© Nicolas Chinardet/Demotix/Demotix/Corbis
How should we understand the relationship between religious belief and the idea of a secular state? This is an urgent question today and brings with it issues about the identity of the west and its self-understanding. Like other cultures, that of the west is founded on shared beliefs. But, in contrast to most others, western beliefs are informed by the assumption of moral equality, which underpins the secular state and the idea of fundamental or “natural” rights.
Christianity played a decisive part in the emergence of this culture. Yet the idea that liberalism and secularism have religious roots is not widely understood. The separation of church and state—the first objective of the liberal tradition—has drawn attention away from those religious roots. But so too has a conflict in which religious belief and “godless” secularism are conceived as irreconcilable opponents, a view that for a long time was fed by folk memories of the burning of Protestant martyrs in 16th-century England, the legend of the Spanish Inquisition and by a “holy alliance” between churches (especially the Catholic Church) and socially conservative forces in reaction to the French Revolution.
Those memories may have dimmed, but the perception of a profound conflict between secularism and religious belief has been reawakened and has taken a new form in western societies in recent years. In Europe, massive immigration and the growth of large Muslim minorities have widened the range of non-Christian beliefs dramatically—with significant consequences. Quite apart from the acts of terrorism which invoke—more or less dubiously—the name of Islam, Muslims are frequently encouraged by their religious leaders to look forward to replacing the laws of the nation-state with those of sharia. Islam appears to cohabit uneasily with secularism.
When, in 2004, it was proposed that a reference to Europe’s Christian roots be included in a new constitution for the European Union, there was strong support, particularly from predominantly Catholic countries such as Poland, Portugal and Italy. There was also robust opposition, notably from France. The most common reaction, however, was one of embarrassment, an uneasy wish that the question would go away, which it did when the proposed constitutional treaty was defeated in referendums. But the embarrassment remains.
Ever since the Italian Renaissance, many historians have been inclined to minimise the moral and intellectual distance between the modern and ancient worlds, while at the same time maximising the distance separating modern Europe from the Middle Ages. In the 18th century, this attitude developed, especially among the French philosophes, into a passionate anti-clerical feeling that would reshape the understanding of European history.
When the role of the church and of the clergy was being contested and redefined in the 18th century, an understanding of the ancient world as secular—with citizens “free” from domination by priests and a privileged, dogmatic church—became an important weapon in the arsenal of political argument. The same was true of the conception of the medieval church as aspiring to, if not always achieving, a theocratic regime in which thought was stifled by “superstition” and clerical self-interest.
Neither of these interpretations was baseless, but both were seriously flawed. Take the account of antiquity as “secular.” The trouble is that it looks in the wrong place for religion: the religion of ancient Greece and Rome did not speak to the individual conscience. Rather, it spoke to and through the family, and it is to the family that we have to look to find religion and priesthood. The ancient family was itself a religious cult, with the father as high priest tending the family altar and its “sacred” flame in which his ancestors were made visible. Ancient religion consisted in the worship of divine ancestors through the paterfamilias, a radical inequality of roles within the family and a series of elaborate ritual requirements. And although this hermetic family cult was altered somewhat by the emergence of the “polis” or city-state, it changed only to the extent that the bond of association constituting the city was itself now considered to be a religious bond. The city was an association of families and tribes, each defined by the worship of shared ancestors or “heroes.”
The most distinctive thing about Greek and Roman antiquity is what might be called “moral enclosure,” in which the limits of personal identity were established by the limits of physical association and by inherited, unequal social roles.
Christian emphasis on the moral equality of humans broke through these limits. Social roles and rules became secondary They came to be understood as subordinate to a God-given status shared equally by all human beings. Christians, therefore, were expected to live in “two cities” simultaneously, a dualism that would later be expressed in the distinction between the private and public spheres.
We can see this breaking out of moral enclosure everywhere in the New Testament. For St Paul, the love of God revealed in the Christ imposes obligations on the individual, that is, on the individual conscience. Paul refers constantly to “Christian liberty” and downgrades rule-following—the Hebraic “law”—in favour of action governed by conscience. In this way, the Christian conception of God provided the foundation for a new and unprecedented form of human society.
It would not be too much to suggest that this framework of ideas provided the original constitution of Europe. It can be glimpsed in St Augustine’s famous work, The City of God. Augustine, following Paul’s belief in the moral equality of humans, creates a role for conscience and sets limits to the claims of any social organisation. Here again we see the dualism that has distinguished Christian thinking, a preoccupation with the different claims of the sacred and the secular spheres. It rests on the conviction that we ought to respect the difference between inner conviction and external conformity, a distinction that would not have served any function or perhaps even have been intelligible in the ancient world.
This brings us to another historical “moment.” The European “Middle Ages” saw an attempt to develop what could be called a European “constitution.” The reforming papacy of the 11th century endowed the church with its own legal system and courts, drawing on the legacy of Roman law. One consequence of the church carving out its own sphere of jurisdiction (the “care of souls”) was the creation of a “secular” space of government concerned with the maintenance of public order and the protection of property. Then, from the 12th to the 14th centuries, the ancient doctrine of natural law was transformed into a theory of natural rights. This was the work of canon lawyers who overturned the ancient assumption of natural inequality (“everything in its place”) in favour of the assumption of moral equality, drawing on biblical sources and the “golden rule” of reciprocity. Canonists fashioned a system of law that included “subjective rights,” that is, rights inhering in the individual, starting with the claim to freedom. These rights soon became an important tool for criticising established social beliefs and practices.
These developments contributed to a serious ecclesiastical reform movement, the Conciliar Movement, which in the 15th century sought to restrict the role of the papacy and to introduce something like representative government in the church. This is the moment when we can see moral intuitions fostered by Christianity being turned against the church itself. And when this reform movement failed, it was followed by the Protestant Reformation and religious wars which led to a more systematic separation of church and state—that is, to secularism, with its assumption that religion is a matter of conscience.
Christian moral intuitions thus played a pivotal role in shaping the discourse that gave rise to modern liberalism and secularism.
Why, then, do Europeans feel happier referring to the role of ancient Greece and Rome than to the role of the church in the formation of their culture? The answer lies in the way secularism has come to be understood—and misunderstood—in Europe.
Attitudes towards secular ideas were shaped in decisive ways by 18th-century anti-clerical movements. This created two hostile camps. On one side were followers of Voltaire, who sought to “écraser l’infâme,” to crush the authoritarian and privileged church of the ancien regime. On the other were those, such as Joseph de Maistre, who saw the separation of church and state as nothing less than an “insurrection” against God, a denial of beliefs that had shaped the history of Europe.
During the past century, the religious camp has come to accept civil liberty and religious pluralism, by and large, while the anti-clericals have, with the exception of hardline Marxists and writers such as Richard Dawkins, given up on the attempt to extirpate religious belief. However, the old antagonism still lurks under the surface. The visceral reaction of the French left to the suggestion that Europe might acknowledge its Christian roots is matched by church rhetoric deploring the growth of “Godless” or “aggressive” secularism.
This is Europe’s undeclared “civil war.” And it is as tragic as it is unnecessary. It is tragic because, by identifying secularism with non-belief, with indifference and materialism, it deprives Europe of moral authority, playing into the hands of those who are only too anxious to portray Europe as decadent and lacking all conviction. It is unnecessary because it rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of secularism itself, which, properly understood, can be seen as Europe’s noblest achievement and Christianity’s gift to the world—a set of ideas and practices which have often, and with good reason, been turned against the Christian church itself.
Nor is this just a hypothetical understanding of the idea of a secular state. It is the way it has traditionally been understood in the United States—identified with the egalitarian moral intuitions generated by Christianity. But why not in Europe? For centuries Europeans had to contend with a privileged church almost inseparable from an aristocratic society. The church became associated with social hierarchy and deference, even with coercion, rather than with conscience.
A kind of intellectual incoherence, especially noticeable in Catholic Europe, followed. Religiously minded people struggled against the claims of civil liberty which they saw as threatening the church, while the defenders of liberty regarded the church as their enemy. The US, by contrast, has largely avoided this conflict. The absence of both a monolithic church and aristocracy there meant that Americans grasped, almost instinctively, the moral symmetry between secularism and Christianity.
What will happen to Europe’s civil war now that it is faced with the challenge of Islam? If Europeans conceive secularism in the terms favoured by its critics—as mere consumerism, materialism and amorality—they lose touch with their own moral intuitions. They forget why they value freedom. And as a consequence they may accept terms of debate which make it impossible to mount an adequate defence of the liberal, secular state.
What of the US? There is no room for complacency. The rapid growth of Christian fundamentalism may now jeopardise the traditional American understanding of secularism as the embodiment of Christian moral intuitions. In some southern and far western states especially, “born-again” Christians are coming to see secularism as an enemy rather than a companion. By struggling against abortion and homosexuality, they risk losing touch with the most profound insights of their faith. If good and evil are contrasted too simply, charity is the loser. The principle of “equal liberty” is put at risk.
This is a strange and disturbing moment in the history of the west. Europeans, out of touch with the roots of their tradition, often seem to lack conviction, while Americans may be succumbing to a dangerously simplistic version of their faith. If we in the west do not understand the moral depth of our own tradition, we cannot hope to shape the conversation of mankind.
