The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910-1929 by Robert E. Quirk

That there is a civil religion in America seems generally accepted. In fact, a civil religion in a strict sense may be quite unusual. Given this situation, we can understand why Shintõ scholars proudly emphasize that Shintõ is a natural expression of Japanese life, rather than the product of a definite set of doctrines or a conscious conversion.' 2 In other words, civil religion is a social phenomenon sacred citizenship for Robinson Crusoe is not possible. On both the local and national plane Shintõ hallows his homeland and his people, as well as the nexus of the religious, political, and natural order. Until recent times Shintõ has tended to define the weight of his cultural and religious heritage. More is at stake than that, a point nicely exemplified in the following description of Shintõ: 'traditionally speaking, a Japanese person could not divorce himself from Shintõ. However, such a view is hardly tenable if one regards a civil religion - like any religion - as more than a public relations matter. The 'intense commitment' Mount refers to is apparently seen as voluntary only, an individual matter of taste. This amiable hypocrisy surely derives from a more intense commitment to that system (italics added).' 1 Such word choice suggests a dash of reality or a sprinkling of cynicism is all that is required to keep Americans from having a civil religion or at least believing in it. The discussion of civil religion often permits a mischievous conclusion that the existence of a civil religion is fortuitous, a mere cultural 'choice.' Thus Ferdinand Mount, in an otherwise astute essay on America’s bicentennial, comments on the shock effect of Watergate: What Europeans are bewildered by is the American’s affectation of pained surprise on receiving a specific proof of the corruption he knows to be endemic to his political system.

Hammond Chapter 3: The Conditions for Civil Religion: A Comparison of the United States and Mexico

The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910-1929 by Robert E. Quirk