WEBVTT

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I bring you greetings

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from the 52nd-freest nation on earth.

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As an American, it irritates me
that my nation keeps sinking

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in the annual rankings
published by Freedom House.

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I'm the son of immigrants.

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My parents were born in China
during war and revolution,

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went to Taiwan and then came
to the United States,

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which means all my life,

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I've been acutely aware just how fragile
an inheritance freedom truly is.

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That's why I spend my time teaching,
preaching and practicing democracy.

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I have no illusions.

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All around the world now,

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people are doubting
whether democracy can deliver.

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Autocrats and demagogues seem emboldened,

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even cocky.

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The free world feels leaderless.

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And yet, I remain hopeful.

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I don't mean optimistic.

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Optimism is for spectators.

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Hope implies agency.

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It says I have a hand in the outcome.

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Democratic hope requires faith

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not in a strongman or a charismatic savior

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but in each other,

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and it forces us to ask:
How can we become worthy of such faith?

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I believe we are at a moment
of moral awakening,

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the kind that comes
when old certainties collapse.

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At the heart of that awakening
is what I call "civic religion."

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And today, I want to talk about
what civic religion is,

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how we practice it,

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and why it matters now more than ever.

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Let me start with the what.

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I define civic religion as a system
of shared beliefs and collective practices

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by which the members
of a self-governing community

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choose to live like citizens.

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Now, when I say "citizen" here,
I'm not referring to papers or passports.

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I'm talking about a deeper,
broader, ethical conception

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of being a contributor to community,
a member of the body.

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To speak of civic religion as religion
is not poetic license.

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That's because democracy

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is one of the most faith-fueled
human activities there is.

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Democracy works only when enough of us
believe democracy works.

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It is at once a gamble and a miracle.

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Its legitimacy comes not from
the outer frame of constitutional rules,

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but from the inner workings
of civic spirit.

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Civic religion, like any religion,

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contains a sacred creed,
sacred deeds and sacred rituals.

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My creed includes words like
"equal protection of the laws"

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and "we the people."

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My roll call of hallowed deeds
includes abolition, women's suffrage,

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the civil rights movement,

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the Allied landing at Normandy,

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the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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And I have a new civic ritual
that I'll tell you about in a moment.

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Wherever on earth you're from,

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you can find or make
your own set of creed, deed and ritual.

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The practice of civic religion
is not about worship of the state

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or obedience to a ruling party.

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It is about commitment to one another

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and our common ideals.

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And the sacredness of civic religion
is not about divinity or the supernatural.

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It is about a group of unlike people

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speaking into being our alikeness,

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our groupness.

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Perhaps now you're getting
a little worried

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that I'm trying to sell you on a cult.

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Relax, I'm not.

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I don't need to sell you.

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As a human, you are always
in the market for a cult,

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for some variety of religious experience.

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We are wired to seek
cosmological explanations,

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to sacralize beliefs
that unite us in transcendent purpose.

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Humans make religion
because humans make groups.

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The only choice we have is whether
to activate that groupness for good.

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If you are a devout person, you know this.

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If you are not,

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if you no longer go to prayer services

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or never did,

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then perhaps you'll say
that yoga is your religion,

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or Premier League football,

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or knitting, or coding or TED Talks.

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But whether you believe in a God
or in the absence of gods,

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civic religion does not require you
to renounce your beliefs.

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It requires you only
to show up as a citizen.

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And that brings me to my second topic:

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how we can practice
civic religion productively.

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Let me tell you now
about that new civic ritual.

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It's called "Civic Saturday,"

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and it follows the arc
of a faith gathering.

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We sing together,

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we turn to the strangers next to us
to discuss a common question,

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we hear poetry and scripture,

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there's a sermon that ties those texts

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to the ethical choices
and controversies of our time,

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but the song and scripture and the sermon

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are not from church
or synagogue or mosque.

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They are civic,

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drawn from our shared civic ideals

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and a shared history of claiming
and contesting those ideals.

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Afterwards, we form up in circles
to organize rallies, register voters,

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join new clubs, make new friends.

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My colleagues and I
started organizing Civic Saturdays

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in Seattle in 2016.

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Since then, they have spread
across the continent.

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Sometimes hundreds attend,
sometimes dozens.

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They happen in libraries
and community centers

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and coworking spaces,

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under festive tents
and inside great halls.

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There's nothing high-tech
about this social technology.

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It speaks to a basic human yearning
for face-to-face fellowship.

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It draws young and old, left and right,

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poor and rich, churched and unchurched,

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of all races.

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When you come to a Civic Saturday
and are invited to discuss a question

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like "Who are you responsible for?"

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or "What are you willing to risk
or to give up for your community?"

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When that happens, something moves.

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You are moved.

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You start telling your story.

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We start actually seeing one another.

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You realize that homelessness,
gun violence, gentrification,

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terrible traffic, mistrust
of newcomers, fake news --

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these things
aren't someone else's problem,

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they are the aggregation
of your own habits and omissions.

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Society becomes how you behave.

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We are never asked to reflect
on the content of our citizenship.

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Most of us are never invited
to do more or to be more,

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and most of us have no idea
how much we crave that invitation.

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We've since created a civic seminary

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to start training people from all over
to lead Civic Saturday gatherings

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on their own, in their own towns.

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In the community of Athens, Tennessee,

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a feisty leader named Whitney Kimball Coe

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leads hers in an art and framing shop

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with a youth choir
and lots of little flags.

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A young activist named Berto Aguayo

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led his Civic Saturday on a street corner

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in the Back of the Yards
neighborhood of Chicago.

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Berto was once involved with gangs.

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Now, he's keeping the peace

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and organizing political campaigns.

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In Honolulu, Rafael Bergstrom,

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a former pro baseball player
turned photographer and conservationist,

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leads his under the banner
"Civics IS Sexy."

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It is.

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(Laughter)

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Sometimes I'm asked,
even by our seminarians:

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"Isn't it dangerous
to use religious language?

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Won't that just make our politics
even more dogmatic and self-righteous?"

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But this view assumes that all religion
is fanatical fundamentalism.

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It is not.

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Religion is also moral discernment,

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an embrace of doubt,

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a commitment to detach from self
and serve others,

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a challenge to repair the world.

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In this sense, politics could stand
to be a little more like religion,

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not less.

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Thus, my final topic today:

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why civic religion matters now.

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I want to offer two reasons.

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One is to counter the culture
of hyperindividualism.

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Every message we get
from every screen and surface

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of the modern marketplace

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is that each of us is on our own,

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a free agent,

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free to manage our own brands,

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free to live under bridges,

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free to have side hustles,

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free to die alone without insurance.

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Market liberalism tells us
we are masters beholden to none,

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but then it enslaves us

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in the awful isolation
of consumerism and status anxiety.

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(Audience) Yeah!

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Millions of us are on to the con now.

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We are realizing now

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that a free-for-all is not the same
as freedom for all.

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(Applause)

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What truly makes us free
is being bound to others

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in mutual aid and obligation,

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having to work things out the best we can
in our neighborhoods and towns,

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as if our fates were entwined --

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because they are --

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as if we could not secede
from one another,

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because, in the end, we cannot.

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Binding ourselves this way
actually liberates us.

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It reveals that we are equal in dignity.

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It reminds us that rights
come with responsibilities.

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It reminds us, in fact,

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that rights properly understood
are responsibilities.

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The second reason
why civic religion matters now

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is that it offers the healthiest
possible story of us and them.

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We talk about identity politics today
as if it were something new,

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but it's not.

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All politics is identity politics,

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a never-ending struggle
to define who truly belongs.

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Instead of noxious myths of blood and soil
that mark some as forever outsiders,

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civic religion offers everyone
a path to belonging

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based only a universal creed
of contribution, participation,

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inclusion.

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In civic religion, the "us"
is those who wish to serve,

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volunteer, vote, listen, learn,
empathize, argue better,

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circulate power rather than hoard it.

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The "them" is those who don't.

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It is possible to judge the them harshly,

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but it isn't necessary,

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for at any time, one of them
can become one of us,

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simply by choosing to live like a citizen.

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So let's welcome them in.

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Whitney and Berto and Rafael
are gifted welcomers.

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Each has a distinctive, locally rooted way

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to make faith in democracy
relatable to others.

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Their slang might be Appalachian
or South Side or Hawaiian.

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Their message is the same:

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civic love, civic spirit,
civic responsibility.

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Now you might think
that all this civic religion stuff

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is just for overzealous
second-generation Americans like me.

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But actually, it is for anyone, anywhere,

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who wants to kindle the bonds of trust,

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affection and joint action

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needed to govern ourselves in freedom.

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Now maybe Civic Saturdays aren't for you.

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That's OK.

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Find your own ways to foster
civic habits of the heart.

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Many forms of beloved
civic community are thriving now,

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in this age of awakening.

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Groups like Community Organizing Japan,

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which uses creative performative
rituals of storytelling

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to promote equality for women.

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In Iceland, civil confirmations,

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where young people are led by an elder

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to learn the history
and civic traditions of their society,

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culminating in a rite-of-passage ceremony

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akin to church confirmation.

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Ben Franklin Circles in the United States,

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where friends meet monthly

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to discuss and reflect upon the virtues
that Franklin codified

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in his autobiography,

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like justice and gratitude
and forgiveness.

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I know civic religion is not enough

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to remedy the radical
inequities of our age.

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We need power for that.

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But power without character
is a cure worse than the disease.

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I know civic religion alone
can't fix corrupt institutions,

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but institutional reforms
without new norms will not last.

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Culture is upstream of law.

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Spirit is upstream of policy.

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The soul is upstream of the state.

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We cannot unpollute our politics
if we clean only downstream.

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We must get to the source.

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The source is our values,

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and on the topic of values,
my advice is simple: have some.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Make sure those values are prosocial.

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Put them into practice,

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and do so in the company of others,

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with a structure of creed,
deed and joyful ritual

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that'll keep all of you coming back.

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Those of us who believe in democracy
and believe it is still possible,

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we have the burden of proving it.

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But remember, it is no burden at all

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to be in a community
where you are seen as fully human,

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where you have a say
in the things that affect you,

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where you don't need
to be connected to be respected.

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That is called a blessing,

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and it is available to all who believe.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)