Religion and the American Revolution

FAIN: FT-12492-75

Catherine L. Albanese
University of California, Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA 93106-0001)

Study pursued an understanding of the American Revolution itself as a religious structure, the presupposition being that the religion of the American Revolution may mean more than what the churches were saying and doing when we try to explain the gripping power of the revolutionary event in American history. The American Revolution was explored as a sacred historicized myth of origins. The leader of the Revolution in both its initial form (the war) and its later institutionalization (the Constitution and the Federal government)is seen as the holy founder whose action in a mythic context explains the origins of American national life.