Religion and Civic Engagement in Canada and the United States

Religion is the source of much civic engagement. The great theorist of American civic engagement, Alexis de Tocqueville, saw religious values as the reason people could put selfinterest aside in favor of communitarian sentiments that lead people to get involved in their communities (Tocqueville 1945:126-27). The history of good deeds is replete with beneficence based on faith: Mother Teresa's hospices and soup kitchens run by people of faith stand out. So do religious leaders pressing for social reform and civil rights. Half of charitable contributions in the United States and almost 40 percent of volunteering are based in religious organizations (Bakal 1979:10; Hayge 1991:21). Clergy mobilize people into political and social action (Verba et al. 1993a:457). Active membership in a church or a synagogue lets people develop and practice skills (letter writing, organizing) that easily translate into civic engagement (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). Donors to charity and volunteers believe that there is a moral responsibility to help others, reject the notion that we should look out for ourselves first, and tie their beliefs to religious ideals (Hodgkinson et al. 1992:203, 206, 218-19; Wilson and Musick 1997:708-09; Wuthnow 1991:51). Yet, religion may also lead people away from civic engagement. Some churches may encourage people to get involved in civic life, others may discourage participation. Some churches may encourage people to take an active role in their faith communities, but not in the larger society. Putnam (1993:107) argues that the Catholic Church in Italy traditionally discouraged participation in civic affairs. The Church, he argued, was "an alternative to the civic community, not a part of it." The Catholic Church is a hierarchical institution and its leadership saw citizen engagement as a potential threat to its privileged role in Italian political and social life. Religion may mobilize people to take part in their communities, but perhaps only among their own kind. Religious values tap "something within" so that people feel obligated to help others (Harris 1994). Some of the faithful may feel a need to reach out to help (and perhaps save) those who don't believe. They may also feel comfortable working with people whose religious principles differ from their own. Yet, religious beliefs may also lead people to distinguish more sharply between their own kind and others. They may be more wary of engagement with others who don't share their principles. Many fundamentalist Protestants withdraw from contact with "sinners" and retreat into their own communities. Throughout American history, they have been active in "nativist" organizations that sought to restrict immigration and immigrants' rights. More recently, they have led the fight to bring religious practices and instruction back to public schools and to fight the teaching of evolution in the science curriculum. They fear that people who don't believe as they do are trying to deny them their fundamental rights. So they generally withdraw into their own communities. If they volunteer or join civic organizations, it will be with only their own kind. Religion, then, has complex relationships to civic engagement. Members of liberal (or nonfundamentalist) denominations are likely to reach out beyond their own faith community to work with others and to help people in need who are different from themselves (Greenberg 1999). Fundamentalists will respond to the spiritual demand to do good works, but will focus their efforts