Paul Lusk
Writing on democracy, politics and Christianity
Rene Magritte: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (words of George Santayana, The Life of Reason) - Smithsonian American Art Museum
My next book is:
Democracy after Christendom
"The form of government established…is Democratical, that is to say, a government held by the free and voluntary consent of all, or the greater part of the free inhabitants"
Code of laws of Providence Plantations, New England, 1647
"From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg address, 1863
“In many countries around the world, from the United States to Great Britain, and from Sweden to Australia, democracy no longer appears to be the only game in town. A growing share of citizens either has negative views about democracy or doesn’t think it’s especially important. A smaller yet more rapidly growing share of citizens is open to straightforwardly authoritarian alternatives like a strongman ruler or a military dictatorship.”
Yascha Mounk, The people vs Democracy (2018)
“The United States is coming to an end. The question is how… The United States was synonymous with the glory of democracy. No longer. Solidarity has dissolved.”
Stephen Marche, The next civil war (2022)
Why "Democracy after Christendom"?
The first modern democracy, established in Rhode Island in 1647, was based on a new principle: "the sovereign, original and foundation of civil power lies in the people." Its founder, Roger Williams, was (according to a leading nineteenth century US historian) "the first person in modern Christendom to establish civil government on liberty of conscience, the equality of opinion before the law."
The rule of God was no longer the basis for state legitimacy. Popular consent took its place. It was something worked out within Christendom – but it was also after Christendom. No longer would a Christian people expect the state to rule their religious life with God’s authority. This authority transferred to the people.
Democracy is an "after Christendom" idea. But will it survive, now that democracy has dismissed its own Christian past? And how?
To be published by Wipf and Stock in 2024.
