Recently there was a pejorative (and undoubtedly playful) reference in one of our blogs to egalitarianism and democracy in local congregations. This motivated me to go back and restudy some of my material on Christianity and democracy.
I believe, along with Weber and Hegel, in the importance of ideas – ideas of cultural consequences. Weber showed in 1906 how ascetic Protestantism, particularly Calvinism, helped facilitate the rise of capitalism (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 1958). British sociologist David Martin (Tongues of Fire, 1990) carries Weber’s analysis further in his study of industrializing England and the Weslyan Methodists. Some scholars are analyzing how the current Pentecostal explosion will alter the political and economic cultures of Latin America over time. Someone should be studying the same phenomenon in China.
The idea is that political culture of a nation is formed from pervasive religious beliefs over historical time. This political culture greatly influences the political structure of the nation and the corresponding values help determine the choices of the actors within this structure.
One of the reasons why the United States has had a successful democracy and a “democratic” political culture was the inability of any one state “Church” to establish its political “theocratic” preeminence in 1776. Roman Catholics in Maryland, Anglicans in Virginia, Puritans and Congregationalists in New England and Baptists in Rhode Island were forced to concede to separation of church and state because none of them had sufficient power to establish their own religious monopoly in the newly formed United States (not that they didn’t desire it). This religious “pluralism” forced the churches into a position of mutual respect, tolerance for opposition and the willingness to dialogue through the political process – all prerequisites for democracy. One might say, they were forced to take seriously Jesus’ instruction to “love their enemies.
In our church circles, it has always been fashionable to say “the kingdom of God is not a democracy.” Because we recognize Jesus is Lord, we have tended to also emphasize sovereign authority and to some extend dismiss democracy as a crass form of government of the people.
The more I study political cultures and belief systems, democratic and authoritarian, the more disturbing I find our easy dismissal of democratic values. The tendency among conservative Christians toward fundamentalist authoritarianism is a sign of our times, a reaction to the breakdown of modernity. Karen Armstrong, in The Battle for God, traces the rise of Jewish, Christian and Islamic fundamentalism and shows that all three stem from the same dynamics – the desire for control and certainty in the face of accelerating cultural and technological change.
I hope we will stop casually dismissing democracy and take a serious look at the congruency between the teachings of Jesus (especially the Sermon on the Mount) and democratic values of respect for the other, tolerance of opposition, willingness to limit and share power and the protection of human rights.
I have posted for discussion a document issued in 1981 by the Institute on Religion and Democracy on our Covenant Thinklings google discussion group, called Christianity and Democracy.
http://groups.google.com/group/covthinklings/
(go to the "FILE" link and select First Things Christianity and Democracy.doc)
It can also be accessed on-line at:
http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9610/articles/documentation.html.
Our ideas have long term consequences. Do we really want to dismiss democratic values in the name of authoritarian theocracy? Do we really want to give some religious hierarchy the power to determine the Will of God for State and Society? Lets think this over. That is exactly what we are opposing in the Middle East and particularly in Iran.
j
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Winston Churchill said something like, "Democracy is absolutely the worst form of government...until you look at all the others." This may be a side point, but we should remember that the history of the monarchy in Israel is an ambiguous one. (While "monarchy does not = theocracy", I think monarchy does stand in as a closer expresion of theocracy than democracy would. I also do not mean to say that pro-theocrats = pro-monarchists). Parts of 1 Samuel portray the people's request for a king as an outright rejection of God; other sections take a more hopeful, positive view, but in all events the actual track record of the monarchy was pretty dismal. We should remember, too, that the political arrangement just prior to the monarchy was "the judges," also not a very happy time in the history of Israel.
ReplyDeleteThe primary problem of the theocratic instinct is that ultimately someone has to enforce it, politically speaking, and I can't find any good examples in history of this working successfully. A pro-theocrat would have to supply us with a schema for how this might actually work. Any takers?
yes, I agree with you Brian, and your question is a good one.
ReplyDeletePart of my reason for bringing it up, is that I have noticed that there are frequently negative expressions about democracy among us. We tend to use a lot of authority language that needs to be carefully defined for secular people who may easily misunderstand us and think that we are intolerant authoritarians, when in fact, most of us are not, we are just expressing our theological conviction that Jesus is Lord of all.
We have used authoritarian terminology and language without much reflection on how it sounds to the secular ear…one of my concerns is missiological; if we do not find some common ground with secular people on issues like human rights, democracy and religious tolerance…we immediately lose their confidence and attention, which is a tragic loss for the gospel.
The paper that I referenced from the Institute for Religion and Democracy clearly reflects the limitations of democracy, along the lines of Churchill’s quote. It was written at the height of the Cold War, and their basic point is that democracy has lots of problems…but totalitarianism is not a viable alternative.
Most of those who speak disparagingly of democracy and advocate theocracy do so from theological grounds…or perhaps philosophical. However, from an historical point of view, theocracy has always been disastrous and resulted in terrible oppression. It is a bit ironic to me that we find ourselves at war with ‘theocracy’ in the Middle East in ostensible defense of our democratic freedoms, but there are those who would denigrate democracy here in favor theocratic values.
A separate but related issue is democracy (or perhaps better said: democratic attitudes) in the church. I’ll leave that for future posts. Thanks Brian for popping in here to comment!
Empires approximating theocratic government eventually have the problem of things like the Inquistion...a means of sorting out the heretics who are subverting the state...and then burning them or something. When Jesus indicated to render to God the things of God and to Ceasar the things of Ceasar, is He alluding to realms that must necessarily stay distinct? There will not be a unified peace on earth until the prince of peace comes...the only one who can hold it all together. In a democratic society, there is at least opportunity for influence...with the possibility that you could have a prevailing consensus of biblical Christianity...in that sense, the Kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. Postmillenial reconstructionist like Gary North would say that this is too gradualistic. He would likely argue for something akin to Sharia Law based upon biblical mandates. I am basing that on a conversation I had with him years ago.
ReplyDeleteThat raises fine points. Faith translated into the public square through legislation because of a prevailing Christian worldview in a given community is in fact legislating morality. How close does that come to theocracy?
Robert, good point in your last paragraph. But, in that case is it legislating morality or simply reflecting and establishing the prevailing moral views of the majority?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, the politically correct amorality reflected by our US gov't. today is also instituting a form of morality.
But the beauty of a representative democracy/republic is that we have a voice, protected by the constitution, to both critique, protest and agitate for change in the current governmental consensus through our votes and our involvement in the process -- not to mention our missional outreach as Jesus' disciples to reflect His light and His love into into individuals and and corporate subculture.