“Monuments of Folly”: Frederick Douglass, Charlottesville, and the National Religions of America

Heather Heyer’s murder at a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which was organized to defend a monument to Robert E. Lee, offers an occasion to reflect on Robert Bellah’s notion of “American civil religion.” Here I seek to reconstruct that concept in terms of “American national religio...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lê, David (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Oxford University Press [2020]
In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 88, Issue: 3, Pages: 749-778
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Bellah, Robert N. 1927-2013 / USA / Civil religion / Douglass, Frederick 1818-1895 / Whites / Hegemony / Racism
IxTheo Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
CG Christianity and Politics
KBQ North America
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Heather Heyer’s murder at a 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which was organized to defend a monument to Robert E. Lee, offers an occasion to reflect on Robert Bellah’s notion of “American civil religion.” Here I seek to reconstruct that concept in terms of “American national religion” to train scholarly attention on the privileged roles of nation and race in organizing the religion of Americans, as Americans. By looking at the material forms of this religion through the lens of Frederick Douglass’s writings about American national memorialization, I argue that we can better assess the actual as opposed to the ideal content of this religion. We can, further, avoid the Pollyannaish race-blindness endemic to the scholarly discourse on American civil religion. My reconstruction foregrounds a model of “hegemonic articulation” in which violence, power, and exclusion are taken to be the rule, rather than the exception, in defining America’s national religion.
ISSN:1477-4585
Contains:Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfaa042