Democracy After Christendom

Where did it start, really ?

We owe the Greeks the word: demos-cratos, the people rule. In ancient Athens, all the free men of the Athenian-descended racial elite shared the task of making laws and governing, with office holders chosen by lottery – so-called “lottocracy”. Later, “Democracy” meant “majority rule” where the “greater part of the people have authority to command …the minority of the people as a body” (Bodin)

Neither of these corresponds to the modern idea of “democracy”. When they say democracy, people mean “rights that give people choices in governing their personal lives, and a voice and vote to shape public life.” Individuals govern their own lives. Together, citizens shape the state that makes certain decisions to be binding on all. Underpinning this is a set of “rights.” The crucial ones link the two levels – the private and the public. These two are the rights to communicate  and to associate. This is "liberal democracy".

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Where did  it come from? Many see it as an “evolved gift”. The Enlightenment freed people to think for themselves. Capitalism freed people from their assigned status in the traditional economy. Industrialisation transformed the mass of the population into the working class. The working class demanded freedom and a say in government. Democracy results. This version is not useless. But it leaves us short of tools to rescue democracy when the next stage of “evolution” comes along - and seems to be to abolish democracy itself.

Almost all books on democracy overlook the moment of its modern invention.  I pinpoint this to May, 1647, when the newly-recognized American “plantation” of Providence (Rhode Island) deliberated on its form of government. It declared itself a “democracy”. This did not mean lottery rule or majoritarianism. The Providence settlers offered a new definition of democracy, based on legitimacy by consent, diversity of conscience, and “quiet enjoyment” of “lawfull right and Libertie”. Here, in rudimentary form, was the first liberal  democracy.

This breakthrough arose from the flow of people and ideas between England and America. The great political question of the day was the nature of the true church and its relationship with the state. England’s American settlements fostered experiment in government. The English civil war became a war for religious freedom. This opened the path for the revolutionary Parliament to let Providence test the most radical liberty: a system where the state stayed out of religion, and individuals were free to act on their own ideas of religious truth.

Mere Civility

The key thinker, in Providence and London, was Roger Williams. Among modern scholars, only Oxford Professor Teresa Bejan sees his importance. She places him alongside Hobbes and Locke among leading thinkers in seventeenth century political philosophy. She calls her book "Mere Civility." Democracy does not need consensus: we must defend the right to disagree. But it does need consent.

Forgotten

Today, almost no one has heard of Roger Williams. This ignorance is recent. In the 1850s, a great history of the United States identified Williams as “the first person … to establish civil government on liberty of conscience, the equality of opinion before the law”. In 1927 a prize-winning history found Williams to be a political philosopher “sent to earth before his time."

Opinion changed from the 1950s, when historians realized that Williams was a passionate, evangelical Puritan. Such a person could not (they thought) have devised liberal democracy, which came from the Enlightenment.  Meanwhile the US Supreme Court claimed Williams' authority in deciding to suppress school prayer. This helped feed the "culture war" claim that the state was persecuting Christians. Both the secular "left" and the religious "right" forget the true roots of liberal democracy

Democracy after Christendom

The first modern democracy was developed by Christians. They needed a new kind of state to replace Christendom. Under Christendom, all citizens had to be Christian, and this meant that the state had to define the form of Christianity that qualified for political rights. This link between politics and faith had to be broken if Christians were to be free. “Democracy” was the way to do it: a system based on equal rights for all, regardless of faith. This was the beginning of modern democracy. It was Democracy After Christendom.

"Held by consent"

Democracy is a system (as the Providence settlers said)  "held by consent."  This is what political theory calls a "legitimizing theory" of the state. Culture war mobilizes a "Christian" bloc behind alternatives. The main ones are nationalism and theonomy. Nationalism insists that a Christian culture requires a Christian state: it denies the American understanding of a "Christian nation without a Christian state." Theonomy proposes that civil legislation should be based on biblical law.

Legitimacy by consent needs each of us to consider the terms on which other people - those with whom we disagree - will reasonably consent to the terms and conditions of civil order. Christians should be good at this!

Democracy's crisis

The mature democracies of the USA and the UK are in crisis. Switzerland and Australia offer valuable lessons, arising within their cultural context and tradition. My book examines the reasons for the US/UK crisis and the range of solutions proposed. Some of these reflect unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved. Both the US and the UK suffer from successful strategies to limit the choices open to voters. Solutions are available but will be developed within "civil society" rather than the factions that gain power from the current structures.

Religious freedom

Religious freedom is the basis of democracy. A religiously-aligned state is the enemy of religious freedom, since in such a state, politics, not faith, will define the "god" to be worshipped. A chapter of my book examines how this is working out in practice now, and how politics - whether "secular" or "Christian" - is denying freedom.

Contents

In a prologue, I explain my childhood story and why democracy’s survival came to matter to me, personally. The Introduction outlines my main arguments. How does “after Christendom” offer a new and useful perspective on the question of democracy today? The first two chapters explain the rise and fall of Christendom and the invention of Democracy to replace it. The next three consider the deep roots of the USA’s “culture war” – not to take a side but to understand what is going on and what this means for democracy. Democracy is a political  idea - what does this mean? Chapter six aims for clarity about what we mean by “politics” and the “state”, and what Christians can usefully think about these. Chapters seven examines the many definitions of “democracy” and how “wrong ideas” are making “democracy go wrong”. Chapter eight considers democracy’s crisis in the USA and the UK and what the solutions might be. Chapter nine examines religious freedom through the lens of current debates on sexuality and marriage.  The book concludes with brief Final Reflections. There is a bibliography, subject index and scripture index.