Christianity and Liberal Democracy
July 8, 2005 · By Tom Cerber
The subject of the degree to which liberal democracy owes its foundational principles of individual freedom and other good things to Christianity is a large one.
Peter Rempel’s website has addressed this issue in the Canadian context.
Reflecting on the US Supreme Court’s decisions on the 10 Commandments, Lee Harris poses the problem in stark terms:
It was Jesus and Jesus alone who came up with a religion that insisted that the church and the state must be kept clearly separate. No one else taught this doctrine before Jesus did, and not many would teach it after him. The essential points of the Ten Commandments are shared by a myriad of different cultures; but the separation of church and state is a purely Christian idea, far more unique to it than the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation or the Virgin Birth — themes that have abounded in other religions that did not insist on keeping church and state separate.
So we are left with a paradox. Those who advocate the separation of church and state are trying to impose Jesus’s teachings on their community — and if this doesn’t violate the separation of church and state clause of the Constitution, what would?
How do we solve this almost Gilbert-and-Sullivan dilemma?
Perhaps by recognizing that the ability to even imagine a difference between church and state is one of the supreme gifts of Christianity to the West, for which all of us should be a bit grateful — especially those men and women who are fighting so hard to keep the Ten Commandments out of places where they might accidentally read them.
The separation of church and state is itself made possible by a Christian differentiation of consciousness that results in having politics take second seat to concern for man’s salvation. Of course, progressives are either going to deny this, or simply say, “thanks, but history has moved on and we can use that Christian insight but base it on secularist principles.” Perhaps. For a more sustained treatment of these issues, read this book.
For more Lee Harris, see here.
[...] s done elsewhere – linked in his article). My previous post on Lee Harris’s work is here.
[...]
Sir,
You begin with the wrong assumptions for America. I cannot say for Canada.
To quote perhaps Alan Keyes, ‘there is no need to separate church and state because America has neither.’
Ours is a government of the people.
A brilliant high school writer has labelled his blog with
an observation reflecting that fact:
“Our constitution is made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
-John Adams
http://republicandan.blogspot.com/
All power rests with the people, never the state. Government is only a limited tool to serve our interests.
And despite all the efforts of the revisionists, America was born as a ‘City upon a Hill,’ the new home of Christian hope. It will not live without that identity.
We are a profoundly Christian people, our Founders would say.
With best regards,
JnGriffith
Birmingham AL
USA
By the way, my secular education began in 50′s America, where the thoughts above were basic beliefs.
JN Griffith: Why can’t a religious people support a separation of church and state? Wasn’t that Madison’s point in his Remonstrance?