Christianity & Democracy

As we enter another season, or campaign in the war on Christmas I'd like to ruminate a bit on the relationship between Christianity and secular democracy.

I think one reason people find it hard to believe in a 'War On Christmas' is that this is not truly the real war, only one front in an ongoing battle to remove Christianity from the public sphere. This battle has been going on for years and like noise in the background most of us have simply tuned it out.

I don't have a beef with whatever a private citizen chooses to say or not say during the holidays, however, I do have a problem when Christmas is considered harmful. Calling it the 'Winter Season' or 'Holiday Break' at schools and corporations may seem a small thing, and truly it is, but, all change starts somewhere. It's the same with changing the lyrics of Christmas carols to remove Christ. These things all point in a certain direction.

There are those who see Christianity and by proxy, Christmas as an affront to their freedom. The ultimate irony to me is that the same culture which spawned Christmas gives them the freedom to reject these customs.

Or put another way, can you have a secular democracy without Christianity (or Judaism, of course)? I was thinking about this today while driving around lost and frustrated for about two hours this afternoon. I was trying to think of a single Democracy that didn't have a Christian heritage. As a fine distinction, self spawning democracies, for the sake of this argument, I'm not considering Iraq, because at the final call they're being guided toward democracy by a historically Christian nation. The same with Japan, which I believe we again assisted to become a democracy.

The vast majority of democracies have a Christian basis in history and to take it a step further I think democracy is a fundamentally Christian concept. Judeo-Christian faith is predicated on an idea of fairness and this idea resonates most clearly when Christian faith is given expression in the public square.

Now, it can be argued that the secular humanist left is also based on fairness, but what happens when secular-humanists are in charge? Consider Europe, in post Christian Europe stringent speech laws have been passed defining any negative speech toward certain groups as hate speech. Regulations have sky rocketed, and freedoms shrink. Of course these societies are Socialist for the time being, though they seem to be trying to move in a free market direction as Socialism hasn't worked, it never does.

So to take the argument a step further, as a society moves into a post Christian posture, democracy seems to slip away.

Which brings us back around to the war on Christmas. In America the left has been pursuing a strategy of criminalizing Christianity while at the same time promoting other religions. hence kids are forced to learn about being Muslim, learning prayers, fasting and praising Allah, while the mention of the name Jesus will put you in the clink. Or at least have you removed from school grounds.

Why does the left pursue this strategy? They can only achieve their social goals when Christianity has been marginalized to the point where Christians are too embarrassed to stand up for what is right. I'm not saying anything new here, the thought that struck me today was the relationship between Christianity and democracy and how one seems predicated on the other.

And most importantly what happens when Christianity is removed from the picture.

But hey, that's just me.

What say you?

As seen @
third world county (note the proper geographic scale)

Diane's stuff (good luck, BWBW!)

Stuck On Stupid (I know I am, but what are you?)

TMH's Bacon Bits (bacon? for Christmas?)

Is It Just Me? (Yep, sorry)

Conservative Cat

NIF (just in time for Christmas, every kid needs one, hell, maybe two!)

Right Wing Nation


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