Rousseau's work on civil religion is included in this page to
help disciples of our
Lord understand the thought behind religious tolerance and civil
religion in the United
States of America. Though America is often referred to as a
"Christian"
nation, in fact, her civil religion is only clad with the thinnest
appearance of
"Christianity." In her religion the State is sovereign and
not the Lord
Jesus. She takes pains to be tolerant and neutral by often
referring to 'god' but
never to Jesus. For me, the truly frightening aspect of all
this is that the great
majority of those who call themselves Christian in America seem to
accept any public
display of religiosity on the part of government officials as genuine
indications of true
Christian religion and commitment. It is very common for
Christians in America to
regard the U.S. Constitution as a divinely inspired document.
In the year after 9-11
I was forced to stop even visiting churches for fear of seeing the U.S.
flag being paraded
down the aisle or being subjected to a congregational recitation of the
Pledge of
Allegiance. The thinking of Jean-Jacques Rousseau is in many
ways foundational to
the American Republic. It is important that everyone who
Loves the Lord Jesus to
understand the public religion of the
United States and its purpose.
AT first men had no kings save the gods, and no government
save theocracy. They reasoned like Caligula, and, at that period,
reasoned aright. It takes a long time for feeling so to change that men
can make up their minds to take their equals as masters, in the hope
that they will profit by doing so.
From the mere fact that God was set over every political
society, it followed that there were as many gods as peoples. Two
peoples that were strangers the one to the other, and almost always
enemies, could not long recognize the same master: two armies giving
battle could not obey the same leader. National divisions thus led to
polytheism, and this in turn gave rise to theological and civil
intolerance, which, as we shall see hereafter, are by nature the same.
The fancy the Greeks had for rediscovering their gods among
the barbarians arose from the way they had of regarding themselves as
the natural Sovereigns of such peoples. But there is nothing so absurd
as the erudition which in our days identifies and confuses gods of
different nations. As if Moloch, Saturn, and Chronos could be the same
god! As if the Phoenician Baal, the Greek Zeus, and the Latin Jupiter
could be the same! As if there could still be anything common to
imaginary beings with different names!
If it is asked how in pagan times, where each State had its
cult and its gods, there were no wars of religion, I answer that it was
precisely because each State, having its own cult as well as its own
government, made no distinction between its gods and its laws.
Political war was also theological; the provinces of the gods were, so
to speak, fixed by the boundaries of nations. The god of one people had
no right over another. The gods of the pagans were not jealous gods;
they shared among themselves the empire of the world: even Moses and
the Hebrews sometimes lent themselves to this view by speaking of the
God of Israel. It is true, they regarded as powerless the gods of the
Canaanites, a proscribed people condemned to destruction, whose place
they were to take; but remember how they spoke of the divisions of the
neighboring peoples they were forbidden to attack! "Is not the
possession of what belongs to your god Chamos lawfully your due?" said
Jephthah to the Ammonites. "We have the same title to the lands our
conquering God has made his own." Here, I think, there is a recognition
that the rights of Chamos and those of the God of Israel are of the
same nature.
But when the Jews, being subject to the Kings of Babylon,
and, subsequently, to those of Syria, still obstinately refused to
recognize any god save their own, their refusal was regarded as
rebellion against their conqueror, and drew down on them the
persecutions we read of in their history, which are without parallel
till the coming of Christianity.
Every religion, therefore, being attached solely to the laws
of the State which prescribed it, there was no way of converting a
people except by enslaving it, and there could be no missionaries save
conquerors. The obligation to change cults being the law to which the
vanquished yielded, it was necessary to be victorious before suggesting
such a change. So far from men fighting for the gods, the gods, as in
Homer, fought for men; each asked his god for victory, and re-payed him
with new altars. The Romans, before taking a city, summoned its gods to
quit it; and, in leaving the Tarentines their outraged gods, they
regarded them as subject to their own and compelled to do them homage.
They left the vanquished their gods as they left them their laws. A
wreath to the Jupiter of the Capitol was often the only tribute they
imposed.
Finally, when, along with their empire, the Romans had
spread their cult and their gods, and had themselves often adopted
those of the vanquished, by granting to both alike the rights of the
city, the peoples of that vast empire insensibly found themselves with
multitudes of gods and cults, everywhere almost the same; and thus
paganism throughout the known world finally came to be one and the same
religion.
It was in these circumstances that Jesus came to set up on
earth a spiritual kingdom, which, by separating the theological from
the political system, made the State no longer one, and brought about
the internal divisions which have never ceased to trouble Christian
peoples. As the new idea of a kingdom of the other world could never
have occurred to pagans, they always looked on the Christians as really
rebels, who, while feigning to submit, were only waiting for the chance
to make themselves independent and their masters, and to usurp by guile
the authority they pretended in their weakness to respect. This was the
cause of the persecutions.
What the pagans had feared took place. Then everything
changed its aspect: the humble Christians changed their language, and
soon this so-called kingdom of the other world turned, under a visible
leader, into the most violent of earthly despotisms.
However, as there have always been a prince and civil laws,
this double power and conflict of jurisdiction have made all good
polity impossible in Christian States; and men have never succeeded in
finding out whether they were bound to obey the master or the priest.
Several peoples, however, even in Europe and its
neighborhood, have desired without success to preserve or restore the
old system: but the spirit of Christianity has everywhere prevailed.
The sacred cult has always remained or again become independent of the
Sovereign, and there has been no necessary link between it and the body
of the State. Mahomet held very sane views, and linked his political
system well together; and, as long as the form of his government
continued under the caliphs who succeeded him, that government was
indeed one, and so far good. But the Arabs, having grown prosperous,
lettered, civilized, slack and cowardly, were conquered by barbarians:
the division between the two powers began again; and, although it is
less apparent among the Mahometans than among the Christians, it none
the less exists, especially in the sect of Ali, and there are States,
such as Persia, where it is continually making itself felt.
Among us, the Kings of England have made themselves heads of
the Church, and the Czars have done the same: but this title has made
them less its masters than its ministers; they have gained not so much
the right to change it, as the power to maintain it: they are not its
legislators, but only its princes. Wherever the clergy is a corporate
body, it is master and legislator in its own country. There are thus
two powers, two Sovereigns, in England and in Russia, as well as
elsewhere.
Of all Christian writers, the philosopher Hobbes alone has
seen the evil and how to remedy it, and has dared to propose the
reunion of the two heads of the eagle, and the restoration throughout
of political unity, without which no State or government will ever be
rightly constituted. But he should have seen that the masterful spirit
of Christianity is incompatible with his system, and that the priestly
interest would always be stronger than that of the State. It is not so
much what is false and terrible in his political theory, as what is
just and true, that has drawn down hatred on it.
I believe that if the study of history were developed from
this point of view, it would be easy to refute the contrary opinions of
Bayle and Warburton, one of whom holds that religion can be of no use
to the body politic, while the other, on the contrary, maintains that
Christianity is its strongest support. We should demonstrate to the
former that no State has ever been founded without a religious basis,
and to the latter, that the law of Christianity at bottom does more
harm by weakening than good by strengthening the constitution of the
State. To make myself understood, I have only to make a little more
exact the too vague ideas of religion as relating to this subject.
Religion, considered in relation to society, which is either
general or particular, may also be divided into two kinds: the religion
of man, and that of the citizen. The first, which has neither temples,
nor altars, nor rites, and is confined to the purely internal cult of
the supreme God and the eternal obligations of morality, is the
religion of the Gospel pure and simple, the true theism, what may be
called natural divine right or law. The other, which is codified in a
single country, gives it its gods, its own tutelary patrons; it has its
dogmas, its rites, and its external cult prescribed by law; outside the
single nation that follows it, all the world is in its sight infidel,
foreign and barbarous; the duties and rights of man extend for it only
as far as its own altars. Of this kind were all the religions of early
peoples, which we may define as civil or positive divine right or law.
There is a third sort of religion of a more singular kind,
which gives men two codes of legislation, two rulers, and two
countries, renders them subject to contradictory duties, and makes it
impossible for them to be faithful both to religion and to citizenship.
Such are the religions of the Lamas and of the Japanese, and such is
Roman Christianity, which may be called the religion of the priest. It
leads to a sort of mixed and anti-social code which has no name.
In their political aspect, all these three kinds of religion
have their defects. The third is so clearly bad, that it is waste of
time to stop to prove it such. All that destroys social unity is
worthless; all institutions that set man in contradiction to himself
are worthless.
The second is good in that it unites the divine cult with
love of the laws, and, making country the object of the citizens'
adoration, teaches them that service done to the State is service done
to its tutelary god. It is a form of theocracy, in which there can be
no pontiff save the prince, and no priests save the magistrates. To die
for one's country then becomes martyrdom; violation of its laws,
impiety; and to subject one who is guilty to public execration is to
condemn him to the anger of the gods: Sacer estod.
On the other hand, it is bad in that, being founded on lies
and error, it deceives men, makes them credulous and superstitious, and
drowns the true cult of the Divinity in empty ceremonial. It is bad,
again, when it becomes tyrannous and exclusive, and makes a people
bloodthirsty and intolerant, so that it breathes fire and slaughter,
and regards as a sacred act the killing of every one who does not
believe in its gods. The result is to place such a people in a natural
state of war with all others, so that its security is deeply endangered.
There remains therefore the religion of man or Christianity
— not the Christianity of to-day, but that of the Gospel,
which is entirely different. By means of this holy, sublime, and real
religion all men, being children of one God, recognize one another as
brothers, and the society that unites them is not dissolved even at
death.
But this religion, having no particular relation to the body
politic, leaves the laws in possession of the force they have in
themselves without making any addition to it; and thus one of the great
bonds that unite society considered in severally fails to operate. Nay,
more, so far from binding the hearts of the citizens to the State, it
has the effect of taking them away from all earthly things. I know of
nothing more contrary to the social spirit.
We are told that a people of true Christians would form the
most perfect society imaginable. I see in this supposition only one
great difficulty: that a society of true Christians would not be a
society of men.
I say further that such a society, with all its perfection,
would be neither the strongest nor the most lasting: the very fact that
it was perfect would rob it of its bond of union; the flaw that would
destroy it would lie in its very perfection.
Every one would do his duty; the people would be
law-abiding, the rulers just and temperate; the magistrates upright and
incorruptible; the soldiers would scorn death; there would be neither
vanity nor luxury. So far, so good; but let us hear more.
Christianity as a religion is entirely spiritual, occupied
solely with heavenly things; the country of the Christian is not of
this world. He does his duty, indeed, but does it with profound
indifference to the good or ill success of his cares. Provided he has
nothing to reproach himself with, it matters little to him whether
things go well or ill here on earth. If the State is prosperous, he
hardly dares to share in the public happiness, for fear he may grow
proud of his country's glory; if the State is languishing, he blesses
the hand of God that is hard upon His people.
For the State to be peaceable and for harmony to be
maintained, all the citizens without exception would have to be good
Christians; if by ill hap there should be a single self-seeker or
hypocrite, a Catiline or a Cromwell, for instance, he would certainly
get the better of his pious compatriots. Christian charity does not
readily allow a man to think hardly of his neighbors. As soon as, by
some trick, he has discovered the art of imposing on them and getting
hold of a share in the public authority, you have a man established in
dignity; it is the will of God that he be respected: very soon you have
a power; it is God's will that it be obeyed: and if the power is abused
by him who wields it, it is the scourge wherewith God punishes His
children. There would be scruples about driving out the usurper: public
tranquility would have to be disturbed, violence would have to be
employed, and blood spilt; all this accords ill with Christian
meekness; and after all, in this vale of sorrows, what does it matter
whether we are free men or serfs? The essential thing is to get to
heaven, and resignation is only an additional means of doing so.
If war breaks out with another State, the citizens march
readily out to battle; not one of them thinks of flight; they do their
duty, but they have no passion for victory; they know better how to die
than how to conquer. What does it matter whether they win or lose? Does
not Providence know better than they what is meet for them? Only think
to what account a proud, impetuous and passionate enemy could turn
their stoicism! Set over against them those generous peoples who were
devoured by ardent love of glory and of their country, imagine your
Christian republic face to face with Sparta or Rome: the pious
Christians will be beaten, crushed and destroyed, before they know
where they are, or will owe their safety only to the contempt their
enemy will conceive for them. It was to my mind a fine oath that was
taken by the soldiers of Fabius, who swore, not to conquer or die, but
to come back victorious — and kept their oath. Christians
would never have taken such an oath; they would have looked on it as
tempting God.
But I am mistaken in speaking of a Christian republic; the
terms are mutually exclusive. Christianity preaches only servitude and
dependence. Its spirit is so favorable to tyranny that it always
profits by such a regime. True Christians are made to be slaves, and
they know it and do not much mind: this short life counts for too
little in their eyes.
I shall be told that Christian troops are excellent. I deny
it. Show me an instance. For my part, I know of no Christian troops. I
shall be told of the Crusades. Without disputing the valor of the
Crusaders, I answer that, so far from being Christians, they were the
priests' soldiery, citizens of the Church. They fought for their
spiritual country, which the Church had, somehow or other, made
temporal. Well understood, this goes back to paganism: as the Gospel
sets up no national religion, a holy war is impossible among Christians.
Under the pagan emperors, the Christian soldiers were brave;
every Christian writer affirms it, and I believe it: it was a case of
honorable emulation of the pagan troops. As soon as the emperors were
Christian, this emulation no longer existed, and, when the Cross had
driven out the eagle, Roman valor wholly disappeared.
But, setting aside political considerations, let us come
back to what is right, and settle our principles on this important
point. The right which the social compact gives the Sovereign over the
subjects does not, we have seen, exceed the limits of public
expediency. The subjects then owe the Sovereign an account of their
opinions only to such an extent as they matter to the community. Now,
it matters very much to the community that each citizen should have a
religion. That will make him love his duty; but the dogmas of that
religion concern the State and its members only so far as they have
reference to morality and to the duties which he who professes them is
bound to do to others. Each man may have, over and above, what opinions
he pleases, without it being the Sovereign's business to take
cognizance of them; for, as the Sovereign has no authority in the other
world, whatever the lot of its subjects may be in the life to come,
that is not its business, provided they are good citizens in this life.
There is therefore a purely civil profession of faith of
which the Sovereign should fix the articles, not exactly as religious
dogmas, but as social sentiments without which a man cannot be a good
citizen or a faithful subject. While it can compel no one to believe
them, it can banish from the State whoever does not believe them
-- it can banish him, not for impiety, but as an
anti-social being, incapable of truly loving the laws and justice, and
of sacrificing, at need, his life to his duty. If any one, after
publicly recognizing these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe
them, let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all
crimes, that of lying before the law.
The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and
exactly worded, without explanation or commentary. The existence of a
mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, 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. Its negative dogmas I confine to one,
intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected.
Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance
are, to my mind, mistaken. The two forms are inseparable. It is
impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love
them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either
reclaim or torment them. Wherever theological intolerance is admitted,
it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has such
an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal
sphere: thenceforth priests are the real masters, and kings only their
ministers.
Now that there is and can be no longer an exclusive national
religion, tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate
others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties
of citizenship. But whoever dares to say: Outside the Church is no
salvation, ought to be driven from the State, unless the State is the
Church, and the prince the pontiff. Such a dogma is good only in a
theocratic government; in any other, it is fatal. The reason for which
Henry IV is said to have embraced the Roman religion ought to make
every honest man leave it, and still more any prince who knows how to
reason.
Here we see the religion and tolerance of the Roman
Empire. As long as we are
willing to deny that salvation is only through Jesus Christ, we will be
tolerated.
If we refuse to say 'Caesar is Lord' and rather confess Christ, we are
to be 'driven from
the State.' Did you notice how Rousseau makes true
Christianity the obstacle to
'good polity.' Let us all understand that the intolerance we
see today posing as
'tolerance' is nothing new, but is part of the Enlightenment thinking
upon which America
rests. It is deceptive because it opposes The Roman Catholic
Church and feigns
religious freedom, yet we must realize that its opposition to Rome is
due to its own
desire to have the worship of and control over the people.
