God's federal republic : reconstructing our governing symbol /

Everett (Emory University) joins the search for shared values that undergird the common experience of the American people, a search prompted two decades ago by sociologist Robert Bellah's essay on civil religion in America. Everett dismisses the religious symbol of "kingdom of God" as a model for the ideal society because kingship has no meaning in the modern world. He sees popular images of "democracy" and "federalism" as also deficient because they are mired in 17th- and 18th-century political experience. For Everett, no symbolic language provides shared meaning or common identity for the American people today. He proposes "God's federal republic" as a new symbol to grant such meaning and identity, one combining the emphasis on stability, consensus, equality, and participatory government in federalism and republicanism with the stress on relationship among agreeing parties in the biblical idea of covenant. Everett overlooks the process by which viable symbols develop. They do not come from explicit suggestion; rather, they emerge naturally from within a culture. Hence his proposal is ultimately unworkable. Of some interest at all levels. -C. H. Lippy, Clemson University