Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies

by N.T. Wright

God gives government as a gift to humanity to bring welfare, safety, order and justice to human communities.

When government performs its job well it enables freedom to flourish, perpetuates peace and administers justice.

Without a consensus about the nature of justice or a shared understanding of the common good, it is almost impossible to create social cohesion and political concord. Without some kind of shared social vision, what is considered ‘good’ becomes ephemeral, driven by fashion and theatrics, torn asunder by disparate groups, each with their own agenda. Without a shared story, we cease caring about the common good and allow our minds to be dulled by endless entertainment, we cease to have the ability to discern truth from lies, or we demand that all opposition is destroyed even if this overthrows our own freedoms.

Take heed. No democracy can survive external actors maliciously exploiting its internal fissures without a narrative substructure rooted in something beyond itself. Nor can a democracy withstand the temptations of plutocratic scheming or resist a demagogical erosion of civil liberties unless it has learned what those liberties are for.

A state that seeks to be just needs a coherent and compelling justification for the rights and responsibilities of its citizens which is rooted in something bigger than themselves and even beyond themselves. Also, such a state needs common convictions about who humans are, something like creatures bearing the ‘image of God’ who share ‘one stock’,7 in other words, a political anthropology that explains universal human value.

Political liberalism, far from being the formidable foe of Christianity, proves in fact to be its lost child, who refuses to believe the truth about its paternity.

Liberal democracy is ‘liberal’ in the sense that it regards civic freedoms as an inherent good that should not be subject to limitation unless completely necessary, and it is ‘democratic’ in the sense that voting rights apply equally to all citizens and each citizen’s vote should have the same weight. We write now neither to celebrate nor to castigate liberal democracy. Instead, we wish to prosecute the thesis that in a world with a human propensity for evil, greed and injustice, liberal democracy stands as the least worst option for human governance. Liberal democracy is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a just society, but it can be an enabling condition for a just society.

We can provide a Christian justification for ‘liberalism’ through the notion of ‘love of neighbour’.13 In order to love our ‘neighbour’, we must allow our neighbour to be beside us and yet be different from us. Our neighbour has permission to be ‘other’ than us. That requires us permitting and even celebrating the freedom of others to find happiness, fulfilment, f lourishing, purpose and meaning in ways that we might disagree with or disapprove of. Unless their happiness is to the direct detriment of our own, our neighbour is free to be who they are, how they are, where they there, whenever they are. Love of neighbour is a way to disrupt hierarchical, grievance-based, identity-ordered ways of assigning status.

Liberalism means liberty to love despite our differences.17 Liberalism prefers generosity over conformity. Liberalism chooses to find goodness in others.

The Bible does not teach democracy in the same way that it teaches that Jesus is Lord, murder is wrong, and disciples should not act like unholy hooligans.

Reinhold Niebuhr famously said, ‘Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.’

The limitations of democracies are obvious to those of us who have lived in them for long enough. Whether it is campaign donations, political careerism, nepotism, factionalism, legislative gridlock or media biases, there is much to complain about. One obvious problem with democracy is that power ends up in the hands of people who desperately want it. They want political power more for their own interests and ideology than for the common good. Even worse, the only way to remove one ambitious or incompetent politician is to replace them with a potentially more ambitious and even more incompetent politician.

Democracy is only as good as the people and institutions guarding it.

1 Individual rights.Liberal democracies enshrine individual rights and freedoms in either a constitution or a bill of rights. These rights pertain to freedoms of thought, commerce, speech, press, religion, association, voting, and to petition and protest. Such rights ensure that all members of society can freely express themselves and pursue their hopes and happiness without fear of reprisal.

2 Universal suffrage and participation.Liberal democracies enable and encourage political participation from all members of the citizenry, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, religion or socio-economic status. Everyone can vote, run for public office and serve in the public administration. This ensures that all voices are heard, all parties and policies can be scrutinised, and elected officials are representative of the needs and desires of the constituency. The underlying principle is that government can only proceed with the consent of the governed.

3 Separation of powers.Liberal democracies recognise that no branch of government should have unqualified authority or unfettered power. As such, liberal democracies normally include executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. This separation of powers ensures that no branch of government is all-powerful. This is why the politicisati...