Endnote 1.
Some years ago Robert Bellah and his colleagues began an important debate by classifying American patriotism as a civil religion. See Robert N. Bellah, "The American Civil Religion," Daedalus 96 (Winter 1967): 1-21, and Robert N. Bellah and Phillip E. Hammond, eds., Varieties of Civil Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980). On the history of the American civil religion debate, see George A. Kelly, "Civil Religion," in Politics and Religious Consciousness in America (New Brunswick, Nj: Transaction, Inc., 1984): 209-246.