Theoretical Reflection on the “American Civil Religion” Concept

The theory of civil religion has a long history of existence; researchers around the world explored this concept, with different interpretations giving it a varied content. The purpose of this article is to study and analyze the concept of "civil religion" in the current academic discourse. In this study, we used the methods of historical and political systems analysis, comparative, meaningful content analysis and interpretation; systematization and classification method. The main structureforming principle was the problem-chronological method. The article is divided into three sections. Firstly, we present the analysis of the writings of Rousseau and Durkheim that are considered to be milestones of the theory. The study found that the presentation of Rousseau's civil religion has become an important component of the ideology of the United States, necessary for the state and meets the goals and objectives of the State. Secondly, we take into account the most prominent works of current Western and Russian scholars. This allows us to trace back the allocation of the stages of development of the theory of US civil religion in the second half of the XX – XXI centuries. To conclude, the article presents assessments of recent trends in studying the civil religion in the USA. We address the ongoing impact of civil religion on cleavages in American society as well as the usage of CR elements by different types of political actors. Finally, we discuss the prospects for study and what the challenges that researchers face. V.R.Legoida, E.I.Zadorozhniuk elaborated the problems of the American civil religion in their thesis in Russia. In addition, some aspects related to the essence of the American civil religion, its values and ideals are presented in the papers of A.N.Tsarevskii. R.T.Saduov, E.V.Kubyshkina, and others. The researchers mentioned above were able to enrich science by showing the importance of the values of the American civil religion for the American state and testing them in practice.

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