A commentary on French President Macron’s declaration at the Vatican. This post is part 2 of 2. There is undeniable historical truth that institutionalized religion has functioned to back a ruling power and the social classes it has privileged (as with the Church of England under the Restoration following England’s Civil War, or France’s Catholic Church following the Franco-Prussian War to “ expiate the crimes of the Commune ”). Nonetheless, there is also a strong historical current, both in the Anglo-American Puritan tradition and among French free thinkers, whether Catholic or Protestant, that religion provides a moral conscience that is as natural to reason as it is compatible with it. Moreover, this moral conscience that religion encourages provides a means to check the ruling power, and even a duty to rebel when that power imposes unethical, dishonorable, dishonest, or unfair burdens on citizens. Such, for example, is the sentiment expressed by the motto “Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God,” which Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson proposed for America’s Great Seal . According to the French socialist leader and leftist icon Jean Jaurès, religion inspires revolution : “The very essence of religious life consists in coming out of one’s […]
