Niccolo Machiavelli and Religion

“Hypocrisy is the tribute which vice pays to virtue.” --French thinker and writer, La Rochefoucauld

While many suppose that religion and politics are opposed to one another, the renaissance prince, Niccolo Machiavelli would disagree. Machiavelli lived in Florence, Italy; he was born there in 1469, the son of an established Tuscan family, and died in the city in 1527. His father was a lawyer working under the Medici regime. The Machiavelli family considered themselves to be republicans, that is to say they favored a republic form of government over despots.

While nearly 500 years have passed since his life, some things are more perennial than he. His world was one of the famous Florentine princes who succeeded in ruling over Italy's various city-states, or polis as Aristotle had referred to them 500 years earlier. As a modern nation-state Italy had yet to come into her own. She existed as a geographic place on the European map, composed of a number of cities, each which behaved as independent entities unto themselves. Thus to travel from one city to another, was to voyage into a foreign territory without citizenship beyond the city of one's birth.

It is in this world that the Roman Popes as well as the Florentines came to influence, one with religion and the others with political might bought by great financial acumen. It is also this world that is the setting for the Christian bible.

The advent of Martin Luther's famous dissent in the German states brought further angst to the renaissance world. Astonishingly Machiavelli's books were placed on the Index of Prohibited Books in 1559; the inquisition nearly led to the erasure of his books, and the Council of Trent later affirmed their inclusion on the Index. In 1579 French Protestants wrote and widely circulated pamphlets against the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli; even bard William Shakespeare mentions Machiavelli in his works! Over time his writings have been variously viewed as” the “devil,” pragmatic, amoral, and satirical, among others

As a religious thinker, Machiavelli was in his day, necessarily involved with religion. Under monarchy or emperorship, the Roman tradition of dictating religion to the masses was common, widely enforced and widely followed. It was this for which Machiavelli was most hostile.

Civil Religion: One for All, All for One

In recollection of Prof. Robert Bellah, 1927-2013.

Civil Religion in America argues Robert Bellah in his book of the same title, is the faith of the land, not Christianity as some will argue. The civil religion he says exists both independently and along side the other religious organization in America, such as temples, churches and mosques.

Taking up this as his topic, Bellah says that while the founding fathers may have advocated for religion, they in their enlightened minds, argued for no religion in particular; up sprung what today we call the civil religion. Over time the amalgamated beliefs of many faith communities have coalesced into this one great mass that here in America, the religion of our intrinsically religious society is not any particular religion at all, but the civil religion that suits so many.
In defining civil religion, Bellah describes a situation that goes beyond folk ways but does not extend itself to established or 'mainline' faith groups. Often the leaders of civil religion inhabit political spheres and engage religion to advance message. These messages may or may not be in keeping with the founding ideals of the American nation; when they are not, often there tends to be political in-fighting, bickering among civic groups or political entities for a "share in the marketplace" of ideas, a phrase that Frenchman De Tocqueville who was an early advocate for enlightened, American ideals, surely would have detested.