What If Our Democracy Can't Survive Without Christianity?

Well, without zealots demanding things, I'm not sure we are talking about modern liberal democracies existing at all. Our founders were revolutionaries after all.

 

Zealots are never reasonable and lack perspective.

 

That's probably an essential quality if you believe in any sort of progress, but not all zealots believe in progress, quite the opposite in many cases

 

I wonder if there is a relationship between the advent of modern democratic institutions and the Protestant reformation …… that is more than coincidental.

 

The Enlightenment occurred concurrently with the Protestant Reformation and it was thinkers of that period who advocated the separation of church and state. It's somewhat ironic that the concept of separation of church and state had its origin in the writings of religious leaders. The British philosopher John Locke who in a very real sense was the father of the American form of constitutional government was an advocate of tolerance and he was strongly influenced by religious leaders who advocated the same:

Writing his Letters Concerning Toleration (1689–1692) in the aftermath of the European wars of religion, Locke formulated a classic reasoning for religious tolerance, in which three arguments are central:[46]

1. earthly judges, the state in particular, and human beings generally, cannot dependably evaluate the truth-claims of competing religious standpoints;
2. even if they could, enforcing a single 'true religion' would not have the desired effect, because belief cannot be compelled by violence;
3. coercing religious uniformity would lead to more social disorder than allowing diversity.

With regard to his position on religious tolerance, Locke was influenced by Baptist theologians like John Smyth and Thomas Helwys, who had published tracts demanding freedom of conscience in the early 17th century.[47][48][49][50] Baptist theologian Roger Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island in 1636, where he combined a democratic constitution with unlimited religious freedom. His tract, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (1644), which was widely read in the mother country, was a passionate plea for absolute religious freedom and the total separation of church and state.[51] Freedom of conscience had had high priority on the theological, philosophical, and political agenda, as Martin Luther refused to recant his beliefs before the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms in 1521, unless he would be proved false by the Bible.[52]​

 

Worst post of the year.
Right here.

 

So, @g8orbill, how do you give bacon for an opinion?

 

How convenient. The Only Way.

Def easier to just take orders though, I can’t argue with that.

 

Why Christian values? Why not Jewish values? Didn’t Moses show up before Jesus ever set foot in the holy land?

 

You're absolutely right to point that out, and I regret that I didn't. I'll be more careful and use the term Judeo-Christian values henceforth.

 

Even as far back as the 70’s Billy Graham described America as a pagan country in which many Christians reside.

I consider myself a Christian who would not ascribe America to Christianity.

 

Zealots got the ball rolling to undo the greatest abomination to freedom this country ever approved of--slavery--while the pragmatists who ruled prior to the Civil War managed to rationalize their way to tolerance of slavery, so as not to ruffle feathers, or dare be cast as *zealots*.

Truth and doing the right thing, takes a full sack....from nothing less than straight up zealots.

I say this, as an avowed pragmatist, not as a finger wagging preacher man from on high.

Zealots make life itchy, bc they throw truth in our faces--maybe that makes them "unreasonable", but often it's us--the pragmatists--who lack perspective, and when they're grounded in truth, and we, afoul of same, then they can't be "bad" (your prior post)--just pains in the ass.

...but God bless the zealots who are committed to Truth, and serve as steadfast agents of Truth, regardless how much of a PITA they may be.

jmho/fwiw.

 

Big difference between a Theist view (founders) and the cockadoodle beliefs of most of MAGA's Christian core, which they will immediately try to twist this into. The benefits of Christianity to the west generally cannot be overlooked, but this entire concept would fly over the heads of those who would try to turn us into a Christian Taliban society. And that's not hyperbole. That's EXACTLY where most of those people would take the country if they had the power in their hands. Maybe not Handsmaiden's tale (too European/Puritan) but something just short of that, and probably worse than that considering it's coming from Evangelicals and not Puritans.

 

Or Islam. I'm curious, why would you leave that out? You managed to include the first 2/3's of that tradition, why was that particular one left out?

 

Not to get too off topic, but one could argue the Anglo-Saxon tradition of democracy goes back to . . . Saxony and is mostly our own doing. Tacitus even writes about them and their concepts of first among equals, rulers/leaders elected, rule by consent. . . . That all starts there and is well in the process of becoming what we are today (Ethelred the Unready, Magna Carta, Provisions of Oxford) before the Renaissance or Enlightenment.

 

Should also be noted that the idea of secularism as we see it comes from the . . . . Religious! It's a clear reaction to the religious wars of the 16th and 17th Century.

 

Nah. The Anti-Christ is Barron! I mean, look at him. You KNOW there's a 666 tattooed on his head somewhere.

 

So, Thick would be a society that lives by a fairly strict religious code, but one that doesn't moralize about it?

 

The abolitionist were indeed zealots. On the other hand proponents of slavery cited scripture to support their position and their decedents also cited scripture to support racial segregation and Jim Crow laws in the South. In fact, the Southern Baptist Church had its origins in a split over slavery with Baptists outside of the South who were opposed to the institution of slavery.
How Christian Slaveholders Used the Bible to Justify Slavery