely performance (backed up, perhaps, by the fact that most nominally Christian American politicians of more limited religious enthusiasm also invoke God in such speeches): “the placing of [religious] references in this speech as well as in public life generally indicates that religion ‘has only a ceremonial significance’; it gets only a sentimental nod that serves largely to placate the more unenlightened members of the community before a discussion of the really serious business with which religion has nothing whatever to do.” Essentially, Bellah sees religion as a safe, first-principles, lowest-common-denominator approach to unifying rhetoric. When in doubt, the best way to ease the nerves and tensions of an American voter is to link faith in God with faith in America. Bellah argues that while these are not founding principles, the precepts of civil religion are actualizations of religious beliefs: the meaning of civil religion can be analogized to constitutional law: it derives from founding documents, is constantly evolving, and remains functionally useful in American life because of tradition and precedent.
But just as some interpreters of constitutional law like to revise and even revolutionize past precedent, we might be now witnessing a new era of civil religion in America. What has never been present at scale in the American civil religion tradition is the placement of an individual—or at least, a living individual—at the center of the procedure of patriotic worship. President Donald Trump has changed that: he encourages this cult and has attempted to insert himself into the celebration of civil religion among his flock of supporters. At the Republican National convention on July 19, 2024, just days after surviving the Butler, PA assassination attempt, Trump told his flock of delegates: ” I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God.” He revealed that he “felt very safe because I had God on my side” in the moments after he was shot. The rhetoric has only become more explicitly messianic. In his inaugural address on January 20, Trump said “I was saved by God to make America great again,” explicitly linking the grace of the Almighty with his famous campaign slogan. In his address to Congress on March 4, he used the exact same line. Divine salvation has become baked into Donald Trump’s political identity. It’s no accident that Trump’s Rose Garden speech announcing reciprocal tariffs—on “Liberation Day”—invoked the language of salvation, this time with Trump as savior. In that speech, Trump asserted that his tariffs will “save” America, perhaps much like God saved him in Butler.
Trump’s self-presentation as a divinely chosen leader—including his cultivation of political partnerships with politically active evangelical pastors— indicates that a new kind of American civil religion may be emerging, one that is injected with popularly appealing narratives of divine mission and moral struggle that have recurred throughout American history, but that is also startlingly new in its cultic personalism surrounding the figure of Trump.
Trump’s divine approach to his presidency reflects how beliefs can be turned into actions that reflect a broader civil religion. Not only has Trump claimed to be “the chosen one,” but his supporters embrace that sentiment, and even take it further than Trump himself perhaps intends. Some in the MAGA faithful have believed since 2016 that “Jesus is my Savior; Trump is my President.” But since July 13, 2024, some believe that Trump is something even more than that. Donald Trump has declared that: “Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason, and that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness.” Perhaps some will now believe simply: “Trump is my Savior; Trump is my president.” Trump has also invoked the prophetic language of salvation in his efforts to extend presidential power past the allowance of the constitution: remember the “He who saves his Country does not violate any law” Truth Social post?). Trump’s most ardent supporters—egged on by evangelists like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr.—now see him as chosen by God, on a divinely-ordained mission like the prophets of yore. The narrative surrounding Trump’s divine anointment reflects an evolving interpretation of American civil religion. While traditional civil religion sought to unify the nation through shared moral ideals, contemporary iterations increasingly polarize along partisan lines. The tension between historical narratives continues to shape our understanding of America’s divine purpose, shaping the moral and political landscape.
