This TED Talk features civic evangelist and author Eric Liu, recorded live at TED 2019.

I bring you greetings from the 52nd Freest Nation on Earth.

As an American, it irritates me that my nation keeps sinking in the annual rankings published by Freedom House.

I'm the son of immigrants. My parents were born in China during war and revolution,

went to Taiwan, and then came to the United States, which means all my life, I've been acutely

aware just how fragile and inheritance freedom truly is. That's why I spend my time teaching,

preaching, and practicing democracy. I have no illusions. All around the world now, people are

doubting whether democracy can deliver. Autocrats and demagogues seem emboldened, even cocky.

The free world feels leaderless.

And yet, I remain hopeful.

I don't mean optimistic.

Optimism is for spectators.

Hope implies agency.

It says I have a hand in the outcome.

Democratic hope requires faith not in a strong man or a charismatic savior, but in each other. And it forces us to ask, how can we become worthy of such faith?

I believe we are at a moment of moral awakening, the kind that comes when old certainties collapse.

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

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

how we practice it, and why it matters now more than ever.

Let me start with the what.

I define civic religion as a system of shared beliefs and collective practices by which the members of a self-governing community

choose to live like citizens.

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