Convocation - Constitution Day

Dr. John Koritansky to address the Hiram College Community! Abstract Tocqueville’s Account of Religion in Democratic America In his Democracy In America, Alexis de Tocqueville professes to admire the way Americans understand religion and its relation to government. He shows that American Protestantism is really a “civil religion”, sharing essential features with what his mentor, Jean Jacques Rousseau, had described by way of that term in the fourth book of The Social Contract, as well as “The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar,” in Emile. The civil religion represents a somewhat different answer to the perennial question of the proper relation of politics and religion, or state and church, than is represented by the more formal liberal neutralism recommended by, e.g. John Locke or J.S. Mill. It is a religion of conscience and of tolerance. As such, it is a religion beset with a certain hypocrisy. The rhetorical delicacy with which Tocqueville treats of this all important subject reveals his judgment that a civil religion is fundamental to democratic freedom, its necessary hypocrisy not withstanding.

For more information, contact:

Pollack, Janis L.
PollackJL@hiram.edu