Democracy is a Christian invention.
Let me repeat that: true democracy, where every person is equal before the law, never happened in any culture at any time, except one dominated by Christian -- specifically Protestant -- values and ethics. In other words, here in the USA only, and nowhere else, ever. Democracy has been exported with varying degrees of success to other cultures, but they didn't come up with the idea on their own. In ancient Greece and Rome, only the elite were allowed to vote. Our first cut at it had that problem too, but the Christians (some of them, anyway; the "Christians" in the deep south loved their money more than God) abolished slavery, and later worked for women's suffrage. These are Christian ideas, rooted in the Bible.1 They are not inherent in natural law.2
Democracy is not directly taught in the Bible, but its foundational principle, that "all [people] are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," is based on a Christian worldview and none other. Consider with me some of the alternatives:
Darwinistic evolution is "red in tooth and claw." Only the fit survive, and it is their natural destiny to exterminate and/or subjugate the "unfit". Darwinists today are generally careful not to say this too loudly, but it is inherent in the dogma. Darwin himself knew that, when he titled his famous treatise, "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life". There are numerous documents on the internet showing Darwin's perspective, and showing how his followers have consistently held to that perspective up to the present time. However, you won't find those documents on Darwinist sites. It appears they are somewhat embarassed by their own dogma.
It is not necessary to appeal to some hidden Darwinist agenda or to the 150-year-old writings of their founder. Darwinists today patently and demonstrably do not favor true democracy in the marketplace of ideas. They have held for most of the last century, an elite position of controlling the dogma being taught in public schools, and they do this not by the ballot box, but by means of unelected judges. Darwinists themselves recognize that most of the American people want the alternatives to evolution taught along side it in the public schools, and they are not about to submit that decision to a democratic vote. Darwinists obviously do not favor true democracy when it comes to opinions they hold most dearly.
Darwinists are not alone in rejecting the democratic process when pushing their agenda. I just picked on them for my title because of its alliterative quality and the recent publicity they continually engender in rejecting the democratic process. Feminists, homosexuals, atheists, abortionists, and Black Muslims have also won their favored positions by skirting the process, in one way or another.
The really curious phenomenon is that democracy is an unstable politic. Whenever you get one set of idealists in a position of power, they tend to vote for repression against their opponents. Not too long ago Texas was in the news because the Republicans in power in the state legislature were trying to gerrymander the state to improve that position. California has done this for many years, but there it's the Democrats doing it, so the press quietly neglects to tell us about it. The same kind of situation is currently dissolving Iraq into chaos, Sunni Muslim against Shi'ite Muslim.
There is one other phenomenon that makes democracy a particularly Christian
institution, and that is the underlying worldview. Only the Christian God
is big enough and powerful enough to survive the chaos that inevitably
falls out of unbridled democracy. Every other minority -- and everybody
is a member one kind of minority or another -- has no hope for their own
protection other than control of the government. Christians alone know
that God is in control over the affairs of people, and God is able to overrule
when the democracy gets out of hand. The atheists (including effectively
all Darwinists, in deed3
if not in name) have no god, let alone one able to promote their agenda.
Even the Muslim Allah appears to be powerless, so that he must require
his followers to kill and destroy the opposition, instead of turning the
situation to his own liking by his own presumed great power. Unfortunately,
many Christians fall into the same despair, but enough orthodox4
faithful remain to provide a solid foundation for democracy. That Christian
confidence in the sovereignty of God infuses the American founding documents.
Tom Pittman
2006 March 23
2. Natural law -- and virtual every culture throughout history (our own excepted) -- recognizes that women are inherently different from men. Just look at them! They are different. Every cell of their body is different from a man. It is only in the Bible (from the pen of St.Paul, no less) that women are declared to be equal before God. Apparent racial differences, and certainly the obvious differences in earning power and ability to rise to the top of a power structure (including in our own time, intellectual differences), all of these suggest a fundamental inequality of persons. This is what I mean by "natural law." A legal structure that intentionally ignores these superficial differences is inherently unnatural.
3. A relatively small number of Darwinists claim to be Christian, but they are careful not to let their professed faith impinge on their true belief system, which is essentially an atheistic scientism. A tiny minority are not true Darwinists, because they hold to a theistic evolution, which is rightly ridiculed both by scientists and by most thoughtful Christians.
4. By "orthodox" I mean those believing
the classic Christian doctrines found in the Bible, not necessarily those
members of a particular (capital-O) "Orthodox" denomination.