Posted on 01/31/2006 2:34:50 PM PST by robowombat
Democracy - what Christians need to know
Can democracy bring peace and even "the separation of church and state" to the Middle East as President Bush claims?
Democracy has nothing to do with peace, freedom, or "good" government.
The purpose of government is to protect the rights of citizens. Because rights come from moral obligations, an ideal government would protect true human rights by enforcing the moral rules of the Creator, Jehovah God of the Bible.
Unfortunately, in the real world, what a government actually does is determined by the moral beliefs of its citizens. The limit of government authority - how far rulers can go before they lose power - is determined by what citizens believe is right or wrong. This is because rulers depend on citizens to be the agents of government's coercive force.
When rulers take an action that enough citizens care strongly enough about, the rulers lose power, because citizens refuse to employ force to support the government.
Throughout history, rulers who overstep the bounds imposed by what citizens think is right or wrong have been deposed, often by violence, and frequently with assistance from other nations whose own citizens agree with the moral beliefs of those in the "oppressed" nation. International law not only permits such assistance but also says it is a duty!
Revolution is the word used when citizens overthrow their government. Both Christianity and Islam recognize the right of revolution. Christianity requires that men obey God, not other men. Acts 4:19. Because all men must obey God, Romans 13:2 imposes the condition that rulers, themselves, must obey the ordinance of God.
This idea gave birth in Western nations to "the rule of law" - the idea that those who wield the power of government are subject to the same moral laws as those they govern.
The right of revolution in Islam goes further. Koran teaches that all men who refuse to follow Koran may be killed.
All that democracy does is provide a peaceful means for citizens to exercise their right of revolution. Democracy reduces the costs of making the actions of those in power conform to the moral beliefs of the "preference majority" - the group of citizens most willing to incur costs to see their moral preferences enacted into law. Democracy does this by allowing citizens to "vote the bums out" rather than resort to violence.
To know whether democracy can increase "peace" we must first define "peace."
Peace is the external condition that exists between men when men follow God's moral rules. This definition should immediately tell us it is unlikely democracy will bring peace in the Muslim Middle East.
There is a reason why democracy is the invention of Western, Christian nations. In these nations, non-violence - and calm, rather than anger - are normative values. In nations where citizens value non-violence, democracy can, indeed, increase "peace" at the margin. Those who resort to violence in such societies are immediately stigmatized as "kooks," because the obvious inference is that their ideas are so bad they cannot persuade others to vote for them.
But democracy provides little incentive to peace in societies where violent action is believed to be the command of god (small g). Muslims do not define peace differently than Christians. They believe "peace" exists when all men follow Koran, and that Allah has commanded Muslims to use violence to bring about this condition.
In fact, Muslims believe that democracy is sinful, because it allows people to chose rather than compelling them to follow the will of Allah expressed in Koran.
President Bush is betting that, because all men have God's law written on their hearts, Muslims can become peaceful democrats in the same way the Japanese have. This view ignores the spiritual rebellion of Israel's neighbors that God describes in Bible prophecy.
For democracy to bring peace in the Middle East, the locals would first have to value non-violence, and that would require that many be converted to believe in the true God of the Bible.
It is also untrue that democracy leads to "the separation of church and state." True separation of church and state is not an atheistic right to gag any recognition of any god, it is a Judeo-Christian concept taught in the Bible.
The Bible teaches that the function of government is to enforce God's moral law, which applies to all men. The function of the church - from the prophet Samuel to modern Christianity - is to teach men how to save their souls and conduct pleasing worship to God.
Islam does not separate church and state, because Koran teaches that what pleases Allah is for all men to be subject to him through the global domination of Islam.
Muslims may vote in fundamentalist government - as the Palestinians voted for Hamas - but no one should believe that over the long term Muslims will vote for anything significantly different from what Koran teaches.
Sorry to say, but democracy protects the rights of the majority, not the minority.
A republic, an archaic term not much taught in our schools these days, is a better method of protecting rights of everyone.
IMO
YMMV
we're not a democracy, but a representative republic and there is no "wall of separation" . the article is wrong on more than a few assumptions.
What Bush is talking about is technically called liberal democracy, which has nothing to do with the meaning of liberal as it is used today. It means democracy that protects the basic rights of all residents equally. There is ample evidence that they do bring peace.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.CLOCK.HTM
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It's also important that the citizenry be armed. The government should have a little bit of fear of the populace if they go to far.
to=too, doh!
Bump
L
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