the concept of civil religion qua religion , principally from the historian John F. Wilson. This was partially offset, on the other hand, by a shift in Bellah's own work, wherein civil religion became an increasingly evaluative concept, as in his bicentennial volume The Broken Covenant . No doubt, the U.S. bicentennial provided a major impetus to civil religion discussion, so much so that Mathisen refers to the period 1974-1977 as the "Golden Age" of civil religion discussion.

Although the civil religion thesis claims that civil religion exists symbolically in American culture, such symbols must be perceived and believed by actual people if the symbols are to be said to have meaning. Several studies by Ronald Wimberley (1976) and others (Wimberley et al. 1976) developed statements on civil religious beliefs and obtained responses on them from various public samples. The findings show that people do affirm civil religious beliefs, although most would not know what the term civil religion means. Examples of civil religious beliefs are reflected in statements used in this research such as these: "America is God's chosen nation today." "Holidays like the Fourth of July are religious as well as patriotic." "A