Tocqueville v. terror: The limits of French secularism

[Valin]

NY Post:

William McGurn

January 15, 2015

 

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Laicité.

 

The first three words, with their roots in Robespierre, officially constitute the national motto of France. Unofficially, the French have added the fourth — laïcité — to describe an arrangement where nothing is sacred save the nation’s faith in its own secularism.

 

For the terrorists avenging the Prophet Mohammed no less than the millions who marched under the banner Je Suis Charlie, last week’s bloodletting was aimed as much against the foundation of secular France as it was against the individuals so cruelly executed in that Paris newsroom.

 

On this much both the terrorists and their targets agree.

 

The question is whether French secularism is up to the challenge of defending itself.

 

At the heart of laïcité are two principles: first, that religion and the questions it raises have no role in French public life, and, second, that no one faith will be favored over others.

 

(Snip)

[righteousmomma]

Thanks for posting this, Valin.

One of the best articles I have read in a long time.

 

 

But France isn’t the only model of secularism. America too is a secular state. The difference between the two is that the American secular order isn’t founded on indifference to truth but on self-evident truths about man and God.

And religious people aren’t required to repudiate their religious identities to participate in the public life of the nation.

This seems to be the model Pope Benedict had in mind in his first encyclical, when he called for a “healthy secularism of the state.” It is also the model that enthralled a 19th-century French observer named Alexis de Tocqueville.

In the Old World, Tocqueville noted, religion had direct power in alliance with the throne and was reactionary, whereas in the New World the religion’s power was strong but indirect — and in favor of freedom.

 

This doesn’t mean an individual citizen has to be devout or believe in God to be a good American. But it does suggest the need for an intellectual understanding and honesty about the consequences of a society that throws all that overboard.

Or, as Britain’s Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks has put it, an understanding that “you cannot expect the foundations of Western civilization to crumble and leave the rest of the building intact.”

 

[Valin]

@righteousmomma

 

One of the smartest things the Framers did was "Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;".

 

No religion test, something some (conveniently) forgot with Mitt Romeny, & you can * practice your religion without fear or hindrance, something our friends on the Left (conveniently) forget.

 

 

* I wonder when people will stop practicing and actually do it. I can't help myself