Space Expansion and Politico-Religious Ideology: A Consideration of Civil Religion and the Future of Space Exploration

ABSTRACT

In this article, I focus on the question of how religion may evolve as a social institution that shapes behavior as colonization of the solar system unfolds. I argue here that space exploration in the American context has long been infused with elements of politico- religious ideology that sociologist Robert Bellah identifies with American civil religion and will suggest that the linkage between civil religion and space expansionism is likely to continue, and perhaps even intensify, as humans move beyond low earth orbit.

KEYWORDS:

• Civil religion
• politico-religious ideology
• extraterrestrial intelligence
• space expansionism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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3 Daniel Oberhaus, “How Cold War Politics Shaped the Internaitonal Space Station,” Smithsonian Magazine, September 9, 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-cold-war-politics-shaped-international-space-station-180975743/; Marcia Smith, “NASA Rebukes Russia for Using ISS for Political Purposes,” Spacepolicyonline.com, July 7, 2022, https://spacepolicyonline.com/news/nasa-rebukes-russia-for-using-iss-for-political-purposes/.

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6 Robert N. Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 134:4 (2005, originally published 1967), 40–55.

7 Károly Pintér, “American Civil Religion: Revisiting a Concept after 50 Years,” Americana, E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary XII:2 (2016).

8 Cynthia Toolin, “American Civil Religion from 1789 to 1981: A Content Analysis of Presidential Inaugural Addresses,” Review of Religious Research 25:1 (1983), 39–48.

9 James A. Mathisen, “Twenty Years after Bellah: Whatever Happened to American Civil Religion?” Sociological Analysis 50:2 (1989), 129–146.

10 Marcela Cristi, From Civil to Political Religion: The Intersection of Culture, Religion and Politics (Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001). Roderick P. Hart and John Lester Pauley, The Political Pulpit Revisited. 2nd ed. (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2005).

11 John W. Traphagan, The Practice of Concern: Ritual, Well-Being, and Aging in Rural Japan (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2004).

12 Dylan Swift and Paul R. Dokecki, “The Construction of Politico-Religious Narratives: Steps Toward Intervention Promotion Human Development and Community,” Journal of Community Psychology 41:4 (2013), 446–462.

13 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On The Social Contract (Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing Company, 1988).

14 Bellah, “Civil Religion,” 43.

15 Ibid., 41.

16 Robert N. Bellah, The Broken Covenant: American Civil Religion in Time of Trial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975). See also, Sarah Ruth Hammond, God's Businessmen: Entrepreneurial Evangelicals in Depression and War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).

17 Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1915).

18 Ayana Pressley, “Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley Massachusetts 7th District,” January 6, 2023, https://pressley.house.gov/2023/01/06/pressley-statement-on-two-year-anniversary-of-january-6th-insurrection/. Emphasis added.

19 Marina Koren, “No One Should 'Colonize' Space,” The Atlantic, September 17, 2020, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/09/manifest-destiny-trump-space-exploration/612439/.

20 Lyon Rathbun, “The Debate over Annexing Texas and the Emergence of Manifest Destiny,” Rhetoric and Public Affairs 4:3 (2001), 484–486.

21 Hsu-Ming Teo, “‘Space … The Final Frontier’: American Nationalism and Mid-Twentiety-Century Visions of the Future,” Australasian Journal of American Studies 13:1 (1994), 28.

22 Lincoln Geraghty, “The American Jeremiad and ‘Star Trek’s’ Puritan Legacy,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 14:2 (2003), 228. See also, Daniel Leonard Bernardi, Star Trek and History: Race-ing Toward a White Future (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998).

23 NASA, “Our Mission and Values,” https://www.nasa.gov/careers/our-mission-and-values.

24 Bob Ward, Dr. Space: The Life of Wernher von Braun (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009).

25 Deng Xiaoci and Fan Anqi, “Mao's Birthplace Receives Shenzhou-10 Manned Spacecraft Reentry Capsule,” Global Times, December 25, 2020, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202012/1211033.shtml.

26 Adam R. Shapiro, “Undark,” January 27, 2022, https://undark.org/2022/01/27/is-there-a-place-for-spirituality-in-space-science/.

27 Pew Research Center, “Scientists and Belief,” Pew Research Center, November 5, 2009, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2009/11/05/scientists-and-belief/.

28 Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York, Basic Books, 1973), 90. See also, Philip Gorski, American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

J. W. Traphagan

J. W. Traphagan, Ph. D. is an anthropologist and Visiting Research Scholar with the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University. He also is Professor Emeritus in the Program in Human Dimensions of Organizations at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on the relationship between science and culture and falls into two streams: medical anthropology in rural Japan and the culture and ethics of space exploration. Traphagan has published numerous scientific papers and several books, including Science, Culture, and the Search for Life on Other Worlds (Springer, 2016) and Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st Century Japan (Cambria Press, 2020).