CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Civil Society and Civil Religion as Mutually Dependent
N. J. Demerath III
In a world teeming with violence, oppression, and depravity, it is little wonder that
religion should be seen as a solution. Whether as prayer, theology, or saintly inspiration,
religion has been both a first and last hope in confronting social ills. But religion is also
involved in more secular responses. As a major contributor to what has been termed
“civil society,” it can make a social and political difference in two respects. First, at the
macro level, religion’s various organizations and institutions can play a direct role in the
public arena by challenging governmental shortcomings and depredations. Second, at
the micro level, religion can foster a sense of “social capital” by giving its lay participants
practice in, and encouragement for, participating in wider social and political circles,
whether as mere voters or intense activists.
At least this is a theory that has found support in country after country around the
globe since the 1980s. To cite just a few examples, the Catholic Church was instrumental
in unseating both Brazil’s military regime and Poland’s Communist state (Glenn 2001);
very different Muslim movements have opposed and toppled entrenched governments
in Indonesia, and religion has both opposed and been opposed by the state in Iran.
Buddhist organizations have been a thorn in the side of political elites in both China
and Thailand, and Hindus are demanding changes in the world’s largest democracy,
India. Certainly U.S. religion offers its own examples of religion in thepolis.
But even theories with such worldwide support have a tendency to leave loose
ends dangling. In what follows, I want to point out a few of these ends and tie them
up with a cord fashioned from “civil religion” – a concept that suggests yet another
way in which religion is implicated in the political world. Basically, I will argue that
there is an inherent ambiguity within the concept of “civil society,” that its political
hopefulness rests more on ideology than evidence, and that if civil society is to reach
the desired ends, it must operate within a cultural climate heavily shaped by civil
religion.
CIVIL SOCIETY AND A SOCIETY THAT IS CIVIL
Good theory can be subverted by bad terminology, or in this case, a term that has
twodistinct meanings, both of which have deep scholarly roots in eighteenth-century
German and Scottish social thought.
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