Christianity & Democracy

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**G. K. Chesterton said:

“Men will more and more realize that there is no meaning in democracy if there is no meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in anything if the universe has not a center of significance and an authority that is the author of our rights.”

To what degree do you think democracy will survive if it is not united with Christian principles?******
 
I’ve just got to add some more GK quotes:
It is a sufficient proof that we are not an essentially democratic state that we are always wondering what we shall do with the poor.
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If we were democrats, we should be wondering what the poor will do with us.
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Democracy means getting those people to vote who would never have the cheek to govern: and (according to Christian ethics) the precise people who ought to govern are the people who have not the cheek to do it.
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The skeptic ultimately undermines democracy (1) because he can see no significance in death and such things of a literal equality; (2) because he introduces different first principles, making debate impossible: and debate is the life of democracy; (3) because the fading of the images of sacred persons leaves a man too prone to be a respecter of earthly persons; (4) because there will be more, not less, respect for human rights if they can be treated as divine rights.
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He who believes in the existence of God believes in the equality of man.
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The old morality, the Christian religion, the Catholic Church, differed from all this new mentality because it really believed in the rights of men.
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That is, it believed that ordinary men were clothed with powers and privileges and a kind of authority.
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Here’s another great one from Chesterton on democracy:

**“Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils. The ancient Greeks voted by stones; these shall vote by tombstones. It is all quite regular and official, for most tombstones, like most ballot papers, are marked with a cross.” **
 
Charlemagne_II said:
**G. K. Chesterton said:

“Men will more and more realize that there is no meaning in democracy if there is no meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in anything if the universe has not a center of significance and an authority that is the author of our rights.”

To what degree do you think democracy will survive if it is not united with Christian principles?******
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The modern governments have been very clever at packaging republicanism as democracy, and through their monopoly on education, force-feeding the notion over six or seven generations.

But even their republicanism is beginning to fray at the edges. Did anyone note the beautiful irony of the French and the Germans pressuring the Greek government not to hold a referendum on the debt work-out?

Or how about that bastion of people’s rights, Sweden, which has taken a seven year old boy away from his parents just because they want to educate him at home. The judge only lets the child see his parents once every five weeks. This, from the nation that gave the world Volvos, and “I am curious Yellow.”

In our own dulcis terra libertatis, the congress may - not will, but may begin to consider the possibility, however remote - of restricting the multi million dollar bonuses of government money paid to the directors and officers of those shrines to failure and profligacy, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is this: before we give up on democracy, ought not we at least try it?
 
Pure democracy never survived for long in ancient Athens.
Perhaps for lack of the right religion, if for nothing else?
 
From Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America:

“Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?”
 
****Ah, but while it did… ****

While it did, it voted to kill Socrates.

And would have killed Aristotle if he hadn’t gotten out of town.😉
 
While it did, it voted to kill Socrates
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.

Athenian “democracy” was more like a mob-ocracy. The five hundred or so voting jurors in Socrates’s trial was virtually anybody who showed up that day. They might have been conpletely uneducated and may not have even known who Socrates was. This kind of ‘democracy’ was sure to fall apart.

As late as 1600, Shakespeare thought democracy was impossible. He supported the monarchy.
The 1789 French Revolution would seem to confirm it.

Today, we have the media watching everything every politician does, and everybody else watching it on television. So democracy works at last.

“By patience is a ruler persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone.” Proverbs, ch 25
 
Charlemagne_II said:
**G. K. Chesterton said:

“Men will more and more realize that there is no meaning in democracy if there is no meaning in anything; and that there is no meaning in anything if the universe has not a center of significance and an authority that is the author of our rights.”

To what degree do you think democracy will survive if it is not united with Christian principles?**
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I’m a Christian and like democracy as much as the next man but his argument sounds a bit, well, how to say this politely, crazy - can’t folk find their own meaning, or would that be just too darned democratic?
 
inocente

**I’m a Christian and like democracy as much as the next man but his argument sounds a bit, well, how to say this politely, crazy - can’t folk find their own meaning, or would that be just too darned democratic? **

Spoken like a true Protestant! 😃

"there is no meaning in anything if the universe has not a center of significance and an authority that is the author of our rights."

All Chesterton is saying is what the Founders said:

We hold these truths to be self-evident … that we are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights

Once the Creator is cut out of the picture … all hell will break loose, democracy or no democracy.

Why does that sound “crazy” to you?
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Spoken like a true Protestant! 😃
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Thank you kindly. :curtsey:
Why does that sound “crazy” to you?
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Chesterton says democracy has no meaning outside of “an authority that is the author of our rights”.

That’s logically equivalent to saying that those who disagree about the authority haven’t found the true meaning of democracy, i.e. whatever meaning they think they found is false.

That’s logically equivalent to saying Chesterton’s vote should count more than their vote, since he knows the true meaning and they don’t have a clue.

Which is equivalent to saying he doesn’t actually value one person one vote!

Do you think he was making a philosophical joke to see who was listening, or just didn’t notice the contradiction?
 
inocente

**Do you think he was making a philosophical joke to see who was listening, or just didn’t notice the contradiction? **

Believe me, when Chesterton makes a joke, you know it! 😃 👍

I think he was simply pointing out what has come to pass in this country. As secularism grows stronger and Christianity weaker, anything goes. That’s a recipe for moral madness. It won’t bother Protestants that much, since they already do not believe in any moral authority other than their own.

As Socrates warned, when a democracy goes bad, it goes really bad and prepares the groundwork for dictatorship. This happened in France before Napoleon and in Germany before Hitler.

In both instances the so-called “Republics” produced a largely anti-Christian mentality. When morality fails, you get a police state. :eek:
 
Charlemagne_II said:
It won’t bother Protestants that much, since they already do not believe in any moral authority other than their own.
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😃

You set me off looking for some stats. Starting with the Wikipedia article on religion in the US which reports that people say money is twice as important as religion and family five times as important, I look at the reference, apparently a Russian blog :), which adds the somewhat important detail that the poll was taken straight after the 2008 financial crisis. The polling organization is called The Barna Research Group – are they respected? Their more recent general poll is here, but what interested me more is Six Reasons Young Christians Leave Church [all denominations], because we can kind of guess the answers:

*#1 – Churches seem overprotective – “much of their experience of Christianity feels stifling, fear-based and risk-averse”.

#2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow - “church is boring”.

#3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science - (23%) said they have “been turned off by the creation-versus-evolution debate.

#4 – Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental – “Christians are struggling with how to live meaningful lives in terms of sex and sexuality”.

#5 – They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity - they are “forced to choose between my faith and my friends”.

#6 – The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt - not being able “to ask my most pressing life questions in church”.*

All this is apropos of nothing, except maybe Chesterton was on the wrong wavelength.
 
inocente said:
:DYou set me off looking for some stats. All this is apropos of nothing, except maybe Chesterton was on the wrong wavelength.
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I read the poll and laughed. I doubt the results would have been any different in 1708, 1008, or 508!

The gist of what Chesterton was saying is that democracy requires a shared set of values that goes beyond assent to a process, say, of filling out a ballot.

The Greeks had the shared value of the phalanx and their concept of the polis. Westerners (PRotestant and Catholic, I would add) have historically shared the faith.

WIth the waning of the faith, what remains?
 
Warrenton
**
WIth the waning of the faith, what remains? **

Suggested by Chesterton, emptied churches and overflowing prisons?
 
To be sure, my friend.

However, more to the point of your question, when the citizens no longer share a common understanding, the exercise of democracy becomes important.

If you believe your oath is binding, but I believe myself justified in deceiving you, we no longer share an undertanding. If we are in court, you are not going to get a fair result, because I am willing to cheat.

If you believe that the laws must support the family, and have an understanding of what a family is that is based on the Church, but I deny that a family is composed of parents and children, our very ability to discuss family is comprimised.

That is what is happening now. And democracy is breaking down as a result.
 
Democracy won’t survive unless the majority accept and abide by the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity which are based on the teaching of Jesus.
 
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