Harmonizing Heaven and Earth

Abstract

Many political thinkers have suggested that religion is a necessary prerequisite for the proper functioning of American democracy. Foremost among them is Alexis de Tocqueville who argues, in particular, that religion serves as a counterbalance to individualism and crass acquisitiveness—two of the most worrisome aspects of American democracy. Yet, Tocqueville’s own analysis bids us to ask whether religion still serves this beneficial purpose nearly 200 years later, or whether democratization and individualism have not remade religion itself. The primary theme of the dissertation is therefore to investigate whether democratization and individualism have wrought changes of real significance in American religion and religious institutions. In the first part, I argue against the secularization thesis on the grounds that contemporary developments in American religion, such as the so-called rise of the “nones” and the growing distrust of organized religion, are explicable not by secularization but by democratization and individualism. To understand this phenomenon better, I return to the French liberal tradition of Benjamin Constant and Alexis de Tocqueville to articulate a theory of democratic deformalization—a process whereby American democracy breaks down the “formal” elements of religion. In the second part, I argue that individualism has caused a host of quantitative changes in American religion, including declining church membership, dwindling church participation, and a collapse in the perceived importance of organized religion itself. There are notable qualitative changes as well, including increasingly tenuous connections to churches, a proliferation of religious options within churches, and a new megachurch model that is better able to cater to individual taste and preference. In the third and most substantial part, I take up the question of whether individualism itself has changed or evolved over time, in predictable or unpredictable ways. Here, I argue that there has been a general shift from utilitarian individualism towards expressive individualism, with profound consequences for religious institutions and for society itself. The former, with its connection to the Protestant work ethic and Puritan social philosophy tends to cause an inclination in individuals to partake in community, submit to institutions, and follow moral and religious rules; the latter, with its belief in authenticity, causes a profound disdain for communal sources of authority, social institutions, and moral constraints. I conclude by arguing that the anthropology of expressive individualism, and its historical growth since the 1960s, proves to be the fundamental cause behind all these changes.