The conclusion, that "Life experiences ... enhance the level of political participation"(41) is very much in
the sphere of social construction, of course, but the entire notion of civic competence could quite easily be
related to the idea of civic religion, also. If that relationship were limited to a term like 'public
philosophy,' it might, in fact, be treated as a virtual tautology, but, as this examination attempts to argue,
the distinction among what is meant by public philosophy, public religion, and civil religion is rather
inconsequential.

     In Easton and Hess there is offered a typology of political orientations which suggests consideration 
which attempts to look beyond the perhaps too simplistic consideration of ascription to the system:

	"From the point of view of factors contributing to the maintenance of change
	of a system, there are three major objects with respect to which the extent of
	consensus or cleavage may prove to be significant. We shall call these the 
	government, the regime, and the political community. Government refers to the
	occupants of those roles through which the day-to-day formulation and administration
	binding decisions for a society are undertaken. Regime is used to identify the slower
	changing formal and informal structures through which these decisions are taken
	and administered, together with the rules of the game or codes of behavior that 
	legitimate the actions of political authorities and specify what is expected of citizens
	or subjects. The political community represents the members of a society looked upon 
	as a group of persons who seek to solve their problems in common through shared
	political structures."(42)

     These categories are ranked into nine cells against three levels of basic political orientations,
knowledge, values, and attitudes, which, it is their contention, demonstrates the weakness of overemphasis
on the more formalized institutionalized aspects:

Chart VI-V  Types of Political Orientations (43)


Levels of a Political   		Basic Political Orientations
          System		Knowledge	Values		Attitudes

Community

Regime

Government


     The import of this and the general trend in the research would seem to be rather forcefully toward
considerably greater attention to such factors as the notion of social physics would imply. And, implying
obviously somewhat varied definitions of terminology, the multiple levels of the infrastructure of a
political system would be cast in a series of concentric circles with each girded upon the next, in effect:


Chart VI-VI  Levels of  Infrastructure of a Political System



And within that superstructure, a construct of socially structured ramparts encompassing beliefs,
institutions, symbols, and rituals would be a crucial element of its operation and maintenance. Such an
invention is precisely what the public or civic religion infers. The potential connection between 'religion'
and 'regime' has won considerable comment, not the least important of which may be the attempt by
Swanson (although such efforts have received not a little disparaging) at the structuring of some real
causality between the two. If nothing else, the effort connotes the mutually dependent relationship that this
discussion of socially constructed reality and religion has been about throughout.

     It is Swanson's basic premise that there are demonstrable associations between the form of regime a
culture or country had, at least at the  point of its Reformation experience, and the type of 
Reformation/Protestant experience it underwent. In BIRTH OF THE GODS, he
	" ... offered empirical tests for the proposition that beliefs in gods and other spirits
	arise as symbols of men's experience with the basic purposes and decision-making
	procedures of societies  and of enduring and independent groups within societies.
	These basic procedures of societies and of other persisting groups were termed 
	'constitutional arrangements' or 'regimes.' Differences in theology from one society 
	to another were then explained by forecasting the kind of pre-existing regime that 
	would come to be symbolized by a particular and subsequent theological doctrine."(44)

Causality ran from such beliefs to constitutional regimes.

     In a second publication, RELIGION AND REGIME, his concern centers on the concept of
'immanence' and the sort of regime which arose in relation to each society's political structure during the
Reformation period as a reflection of its position concerning immanence. This idea of immanence
concerns
	" ... the extent to which God, the source of all value and himself consummately 
	valuable, was immanent in his creation."(45)
There is posited a fundamental distinction on this point between Catholic and Protestant doctrine,
Catholicism holding "that God's essence is embodied in the historically existing church and in the
sacraments," and especially Luther and Calvin viewing God as "omnipotent over his creation but
[believing] that his personal essence is not to be found in any created thing.'(46) This difference is
exhibited in a host of ways, such as the divergent views on the Eucharist of Catholic transubstantiation 
and Protestant consubstantiation. He attributes to Max Weber the assertion that Protestantism is unique
among major religions in not subscribing to the immanent quality of creation.(47) Such contrasting
themes are not as superficial as they may initially seem for they reach deep into the interpretation held as
to the nature of man, juxtaposing Protestant emphasis on original sin to Catholic stress placed on the idea
of the Filoque.

     Swanson's  plan to demonstrate belief concerning immanence by its "retention of Catholicism or its
adoption of Protestantism"(48) and that hence particular political and economic forms would lawfully
ensue may arguably work for 16th century Europe, though there are even problems with that analysis, but
despite his weak attempts to suggest some evidence of applicability beyond European civilization are
hardly convincing. And yet, his claim is actually not all that grandiose. He makes little real attempt to
extrapolate beyond his sphere of examination and the general theory of such socially constructed religion
and regime. His two basic hypotheses rest on a notion that societies consist of two separate formations,
political community and regime, and that the powers of the first could possibly be immanent in the
second. Whether or not that is the case will reside upon the theological orientation of the society so that if
it possesses immanent religion, it will develop this immanent conceptualization, as well, and vice versa:
	"1. There was a positive association in early modern Europe between
		(a) the extent to which a regime's exercise of gubernaculum 
		      was controlled by a political community and
	          	(b) the replacement of Catholicism by Protestantism.
	  2. The greater such control, the more likely it was that Calvinism rather 
	       than Lutheranism  (or Anglicanism) would be adopted."(49)
He has identified forty-one societies for his analysis of Europe of this period, (50) and five types of
regimes, which can be understood by their particular characteristics(51).  [see Chart VI-VII]
     Although he has not done a statistical correlation, given the structure of the evidentiary material, that
could readily be done. Further, there is no question but that there would be a very strong empirical
correlation in support of his hypothesis.(52) The author seems adamant that the reader should be wary of
carrying the analysis or its conclusions too far. There is a firm declaration of caveat regarding causality:            
                " ... at the Reformation, political changes preceded religious changes ...
	These observations preclude any argument that the reverse sequence
	occurred, religious beliefs producing the political novelties of the early
	Reformation era."(53)


Chart VI-VII   Characteristics of Basic Regime Types

			Governor	Constituent Bodies	Hegemonic Religion

Centralist Regimes	Extensive	Limited Shared		Catholic
			Gubernaculum	Jurisdictio
Limited Centralist	Policy 		Shared Policy		Protestant
Regimes			Formulation	Application
			Gubernaculum						
			
Balanced Regimes	Shared Policy	Shared Policy		Calvinist
			Formulation	Formulation
			and Administr.      and Administration

Commensal Regimes	None		Consist of Regime	Catholic     10
					Members or Agents	Calvinist      2

Heterarchic Regimes	None		Members Represent	Reformed Calvinist
					Interests			or Zwinglism



     He also insists that 'broad political currents' should not be misconstrued. While no country adopting
one religious formation before 1700 subsequently switched, there should be no implication of any
homogeneity of religious outlook. Various strata remained at odds, and, indeed, much of the historical
record subsequent to this period is steeped in extreme religious conflict. There is also an important
justification of Weber offered:

	" ... Protestantism alone, or even Calvinism, was not a sufficient precondition
	for the establishment of modern capitalism."(54)

     Swanson also attests to the fact that such as Parsons have taken the emphasis they share with Weber on
immanence and transcendence to a much more pervasive level due to their conceptualization of culture.
(55) Nevertheless, it is probably important that: 

	"As Lipset and others observed, Europe's strong parliamentary democracies 
	-- heterarchic or balanced regimes in every case -- are now found only in 
	traditionally Protestant states."(56) 

     There are obviously some substantive pitfalls in Swanson's analysis. Had, for example, France in
particular not been effectively blocked from development largely by England, and had, for instance,
Colbert's efforts been able to grow to fruition, it and not England might well have emerged as the
dominant political and economic force. At the same time, some interesting speculation could be drawn
from Swanson except that it would not be particularly useful in this overall context. It may be worth
noting, however, that industrial capitalism developed first in England with its strong centrist regime,
followed by the United States, somewhat similarly configured. Such evolution seems grounded in the
developed nation-state, which may have been inhibited to some extent by the impact of the factors
Swanson considers.

     What emerges firmly grounded from all of this, however, is social construction of reality, and
importantly, of religion, a paradigm of great importance in this examination of our public faith.



VII. LIBERTY AND ITS ANTITHESIS

     Characterizing this construct as 'religion' offers the prospect of examining it from that standpoint. The
disciplines of the social sciences suggest a variety of methodologies which might be employed in further
explanation of this invention. Having already considered Robert Oden's system of comparative analysis,
there are a number of other directions in which we might proceed, ranging from methodologies and
typologies of classification to theoretical and ideological analyses.

     Hegel formulated a trifurcated system with categories of Nature Religions, which were marked by the
worship of natural elements and other forces, Religions of Spiritual Individuality with the conscience of
the private person being the prime guide in religious propriety as in most Protestant denominations, and
Absolute Religions in his view exemplified by Roman Catholicism and where private conscience is
subordinated to superior  ecclesiastical authority. These categorizations are far too arbitrary and rigid, as
well as being much too exclusionary. This scheme seems untenable on those bases and particularly in the
light of subsequent methods of classification. Edward Caird's system also involved three classifications
much like that of Hegel. Religions centered in an external world were said to be similar to Hegel's nature
religion. He termed these Objective, while a grouping focused on human conscience was said to be
Subjective, and a final Universal type marked by strict orthodoxy in matters of faith. Although it was
arguably slightly broader than Hegel, Caird's system is also far too limited.

     Religions were divided into Nature and Ethical Religions in the classification system of Cornelius
Petrus Tiele, but the pattern of gradual development leaves the former often pervaded with rather strong
ethical overtones at points. Then, too, there seems to be a strong western bias in the method that is also
the case in another rather arbitrary classification scheme constructed by Hermann Siebeck. His three
categories of Primitive, Morality, and Redemptive religions may be saddled by the same kind of
demarcation problem, as well. 

     As controversial as these schemes of classification may be, the stage in human development at which
some semblance of religion is believed to have been initiated is probably equally as difficult to ascertain.
Tylor, Comte, and de Brosses are among those who place distinctive religious behavior at the appearance
of fetishism. This is the belief in various objects, natural or artificial, being in possession of some magical
efficacy. The employment of such fetishes as talisman is intended to promote fertility or curd diseased or
prevent injuries or other harm from falling on a subject. Principally Spencer, but also Caspari and Le Bon
have sought to locate the discovery of religion at the belief in the existence of indwelling souls in all
objects. Other methodologies have placed it in the development of polytheism (Hume, Voltaire, and
Dupuis), henotheism in which practice different gods in a pantheon are elevated successively to
supremacy where each in turn becomes invested with most of the attributes of the others (Schelling, von
Hartmann, and Max Mueller), pantheism (Tholuck Ulriei, and Caird) which believes that there is a
collective entity which constitutes God as an aggregation of the laws and forces of the universe, and the
belief in one supreme being (as in Rawlinson and Cook) in monotheism.

     A great deal of ethnography has been gathered among contemporary 'primitive' peoples. Even while
they may not fully represent early man, this sort of research has provided much valuable material for some
form of scientific investigation into what are seen as archaic modes of thought and practice termed
religious. These 'primitive' religions seem to be primarily animisms of some form which seek to influence
to man's advantage various objects and forces having impact on human beings. A variation on this theme
holds that the reconciled natural forces are not regarded as either personalized or animated. The
propitiation involved in such in time becomes worship. In these schemes, conceptualization which gained
wide usage include mana, which is a Melanesian term, and churinga, out of Australia, both denote feared
power, but they are not personalized or animated. However, just the utilization of the term 'primitive'
bears connotations which complicate such analysis as biased, even where some usefulness may seem to
exist in the analysis.


     The historical and critical study of religion can be traced back at least some three centuries with such
early works as those by Alexander Rose and Dupuis, although some vestiges of this approach are much
older, dating back to classical times. Johann Gottfried von Herder systematically outlined a methodology
for such study in the late 18th century, followed some five decades later by Hegel's effort to establish a
scientific groundwork for study of the philosophy of religion. And a century after Herder, Max Mueller,
whatever the problems of his analysis, firmly established the examination of the origin and growth of
religion. More recently, in this century, Service and Fried have constructed a methodological schema of
historical periods in the development of the state and of religions. In the disciplines of anthropology and
sociology there has been a rich literature, as well, as examined elsewhere in this undertaking. A
generalized version of such developmental study of religion would proceed along the lines from primitive
to tribal to national and then universal and individual.


TABLE VII-I  GENERALIZED STAGES OF STATE AND RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENT

	Super-Normal Power	Worship		Ethic	Religious Office	Scope

Primitive      dream state to	single and       community	     shaman	local
Tribal	       power agents		communal	

National	    national gods	         more centralized     national	     priesthood	national
	       taboo	           complex and
			             elaborate
Universal      monotheism	            	formalized         moralistic          heirarchical       weltanschauung
Individual			    ritual					      world view




     This schematic representation of the stages of development, although far from adequate, provides some
sense of the historical evolution of religion in such analysis. In some instances, the vestiges are
conglomerate where elements of earlier stages are embedded in the later formations. Among the other
problems which arise in its usage are the obvious connotations of a certain 'superiority' to the more
'advanced' stages, and without accepting the challenge of cultural relativism which is just as problematic
as its outlook, that clearly presents dilemna for objective analysis. It simply leaves too much out, or
unaccounted for. It is difficult to place such a construct as American civil religion in such a scheme, and
may therefore subsume a bias that which is indicative of a too limited scope and definition, as they tend to
stress structure over theory in a manner which cannot be termed adequate for this analysis.

     A plethora of other modes of analysis have received broad enough usage to merit comment, and a
fundamental premise upon which these sundry systems reside is their root view of the nature of man. In
terms of both identifying and classifying the subject of this inquiry, consideration of these is also
warranted. They may also be juxtaposed in their critical examination of the species of religion scrutinized
here. Two central figures of the Austrian school , Hayek and von Mises may be juxtaposed with Freud and
Marx on the other side of the spectrum, with Thomas Sowell casting, from the former side of the ledger, a
variation of  sorts on the theme. Sowell also represents a movement out of central Europe. And while it
may not be immediately apparent what the connection would be between such thinkers and civil religion,
that will become clear as the examination proceeds. Suffice it to say for now that the fundamental link
between theory and structure is a crucial point.



     The Austrian School represents substantive parallels with American traditions, and because of that, it
is an extremely important system to be considered in the context of examining the American philosophy
and culture. Even given the considerable attention devoted to what amount to supply side variations on
that theme in American history, some of which will be entered here, the rudiments of that school
reverberate strongly throughout our heritage and in contemporary thinking in this country. There is a
great deal of 'America' among its substance. That would follow lawfully on the categorical imperative
delineated here shortly. Any  individual might presume to have conceptualized a more productive
direction for policy than market efficacy, but realization that one's own vision, even if it were the 'best'
strategy to employ, will enjoy at best limited hegemony and that other, less 'elevated' prescriptions will
have access to contribution of direction, would make it apparent that the wisest course would be to defer to
markets as the voice of the people. It is certainly less presumptuous and clearly the most positive route
toward pursuit of that categorical imperative, for capitalism, or at least relatively or comparatively
unfettered markets, has produced the highest standard of living  -- and wealth creation -- in all history in
the United States. Market efficacy plainly excels in its performance vis-à-vis more constrained
approaches. Ludwig von Mises (along with, of course, such as Hayek and Hazelett) succinctly presents the
argument as well as anyone else. 

     Writing in Christian Economics in 1980, von Mises argued:

	"The concept of freedom and its antithesis make sense only in referring to the
	conditions of social cooperation among men. Social cooperation, the basis of
	any really human and civilized existence, can be achieved by two different methods.
	It can be cooperation by virtue of contract and voluntary coordination on the part
	of all individuals, or it can be cooperation by virtue of command ... and compulsory
	subordination of the many ..."(1)

He proceeds to contend that in the former, each "individual is a moral person" by which, he explains, he
means that they are "free to choose" with an awareness of responsibility for those acts. From this
perspective, the entirety of western civilization is grounded on these premises, the actions of free men
being the basis for all of its accomplishments. Although perfection is not a trait of man in human affairs,
it is clear that man's record has been movement to higher planes of existence. That does not mean that
there have been neither lapses or relapses or that terrible miscarriages have not appeared. Indeed, it is the
latter case of compulsory subordination which has engendered such. Without actually stating the case for
understanding 'perfection' as a never ending process, that inference is clear.

     Mises goes beyond this bifurcation by identifying a 'third system' between the two explaining the
problem with it. This interventionist ' mixed economy' must inevitably lead to the authoritarian
conclusion. This "Zwangswirtschaft' type of approach, though condemned by Marx as bourgeois at points
in his writing, is but an alternative road to socialism. Also described by Mises as Hindenberg or the
Kaiser's system, it involves planning and the welfare state, which, as it draws regularly more heavily of
necessity on existent capital resources thereby diminishes that available for the private sector creating a
vicious cycle which becomes a slippery slope. Marx was quite critical of this form in his CRITIQUE OF
THE GOTHA PROGRAM, and, indeed, the path may be worse than that laid out according to Marx. The
control board of planning involve escalating levels of forced strict compliance until it eventuates in its
substitution for private enterprise. The notion that one path is 'worse' than the others is, however, a
relative view. Whether fascism is worse than communism, perhaps an obvious realism, is clearly a
wretched  differentiation. Whichever form of planning one looks at, it is utterly incompatible with the free
markets of capitalism. The program of this 'slippery slope' pursues restricting profits, equalization of
incomes, confiscatory taxation, lavish government spending, minimum wage laws, price control, and
inflationary policies, among much else, including bureaucratization of society through a swelling public
sector. The crucial point is that it is founded on a flawed economics, the problem with which not only
makes its shortcomings clear, but also demonstrates the strengths of the market alternative.

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