If we extend tolerance, will we ultimately give fertile ground to anti-Christian views, and will those views eventually choke out the cultural impact of Christianity - the very Christianity which alone makes such tolerance possible? Does Democracy bite the hand that feeds it? Does Democracy eat its own children?
The question is posed, does a representative democracy require a Christian culture to remain viable? As worded, the question seems to ask more about democracy as a political procedure than a society. It also speaks of a Christian culture, which is perhaps something separate from true Christian faith. We are speaking here about the cultural impact of Christianity, not about the personal faith of the individual, nor about the individual's interaction with God. Professor David Loy writes:
The claim is often made that representative democracy requires a Christian culture to remain viable because it arose on the soil of Christendom. The claim, however, is hotly contested. To address that debate the Catholic Academy of Bavaria invited two high-profile German intellectuals to give addresses on January 19, 2004. Jürgen Habermas, one of the most influential German philosophers of the past century, represented the secular claim that democratic regimes can - indeed, should - function without any religious commitments. Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, argued that democratic regimes require a pre-political moral foundation.
Ratzinger argues “that democratic regimes require a pre-political moral foundation.” This seems like a safe statement; any government requires a modicum of morality among its citizens – honesty and a dose of goodwill – even the most ruthless and perverse dictatorship relies on the presence of such things. A democracy seems to require more of these moral qualities than other forms of government. But are they necessarily linked to a Christian culture? We have seen, in history, example of the ‘noble savage’ and the ‘moral pagan’ - and even met such people ourselves. Christians sometime succumb to temptation and fail to offer the moral qualities which a democracy needs. Can we say that, on average, citizens in a ‘Christian culture’ will offer more moral fiber? Yet Paul’s epistles tell us that God’s law is written on the hearts of all men.
