Almost twenty years ago I began pondering the relationship between the Kingdom of God and democracy. Could I concurrently believe that Christ is King of my life and also claim to believe in democracy? Was it logically and theologically consistent to be both a democrat¹ and a Christian? Was the sovereignty of God (which Calvinists claim to be the backbone of Biblical teaching) antithetical to human autonomy?

May Christianity Really Be Democratic?

I broached those questions to a number of friends and colleagues, but no one was willing to engage in prolonged discussion. They seemed to look askance at anyone crazy enough to question the sacred concept of democracy. What kind of radical nut, posing as a scholar, is this?

My curiosity would not die, however, for the questions would not go away. Mildly frustrated, I returned to the University of Iowa, where I could pursue my research in an atmosphere of academic inquiry. My doctoral supervisor, a nominal Catholic and a worshipper of John Dewey, seemed to be equally curious and assisted me in setting up a research program that would culminate in a dissertation for the Ph.D. To conduct the investigation, I not only had to examine the theological and philosophical claims of each position, but had to ground the research in concrete experiences so that the end-product could be demonstrable and sufficiently realistic to convince the democratic adherents who made up my examining committee.

Bode’s History

With the enthusiastic approval of the powers that governed the process, I chose to focus my studies on the life and writings of Boyd A. Bode.² Bode, I discovered, was the son of a popular Christian Reformed minister and had grown up in the parsonage. As a young man he had taught catechism classes and generously assisted in his father’s ministry. Later, however, during his graduate studies , he began to question his Christian assumptions and caused his father no little embarrassment. By the time he was entrenched in a professorship at the University of Wisconsin, he was regularly debating John Dewey at gatherings of philosophers. By mid-life he was agreeing more and more with the preacher of democracy, and by the height of his career, he was vigorously campaigning for the demise of conservative Protestant churches.

When my dissertation became available to the public, almost everyone preferred to ignore it. But not the family and friends of Boyd H. Bode. They bristled at the charge that Bode had rejected Christianity in favor of democracy and threatened to sue me for labelling their father as an anti-Christian. Dad, the children insisted, was really an enlightened Christian who tried to establish heaven on earth and who embodied the very best of the social gospel.

An Unpopular Question

In the late 1970’s I once again embarked on an effort to alert the church to the threat of democracy, but again I found the general public to be uninterested. Questioning the democratic gospel, I found out, is unpopular with those who prefer to treat it as sacred.³ What most people fail to realize is that democracy can not be equated with the republican form of government. Democracy is a philosophy of life, a world-view, that is separate and distinct from the form of government which we enjoy in Western culture. Republicanism, in fact, is so closely parallel to our presbyterian form of ecclesiastical governance that it would be unwise to question its legitimacy. What I have been advocating for almost two decades is that we recognize that democracy, as a philosophy of life, must be critically and carefully examined so as to prevent it from capturing the hearts and minds of the church. Democracy, I would assert, is as much a heresy as are homosexualism, apartheid, and evolution. It is heretical in spite of being so universally embraced and so widely accepted as compatible with Christianity. Democracy is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It is a fox in the chicken coop, disguised as a rooster.

Why Beat a Dead Horse?

By now the reader may be asking why the author persists in beating a dead horse. Why continue to proclaim the perils of democratic belief, when it has been repeatedly demonstrated that no one really cares?

The answer lies in a two week experience in the Dominican Republic. While my denominational Synod was debating the direction and beliefs of the Christian Reformed Church, my wife and I chose to live and work in the incredibly poor villages of the Dominican Republic. In a totally different culture, there was ample opportunity to see a flourishing Christian church and to analyze the problems of our denomination from a very different perspective. Why, the missionaries on the field wanted to know, are the North American churches so polarized that each Synod becomes another exercise in schism prevention? Not only is the CRC progressively being polarized, but so are the RCA, the United Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Southern Baptists. We all claim to be Biblical Christians, but more and more we notice that there are fundamental, foundational issues that divide us. Issues at our Synods seem to be more deep-seated and divisions seem to be almost irreversible. What lies beneath it all? Can we pause long enough to analyze the issues so that our unity in Christ is not fractured further? Can we suggest that our differences are not only theological, but even more importantly and peculiarly philosophical?

Well aware that philosophy is usually reserved for eggheads, and that we may lose some readers at this point, allow me a few paragraphs to compare the basic beliefs of Christianity and democracy.

Christianity, as we a ll know, has as its core beliefs the sovereignty of God and the kingship of Jesus Christ. God not only created the entire universe and the human race, but providentially and powerfully directs and governs from his eternal throne. The King rules, creating and destroying life when and where He wills. Jesus Himself said that all authority originates with the Father. He controls all things so that not even a hair can fall from our balding heads or a baby sparrow from its nest outside of our Ruler’s will. In the terminology of governance, Christianity is truly a top-down theory. (By contrast, democracy is a bottom-up theory). According to Scripture, kings, princes, governors, mayors, premiers, and presidents are all appointed by God, to do His will. Government officials, whether in Washington, Ottawa, or in Chicago, are His agents, albeit in sometimes mysterious fashion. At the heart of the Biblical message is the Kingdom of God.

Democracy, on the other hand, is a philosophy and/or a religion that surfaces only sporadically on the pages of history. It was notorious and passionately embraced in ancient Athens, where Plato and Socrates found it necessary to argue militantly against it. Socrates’ conviction that democracy was at the heart of Athenian troubles became the running theme of many of Plato’s Dialogues and resulted finally in Socrates’ untimely death.

Democracy also raised its sweet-looking head in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when both France and the American colonies erupted in bloody revolutions in attempts to preserve it. Now, in the late twentieth century, democracy is bringing South Africa to the brink of a deadly civil war, and also threatens numerous other countries around the world.

Those who are in love with democracy always pretend that their philosophy is completely compatible with other religions, but also insist on the priority of democratic doctrines. It is always permissible to be both democratic and “Christian,” but it is never okay to be “only Christian.” You simply must be democratic. If not, civil disobedience is justified and revolution is encouraged, in order that democracy may take its pre-eminent place. In the early twentieth century we proudly entered World War I “in order to make the world safe for democracy.” What if the war was being fought between avowedly Christian nations? Democracy was at stake, so we could put our Christianity into second place while we brutally killed each other by the millions.

The central themes of the democratic religion are equality and fraternity. The equality of all men and the brotherhood of all men are the core beliefs of those who have embraced democracy. Equality, however, is impossible, undesirable, non-existent in any meaningful sense, and unbiblical.

Our recent two-week mission with the Christian Medical Society illustrated this for me in a fresh, new way. The Dominican Republic is very, very poor, with millions of people living in incredible poverty. Slums and hovels with chickens and goats sharing the dirt floor with clothesless children abound throughout the country. Medical treatment is only available when the Christian Medical Society or the Luke Society come to set up clinics. These may appear to be horrible conditions under which to live. Any democratic do-gooder experiencing such conditions would be apt to encourage a revolution, as many have done throughout Central America.

One of the Dominican Republic’s major problems, however, is that it is being invaded by hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti, who come to share the relative wealth and improve their lot in life. Haiti, after all, is twice as poor as is the D .R. Wealth, I am convinced, is very relative and not worth pursuing. The Dominicanos, in spite of their poverty, are some of the happiest and most fun-loving people I have ever met.

Not only is there no equality in the Dominican Republic. There is also very little fraternity. In a country inhabited only by Negroes, racism is everywhere present. Racial attitudes are determined by the blackness of the skin—the darker the skin, the more despised; the lighter the skin, the higher on the social and economic scale.

This troubled me a great deal at first, but more reflection reminded me that there is no equality in the U.S. or in Canada either. Everywhere you look there is tremendous variation in wealth, living conditions, political power, influence, and status. Equality is a statement of faith—a blind faith which, if pushed to its logical conclusion, must result in communism. Theoretically and practically, democracy is only a step away from communism. For me, that helps to explain why so many democratic do-gooders love to sing the praises of the Sandinistas and the revolutionaries in other Central American countries. If everyone were to be forced into a state of equal wealth, equal kinds of housing, equal means of transportation, and equal voting privilege, we would have fulfilled Karl Marx’s blueprint and given children the same authority as parents. In the process we would have had to ignore the Scriptures, for neither democrats nor communists are willing to listen to the authoritative voice of a divine sovereign. God’s Word has no place in the theory of those who have set themselves up as equal and autonomous.

So What?

But what does all of this talk about democratic theory have to do with the church of Christ in the 1980’s? Are not political theory and theology poles apart? How can our deep-seated allegiance to sacred democracy be linked to the theological differences which seem to be pulling us apart?

Let me suggest, to use an old Greek analogy , that democracy is the Trojan horse devised by Satan to divide and undermine the Christian church. Democracy is so universally approved, both by the communist rulers throughout the world and by leaders of republican governments, that we have never felt inclined to examine it in the light of Scripture. Democracy has crept in unawares, and we have welcomed it with open arms. We have dubbed it an angel of light, when it really is a purveyor of darkness. The Scriptures never teach it, but we have assumed that it is in harmony with the gospel.

The Western church, which is so very different from the churches in the Third World, has become progressively democratized. Living in the midst of cultures which proudly preach the democratic gospel of equality and fraternity, we have been transformed slowly and steadily by those cultures. Instead of living only “in” the world, we have become “of” the world. Where Scripture conflicts with the teachings of democracy, we have chosen for democracy. Instead of transforming the world for Christ, we have been trans formed by the world.

The Reformed churches, the Presbyterians, the Methodists, the Roman Catholics, many of the Baptists, and numerous other Protestant denominations all have been permeated and heavily influenced by the gospel of democracy. Instead of preaching the sovereignty of God, we have more and more preached the equality of the sexes and of the various races. Restricting church office to mature, married men of faith is anathema to some because it violates the doctrine of equality. Apartheid in South Africa is similarly cast because the defense of it flies so squarely in the face of both fraternity and equality. No matter that our fellow Christians in South Africa loudly insist that they love their black brothers and have provided well for their needs! As long as democracy is not preached and practiced by them, those Christians must be labelled as heretics. In the name of democracy and fraternity we push for membership in the World Council of Churches (WCC), the National Council of Christian Churches ( NCC C), and other ecumenical agencies, all the while diluting the doctrine of the antithesis so that we not risk offending our brethren. The antithesis between God and Satan can no longer be preached with any clarity because it may offend our brothers. Better even to coddle with communists than to jeopardize fraternity.

Another way in which democracy has influenced the church is in the growing tendency toward congregationalism. The congregational form of church government is based on the democratic belief that authority originates with the people and is delegated to the leaders so long as they follow the majority’s wishes. Presbyterianism, on the other hand, is based on the belief that all authority comes from God, who calls His servants to their respective offices to be His agents. As the CRC drifts more and more toward congregationalism, it becomes apparent that the democratic philosophy is becoming more deeply entrenched.

When parents try to apply democratic principles to family life or when teachers try to apply it to the classroom, they soon have a complete breakdown of authority and discipline, resulting in moral and ethical chaos. When church members start superimposing the doctrines of equality and fraternity on the Christian church, the same results occur. Anticlericalism replaces a Biblical respect for the office of minister; equality of the sexes replaces the divinely mandated headship of the father; and brotherhood dulls the two-edged sword of God’s Holy Word.

Christianity and democracy will not mix, although the republican form of government is very compatible with the former. Rejecting democracy in favor of Biblical Christianity may offend some of our brethren and even cause them to fight against us, but a thorough critique of the Trojan horse that has invaded the church is long overdue. For too long we have tried to combine the two and have produced only a social gospel and a civil religion. Biblical Christianity demands more.

1. Not to be confused with Democrats. We are not talking about political parties, even though there may be more than coincidental links between democracy as a philosophy and the principles on which the Democratic Party rests.

2. The dissertation was entitled Boyd H. Bode: A Study of the Relationship Between the Kingdom of God and Democracy and was published jointly by the University of Iowa and University of Michigan Microfilms in 1972. 3. In 1978 The Craig Press published my Christianity vs. Democracy, but again the church seemed to be apathetic. Intending to use Bode’s life “as a clear case study and thus . . . as a warning to all Christian youth concerning the perils of apostasy,” . . . I warned that “democracy represents a subtle, deadly, and formidable alternative to orthodox Christianity” (p. vii). Reviewers tended to totally misread the book and complained that Christians could not find in it prescriptions for democratic activity. Even the publisher failed to catch a gross error by those who designed the cover, mislabeling it Christianity And Democracy, and giving it the colors of super-patriotism.

The book is still in print and can be obtained from Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., Box 817, Phillipsburg, NJ 08865.

Dr. Norman De Jong is a professor at Trinity Christian College at Palos Heights, Illinois.