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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
This essay explores the theology of the Religion of the Republic (what Robert N. Bellah called civil religion in America) in order to compare it with elements in the catholic tradition of Christianity. The assumption is that the Religion of the Republic has much in common with the consensual religiosity of American evangelicalism.
Using John Williamson Nevin's “Catholicism” of the Mercersburg theology, the author provides a critique of the theology of the Republic and suggests a principle of radical catholicity which offers a profound role for the church in the destiny of the American Republic.
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