The relationship between church and state is no easy affair. In the United States, the Right has long rallied under the banner of religious freedom — claiming a divine right to defy federal law — while in France, controversy over the proscription of the hijab persists. But instead of looking to pluralism and neutrality to resolve these issues — as liberals are wont to do — the tradition of Spinoza, Rousseau, and Robespierre provides a promising alternative for positive conceptions of the good in civic life.

Instead of the liberal doctrine of the separation between church and state, these figures promoted the institutionalization of a secular morality to strengthen popular sovereignty and combat injustice. They all addressed oppression and social alienation in contrast to the elitist “New Atheist” approach of directly attacking the religious beliefs of the poor and the marginalized as a political solution.

For Spinoza, Rousseau, and Robespierre, the active role the sovereign authority played in religion meant the promotion of specific forms of ethical conduct, while tolerating religions and creeds that were in harmony with those ethical forms.