I'd suggest you look at Bellah's Civil Religion in America (1967), which suggests that certain ritual practices, e.g. rising for the national anthem before a sp

I'd suggest you look at Bellah's Civil Religion in America (1967), which suggests that certain ritual practices, e.g. rising for the national anthem before a sporting event, are religious in nature. And not that it's particularly definitive, but I'd note that cult and culture share the same Latin etymology. "Just as Thanksgiving Day, which incidentally was securely institutionalized as an annual national holiday only under the presidency of Lincoln, serves to integrate the family into the civil religion, so Memorial Day has acted to integrate the local community into the national cult. Together with the less overtly religious Fourth of July and the more minor celebrations of Veterans Day and the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln, these two holidays provide an annual ritual calendar for the civil religion. The public school system serves as a particularly important context for the cultic celebration of the civil rituals."