ABSTRACT
Many regions of the United States are underrepresented in national consciousness and national symbolism. The civil religion of the United States should be disciplined, so that it meets at least the four criteria. First, the civil religion must explicitly and publicly in every symbolic expression point beyond itself, and hold itself under moral criticism. The second criterion for an adequate civil religion for the United States is that it explicitly embrace planetary pluralism, and frankly reject the pretensions inherent in the own ethnocentric "universais". The third criterion for a new civil religion is that it reflect all the cultural traditions of the own nation, that it draw on all the moral resources available in our own people. The fourth criterion of a new civil religion is that it be rooted and concrete. The American civil religion ought to be an American civil religion; it ought not to pretend, falsely, to be universal.
