The Demos In Our Democracy

Why Christians Should Think More About Democracy (and How)

Talk about democracy is everywhere. And for good reason.

Just this past weekend, I attended a TEDx MidAtlantic gathering in DC on the theme of “hidden worlds” or Terra Incognita. One common thread ran through every TED talk. Whether it was a former Space Shuttle commander, a journalist, or a Ukrainian artist, all found a common thread: democracy, the political belonging and collaboration of a people.

Democracy wasn’t just a topic for consideration; it was a point of action. Attendees were introduced to new initiatives aimed at building democratic coalitions and preserving democratic machinery. At this point, I should give a massive shoutout to organizers David Troy, Nate Mook, and Elizabeth Neumann, who gave a talk on Christian extremism that will be worth watching once it posted.

We’re all hearing about a “crisis of democracy.” I put that in quotes not because I disagree, but rather to highlight that the crisis we see depends on where we stand.

Which Crisis of Democracy?

Often, the popular meaning of “crisis of democracy” depends almost exclusively on the stories emerging from the partisan trenches of the American political landscape. This situation can give rise to sloganeering, where “crisis of democracy” becomes a catchall phrase for everything, and nothing. The church exists on this field; it need not be captive to it—though often is.

If this sounds cynical, I don’t mean it to be. I am not suggesting that there isn’t a threat to American democracy or that the Christian story has nothing to say—we’ll get to that.  The truth is, I am concerned about the justice involved in preserving democratic machinery, about gridlocked democratic process, about the practical questions of political representation. Of common good & responsibility. All this is why I’m curious about how we talk about democracy itself.

How are the Demos Doing?

We might help ourselves by recalling the etymology behind democracy— demos (dee-mohs) or “the people.” Lots of questions emerge here, like just who is this people in America? Who is at risk of being excluded from this community? Who has been excluded? How?

Where does the ekklesia—the “called out ones”—the church—factor into this political community? These are all good & helpful questions. Reflecting on the nature of democracy might feel a bit idealistic in the middle of an escalation of political violence and threats. But I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

We need more thinking about our situation. Not less. For example, consider this jarring post I came across this week:

This strange contrast illustrates our present American ethos, one shaped more by convenience and comfort than we realize. (FWIW: Cold Harbor was a Civil War battle that took place near Richmond; we’ve lost the living memory of just the sheer scale of the violence and death.)

Today, it’s true that America is experiencing an escalation of political threats and militant rhetoric—while at the same time enjoying a level of opulent convenience which tends to crowd out anything else. And in this vortex, most Americans fail to consider that a future civil conflict won’t look like mile-long battle lines at Gettysburg, but late 20th century Ireland.

Our American space of militant rhetoric with opulent convenience primes Americans for hard authoritarianism, the kind that seizes on cosplaying militant factions, the comfortably disengaged, and cynically apathetic. It’s also a kind that allows violence to justify the imposition of its brand of order.

Anyone willing to outsource responsibility (for reasons of cosplaying, comfort or cynicism) are at risk of embracing the promise of the strongman. The cosplaying are a facade. The cynical surrender to fate. The comfortable to sloth, anything to prevent the disruption of our Amazon deliveries.

Political corruption tends to mean the failure of elected officials to represent the people through self-interest. But the self-interested comfort of the citizenry is another form of political corruption. One that keeps us from considering what the maintenance of democracy demands from us, the people. If the crisis of democracy does not include the political corruption of we the people, then it is not an accurate read of democracy or the crisis which confronts us.

From Despair To Hope

I continue to hold that asking these sorts of questions is part of the path to maintain hope and imagine responsibility. These go together, hope and responsibility. As I write this, I’m on my way to Princeton to participate in a weeklong conference at PTS on the theological resistance of Christians in Nazi Germany. (If you’re interested in reading more, our key text is a confessional document known as the Barmen Declaration 1934.) This theological confession in Nazi Germany contained a strong theological current in support of democracy.

In his commentary on Barmen, Ebehard Busch writes, “democracy is something more than merely ascertaining majorities...[it] means that all responsible parties participate in the decision-making process for the organization of the common good, [it] means the right to oppose and the protection of minorities from the majorities’ abuse of power.”

For the few Christians offering theological resistance to Hitler, the demos was not god, it was not the all or the telos of history, rather it was the provisional political expression of irreducibly theological ideas.

Democracy can provisionally reflect the universal belonging of God’s creatures. It can do this without being captured by authoritarian Christian causes.

Mercy, forgiveness, and reconciling grace fundamentally upend the inequalities we are told are necessary evils for political cooperation, common life, and peace.

As creatures made free by the liberation of Jesus Christ, freedom is the birthright of all humanity. And this freedom is not expansive, but directive. It is not freedom for anything, not for self-serving interests (Philippians 1) but freedom for responsibility, and responsibility in view of God’s justice. (I’m reminded here that, when touring America, the theologian Karl Barth remarked that if he had been born American, he’d be writing a theology of freedom.)

Liberated for Justice

The Christian story is not silent when it comes to “the people.” In Acts 12, the corruption of the demos is a key factor in the rise and demise of Herod. After killing one apostle (James) and imprisoning another (Peter), the King donned royal robes in an audience with the public who cried out “the voice of god and not a man!” (As close to a Trump rally in Scripture as you’re going to find).

What happens next is perhaps unsettling to our modern mind, the text tells us that Herod was struck down on the spot, while the “Word of God kept increasing and multiplying.” This Scripture should unsettle us as it directs us to the danger of authoritarian totalitarianism, in a ruler claiming divine authority and in the people surrendering to the illusion.The Word has something to say in view of concrete questions concerning how we organize our common life.

But it’s not that the Bible contains a static set of moral or political principles from which Christians can reconstruct or engineer a blueprint for the ideal political order or policy…one they happen to run. This is how Christian nationalists read the Bible. By shattering the Word into principles, Christian nationalists can justify inequality between people (genders, ethnicities) and among our possessions. They can argue one-way submission to authority is an essential element of political community, the elite for the good of the masses.

In a chilling passage, Busch notes that this was the exact German situation to which Barmen responded. It was Hitler’s view that the masses ought to submit the rule of the few. Hitler’s Nazi Germany was the tyranny of the one mediated through an oligarchy, the rule of elite.

Now as then, it is worth remembering that, in this world passing away, those who proclaim and live this peace of God’s kingdom in the midst of all people are a threat to orders of inequality and political communities based on exclusion.

In a faltering and flailing democracy, the Christian witness can furnish liberating hope. It does this by being the church, through a public worship which points to how the Word of Jesus has shot our world through with mercy, forgiveness, and reconciling grace—these fundamentally upend the inequalities we are told (by professing Christians no less) are necessary evils for political cooperation, common life, and peace.

This is why the church must give more thought to the demos, to the character and condition of our collective community, and to those who, as it is organized are inevitably marginalized. Because there the church finds where it must stand in America.