Demos and Christos

Most of us consider ourselves both Christians and—regardless of our opinion of Pentagon bureaucracy—democrats. But seldom do we try to relate the one to the other. What connection, if any, exists between Christianity and democracy? And what does the Christian message have to say about our responsibility in a democratic society?

In Huysman’s fin-de-siècle novel Là Bas, which portrays the disillusion and degradation of materialist European society on the eve of the twentieth century, one of the characters says, “Conversations which do not treat of religion or art are so base and vain”; yet not long after, the opinion is expressed concerning the probable victory of a democratic political candidate: “This certainly is the age of universal imbecility.” Obviously no connection is seen here between religion—much less Christianity—and democracy.

The great contemporary political philosopher Sidney Hook takes much the same attitude. In his 1959 work Political Power and Personal Freedom he asks: “Does democracy as a way of life rest upon belief in supernatural religious truths in the sense that, if the latter are denied, the former must necessarily be denied?” And true to his pragmatic philosophy, he answers in the negative: “I shall argue that they constitute neither necessary nor sufficient conditions.”

Upon what grounds is a denial of relation between Christianity and democracy usually based? Two arguments are common: First, democracy preceded Christianity (Greece is the cradle of the democratic state) and was restored to Western civilization through the consciously antiChristian doctrine of the rights of man at the time of the French Revolution; second, that Christianity, as represented by the Church, has historically allied itself most frequently with hierarchical, non-democratic political philosophies.

But neither of these arguments is of much significance. It is true that Athens had a democratic government—in theory. Pericles is supposed to have orated: “Our government is called a democracy, because its administration is in the hands, not of the few, but of the many”; but he failed to add that political rights were in fact denied to at least 90 per cent of the population, since neither slaves, resident aliens, nor women were given a voice in the public administration. Moreover, the greatest Athenian philosopher, Plato, took a dim view of democracy—even in his later works, after he had been disillusioned by his failure to turn the lazy boy-ruler of Syracuse into an ideal philosopher-king.

As for the eighteenth-century declarations of the rights of man, stemming from the deistic philosophies of such persons as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paine, it has been well shown that revolutionary movement was inflamed by demands for rights rather than recognition of duties, and therefore provided a very questionable basis for democracy. Indeed, the near-anarchy of the French revolutionary governments led almost inevitably to the autocratic Napoleonic era. Recent historical scholarship, as a matter of fact, is much more inclined to see the roots of modern representative democracy in the estates-generals, parliaments, and cortes of medieval Christian Europe than in the work of the anti-clericals of the Age of Reason.

To determine the true attitude of Christianity to democracy, it is necessary to look not at the history of the Church (which is, by definition, composed of sinful men who have often erred) but at the Holy Scriptures, which provide the only proper norm of the Church’s teaching. On the one hand, we find that Scripture presents no single governmental form as obligatory (the theocracy of Israel, as the Puritans failed to notice, was ideal only for Israel as the vehicle of God’s revelation preparatory to the advent of the Christ). Barth was quite right to tell the East German pastors that they could “serve God in a Communist land”—and in fact had a divine responsibility to do so (Romans 13).

But just as the Scripture, without explicitly condemning slavery, condemned it by the Gospel which sets men free, so the New Testament message provides irresistible impetus toward more democratic government, i.e., toward government in the hands of the people. Jesus said: “Let no man among you be called master; for ye are all brethren”; the one man he called a fox was a king. Bishop Berggrav quite rightly asserted that “the cornerstone of democracy” was laid when Christ proclaimed that a man’s soul is worth more than the whole world.

In the central Christian doctrines of sin and grace, the relation of Christianity to democracy becomes crystal clear. Scripture asserts that “there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:22, 23); and because of this universal human predicament, the Gospel is declared that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor. 5:19). If all are sinners, then the best form of government is the one that prevents any one sinner from gaining absolute control over the rest; and if all are potential recipients of God’s saving grace, then the best government is the one that permits each person to contribute the most to the well-being of his fellows. Since a man is never perfect, he must always be checked by his fellows, or tyranny will loom on the horizon; and since no man can ever be more “saved” than another (for salvation is God’s work for all men, not man’s work for God), no one has the right to lord it over his neighbor in the political realm. In spite of its limitations, democracy has been found experientially to provide the greatest fulfillment of these ideals; it is unquestionably the best government for “sinners saved by grace.” Thus it is not strange that democracy has flowered not in the East but in the West, where the Christian faith has served as the religious cement for civilization.

And what is the responsibility of the Christian in a democratic society? As Reinhold Niebuhr puts it:

The preservation of a democratic civilization requires the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove. The children of light must be armed with the wisdom of the children of darkness but remain free from their malice. They must have this wisdom in order that they may beguile, deflect, harness and restrain self-interest, individual and collective, for the sake of the community.

This means that participation in the democratic processes is obligatory, not optional, for Christians. Unlike the sectarians, we must not run from government as an evil, but must realize that we have a holy responsibility to prevent evil and promote the good. This means a political vocation if we are called to it—and Luther wrote: “There is need in this office of abler people than are needed in the office of preaching, for in the preaching office Christ does the whole thing by His Spirit, but in the government of the world one must use reason” (WA XXX, Pt. 2, 562)! It means also an intelligent concern for and awareness of political issues and problems—a vital, active citizenship. The popular judgment that “religion and politics should not be discussed in polite conversation” is as wrong in the one case as in the other; and Christ’s warning that “because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” should be pondered both theologically and politically—both by the Christian Church and by the Western democracies.

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