Pews, Prayers, and Participation: Religion and Civic Responsibility in America

Introduction: Religion and Civic Responsibility

Introduction Religion and Civic Responsibility During election campaigns, it is commonplace for religious leaders to exhort their followers to a more robust and thoughtful participation in public life. In the 2004 presidential election, for example, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops distributed its quadrennial statement on “faithful citizenship,” and the National Association of Evangelicals issued a call for greater “civic responsibility.”1 What these statements share is the language of duty and obligation, a profoundly others-centered orientation that is reflected in their repeated invocations of the “public interest” or “common good.” By implying that one is obligated or duty bound to act on behalf of members of one’s community, these statements strongly suggest that one’s moral obligations entail civic engagement. Yet do the intended audiences heed these messages? Have the interpretations of civic responsibility reflected in these and many other documents seeped into the moral consciousness of religious believers and served to motivate their activism? The authors of this book consider these questions by exploring a variety of ways in which religious people in the United States give expression to their civic responsibilities. We treat religion as a key part of that cluster of associations and institutions that is sometimes termed civil society. We suggest that the role of religion in fostering “civic responsibility” is real and consequential but also remarkably complex and subject to “privatizing” pressures that lessen religion’s public witness. Our examination of religion and civic responsibility draws from, but also extends, recent scholarly discussions about civil society and its contribution to the democratic experience in the United States. Interest in civil society 1 2  Introduction has “exploded” over the past two decades (Cohen 1999, 263). In their analyses, scholars have given attention to a wide range of concerns related to American social and political life, examining such matters as the nature and extent of social interaction among American citizens, the kinds of social relationships that serve to build and sustain moral commitment and character, and the shared values that serve to define us, either implicitly or explicitly, as a people (Wuthnow 1996, 2). While scholarly inquiry into civil society has cast a wide net, it has nevertheless focused on two major and related matters. First, in their efforts to assess the general health of American civil society, scholars have addressed the quality of the experience shared by the American people. They have raised questions that have both a descriptive and normative cast: Are Americans exhibiting declining levels of civic engagement and social compassion across a spectrum of social life? Is the vitality of participation in voluntary associations diminishing? Are the American people less willing to cooperate, help, and serve their neighbors today than in the past? Are today’s Americans less social, more individualistic, and less trusting than previous generations? A second focus has been the specific relationship of civil society to democratic citizenship in the United States. In the eyes of some analysts, democracy in America is at risk. This risk, however, does not stem from potential acts of terrorism or any external threat; rather, it results from disturbing changes among the American people, namely, “an erosion of activities and capacities of citizenship” (Macedo et al. 2005, 1). Central to this concern are some fundamental questions about democracy itself: Is democracy defined by nothing more than the presence of certain procedural guarantees and the aggregation of individual self-interests? Or is a truly robust democracy secured through, and largely dependent on, the virtue and public spirit of its citizens? For those who answer “yes” to the former question, civil society is simply a place where citizens may freely pursue their own interests with few impediments from the state and with the aid of likeminded individuals . For those who respond affirmatively to the latter question, civil society is—or at least can and should be—a place to foster a stronger sense of civic responsibility through moral development. Given these issues, one might anticipate that religion would be at the heart of the recent debate on civil society. After all, social observers from Introduction  3 the nation’s founding to the present have marveled at the comparatively high levels of religious engagement in the United States, and analysts have long recognized that members of religious congregations are more likely than nonmembers to join voluntary associations (e.g., Moberg 1962, 393–94). Moreover, those who see civil society as a place...