This paper tells the story of how the Walt Disney Company’s first century moves from an implicit Midwestern Protestantism (though not the Congregationalism of Walt Disney’s childhood), to a mid-twentieth century civic religion. Ultimately, twenty-first century Disney is a panoply of spiritualities and cultures. Simultaneously, Disney as a brand has gradually become quasi-religious—deeply “religion adjacent”-- itself.
Walt Disney built no church on Disneyland’s Main Street. His daughter Diane said this was to avoid offending any denominations, to make it welcoming for all. In sublimating institutional religion and promoting “magic,” Disney began as an entertainment company but gradually became a secular religion. Disney is the most successful tradition of all because, while it emerges from Christian origins, they are sufficiently vague to expand infinitely-- and its stories are so pliable that they can incorporate every religion and no religion, all at once.