Ming Chong: Montesquieu’s Liberal Reform of Religion

Montesquieu’s approach to religion is a liberal effort to found a society which both emancipates itself from religious heteronomy and involves a support from religion which needs to be carefully reformed in order to be separated from political power and to be tolerant. It combines a radical critique of religious domination and a moderate conservation of moral and spiritual values of religion for a liberal and commercial society.

Ming Chong is associate professor (tenured) in the History Department at the University of Pékin and a 2019-2020 fellow at the Collegium de Lyon.