Saving democracy (substantially updated 26 Feb 2014)

In my country (UK), at least, there appears to be a tranche of influential people hell bent on stripping Christianity from mainstream society, thereby removing the general encouragement and inspiration that we flawed human beings need if we are to adhere to the values of Christ.

What used to be called Christendom is now called the West and most of it is at least nominally run on democratic principles with elections and parliaments or congresses or  similar institutions. The West is where the rest want to go or what they seek to emulate and it is where the aid and charity flows from, not to, and where the people load themselves with guilt for the sins of their ancestors.

Secular Terrorism: the slow suicide of Christian Britain

If one had to summarise the right hand column in the table below one could say that democracy can only function if the imago dei (the image of God) is sanctified in man and woman through Jesus Christ: truth, justice, love (including love of one’s enemy), charity, patience, humility, self control, creativity, recognition that all are equal before God (no two people are equal in any other way, hence the move to abolish slavery, racism and the exploitation of the female gender is all based on Christ's revolutionary paradigm changing teaching), forgiveness and mercy.

No human being exhibits all or even most of these qualities, and certainly not all the time. But they are there as ideals, buried deep down in the being of most people living in a Christian culture.

 see also Europe's Civil War: the separation of church and state itself has Christian roots, which appears in the February 2014 issue of Prospect magazine, p.46-48. This shows how the idea of individual conscience and liberty grew from the New Testament.

REQUIREMENT FOR DEMOCRACY	DEPENDENCE ON CHRISTIAN VALUES
Electorate with a clear understanding of the present situation, its historical background and wider context. People have to face reality and this must be based on belief in truth.	Belief in God is needed for truth to be conceptually possible and the entry of God into humanity through Christ makes it meaningful to humans.
Right of free speech tempered by the need to restrain evil (especially in the media).	What is evil? This is not a man-made concept and we recognise it by its hostility to the values and presence of  Christ. We need to have legislation but it can't do the whole job. A moral consensus is needed on which to base a common moral sense that can't be written down.
Presentation of proposed policies to the electorate through the media without distortion.	Subjugation of pride and ego so that balance and truth can at least be sought and recognised. Pride is the number one sin for Christianity.
Selection of morally righteous and rational policies by the electorate and by parliament or congress.	Concern for the poor, the weak and the sick regardless of class, race, nationality, religion or history are exclusively Christian precepts.  The Nazis actively opposed them due largely to Nietzsche. Rationality springs from devotion to truth – also made sacred by God's incarnation through Christ.
Enactment of the bills passed by parliament or congress. This involves public institutions, emergency services, armed forces, the civil service and the machinery of government. Thousands of decisions, all subject to human frailty, are taken in diverse situations both numerous and complex.	A general consciousness that we are made in the image of God as revealed in us by Christ. Take this away and the scope for distortion and evil must necessarily multiply.
Optimism that the toughest and most intractable seeming problems can be solved and that the darkest episodes of human history can be overcome.	Faith in the creativity of man (one aspect of the image of God) and in the triumph of life over death as evidenced in the Resurrection.
A sense of fair play, justice and mercy.	All three must be held sacred. A loving Creator who entered into human history makes this possible.

  I invite you to consider the consequences of de-sanctifying these values. How long would democracy last? 

The concept of democracy originated with Plato. He himself thought it was flawed because of human nature in that it depended on people voting wisely. In fact, as he well knew, they would mostly vote for policies which reduced their taxes or gave them more free government services or sacrificed wise long term policies to those giving immediate gratification or ignored the underdog or killed off, probably initially in the nicest humanistic way, those too expensive to look after (handicapped infants or the elderly infirm, for instance), or waged war at the exhortation of a demagogue who had appointed himself or herself to fill in the spiritual vacuum and declare war to get resources from another country, or for policies which allowed the nation to become so weak that it was unable to fend off attacks by other nations or prevent terrorism within its borders. Bad decisions would lead to social and financial breakdown and chaos followed by authoritarian, thought controlling government.

So to those who advocate airbrushing Christ out of our culture and society I say think again and think hard and think straight - for God's sake and for ours.

See also
Secularism is dangerous, especially for secularists

 John Sears

Author, 2077: Knightsof Peace

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