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Totalitarian Movements and Political

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Political religion: a concept and its critics - a critical

survey
Emilio Gentile
Online Publication Date: 01 June 2005
To cite this Article: Gentile, Emilio (2005) 'Political religion: a concept and its critics a critical survey', Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 6:1, 19 - 32
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Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions,

Vol. 6, No. 1, 1932, June 2005

Political Religion: A Concept and its

Critics A Critical Survey

EMILIO GENTILE
Professor of Contemporary History, University of Rome
EmilioGentile
Totalitarian
1469-0764
Original
Taylor
6102005
emigent@tin.it
00000Summer
&
Article
Francis
(print)/1743-9647
Movements
2005
Group
Ltd Political
(online)Religions
10.1080/14690760500099770
FTMP109960.sgm
and
Francis
Ltd and

Translated by Natalia Belozertseva

ABSTRACT This paper is a critical survey of the debate on civil and political religions,
and a reappraisal of the main issues dealing with the different views on the relationships
between politics and religion, beyond the traditional experiences of the Church and State
associations in the form of established religion or religious policy of the sovereign. The
author give relevance to the modernity of the process of the sacralization of politics and to
its various permutations in contemporary age, since the age of the democratic revolutions
of the 18th century to the present time. In this perspective, the author proposes a redefinition of the concept of civil and political religions, by considering the different approach to
the religious phenomenon, that cannot be confined only to the dimension of the divine, but
has to be broadened to the dimension of the sacred. In the conclusion, the author reiterates
his own definitions of civil and political religions and the different historical combination
of these secular religions with the traditional religions, which is one of conflict or of
syncretism according to historical situations.

It is not necessary to have the gift of prophecy to predict that the question of
political religion is the one which will never be resolved to the satisfaction of all
scholars. Unanimity is rare in scientific research, but it is even rarer when the
topic under discussion involves fundamental concepts, related to the essential
aspects of human existence, such as religion and politics. In the case of civil religion, the diversity of opinions extends between two opposite poles: some scholars
reject these concepts for they deny the very existence of any phenomenon which
could be defined as such, while other scholars have made use of it to define the
variety of historical experiences in the relationship between religion and politics
without any conceptual distinction. Thus it is that some scholars use the concept
of civil religion to define historical phenomena which are defined by others as
political religion. The term political religion is often used as a synonym for civil
religion, secular religion, public religion, politicised religion, religious politics
and so on. Furthermore, there is a tendency to confuse the problem of political
religion with the problem of the aesthetics of politics, especially in the study of
the rituals and symbols of fascism, or to put these two problems as an alternative,
Correspondence Address: Professor Emilio Gentile, Clivio di Cinna 204, 00136 Roma, Italy. Email:
emigent@tin.it.
ISSN 1469-0764 Print/1743-9647 Online/05/010019-14 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/14690760500099770

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20

E. Gentile

as if the problem of political religion were exclusively limited to the ritual and
symbolic aspects of their aesthetic expressions.
Semantic and conceptual confusion of what indeed civil or political religion is
and what it means, often results in superficial and misleading interpretations, into
false and badly formulated problems, or into prejudicial denial of the problem
itself, generated in such cases by the arrogance of those who ignore the real terms
of the question and present them in a distorted, burlesque or simply false form.
After the end of the Soviet system, a renewed interest in the question of totalitarianism immediately resulted in an increase in scholars interest in political
religion, which is proved by the growing number of the studies dedicated to this
topic, above all after 1991, as we will see later. However, the problem of political
religion does not refer exclusively to totalitarianism; nowadays it has acquired the
character of a topical question, as the result of new manifestations of religious
nationalism and of theocratic fundamentalism, which gave rise to a new wave of
studies and considerations on the relationship between religion and politics;
between secularisation and sacralisation in the modern world, between the
politicisation of religion and religionisation of politics.
A noticeable contribution to the increase of the current interest in the problem of
political religion has probably been made by the resumption of the dispute on civil
religion, which was particularly animated between the mid-1970s and the end of
the 1980s, especially in the United States, where this heated discussion originated
in 1967 with the publication of an essay by sociologist Robert Bellah concerning
civil American religion: few have realized, he wrote, that there actually exists
alongside of, and rather clearly differentiated from the churches an elaborate and
well-institutionalized civil religion in America.1 For more than 30 years sociologists, historians, philosophers, theologians and political scientists had lively
discussions about the existence of a civil American religion in the sense defined by
Bellah, that is, a religious dimension to politics, which stands separately, and
autonomously, from traditional religions. At the end of the 1980s, after surveying
the different phases of the long debate, James A. Mathisen concluded that the
latter was already exhausted.2 At a conference on American civil religion, in 1986,
the theologian Richard John Neuhaus declared:
I come, then, both to praise and to bury civil religion. I praise it because it
has helped to fix our minds on the moral meanings by which we might
order our common life. And I would gladly assist at the burial of the conceptual confusion created by the claim that civil religion is in fact a religion.3
However, the question of civil religion was not in the least closed. In fact, not
only did it remain under study, but became topical once more, in both academic
circles and the daily press, following the reactions provoked by the religious rhetoric of President George W. Bush and the terrorist attack of 11 September 2001,
and resulting in the reawakening of American patriotism, as well as the effect of
what has recently been defined as the return of the religion to the public square.4
In the case of political religion there has not been such a long and intense
dispute as that on civil religion. Nor has the term found much fortune either, for,
as I mentioned at the beginning, many scholars still apply the definition of civil
religion to totalitarianism, for which other scholars employ the term political religion, establishing a clear conceptual distinction between the two terms. There has
been, and still persists a confusion or an identification between civil religion and

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Political Religion and its Critics 21

political religion. For instance, Ernest Koeneker, in his 1964 book Secular Salvations,
explained in the subtitle that he treated rites and symbols of political religions
while in the preface he used the term civil religion to define the political usage of
religious forms in American democracy, National Socialism and communism.5
Neither is there a clear distinction between civil religion and political religion in
the studies of George Mosse, a historian who, starting from the very beginning
of the 1960s, drew attention to fascism as religion. Actually, Mosse was mainly
interested in the aesthetics of politics, as he defined it in 1975,6 rather than in the
sacralisation of politics, which is a term that appeared in Mosses work only in
1999,7 if I am not mistaken, while in previous works he had used the generic terms
of secular, lay, civil or civic religion, without making any distinction among them.
No longer ago than 1992 James Thrower published a book about MarxismLeninism as the civil religion of Soviet society.8 He did not take into account what
Christel Lane had written ten years before in her study of the rituals of the Soviet
regime, as to the opportunity to define Marxism-Leninism as a political religion in
order to distinguish it from the civil religion of democratic regimes.9 Nor is this
distinction made by Jean-Pierre Sironneau, the author of the first systematic study
of the relationship between politics and religion in the age of secularisation,
published in 1982.10 In fact, he used exclusively the expression political religion
or secular religion, referring to the definition given by Raymond Aron in 1944, in
order to analyse the manifestations of the sacred in the modern age, starting from
the English revolution up to Nazism and communism.11 We have to note that none
of these authors made a reference to Eric Voegelins essay about political religions,
published in 1938.12 This essay, though, was explicitly used by Klaus Vondung in
his pioneering study of the ideological cult and political religion of National
Socialism, made in 1971.13
In such a situation it might well be useful to go over the main points of dispute
regarding civil and political religion, through the research and considerations
which explicitly used these concepts as well as through the criticism caused by
such use. Thereby, in this way, I hope it will contribute to the clarification of these
concepts, identifying more precisely their similarities as well as their differences,
in order to evaluate the utility and limits of their usage in the study of the relationship between religion and politics in the modern age. I consider it necessary
to specify that in this survey I am going to discuss the concepts of civil and political religion as categories of theoretical analysis and historical interpretation. I am
not going to treat directly the controversies regarding a function civil religion
may fulfil in the current life of a national community. In this connection, we need
to bear in mind that in both the United States and other countries, such as Italy
and Germany, while discussing the question of civil religion, theoretical and
historical analysis is often intertwined with an educational agenda, that is, with
the goal of promoting civil religion as a factor of legitimation and cohesion in a
democratic and pluralistic society. And it is exactly this pedagogical point which
causes so much criticism regarding the concept of civil religion. In fact, it often
happens that those who oppose civil religion, viewed as a project of civic education, do not even recognise the concept of civil religion as an instrument of analysis. This is the case, for instance, with those theologians and Christian intellectuals
who do not make any distinction between the civil religion of democracies and
political religion of totalitarianisms, and deny that a genuine religious character
may be attributed to them. Both are false religions, pseudo-religions, surrogate
religions or just modern forms of idolatry. The most resolute representative of

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E. Gentile

this attitude was the theologian Jrgen Moltmann, who considered political religion not just a concept to discuss but an existing danger which must be combated.
For me, he wrote in 1986,
political religion is not a neutral scientific phenomenon which I research
and want to describe, but a power I have to deal with. Political religion
challenges me not only to sound knowledge but also to a confession of faith.
Following our experience in Germany, every militant political religion
unavoidably leads to a struggle between church and state [Kirchenkampf].
In any case, he did not think it possible to find a distinction between civil religion
and political religion.
This distinction is indeed difficult to find because a civil religion as a religion of the republic can include many different political religions by
emphasizing their commonality and linkage. However, it can, of course,
at any time become a uniform political religion as is seen, for example, in
the new patriotism.14
It must be said hereby that discussing civil religion as a historical problem, and
a theoretical concept, does not necessarily mean taking part in the controversy
between supporters and adversaries of the idea of civil religion as a project of
civic education. Such an attitude does not imply a moral or political neutrality
but a need for intellectual clearness. This attitude has to be present while discussing the subjects closely connected to the dramas and dilemmas of our modern
existence.
However, the concepts of civil religion and political religion have not been
generated by mere intellectual ingenuity, but have arisen almost spontaneously,
I would say, from the comparison to the real phenomena of new experiences of
the relationship between religion and politics, which manifested itself in the
modern world. It has been the novelty of these phenomena that incited the
scholars to coin new concepts to define them. The deep political and moral
crises of American society had been the origin of Robert Bellahs meditations on
the beliefs, ideals and fundamental rites of the American nation, for which he
considered it necessary to bring again to use the concept of civil religion
conceived by Rousseau. It was precisely the success of totalitarian movements
of the twentieth century which induced some scholars to avail themselves of
such expressions as lay religion, secular religion and political religion in
order to define the political ideas, organisation and policy of these new mass
movements, for which the traditional concepts of ideology and party seemed to
be insufficient and inadequate. I have mentioned that some Christian theologians were the most resolute critics of the concept of civil religion, but it must
be additionally mentioned that the first scholars who used the concept of political religion (or any of its synonyms, such as secular religion and lay religion) in
order to interpret totalitarian movements, were Protestant and Catholic intellectuals and theologians, such as Luigi Sturzo, Adolf Keller, Paul Tillich, Gerhard
Leibholz, Waldemar Gurian and Eric Voegelin. Even if I do not share their religious presuppositions, I do recognise my intellectual debt to these religious
thinkers for the development of my own interpretation of totalitarianism and
political religion.15

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Political Religion and its Critics 23

Beyond this personal reference, and in order to clarify the meaning of civil
and political religion, and evaluate their analytical utility, I believe it necessary
to take into account the historical conditions that generated them as well as the
meaning attributed to them by those who first made use of these concepts in
order to interpret and define new manifestations of the relationship between
religion and politics, which have appeared in the modern age.
I have already mentioned the origins of the debate about civil religion. I do not
believe it possible to contest that Robert Bellah is the founding father of the
revival of the concept of civil religion, even if the American phenomenon he
wanted to describe with such a term was equally studied by other American
scholars, such as Will Herberg, Sydney Mead and Martin Marty, who defined it
using other terms. However, only after the publication of Bellahs article did
the problem of civil religion become the subject of dispute in the analysis of the
relationship between religion and politics in the modern world.
Celebration of the 200th anniversary of the independence of the United States
in 1976 marked the high point of the dispute about American civil religion. The
Vietnam War, Watergate and the inglorious end of Nixons presidency notably
influenced the way in which the problem of civil religion was treated. The
object of dispute was not civil religion as an historical and theoretical problem,
but civil religion as an effective, real factor, present in the American life. The
controversy was between those who considered civil religion a factor of national
cohesion and an instrument of civic and moral education, and those who
thought it was a dangerous blend of religion and nationalism. Bellah himself
intervened in that controversy about the function of civil religion in American
life, and denounced its degeneration. In 1971 he affirmed that civil religion, as
he intended it that is as an interpretation of American experience in the light
of transcendent religious values and not as a nationalistic cult had become a
mere empty and broken shell.16 Some years later Bellah declared himself to be
no longer interested in the theoretical dispute, and he even renounced the
concept of civil religion altogether.17
In the following years, however, the dispute about American civil religion
continued, while a growing number of specific research issues directly or indirectly made use of this concept in order to study different manifestations of the
religious dimension of politics in the American history and society. It is impossible to summarise here almost 30 years of theoretical discussions and historical
research on civil religion, that is, to quote Philip Hammond, any set of beliefs and
rituals, related to the past, present and/or future of a people (nation) which are
understood in some transcendental fashion.18 The reading of the bibliography on
the subject alone would take up a considerable amount of time. I will confine
myself to mention just the contributions I consider the most significant regarding
their influence on the progress of research.
The concept of civil religion proposed by Bellah had to face various criticisms.
James Armstrong, John F. Wilson, Richard Fenn and George Kelly, putting
forward different arguments, denied that civil religion is a genuine religion, for
what is determined by this term is all but an ostentatiously pious patriotism and
religious nationalism which make use of religious motives for political aims. More
numerous are the scholars who did not entirely reject the problem posed by
Bellah, but gave a different interpretation of what he defined as the religious
dimension of politics. Although criticising his thesis, these scholars recognised
that it concerns a real phenomenon; and their observations provided the elements

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E. Gentile

to define the concept of civil religion in a clearer way. In my opinion, particularly

important was the distinction given by Martin Marty, which is one between
priestly civil religion and prophetic civil religion, as well as Robert Wuthnows
considerations on the two version of American civil religion, one conservative, one
liberal.19 Although these critical considerations refer exclusively to the American
case, they may still contribute to the elaboration of a theory of civil religion which
can be used to examine other democratic manifestations of the sacralisation of
politics. These are, above all, helpful in emphasising the double function of civil
religion, which can act both as a common factor of legitimation of a political order,
or as a splitting factor that endangers its unity and its legitimation.
Beyond the theoretical dispute, different proofs of the reality of American civil
religion have arisen from sociological and historical research. I refer in particular
to the studies of Philip Hammond, Ronald Wimberley, Catherine Albanese,
Conrad Cherry, Robert Linder, Richard Pierrad, Michael Novak, Wilbur Zelinski
and Sanford Levinson. These scholars analysed different aspects of the American
civil religion, its historical formation, its rites and symbols, the role of institutions
and the sacerdotal function of the president of the United States, while representing and promoting the religious dimension of American politics. A separate
case represents the study of republican religion in its historical development,
carried out by Cushing Strout in the wake of Tocqueville. In his book Strout does
not make any reference to Bellahs thesis or to the concept of civil religion.20 For
his study of the religious dimension of American politics, he preferred to apply
civil religion, while in the title he used the term political religion. Recently, the
concept of civil religion has been used by Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle to
analyse the role of the American flag as a main totem of a national cult, which is
bolstered with blood sacrifices and which has become deeply integrated into
tradition and American life.21 Finally, as I mentioned at the beginning, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre, along with the manifestations of national mourning and pride on the side of the Americans, has again
brought to light the reality of civil religion and has given a new impulse to the
dispute regarding its nature, its meaning, its function and its future.
In the wake of the American case the concept of civil religion has been exploited
since the mid-1970s in order to investigate analogous phenomena in Europe, Asia,
Latin America and Australia. I believe that in the orientation of this research, as is
the case with Bellahs theory, a functional interpretation of civil religion prevails,
in accordance with the concept of religion of Emil Durkheim, who considers
religion a social phenomenon of mythic, symbolic and ritual integration of an
individual into a community. As far as the European case is concerned, the scholars who mainly dealt with this problem, such as Niklas Luhmann, Hermann
Lbbe, Jean-Paul Willaime, Salvador Giner and Gian Enrico Rusconi, interlaced
the theoretical discussions about civil religion with considerations on its present
function as a factor of legitimation and consensus in a pluralistic and democratic
society, as well as an instrument of civic education regarding the ethics of the
common good.
Nowadays, the concept of civil religion seems to have overcome the most radical criticism. As an editorial of the authoritative Journal of Church and State
observed in 1997: The existence of a civil religion in America is now widely
accepted. While its specific content is still debated, most agree that civil religion is
essentially about those public rituals and myths that express for most Americans
the nexus of the political order to the divine reality.22 Articles on civil religion

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Political Religion and its Critics 25

are also present in more recent encyclopaedias of religions, and many studies on
religions of the United States dedicate a specific chapter to civil religion. The same
tendency may be noticed in the works on the sociology of religions where not
only civil religion but also political religion have recently acquired their own
space.
Passing to the concept of political religion, I have to state, first, that also in this
case my observations treat only some aspects I consider the most relevant to clarify
and make more precise the fundamental terms of the dispute in question.
There is a certain confusion about the origin of the expression and the concept
of political religion which should be clarified, for it is important in order to define
its meaning and, consequently, its validity and limits of use. Still today many
scholars attribute its origin to Voegelin, to Aron or to Gurian. As a matter of fact,
as I have demonstrated in my book about the religions of politics, the creation of
the concept of political religion does not pertain to these scholars. Thus, the meaning of this concept must not be defined exclusively by their interpretations. As far
as we know, the expression first appeared at the age of the French Revolution, and
I do not exclude the possibility that further research could discover it in the works
of previous political writers. Abraham Lincoln declared in 1838 that the Constitution and the laws of the United States had to become the political religion of the
American nation.23 Some years later, the Italian patriot Luigi Settembrini defined
the movement of the Giovane Italia of Mazzini as a new political religion.24
Although the expression political religion was born before totalitarianism,
only after it was associated with Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism in early comparative analyses of those regimes, did the concept of political religion became more
prominent. It was employed to define the absolute exaltation of the party and of
the state, the cult of the leader, mass fanaticism, rites and symbols of collective
liturgies, which were fundamental aspects of the new totalitarian regimes. The
tendency to attribute a religious character to totalitarian dictatorships started to
spread at the beginning of the 1930s. In 1935 historian Karl Polanyi wrote that
National Socialism had the tendency to produce a political religion, whereas the
same term was applied to Bolshevism by Reinhold Niebhur.25 The first attempt to
interpret modern political movements, starting from Jacobinism to fascism, to
Stalinism and National Socialism, as new forms of political religion, was made by
philosopher libertarian Rudolf Rocker, who used this concept in his book Nationalism and Culture, written in Germany in 1933 and published in the United States
in 1937.26
At the beginning of the 1930s the term secular religion also appeared with a
similar meaning to that of political religion. The creation of this expression is
usually attributed to Aron, but actually he used it some years later. At the end of
this decade the concept of political or secular religion was already in the arsenal
of the main scholars of totalitarianism, such as Frederick Voigt, Alfred Cobban,
Fritz Morstein Marx, Hans Kohn, Carlton Hayes, Franz Borkenau and Sigmund
Neumann. For these scholars political religion was not just a residual of ancient
pagan religiousness, nor a phenomenon which could be traced back to the most
remote epochs, as Voegelin thought, but it was a consequence of modernity and
of secularisation. It was connected to mass society, to the decline of traditional
religions, to the spreading of irrationalism and activism, to the expansion of
bureaucratic power of the state, to the new Machiavellianism of totalitarian
leaders and parties, who made use of fanaticism of the mass to impose their
tyranny.

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E. Gentile

It was the enemies of totalitarianism who first elaborated the concept of political religion. Therefore, this concept was not only an intellectual one but it was, so
to say, imposed on anti-totalitarian scholars by the vital need to define a new
phenomenon which was real and threatening, and for which the terms of traditional political language, such as, for instance, ideology, dictatorship, tyranny or
despotism, appeared inadequate.
This is the fact that must be taken into consideration in the present dispute in
order to understand the nature and the meaning of political religion, and in order
to reply to some of the main criticisms which are addressed today to the scholars
who study political religions. In fact, the anti-totalitarian origin of the concept of
political religion shows there are no grounds to the criticisms which affirm that
this concept does not have any validity, because it is but a duplication of the
image that totalitarian movements built of themselves. Tracing back to the origins
of the concept of political religion may also be useful to answer to those who
believe that the scholars who treat political religions have no idea of what religion
is and, consequently, mistake a metaphor for reality.
Actually, the first scholars who used this concept were religious people with
a deep knowledge of what religion is. They were intellectuals, theologians and
clergymen, both Protestant and Catholic, who opposed totalitarianism. Furthermore, it must be specified that, using the expression political religion, these
scholars did not refer exclusively to the ritual or symbolic aspects, or to the usage
of religious metaphors by totalitarian movements, but to their own nature of
political movements, that is, to their ideology, their practice, the enthusiasm they
provoked, and the actions performed in order to reach the goals which were
proposed. Political religion was viewed as a modern phenomenon, the climax of
the rebellion against the religion of God, started by humanism which aspired to
render man sacred but which instead emptied out into the sacralisation of the
state, of the nation and of race, degrading man to a mere instrument of politics.
Political religions were an extreme consequence of secular humanism, which
renounced the religion of God but were afterwards compelled to invent new religions in order to satisfy the need for faith of the masses, as well as to legitimate
the power of new chiefs.
Even if each of these scholars came up with their own interpretation of the
religious nature of totalitarianism, the main principle common to all of them,
except for Voegelin, is a genetic connection between political religions and
modernity, secularisation, mass society and mythical thought. Consequently, we
can define political religion as a new collective idolatry, as it was determined
by Sturzo in 1933; that is, an effective but perverted religiosity intent on adoring
false gods. In this sense political religions were called pseudo-religions,
substitute religions, surrogate religions, religions manipulated by man and
anti-religions.27
The topics and problems raised by the scholars who first treated totalitarian
movements as political religions are to be found also in the new theories of totalitarianism elaborated after the Second World War. However, these theoreticians
did not always use the concept of political or secular religion. Aron and Gurian
continued to use this concept, acknowledged and developed mainly by Jules
Monnerot in an essay on communism published in 1949.28 Whereas new theoreticians of totalitarianism, such as Hannah Arendt, refused it and preferred to
employ the traditional concept of ideology or the neologism ideocracy,
proposed by Gurian,29 Voegelin himself renounced the use of the term religion

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Political Religion and its Critics 27

because he considered it too vague and misleading to interpret ideological movements as variants of religious experiences.30
From the 1950s until the end of the 1980s, there was a sort of eclipse of the
problem of political religion, despite the fact that important studies were
published, in which this concept was utilised; for instance, Jacob Talmons
works on political messianism and David Apters essay on the political religion
of new nations.31 No discussion was held about the above-mentioned books by
Koeneker, Vondung, Mosse and essays by Uriel Tal on Nazi political faith.32 Not
even the works by Christel Lane and Jean-Pierre Sironneau, who first proposed
a theoretical elaboration of the concept of political religion, incited a dispute
similar to the one caused by Bellahs article about civil religion. For years to
come the problem of political religion remained marginal in the analysis of
totalitarianism, and in the discussions about civil religion.
When in 1990 I published an article on fascism as a political religion,33 elaborated later in a volume about the sacralisation of politics in Fascist Italy,
published in 1993,34 I did not imagine that my publication would coincide with
the beginning of a new and prolific period of research and debate on the subject
of political religion, which, in fact, has been proved by numerous studies, above
all, of Nazism and Soviet communism, coming out annually in the course of the
last ten years. This research was the origin of the dispute still in progress, which
so far has been highly fruitful for a deeper theoretical study of the concept of
political religion aimed to define its meaning, its validity and its limits. The
importance of the moment for this dispute is shown by the conferences on Totalitarianism and political religion, organised by Hans Maier between 1992 and
2000.35 Growing interest in the phenomenon of political religions is proved itself
by publication of the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, started
in 2000 and dedicated to this subject.
As has already happened with civil religion, in the present dispute about political religion the opposition lies between scholars who, although willing to recognise the need to give a better definition of the meaning, and the limits of the
concept of political religion, consider this concept valid as a definition of a real
phenomenon, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, those scholars who
remain rather sceptical and contrary to the usage of a concept which applies the
term religion to totalitarian political movements to which they deny any real
form of religiousness.
The fundamental assumption of the scholars who deny the validity of the
concept of political religion is the same as the one we have already seen in the
case of civil religion, that is, we do not deal with a true religion, but only with a
political use of metaphors, symbols and rituals of a religious kind in order to
reach utilitarian goals. Consequently, these scholars do not consider the use of the
term religion legitimate in order to define totalitarian political regimes which, in
their turn, either openly or secretly, were effectively anti-religious or political
anti-religions, according to Hermann Lbbes expression.36 It is obvious that the
answer to the question of whether political religion and civil religion could be
considered true religions depends on the definition of what a true religion
actually is. Not even the definition of true religion enjoys an extensive consensus
among scholars.
In my essay about the religions of politics I tried to demonstrate how the concept
of political religion is consistent with the main interpretations of a religious
phenomenon, except for those which identify true religion exclusively with

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revealed religions and traditional religions. I believe that my viewpoint is

supported by many scholars of political religion, such as Antonio Elorza, Hans
Maier, Klaus-George Riegel, Michael Ley, Julius Schoeps, Philippe Burrin, Michael
Burleigh, Japing Zuo, Claus-Ekkehard Brsch, Peter Berghoff and Marcela Cristi.
The concept of political religion is also considered legitimate by anthropologists,
sociologists and historians of religions, such as Jean-Jacques Wunenburger, JeanPaul Willaime, Giovanni Filoramo and Claude Rivire, who admit the existence of
genuine forms of political religiosity, as an expression of a broader phenomenon
of secular religion or proper forms of a resacralisation of modern society. Even
such an influential scholar of generic fascism as Roger Griffin, who initially
opposed the concept of political religion, now seems to be inclined to accept it with
less scepticism.
It is obvious that among these scholars there are different interpretations of the
concept and the function of political religion as an expression of collective beliefs
institutionalised in modern movements and political regimes, including those
which have openly declared themselves to be anti-religious. For instance,
Sironneau believes that political religions, even if they have many aspects in
common with traditional religions, are not religions in the very sense of the word,
because they undergo a rapid process of myth shattering. For similar reasons
Albert Piette believes it necessary to speak about religiosits politiques, which he
defines as religion potentielle.37 As for the use of political anti-religion in contrast
to the concept of political religion, we have to take into consideration the observation made by Juan Linz, regarding the success of such a movement as fascism
which is based not solely upon its anti character, but also upon the fact that it
sought to sell certain positive elements.38 In front of this complex problem, I agree
with Owen Chadwick, who is a historian of the Church and Christianity, and an
Anglican minister. I think that the task of the historian is not to give an answer to
the question about the truthfulness of a belief system but to answer real questions
of historiography why a belief arises, in which way it is believed, how its axioms
influence society and in what way it disappears.39
Such a description of the controversial situation regarding political religion,
though, should not lead to scepticism in making conclusions about the possibility
of achieving positive results which may contribute to an effective progress in the
cognition and comprehension of the phenomena classified in the category of
political religion. We have to avoid making the debate on political religion look
like Penelopes cloth, that is, resulting in a never-ending quarrel without any
improvement in scholarship. In the reference to the historical reality of this
phenomenon, I believe it is important to consider the concept of political religion,
and the way it has been employed chiefly in the analysis and in the interpretation
of the totalitarian phenomena of the twentieth century. In fact, political religion
and totalitarianism are indissolubly linked, as has been proved by both the historical genesis of the concept of totalitarianism and that fact that, in the majority of
cases, those who refuse the first concept as a category of historical interpretation
and theoretical analysis, also reject the second.
Obviously, it is entirely legitimate to state that there is no real phenomenon that
could be defined as political religion. Equally as legitimate seems the possibility
of considering that the concept of political religion has no validity or utility as an
instrument of analysis of political phenomena. Personally, I would easily
renounce the use of this term and other terms alike, such as civil religion or secular religion. But even after banishing these terms, the historical phenomenon from

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where they originated still remains, the phenomenon which in my study I defined
as the sacralisation of politics.
However it may be defined, I do not consider it possible to deny that in the
modern age, politics, after conquering its institutional autonomy toward traditional religion, at certain important moments of contemporary history, starting
from the American Revolution until the present day, has acquired the aura of
sacredness up to the point of asserting, in an exclusive and complete way, as was
the case with the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century, the prerogative
to define the ultimate meaning and the fundamental goal of human existence on
earth. This concept does not refer to the political mobilisation of traditional
religions, but to the modern political ideologies and movements which adapted
religious habits to secular ends. The sacralisation of politics is manifest in the way
the ideal of politics was conceived, experienced and represented by its supporters, in their style of life as well as in their attitudes towards the adversaries and
opposing ideals. Modern political movements are transformed into secular
religions when they: (a) define the meaning of life and ultimate ends of human
existence; (b) formalise the commandments of a public ethic to which all members
of these movement must adhere; and (c) give utter importance to a mythical and
symbolic dramatisation in their interpretation of history and reality, thus creating
their own sacred history, embodied in the nation, the state or the party, and tied
to the existence of a chosen people, which were glorified as the regenerating
force of all mankind.
The sacralisation of politics occurs all the time by virtue of the fact that a political
entity, for instance, the nation, the state, race, class, the party, assume the characteristics of a sacred entity, that is, of a supreme power, indisputable and untouchable, which becomes the object of faith, of reverence, of cult, of fidelity, of devotion
from the side of the citizens, up to and including the sacrifice of life; and as such it
lies in the centre of the constellation of beliefs, of myths, of values, of commandments, of rites and of symbols. In contemporary history, starting from the
American Revolution until the present day, and particularly in the course of the
twentieth century, there were numerous phenomena with these characteristics,
which generated the term and the concept of political religion, as well as those of
civil religion and secular religion.
Moving toward a conclusion I would like to summarise my ideas about the
problem of civil religion and political religion. Similarly to what happened in case
of American civil religion, the utility and validity of the concept of political
religion, when referred to totalitarian experiments, depend on real aspects,
specific to these phenomena highlighted by this concept, without pretending to
be the key for the explanation of entire phenomenon. A concept is a definition; to
define, by definition, means to distinguish and consequently to impose limits. In
my studies I clearly indicated the limits of validity of the concept as well as the
necessity of critical caution in its application.
The sacralisation of politics is a process which belongs to modern society, and
through which the political dimension, after having gained its autonomy from the
traditional metaphysical religions, takes on its own religious character, becoming
the mother for new systems of beliefs, myths and rites, thus taking on the characteristics and functions typical to religion, such as interpreting the meaning and
finality of human existence.
The sacralisation of politics has been both democratic and totalitarian. Bearing
all this in mind, we might conclude this survey by highlighting the conceptual

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differences between civil religion and political religion, in terms of their content
and their attitude toward both traditional religion and other political movements.
Civil religion is a form of sacralisation of a collective political entity that is not
identified with the ideology of a particular political movement, affirms separation
of Church and state, and, though postulating the existence of a deistically
conceived supernatural being, coexists with traditional religious institutions
without identifying itself with any one particular religious confession, presenting
itself as a common civic creed above parties and confessions. It recognises broad
autonomy for the individual with regard to the sanctified collectivity, and generally appeals to spontaneous consensus for observing the commandments of
public ethics and the collective liturgy.
Political religion is a form of the sacralisation of politics of an exclusive and
integralist character. It rejects coexistence with other political ideologies and
movements, denies the autonomy of the individual with respect to the collective,
prescribes the obligatory observance of its commandments and participation in
its political cult, and sanctifies violence as a legitimate arm of the struggle against
enemies, and as an instrument of regeneration. It adopts a hostile attitude toward
traditional institutionalised religions, seeking to eliminate them, or seeking to
establish with them a relationship of symbiotic coexistence, in the sense that the
political religion seeks to incorporate traditional religion within its own system of
beliefs and myths, assigning it a subordinate and auxiliary role.
Clearly, historical reality demonstrates that this distinction is not always clear
and precise, and it is not possible to deny the fact that common elements exist
between them. Both civil religion and political religion consecrate a collective
entity, formalise a code of commandments, consider their members a community of
the elect with a messianic role, and institute a political liturgy which represents a
sacred history. The difference between civil religion and political religion can
appear total if we compare the US with Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy. But even
civil religion can, in certain circumstances, become transformed into a political
religion, thereby becoming integralist and intolerant, as happened during the
French Revolution.
As closing remarks on the general characteristic of the sacralisation of politics, I
retain that the majority of civil and political religions are transient in nature, or at
least have appeared so up to now, even though for certain periods of time some of
them appear to have had a very lively existence. This transient nature is what
makes the new secular religions so different from traditional metaphysical
religions. Metaphysical religions have endured for centuries, indeed millennia,
while the existence of the majority of political religions can be expressed in
decades. However, the fragility of political religions does not mean that the
source from which they derive has dried up forever.
The dispute on civil and political religion remains open. This happens not only
for theoretical reasons but also because of the effect of new and often tragic experiences of symbiosis between religion and politics, which marked the beginning
of the third millennium. Long before these events, the studies on civil religions
and political religions gave birth to a new consideration of the relationship
between religion and politics in the modern age. These studies referred back to
the theory of secularisation intended as an irreversible process of the disenchantment of the world, accompanied by the progressive disappearance of the sacred
in modern society along with the withdrawal of religion from within the private
sphere. As a matter of fact this has not happened. Instead of the disappearance of

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Political Religion and its Critics 31

the sacred from public life, we have assisted in a metamorphosis of the sacred,
that is, to the rise in modern societies, even the most advanced, of new forms of
sacralisation, independent from traditional religions, which have involved public
and political life, as is the case of civil religion and political religion.
In the modern world the problem of the sacralisation of politics is seen in a new
perspective, which is the result of the process of establishing of new manifestations
of the politicisation of religion. I do not believe that this fact is only due to a return
of the religious use of politics contrasted with a political use of religion. I find this
pragmatic approach too narrow and misleading, in the same way as is an extremely
exclusive and rigid concept of religion, which confines religious experience solely
to revealed religions and historical religions. Here appear a new set of problems,
which I can only mention as a hypothesis of research: to what extent could the experiences of political religions, as modern and unused experiences of symbiosis
between religion, politics and modernity, have influenced new forms of politicisation of traditional religions, which equally tend to combine faith and technology,
tradition and modernity, politics and the sacred? I believe it will not be possible
consciously to face this problem before we understand what the sacralisation of
politics actually was in the twentieth century.
This article is part of an ongoing research project on the sacralization of politics
which has been made possible with the support of the Hans Sigrist Prize, University
of Bern.
Notes
1. R. Bellah, Civil Religion in America, Dedalus 97/1 (1967), pp.1.21.
2. J.A. Mathisen, Twenty Years After Bellah: Whatever Happened to American Civil Religion?,
Sociological Analysis 50/2 (1989), pp.12946.
3. R.J.Neuhaus, From Civil Religion to Public Philosophy, in L.S. Rouner (ed.), Civil Religion and
Political Theology (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1986), p.98.
4. See H. Heclo and W.M. McClay (eds.), Religion Returns to the Public Square: Faith and Politics in
America (Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2003).
5. E.B. Koenker, Secular Salvations: The Rites and Symbols of Political Religions (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1965).
6. G.L. Mosse, The Nationalization of the Masses: Political Symbolism and Mass Movements in Germany
from the Napoleonic Wars Through the Third Reich (New York: H. Fertig, 1975).
7. G.L. Mosse, The Fascist Revolution: Toward a General Theory of Fascism (New York: H. Fertig, 1999),
p.xiii.
8. J. Thrower, Marxism-Leninism of Soviet Society: Gods Commissar (Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1992).
9. C. Lane, The Rites of the Rulers: Ritual in Industrial Society: The Soviet Case (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981)
10. J.P. Sironneau, Scularisation et religions politiques (Le Haye, Paris and New York: Mouton, 1982).
11. R. Aron, Lavenir des religions sculires, in idem, Lge des empire et lavenir de la France (Paris:
ditions Dfense de la France, 1946), pp.285318.
12. E. Voegelin, Die Politische Religionen (Wien: Bermann-Fischen Verlag, 1938).
13. K. Vondung, Magie und Manipulation: Ideologischer Kult und Politiche Religion der Nationalsozialismus
(Gttingen: Vandenhoeck Ruprecht, 1971).
14. J. Moltmann, Christian Theology and Political Religion, in Rouner (note 3), pp.4158.
15. See E. Gentile, Le religioni della politica: Fra democrazie e totalitarismi (Roma and Bari: Laterza, 2001).
16. R. Bellah, The Broken Covenant (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975).
17. R.N. Bellah, Comment, Sociological Analysis, Vol. 50, No. 2 (1989), p. 147.
18. P.E. Hammond, The Sociology of American Civil Religion: A Bibliographical Essay, Sociological
Analysis 2 (1976), p.171.
19. M.E. Martin, Two Kinds of Two Kinds of Civil Religion, in R.E. Richey and D.G. Jones (eds.),
American Civil Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), pp.13857; R. Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988).

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20. C. Strout, The New Heaven and New Earth: Political Religion in America (New York: Harper & Row,
1974).
21. C. Marvin and D.W. Ingle, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1999).
22. D.H. Davis, Law, Morals, and Civil Religion in America, Journal of Church and State 39 (1997),
p.411.
23. In J.D. Schultz, J.G. West and I. MacLean (eds.), Encyclopedia of Religion in American Politics (Phoenix:
Onyx Press, 1999), p.53.
24. L. Settembrini, Ricordanze della mia vita (Milano: Feltrinelli, 1961), p.96.
25. J. Lewis, K. Polanyi and D.K. Kitchin (eds.), Christianity and the Social Revolution (London: Victor
Gollancz Ltd., 1935), pp.385, 460.
26. R. Rocker, Nationalism and Culture (Los Angeles: Rocker Publications Committee, 1937).
27. L. Sturzo, Idolatria collettiva (1933), in idem, Miscellanea Londinese, II (Bologna, 1967), p.286.
28. J. Monnerot, Sociologie du Communisme (Paris, 1949).
29. C.J. Friederich (ed.), Totalitarianism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), pp.11937.
30. E. Voegelin, Autobiographical Reflections (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University
Press, 1989).
31. J. Talmon, Political Messianism: The Romantic Phase (London: Secker & Warburg, 1960); D.E. Apter,
Political Religion in the New Nations, in C. Geertz (ed.), Old Societies and New States: The Quest for
Modernity in Asia and Africa (London: Collier & MacMillan, 1963).
32. U. Tal, Political Faith of Nazism Prior to the Holocaust, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1978; Id,
Structures of German Political Theology in the Nazi Era, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1979.
33. E. Gentile, Fascism as Political Religion, Journal of Contemporary History 25 (1990), pp.22951.
34. E. Gentile, The Sacralization of Politics in Fascist Italy (Cambridge, MA: Haward University Press,
1996).
35. H. Maier and M. Schfer (eds.), Totalitarismus und politiche Religionen: Konzepte des Diktaturvergleichs (Padeborn: F. Schning, 1996; 1997; 2003).
36. Maier and Schfer (note 35, 1996), p.168.
37. A. Piette, Les religiosits sculires (Paris: PUF, 1993).
38. Maier and Schfer (note 35, 1996), p.169.
39. O. Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press , 1976).