Is Democracy part of a Christian legacy?

Andy Smith Says: October 11th, 2006 at 2:53 pm Here it is: Socrates or Muhammad? Joseph Ratzinger on the destiny of reason. by Lee Harris 10/02/2006, Volume 012, Issue 03 To the memory of Oriana Fallaci

On September 12, Pope Benedict XVI delivered an astonishing speech at the Uni versity of Regensburg. Entitled “Faith, Reason, and the University,” it has been widely discussed, but far less widely understood...

Edward Berge Says: October 12th, 2006 at 12:31 pm And then of course there are historical and context dependent complexities added to the mix. For example, the Yahoo Habermas discussion forum is going over how the Habermas/Pope dialogue is being used by some religious groups to show Habbie’s conversion from secular humanism. This is the post from Kenneth McKendrick dated today: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/habermas/

I think Habermas has not been particularly clear on this point, and the confusion has apparently been picked up on used by religious adherents for their own private interests… saying that democracy is part of a Christian legacy - one that can only be found within Christianity - is a tangled claim. Democratic ideals formed both within and in reaction to Christianity. Its ancient roots can be found in Greece but they can also be found in the Islamic conception of consensus. There is no clear-cut relation between modern democratic ideals and Christianity, or any form of religious thought. Democratic ideals were motivated and inspired by shifting forms of economy and commerce, trading patterns that were limited by existing religious affiliations. Legal systems tied to church law became cumbersome ways to negotiate contracts…

If anything, outside predomination religious norms people, perhaps even independently, began to recognize the importance of toleration and recognition, reciprocity and respect. Within the Christian tradition, for example, people began to recognize that the Christian Scriptures (the New Testament) doesn’t have anything at all to say about everyday life. We have four gospels and a handful of letters. The four gospels each tell (more or less) the same story and the letters are mainly exhortations to have faith and avoid being discouraged. This isn’t exactly the kind of collection of writings that one can create, maintain, and manage a modern economy with. In effect, once the Reformation took hold (the Reformation being a serious misnomer - the “reformers” weren’t reforming anything, they simply thought the end of times had arrived) people began to think differently, about a lot of things. With the centralized authority of the church abandoned, many of the tradition remained the same but reproduced themselves locally (death rituals, for example, are almost identical but leave out the prayers of intercession).

This meant a great deal of creativity and spontaneity in local practices… explanations for events - capitalizing on developing technology which reduced the religious sphere and scientific forms of analysis which by default reduced it further - left people with a kind of religious vacuum. You didn’t need an angel for your crops because you have an irrigation system. You still needed the crystal ball, because the cell phone wasn’t around yet, but you let go of the angels. Secularism does emerge through these complexities. It is a combination of crystal balls, technology, and new forms of social relations (trade, commerce). Is it “Christian?” - that’s a very awkward and simplified statement… it might be more accurate to say that the diffusion of authority and civic responsibility created conditions that prompted new patterns of living together…