Humanism and the Guillotine
When we reflect on the godless ideologies that have taken the modern world into very dark places, we generally think about fascism and communism. We think of Auschwitz, labor camps, and the gulag. The numbers are sobering. Hitler was responsible for an estimated 11 million deaths. Stalin responsible for an estimated 10 to 20 million deaths. Mao responsible for an estimated 40-80 million deaths. To be sure, these numbers are debated by historians, as indicated by the estimated ranges, but the point is clear. These secular ideologies murdered tens of millions of people within a very short time span.
But one of the interesting things I've noticed is how little attention is ever given to the French Revolution. Perhaps because the body count was so much lower. Only 17,000 died during the Reign of Terror. But I've always felt is was worth reflecting upon how humanism led to the guillotine.
We forget that the beginnings of humanism were associated with the Reign of Terror. The French Revolution started off by enshrining Enlightenment ideals in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Along with the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of the Rights of Man was a seminal document in the Western liberal, democratic and humanistic traditions. The French Revolution claimed it was building a new society upon wholly secular ideals: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. Liberty, Equality, and Fraternal solidarity.
In America, these Enlightenment and humanistic ideals, in the eyes of many of the Founders, were believed to flow from Christianity. More, many of the Founders felt that these secular values could only survive if supported by a shared Christian worldview, along with the associated piety that would shape the character and values of the populace.
In France, however, things took a very different turn. Where many of the American Founders felt that secular values required a religious infrastructure, the French Revolution went in a very hard anti-Christian direction. The church had to be burned down. Literally.
Having made this point, I understand how contested this issue is in our current political climate amid calls for "Christian nationalism." The only point I'm making here is how the French and American revolutionaries viewed Christianity and the church very, very differently.
Does the anti-Christian turn in France explain why the Reign of Terror came to France and not to America? Did the Christianity of the American revolutionaries save the colonies from the guillotine? Scholars have debated why the French Revolution turned out very differently from the American, despite both revolutions being founded upon secular, liberal, humanistic ideals.
I think a lot about the French Revolution, how Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité lead to the guillotine, and I wonder why more people don't talk about it. A humanistic ethic based upon universal human rights provided no protection from the darkness. Which makes me curious to know what guardrails humanism needs to keep itself on the side of the angels. Because if the French Revolution taught us anything, it's that humanism can easily create a Reign of Terror.
Calls for equality and solidarity can go hand in hand with the guillotine.
It's happened before, and I don't see why it won't happen again.
The reality is that all structures, whether physical or institutional, need some preservation & some tearing down simultaneously. That’s where public discourse comes in where the public decides “public policy” which is politics. Too preservative & the structure becomes to stiff which it will break, too loose & it will loose it’s form.
In the US the founders attempted to every “right” to our value as God sees us. The American Constitution was written to limit government’s power & reach into the sovereign individual’s life. The belief was that each human was sovereign which only became a thing because of Jesus. The French Revolution ideas were individualistic which, from a particular angle, sounds sovereign. It was the concept of hiding a bad motive under a good one. Putting lipstick on a pig. Every time we have an individual or a group of people who think “they” have the answer for all that ails an entire society they’ve lost the most crucial ingredient…humility (as Roy D wrote).
What seems to be the only solution is Christ but if I think that that is the one & only solution for the society then I, like the authoritarian murderous dictators mentioned, become like them & the means will justify the ends. Jesus is supposed to be sovereign over the individual’s life & from that point of reference our public policy then gets dictated. Paul said that the non-believer isn’t accountable to the same standards as believers. This includes followers of other religions & no religions. It’s the unsettling truth about operating in this world. This is the tension we are supposed to navigate in this world because in Heaven it won’t be present.
We need others who don’t see the world as we do to help us sharpen our own views. The humble question, I believe, is How do the differing ideas fit into our public policy? In other words What is at the core of “their” ideas that’s right? From a public policy & even interpersonal stand point assuming the other person or group may know something we don’t is a great jumping off place for conversation. I try to be careful not to start conversations thinking that I’m right & “they” are wrong. This doesn’t make us wishy-washy because humility is one of the most powerful weapons we fight for the Kingdom with.
Humility seems to be an important factor here.
Historically, religion and state have been tightly linked. However, when Jesus said, "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s", a separation was introduced; each has its own appropriate sphere of action. Over the next two thousand years, this separation has gradually been widened.
The good news about this separation is that humans found their place in creation as having real agency, being created in God's image and likeness and exercising "dominion over the earth" (Gen 1:27-28), echoed in Ps 8:5-6, "Yet you have made him little less than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet". From this agency and creative capacity comes the flowering of the renaissance, enlightenment, the arts and sciences, and liberty, equality and fraternity.
The bad news is that when this humble dominion becomes arrogant domination, the Reign of Terror is close at hand. When the French Revolution occupied Notre Dame cathedral, calling it the Temple of Reason in 1793, they declared a new religion: the religion of man. Robespierre moderated it by renaming it the Temple of the Supreme Being in 1794, bringing the transcendent back, but in both cases, the state was supreme, allowing religion to toddle along behind as long as it obediently tamed the population into a public-minded, virtuous collective.
Christianity and the state are in tension and will never be fully resolved. Conflict has and will happen over and over. Our obligation is to humbly mediate the ension it as best we can and be prepared for the blow-ups that are bound to happen. When we recognize our God-given potential and our inherent limitations, we can use our intellect and technology humbly. The challenge is to exercise an appropriate dominion over our culture and world while taming the arrogant domination which threatens to destroy it.