What ‘cultural religion’ says about secularization and national identity: A neglected religio-political configuration

Abstract

Contrary to conventional readings of secularization and its usual analytical point of references – American and French civil religions, American religious vitalism and French laïcité – this article seeks to better understand an intermediary religio-political configuration, named ‘cultural religion’, as widespread as neglected. Independently from the question of faith, the full respect of religious practices or knowledge of dogma, Western populations maintain a cultural attachment towards Christianity, which may characterize one of the important contemporary social functions conferred to Christian churches, and help understand their deep cultural and historical impregnation. This article will address the conventional account of religious indicators, more precisely the religious type of ‘seasonal conformists’, the process of secularization as culturalization, and will distinguish between cultural religion, civil religion and political religion.

In his 2004 article ‘The cultural turn in the sociology of religion in France’, French sociologist Jean-Paul Willaime notes a renewal in the field of sociology of religion, towards works studying the symbolic contribution of religion to the definition of individual and collective identities. According to Willaime, the end of the ‘War of the Two Frances’ and laïcité’s definitive victory since the Second Vatican Council, combined with Western societies’ growing religious pluralism, invites for an alternative examination of the place held by religion, and especially Christianity, in contemporary societies (2004: 374). This new religio-political context would render more evident some up-‘til-now neglected aspects of French and more broadly Western religiosity. It would also transform national religious dynamics and modify the evaluation of religious vitality, usually highlighting religion’s own recession and resistance in the face of secularization’s progress. In addition to updating the analysis of the multiple systems of secularity, Willaime would favour the evaluation, with fresh eyes, of the state of Christian faith in largely secular Western populations.

This last will frame our theme of ‘cultural religion’. Rather than focusing on measuring the degree of secularization in theses societies and populations, this article will seek to better understand certain ‘intermediary’ cases situated between the poles of a vibrant American religiosity and ‘French laïcité’ ¹ .

In fact, the sociological enigma surrounding ‘cultural religion’ is the surprising form taken by the transformation of typical indicators of Western religious vitality. Despite the widespread withdrawal of the Christian Church’s influence on most countries, its impact is not uniform and affects the many institutionalized religious practices differently (Davie, 2006: 271, 274–281): though there has been a marked drop in regular religious attendance, and the rise of a patchwork of different beliefs, participation in Christian rites of passage (baptisms, weddings, funerals), as well as the declared belonging to a Christian denomination remains astonishingly stable and growing in many European countries, as well as in Québec society. If the multiplicity of relationships to religion is not a recent phenomenon, what does appear novel is that the selective observance of religions indicators might, from now on, constitute the norm in many countries with Christian roots, and be on the rise in continental Europe.

According to Pierre Bréchon, this might in fact embody one of the three major configurations of religious practice, or ‘regimes of religiosity’ (Meunier and Wilkins-Laflamme, 2012) in the West. Compared to the ‘countries of weak denominational belonging’ (the Netherlands, France etc.) and the ‘slowly secularizing old culture of Catholic countries’ (US, Ireland, etc.) Bréchon notes a category of countries with ‘strong denominational belonging and weak religious practice’ (Bréchon, 2002: 466) (Denmark, Sweden, Québec, etc.) ² . Moreover, contrary to the decline of certain religious indicators between 1981 and 1999, such as the ‘feeling of being a religious person’, the ‘feeling that faith brings strength and comfort’, or attending religious ceremonies ‘at least once a month’, ‘their opting for the rites for a birth, wedding or death’ has largely remained constant in Europe. What’s more, between 1990 and 1999 ‘religious belonging’ has increased in Europe overall, even for people between the ages of 18 and 29 (Lambert, 2004: 310–311, 324). How does one explain this drop in regular religious attendance, this patchwork of alternative beliefs, in light of the persistence (or even growth) of activity in terms of rites of passage and denominational belonging? For American sociologist Demerath, such a selective ‘cultural religion’ embodies the most widely spread religious phenomenon in the West and yet is the most neglected by the scientific community (2000: 127).

This begs even greater questions. Could this phenomenon, this selected relationship to Christian Churches, be but the ‘visible part of the [religious] iceberg’ (Davie, 2004: 36) for populations existing in the Church fringes? Would it mean that ‘beyond the secularization of institutions and the emancipation of consciences from religion, there would be a bedrock of Catholic [and Christian] culture, which has, for a long time, deeply touched the collective identity, even for those who practice the least’? (Hervieu-Léger, 2003: 94–95). Is this a phenomenon ‘by which religion affords a sense of personal identity and continuity with the past even after participation in ritual and belief have lapsed’ (Demerath, 2000: 127)? Chiefly, ‘how has secularization, as a form of public detachment of institutions and symbols from the dominant faith, drawn the line between religious practices and religion’s deep impact on ethno-cultural identity’ (Turcotte, 1994: 79)?

These are but a few of the questions this text will examine, through works here grouped and characterized under the heuristic term ‘cultural religion’. While not all using the term explicitly, these works do share a common concern, as well as a similar hypothesis, that we can formulate in this way: today, religion is used independently from the question of faith, the full respect of religious practices or knowledge of dogma, ‘as a cultural resource, as an ethical reference or as a repository of rites ³ ’ (Voyé, 2006:140). For, as observed Michel de Certeau in 1974, if ‘the religious behaviour and faith come undone’, if ‘the pieces of the [religious] system fall apart’ (1974: 11), if the frontiers between the religious and the social come blurred, it is because ‘objective Christianity is becoming folklore, detached from faith so as to belong to culture’ (1974: 13). Christian heritage, then, opens itself to multiple borrowings and uses, notably those of ‘aesthetic’, ‘folklore’ ‘emblem’ and ‘patrimony’. As the social control exercised by the Church lessens and its sphere of social influence becomes specialized to faith, the Church loses a part of its capacity to dictate and regulate the uses of its material and immaterial heritage. While the use of that heritage does not a priori contradict the sincerity of religious faith as defined by the institution or lived by the believers, that sincerity may no longer be obligatory nor taken for granted. ‘Intermittent attendance to rites of passage… is likely to fuel either religious or cultural identification ⁴ ’. (Turcotte, 1994: 86).

That hypothesis is the thesis of this paper, as we seek to better illustrate and conceptualize the phenomenon of ‘cultural religion’. We shall examine the particularities of cultural religion, as well as the condition of its appearance and rise, especially as a global phenomenon within a society, by comparing religious systems (the dominant form taken by a religious practice within a given country) to secular regimes (the differenciated and subordinated place conferred to religion and religiosity in public institutions). We propose that the term ‘cultural religion’ might help identify the contemporary function ascribed to the historical Christian Churches in a number of Western countries, and help identify the ‘remarkable power of cultural impregnation’ possessed by religious symbols and institutions, ‘that survives the loss of official beliefs and the collapse of observances’ (Hervieu-Léger, 2005: 337).

Examining a measure of Catholic affiliation and a classic example of the archetypical ‘seasonal conformist’

Simply put, indicators for measuring religious vitality (practice, belief, belonging) constitute square one par excellence of any examination of cultural religion. It could be said that they comprise the most visible part of the equation. If the indicators have too often served as universal and timeless ‘exemplars’ of secularization (Tschannen, 1992), it is with this in mind that their surprising selective observance raises the question of the place conferred to religion in contemporary societies. A return to the use of these indicators in the pioneering works of French sociologists Fernand Boulard and Gabriel Le Bras can turn the focus of the debate to this ‘intermediate’ category of relationship to religion.

In 1954, the priest and sociologist of Catholicism, Fernand Boulard, examined the phenomenon of selective observance of dogma and catholic practice within an innovative framework of empirical studies on the state of Catholicism in France. Much like his contemporary Gabriel Le Bras and their many successors, he made religious practice his principal measure of the degree of integration to Catholicism. ‘It’s obvious: religious practice is not the whole of Christian vitality. It is, though, a sign one must not underestimate, for as this sign is canonically determined and gravely obligatory, one is not really and truly a Christian if one is not practicing’ (Boulard, 1954: 19). Thus could he distinguish three kinds of parish in France: the ‘Christian lands (category A); lands of indifference, with Christian traditions (category B); and mission lands (category C)’ (Boulard, 1954: 20). While the ‘mission lands’ demonstrate the extent of ‘de-christianization’ in certain regions of France (notably blue-collar areas), lands called ‘indifferent, with Christian traditions’ allowed the Catholic clergy to hold out hope for a possible return to Catholicism (114). Thus, Boulard’s analysis organized the different regions of France according to the nature and regularity of their contact with the Church.

To summarize – without diminishing the importance of maps showing more and more varied granularity – this is a map of stratification: in ‘A’ lands, the Church is in regular contact with the whole of the population. In ‘B’ lands, it is in episodic contact. In ‘C’ lands there has been a break in contact with a considerable fraction of the population (Boulard, 1954: 26).

By episodic contact and ‘lands of indifference, with Christian traditions’, he meant regions where ‘a minority of practicing adults (from 44 percent to zero) … but, where the whole of the population celebrates the great religious moments of life’ (Boulard, 1954: 21). These are essentially the criteria used today to designate the lands Bréchon described as having ‘strong denominational belonging and weak religious practice’ (2002: 466).

Gabriel Le Bras pushed the predominant analysis of religious practice farther than Boulard in ‘lands of indifference with Christian traditions’. This practice would be unique to ‘seasonal conformists’:

groups of passers-by, and migrants, for whom religion is defined by three rites: baptism, marriage and, in general, a child’s first communion. People who go to church only when the bell tolls for them and to let the parish know that they are observing practices of old (Le Bras, 1955: 5).

For Le Bras, the seasonal conformist underlines the difficulties of the Catholicism of his days, as well as the difficulty in measuring the sincerity of one’s religious faith. Boulard also recognized that it is not quite so simple to reduce the degree of one’s religiosity to its outward expression. ‘Determining with exactitude the importance attributable to each of faith, custom and proscription in religious activities is beyond the powers of man, no matter how compelling the data!’ (1954: 233).

Paradoxically, the difficulty in determining the value of a practice is most acute where denominational homogeneity prevails. As social pressure increases, it is more and more difficult to establish whether social conformity or faith itself is being professed. Religion’s cultural saturation is then at its peak, and it isn’t uncommon for religious culture to be indistinguishable from culture at large.

On the other hand, how rich is the field offered by the history of practices! Seasonal conformists and even the un-baptized submit themselves, without the least devotion to precepts their ancestors believed to be ineffable. Our civil calendar aligns with the liturgical calendar: it’s holy days and holidays, our week is punctuated by Sunday and Friday. Holy sites are imbued with a respect, if not reverence, that neither agnosticism nor hostility can erase. As the folk tales of humanity were collected and recorded, the Christian elements of culture become diluted by the torrent of history (Le Bras, 1956: 685).

Put another way, if Boulard and Le Bras saw ‘seasonal conformists’ as an intermediary step on the path to de-christianization – ‘the last step (which may already have been taken) over the threshold to exodus’ (Le Bras, 1956: 406) – it is important to note that the sociologists didn’t take them for atheists or cynics (Le Bras, 1955: 253). Not without discomfort, this type of relationship to Catholicism caused Boulard and Le Bras to think on the often strong bonds between catholic culture and the larger societal culture on the incorporation and the acculturation of one in the other: what elements of religion may be celebrated, as a cultural practice, whether one is faithful or not? Notably, the term used to name and characterize the ‘seasonal conformist’ recalls the prime religious indicator employed by Danièle Hervieu-Léger, as frequently quoted in works on cultural religion: subscription to a ‘lineage of belief’, living and praying ‘as our forefathers did …’ (Hervieu-Léger, 1993: 93).

This brief detour by the pioneers of French sociology of religion, Fernand Boulard and Gabriel Le Bras, underlines the persistence of questions as to the intentional ‘seasonal’ relationship with the Catholic Church. But, a novelty of scale distinguishes our era from their own, particularly in catholic lands. If Boulard and Le Bras could hope for a Christian upswing and as such analyze the ‘seasonal conformist’ by the measure of the clergy’s hopes and challenges, it was in a different era. For, today, the end of Christendom and the Catholic Church’s Aggiornamento by the Second Vatican Council marked the end of an already diminished clerical and religious monopoly. It is the Church’s desire to define society that was undercut, as well as religious constraint and conformity (Isambert, 1976; Donegani, 1984; Meunier, 2007). The Catholic Church, after Protestant churches had done so, began to accept the modern principles of democracy, freedom of conscience and the separation of Church and State. As Gilles Routhier says, Catholicism made a modern ‘leap of faith’, that of

participating in the public debate by accepting to work with others for the common good and to submit its own position to the discussion and the judgment of others without claiming a status that would make itself the norm for all and the governing law for the whole of society (Routhier, 2009: 119).

It was a gamble as, conforming to the world, the Church also ran the risk of losing relevance – instead of leading, being led.

This gamble – its risks and potential rewards – begs a fresh look at the phenomenon of ‘seasonal conformists’ and of ‘lands of indifference, with Christian traditions’. We may, with greater difficulty than before, qualify them as merely conformists or indifferent: when constraints fall aside, yet practice persists, it is no longer obligation that keeps them alive. Is this not what the persistence of practice reveals in the face of selective observance of religious indicators – ‘lands of indifference, with Christian traditions’ and the generalization made of ‘seasonal conformists’?

It is in light of this new fact that Jean-Marie Donegani invited social scientists to stop considering religious practice as the sole indicator of religious membership:

To continue [since the Second Vatican Council] to determine belonging only by the indicator of religious practice is to condemn oneself to using only the disappearance of evidence to chronicle this ancient Catholicism, without looking to the religious forms and the content which have taken their place (Donegani, 1984: 210).

Rather, he suggested that ‘the declaration made, by some, of their Catholic identity’ be seen ‘as a positive choice and a show of allegiance’ (Donegani, 1984: 214). If, in 2002, Pierre Bréchon judged ‘subscribing to a denomination is not seen as a strong identifier, it implies no system of belief, nor particular relation to the world’ (2002: 465), seven years later, he considered that ‘simply belonging […] constitutes a pertinent indicator as to one’s system of values’ (Bréchon, 2009: 175). It is still uncertain just what this belonging and this ‘positive sign of allegiance’ mean. In other words – to which ‘lineage of belief’ do ‘seasonal conformists’ relate? It is a question that, as it ever has, preoccupies the Church ⁵ . Further inquiry on cultural religion may lead to an answer.

Cultural religion: conceptual and empirical polyphony

Cultural religion, rationalization and the ‘lineage of belief’

As early as the 1920s, Max Weber explicitly employed the term ‘cultural religion’ in his essays on religion. He used the term to distinguish ‘cultural religions’ from ‘world religions’, and from ‘redemptive religions’ (Schluchter, 1989: 90–91). According to German sociologist Wolfgang Schluchter, cultural religion for Weber meant the passage from magic to religion, the transformation from natural to symbolic (abstract, aesthetized) of the supernatural (1989: 91). The advent of cultural religion corresponds to the establishment of a distinction between the worldly and the supernatural, as well as a symbolic institutional mediation between man and the gods. As such, Weber considered that cultural religion was a first step towards the world becoming rational and thus disenchanted (Schluchter, 1989: 102).

Though the works touching on ‘cultural religion’ – or asking its essential questions – don’t make explicit use of the term, according to Weber’s definition, we can nonetheless find in it the rational and symbolic frame within which modern religion exists. Danièle Hervieu-Léger, frequently referenced in works touching on cultural religion due to her examination of religion as memory (Hervieu-Léger, 1993; Charron, 1996; Davie, 2000; Demerath, 2000; Meunier et al., 2010), was herself inspired by the works of Jean Séguy – himself a great admirer of Weber – and the concept of ‘metaphorical religion’. This last concept differentiates itself from other perspectives on religion as a dissemination of the sacred and its functionalist interpretations, which allow one to find modern ersatz everywhere where rituals, beliefs and effervescence are found. Séguy’s metaphoric religion, and thus the process of metaphorization would be ‘one characteristic of modernity at work on itself’ (Séguy, 1988: 178–179), which effects even historical religion.

If […] the metaphorization of religion represents a characteristic trait of modernity, we must ask ourselves if it doesn’t also affect historical religion. Can we not also, in particular, place at its feet the metaphorizing intellectualization and spiritualization presently taking place in all the great Christian Churches? […] as much for theologians as for the faithful many conceptions of Heaven, Hell, resurrection […] have a foot on both supernaturalism and analogy - when they do not simply fall back on the latter. (Séguy, 1988: 180)

Hervieu-Léger uses religious metaphorization as the prime example of the way in which certain Jewish communities have reinterpreted the significance of some religious practices – precisely to make them more plausible in the modern experience.

ethical reinterpretations of proscriptions (the biblical ban on the consumption of blood is thus seen as a moral precept in symbolic form – the rejection of violence and murder) hygienic reinterpretation of dietary proscriptions, or circumcision, or laws touching on sexuality, aesthetizing reinterpretation of traditional religious symbols, etc. (Hervieu-Léger, 1993: 100).

Thus, for Hervieu-Léger, as in the tradition of Séguy, the metaphorization of religion colours its incorporation in modern culture and points to the possibility of interpretation and re-interpretation of a religious tradition. For Hervieu-Léger the religious content is less important than the process of evolution of the religious tradition and the act of subscription. ‘Religion as memory’ or as tradition, is religion as ‘lineage of belief’ – subscription to a tradition perceived as legitimate (‘as my forefathers did before me’): ‘it is not the continuity in itself, but the visible expression of an affiliation that the faithful exhort – individually or collectively – and membership in a spiritual community that unites adherents – past, present and future’. (Hervieu-Léger, 1993: 119) This explains why studies of the phenomenon of cultural religion are so often interested in religion as memory. It at once allows to grasp the ‘seasonal conformists’, solely motivated to go through the motions out of respect for ‘habits and customs of old’. It thus allows one to define its principal characteristic – subscription to a lineage of belief – as collective memory. It also allows one to tie the changes to religion to changes in its social environment (Hervieu-Léger, 1993: 92). Finally, it invites one to imagine the possible incorporation of one memory in another (Halbwachs, 1925, 1950). Indeed, if religion as a lineage of belief explains the perseverance of modern religion despite the transformation of dogma by the works of reinterpretation in an authorized tradition, it leads one to think that metaphorized religion could be used by whomever dares when institutional control diminishes. When not for a newly created and rigorously controlled tradition, as in the case of political religions (Hervieu-Léger, 1993: 162–173), it could serve different religious experiences, as well nourish political speeches and the nation’s secular institutions (Hervieu-Léger, 1993: 228–237). Under the pressure to become metaphorical, the pressure of social differentiation and the symbolic encapsulation of society by the State, does religion not find itself (most often) reduced to a reservoir of symbols and rites, easily incorporated by other representations and memories (Hervieu-Léger, 1993: 130)? This hypothesis will serve as a divider as we assemble a second set of descriptors of cultural religion.

Cultural religion, or Christianity culturalized to a cultural function

British sociologist Grace Davie, the second most-quoted author in works touching on cultural religion, has an active interest in the phenomenon. Certain European cases, specifically that of Great Britain, led her to propose the concept of ‘vicarious religion’ (Davie, 2004: 32). Looking back on her many works, Davie finds a connective thread – one uniting question: ‘For most of my working life, I have drawn attention to the middle ground in the religious life of both Britain and Europe – to the very large number of people (around 50 percent of the population) who are neither involved in organized religion, nor consciously opposed to it’ (Davie, 2010: 261). What keeps bringing this population, neither hostile nor particularly fervent, back to the Church? The concept of ‘vicarious religion’ serves to describe ‘the continuing attachment of large sections of the European population to their historic Churches, whether or not they attend these institutions on a regular basis’ (Davie, 2010: 262). This attachment may apply to rites of passage, to national identity, religious patrimony or certain collective values. Thus, by ‘vicarious religion’, Davie means ‘the notion of religion performed by an active minority but on behalf of a much larger number, who (implicitly, at least) not only understand; but, quite clearly, approve of what the minority is doing’ (Davie, 2010: 262). The concept of ‘vicarious religion’, Davie maintains, ‘rests in turn on the legacy of the State Church. Mentalities endure, even when the institution has altered considerably’ (Davie, 2010: 265–266). Thus, this would have less to do with a relationship to religion in general then a relationship with a single Church, with distinct role and societal functions, which it would perform for the good of all. That said, this delegated function would seem, for Davie, to be that of religious faith as well as affiliation or belonging. This concept recalls as much what Davie calls the phenomenon of ‘belief without belonging’ as ‘belonging without faith’ (Davie, 2010: 263). Put another way, it applies as well to those with little religious faith, but perform certain religious rituals, as to those with strong religious convictions, who rarely practice them.

This duality echoes a tension at the heart of the idea of vicarious religion developed by Davie. For, if an entire population delegates responsibilities to the Church, they aren’t necessarily the same nor for the same reasons, as in the case of our principal focus – that of countries ‘with strong denominational habits with little religious practice’. As Pierre-André Turcotte noted, can we not think that ‘the intermittent participation in rites-of-passage, such as grand parish festivals, while it is likely to reinforce one’s institutional involvement, is likely to fuel religious or cultural identity, by periodically delving into tradition and summoning heritage’? (Turcotte, 1994: 86) More simply, should we not ask ourselves (and, to recall our previous questions on ‘religion as memory’): what is the prime function of ‘belonging without belief’ – the very reason for its persistence? Which legacy of belief, which framework of memory does it support? To what level does the tradition celebrated by the ‘seasonal conformist’ correspond to the Christian tradition embraced by the religious institution, and not the ‘seasonal conformist’s’ cultural and national motifs? Alternatively – on the global level, this time – to what level is the subscription to a ‘lineage of belief’ or ‘authorized tradition’ of Christianity actually that which the Church intends, as opposed to that generated by the national community for itself?

It is in this sense that Demerath’s explicit use of the term ‘cultural religion’ contrasts with Davie’s use of ‘vicarious religion’ and contributes to the clarification of this phenomenon (2000: 136). In Demerath’s valuation ‘cultural religion’ should describe a secularized relationship with institutional religions, where the loss of adherents and the abandonment of regular religious practice meet: ‘cultural religion involves the eclipse of both belief and ritual but not a primordial sense of cultural continuity’ (2000: 137). For believers, this would mean that parents could elect that their children receive religious education, not in the name of the value of dogma, or the existence of God; but so that their children might receive a ‘good education’, instilling ‘good values’. (Demerath, 2000: 129). Demerath noted that this same type of secularized relationship to the Christian Church in countries as different as North Ireland, Poland and Sweden. These countries have in common their persistent – selective – relationship to institutional religion: ‘They were “cultural Catholics”. They weren’t really believers, and while they attended church at least sporadically, they had a good deal of contempt for some of the Church officials and policies. Still, Catholicism was part of their national and family cultural heritage’ (Demerath, 2000: 130). According to Demerath, the Church maintains a position in the contemporary imagination of the Irish, the Swedish and the Polish firstly due to its central place in the national history; but equally importantly, because it accepts its relegation to a specialized realm, subordinate to state institutions; this explains the rejection of the Church’s proscriptions.

Such instances suggest a style of religion that resides ‘in the culture’ without compelling active belief or participation. Substantial proportions of all three populations described here aligned with a particular religious tradition without partaking of its beliefs or rituals. Their religion is less one of present conviction or commitment than of continuity with generations past and contrast with rival groups and identities (Demerath, 2000: 136).

This sounds much like Québec’s ‘cultural Catholicism’ – an object of local inquiry. Sociologist and theologian Jacques Grand’Maison noted as early as 1970, shortly after the Quiet Revolution, and at a time when Québec’s secularization was at its peak, that:

research into the weakening of religious structures and practices does not reflect religion’s cultural dimensions. […] Religion’s influence is doubtless absent from the consciousness of most Québecois, but it has a profound effect on the individual and collective subconscious. (Grand’Maison, 1970: 36)

In fact, for sociologist Raymond Lemieux, who first systematically studied the idea of cultural Catholicism in Québec, it served as a cultural and historical matrix to those who consider themselves Québécois, a place where all may access a common set of experiences, admittedly but not exclusively religious – for the very reason that the Catholic Church will not insist on religiosity, just as that ceases to be its primary collective function.

We could certainly re-evoke civil religion, on the condition that it describes not merely the sublimation of the State or ethnicity, but rather that of the citizen and translates itself into an ethics of a certain quality of social coexistence. Also has this Catholicism ceased addressing itself solely to believers and adherents in order to appeal to all, especially the ‘distant’ (Lemieux, 1990: 159).

If we speak of a ‘civil’ version of the nation, it is a ‘civil Catholicism’ that Lemieux finds in contemporary Québecois Catholicism, where Catholic culture ‘continues to integrate the Québecois personality within a sort of common reference, while distanced from the norms and strictures of daily life, remains available, if required’ (1990: 163). According to Jacques Palard, if there exists an ethnic concept of identity, given and homogenous, there also exists a ‘referential’ mode to culture, as a reflexive dialogue with a shared tradition.

That is where we find the traits of (collective) referential Catholicism rather than (individual) membership, where the memory of traditions and an aloofness towards the institution meet. Its influence and social effects are not limited and best measured by conformity to prescribed behaviours (Palard, 2001: 48).

It is a very ‘love-hate’ relationship, the one between Québecois and the Catholic Church. One where the rosy reminder of membership in a shared tradition is in contrast to the Church’s many normative commands and interdictions (Meunier et al., 2010; Meunier and Laniel, 2012). Such culturalized relationship to Catholicism can also be seen in Catholic countries such as Italy (Garelli, 2013) and Spain (Pérez-Agote, 2010).

Political religion, civil religion … and cultural religion?

The phenomenon of cultural religion can be expanded by adding it to the query as to the place occupied by religion in modernity, in its relationship to politics and processes of secularization. This allows us to better understand its properties, as well as its conditions of genesis and reproduction, while also probing the areas where the phenomenon of culturalization takes its ultimate form by establishing itself as both a secular and religious regime – a cultural religion.

Italian sociologist Emilio Gentile proposes two versions of ‘the religions of politics’: ‘political religion’ and ‘civil religion’. To this end he employs two criteria, which can equally serve to distinguish cultural religion from political religion and civil religion. They concern the attitude of political religions toward ‘traditional religions [on one hand] and […] the relationship between authority and freedom, […] individuals and the state [on the other]’ (Gentile, 2006: xv). Thus, ‘political religion […] refer to the sacralization of politics in totalitarian regimes, and civil religion […] refer to the sacralization of politics in democratic regimes’ (Gentile, 2006: 140). Political religion

is the sacralization of a political system founded on an unchallengeable monopoly of power, ideological monism and the collectivity of its code of commandments […] [it] is intolerant, invasive, and fundamentalist, and it wishes to permeate every aspect of an individual’s life and of a society’s collective life. (Gentile, 2006: xv)

We can also note the way political religion treats historical Churches: they are ideological and institutional rivals, which must be eliminated. Hervieu-Léger makes the link with the creation of an ideological tradition where control and application would be maximized – fascist and communist totalitarian ideologies quickly come to mind to characterize political religions.

In contrast to political religion, civil religion participates in democratic regimes and do not seek to eliminate historical religions, and may incorporate some of their elements. Thus, Gentile says, civil religion is the

sacralization of a political system that guarantes a plurality of ideas, free competition in the exercise of power, and the ability of the governed to dismiss their governments […] [it] respects individual freedom, coexists with other ideologies, and does not impose obligatory and unconditionnal support for its commandments (Gentile, 2006: xv).

Must cultural religion be considered but another name for civil religion? Though many similarities exist between the two phenomena, it would be wise to distinguish them, for one principal reason: civil religion entertains no link to any particular denomination – which is to the contrary, not the case for cultural religion.

By civil religion, RN Bellah meant ‘a genuine apprehension of universal and transcendent religious reality as seen in or, one could almost say, as revealed through the experience of the American people’ (1967: 7). However, America’s affinity for religion as an ‘elected nation’ does not imply favouring any particular denomination (Gentile, 2005: xiii). This is particularly evidenced by the United States’ producing of its own national religion, made singular by involving a reference to God:

While some have argued that Christianity is the national faith, and others that church and synagogue celebrate only the generalized religion of ‘American Way of Life’, few have realized that there actually exists alongside of, and rather clearly differentiated from the Churches, an elaborate and well-institutionalized civil religion in America (Bellah, 1967: 1, 5).

America’s belief in the existence of a God, who could take on any number of features, would offer to the United States a ‘manifest destiny’, proof of its divine selection (Bellah, 1967: 2). Such a civil religion would just as willingly accept the existence of secular and democratic institutions as ‘American exceptionalism’ in terms of high rates of vitality and pluralism for its religions. On the other hand, in a subsequent work, The Broken Covenant – American Civil Religion in Time of Trial, the end of the United State’s pact with God, a break with the idea of divine election, were noted and deplored by Bellah (1975). If American civil religion does not refer to a particular denomination, neither does it drive the idea of God back to the fringes of private life. Rather, religion still constitutes a principal element of American national identity, but in such a way as to preserve its own autonomy in the face of religious precepts and their institutions – the famous ‘wall of separation’.

The concept of civil religion is occasionally employed in reference to France (Gentile, 2005: 8–20, 26–29). Unlike the United States, where modernity was constructed as ‘freedom to worship’, French civil religion evolved in a battle for ‘freedom from worship’ (Berger et al., 2008: 22–46). Thus, France is found at the other end of civil religion’s spectrum, just as it is found at the opposite end of the spectrum in indicators of religious vitality, having some of the weakest in Europe (Bréchon, 2004; Lambert, 2004). French civil religion, inseparable from French secularism, is thus characterized by the absence of references to God and the absence of any single denomination in the fabric of national identity.

The separation between Church and State established early on [in the US] and dictated by a plethora of denominations does nothing to prevent the common strain from being ‘A Nation Under God’, where authority and faith get the last word. Nothing similar is conceivable to France’s republican state. It is not a matter of distancing itself from denominations, as in America, but from religion itself (Gauchet, 1998: 69).

Unlike civil religion, which seeks to encompass different faiths, cultural religion is characterized by a privileged relationship with a single denomination. It is also for that reason that Davie differentiates her concept of ‘vicarious religion’ from ‘civil religion’ due to the absence of privileged relationship – as in the case of ‘civil religion’ (2010: 265–266). However, like civil religion, cultural religion evolves in a secular (or laïque) context, formally separating political and religious spheres. Similar to civil religion, cultural religion exists within a democratic regime and doesn’t stand opposed to individual or religious liberties. Thus, much like civil religion, it assumes a functional differentiation between spheres of human activity and the pre-eminence of the political and national spheres over the others. The difference being that it adds a denominational reference, a particular religious tradition (largely metaphorized or culturalized) to the national reference. The Church accepts the establishment of a distinction between its relationship with society (which it must serve – the condition for its privileged place in society) and its relationship with the faithful and its evangelical project. It exists within a tension, to greater or lesser degrees according to dogma and its interpretation, between a function of personal and cultural identity – which allow it not inconsiderable judicial privileges – as well as its religious project. Cultural religion evolved in Québec in the form of an ‘implicit Concordat’ (Meunier and Laniel, 2012), through public Catholic schools and a course of Catholic religious teaching, an ‘open confessionalism’ more and more detached from goals of catechism and initiation to faith (Laniel, 2016).

Thus, only in certain societies can the cultural religious phenomenon be found as a global reality. If, as we have seen, cultural religion exists as a practice in the West, it is only found as a global reality, as a religious system, in certain societies (Meunier and Laniel, 2012). It finds itself, minimally, in societies which, as the British sociologist David Martin would say, a Church has historically exerted a religious monopoly (where an elective affinity between a Church and the national identity exist) and where that same Church has taken the leap of making modern political principles its own, such as its subordination to the State, to democracy and to individual liberties of religion (1978). Thus, cultural religion finds itself favoured in protestant Scandinavian countries (Riis, 2008), but also in Catholic countries with ‘weak States’, such as Québec and Italy (Garelli, 2013). Equally, in countries where the adoption of modern principles occurred in tandem with the internal secularization (Isambert, 1976) of Catholicism and alongside its breakup with the ‘post-tridentin’ form – as was the case in Québec, where the Quiet Revolution (the modernization of nationalism and public institutions, re-working the relationship with the catholic church) coincided with the Second Vatican Council (Seljak, 1996). As such, time will tell if, over the next few years, such a regime can bud in other countries ‘experiencing change, as did Québec, of an accelerating modernization, rocking a hitherto overprotected catholicity’ (Lambert, 2004: 314–315) as in Ireland or Poland.

It would flourish with difficulty in France, where the expulsion of the Catholic tradition from the national reference was seen as a condition of passage to political modernity, nor in America, where no single church has managed to establish a religious monopoly.

Conclusion

In a recent article, British sociologist David Voas vigorously questions the pertinence of the concept of vicarious religion as developed by Grace Davie (Voas, 2009). Is it not, asks Voas, a ‘fuzzy fidelity’, without great religious or political consequences, ultimately destined to disappear?

The same can be asked of cultural religion and its delegated function of subscription to national identity and values. In effect, it is difficult to predict how much longer such a relationship can persist between a largely secular population and a Christian Church, moreover in a context of religious and cultural pluralism. Is a time not coming where this compact will no longer be convenient for one or both parties? Will the nation state not, in this time of religious pluralism, find it embarrassing to keep showing a preference to a particular denomination? Might the Church itself not seek to regain its old freedom and reenergize its evangelization, by modifying and/or reaffirming its old discourse? Put another way, on the institutional level, could its exit from merely cultural religion not be self-motivated, by a Church seeking to reappropriate the sense and modalities of subscription in a lineage of belief – that the State, seeking with ever greater force to enshrine strict secularism or a ‘pluralistic’ secularism, favouring the equal expression of all religions within the state’s domain ⁶ ? Moreover, couldn’t the seasonal conformists progressively neglect the rites, rites they would find less and less significant and identifying; or, in contrast, too loaded with religious meaning? And, does a religious institution not require an active religious minority in order to survive and, to that end, does that not require an institution that encourages faith to flourish (Davie, 2010)?

These are, it seems, important questions as to the future of cultural religion and the tensions it must navigate. But, these cannot conceal that, until recently, this type of relationship to religion was essentially unthought-of and certainly under-studied - precisely because no one saw beyond a certain uniformizing analytical grid of secularization, ignoring a-typical relationships to religion. Simply put, this realization calls upon us to re-think the particulars of cultural religion, as well as on the microsociological level, religions and practices (hence, for example, complexifying standard religio-political vote analysis, Laniel, 2010), and on the meso- and macro-sociological levels, the relationships between religious institutions and the State (for example, school systems and models of secularity, Laniel, 2016) – as well as the cultural representations of the collective, and its original sociohistorical construction (Laniel, 2015b) (Palard, 2002). There lies, beyond what has been done, an untouched field of study with many possibilities for international comparison.