Divine Legitimacy and Paradigm Shifts in the American Civic Religion

By Andreas Chenvainu

Image: “Legacy of Hope,” by Jon McNaughton via Twitter

This painting is Legacy of Hope,  a work by the artist John McNaughton, who became famous among conservatives and infamous among liberals for his nationalist, religiously charged paintings of Donald Trump. While its critics tended to paint this Trump worship as an aberration, Robert Bellah’s concept of the American civic religion explains its existence and places it as part of a larger pattern in American politics. Loosely adapted from protestant christianity, the narrative of the American civic religion emphasizes the United States as a nation legitimized by God, both blessed with a unique place in history and burdened with unique duties to enact. This broad description, however, has changed from era to era, Bellah argues. The original version he identifies is narrative of the “American Israel” as a haven from oppression, followed by the redemption narrative of the American Civil war and the fight to end slavery in which Lincoln became a central martyr figure, then the Cold War era missionary impulse to spread democracy, and the splintered factional versions in the current divided time. Each, however, emphasizes America as a special nation, uniquely burdened by greatness and responsibility, and often with a president as a central avatar.

Image: “The Apotheosis of George Washington” by Constantino Brumidi

Each paradigm, Bellah argues, reflects the politics of the time. In a time when many feel like America’s values are splintering into factions focusing on different mutations, McNaughton’s painting reflects this current paradigm of a divided America, but exclusively from the religious conservative viewpoint. The religious imagery of figures from American history backing Trump is an invocation of traditional American politics in two ways. First, its similarity to Apotheosis of George Washington painting on the ceiling of the capitol rotunda or the framing of Lincoln as christ-like martyr, it invokes the civil religion’s portrayals of presidents as divinely legitimized Durkheimian totem figures who represented the country’s values. Second, it brings in multiple figures from American history associated with the civic religion—most notably Lincoln, Kennedy, and the Founding Fathers. By bringing in figures associated with the civic religion to “invest” their faith in the then president, McNaughton is consciously invoking this tradition, using it to frame Trump as the legitimate standard-bearer of this christian nationalist faction’s chosen paradigm of the American civic religion.

References

Bellah, Robert. "Civil Religion in America." Daedalus, 1967, Vol. 96, No. 1, Religion in America, 1-21. Boston, MA: MIT Press.