The Politics of the Sacred in America

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. The Political Dimensions of the American Civil Religion (ACR): An Introduction

   • Anthony Squiers

   Pages 1-23

3. A Theoretical Model for the Study of Civil Religious Signs

   • Anthony Squiers

   Pages 25-49

4. The ACR in Public Political Discourse: 1960–2012

   • Anthony Squiers

   Pages 51-73

5. The Apotheosis of the Founding Fathers and Signs of Filial Piety

   • Anthony Squiers

   Pages 75-96

6. Sacred Documents, Sacred Signs: The Constitution and Declaration of Independence

   • Anthony Squiers

   Pages 97-114

7. Contesting the Politics of the Sacred

   • Anthony Squiers

   Pages 115-131

8. Conclusion: The Mediation of the Universal and Particular

   • Anthony Squiers

   Pages 133-140

9. Back Matter

   Pages 141-181

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This book provides a comprehensive investigation of the political dimensions of civil religion in the United States. By employing an original social-psychological theory rooted in semiotics, it offers a qualitative and quantitative empirical examination of more than fifty years of political rhetoric. Further, it presents two in-depth case studies that examine how the cultural, totemic sign of ‘the Founding Fathers’ and the signs of America’s sacred texts (the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence) are used in attempts to link partisan policy positions with notions that the country collectively holds sacred.


The book’s overarching thesis is that America’s civil religion serves as a discursive framework for the country’s politics of the sacred, mediating the demands of particularistic interests and social solidarity through the interaction of social belief and institutional politics like elections and the Supreme Court. The book penetrates America’s unique political religiosity to reveal and unravel the intricate ways in which politics, political institutions, religion and culture intertwine in the United States. 

• American civil religion
• American politics
• Political religiosity
• Political rhetoric
• Founding Fathers
• The Supreme Court
• American Constitution
• The Declaration of Independence
• us politics

• Universität Passau, Passau, Germany

  Anthony Squiers

Anthony Squiers, PhD, Habil. is a lecturer in American Studies at the Universität Passau in Bavaria, Germany. He is also a poet and the author of An Introduction to the Social and Political Philosophy of Bertolt Brecht: Revolution and Aesthetics. 

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