DEMOCRACY AND THEOLOGY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON APPROPRIATION
Keywords:
Cultural Discernment, Deification, Democracy, Eco-theology, Entertainment Theology, Political Theology, Practical Theology, Public Theology, Second Vatican Council, Sensus FideliumAbstract
To what extent have the Christian thinkers of this age made the proper appropriation of democratic components—voting rule or will of the majority in decision making, individual liberty, freedom of speech/press, equality, rule of law, equal rights, the ignoring of hereditary class distinctions, tolerance of minority views and participatory or collaborative nature of governing—in different theological fields and in Church teachings? This is the main focus of this article. In this regard, this article makes a critical evaluation on those earlier contributions in assimilating the democratic components in theological fields, etc. It also points out the possible challenges in appropriating democracy in theological endeavours today. In addition, this article unveils the original meaning of the term democracy which will accelerate the attempt to make possible ways of appropriating the democratic prepositions (of, by and for) in theological conversations and actions. Such a theology then would be a profound theology that initiates us toward a democracy ordered in a way that accords with God’s law and purposes. Besides, the typical nature of such theology would be purely based on the contextual, celebrational and ethical life of the Faithful.
References
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1118.
“democracy,” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 319.
“democracy,” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, ed. A. P. Cowie, Delhi: S. K. Mookerjee, Oxford University Press, Indian Edition, 1991, 319.
Accetti, “Can Democracy Emancipate Itself from Political Theology?” 254, 257, 261-262, 263.
Lefort, “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political,” 153-159.
Baker, “Theology and Democratic Futures,” 207.
Barry Taylor, Entertainment Theology: New Edge Spirituality in a Digital Democracy, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008;
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, “Can Democracy Emancipate Itself from Political Theology? Habermas and Lefort on the Permanence of the Theologico-Political,” Constellations 17, 02 (2010) 254-270;
Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. For the review, see Coles, “Democracy, Theology, and the Question of Excess,” 9, 10, 301.
Chauvet, The Sacraments, 113.
Claude Lefort, “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political,” in Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, ed., Hent de Vries and Lawrence Sullivan, New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2006, 153-187;
Claude Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society, Boston, MA: MIT Press, 1986, 153-187.
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, Latin-English Edition, Translation Prepared under the Auspices of the Canon Law Society of America, Kottayam, India: OIRSI, reprint 1992.
Coles, “Democracy, Theology, and the Question of Excess,” 303, 315.
Corey D.B. Walker, “Theology and Democratic Futures,” Political Theology 10, 02 (2009) 199-208;
Cornel West, Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1993, 63. See also, Miller, “What Has Divinity to Do with Democracy?” 74-75.
Daniel Elazar, The Covenant Tradition in Politics, 4 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995;
Edward Foley, “Engaging Liturgy of the World: Worship as Public Theology,” Studia Liturgica 38 (2008) 31-52;
Edward Foley, “Eucharist, Postcolonial Theory and Developmental Disabilities: A Practical Theologian Revisits the Jesus Table,” International Journal of Practical Theology 15, 01 (2011) 57-73;
Engel, “Democracy, Christianity, Ecology,” 222-225, 228-229.
Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, New York, NY: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1992, 191; and Wolterstorff, “Jeffrey Stout on Democracy and Its Contemporary Christian Critics,” 637.
Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln http://www.americaslibrary.gov /jb/civil/jb_civil_gettysbg_2.html [accessed on 10-10-2020];
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org /lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm [accessed on 30-04-2019];
Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II, 92.
James K.A. Smith, “The Reformed (Transformationist) View,” in Five Views on the Church and the Politics, ed. Amy E. Black, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015, 139-162;
James K.A. Smith, Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017, 41
James Luther Adams, “Mediating Structures,” in J. Ronald Engel, ed., Voluntary Associations: Socio-cultural Analyses and Theological Interpretation, Chicago: Exploration Press, 1986;
James Luther Adams, “Mediating Structures,” in J. Ronald Engel, ed., Voluntary Associations; Daniel Elazar, The Covenant Tradition in Politics, 4 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995.
Jared Hickman, “The Theology of Democracy,” The New England Quarterly 81, 2 (2008), 177-217;
John Dewey, A Common Faith, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934; Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and Critique of Its Traditional Defense, New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944;
John Dewey, Art of Experience, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989;
John H. Yoder, “The Hermeneutics of Peoplehood,” in The Priestly Kingdom, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985, 15-36;
John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1984, 5.
John Milbank, “The Last of the Last: Theology, Authority and Democracy,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 58, 2 (2002) 271-298;
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, New York: Vintage, 2012; and James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic a Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2009.
Josiah Ober, “‘I Besieged That Man’”: Democracy’s Revolutionary Start,” in Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece, Kurt A. Raaflaub, Josiah Ober, and Robert W. Wallace, with chapters by Paul Cartledge and Cynthia Farrar, Berkeley, London and Los Angeles: University Press of California, 2007, 83-104.
Josiah Ober, “The Original Meaning of ‘Democracy’: Capacity to Do Things, not Majority Rule,” Constellations 15, 01 (2008) 1-9;
Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. I, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1981;
Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1985;
Lefort, “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political,” 157.
Leo-Joseph Suenens, Co-responsibility in the Church, New York, NY: Herder & Herder, 1968; Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. I, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1981;
Louis-Marie Chauvet, The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body, trans. Madeleine Beaumont, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001, 112-113.
Lyn Miller, “What Has Divinity to Do with Democracy? Metaphysics, Transcendence, and Critical Theology of Liberation,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 25, 01 (2009) 65-83;
Malusi M. Mpumlwana, “The Road to Democracy: The Role of Contextual Theology,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 85, D (1993) 5-18;
Mathijs Lamberigts, “Religious Freedom, Interreligious Dialogue, and the Engagement of the Church in Today’s World: Coping with the Challenges,” Encounter: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Reflections of Faith and Life 9, 01 (2018) 8-19;
Max L. Stackhouse, “Public Theology and Democracy’s Future,” Society 42, 03 (2005) 7-11;
Michael L. Raposa, “Pragmatism, Democracy and the Future of Catholic Theology,” American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 30, 03 (2009) 288-302;
Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982;
Milbank, “The Last of the Last,” 294, 297, 298.
Nicholas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings, trans. H. Lawrence Bond, New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1997.
Miller, “What Has Divinity to Do with Democracy?” 67.
Mogens Herman Hansen, “The Concepts of Demos, Ekklesia, and Dikasterion in Classical Athens,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 50 (2010) 499–536;
Mpumlwana, “The Road to Democracy,” 6, 7, 15.
Nabaz Shwany, “The Principles of Democratic and Non-Democratic Government,” posted on November 18, 2009 and available at: http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc111809NS.html (accessed on 25-02-2012).
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Do Christian Have Good Reasons for Supporting Liberal Democracy?,” The Modern Schoolman, 78, 01 (2001) 229-248;
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Jeffrey Stout on Democracy and Its Contemporary Christian Critics,” Journal of Religious Ethics 33, 04 (2005) 633-647;
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Acting Liturgically: Philosophical Reflections on Religious Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015;
Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, xiii. See Engel, “Democracy, Christianity, Ecology,” 222.
Ober, “The Original Meaning of ‘Democracy,’” 1, 2, 6, 7, 8.
P.T. Matthew, “From Apologetics to Public Theology: Milestones and Pointers,” Encounter: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Reflections of Faith and Life 9, 01 (2018) 40-56;
Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ john_paul_ii/encyclicals/ documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html [accessed on 10-10-2020].
Raposa, “Pragmatism, Democracy and the Future,” 288, 297, 298, 299, 301, 302.
Robert McClory, As It Was in the Beginning: The Coming Democratization of the Catholic Church, New York, NY: Crossroad, 2007, 121-123.
Robert P. Kraynak, Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001;
Robert Talisse, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, New York and London: Routledge, 2007;
Romand Coles, “Democracy, Theology, and the Question of Excess: A Review of Jeffrey Stout’s Democracy & Tradition,” Modern Theology 21, 02 (2005) 301-321;
Ronald J. Engel, “Democracy, Christianity, Ecology: A Twenty-First-Century Agenda for Eco-theology,” Cross Currents 61, 02 (2011) 217-231;
Stephan Van Erp, “Living with the Hidden God: Sacramental Theology as Public Theology,” Encounter: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Reflections of Faith and Life 9, 01 (2018) 20-39.
Subash Anand, “Inculturation in India: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” Indian Missiological Review 19, 01 (1997) 28-29.
Suenens, Co-responsibility in the Church, 189 and 191. See, Raposa, “Pragmatism, Democracy and the Future,” 297.
Taylor, Entertainment Theology, 1.
The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1985.
Vodovnik, “The Original Meaning of Democracy,” 38-54.
Walker, “Theology and Democratic Futures,” 202.
Wolterstorff, “Do Christian Have Good Reasons for Supporting Liberal Democracy?” 229-248.
Wolterstorff, “Jeffrey Stout on Democracy and Its Contemporary Christian Critics,” 634
Žiga Vodovnik, “Lost in Translation: The Original Meaning of Democracy,” Teorija in Praksa 54, 1 (2017) 38-54;
“democracy,” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 319.
“democracy,” in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, ed. A. P. Cowie, Delhi: S. K. Mookerjee, Oxford University Press, Indian Edition, 1991, 319.
Accetti, “Can Democracy Emancipate Itself from Political Theology?” 254, 257, 261-262, 263.
Lefort, “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political,” 153-159.
Baker, “Theology and Democratic Futures,” 207.
Barry Taylor, Entertainment Theology: New Edge Spirituality in a Digital Democracy, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008;
Carlo Invernizzi Accetti, “Can Democracy Emancipate Itself from Political Theology? Habermas and Lefort on the Permanence of the Theologico-Political,” Constellations 17, 02 (2010) 254-270;
Jeffrey Stout, Democracy and Tradition, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004. For the review, see Coles, “Democracy, Theology, and the Question of Excess,” 9, 10, 301.
Chauvet, The Sacraments, 113.
Claude Lefort, “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political,” in Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, ed., Hent de Vries and Lawrence Sullivan, New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2006, 153-187;
Claude Lefort, The Political Forms of Modern Society, Boston, MA: MIT Press, 1986, 153-187.
Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, Latin-English Edition, Translation Prepared under the Auspices of the Canon Law Society of America, Kottayam, India: OIRSI, reprint 1992.
Coles, “Democracy, Theology, and the Question of Excess,” 303, 315.
Corey D.B. Walker, “Theology and Democratic Futures,” Political Theology 10, 02 (2009) 199-208;
Cornel West, Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1993, 63. See also, Miller, “What Has Divinity to Do with Democracy?” 74-75.
Daniel Elazar, The Covenant Tradition in Politics, 4 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995;
Edward Foley, “Engaging Liturgy of the World: Worship as Public Theology,” Studia Liturgica 38 (2008) 31-52;
Edward Foley, “Eucharist, Postcolonial Theory and Developmental Disabilities: A Practical Theologian Revisits the Jesus Table,” International Journal of Practical Theology 15, 01 (2011) 57-73;
Engel, “Democracy, Christianity, Ecology,” 222-225, 228-229.
Garry Wills, Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, New York, NY: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1992, 191; and Wolterstorff, “Jeffrey Stout on Democracy and Its Contemporary Christian Critics,” 637.
Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln http://www.americaslibrary.gov /jb/civil/jb_civil_gettysbg_2.html [accessed on 10-10-2020];
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org /lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm [accessed on 30-04-2019];
Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II, 92.
James K.A. Smith, “The Reformed (Transformationist) View,” in Five Views on the Church and the Politics, ed. Amy E. Black, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015, 139-162;
James K.A. Smith, Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2017, 41
James Luther Adams, “Mediating Structures,” in J. Ronald Engel, ed., Voluntary Associations: Socio-cultural Analyses and Theological Interpretation, Chicago: Exploration Press, 1986;
James Luther Adams, “Mediating Structures,” in J. Ronald Engel, ed., Voluntary Associations; Daniel Elazar, The Covenant Tradition in Politics, 4 vols., New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995.
Jared Hickman, “The Theology of Democracy,” The New England Quarterly 81, 2 (2008), 177-217;
John Dewey, A Common Faith, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934; Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and Critique of Its Traditional Defense, New York, NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1944;
John Dewey, Art of Experience, Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989;
John H. Yoder, “The Hermeneutics of Peoplehood,” in The Priestly Kingdom, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985, 15-36;
John Howard Yoder, The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel, Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1984, 5.
John Milbank, “The Last of the Last: Theology, Authority and Democracy,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 58, 2 (2002) 271-298;
Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, New York: Vintage, 2012; and James K.A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic a Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2009.
Josiah Ober, “‘I Besieged That Man’”: Democracy’s Revolutionary Start,” in Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece, Kurt A. Raaflaub, Josiah Ober, and Robert W. Wallace, with chapters by Paul Cartledge and Cynthia Farrar, Berkeley, London and Los Angeles: University Press of California, 2007, 83-104.
Josiah Ober, “The Original Meaning of ‘Democracy’: Capacity to Do Things, not Majority Rule,” Constellations 15, 01 (2008) 1-9;
Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. I, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1981;
Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1985;
Lefort, “The Permanence of the Theologico-Political,” 157.
Leo-Joseph Suenens, Co-responsibility in the Church, New York, NY: Herder & Herder, 1968; Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. I, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1981;
Louis-Marie Chauvet, The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body, trans. Madeleine Beaumont, Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2001, 112-113.
Lyn Miller, “What Has Divinity to Do with Democracy? Metaphysics, Transcendence, and Critical Theology of Liberation,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 25, 01 (2009) 65-83;
Malusi M. Mpumlwana, “The Road to Democracy: The Role of Contextual Theology,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 85, D (1993) 5-18;
Mathijs Lamberigts, “Religious Freedom, Interreligious Dialogue, and the Engagement of the Church in Today’s World: Coping with the Challenges,” Encounter: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Reflections of Faith and Life 9, 01 (2018) 8-19;
Max L. Stackhouse, “Public Theology and Democracy’s Future,” Society 42, 03 (2005) 7-11;
Michael L. Raposa, “Pragmatism, Democracy and the Future of Catholic Theology,” American Journal of Theology & Philosophy 30, 03 (2009) 288-302;
Michael Walzer, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982;
Milbank, “The Last of the Last,” 294, 297, 298.
Nicholas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings, trans. H. Lawrence Bond, New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1997.
Miller, “What Has Divinity to Do with Democracy?” 67.
Mogens Herman Hansen, “The Concepts of Demos, Ekklesia, and Dikasterion in Classical Athens,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 50 (2010) 499–536;
Mpumlwana, “The Road to Democracy,” 6, 7, 15.
Nabaz Shwany, “The Principles of Democratic and Non-Democratic Government,” posted on November 18, 2009 and available at: http://www.kurdishaspect.com/doc111809NS.html (accessed on 25-02-2012).
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Do Christian Have Good Reasons for Supporting Liberal Democracy?,” The Modern Schoolman, 78, 01 (2001) 229-248;
Nicholas Wolterstorff, “Jeffrey Stout on Democracy and Its Contemporary Christian Critics,” Journal of Religious Ethics 33, 04 (2005) 633-647;
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Acting Liturgically: Philosophical Reflections on Religious Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, The God We Worship: An Exploration of Liturgical Theology, Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015;
Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, xiii. See Engel, “Democracy, Christianity, Ecology,” 222.
Ober, “The Original Meaning of ‘Democracy,’” 1, 2, 6, 7, 8.
P.T. Matthew, “From Apologetics to Public Theology: Milestones and Pointers,” Encounter: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Reflections of Faith and Life 9, 01 (2018) 40-56;
Pope John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/ john_paul_ii/encyclicals/ documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_15101998_fides-et-ratio_en.html [accessed on 10-10-2020].
Raposa, “Pragmatism, Democracy and the Future,” 288, 297, 298, 299, 301, 302.
Robert McClory, As It Was in the Beginning: The Coming Democratization of the Catholic Church, New York, NY: Crossroad, 2007, 121-123.
Robert P. Kraynak, Christian Faith and Modern Democracy: God and Politics in the Fallen World, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001;
Robert Talisse, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, New York and London: Routledge, 2007;
Romand Coles, “Democracy, Theology, and the Question of Excess: A Review of Jeffrey Stout’s Democracy & Tradition,” Modern Theology 21, 02 (2005) 301-321;
Ronald J. Engel, “Democracy, Christianity, Ecology: A Twenty-First-Century Agenda for Eco-theology,” Cross Currents 61, 02 (2011) 217-231;
Stephan Van Erp, “Living with the Hidden God: Sacramental Theology as Public Theology,” Encounter: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Reflections of Faith and Life 9, 01 (2018) 20-39.
Subash Anand, “Inculturation in India: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” Indian Missiological Review 19, 01 (1997) 28-29.
Suenens, Co-responsibility in the Church, 189 and 191. See, Raposa, “Pragmatism, Democracy and the Future,” 297.
Taylor, Entertainment Theology, 1.
The Theory of Communicative Action, Vol. II, Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1985.
Vodovnik, “The Original Meaning of Democracy,” 38-54.
Walker, “Theology and Democratic Futures,” 202.
Wolterstorff, “Do Christian Have Good Reasons for Supporting Liberal Democracy?” 229-248.
Wolterstorff, “Jeffrey Stout on Democracy and Its Contemporary Christian Critics,” 634
Žiga Vodovnik, “Lost in Translation: The Original Meaning of Democracy,” Teorija in Praksa 54, 1 (2017) 38-54;
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2020-12-01
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Vazhappilly, B. . (2020). DEMOCRACY AND THEOLOGY: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ON APPROPRIATION. Asian Horizons, 14(4), 941–958. Retrieved from https://dvkjournals.in/index.php/ah/article/view/3628
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