I’m preparing a quiz on the Election to use at our International Students’ Café this week. Some of the students are from countries with strong constitutional democracies – like USA or France, others come from states without democracy as we understand it. Has democracy become the sacred cow of our politics? It is all too easy to assume that government of the people, for the people, by the people is the very goal and highest achievement of society. I’ve got two problems with this – firstly Britain isn’t really a democracy in that sense anyway so let’s not get too self righteous: our sovereign and one of our two chambers of government are not elected. Secondly, as Christian I advocate and defend democracy as the least worst option in government, it provides the checks and balances needed in human society to prevent one group dominating another, it enables us to get rid of bad government and to seek the common good, but it cannot guarantee good government. In a democracy the people get the government they deserve.
There is nothing divinely ordained about this system.
Nor is the church a democracy – it is a body (at least in my corner of the vineyard) which makes full use of democracy as an excellent tool to find the mind of Christ by consulting the people of Christ. When we vote in church we are trying to find out what God is saying to us rather than expressing our rights as citizens of heaven or simply going along with the majority. It’s far from perfect, but I believe it to be a way God can speak to us.
What is God saying to us as a nation and how can we express that through our voting….. tricky….
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