“The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary,” wrote Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1762. “The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Deity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas. It’s negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is part of the cults we have rejected.”

Those tenets of the civil religion that Rousseau laid out nearly 250 years ago seem appropriate guidelines for the Post-Dispatch’s new religion blog.

Rousseau coined the term civil religion to describe the necessary basics of belief that keep a civilization together in accord with a social contract the civilization lives by. And while we certainly intend to discuss such beliefs on this blog, we also liked the name Civil Religion because it described the tenor of the conversation we hope to have here.

Conversations about faith can heat up quickly, and sometimes those conversations ratchet up above the boiling point. On Civil Religion, we hope to keep the discussion provocative, but thoughtful. With that in mind, we recruited a dozen members of our community - from across the spectrum of faiths, ideologies, ages races and professions - who are thoughtful about their own beliefs, and we asked them to share those thoughts here.

So far, 12 people from around the St. Louis area have agreed to be Civil Religion’s official bloggers. They range in age from 31 to 65. They are liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican. They are black, white and brown. They are clerics and lay people.

They are:

Sheilah F. Clarke-Ekong, 56, has a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from UCLA. Sheilah is an African-American native of Philadelphia who has spent more than half her working career in sub-Saharan West Africa, where she did her early graduate training at the University of Ife in Nigeria. She is currently an associate professor in cultural anthropology at UMSL, and has three adult daughters.

Pamela Dolan, 39, works in the field of religious education and is on staff at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Webster Groves. She earned a master’s degree in theology from Harvard before spending several years in New York studying medieval religion and literature. Pamela is new to the midwest, but she and her husband enjoy life in the suburbs their two young daughters and one very old dog.

Khaled Hamid, 48, is an American Muslim. He was born in Egypt but has lived in Canada and the United States for nearly 20 years. Since 2000 he has worked as a physician in St. Louis where he lives with his wife and two sons. He is especially interested in civil rights issues and inter-faith dialog.

Dana King, 45, volunteers in public affairs for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — St. Louis Missouri South Stake. She chairs the annual Discover Your Roots conference and serves on the Friends of Dred Scott committee. Dana is a contributor to outreach initiatives: Know Your Neighbor and Blacklds.org. Dana is married, mother of two teens, and runs her interior design business.

Scott Lamb, 33, is the founding pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Rock Hill, Mo. He married his college sweetheart, and they have four sons. Scott writes about Christian theology, preaching, books, and baseball at A Christian Manifesto.

Kate Lovelady, 38, of Dogtown is the Leader of the Ethical Society of St. Louis, which was founded in 1886 and is currently the largest Ethical Society in the nation. Kate’s life partner, Billy Dechand, is a local musician. Kate’s hobbies include vegan baking and riding her 49cc scooter.

Travis Scholl, 33, is managing editor of theological publications at Concordia Seminary. A graduate of Yale Divinity School (M.Div.), he is an ordained Lutheran minister. Despite some time away, he and his wife are native St. Louisans, as will be the child they are now expecting.

Mark Shook, 62, of Creve Coeur, is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Temple Israel of Creve Coeur. In addition, he teaches Jewish Philosophy/Theology at St. Louis University and offers a once monthly commentary on radio station KWMU. Mark is married and has two children and three grandsons. He plays golf only on days ending in “Y”.

Scott Steinkerchner is a professor of interreligious theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis and is in charge of worldwide internet development efforts of his religious congregation, the Dominicans. He has a PhD in Catholic theology from Boston College with a specialization in interreligious dialogue, and is a Catholic priest.

Sherry Tyree, 65, a graduate of John Burroughs School and Washington University, is a founding member (1984) and Vice President of Women for Faith & Family, a national Catholic women’s organization that supports and defends traditional church teachings. Sherry is married to Dr. Donald A. Tyree, professor emeritus, School of Business, St. Louis University.

Kim Wallis, 33, currently facilitates Rosh Chodesh groups for Jewish teenage girls in the St. Louis area. A graduate of the University of Miami, she worked in asset management for several years and now teaches Pilates part-time. Originally from Chicago, Kim is starting to feel at home in St. Louis with her husband, toddler daughter, and infant son.

Starsky Wilson, 31, of Spanish Lake is an ordained staff minister at Greater Mt. Carmel Baptist Church and graduate student at Eden Theological Seminary. His ministry interests include social justice, liberation theology and African American religious traditions. He is president of the Eden NAACP, and a board member for Interfaith Partnership/Faith Beyond Walls. Wilson is married to Dr. LaToya Wilson and father to two young boys.

We hope that Civil Religion will be a conversation among our official contributors and anyone else out there reading their posts. But it’s important to all of us to keep the conversation civil. We’ve named the blog Civil Religion for that reason. We’ll be moderating the blog in a way that attempts to extinguish the hate speech and intolerance that sometimes, sadly, goes hand-in-hand with discussions of faith.

We are a newspaper and in any newsroom the First Amendment is paramount. But the Post-Dispatch does have guidelines for its blogs. We call them the Rules of the Road. Please check them out.

In 1967, Robert Bellah, a professor at the University of California Berkeley, created the sociological concept of an American civil religion, in which the United States is defined in a set of quasi-religious rituals (presidential inaugurations) with saints and martyrs (Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr.), founding myths (pilgrims, George Washington’s cherry tree) and a festival calendar (Memorial Day, July 4th, Thanksgiving.)

In Bellah’s concept, those pieces all serve to unify the country - or believers - in pursuit of the common goals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Revolution, wrote Bellah, “was seen as the final act of Exodus from the old lands across the waters. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were the sacred scriptures and Washington the divinely appointed Moses who led his people out of the hands of tyranny.”

Our official contributors will certainly tackle subject matter that extends beyond U.S. borders, but because so many issues we’ll blog about will touch on issues that affect us as Americans - as well as people of faith - Bellah’s concept of the American civil religion seemed to fit nicely with other meaning for the phrase: the calm, thoughtful conversation about faith we hope Civil Religion will be.