Civil religion: Authoritarian or tolerant?

Scholars who read civil religion as an authoritarian proposal tend to see civil religion as emblematic of the illiberal elements of the Social Contract and Rousseau’s political thought more generally.Footnote ²⁷ This puts those who read Rousseau as a fierce advocate for freedom and democracy on the defensive. They would either have to provide an alternative account of civil religion as a non-coercive institution or concede that civil religion presents a contradiction or tension with Rousseau’s otherwise staunch concern for freedom and democracy.Footnote ²⁸

Three main features of Rousseau’s conception of civil religion account for its controversial status. The first lies in Rousseau’s reference to the tenets of civil religion as “dogmas,” despite stating just a few sentences before that these tenets should be fixed “not precisely as dogmas of Religion but as sentiments of sociability” (SC IV.8.31). This suggests an awareness of the dangers of state-sanctioned religious dogmatism and an explicit attempt to distinguish civil religion from the dogmatism of the Church, the religious sects, and the state. However, as Rousseau subsequently refers to the tenets as “dogmas,” some scholars read this as an indication of his real intention. Given Rousseau’s insistence that the tenets should be few and stated plainly without justification, civil religion appears to jeopardize citizens’ freedom of belief and freedom of thought by requiring them to affirm the tenets publicly as matters of genuine faith. As Griswold writes, “these dogmas really are matters of faith, placed beyond not just explanation but also questioning and argumentation.”Footnote ²⁹

Civil religion’s only negative dogma adds to its authoritarian charge. By prohibiting sectarian intolerance, the negative tenet is sometimes seen as self-contradictory. Rousseau appears to be guilty of the same intolerance that he prohibits when he bans religious doctrines that do not affirm the dogmas of his civil religion. Civil religion appears to permit pluralism and promote toleration only to a very limited degree, as Griswold has suggested.Footnote ³⁰

Finally, the severe consequences of non-adherence to the civil religion also warn of its supposed intolerance. Rousseau holds that “without being able to oblige anyone to believe [the dogmas of civil religion], the Sovereign may banish from the State anyone who does not believe them … If anyone after having publicly acknowledged these same dogmas behaves as if he did not believe them, let him be punished with death” (SC IV.8.32). As Robert Derathé observes, the fact that the sovereign has the right to exile those who choose not to believe in civil religion or to issue the death penalty to non-adherents appears unacceptable.Footnote ³¹ Rousseau’s silence on how disbelief or incorrect belief should be adjudicated seems to make matters worse. For Lester Crocker the effect of Rousseau’s civil religion on people’s conduct “can only be imagined from the worst excesses of the Terror, or Stalinism, or of Chinese communism.”Footnote ³²

In sum, the authoritarian view suggests that Rousseau’s civil religion services a kind of radical collectivism in which the good of the community is given extensive priority over that of the individual.Footnote ³³ Civil religion emerges as a tool that a state or a leader uses to suppress religious freedom in the name of social order. For Arthur Melzer, the imposition of civil religion is not only illiberal but undemocratic, contradicting Rousseau’s “extreme egalitarianism, his extravagant praise of the people … and his insistence on pure, direct democracy.”Footnote ³⁴ Cobban concedes that “one cannot pretend to regard the chapter on Civil Religion as any other than unfortunate: though so short, more than any other section of his political writings it helps us to understand why its author should have been so often regarded as the apostle of tyranny and an enemy to liberty in the state.”Footnote ³⁵ Fundamentally at odds with the principles of popular sovereignty and freedom that Rousseau seems to value in the Social Contract, the authoritarian view renders it at best a work of contradiction, and at worst a work that espouses a form of authoritarianism. As Arthur Horowitz suggests, there are “two Rousseaus,” one the champion of individual freedom and autonomy, and the other an unwitting forerunner of twentieth-century totalitarianism.Footnote ³⁶

The broad tolerationist interpretation of civil religion as a non-coercive institution pushes back against this view. On one reading, civil religion is a means to separate religious dogma from politics rather than to institutionalize coercion of belief. Grounding her interpretation in the historical context of eighteenth-century Geneva, Rosenblatt notes that the Genevan patriciate wanted the state to have greater jurisdiction over the Church so that, while claiming that Christianity was a religion that had nothing to do with politics, they could use it for political purposes.Footnote ³⁷ Thus, Rousseau’s civil religion “should be seen as an attack on the political uses of religion by an absolutizing and oligarchical regime” and a way of preventing political elites from using religious dogmas for their own benefit.Footnote ³⁸

More broadly, civil religion is also about promoting toleration, sociability, and good citizenship. By specifying a minimal core of beliefs that people would need to affirm in order to be good citizens and loyal subjects, civil religion is understood to facilitate harmonious communal living. While RosenblattFootnote ³⁹ and Céline SpectorFootnote ⁴⁰ ground this in Rousseau’s belief that men had to have a religion or certain good principles in order to be sociable, BertramFootnote ⁴¹ contends that civil religion strengthens ties of citizenship by enabling individuals to transcend their narrow self-interests. He emphasizes that civil religion involves a public affirmation of common beliefs by citizens who may have different religious backgrounds. This code serves as a “shared fund of ideas and values that citizens can rely upon when reasoning with one another.”Footnote ⁴² Civil religion contributes to the stability of the state by getting citizens to assure one another of their good intentions and to affirm what they have in common despite religious differences. Its tenets need not be taken as actual articles of genuine faith. As Bertram concludes, “citizens are free to adopt any religion that is in conformity with this code or even to adopt the code itself as their religion … civil religion makes no assertion about the truth or falsity of bodies of doctrine: it simply assesses whether they are in conformity with the possibility of a well-ordered society.”Footnote ⁴³ Scott stresses that civil religion, while being confined to the limited bounds of right, aims at addressing the “two main motivational challenges facing politics: how to make a people capable of self-legislation (‘good citizens’) and inclined to obey the laws they make (‘loyal subjects’).”Footnote ⁴⁴ Ward concurs that “Rousseau is less concerned with the theological content of civil religion than he is with its propensity toward encouraging the ‘social spirit’ … [and serving] as a preventive measure that dampens or reduces the potency of other cleavages.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Agreeing that civil religion is not intended as a “comprehensive doctrine,” Ryan Patrick Hanley argues that it is a means to foster national and international unity.Footnote ⁴⁶

On the tolerationist view, the fifth article that prohibits intolerance is also consistent with the aims of promoting toleration and civic peace, since theological intolerance will have harmful civil consequences and “it is impossible to live in peace with people one believes to be damned” (SC IV.8.34). Rousseau bans intolerance while affirming that “everyone may hold whatever opinions he pleases without its being up to the sovereign to know them … the dogmas of [citizens’ private religions] are only of concern to the State or its members” insofar as they bear on morality and how one is inclined to treat one another as citizens (SC IV.8.31). As Rosenblatt points out, civil religion respects a private realm of belief as a matter of right, while seeking to bring about a more sociable and tolerant society, by only permitting tolerant citizens.Footnote ⁴⁷ This interpretation sees civil religion as respecting individual freedom of belief and being more concerned with promoting good citizenship than enforcing any particular religious view as a matter of genuine faith.

Notwithstanding their differences, these two interpretations affirm a broad consensus regarding the aims of civil religion and the “problem” that civil religion was meant to address. Civil religion is intended to uphold public order and to foster sociability and good citizenship to strengthen the foundations of the political community. Proponents of the authoritarian view do not disagree with these aims. Their point of contention is rather with the application of civil religion, and the costs that it imposes on the political community. Even Ronald Beiner, who concludes that Rousseau’s civil religion does not amount to a realistic proposal, admits that Rousseau had no solution of his own to offer in the form of “a ‘real’ religion … that could actually shape the motivations of citizens, thus fostering good citizenship and helping to consolidate the foundations of the state.”Footnote ⁴⁸

However, neither school of thought treats civil religion as an institution established by the people. As a result, its connection to popular sovereignty remains largely unaccounted for. The authoritarian view either concludes or supposes that civil religion is imposed on the people by an intolerant state or leader on the basis of their authoritarian tendencies. The tolerationist view does not elucidate the people’s role in instituting civil religion or how the particular aims of non-coercive civil religion are connected to the Social Contract’s goal of securing freedom in society. It fails to explain how civil religion might not only be beneficial, but essential to the Social Contract’s larger goal of securing political freedom (SC I.6.4). While Bertram’s account acknowledges that the people play some role in affirming civil religion, he neither identifies the people as the authors of civil religion nor explains how the people’s involvement makes civil religion essential for the social contract.

Democratic civil religion

A democratic interpretation of civil religion shows that it is possible to understand the choice of and obedience to a civil religion as an expression of popular sovereignty and political freedom. This allows us to see Rousseau’s intention for upholding civic peace through civil religion not as a function of his “authoritarianism” or “tolerance” but more fundamentally, as a part of his democratic thought.

The term “democratic civil religion” is not entirely new. Bertram,Footnote ⁴⁹ Ward,Footnote ⁵⁰ and Joshua KarantFootnote ⁵¹ have argued that Rousseau’s conception of civil religion raises questions for democratic politics. But his civil religion can also be understood as a component of democratic politics. My interpretation suggests that civil religion is not merely an ancillary institution that can be consistent with popular sovereignty. It is an essential feature of Rousseau’s democratic theory as it both exemplifies political freedom and serves as a necessary condition for its maintenance.

A democratic reading of civil religion first of all requires that we take seriously Rousseau’s remark that there is a purely civil profession of faith “the articles of which it is up to the Sovereign to fix” ( dont il appartient au Souverain de fixer les articles ) (SC IV.8.32). Rousseau’s attribution of the task to the sovereign cannot be taken lightly, given his radical reconceptualization of sovereignty in the Social Contract. As Robin Douglass notes, Rousseau breaks with the vertical pattern associated with the notion of sovereignty and inverts the Hobbesian account to preserve freedom in the political order.Footnote ⁵² For him, the sovereign is always the people as one moral and collective body (SC II.1.2). Sovereignty is “nothing but the exercise of the general will” (SC II.1.2), and the declaration of the general will constitutes law (SC II.2.1). If it is for the sovereign people to “fix” the articles of civil religion, then civil religion must be taken as positive law that a sovereign people enact according to the general will.

Rousseau’s assertion that civil religion is to be fixed by the sovereign people was revised from the first draft of the Social Contract known as the Geneva Manuscript. In the Geneva Manuscript, the various dogmas constitute “a purely civil profession of faith that belongs to the law to prescribe” ( qu’il appartient à la loi de prescrire ).Footnote ⁵³ In the Social Contract, he replaces “the law” with “the sovereign” as the originator of civil religion, and describes the tenets as entities to be “fixed” rather than “prescribed.” The two versions broadly affirm the same vision of civil religion as a product of popular sovereignty, since laws are “acts of the general will” (SC II.6.7) and Rousseau states in nearly identical wording in both versions that “the people subject to the laws ought to be their author” (SC II.6.10; GM II.7). However, the revised phrasing in the Social Contract reflects his intention to emphasize the direct connection between popular sovereignty and the articles of civil religion. Civil religion comes from the sovereign as the “active” form of the body politic (SC I.7.10), instead of the law, which is a product of popular sovereignty but not to be conflated with its source. The fact that civil religion is for the people to fix, and not for the law to prescribe, underscores the notion of the people as authors of civil religion, rather than passive recipients.

The question of what it means for a sovereign people to fix the articles of civil religion is particularly salient because of the emphasis that Rousseau places on the role of the legislator in book II chapter 7 of the Social Contract, which is often read as the natural companion to the chapter on civil religion.Footnote ⁵⁴ This entails adjudicating whether the people get to decide on the content and tenets of their civil religion, or whether their role is more modestly confined to establishing as law a set of propositions prescribed by some other authority. Understanding the people’s role in fixing civil religion also requires making sense of the five tenets that Rousseau proposes.

Lacking the ability to contemplate causes and effects that are beyond their direct view, Rousseau judges men to be incapable of instituting good laws for themselves (SC II.7.9). A political community requires a lawgiver or an external body of superior intelligence to supply its constitution. As the civil religion proposal emerges within the context of an extended discussion of the different ways in which religion has served as a foundation of different societies in history, and Rousseau declares that “no State has ever been founded without Religion serving as its base” (SC IV.8.14), it is not surprising that his civil religion is sometimes read as an institution that is meant for the legislator, if not the state, to establish. The choice to institute a civil religion requires that people first recognize the merits of instituting a shared civil religion, which raises the familiar paradox concerning the relationship between a people and good legislation. In order for men to appreciate and obey sound laws that are beneficial to the body politic, they must be reformed by the very laws that they need (but have not) enacted. The “effect would have to become the cause … men would have to be prior to the laws what they ought to become by means of them” (SC II.7.9).

It is therefore likely that Rousseau envisioned the involvement of a legislator in the process of instituting a civil religion, even though he attributes the task of fixing its tenets to the people. Conceived as an extraneous “office” that is neither sovereignty nor magistracy, “[the legislator] who drafts the laws has, then, or should have no legislative right” (SC II.7.4; II.7.7). This suggests that the role of a lawgiver is distinct from the legislative capacity of the sovereign. A lawgiver is envisioned to propose or draft laws that would suit the particular context of a people, while the legislative capacity of the people consists in affirming or rejecting the drafted legislation according to the general will. On this view, democratic civil religion could be minimally conceived as a popular vote by the citizens on tenets supplied by an extraneous lawgiver.

While Roger D. MastersFootnote ⁵⁵ and MelzerFootnote ⁵⁶ see Rousseau’s appeal to a legislator as undemocratic, the presence of a legislator does not necessarily undermine Rousseau’s commitment to democracy, equality, and popular sovereignty. Scott argues that the art of the legislator consists in a “higher form of agenda-setting” that creates “the restrictions on the domain of preferences that make self-legislation in the absence of agenda-setting possible.”Footnote ⁵⁷ For Kelly, the legislator can be understood as a public-spirited figure who seeks “to persuade the people to accept his institutions” by serving as a model for imitation. “Far from representing a compromise of the principles of equality and consent, the appeal to the legislator is an illustration of the basis upon which consent can be obtained.”Footnote ⁵⁸ The figure of the legislator can be understood as a measure that helps to preserve the conditions for democracy. Their involvement as supplier or drafter of the tenets of civil religion does not therefore render civil religion undemocratic.

More importantly, the plausible involvement of a legislator in establishing civil religion should not be cause for overlooking or reducing the role that Rousseau conceives for the sovereign in determining their civil religion, especially given his proclamation that the articles of civil religion are for the sovereign people to fix. Rousseau’s statement about the distinct role of the lawgiver in relation to the legislative right of the people does not confine the people’s legislative role to the ratification of laws. In book IV chapter 1, in addition to the right to vote as an act of sovereignty, the people also have “the right to give an opinion, to make propositions, to analyze, to discuss” legislation (SC IV.1.7). I follow Masters and Kelly’s interpretation, which holds that Rousseau provides an ironical defense of free speech and the people’s right to debate and make propositions regarding legislation.Footnote ⁵⁹ Nicholas DentFootnote ⁶⁰ has also noted that Rousseau’s popular sovereign can be thought to draft and ratify the laws while Scott argues that, “given that [Rousseau] explicitly states that the people alone possesses the legislative power … the more compelling interpretation is that in a legitimate state the right of legislative initiation belongs to the people as part of its legislative power.”Footnote ⁶¹

A closer inspection of Rousseau’s use of the word fixer in the Social Contract suggests that the sovereign’s role in fixing the articles of civil religion might not only be limited to ratification. The word has been translated differently in the context of the chapter on civil religion, as “to fix”Footnote ⁶² or “to establish.”Footnote ⁶³ Rousseau uses this verb in the infinitive form seven times throughout the work and primarily in two ways.Footnote ⁶⁴ The first is in conjunction with direct objects that are quantifiable, to fix the “proportion” of the number of votes needed to declare the general will (SC IV.2.10), or to fix the “duration” of dictatorship in times of national crises (SC IV.6.11). Other times, he uses fixer for direct objects that are to be specified even though they are not quantifiable per se, to fix “the precise meaning” of the term “government” (SC III), or to fix the “point at which the force and will of the Government … can be combined in the relation [or ratio] most advantageous to the State” (SC III.2.13).Footnote ⁶⁵ Rousseau’s usage of fixer in the context of the articles of civil religion belongs to this second category.

Rousseau also uses other forms of fixer —often translated as “fixed”—at least 14 times in this work, about half of which correspond to the meaning of an entity being specified.Footnote ⁶⁶ That the act of declaring war and peace is only an application of the law “will clearly be seen once the idea that attaches to the word law has been fixed ( fixée )” (SC II.2.3). At other times, he uses these forms to describe something as stable,Footnote ⁶⁷ or established and defined.Footnote ⁶⁸ These variations reflect the multivalent nature of the word fixer , and are not contradictory given that these meanings can cohere with one another.

Overall, fixer appears to denote objects that are intended to be specified to a more precise degree, either in quantifiable terms or in terms that are to that effect. Rousseau’s only negative usage of the infinitive verb confirms this, when “it is impossible to fix ( fixer ) a true relation between things of different natures” (SC I.4.9). As such, to say that it is up to the sovereign “to fix” the tenets of civil religion is akin to saying that the tenets are up to the sovereign “to specify” or “to determine,” or “to make precise.”

Rousseau uses fixer in relation to a task assigned to the lawgiver: “the art of the Lawgiver consists in knowing how to determine ( fixer ) the point at which the force and will of the Government … can be combined” (SC III.2.13).Footnote ⁶⁹ The fact that the same word is used in parallel contexts of attributing responsibility for a particular task or scope of purview, but in relation to different subjects—the lawgiver in one instance (SC III.2.13), the sovereign in another (SC IV.8.32)—suggests that there is a resemblance in the action of the lawgiver and of the sovereign in these two distinct scenarios.Footnote ⁷⁰ Just as it is for the extraordinary lawgiver to determine the precise point at which the force and will of the government can be combined for the good of the body politic, so it is for the sovereign people to determine or specify the contents of their chosen civil religion. This suggests that the people’s part in fixing the articles of civil religion might also be substantive in nature. A lawgiver’s involvement in proposing some or all of the tenets does not diminish the people’s role in initiating, drafting, or specifying their civil religion. Civil religion is democratic because it can be read as a product of popular sovereignty that reflects the general will of the people, even if an external lawgiver is involved.

Rousseau’s account of how the people should legislate according to the general will gives further indication of what democratic civil religion could look like. “When a law is proposed in the People’s assembly, what they are being asked is not exactly whether they approve the proposal or reject it, but whether it does or does not conform to the general will” (SC IV.2.8). According to Spector, the general will can be understood as “the will of any citizen as he focuses impartially on the public interest without indulging in his personal or factional interests.”Footnote ⁷¹ Each citizen should ask themselves privately whether the law under consideration would be in the interest of the public good, after which the matter should be submitted to a democratic vote. This process requires citizens to recognize the primacy of securing their common interest notwithstanding their disparate private interests.

If civil religion is to be fixed by the popular sovereign, each individual has to decide whether to affirm a shared civil religion by putting aside his particular will and considering only the interests of the whole community. Citizens have to affirm the choice of civil religion as long as they judge it to be conducive to the common good, even if it does not fully align with their private wills. As Annelien de Dijn points out, when collective decisions reflect the long-term interests of a community rather than the particular interests of individuals or factions, “everyone should be able to recognize that these decisions tracked their own particular interests as well.”Footnote ⁷² Civil religion can be understood as democratic because the people have a choice to affirm or reject the tenets of their shared civil religion, in addition to having some role in determining the contents of the tenets themselves. These tenets are not arbitrarily imposed by a distant legislator or government. Applying equally to all while attending to the collective long-term interests of the political community, democratic civil religion reflects the general will, rather than the will of a few or a numerical majority. The people, not the state or the legislator, are the final arbiters of the decision to institute the particular tenets that are under their collective consideration.

As with other matters that a popular sovereign might legislate on, there are likely to be formal constraints on what the sovereign can enact as tenets of a civil religion. Rousseau states that “the general will, to be truly such, must be so in its objects as well as in its essence, that it must issue from all in order to apply to all” (SC II.4.5). He also stresses, in the chapter on civil religion, that its dogmas should only apply to matters of public utility, as “the right that the social pact gives the Sovereign over the subjects does not … exceed the bounds of public utility” (SC IV.8.31). Civil religion should not include tenets that specify selective rules for certain groups of people, or that cannot be justified by considerations of public benefit. Democratic civil religion insists that not only the source, but the object of civil religion be general. Barring these constraints, the articles could vary across time and place. Citizens, when voting on or proposing the establishment of their civil religion, can be expected to reflect on whether the particular tenets fit with the context and demographics of their political community. The same would be true especially for the lawgiver who proposes the articles of civil religion, since Rousseau tasks the lawgiver with “[discovering] the best rules of society suited to each nation” (SC II.7.1). He thus offers a conception of civil religion that is not only rooted in popular sovereignty, but also sensitive to the demands of the particular.

The fact that Rousseau suggests specific tenets does not necessarily undermine the interpretation that the articles of civil religion can be variable and determined by the people. It is possible that he suggested the tenets that he believed were necessary for underpinning sociable conduct in societies within the historical context that he was familiar with, while recognizing that civil religion must be chosen by the people and that different circumstances may call for different tenets. It is plausible that Rousseau believed that individuals would be more likely to have reason to be good neighbors and citizens if they also believed in the existence of a just deity that would distribute rewards and punishment in the afterlife for their actions on earth. On this view, the proposed tenets reflect his take on what a functioning civil religion would look like. It might be the case, for Rousseau, that a lawgiver or a people, if truly wise, might suggest very similar tenets to the ones that he proposes. Rousseau himself, in this instance, acts as a lawgiver in providing an example of a civil religion that would work. Nonetheless, if the sovereign people are to have a discretionary or substantive role in specifying the tenets of civil religion as implied in his usage of fixer , then Rousseau’s tenets can be taken in the same context as the contribution of a lawgiver—as salutary suggestions but not more authoritative than the articles determined by the people.

Civil religion and political freedom

The Social Contract is concerned with establishing the principles of political right of a legitimate political community, in which men can be free while living under the laws of society. I argue that civil religion, when democratically instituted, enables the body politic to preserve popular sovereignty and political freedom. Democratic civil religion functions as part of the solution to the fundamental problem of the Social Contract, which is “to find a form of association that will defend and protect the person and goods of each associate with the full common force, and by means of which each, uniting with all, nevertheless obey only himself and remain as free as before” (SC I.6.4).

If civil religion can be understood as positive law established by the people, the vote for a civil religion would take place after the initial act of association that forms the social contract. The social pact gives the body politic its “existence,” while the task of legislation gives the body its “motion and will”; “For the initial act by which this body assumes form and unity still leaves entirely undetermined what it must do to preserve itself” (SC II.6.1). As Rousseau conceives only the initial contract to require unanimity, and all following laws to be decided according to majority rule (SC IV.3.5–7), civil religion, as positive law, can be chosen according to majoritarian rule. Unlike those who did not agree to join the social contract, the numerical minority who do not vote for civil religion are excluded from the state only if their behavior does not conform to the established civil religion. Civil religion can be understood as one of the institutions that a sovereign people choose for itself as a means to preserve the body politic, after their initial decision to form an association.

As Matthew Simpson points out, Rousseau’s Social Contract distinguishes four kinds of freedom—natural, civil, democratic, and moral.Footnote ⁷³ There needs to be a justification for man’s loss of natural freedom and his being subjected to laws and social mores, since liberty is an inextricable part of man’s humanity (SC I.1.1). While man loses his natural freedom by joining the social contract, he gains civil freedom and moral freedom in society (SC I.8.3). Civil freedom and moral freedom can be distinguished as two kinds of freedom that the social contract realizes.Footnote ⁷⁴ Like natural freedom, civil freedom is defined negatively as the absence of interference. It is the ability to “act unconstrained by the particular wills of others within a sphere of activity deemed by society to be external to the vital interests of the community as a whole.”Footnote ⁷⁵ One is free to do whatever one wants that the general will does not prohibit. Moral freedom, on the other hand, is defined positively as a kind of autonomy—“obedience to the law one has prescribed to oneself” without “the impulsion of mere appetite” (SC I.8.3). One is morally free when one has the capacity for self-rule. According to Simpson, democratic freedom shares moral freedom’s sense of self-rule but refers to the people’s collective power to rule themselves.Footnote ⁷⁶ Frederick Neuhouser argues that moral and civil freedom are related to the state in different ways: membership in the social contract embodies the former, while political membership in the state is a precondition of the latter.Footnote ⁷⁷ I follow the convention of distinguishing civil from political freedom and taking the latter in the more moral sense as freedom under self-imposed law.Footnote ⁷⁸

Civil religion helps to maintain political freedom by reinforcing the unity of the popular sovereign. The problem of divided or dual sovereignty is most apparent in Rousseau’s scathing critique of Roman Catholicism and Christianity. Such religions give men “two legislations, two chiefs, two fatherlands, [and subject] them to contradictory duties and prevents their being at once devout and Christians” (SC IV.8.16). These religions not only create a potential conflict between political and religious duties but also motivate men to act in favor of the religious sovereign. Religions that create a “perpetual conflict of jurisdiction” between the laws and prince of a state on one hand and divine law on the other make it impossible to establish good political order, since “no one has ever succeeded in settling the question of which of the two, the master or the priest, one is obliged to obey” (SC IV.8.11). Individuals who submit themselves to the will of another in matters of religion (be it God or another religious leader) are less inclined to see themselves as active members of a sovereign with a duty to legislate according to the general will. The adverse effect of dual sovereignty is akin to that of theological intolerance within a state. “It is impossible for [theological intolerance] not to have some civil effect, and as soon as it does, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign” (SC IV.8.34). The problem of divided sovereignty is thus not only one of social unity, but more fundamentally, of political freedom. When a portion of the people fail to see themselves or others as, first and foremost, members of the sovereign authority, the laws will not reflect the general will to the extent that they could, and political freedom will be compromised.

Civil religion prevents sovereignty from being divided by getting people to affirm the primacy of the popular sovereign in matters concerning the public good. Citizens may hold religious beliefs that lead them to prioritize divine over positive laws. Yet civil religion demands that citizens recognize their duty as members of the popular sovereign and leave aside their particular religious affiliations to consider articles of civil religion that would promote sociability. In doing so, citizens acknowledge that their religious affiliations should not constrain their ability to affirm basic beliefs that are necessary for sustaining the political community. When citizens collectively legislate a common standard for social or intolerant behavior, they commit to governing themselves as equal members of the sovereign despite their differences. The tenets of civil religion provide a baseline of shared beliefs that motivate the community to continue affirming their popular sovereignty.

This does not mean that citizens cannot meaningfully believe something that is not reflected in the tenets of the civil religion. They retain a right to a private sphere of belief. “Subjects only owe the Sovereign an account of their opinions insofar as those opinions matter to the community” (SC IV.8.31). The sovereign “has no competence in the other world, whatever the subjects’ fate may be in the life to come is none of its business, provided they are good citizens in this life” (SC IV.8.31). Civil religion therefore does not require citizens to abandon their private beliefs. But it does require them to choose a set of shared values that could be affirmed by all as foundational to the maintenance of the state.

Democratic civil religion also upholds popular sovereignty by opposing any faction or majority appropriating religion for particular political purposes. By stipulating that the whole community should decide on the common beliefs needed for civic peace and the kind of behavior or beliefs they will not tolerate, Rousseau can be read as insisting that the people should decide on the limits of toleration and requirements of sociability. Democratic civil religion, in this sense, responds to what Rosenblatt calls the eighteenth-century Genevan debate over “what constituted the ‘exterior matters’ over which the State was sovereign” and whether the sovereign should be equated with the more aristocratic Small Council or the more democratic General Council.Footnote ⁷⁹ When laws concerning religion or toleration are enacted by any entity other than the people as a whole, popular sovereignty cannot be at work. The sovereign should refrain from enacting laws on particular matters that do not apply to all, or on matters that extend beyond the rationale of public utility, as these laws cannot be said to follow the general will. While democratic civil religion does not preclude political authorities or factions from enacting laws on particular matters beyond the purpose of public utility, it gives the people resources to dispute such actions as contrary to popular sovereignty and political freedom. Considerations of “public utility” may not amount to a definitive answer regarding who or what kind of behavior should be tolerated, but this account identifies popular sovereignty as a necessary condition for settling this question. The people should decide what they are willing to tolerate.

By preserving the unity of the popular sovereign in matters of public utility while reinforcing the boundaries of sovereign authority, civil religion preserves political freedom by enabling people to continue making and living under self-imposed laws. With the popular sovereign intact and held together by a shared civil religion, the body politic is able to continue governing itself under self-made laws in all other aspects of political life and enjoy political freedom. In addition to preserving political freedom in the long run, the very choice to obey a civil religion can be conceived as an instantiation of political freedom. One is politically free living under a civil religion because obeying it is obeying one’s general will. Contrary to the authoritarian interpretation, civil religion cannot be an institution that constrains people’s individual freedom of belief. Instead of forcing citizens to profess beliefs they do not agree with and subjecting them to the arbitrary will of another, citizens are free in the moral sense of obeying one’s laws when they publicly affirm tenets that they have collectively instituted according to the general will. People are politically free and not dependent on an arbitrary foreign will when they establish and follow a civil religion.

Given the significant role that democratic civil religion plays in preserving popular sovereignty and political freedom, it can be considered an essential condition for the maintenance of a democratic society, akin to constitutional law as Hilail Gildin suggests, rather than an ancillary or supplementary proposal.Footnote ⁸⁰ This builds on Scott’s argument that the Social Contract can be read in two ways: as providing the principles of political right for a legitimate political association, and the necessary conditions for the creation or maintenance of the association founded according to these principles.Footnote ⁸¹ Scott’s reading in turn builds on interpretations by other scholars who recognized that the Social Contract could be read according to its two principal aspects of principle and practice. Masters, for instance, has argued that there are two main aspects to Rousseau’s thought corresponding to the “principles of political right” on one hand, and the “maxims of politics” on the other.Footnote ⁸² Civil religion’s placement in book IV—where Rousseau suggests additional institutions, such as the tribunate, for sustaining the political community founded according to principles of political right—also supports this view of civil religion as a condition of maintenance.Footnote ⁸³ It can also be considered essential since not instituting a civil religion seems to put a political community in danger of losing its political freedom. As Gildin argues, civil religion is necessary to make the laws sacred as Rousseau was convinced that “the social order cannot be relied on to do what it is meant to do unless it is held to be sacred.Footnote ⁸⁴ Smith also notes that civil religion is a “necessary supplement” that is part of the “background conditions” which make freedom possible, even though he believes it denies the people’s freedom to self-legislate.Footnote ⁸⁵ Without a civil religion, a political community founded on principles of political right might be subject to internal divisions when citizens clash over differences in beliefs and practices that go on to undermine their overall capacity to self-legislate collectively. By sustaining popular sovereignty, civil religion is an integral part of Rousseau’s aim to show how an individual can still be free while living together with others in society.

The fact that democratic civil religion is backed by sanctions like exile and death reflects the seriousness with which citizens are to view the tenets. The failure or refusal to affirm a shared civil religion is no ordinary act of dissent or civil disobedience, as it can be taken as a rejection of the democratically affirmed values and principles that underpin a state. For this reason, the state may banish the person who does not believe in civil religion, “not as impious but as unsociable, as incapable of sincerely loving the laws, justice, and if need be of sacrificing his life to his duty” (SC IV.8.32). While he does not elaborate on what sort of public non-compliance would warrant the death penalty, his general justification for capital punishment is that it should only be meted out when a citizen has shown himself as an enemy of the state, as “one only has the right to put to death … someone who cannot be preserved without danger” (SC II.5.6). If behavior contrary to civil religion is fundamentally dangerous to the state, civil religion must be critical to the state’s survival. As Diane Fourny observes, civil religion is Rousseau’s way of justifying state violence.Footnote ⁸⁶ Democratic civil religion, even if it issues from the people, is not entirely non-coercive. However, the coercion should be understood alongside the significant role that the people have in choosing tenets that would secure the long-term interests of their community, as well as Rousseau’s own assertion that life under the social compact must entail some element of being “forced to be free” (SC I.7.8).

While civil religion can be conceived as a necessary institution, this does not make its establishment permanent or compulsory. A people can revise the civil religion they have chosen according to the evolving needs of society, or not enact a civil religion at all. Its function is not undermined if its tenets were altered according to the general will, since it is “contrary to the nature of the body politic for the Sovereign to impose on itself a law which it cannot break … nor can there be any kind of fundamental law that is obligatory for the body of the people, not even the social contract” (SC I.7.2). It is unlikely that civil religion, when established democratically according to the general will that is “always upright,” will have to be frequently altered or updated, since the tenets are meant as constitutional principles to be kept few and simple. In fact, a frequently changing civil religion is likely a sign that it is established according to private wills rather than the general will.

Democratic civil religion recognizes the people as authors of their civil religion and the institution as both a condition and expression of political freedom. If Rousseau’s social contract is understood to realize not only political freedom but civil freedom, and political membership in the state is regarded as a precondition of the latter,Footnote ⁸⁷ then civil religion could well preserve the conditions under which not only political freedom but civil freedom is possible.