Western Christian Democracy ― Why the incongruity? Part 1

BY ERROL A. GIBBS

Western, democratic Christian nations claim Christianity as the religion that can save the world. Paradoxically, 30,000 – 40,000 Christian denominations call into question the unanimity in faith belief. Catholics (including Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox) constitute some 1.2 billion of the estimated 2.2 billion people worldwide who count themselves as Christians (Barrett et al. 2001, Adherents.com website). Interestingly, Christian democratic development is rooted in the fissures of the Catholic-Protestant divide. Why the incongruity?

Western political leaders seem to imply that Western constitutional democracy is synonymous with Christianity. However, there is not a preponderance of the evidence that postmodern Christian democracy confirms such a proposition. Notwithstanding, the Judeo-Christian tradition clarifies that otherwise nebulous idea of equality. Christian literature teaches that all people are born equal in the image of “God” that all human beings share (a) the same origin, (b) the same nature, and (c) the same destiny. (Reference: Copyright © UNESCO 1979 (United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice (Adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO at its twentieth session Paris, November 1978).

Notwithstanding, 6,000 years of records of human history tell a different story about inequality of birth. Intellectual observation would reveal that human beings are not born equal in the image of audacious “man.” The architects of the “human ecosystem” in Western countries makes it empathically clear (by their practice of degrading others) that the design does not comprehend the empowerment of people of colour, or the optimization of their lives.

Paradoxically, the clerics continue to pontificate, “All men are created equal.” They never provide context or challenge the constitutional writers and the practitioners of racial and cultural superiority. They rarely let their voices resonate against human beings’ subjugation, ill-treatment, and mass incarceration in stark contradiction to the original constitution for humankind (the Christian Bible). Specifically, the teachings of Jesus Christ and the great prophets of other religions.

We may have overlooked the need to call upon the white clergy. They are remarkably silent in matters regarding coloured lives. Yet! Their voices might have the most significant resonance with the established political hierarchical order. The paradox of all paradoxes is the Christian west striving to “democratize” the world ―not by loving, caring, and sharing ―nor with faith, hope, and mercy ―not by empathy, fairness, and justice.

Does Christianity democracy have the “moral capacity” to transform the world, underpinned by such incongruences? Western leaders claim tremendous success by comparing democracy to other systems of governance, such as feudal monarchy, totalitarianism, and postmodern communist dictatorships. Absolutely! Democracy is superior to these different regimes, past and present. Sadly, the leaders of some regimes opportunistically draw a parallel to some Western democratic leader’s behaviour as equivalent to theirs.

The “moral evidence” demonstrates that the heights of injustice in the administration of “unjust laws” are represented in Just Mercy ―A Story of Justice and Redemption. Copyright © 2014 by Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the “Equal Justice Initiative (EJI),” says, “The opposite of poverty is not wealth. In too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice” (Reference: Bryant Stevenson’s TED Talk).

In 2012, EJI won a historic ruling in the US Supreme Court holding that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for all children 17 or younger are unconstitutional. Stevenson’s work fighting poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system has won him numerous awards. Bryant is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Government. He is the recipient of 14 honorary doctorate degrees.

The disparities that are so glaring to non-Christians and some Christians alike cause them to ponder the complicated relationship between Christianity and democracy. The democratic Christian west in 2020 is experiencing a “crisis in leadership governance” (spiritual, moral, social, intellectual, and physical). In the book, “Poor Leadership and Bad Governance,” Edited by Helms, Ludger, (2012), it provides a chronology of ‘wicked problems’ facing leaders in our postmodern ear.

Evidence is in the principal problem facing leaders in postmodern democracy by an enormous buildup of the global Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). Too many disadvantaged peoples of color, the PIC paints a picture of a “constitutionally legal” substitute for the industrial-scale strictures of plantations of the Southern United States and the colonies. (Internet Reference: Plantation Life, National Humanities Center).

This “deficit-financed” PIC suffocates the growth of a more “just society.” Notwithstanding, powerless individuals are becoming aware that they are powerful. They are the light of the world, striving to illuminate the darkness of indifference to people of colour. Undergirded by these “thought perspectives” lie the irrefutable evidence that even the powerless have control of their destiny, enabled by their spiritual connection to God.

Civilization brought itself out of the Dark Ages or Early Middle Ages, the early medieval period of western European history—specifically, the time (476–800 CE). More importantly, the world ended 400 years of unrelenting Black African enslavement (1600–1900 CE), and the United Nations (UN) gave the Declaration of Human Rights to the world in (1984) (Continued in Part 2 of 3).