PUBLIC THEOLOGY AND DEMOCRACYS FUTURE
The 9th Annual Templeton Lecture On Religion and World
Affairs
by Max L. Stackhouse
The defeat of fascism, the victory of anti-colonial
movements, and the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late
20th century made it appear possible that democracy would
spread worldwide, accompanied by a fuller realization of
human rights, a global economy that benefits more of the
worlds people, and a reduction of military threats to the
worlds security. That "end of history" view may yet prove
to be the most probable global direction -- some 120 nations
adopted democratically oriented constitutions for the first
time in the last half century. But there are many reasons
to be concerned about the character of a democratic future.
Some of the newly independent nations have become one-party
states hovering on failure. Some Islamists have repudiated
democracy altogether and advocate a return to Caliphate
governance under sharia. Russia sometimes seems bound to
resume a czarist model of centralized political control; and
China is adamant in resisting democratic movements.
Moreover, some oppose the idea of human rights, one of the
pillars of democracy, claiming that its implicit assumption
-- that humanity consists of autonomous individuals -- is a
modern secularist invention. Still others protest the
currently emerging global economy, viewing it as a threat to
sovereignty and a design of the rich to exploit the poor.
And many fear endless attacks by shadowy, stateless
terrorist networks or by ethnic factions, both of which
challenge democratic prospects by inducing such a
preoccupation with security that democratic freedoms are
eroded.
In this situation, the worlds most dynamic democracy and
only superpower is expected to be not only the worlds
policeman, but also its godfather, bringing peace,
prosperity, and democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq and
solving every other problem that appears on the horizon,
from Haiti to global warming to the AIDS crisis in
subsaharan Africa. This charge could tempt the nation into
a new imperialism. Even as the United States is criticized
for not engaging the problems of the world, it is condemned
for intervening everywhere and seducing the worlds youth
away from their own cultures.
The deeper difficulty is that Americans do not have a clear
moral or spiritual view of what we are about, of why we
believe what we believe and do what we do. How can, should,
or may we use our power, and why? And what is the source of
that power?
Suppose that the U.S. succeeds in planting democracy
throughout the world. One might see this as either cultural
imperialism or a justifiable conversion of an unholy tyranny
to a just system that corresponds to the deepest levels of
human nature and the highest discernible sense of divine
intent. That sense might of course simply be the reigning
consensus among the currently powerful nations. Does that
consensus have, or need, a deeper grounding, an ultimate
source and norm of truth and justice that can guide how
humanity ought to live?
Historically, advocates of democracy believed that it did.
The late medieval "conciliarists" who displaced popes and
overrode emperors thought so, as did the Reformers and the
Puritans. We know that the deists and theists who advocated
the Bill of Rights thought so. And the U.S. didnt hesitate
to establish democratic regimes in Cuba and the Philippines
at the end of the Spanish-American War, in Germany and Japan
at the end of World War II, and in South Korea after the
conflict there.
Is there in fact a basis for democracy that is deeper than
the fact that it has apparently mostly worked better than
other forms, at least in the West? How can we make the case
for it today, especially with globalized media, technology,
economy, culture, and religions that are beyond the control
of any one government?
Critics regularly charge that America is an imperialist
nation bent on ruling the world, ready to override other
societies with its massive multinational corporations. No
doubt some Americans have such interests, but most see their
nation as rooted in "that order which we call freedom," with
a mission to help others form open societies, adopt
democratic values, and establish human rights in a
flourishing economy. We have sometimes failed in this
mission, but most agree on the mission.
However, religious leaders, theologians, political leaders,
and commentators have failed to enunciate the basis for our
mission, or identify ways to reform it when it goes wrong.
Can we justly clarify what it is that makes us ready to send
our young men and women to kill and die for democracy?
No civilization has yet endured that did not have a
religious vision at its core. History is littered with the
rubble of empires that fell as much by spiritual emptiness
as by economic and military weakness or external pressure.
But the enduring civilizations have had religious cores that
touch the hearts and minds of the people, becoming the moral
architecture to guide the leaders and evoke sacrificial
commitments. These enable the societies continual renewal.
It is not that everyone agrees with the religious vision, or
has to, but that there is a framework within which debate
takes place.
One cannot imagine trying to understand the politics of
China or India without reference to Confucianism or
Hinduism, or the systems of government in Southeast Asia or
the Middle East without understanding Buddhism or Islam, or
what is going on in the EU without reference to the legacy
of traditional Christendom (even if the EUs current
advocates resist any reference to religion in its new
constitution). Nor can we understand the U.S. without an
awareness of Protestantisms historic influence -- or of the
failure of its mainline traditions to define the urgent
social issues -- and of the rise of Evangelicalism and
Pentecostalism, on the one hand, and post-Vatican II
Catholicism, on the other, as they seek to offer other
perspectives on the ultimate issues. It is not the duty of
religious organizations to make public policy, as some try
to do; but it is their responsibility to seek to influence
peoples consciences so that their political decisions will
be informed by moral and spiritual convictions.
Harvard professor Samuel Huntington has pointed out that
many have tried to interpret the world as if religion were
not central to societies and politics. But he argues that
life cannot be understood exclusive of religious ideas, as
they are incarnate in the dominant values of the culture.
Indeed, Huntington speaks of the irrelevance of purely
secular thought to contemporary politics, holding that
politics is and must be religious:
During the twentieth century, a secular century, Lenin,
Ataturk, Nehru, Ben Gurion, and the Shah (for instance) all
defined the identity of their countries in the secular
centurys terms. That has changed, the Shah is gone, the
Soviet Union is gone, and in its place is a Russia that in
public statements identifies itself quite explicitly with
Russian Orthodoxy. In Turkey, India, and Israel, major
political movements are challenging the secular definition
of identity. Politicians in many societies have found that
religion either is crucial to maintaining their legitimacy
as rulers or must be suppressed because it presents a
challenge to that legitimacy.[1]
Societies do tend to have common features in the sense that
we can study them comparatively and see how they similarly
adapt to similar conditions and interests. Yet, societies
develop differently because they are bent in different
directions by distinctive religions; regulating convictions
have become woven into cultural values.
Some of the regulating convictions that shape democracy
become clear when we speak of human rights, which are
affirmed by the vision behind democracy, notwithstanding our
horrible record with regard to slavery and womens rights,
and the betrayal of our own principles in wartime, from the
early struggles with Native Americans to Abu Ghraib in 2004.
Still, the conviction that humans have rights has prevailed
again and again. Indeed, even in dark moments, prophetic
voices have drawn on Biblical roots to demand the
recognition that each person is made in the image of God and
thus has inalienable rights -- even the criminal, the enemy,
the heretic, the prisoner, and the terrorist.
As Michael Perry, one of the nations leading authorities on
law and morality, has put it, "some things should never be
done to anyone; and some things should be done for
everyone."[2] That is why the authors of Americas
Declaration of Independence and the UNs Declaration of
Human Rights could appeal to Biblical principles to advocate
rights. They are "self-evident truths" that shape
consciences, civilizations, and history. When one appeals
to human rights in the face of tyranny, torture, servitude,
arbitrary arrest, extortion, discrimination, or religious
persecution, one has played a valid moral trump, and the
people have the basis to demand a law code and to form
judicial process as a recourse and remedy. The awareness of
such principles gives hope for democratic vitality under
just law.
A second feature of society that gives hope for democracy
has to do with economic life. Capitalism is the most
efficient and productive economic system yet to be devised,
and it is sweeping the world. It improves the well-being of
most people, including the poor. Not only parts of South
America and the "little tigers" of East Asia, but also the
two most populous nations of the world, India and China,
have turned to versions of capitalism, making it likely that
the World Bank and UN millennium goal of halving world
poverty within ten years can be met. However, these same
trends will also increase inequality. A great many are
raised a little, and a substantial number are raised a good
bit, but only a few are raised a great deal, widening the
gap between the wealthy and the still struggling. A free
society does not demand enforced equality of economic
status, but it must work to equalize opportunity.
The formation of new middle classes and the rising
aspirations of those who have grasped the lower rungs of the
ladder increase the prospects for democracy. People with
some financial means and even relative security are better
able to educate their children, adopt new technologies,
develop more stable lifestyles, and migrate out of
dependency. They gain some command over their destinies,
demand their freedom from restrictive constraints, and
become more concerned about developing excellence in various
areas of their lives -- professional, educational,
environmental, and institutional. They deal with others
with greater integrity and seek to provide goods or services
that make them contributing members of society.
But the formation of new middle classes does not guarantee
democracys development. Only some parts of the middle
classes begin to extend economic opportunities, form
communities of commitment, and exercise citizen
participation. The prospect that the new middle classes
will seek to extend democratic possibilities depends on
their "calling." It is one thing to have a job and a
career, it is quite another to see what one does in all the
daily rounds of life as being under the scrutiny of a God
who cares how we live and has purposes for our lives. Max
Weber probably had it about right when he argued that this
doctrine of vocation in the world played a distinctive role
in bringing about the asceticism that generated the modern
middle classes and its quest for excellence and
professionalism.
Todays massive conversions to Pentecostalism in Latin
America and Africa, and to Evangelicalism in Asia replicate
the earlier Reformation dynamics, though usually without the
same doctrinal apparatus. This is also the case with the
growth of parallel movements in America, in the "mega-
churches" that puzzle the mainline churches that are
declining in membership. Those given the opportunity to
move toward the middle classes are questing for a new
ordering of their lives, and these movements are drawing
people into bonds of discipline and are often less tolerant
of libertine lifestyles, that are having a notable political
impact.
There are two key doctrinal points here that support
democratic prospects: first, that humans are made in the
image of God, and second, that God calls each person to live
a godly life that is manifest in the development of
excellence in all areas of worldly life. These doctrinal
points are incarnate in the now public dynamics that are
globalizing our world, one working through the attempt to
articulate principles of justice, the other appearing in the
forms of increased productivity and disciplined lifestyles.
One aids democratic prospects from above, one from below.
Both form a new middle.
I believe democracy does have a theological base, but a less
direct one. It usually depends on a basically mechanical
and statistical procedure whereby each person votes to
determine leadership or policy. That procedure involves
only two agents -- individual votes, cumulatively tabulated,
and the state, the organized body that manages the election
and accepts its results. The Terrors of the French
Revolution and of the Red Guards Cultural Revolution remind
us of the perils of the mobocracy into which mere populism
can degenerate, while the fact that both Hitler and Stalin
both claimed to be elected reminds us of what statism can
become.
If a democracy is to have an inner moral fiber, it must have
several other things besides voters and the state, an
independent legal system that recognizes the voters human
rights and civil liberties, and a free economic system. It
must also have:
* schools that teach critical thinking;
* media that provides information and inspiration from a
range of perspectives;
* stable families that nurture responsible persons and
inculcate moral habits and spiritual insight;
* political parties that voice the needs and hopes of
the people and form the "loyal opposition" when they are
not in power;
* voluntary associations that take up causes or perform
services that need attention but are not the obvious
duty of the government; and
* above all, independent religious communities able to
treat both the political and social aspects of life from
a transcendent point of view.
In short, a viable democracy depends on a division of powers
not only within the government, but among the institutions
outside state control in a viable civil society. This
demands a separation of church and state, with the religious
organizations providing an organized moral and spiritual
center of loyalty that does not allow interests to be the
only basis of politics.
Civil society is strongest where multiple religious
institutions are well developed. Democracy as a political
design was first mentioned in ancient Greece, but it did not
flourish there: it fell every time it was tried to tyranny,
mobocracy, plutocracy, or imperialism, for the character of
ancient Greece religion could not sustain a moral core.
Democracy only flourished after the church became a center
of loyalty and began to form schools, hospitals, guilds,
parties, and associations for fellowship and service, in
what was a long and slow, but providential, process.
Other forms of democracy, most notably deriving from the
French Revolution and influencing in various ways the German
Enlightenment, the Russian Revolution, and the secular
democrats of the Americas, renounced the idea that religion
was a necessary part of democracy. Secular democrats
attempted to establish a state-guided democracy based on
what Rousseau called the "general will." Religion would be
removed from public discourse, even prohibited from public
display (as we have seen in the recent banning of the
wearing of headscarves by Muslims and nuns, in schools and
government offices).
This development was partly understandable, for there are
forms of religious dogma that do not defend human rights and
that inhibit economic development. And there are movements
claiming roots in the Christian church that are anti-
intellectual and sectarian. These groups hate pluralism and
engender enclaves of self-righteous piety that worship a God
who only condemns the world.
But their critique of bad religion banishes too much. The
French Revolution yielded Napoleon, Germanys enlightened
philosophers easily succumbed to fascism, the Soviet
"peoples democracy" fell to Bolshevism, and the secular
populists of the Americas became prey of liberationist
ideologies. As they say now in Latin America, the church
opted for the oppressed, and the poor opted for
Evangelicalism. Not only must religion be taken seriously,
but also the kind of theology that is willing and able to
touch the heart and address public issues must be seen as
necessary for the future of democracy. A profound theology
will press us toward a democracy ordered in a way that
accords with Gods law and purposes. That poses the
critical issues.
All of us have a personal faith, a theology, a set of
personal convictions about ultimate reality; and millions of
people belong to some organized wing of their religious
tradition. Each tradition has a distinctive way of defining
the ideal political order. Some are more capable of
supporting the conditions under which democracy flourishes
than others. Most have some national or international
religious body, or chief representatives, who periodically
issue statements that have direct political implications --
ethical issues framed by a theological tradition tend not to
stay under the steeple.
Today, the debate about the morality of the Iraq war is very
alive, with theological convictions about "just war"
doctrines just below the surface. The question has arisen
whether human rights are being compromised for the sake of
security and national defense. The issue of the extent to
which government should control corporations ecological or
outsourcing practices is also on the agenda, as well as the
propriety of limiting abortion or stem-cell research. An
open debate about these theologically laden issues is vital
to democracy.
Public theology has the task of engaging in public dialogue
on such ethical issues. The Judeo-Christian tradition
offers two deeply rooted Biblical themes that undergird the
"principled pluralism" that presses society toward the kind
of democracy that is the necessary supplement to the idea of
the image of God, on which human rights rest, and to the
idea of vocation, on which professional integrity rests.
These are the recognition of sin and the possibility of
covenant.
Recognizing sinfulness implies awareness that humans and
their societies are all imperfect. Thus, every idealistic
quest for harmony of all the parts will lead to pride and
totalitarianism. The consolidation of power in the hands of
the few tempts humanity to an arrogance that corrupts the
powerful and either exploits or makes passive the rest.
Accordingly, power must be distributed and thereby limited.
If each sphere of civil society is well developed, the
various spheres can correct one another or cooperate to
reform the whole.
That cooperation invites the possibility of forming
covenantal relationships. Daniel Elazar, one of the great
scholarly gems of the last century, traced this idea through
the Wests history and documented how, from its roots in
ancient Judaism, it was adopted and adapted by certain
strands of Christianity and found resonance in many
cultures, engendered a passion for a pluralistic democracy,
and opposed both the hierarchical authoritarianism found in
most classical cultures and the balkanizing atomism of
modernity. The idea of covenant is based on the formation
of communities of commitment for purposes that include but
transcend our human material interests.
Christianity contributed to this concept the idea of love as
the inner spirit of covenantal bonding. That is what forms
character and reforms society in this life, even though
perfection is impossible and forgiveness is necessary.
Christians believe that this is what Christ manifest and
what is working among us in all the spheres of common life.
It is what gives us faith that, in spite of sin, evil will
not prevail. Being realistic about sin and confident in the
possibility of love allows Christians to believe that there
is a moral and spiritual heart of a democratic society and
political order.
If these theological motifs are, as I believe, already
present deep within democratic life, they need to be made
conscious for democracy to flourish and spread. A serious
public theology will have to engage the great world
religions to find out whether they have comparable concepts
and prospects and where they may be able to adjust such
motifs for the emerging global civil society. This is
another area, for many the newest one, where our theology
must be public.
Notes
[1] "Religion, Culture, and International Conflict After
September 11," Ethics and Public Policy Center
Conversations, June 17, 2002, www.eppc.org.
[2] The Idea of Human Rights, Oxford, 1998, p. 35.
