history, but in the history of humanity.162
There is some debate as to whether France was more miserable than other European nations at the time of the Revolution. In Davis’s opinion “the French were probably, all things considered, the most progressive, enlightened, and in general fortunate people of continental Europe.”163 While that may be true in relative terms, we may question whether this description applied to the common people. The pre-revolutionary feudal system functioned in a world dominated by a rural economy. The majority of the French population, estimated at 85 percent, was concentrated in rural areas. The French peasantry lived under the seigneurial system where the seigneur levied heavy taxes and meted out justice. Roger Magraw discusses the social-political consequences of the Revolution and the mobilization of the peasantry. In his opinion, “it was the anti-seigneurial peasant revolution of 1789–1793 which swept away the ancien régime.”164
It should then come as no surprise that the populace in principle welcomed the French Revolution. The atrocities of the Revolution and the Reign of Terror which followed are well known and in hindsight rightly criticized. Less well known is the oppression endured by the people under the nobility and the clergy which wielded secular power. An assessment of life in France at the time of the Revolution provides a sobering picture of the wealth of the Church and its princes. In 1789, France had a population of 26 million and 130,000 clergy. The clergy, representing a tiny fraction of the population, possessed large swaths of territory in the kingdom.165 The pre-revolutionary social hierarchy in France was composed of three orders or estates (les trois états): clergy, nobility, and peasantry (le tiers-état). The first two groups were largely exonerated from the crushing taxes imposed on the peasantry. Added to the contempt felt by the peasants was their exclusion from the ranks of military officers. Magraw states, “Until 1789, the ‘Second Estate,’ some 1 percent of the population, owned 25 percent of the land and monopolised posts in Army, Administration, and Church, giving aristocratic bishops and monastic heads access to income from church lands and tithes.”166 The monarchy was the third rail in the structure of the Ancien Régime, having reached its zenith under Louis XIV and then greatly weakened under the mediocre Louis XVI (1754–1793) beginning in 1774. The king remained the living symbol of a system in which the Church was the state religion and which hardly flinched during the last years of the Ancien Régime by the promulgation of the Edict of Tolerance in 1787 for the benefit of Protestants.167
Montclos sketches three grand moments which constitute the revolutionary process regarding religion. These are the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790, the antireligious terror from October 1793 to April 1794, and the separation of the Church from the State in the 1795 Constitution. He remarks that during the Terror there was a brutal fight against persons and possessions led by proconsuls who not only preyed on Catholicism but also on Protestantism and Judaism.168 These moments coincided with the foundational texts of the Revolution—the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790, and the Constitutions of 1791 and 1795. The Declaration was adopted on August 26, 1789, and would soon be considered foundational for modern politics in France. These revolutionary actions ended the Concordat of Bologna from 1516 between King Francis I (1494–1547) and Pope Leo X (1475–1521), known especially for the sale of indulgences to embellish Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The adoption of this early Concordat had introduced a division between high clergy composed of courtesans and a lower clergy which was often poor and lacking in both status and possessions. This Concordat had recognized papal power over national councils where the king was accorded authority to name those to ecclesiastical positions—abbots, bishops, and archbishops.169
The Revolution introduced sweeping changes in France. Religious liberty was proclaimed and activities transferred from the Church to the State (i.e., civil status, marriage). The State introduced legal divorce, abolished religious crimes of blasphemy, heresy, and sorcery, and adopted a revolutionary calendar.170 Despite open revolt against the Church, the French people were not yet ready to exclude God from the life of the nation. Religious references remained in French official documents until the 1946 Constitution of the Fourth Republic (des droits inaliénables et sacrés) and were later excluded from the 1958 Constitution of the Fifth Republic still in effect to our day. Article 10, one of the most oft-cited statements of the 1789 Declaration, recognized the liberty of opinion and declared that no one should be disturbed for their opinions, not even religious ones, as long as their expression did not trouble the public order (Nul ne doit être inquiété pour ses opinions, même religieuses, pourvu que leur manifestation ne trouble pas l’ordre public établi par la Loi).
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy in July 1790 was preceded by other actions against the Church to weaken her position in France. A year earlier, in August 1789, the clergy lost its position as the first of the three orders in France. In November 1789, all the possessions, property, and holdings of the Church became property of the nation. The National Assembly elaborated what would become part of the future Constitution concerning the organization of the Church of France. Priests were required to take an oath of allegiance to the nation, to the king, and to the Constitution. Many clergy refused to obey this law. Their refusal was at the origin of political conflict which led revolutionary France toward a civil war.171 The Constitution of 1791 was short-lived and would be followed by several others as issues arose and were addressed in 1793, 1795, 1799, 1802, and 1804. The Constitution of 1795 founded the First Republic. The Constitution of 1802 established Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul for Life (Premier Consul à vie). The Constitution of 1804 named Napoleon emperor. That these were tumultuous times is an understatement.
Many have tried to capture the essence and the seismic importance of the French Revolution. Evangelical missiologist Paul Hiebert writes,
The Holy Roman Empire had been in decline since the late Middle Ages, but it was the French Revolution that shattered the sacred foundations of history. The secular state emerged based on rationalism and the will of the citizens. Public life was now the realm of reason alone and had no place for a seemingly unknowable God. Religion was relegated to the private sphere of life and seen as imagination, and God ceased to be relevant to public life. A rigidly materialistic, atheistic philosophy emerged that reduced the spirit to matter and morals to social constructs defined in terms of material progress.172
According to Stumpf, “Some saw in the Revolution a contest of power whose effect was to destroy the legitimate power and authority both of the government and of the church, an effect that could only result in the further destruction of the institutions of the family and private property.”173 Former pope Benedict XVI (b. 1927) likewise understands the importance of the French Revolution in the disintegration of the spiritual influences without which Europe would not have come into existence. He asserts that religion became a private matter related to feelings, irrelevant in the public square, and reason became the supreme arbitrator to determine what is best for civil society. The pope argues,
The sacred foundation for history and for the existence of the State was rejected; history was no longer gauged on the basis of an idea of a preexistent God who shaped it; the State was henceforth considered in purely secular terms, founded on reason and on the will of the citizens. For the very first time in history, a purely secular State arose, which abandoned and set aside the divine guarantee and the divine ordering of the political sector, considering them a mythological world view.174
However, the Revolution was well received in many Protestant quarters, at least in its ideals if not in its reality. Protestants welcomed with favor the Revolution which brought about their emancipation from the intolerance and persecution at the hands of the Church.175 They had received limited civil status rights in 1787. Then in 1789 they were granted equal rights and the liberty of worship. The Assembly tacitly authorized them to organize at their discretion, which they did notably in opening places of worship in cities where that had been previously forbidden.176
The removal of the Catholic Church from public influence and the overthrow of the monarchy were among the objectives achieved by the Revolution. The tithe, the Church’s principal source of revenue, was eliminated in August 1789 in the name of fiscal justice. The Civil Clergy Constitution of 1790, which nationalized French Catholicism, was approved
