Abstract
Modern secularization has not always reduced the power of religious discourse in the public sphere. In post-revolutionary France, for example, Catholicism was unquestionably in decline, but the French were disposed to seek a new religion to replace it. Socialism thus first emerged in France as a “social religion” meant to provide a religious basis for a new society. However, early socialist thinkers faced “Rousseau's Problem” regarding the tolerance of private religions by a social or civil religion. Among these thinkers, Pierre Leroux (1797-1871) dealt most explicitly with the problem of civil religion. Refuting the collectivist religion of Saint-Simonism that formed the core of French socialism, Leroux proposed a national religion guaranteeing individual liberties. In this paper, through an analysis of Leroux's articles and such books as Humanity (1840) and National Religion or Cult (1846), I examine the extent to which a social or civil religion can be considered compatible with individual liberties. My view is that most previous studies have taken insufficient notice of his conception of national religion. The paper concludes by arguing that Leroux's national religion was a form of civil religion that strove continuously to achieve a standard of universality or humanity.
