The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial

by Robert N. Bellah

Book Overview

This Second Edition represents Bellah's summation of his views on civil religion in America. In his 1967 classic essay "Civil Rights in America," Bellah argued that the religious dimensions of American society-as distinct from its churches-has its own integrity and required "the same care in understanding that any religion." This edition includes his 1978 article "Religion and the Legitimation of the American Republic," and a new Preface.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0816421234
• ISBN13: 9780816421237
• Release Date: January 1984
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Weight: 0.49 lbs.

Customer Reviews

As a description and identification of a patriotic religious/historical American experience , the bo

Book is very, very readable. Also according to page 164 of the book The Search for Christian America (written by Mark A. Noll, Nathan O. Hatch, and George M. Marsden): "[In 1967] Bellah touched off a massive and continuing debate about the existence of an American civil religion. He quickly translated his discovery into his own jeremiad, arguing that civil religion 'has often been used and is being used today as a cloak for petty interests and ugly passions,' an argument elaborated in The Broken Covenant." Not sure if I agree that a Rousseau-type civil religion per se exists, for I personally think Rousseau's ideas of Civil religion, especially along with his anti-Christian stance is evil and reprehensible. Not that Bellah actually mentions Rousseau... Anyway, as an identification and description of some sort of patriotic religious experience this book remains five stars.

A thought-provoking "jeremiad"

Robert Bellah's book, The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial, calls on America to renew her founding myth of a national covenant. Bellah writes his book out of a conviction that America is undergoing a time of trial, torn apart by radical individualism and capitalist greed, and in need of a new, common set of moral, religious and social values. Bellah argues that these values are found in the renewal of the notion of covenant, the idea that we are held responsible as a collective body to treat one another with charity. Bellah supports his thesis by first identifying America's founding myths of liberty, covenant and inner conversion, reformation and constant renewal, as seen in the Founders' good synthesis of Biblical symbolism with classical republican ideals. Bellah also sees a utilitarian, individualistic strain in America's founding, and he argues that the covenant was immediately broken by the national sins of slavery and oppression of Native Americans. Bellah examines the ideas of chosenness and success, arguing that covenant must restrain these ideas and impulses. Bellah criticizes capitalism as putting unrestrained political power in the hands of corporations, calling on America to renew her founding myths in terms that speak to the crises of modern times. Bellah draws from primary sources like John Winthrop, Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln and Herman Melville, demonstrating that America has never been without leaders who call on her to renew the covenant and fulfill its conditions of charity and brotherly love. Bellah's book is a sociological examination of America's civil religion, and he analyzes the past mainly as it relates to the present. He thoughtfully diagnoses America's sins, and his books' strengths are its compassion, its strong sense of social justice, and its ability to combine a respect for tradition with an acute understanding of America's past wrongs. Bellah understands that America has strengths and flaws, and that sometimes America's flaws are its strengths unrestrained by compassion and covenant. Bellah's weaknesses actually lie in his solution to the problem of America's sins. Bellah accurately assesses America's crisis of vision and need for a renewal of covenant, but his new socialist, intellectual and religious national movement will not provide that common set of moral and ethical values. Bellah strongly emphasizes newness, saying we need "a new vision of man, a new sense of human possibility, and a new conception of the ordering of liberty." America's sins are old, not new: selfishness, materialism, radical individualism and greed. The solution to these sins is not a new vision of man or a new way of ordering liberty, but a return to a past vision of man and past way of ordering liberty. Bellah calls his book a "jeremiad intended to change America." Overall, Bellah succeeds in writing a jeremiad that, if it does not change America, at least makes America think about her ori