A new form of political theater: The United Church of America

This thesis explores how one can mobilize American civil religion in order to activate public deliberation through an examination of A New Form of Political Theater: The United Church of America (UCA), which incorporates aspects of political discourse and civil religion into a staged performance. The existence of civil religion is first defended through an examination of the theistic problem of evil, revealing reasonable public deliberation as civil religion's path to meaningfulness. A contextual and textual analysis of Thomas Jefferson's first inaugural address defines American civil religion as a citizen-centered belief system whose ritual practices take the form of republican democracy, which depends on continual citizen participation. A review of small group democracies and relational theories are then folded into the UCA as a deliberative forum that creates a safe space, enabling audience members to participate in democratic discussions. Finally, a quasi-experiment, which pre and post tested the audience, was conducted during three staged performances of the UCA, in order to evaluate the effects of a citizen-center deliberative forum on an audience. The results indicated significant increases in attendees' willingness to engage in political communication and in their attitudes about responsibility for engaging in civic activity and political discourse.