‘Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’
Winston Churchill, 11th November 1947
Over the last few years I have commented several times on democracy. I, along with many other people, have noticed that democracy doesn’t seem to be working and has even been subverted. Last year I wrote about how democracy itself needed reform:
Over the last few days, however, it has struck me that the problem might be even deeper than I thought. I wonder whether the problem is contained within the very concept of democracy itself. I fear that some of the issues we are having are not due to a corruption of democracy, but due to the flaws inherent in the notion of democracy as we practice it today.
Allow me to explain by way of an illustration.
What we say we believe vs what we do
While I was at Bible college, a priest from the Anglo-Catholic tradition in the Church of England came to talk to us about Catholic spirituality. (Please trust me, this is relevant — stay with me here). One of the things we talked about was the place of images and icons in the life of the Catholic church. If you’re not aware, Catholic spirituality often includes images such as icons.
One of the most memorable things that struck me about that conversation was the way the priest talked to us about the difference between ‘worship’ and ‘veneration’. His argument was that, although the Bible forbids us to worship anything other than God — the first two of the Ten Commandments make that crystal clear — ‘veneration’ was a right and appropriate thing to do. So, he argued, Catholics do not break the first and second commandment by using images (or other earthly things) in their worship. So long as it is ‘venerating’, it is fine. (I may be oversimplifying this, but the point I am making still stands!)
What struck me at the time was, could the ordinary person in the pew understand and articulate the difference between worship and veneration? If you treat an icon (or something similar) as special, and ‘venerate’ it, what is the ordinary person going to conclude?
The point I am trying to make here is that what we actually DO speaks louder than what we say we believe. To put that another way, however good your belief system is, we don’t engage with a belief system directly but rather how we put it into practice. Your practice will be what people believe, no matter what ideas lie behind it.
This is why I want to talk about democracy. We may have high ideals about democracy holding the powerful to account (as I said in my previous post about democracy), but is that the way most people see it? More importantly still, does the way we practice democracy in this country run counter to our democratic ideals?
At the end of the day, there is no such thing as ‘democracy’. Different people have different ideas about what democracy is and how it should be implemented. In this post I am not talking about ‘democracy’ as some kind of abstract ideal, but rather the specific way that we implement it here in the UK (and other Western countries). For the avoidance of confusion, for the rest of this piece I will refer to it using the term ‘Western Democracy’.
Let me outline one or two ways that I believe Western Democracy is not helping.
#1: Our problems should be solved by politicians
One of the biggest lies of Western Democracy is that our problems should be solved by those in power.
This message is communicated in at least a couple of ways. Firstly, we have a party system, so people don’t simply vote for their preferred local candidate but for whichever party they support. I remember a few years ago — I think during the 2015 election campaign — when the main party leaders participated in a live TV debate. I remember David Cameron kept saying, “if you vote for me…”. Now, in one sense, only people actually living in David Cameron’s constituency could vote for him. But in another sense, he spoke according to the reality of how it works these days: people care more about the party (and its leader) than their local candidate. People don’t vote based on knowing whether their local MP is someone of good character, they vote based on their party affiliation.
Secondly, the media constantly reinforce this by interviewing politicians about what they’re doing about various problems. The media (and now social media) landscape gives politicians the platform to outline their policies and plans to deal with all the ills in society. You may agree or disagree with their plans, but the point is that THEY are the ones who have the power to do something about it.
The main point I am trying to make here is that the concept of Western Democracy takes power away from the people. It reinforces an ‘us and them’ mentality, where ‘they’ — the politicians — are the ones with the power, and we — the people — are powerless. If anything needs fixing in our society, it is up to the authorities to do something about.
But it doesn’t have to be like that! A few weeks ago I read about Safeguard Force, a group of local volunteers in Dorset who had come together to keep their town safe. I think this embodies exactly the kind of thing Western Democracy discourages us from doing: “don’t get together to solve problems in your own communities. Leave it to your elected representatives.” (It’s no surprise that Safeguard Force doesn’t seem to have been welcomed by the authorities — they don’t like people doing things without them).
Sometimes I wonder whether the elite agenda would have got as far as it has without Western Democracy. If it wasn’t for the vote, and people thinking “we need to vote our way out of this”, perhaps people would have taken more action by now? Perhaps Western Democracy, rather than empowering people, is instead a fiendishly clever way of enslaving them?…
#2: What is sovereign?
Democracy is intended to be a kind of brake upon the authorities: the people who govern should be held accountable to the people. Plus, in the traditional Christian understanding of the world, rulers are put there by God and will be held accountable to him for their actions. They should be seeking a vision of ‘the good’ which is given by God and not something which human beings can change. You could see this symbolised in the coronation service, where Charles was given an orb with a cross on the top: his power is given by God, and he will be held to account for the way he uses it.
Western Democracy, by contrast, suggests that what is sovereign is the will of the people: politicians are there to do our bidding. You can see this, for example, in the website “They Work For You”: politicians are servants of the people. At the same time, what if the people want the wrong thing? Take an example: it’s a well-known axiom that the British people tend to be right-leaning on social issues, but left-leaning on economics. But is that right? Is there an ethical dimension to (say) the welfare state and the NHS? Just because people want them, and would vote for them, is it right for governments to implement them?
The main point here is that without a shared vision of the good that we are pursuing — something which had previously been supplied by Christianity — there is no guiding principle. The people direct their elected representatives to do what they want, regardless of what is right or wrong. The elected representatives may choose to obey, or they may choose to following their own guiding principles and implement their own agenda. Either way, there is nothing beyond the will of man to guide us forwards.
#3: It’s a distraction
I don’t know how things used to be back in the day, but it seems to me now that we are more focussed on our politicians than ever. They seem to dominate the news! We are constantly being told of all their exploits, policies, and so on. As the world seems to descend into madness, politicians take centre stage (‘look at us, we’ll fix this.’)
But the truth is, politics is not where the solution is going to come from. As I said in a couple of weeks ago:
We shouldn’t worry too much about what’s going on in the world. We should focus far more on loving our neighbour.
Western Democracy at the moment sends out that message that all of us must be well-informed and make good decisions at the ballot box to save the country. To that end, people spend hours watching the news and devouring political commentary. But, as I said, all of that is simply a distraction: every hour spent devouring the news and political commentary is an hour that we are not spending loving our neighbour.
I’m not saying it’s wrong to look at the news or political commentary, but rather that Western Democracy encourages us to focus on that rather than building communities and loving one another. Western Democracy says, “you must play your part in this, if things go wrong it is partly YOUR fault”. I, by contrast, would be quite content to leave the authorities to take care of themselves and not get involved unless I really had to. Which brings me neatly to the last section.
Is there a solution?
One of the things which has struck me about the Bible lately is how apolitical it is. That doesn’t mean it’s of no relevance to politics; rather, it relativises it. According to the Bible, politics is simply not as important as Western Democracy makes it seem.
The Bible doesn’t even mandate democracy. Western Democracy arose from Christian principles, but democracy itself can’t be found within the Bible. All the Bible really has to say is that rulers should acknowledge God and his ways, rather than seeking to throw them aside (e.g. Psalm 2). I wonder if the way we practice democracy at the moment actually serves as a kind of smokescreen for the real issue — the problem that there is a ‘God-shaped hole’ at the heart of our leaders and government.
I’ve said recently that you can only trust people so far as they are trusting Christ. This is especially true for politicians and people in the public eye: when the pressure is on to do the wrong thing — taking a bribe, for example — if someone is trusting Christ, we can have more confidence that they will do the right thing. What we need most of all in politicians and the moment is upright, moral people, people of integrity.
What we need is a kind of democracy which prioritises this, rather than focussing on policies or what people want. I’m not sure if it is possible to build this kind of democracy through institutions or systems. The problem with systems is that they are implemented by people, and — at the end of the day — whatever systems you put in place, people will be able to find a way round it. You need upright people of integrity at every level participating in the democratic process for it to be truly democratic.
What I can say for sure is the same as I’ve said many times lately: without a Christian revival, there will be no hope of things improving. It comes back to the same verse I’ve been thinking about since 2020:
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:14
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Hello Phill,
Thanks for another thought provoking and challenging article. I agree many Christians seem to be increasingly "political" and angry about what is being portrayed by the "News". As you say, we need to demonstrate the love if God in our hearts.
As an aside, I listened to your weekly podcasts regularly since covid, but latterly found them a bit "bland". But your recent articles have been excellent. Keep up the good work!