Christianity and democracy

Abstract: The dilemma of whether a political party represents Christian democratic values in the public sphere ‘truly’ is exposed to day-to-day political debates. This article would like to contribute to the understanding of Christian democratic politics by presenting different paths to identify the presence of Christian democratic elements in politics.

Christian Democratic politics is commonly associated with the German Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) in Europe. Although the federal elections are approaching, a topic that deserves plenty of attention in its own right, it is also crucial to understand the past decade of Christian democracy in Germany. This article would like to contribute to this effort by providing an insight into three relevant English-language research articles on the topic.

In the scientific literature, the examination of Christian democracy generally belongs to the researcher interested in the history of politics; the Christian democratic movement, the parties, or its leaders are in the focus of a historical elaboration, and Christian democracy is rarely analyzed as a distinct political ideology. Partly this theoretical niche prompted Carlo Invernizzi Accetti (2019) to write a monograph on the question entitled What is Christian Democracy? Politics, Religion and Ideology. This article offers an overview – mainly based on Invernizzi Accetti’s arguments – on the principles of Christian democratic ideology

There are several ongoing political debates about the status and nature of Christian democracy. One of the finest examples is related to Viktor Orbán’s concept of Christian democracy in Hungary.

We are often told that the world is more peaceful today than it ever was. The number of wars – especially that of “classic”, inter-state wars – is significantly lower than at any point in human history, and if ordinary people think otherwise (so the argument goes), they are simply misled by the tension between their pacifist expectations and the violent image of the world presented by today’s global and often sensationalistic media.

Christian realism is a crucial phenomenon of modern political thought. Although several authors can be termed as Christian realists (e.g. John C. Bennett or Robin Lovin), there is a consensus in the scientific literature that “Reinhold Niebuhr was the most important voice of this movement” (Lovin, 1995, p. 2).

During the past few decades countless different theories attempted to explain the rise of the modern state.

Richard Neuhaus’ The Naked Public Square famously complained in the 1980s that modern secularized politics, a strict separation of church and state tended to eliminate religious and moral values from public discourse.

What we tackle here is the moral foundations of the modern, secular state and a possible solution to its problems which so-called “secular religions” offer.