Christian republic

This article is about the concept of a Christian republic as a governmental system. For Adin Ballou's social experiment that he called The Practical Christian Republic, see Hopedale Community. For the Mediæval concept of Christendom sometimes called the Christian Republic, see res publica christiana. For the Irish political party, see Poblacht Chríostúil.

A Christian republic is a governmental system that comprises both Christianity and republicanism. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke considered the idea to be an impossibility, a self-contradiction, but for different reasons. As of the 21st century, the only countries in the world with a republican form of government and with Christianity enshrined in the constitution as established religion are Argentina, Costa Rica, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland and Malta.

In A Letter Concerning Toleration, Locke wrote that "there is absolutely no such thing, under the Gospel, as a Christian Commonwealth". By this he meant that political authority cannot be validly founded upon Christianity. Rousseau, in On the Social Contract (in book 4, chapter 8), echoed this, saying that "I am mistaken in saying 'a Christian republic'; the two words are mutually exclusive.". However, Rousseau's point was subtly different, in that he was asserting that a civic identity cannot be moulded out of Christianity.[1][2] David Walsh, founder of the National Institute on Media and the Family, acknowledges that there is a "genuine tension [...] between Christianity and the political order" that Rousseau was acknowledging, arguing that "many Christians would, after all, agree with him that a 'Christian republic' is a contradiction in terms" and that the two live "in an uneasy relationship in actual states, and social cohesion has often been bought at the price of Christian universalism".[3] Robert Neelly Bellah has observed that most of the great republican theorists of the Western world have shared Rousseau's concerns about the mutually exclusive nature of republicanism and Christianity, from Machiavelli (more on which later) to Alexis de Tocqueville.[4]

Rousseau's thesis is that the two are incompatible because they make different demands upon the virtuous man. Christianity, according to Rousseau, demands submission (variously termed "servitude" or "slavery" by scholars of his work) to imposed authority and resignation, and requires focus upon the unworldly; whereas republicanism demands participation rather than submission, and requires focus upon the worldly. Rousseau's position on Christianity is not universally held. Indeed, it was refuted by, amongst others, his friend Antoine-Jacques Roustan in a reply to the Social Contract.[5][2][6][4]

Rousseau's thesis has a basis in the prior writings of Niccolò Machiavelli,[7][8][9][4] whom Rousseau called a "bon citoyen et honnête homme" and who alongside Montesquieu was one of Rousseau's sources for republican philosophy.[10] In his Discoursi Machiavelli observes that Christianity in practice has not met the ideals of its foundation, and that the resultant corruption leads, when mixed with secular political ideals, to something that is neither good religion nor good politics.[9][11][10] Further, he argues, whilst Christianity does not preclude love for one's country, it does require citizens to endure damage to republican government, stating that the best civic virtue in regards to a republic is to show no mercy to the republic's enemies and to put to death or to enslave the inhabitants of an opposing city that has been defeated.[11]

Calvinist republics

While the classical writers had been the primary ideological source for the republics of Italy, in Northern Europe, the Protestant Reformation would be used as justification for establishing new republics.[12] Most important was Calvinist theology, which developed in the Swiss Confederacy, one of the largest and most powerful of the medieval republics. John Calvin did not call for the abolition of monarchy, but he advanced the doctrine that the faithful had the right to overthrow irreligious monarchs.[13] Calvinism also espoused egalitarianism and an opposition to hierarchy. Advocacy for republics appeared in the writings of the Huguenots during the French Wars of Religion.[14]

Calvinism played an important role in the republican revolts in England and the Netherlands. Like the city-states of Italy and the Hanseatic League, both were important trading centres, with a large merchant class prospering from the trade with the New World. Large parts of the population of both areas also embraced Calvinism. During the Dutch Revolt (beginning in 1566), the Dutch Republic emerged from rejection of Spanish Habsburg rule. However, the country did not adopt the republican form of government immediately: in the formal declaration of independence (Act of Abjuration, 1581), the throne of king Philip, was only declared vacant, and the Dutch magistrates asked the Duke of Anjou, queen Elizabeth of England and prince William of Orange, one after another, to replace Philip. It took until 1588 before the Estates (the Staten, the representative assembly at the time) decided to vest the sovereignty of the country in itself.

In 1641 the English Civil War began. Spearheaded by the Puritans and funded by the merchants of London, the revolt was a success, and King Charles I was executed. In England James Harrington, Algernon Sidney, and John Milton became some of the first writers to argue for rejecting monarchy and embracing a republican form of government. The English Commonwealth was short lived, and the monarchy soon restored. The Dutch Republic continued in name until 1795, but by the mid-18th century the stadtholder had become a de facto monarch. Calvinists were also some of the earliest settlers of the British and Dutch colonies of North America.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Beiner 2010, p. 3.
  2. 1 2 Beiner 2010, p. 13.
  3. ↑ Walsh 1997, p. 168.
  4. 1 2 3 Cristi 2001, p. 19–20.
  5. ↑ Rosenblatt 1997, p. 264.
  6. ↑ Bellah 1992, p. 166.
  7. ↑ Kries 1997, p. 268.
  8. ↑ Viroli & Hanson 2003, p. 175.
  9. 1 2 Beiner 2010, p. 35.
  10. 1 2 Viroli 1990, p. 171–172.
  11. 1 2 Pocock 2003, p. 214.
  12. ↑ Finer, Samuel. The History of Government from the Earliest Times. Oxford University Press, 1999. pg. 1020.
  13. ↑ "Republicanism." Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment pg. 435
  14. ↑ "Introduction." Republicanism: a Shared European Heritage. By Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge University Press, 2002 pg. 1

Sources

  • Beiner, Ronald S. (2010). Civil Religion: A Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-73843-9. 
  • Bellah, Robert Neelly (1992). The broken covenant: American civil religion in time of trial (2nd ed.). University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-04199-5. 
  • Cristi, Marcela (2001). From civil to political religion: the intersection of culture, religion and politics. Wilfrid Laurier University Press. ISBN 978-0-88920-368-6. 
  • Kries, Douglas (1997). "Rousseau and the Problem of Religious Toleration". In Kries, Douglas. Piety and humanity: essays on religion and early modern political philosophy. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8476-8619-3. 
  • Pocock, John Greville Agard (2003). The Machiavellian moment: Florentine political thought and the Atlantic republican tradition (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-11472-9. 
  • Rosenblatt, Helena (1997). "The Social Contract". Rousseau and Geneva: from the first discourse to the social contract, 1749–1762. Ideas in context 46. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-57004-6. 
  • Viroli, Maurizio (1990). "The concept of ordre and the language of classical republicanism in Jean-Jacques Rousseau". In Pagden, Anthony. The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe. Ideas in Context 4. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38666-1. 
  • Viroli, Maurizio; Hanson, Derek (2003). Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the "Well-Ordered Society". Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-53138-2. 
  • Walsh, David (1997). "Struggle as a Source of Liberal Richness § Rousseau as Theorist of Crisis". The growth of the liberal soul. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-1082-1. 
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