What if Pagans Ran the World?

Last updated on: October 2, 2015 at 4:12 pm by D. G. Hart

What if Pagans Ran the World? 2015-10-02T16:12:12-04:00 D. G. Hart

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Whenever I see even mild assertions of the debt that political liberalism (as in constitutional, representative government) owes to Christianity my jaws start to tighten. For instance, upon reflection after Pope Francis’ speeches in the United States, Matt Tuininga writes:

Though I wish the pope had been more explicit about the way in which his convictions are rooted in the Gospel, his visit should remind all Americans, secular and religious alike, that, properly understood, Christianity and political liberalism are not enemies, but friends. In the world in which we live, they need one another to flourish.

I fear for future of American Christians if this country loses its liberal commitment to fundamental human rights, including the right of religious freedom, but I fear for the future of political liberalism even more. Pope Francis has reminded Christians that they ought to promote a Christian form of liberalism and he has reminded America and the world that political liberalism needs religion.

As I say, this is a mild form of the kind of civil religion that so often associates the origins of American forms of government with Christianity or a Christian consensus in the British colonies. The jaw-tightening develops in reaction to the silence about the debt that Christians owe to pagans when it comes to constitutional, representative government.

I teach a course that covers the sweep of mature reflection on the meaning of life and the ordering of society from the Hebrews to the English. What I have learned — not sure about the students — is that except for the Greeks and Romans, Hebrews and Christians loved not constitutional governments or republics but monarchy. The Greeks spent a lot of time (read Aristotle) thinking about constitutions. The Romans had a fairly good run of implementing a republican government that wound up inspiring the American founders. But Christians and Jews added little to the conversation about good government. To be sure, the rivalry between pope and emperor, prince and bishop, animated political and legal developments in Europe that would be crucial in the eighteenth century to the emergence of republicanism whether in North America or France. But for the actual diagramming of legal provisions that added up to rights and liberties, Christianity deserves less credit than many American Christians assume.

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