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Peace is more important to 'powder keg' Europe than the Euro

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:02:20 +0100

It happened in the Swiss town of Caux, beautifully situated above Montreux, with a wonderful view over Lake Geneva. July 1946 delegates from many European countries gathered in the Mountain House, a former refuge centre for war victims, to look together for opportunities for reconciliation and peace in Europe.

By René van Loon

The most important lecturer was the American, Lutheran evangelist Dr Frank Buchman, leader of the Movement for Moral Rearmament. When Buchman entered the big hall and saw the flags and national costumes of many countries, he called out: ‘Where are the Germans?’ The public reacted with shock, upon which he continued: ‘Where are the Germans? Some of you think that Germany has got to change; and that is true. But you will never be able to rebuild Europe without Germany.’ [1]
In the years that followed Caux remained a meeting place for European leaders. Thanks to the Mountain House and the efforts of Buchman, Dr Konrad Adenauer, who would later become the Federal Chancellor of Germany, and the French premier Robert Schuman, got to know each other. Together they developed a daring plan: the peace between France and Germany would be furthered by economic cooperation and intertwining. With this vision the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established 18 April 1951. Besides France and Germany, Italy and the Benelux countries also joined the ECSC.
The leaders at that time were emphatically aware, that Europe had been a powder keg throughout the ages. Wars without number have been fought between the diverse super powers: Germany, England, France, Italy, Spain. The establishment of the ECSC was a historic step on the way to a new future and peace for Europe was its main goal. Economic cooperation was seen as a means to attain that main goal. That the ECSC would also benefit the wealth of a continent impoverished by war was an important additional goal.

Europe as a power bloc
In the decades that followed, the goals of European policy shifted. The longer the peace in Europe lasted, the more this peace was taken for granted. Besides the ECSC, the EEC was established, the European Economic Community. What had at first been an additional goal, increasing wealth by economic cooperation, gradually became rather the main goal. The EEC was transformed into the European Community (EC) that grew to become the European Union by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993.
Apart from the goals of peace in Europe and increasing wealth, a third goal arose along the way. Europe had the ambition to become a significant power factor on the world stage. Certainly after the collapse of communism, the desire grew to formulate an answer to the hegemony of the United States of America in the world. Europe wanted to be able to counter the US politically and the US and Japan economically, as well as the rising People’s Republic of China. In this light the plan arose of introducing a single European currency, a strong currency, that would globally at least be equally in demand as the Dollar and the Yen.

The plan to introduce a single currency in a union of sovereign states was doomed to fail from the beginning. Anyone with a certain understanding of economics would know that a single currency requires a central policy, executed by a central government. The power of a currency is like the grade a government gets for its policy. When a country structurally maintains a large public debt, the value of the currency diminishes. If it manages to limit public debt, that benefits the value of the currency. But still other factors are in play. When the policy of a government stimulates export, this benefits the value of the currency. The dynamics of wages and prices has an influence on the value of the currency, as does the development of the interest rates. The introduction of the Euro therefore had to be accompanied by the formation of a single, strong, European government. But this is not what happened. Mutual agreements were made, concerning among other things the height of public debt. Those agreements were violated by large member states such as Germany and France already within a few years. The die was cast. The countries within the Euro zone had to sustain the value of the Euro together. Such as system entices individual countries to skimp the rules, hoping that others do fully live up to them. It is like a group of pupils who have to make a project together and will be graded as a group. In such as group there will always be those who do a lot of work, who make an effort, but there will also always be free riders, that trust that the others will do the work.

Did politicians at the time not foresee that a single currency without a central policy had to lead to problems? Undoubtedly they did see this coming. But the single currency would always succeed. If no crisis were to occur, everyone would be content. And if a crisis were to occur, the public opinion in Europe would be ripe for the formation of a centralised European government. The Euro would be a lever that would bring nearer the formation of the United States of Europe.

Picture: Signature in Paris of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC): Van Zeeland (B) Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister, Bech (L) Luxembourg Foreign Affairs Minister, Meurice (B), Sforza (I) Italian Foreign Affairs Minister, Schuman (F) French Foreign Affairs Minister, Adenauer (D) German Chancellor and Foreign Affairs Minister, Stikker (NL) Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister, Van Den Brink (NL).

The Euro as a goal in itself
In the mean time the crisis has become a fact. And indeed: many opinion leaders, economists and politicians rightly draw the predictable conclusion: If we want to save the Euro, we will have to move towards a centralised European government. The former Belgian premier Guy Verhofstadt is one of the most passionate defenders of this position.

The question is though, what again were the original goals of European cooperation. The thesis ‘If we want to save the Euro, we have to move towards one European government’ takes the Euro as a starting point. But the Euro is not a goal in itself. The Euro is a means. And the question is: What European goal does the Euro actually serve? Does the Euro serve peace (the first goal), economic prosperity (the second goal) or the power of Europe in the world (the third goal)? This third goal is clearly served with the single currency. The second goal, economic prosperity, according to many politicians is also served by it. But whether this is actually the fact remains to be questioned. Countries such as Denmark, Sweden, the United Kingdom (within the EU) and Norway and Switzerland (outside the EU) are certainly not performing less good economically than countries that have the Euro. It is mainly the free trade agreements that have furthered the prosperity of Europe, rather than the Euro.

And the first goal, peace in Europe, is this served with the Euro and thus with a single European government? This is in fact the main question, which at the same time seems to be overlooked by most politicians. Peace is taken for granted! The Second World War is only a spec in the rear view mirror of European history at the most. The current generation of politicians grew up after the war and knows little else than that there is peace.

Whoever analyses the developments in Europe, shall soon have to assert that a single European government will summon up new tensions within the powder keg that is Europe, which bring with them great risks for the future of this continent. For a single European government will have to keep member states at bay with harsh means. This means that drastic measures will have to be taken with regard to national budgets and the national policy of the individual countries. We have witnessed this summer what consequences this has: great social unrest in countries such as Greece, Spain and Italy. The people in these countries get the feeling that the enormous budget cuts have been imposed by Europe as a foreign, abstract entity. Brussels is a far-away, Northern-European city. Even if the unrest does not lead to explosions of violence or terrorism (which is not imaginary), than the unrest will still inevitably lead to anti-European sentiments. Through the democratic process the anti-European sentiments will translate into the government policy of these countries. The consequence is a move in the direction of European disintegration.

This is not all. A single European economic policy would inevitably entail the richer regions structurally contributing to the poorer regions. Introducing Eurobonds for example would lead to equal interest rates in the entire Euro zone. This means that governments and citizens in countries with a solid monetary policy would have to pay more interest, and that interest in countries with a flawed policy would drop. All in all, this means the ‘solid’ countries would end up subsidising the ‘squanderers’. Now, the reality is that within each country poorer regions are structurally supported by richer regions. In the Netherlands for example, there is a continuous flow of money from the urbanised provinces in the west to the more peripheral provinces. This does not lead to protests though, because there is a great social and cultural cohesion within the Netherlands. This bond is strong enough to defray the cost of this solidarity. We only have to look across our border though, to Belgium (Guy Verhofstadt’s country!) to see that solidarity comes to an end when there are great cultural differences. Flanders has been a net contributor to Wallonia for decades now and is fed up with it. The consequence has been a complete stalemate in Belgian politics.
Within Europe the cultural differences are much greater still than within Belgium. Richer countries such as the Netherlands and Germany will certainly not be willing to contribute structurally to countries such as Italy and Greece. This applies even more to countries such as Romania and Bulgaria, both countries that are EU member states and obligated to join the Euro as soon as they meet the EU’s monetary standards. In Europe there will never come to exist such a sense of unity as there is for example in the United States of America. The United States have one language and are culturally much more similar than the European nations. If there is ever to be something like the United States of Europe, this entity will always remain a patchwork of cultures, languages and historical backgrounds. In any case there will be insufficient cohesion, to form a basis for structural help from one region to the other.
The history of the EU has demonstrated this sufficiently. Within the EU there are numerous aid funds in a number of areas. Subsequent Dutch governments have complained in Brussels, that the Netherlands is contributing more to these funds, than it receives from them. When it comes to money, it turns out the solidarity does not run very deep.

A single European government, necessary for maintaining a strong single currency, will in the long term lead to increasing tensions within Europe. These tensions will lead to the disintegration of the European Union, with as most extreme scenario violence, terrorism or even war. The history of our continent shows that this danger is not at all imaginary. Europe always has been and remains a powder keg.

Back to peace as a goal
What policy makers in Europe are to do now, is to return to the original goal of lasting peace in Europe. Economic prosperity will again have to be seen as an additional goal, subject to this goal of peace. Because of this peace, the European Union is of the utmost importance. Exactly to assure the continued existence of the EU in the long term, it is important that no further centralisation of power takes place. A continent like Europe, with many peoples, proud of their own language and culture, asks for a form of cooperation that leaves space to national sovereignty. A good balance should be found again between the power of the member states and the power of the Union. In this balance the member states will have to retain the space to carry out their own policies, also in the socio-economic area. If it turns out that in this scenario the Euro cannot be sustained in the long term, politicians should show the courage to question the single currency. Suggestions have already been made to split the Euro into a ‘Neuro’ for the northern countries and a ‘Seuro’ for the southern countries. Even further unstrangling may be inevitable. This will no doubt mean that Europe and certain European politicians will lose face. But the question is what really matters: image or the future of this continent. Peace is more important than the Euro.

René van Loon is a political economist and theologian. An abridged version of this article was originally published in Dutch in the Nederlands Dagblad. Translation by Jonathan van Tongeren.

[1] Michael Henderson, The Spirit of Caux. Moral Re-Armament/Initiatives of Change in Switzerland. Retrieved at http://www.peoplebuildingpeace.org/thestories/print.php?id=152&typ=theme on Octobre 7, 2011.

Biblical Foundations of Evangelical Politics

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:46:40 +0200

The following text is based on an audio recording of Ronald J. Sider's address at a conference of the Evangelical Peoples' Party of Switzerland. Sider briefly summarises a book he has written on how to think biblically on politics. He first outlines his methodology and then illustrates his political philosophy.

[..] Every political judgement has four components to it. One part is a normative framework. There are some secular political thinkers who claim that they have a fully objective starting point. But they are trying to kid themselves or you; everyone’s normative values are rooted finally in their deepest philosophical or religious commitments. So I go back to the Scriptures largely to find my normative framework. But second, we need a broad study of the world, history, economics and so on. And then we need to pull these two things together and develop a political philosophy. The reason we need that is this: Every time you want to decide how to vote on legislation or a particular politician, you cannot take five years and go back and do all the biblical studies again, and five years to do all the socio-economics and history again. You need a roadmap, a handy guide, a summary and that is what I mean by a political philosophy. And then of course you have to apply that political philosophy to every political decision. One other preliminary point: I think it is crucial that one starts ones political analysis and thinking within the Christian community. If you do not do that, then you end up adopting secular political ideologies of left or right. And that is exactly what happened with many Christians in politics, at least in my country. Too many Christians have uncritically adopted left wing or right wing politics. The result has been a sub-Christian Religious Right, that I think largely correctly championed the sanctity of life and the family, but neglected economic justice for the poor and environmental concerns. Equally sub-Christian was the Religious Left that rightly defended peace and justice and the integrity of creation, but largely forgot about the importance of the family and sexual integrity and failed to defend the most vulnerable of all, the unborn. When I give a longer version of this speech I make the next section on a discussion of my normative biblical framework, but there is no time for that, so I will go on immediately to sketch my political philosophy. And I hope as I do that, you can see how I try to develop my political philosophy out of a normative biblical framework and out of a careful study of the world. Obviously there is no developed political philosophy in the Bible. Individuals and communities of Christians need to develop that as they put together a normative framework and study of the world. So, several components of my political philosophy:

First, the democratisation or decentralisation of power: I think there is a positive reason and a negative reason for decentralising power. The positive reason is that every person is created in the image of God and is given a creation mandate to be co-worker with God in shaping history. If all the decisions are made by just a few people, the majority cannot exercise their creation mandate. The negative reason for decentralisation of power has been stated pointedly by Lord Acton. He said power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Biblical people know that sinful people in a fallen world will almost always use centralised power for their selfish advantage. They will use it to benefit themselves and oppress others.

Second, and partly flowing from the first, is democracy. I do not think the Bible explicitly teaches a democratic political order, but I think some biblical principles and a study of the world point us in that direction. I think the biblical teaching about the worth of every individual and the importance of individual freedom and a concern for human rights and a concern for the decentralisation of power, all lead us toward a democratic political order. When you have freedom of speech, secret voting, universal suffrage, political power is fundamentally decentralised, at least theoretically.

Third, non-governmental institutions: A great British Christian leader said that the greatest heresy about society is to think that society is just individuals and the state. Society when it works well is composed of many non-governmental institutions: family, religious institutions, media, schools, businesses and a host of other non-governmental organisations. All of these intermediate institutions decentralise power, they provide small centres where human beings can flourish and they check centralised power, they check governmental power and they provide freedom. So a good society will pay a lot of attention and value and treasure those intermediate, non-governmental institutions.

Fourth, the very ‘non-controversial’ topic of the market-economy: I think the history of the 20th century shows clearly that when the state owns almost all of the productive property in a society, you centralise economic power and political power and you almost guarantee totalitarianism. Genuinely decentralised private ownership on the other hand nurtures free individuals and it serves as a counter-balance to political power. Furthermore determining prices and production via supply and demand has proven to be more efficient than central planning. I also think that biblical teaching about the value and the freedom of the individual also supports this approach. However, huge privately owned corporations also centralise power in a dangerous way. When a small group of very wealthy people own huge corporations and those corporations own the media and so shape the thinking of the society and provide most of the money for the election [campaign]s. Then again you have centralised economic and political power in a dangerous way. I find it interesting that political conservatives in my own country were very clear about this danger of centralised power in the 1970’s and 80’s, as they rightly criticised theSoviet Union. They seem to have somehow forgotten the principle of decentralisation of power now when we are talking about private corporations.

I will not say much about the next point, religious freedom, except to remind you that my roots are Swiss Mennonite and we care a lot about separation of church and state. Next I will talk about the family. I think that government rightly recognises and favours the family. By family I mean those related by blood, marriage or adoption. The sociological studies have been very clear that children do better when they are raised by both of their biological parents. The sociological research on that is overwhelmingly clear. The family, not the government, has the primary responsibility to raise children. I think religious institutions can do more than government to strengthen the family. But government can do some things and should. I think that means discouraging but not criminalising divorce and sexual promiscuity. I also think it means civil rights for gay citizens, but I do not think that means gay marriage is the way to go.

Next, the care for creation: I think responsible care for creation flows out of biblical norms. [..] I think that human beings have a far greater worth than the non-human world, but very seldom do we have to choose between taking a human life and destroying an endangered species. Usually it is a choice between growing affluence on the one hand and destroying the handiwork of the Creator. So we need to take a long term approach to environmental sustainability, but we must always do that in a way that helps the poor rather than hurts them. And we wealthy nations, that have created most of the environmental pollution thus far, ought to pay much of the cost of helping the whole globe take environmental issues seriously.

A couple of comments about the role of government: You have probably read about the Tea Party movement in theUnited States. Many American evangelicals are engaged in the Tea Party, inconsistently I think. The Tea Party is essentially libertarian, [in their view] government has no role in empowering the poor, the family and the church are supposed to do that. I think that if you look at the scriptures you see that the king is supposed to do justice for the poor. I also think that government must be limited, remember the point about decentralisation of power. So, there is a proper role for government in creating a good society and empowering the poor. I believe in taxing wealthier people in order to redistribute to poorer people, although it is not always politically wise to put it in just those terms. But that must be done wisely, the programmes must be effective. And too often programmes for the poor have created dependency rather than self-sufficiency. So, I want a substantial role for government, but a limited role. And I think you can make a case for that both from biblical teaching and from study of the world.

Next let me comment on the priority of the poor. The Bible is very clear, God is on the side of the poor. God measures societies by what they do to the people on the bottom. I think that both biblical analysis and study of the world also show the following: People are poor both because they sometimes make bad personal choices and because the structures are unfair. And conservatives seem to want to talk only about the personal choices and liberals seem to want to talk only about bad structures. And I think that is tragic, because both factors are important.

Next, a consistent ethic of life: I think the first and most basic human right is the right to life. And I think abortion involves the direct, intentional, violent taking of life. I am in favour of legislation that reduces the frequency of abortions. But we also need to be clear that there are two people involved, not just the baby. So we need to have a variety of programmes that help mothers with unintended pregnancies carry that baby to term. I think euthanasia, as a direct action to take a human life, is fundamentally wrong and very dangerous for a society. That does not mean that it is wrong to decide, if the doctors say that you have no hope of living beyond a few months, that you do not want all the machines and all the complicated techniques that modern medicine can do. But I think there is a fundamental distinction between allowing a person to die and killing a person. And I think that distinction, although sometimes difficult, is really crucial. But a concern for the sanctity of human life, does not end with abortion and euthanasia, some wise guy said that some conservatives act as if life begins at conception and ends at birth. Tens of millions of people die unnecessarily of starvation and diseases we know how to prevent. Tobacco kills millions of people every year, the capital punishment kills people made in the image of God. I think a consistent ethic of life will be concerned with the sanctity of life in all those areas.

Finally just a very few comments about the American religious scene right now. I think that many people both in theUSand outside think that the Religious Right represents all American evangelicals. It is a little oversimplification but largely true to say that the Religious Right was concerned primarily with abortion and sexuality and marriage. In the last approximately ten years a new Evangelical Centre has emerged and it is concerned with a much broader political agenda. I like to say that if you want to be a Christian in politics you will have to ask this question: What does the Bible say God cares about? And I think when you ask that question, then you quickly see that God cares about the sanctity of human life and the poor, about the family and peace making, about sexual integrity and about care for creation. I like to say and this has been true of me for a long time: I am pro life and pro poor, pro family and pro racial justice, pro sexual integrity and pro creation care. And in 2004 the National Association of Evangelicals adopted a statement which reflects this broader agenda. I had the privilege of co-chairing that process and the statement says that faithful evangelical political engagement must have a biblically balanced agenda. And the statement goes on to have a strong conservative statement on the sanctity of human life and marriage and family, but the longest section is on economic justice for the poor and there are fairly strong statements on peace making and creation care. Now, not nearly all evangelicals in theUSvote according to that statement, but that is the official framework for the largest evangelical organisation in the US.

Ronald J. Sider is a professor of Theology, Holistic Ministry and Public Policy at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. He is the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, a think-tank which seeks to develop biblical solutions to social and economic problems, and a founding board member of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. Transcript by Jonathan van Tongeren.

The state as juggler. Reinhold Niebuhr on politics, power and morality

Sat, 11 Jun 2011 12:33:32 +0200

The name of the American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) regularly shows up in discussions on the task of politics. In the last American presidential elections for example, both Obama and Bush referred to him. Who is this man and what explains the continued interest for his work?

By Willem Boerma

Between idealism and realism
Reinhold Niebuhr is widely acknowledged as the founder of Christian Realism, a tradition within the scientific discipline of International Relations, that does not deny the possibility of moral decisions in (international) politics, but at the same time sees little room for it. Murray summarises the position of Christian Realism well in the title of his work ’between power and cosmopolitan ethics’.[1] Niebuhr’s thought is strongly influenced by the two World Wars, the Interwar period and the start of the Cold War. Influenced by these periods in world history, he abandoned his originally pacifist mindset for the position of Christian Realism. He acknowledges that idealism is a grave danger in international politics. According to Niebuhr the two World Wars have amply demonstrated that evil cannot be banned out by human efforts. At the same time he also criticises the political realism of Thomas Hobbes and Nicollò Machiavelli. Such realism leads to a situation of continuous war and tension, for an important adage of this realism is: si vis pacem, para bellum (if you want peace, prepare for war). With his Christian Realism Niebuhr tries to occupy the middle ground between idealism and realism: on account of his Christian conviction and on account of ‘hard-won political wisdom’.[2] This tension between idealism and realism can be observed first and foremost in his view of man and in his worldview.

View of man: freedom and sinfulness
Niebuhr’s description of man as ‘both creature of time and creator of history in time’ shows the range of his view of man.[3] He sees a big role for human freedom, while he acknowledges that this freedom is limited by the fact that man is a created and sinful being. This explains why Niebuhr has been characterised as a ‘pessimistic optimist’.[4] In his view of man he continuously emphasises the ambivalence of human nature: By means of reason, man can transcend himself above every historical situation. At the same time the self is to big to comprehend itself and to make its self its goal. “The twofold possibility of creativity and destruction of human freedom, accounts for the growth of both good and evil through the extension of human powers.”[5] According to Niebuhr this ambivalence can be traced back to the Fall of man: the flawed use of the human will marks the end of man as imago dei. The possibility of a good use of reason, the discoveries of natural science, the increasing knowledge of foreign languages and cultures and the increasing interdependence can be means to somewhat moderate the egoistic impulses of individuals and national states. Even though they will never suffice to undo the consequences of sin.

World view: Battle between God and man
Regarding Niebuhr’s view of world history, his basic principle is clear: God is the reason, the ultimate purpose and the perfection of our existence. History forms the scene of the battle between God and man. Niebuhr emphasises that it is about the battle between sinful people and God: on the basis of this reality there can be no discrimination between respective persons or respective peoples. He furthermore sees history as a continuous attempt of people to deny the sovereignty of God and to aspire being gods themselves. The individual and collective will-to-power continue to play an important role. This leads to (potential) conflict, tension and abuse of power in relations between individuals and also between states or other collectives.
Niebuhr sees the metaphysical meaning of history in the person of Christ. Man, being an enigma to himself, is not capable of reconciling himself with God. He is to limited due to his human and sinful nature. Christ has, through his death on the cross, established this reconciliation between God and man. Thus God is the ultimate goal of history.
Summarising: Niebuhr sees a great measure of freedom for the humane itself. He pairs this freedom with responsibility and limits it by pointing to the fact that man is created and sinful. Moral ambiguity is the reality than man has to live with after the fall. But what consequences does this have for government and politics?

Government: Might ánd Morality
Niebuhr sees the aspiration to power as one of the most important motivations of human action. He sees this as a perversion of the original situation: the will-to-live has changed in and because of the fall of man into a will-to-power. Niebuhr distinguishes several kinds of power: physical (economic and military) power, intellectual power and spiritual power. The most important task of the state is to establish and maintain a balance of power. For Niebuhr this balance exists in a “wise apprehension of concurrent interests, rather than by a ‘sacrifice’ of the ‘lower’ to the ‘highest’ interests.”[6] The political virtue of shaping this balance of power is prudence. The balance thus created is not static but dynamic, nor is this balance of power a goal in itself: it is to him a precondition to come to some form of social justice.

Power per se has need of morality for its legitimacy. The intrinsic need of man for ‘the transcendent’ and for the ‘vestiges’ of the original justice make that power has need of a legitimisation outside of itself to be effective. Niebuhr is convinced that power does not merely require a material but also an immaterial basis: this recalls the fact that man is moral being. In another place (criticising the rigorous division Luther establishes between church and state) he says it like this: “justice degenerates into mere order without justice if the pull of love is not upon it.”[7] So power can only be effective in the long term when it appeals to immaterial values. This is why Niebuhr criticises for example Realism, in which the national interest of a state is defined exclusively in terms of power and interests. This is to limited: “a narrow definition of the interest of the nation leads to the defeat of that interest.”[8] The job description of a political authority in searching for a good balance of might and morality is described strikingly by Niebuhr: “politics is an effort to establish tolerable community, the sinfulness of men presupposed.”[9] Our expectations of what can be achieved by political means should not be to high. To realise this the distinction between individual and collective morality is crucial.

Opposed to political thinking in terms of progress
From his early works on, Niebuhr emphasised the distinction between individual and collective morality. It is clear to him for example that (religious) idealists have made individual morality a norm for social and political action. This becomes visible mainly in their linear understanding of history: rational man is ever more capable of controlling his egoistic impulses and letting rational thinking, justice and universal values prevail. Thus the will-to-power becomes an artefact from the past. Niebuhr refutes this naïve position on principled as well as pragmatic grounds. In the love (agape) of Christ for man Niebuhr sees the definitive norm for the self as ‘free spirit’. Agape is source and goal of all mutual relations in the human existence. At the same time it is clear to him that love as norm of action can mainly apply on the individual level. For social justice this ‘perfectionist ethic’[10] is irrelevant. He even goes as far as saying that the individual self can suffer under the ‘collective self’ because it knows higher standards. For in a social unity a balance has to be found between different interests and standards. This leads to a balance of power on the basis of calculation and/or force: “all social cooperation on a larger scale than the most intimate social group requires a measure of coercion.”[11] The result is that social justice is always of a lower order than individual justice, and it should be.

Another reason Niebuhr provides to demonstrate the difference between individual and collective morality is also interesting: namely the possibility of self-criticism. The individual is an integral unity of body and spirit. Being an integral unity allows for self-reflection and self-criticism. This possibility decreases as the scale of a social organisation (for example a state) increases: the integral unity disappears. The moral life of a state is therefore of a lower level than that of an individual.
At the same time Niebuhr does not want to strip love (to God and fellow man) as moral standard of all of its socio-political significance; something that would in any way be an impossibility. Interesting is for example his idea of a form of iustitia originalis. He points to the fact that the three virtues of faith, hope and love are an integral part of humanity, they were not lost in the Fall, although they have been perverted. The value of these three virtues, and therewith of the double commandment of love, lies in the religious and moral interpretation. Thus Niebuhr wants to point out that what before the fall was automatically in agreement with the being of man, has in the sinful reality taken the shape of laws and rules. This change places laws and rules on a lower moral order than the ‘law of love’ in its original form: love as transcendence of the law, righteousness as rationalisation of this law of love. At the same time this presence of a form and reminder of justice offers the opportunity to come to social justice on the basis of laws and not on the basis of power alone. The remaining form of justice offers the opportunity to rise above the direct self-interest.

The state as juggler
For Niebuhr egoism and the will-to-power dominate the social process of state formation. These motives are present on the individual level; on the level of a group, a society or a state these shortcomings return enlarged. For within a group there is less self-criticism. Niebuhr is therefore realistic enough to conclude that a society is mainly held together by power: “a nation is a corporate unity, held together much more by force and emotion, than by mind.”[12] At the same time power alone is not enough: a society has to share certain values or refer to values that appeal to the remaining sense of justice of people. It is an important task of the state (government) to continuously seek this balance between order and justice. The state has as an important mission to take on the organisation of the different powers that are at work in its own society and in the relations between states. Herein a balance of power, implying order, is eventually more important than the contents of this order.
In his concept of state, Niebuhr turns against the so-called contract-theorists. In his view the state is the result of a historic and organic process, not of a contract between the people and the rulers. This is related to Niebuhr’s idea that every social entity, including the state, is eventually of temporary nature. At that moment in history (the first half of the twentieth century) a state seems to Niebuhr to be the most appropriate form of rule, but it is not a constant. He sees the battle between God and man wanting to become god as the only constant in history. Remarkable is Niebuhr’s conclusion that the most important moral characteristic of the state is its hypocrisy. In claiming loyalty (devotion of its own citizens) and viewing community as a part of a universal community of values ‘dishonesty of nations’ is ‘a necessity of political policy’.

Conclusion
Niebuhr is constantly searching for a balance between might and morality. To him a balance is not only the most realistic option, but form his Christian conviction also the only right one. Negation of fall of man forms as great a danger to society as negation of the vestiges of justice.

Willem Boerma MA works as an adviser to the Provincial Legislature of Flevoland. Besides this he has worked on a thesis on Niebuhr and Elshtain’s reception of the works of St. Augustin. This article was published in Dutch in ‘Denkwijzer’ (2/2009), magazine of the Scientific Institute of the Christian Union party of the Netherlands. Translation by Jonathan van Tongeren

[1] Alisdair H. Murray (1997), Reconstructing Realism. Between power and cosmopolitan ethics.

[2] Paul Foreman (2002), The neo-orthodox theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, http://www.leaderu.com/isot/docs/niehbr3.html, 2; A typical quote in this context is: “it is a terrible heresy to suggest that, because the world is sinful, we have the right to construct a Machiavellian politics or a Darwinian sociology as normative for Christians.”, in: Robert MacAfee Brown ed. (1986) The essential Reinhold Niebuhr: selected essays and addresses, New Haven: Yale University Press, 215

[3] Reinhold Niebuhr (1949) Faith and History, 55

[4] Brown (1986), The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr, 146/147

[5] Ibid., 139, cf.: ibid., 105

[6] Reinhold Niebuhr (1965), Man’s nature and his communities. Essays on the dynamics and enigmas of man’s personal and social existence, New York; Charles Scribner’s sons, 90

[7] Niebuhr, Faith and history, 210

[8] Niebuhr, Human destiny, 79

[9] Niebuhr, Human nature, 216

[10] Niebuhr, The self and the dramas of history, 202

[11] Niebuhr, Moral man and immoral society, 3

[12] Niebuhr, Moral man and immoral society, 88

Christian Democracy: the Champion of Subsidiarity

Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:00:00 +0200

Subsidiarity is crucial to Christian Democracy, but under constant pressure. If the EU is to live up to the vision of its founders, Christian Democracy has to reassert the principle of subsidiarity.

By Jonathan van Tongeren, ECPYN Political adviser

A Christian response to new things
Christian Democracy first emerged in Europe by the end of the nineteenth century, after a period of industrialisation that came with urbanisation and had fundamentally changed society. It emerged mainly under the influence of the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and more specific the encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’ (Of New Things) of Pope Leo XIII. In this encyclical Leo XIII determined the Church’s position regarding capital and labour.[1] During the nineteenth century the Church had come to recognize that the prevailing capitalist system had some fundamental flaws. As the British author Gilbert K. Chesterton noted, the problem with capitalism is not that there are “too many capitalists, but too few capitalists”.[2] In other words, because the capital is concentrated in the hands of few, many are not sure of their continued economic existence. In order to prevent socialist movements from attracting Christian labourers and even priests with its rhetoric of redistributing wealth, the Church had to come up with an alternative to both capitalism and socialism.[3] Therefore an alternative, family and community centred system called distributism was developed by Hillaire Belloc, Gilbert K. Chesterton and others, on the basis of the papal encyclicals ‘Rerum Novarum’ and ‘Quadragesimo Anno’ and in some elements inspired by medieval ‘paleo-corporatism’ or the system of guilds. Distributism holds that the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (plutarchic capitalism). Distributism can thus be said to be a better version of capitalism, a capitalism for the many, in which everybody owns productive property and can thus ensure his livelihood. Because distributism was never sufficiently popularized it has never been tried as an alternative economic system,[4] the encyclicals that had formed the basis for this system though were widely circulated in Catholic circles and did have their effect on European Catholic communities. This resulted in all kinds of Catholic organisations, such as cooperatives, mutualist organisations and labour unions aiming to improve the position of labourers by organising consultation between employers and employees. It also gave rise to the Christian Democratic movement, that positioned itself as an alternative to socialism and liberalism with an emphasis on notions that can be traced to Catholic social teaching. These are what pope John Paul II called ‘the threefold cornerstone of human dignity, solidarity and subsidiarity’.

Subsidiarity
The Christian notion of subsidiarity holds that a function which can be performed by a smaller unit should not be performed by a larger unit: "Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do."[5] This principle applies both in the economy as in society and politics. The principle of subsidiarity is closely related to the concept of human dignity. Because man is made in the image of God, every man has his own responsibility before God to live up to his dignity. This responsibility should not be usurped by a collective. Thus the notion that man was made in the image of God and has a mandate to subdue the earth and have dominion over it, leads to a defence of private property. For when productive property is privately owned this best ensures the ability of human individuals to strive for their dignity.[6]

The early beginnings of European unification
After the Second World War Christian Democracy returned, stronger than before, to the centre of the political stage in many European countries. Alcide de Gasperi (1888-1954) and his Democrazia Christiana (DC) prevented the communists from taking over Italy. In Germany the Catholic Centre Party was effectively replaced by a cross denominational Christian Democratic Union under Konrad Adenauer and in France the Republican Popular Movement (MRP) with such eminent figures as Robert Schuman was essential to the formation of many governments before the rise of Gaullism. In the 1950’s these leading Christian Democrats came together to conceive what would later become the European Union: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The ECSC was intended to bind France and Germany together politically and economically in order to ensure that these countries would never go to war with each other again, adding to Immanuel Kant’s ‘democratic peace theory’ the aspect of economic intertwining.[7] It goes without saying that this concept of a united Europe did not fall out of the sky, this is also indicated by the fact that the initiators of this unprecedented political project were Christian Democrats or to be more specific Roman Catholics. It is no wonder that exactly people such as Alcide de Gasperi could conceive such an idea as European unity and actually act upon it. For Alcide de Gasperi was born and raised in that part of Italy that had been part of the Austro-Hungarian ‘Habsburg’ Empire, which can be said to be the last remnant of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and had unified large parts of Europe and many different nations. De Gasperi had moreover been a member of the parliament of the Empire, representing his region of Trentino (Southern Tyrol). By no means do I mean to idealize the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it obviously had its flaws as any human construct has, but it is likely that people such as De Gasperi acquired their ideas for a unified Europe from the experience they had and the political constructs they already knew. Roman-Catholics such as Schuman, Adenauer and De Gasperi were heavily influenced by Catholic Social Doctrine and thus had a proper understanding of the notion of subsidiarity. From his life as a journalist and politician in Austro-Hungary and Italy De Gasperi will have had an even more profound understanding of the importance of subsidiarity. As a journalist and later as an Italian member of the Imperial Parliament (Reichstag) he defended the (cultural) rights of the Italian minority in Trentino and during the 1930’s and 1940’s he experienced the extreme centralisation of the fascist system.[8] Something similar can be said for Adenauer who had clashed with the National-Socialists already before the war in his position as mayor of Cologne. After the Second World War in his role as Federal Chancellor (prime minister) of West-Germany, he often emphasized the importance of what he called federalism, as opposed to the extreme centralisation of power of Nazi Germany. This federalism did not only apply to the German system of states and districts and communities with their own competences, but it was also a vision of a federal society, a commonwealth of all kinds of organic communities and organisations: “The concept of federalism is often to narrowly defined. People understand it to be the relation between – I am talking of Germany in this case – the states and the federation. No! This is much to narrowly thought. The federalist idea is much broader. It consists therein that everything that a smaller organ can do, must be done by the smaller organ. The federalist idea is diametrically opposed to centralism.”[9]
Robert Schuman (1888-1963) was from Lorraine and was thus born a German citizen and only became French when Lorraine was returned to France in 1918. Robert Schuman in a 1949 speech also referred to the attempts of the Roman Catholic Church since the Middle Ages to establish and maintain some form of political unity in Christendom.[10] So both De Gasperi and Schuman had from their own experience some understanding of supranational political entities, be they the German or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the latter being the more interesting for our discussion. And both they and Adenauer understood the importance of subsidiarity from their familiarity with Catholic Social Doctrine and from their political experience.

The European Union and subsidiarity today
We have sufficiently demonstrated that subsidiarity was of central importance to the founding fathers of the predecessor of the European Union, Adenauer thought it to be of crucial importance for the vitality of democracy.[11] It is hence no wonder that the term subsidiarity is also found in official EU documents and treaties. Although the principle can said to be there implicitly in the Treaty of Rome and the Single Act, it was not officially introduced as such into the treaties of the European Communities until the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. After some meetings the Council finally arrived at a protocol that was attached to the Treaty of the EC by the Treaty of Amsterdam. Whereas this protocol lays down some technical rules for the application of the subsidiarity principle, it seems that in political practice, the subsidiarity principle is at odds with two aspects of the current functioning of the EU and it is phrased to ambiguously. Basically, Article 5 of the Treaty establishing the European Community states that the EU does not take action (except in the areas which fall within its exclusive competence) unless it is more effective than action taken at national, regional or local level.[12] Anyone will understand that it can be subject to debate whether a certain issue can be resolved more effectively at a certain level than at another and what does or does not constitute an effective solution. This brings me to the two aspects of the EU’s current functioning that are at odds with the principle of subsidiarity. The first is an ideological aspect. As the preamble to the Treaty on European Union states, there is a resolve “to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.”[13] This phrasing is obviously a compromise between those wanting more integration and those stressing the importance of subsidiarity. It is a strange compromise as it basically says that we should have more centralization in order to have more subsidiarity, this makes the entire statement nonsensical. The second aspect is the fact that the European Parliament has attained more powers since the Treaty of Lisbon. From national political experience we already know that parliamentarians have a tendency to address any issue that comes along and the easiest way for the European Parliament to address an issue is to come up with a solution itself, rather than waiting for national or regional legislatures to tackle the issue. Because the limitations to the EU’s competence have become broader over the years and are only vaguely defined, it has a tendency of centralizing power by means of issuing regulations regarding all kinds of issues. This is what I would like to call the inducing effect of parliamentarianism at European level.[14]

European Christian Democracy: Centralization or Subsidiarity?
In recent years and decades Christian Democracy, along with mainstream social and liberal democracy, has been the driving force behind the European integration, that is de facto a form of centralization. To some extent this is in line with the ambitions of the founders of the first European Community, but these founders had always envisioned a European Union that would leave ample competences to subsidiary levels of government. If European Christian Democracy is not to lose its birthright, which is as I have discussed closely related to the concept of subsidiarity, it has to face the question of the ‘finalité’, the ultimate goal of European integration, or what is rather centralization of power. When boundaries to EU competences will not be defined more clearly and the competences of the subsidiary levels of government will not be defended more assertively, the centralization of power in the hands of EU institutions has no natural end. In the end it is subsidiarity that makes Europe what it is, a unity in diversity. It is the correct application of the principle of subsidiarity that safeguards our diversity. But who will safeguard subsidiarity?
Since subsidiarity is first and foremost a Christian democratic notion, it should be Christian democracy that challenges the inducing effect of European politics and champions the rights and competences of subsidiary levels of government, be they national, regional or local. Because mainstream Christian Democracy is so much interwoven with the system of the European Union, it is slow to spot this major challenge and slow to effectively respond to it, if she is able to do so at all. But all is not lost, some Christian Democratic parties have already shown to understand the importance of this challenge. The Christian Union party of the Netherlands and the Christian Democratic Party (PCD) of France both opposed the treaty that would have established the so called European Constitution, exactly because of their concern for subsidiarity. For the sake of diversity we should hope and strive for other Christian Democratic parties to follow their example.

This article was published in Sfera Politicii, volumne 157

[1] Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum. On capital an labor, http://www.vatican.va/, accessed on March 14, 2011. In the case of Protestant parties such as the Dutch Anti-Revolutionary Party in the Netherlands the ‘social question’ was also a major reason for its emergence, along with the more specific emancipation of the Reformed labouring class. See for example: Abraham Kuyper, “Maranatha”, in James D. Bratt ed., Abraham Kuyper. A Centennial Reader (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1998) pp. 210-11.

[2] G.K. Chesterton, The Uses of Diversity (1921).

[3] Oswald Spengler, Jahre der Entscheidung. Deutschland und die weltgeschichtliche Entwicklung (München: C.H. Beck, 1933), pp. 90-92.

[4] There are some small exceptions such as the Mondrágon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque Country that effectuated some distributist ideas, an initiative of Father José María Arizmendiarrieta and some initiatives on the British Isles. Since the proponents of the concept of distributism in its most developed form were British, it has had its biggest influence in the United Kingdom. This explains both for Margaret Thatcher’s concept of a ‘capitalism for the many’ which promoted home ownership and participation of employees in companies but failed to offer an integrated vision and had a rather neo-liberal orientation when it comes to the privatisation of public services, as for David Cameron’s concept of the ‘Big Society’. See also: Philip Blond, Red Tory. How Left and Right have broken Britain and how we can fix it (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 2010).

[5] Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, http://www.vatican.va, accessed on March 14, 2011.

[6] G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World (San Fransisco: Ignatius Press, reprinted 1994 (Dod Mead and Co., 1910)).

[7] Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden. Ein philosophischer Entwurf (Königsberg, 1796).

[8] After having been jailed for a year and a half in 1927 the Vatican negotiated his release and he lived in seclusion in the Vatican for 14 years until the collapse of fascism in 1943.

[9]In Heidelberg at a gathering of the Christian Democratic Union on 1 March 1952, Bulletin Nr. 26/52, p. 251.

[10] Robert Schuman, “The Coming Century of Supranational Communities” Schuman or Monnet?Tthe real Architect of Europe, http://www.schuman.info/Strasbourg549.htm, accessed on March 16, 2011.

[11] Anneliese Poppinga ed., Seid wach für die kommende Jahre. Grundsätze - Erfahrungen – Einsichten (Bergisch Gladbach: Gustav Lübbe Verlag GmbH, 1997), pp. 95-107.

[12] Council of Europe, “Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union” http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:083:SOM:EN:HTML, accessed on March 18, 2011.

[13] Ibid. p.16.

[14] Jürgen Habermas, “Comment on the Paper by Dieter Grimm: Does Europe Need a Constitution?”, European Law Journal, (1995) pp. 303-307.

Christian Democracy in neo-Calvinist perspective: central motives, historical roots

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:00:00 +0200

The Dutch neo-Calvinist movement launched by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) contributed to postwar Christian Democracy in Europe alongside, for example, neo-Thomist social and political thinking. Christian Democrats defend institutional pluralism in civil society against both (socialist) statism and (liberal) individualism. Within this defense of a pluralist society the neo-Calvinist concept of (horizontal) 'sphere sovereignty' differs from the Roman Catholic principle of (hierarchical) 'subsidiarity'. Recent attention to civil society brings to the fore centuries of Christian social initiatives and societal ideas, already within the Roman Empire, and Biblical roots of this praxis and thought. In this article is described how neo-Calvinism strengthens the central motives of Christian Democracy. The historical roots of these motives are traced in order to picture neo-Calvinism perspectively as only one source of Christian Democratic thinking among a variety of other historical sources.

By Rob Nijhoff, Scientific Institute ChristenUnie, The Netherlands, policy advisor

Introduction
Despite electoral ups and downs Christian Democracy has offered postwar Europe “a genuine “third way” between capitalism and socialism”.[1] This early selfdescription as a “third way” can still be defended, but after the dismantling of the U.S.S.R. its main competitors better can be labelled as (political) Liberalism and Social Democracy: the former hailing individual and private initiatives, the latter stressing the lasting need for state regulation and support. The presence of other rivals, like conservatism or rightwing populism, triggers Christian Democracy to present its profile sharper than by taking position ‘between’ two political poles. So: what are the typical motives which recommend Christian Democracy above its competitors? Jonathan Chaplin, political theorist knowing this tradition from inside, answers: “Central to the Christian democratic political thought (…) is the priority it attaches to safeguarding the independence of civil society institutions.”[2]
Analysis of this distinctive trait of Christian Democracy will show a number of interrelated motives: the priority of society above its government, the plurality of societal institutions, and more. These motives, and the neo-Calvinist contribution to it, have roots in the general history of Christian practice and thought: not only earlier initiators of Christian politicial action or ideas, but also church life itself,[3] and its inspriration in emphases and examples that can be found in both Testaments of the Bible.
In the next sections central motives of Christian Democracy are listed. After this list, the order of a historical narrative is used to present practices and ideas that somehow fuelled Christian Democracy and its neo-Calvinist current. Finally, the lines of this sketchy overview are drawn together, highlighting the neo-Calvinist contribution to the central motives of Christian Democracy.
This overview remains sketchy. It is not a historical study; it does not argue for some causal claims in a history of ideas: ideas usually have many fathers! Aim here is to probe the neo-Calvinist contribution to Christian Democracy adding some preparatory historical background. In this way the novelty and potential of the neo-Calvinist contribution can be assessed. The assessment itself is left to the reader.

Central motives of Christian Democracy
Safeguarding the indepence of societal institutions is a distinctive feature of Christian Democracy, not the only one. This feature itself, however, already harbours a number of motives. It assumes a civil society that (1) is distinct from its government; (2) has more to offer than a private sphere for each citizen, or for private economic initiatives resulting in a ‘market’; (3) consists of a plurality of different types of institutions or organisations, areas or spheres (families, schools, companies, churches, leisure clubs, and so on), all having their own responsibility or vocation within or for society as a whole; (4) is bound with its government into an ordered state by rule of law; (5) has a kind of priority above its government: citizens and organisations can take initiatives and decisions without having to wait for approval by a government (illegal ones of course may show up afterwards in court!); (6) recognises a specific responsibility and vocation in service of society by the government, however limited by the responsibilities of the other spheres of society; (7) should be distinguished from churches (or other ‘worldviewish’ communities), which can be seen as ‘spiritual societies’ functioning at the same time as institutions within civil society.
Other motives of Christian Democracy could be derived from its very name, the combination of Christianity and democracy: Christianity passes on a legacy of Biblical principles and historical (good or bad) examples of how to govern churches and peoples. Pointers are there to, for example, accountability, equality and even voting-by-all-members. Principles formulated by actual Christian Democratic parties in Europe will yield even more motives: justice, stewardship, solidarity, and so on. For clarity however, the focus on the seven motives above will do.

Historical roots (1): From Biblical to Medieval Times
The history of ideas that fuelled Christian Democracy goes back to the origins of life and rule of law as described in the first books of the Bible. The book of Genesis presents God as the Creator of this universe. Point taken: no other absolute rule or power within this world should be recognised! The other books of the Torah contain laws and regulations primarily meant for the people of Israel once settled in the Promised Land. One law (Deuteronomy 17) obliges any future king to read the Torah-laws as daily practice. So: law should be respected above power, right above might. When prophets arose in the name of God and Torah, the prophet Natan rebuked king David (circa 1000 BC) about his recent adulterous and murderous acts – and survived! David didn’t kill him, but broke and repented. Accountability and moral right took position next to power politics and whimsical arbitrariness.
Jesus himself reversed the leadership ideals of his own followers by pointing to his own example of serving others: “Whoever wants to be first must be slave of all” (St. Mark 10:44-45, New International Version). Mutual care and service is seen by St. Paul and St. Peter as vital for the church life – the church labelled even “Body of Christ”, in which all parts have their specific function and no one is superfluous.
Bishop Basil the Great (circa 370) exemplified this attitude of service and broadened its scope to society when he initiated in Cappadocia a shelterhouse that became the first public hospital of the Western world.[4] This xenodocheion became a stepping stone in the monastic tradition. Both in Eastern and Latin Christendom monasteries sprouted as centres of spirituality, learning and practical service for their surrounding societies, and “the first democratically organised institutions in the world. By free elections in which all the brothers participated, abbots were chosen.”[5]
In his De Civitate Dei St. Augustin presented the church as spiritual community in lasting contrast to the “city of man” till the end of world history. Governments of this world at best aspire an earthly kind of peace and justice, which never will be more than a dim reflection of the spiritual peace and justice that finally will be found in the City of God. Although even churches are “mixed societies” of sinners and saints (and usually in-betweens!), he made the point that church members have a double loyalty, and should never submit to any earthly ruler when forced to act against their heavenly King. The relation of Church and State had become a standing topic throughout the Middle Ages and beyond.

Historical roots (2): Calvinist and Catholic voices
Calvin (1509 – 1563) is known for his emphasis on the sovereignty of God, which asks for a life style in daily life that suits Him. Less known is his endorsement of the principle of mutual service not only within church life itself or in church aid for society, but even on common economic life. He saw “the market not just as an “expression of human solidarity,” but even as “a sign of the grace of God.” ”[6]: it is an exercise in mutual dependence, each contributing with one’s own gift and vocation, together creating a society.
Althusius, syndic of Emden (1604-1638), applied this Calvinist idea of ‘symbiosis’, of living together, on society as a whole (“community”, “universitas”), in his Politica (1603, 3^rd edition in 1614)[7]: “The members of a community are private and diverse associations of families and collegia [e.g. guilds], not the individual members of private associations.” In his view, institutions or organisations of different types are actors within society in their own right, sharing among each other goods and services.
In the 19th century, the Roman Catholic Pope Leo XIII gave his encyclical “On capital and labor”, Rerum Novarum (1891). He, too, stressed the fundamental role of families and gives the first hints for the principle of “subsidiarity”, without using the term. Section 13 reads: “A family, no less than a State, is, as We have said, a true society, governed by an authority peculiar to itself, that is, by the authority of the father.”[8] It was Pope Pius XI in his Quadragesimo Anno (1931; section 80) that bound the State explicitely to a “subsidiary function”, allowing its intervention in the life of associations at more fundamental levels of society only when they themselves are not able to uphold their lives.[9]

Historical roots (3): Neo-Calvinism
The neo-Calvinist movement originated in the Netherlands at the end of the 19th century, but soon spread to other continents by the fame of Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920)[10] and by Dutch emigrants. A number of motives of Christian Democracy are shared by the neo-Calvinism, but not distinctive for neo-Calvinism itself. Concentrating on distinctive motives of neo-Calvinism, its starting point in political reasoning is (1) the sovereignty of God, the Creator of this world, who in Christ Jesus is Lord of Lords and governs world and world history. (2) This sovereignty, God’s will, is to be respected in every area of life – not only in some sacred areas. (3) Areas or ‘spheres’ in civil society like families, companies or churches have their own specific share in this sovereignty, independent (free) from the government: the sovereignty of a father, an employer, a church council is not state sovereignty.
Kuyper introduced the concept of ‘sphere sovereignty’ when he inaugurated in Amsterdam the “Vrije Universiteit” (Free University, 1880). Free: free from influence by the government, and free from control by some church synod or congregation of bishops. The same freedom from intervention by the government or by other spheres of society he claimed not only for churches themselves, but also for families, companies, political parties, and so on.
So for Kuyper “sphere sovereignty” was a sociological or political concept. Herman Dooyeweerd (1894-1977), who studied Law at the Free University, as philosopher of law refined Kuyper’s idea to a full-grown ontology. For every sphere, institution or organisation in society (or whatever entity in reality) he assumed it has a “qualifying function”. He saw similarities in the functioning of, for example, companies and hospitals: in a building employees work, money and materials flow. But within this physical, social and economic functioning (“aspects”) Dooyeweerd looks for a leading aspect that “qualifies” this multi-aspectual functioning. For a company, its economic aspect itself is leading: a company is an economic organisation. In a hospital, however, its economy should be in service of a higher level, i.e. of care – and care is, according to Dooyeweerd, an ethical qualification.
What about governments? How does a state relate to citizens, institutions or organisations, to society? Dooyeweerd[11]: “A real State cannot find its qualifying function in any other than the juridical aspect.” Aiming at “public justice” a government should defend or balance the legal rights of citizens, institutions and organisations within its territorory, against each other and against external enemies.

Drawing the lines together
Natan’s rebuke that made king David return to rule of law; the role of churches from the Roman Empire onward; monasteries and Calvinist ‘economical’ life styles: these examples of practices moulded civil societies and modelled views on their relations with governments. The plurality in kinds of institutions and organisations in civil societies has grown. Their claim for a kind of autonomy has been defended differently: in a hierarchical way by the principle of subsidiarity; in a horizontal way by the neo-Calvinist “sphere sovereignty”. This last view of a really, qualitatively pluralistic civil society destroys every picture of society as a bunch of individuals associating in several contingent ways, or as one monolythic, if layered, pyramid with the government (or a spiritual leader) at its top.
Buijs and Chaplin (political theorists) and Goudzwaard (economist) are examples that neo-Calvinism is still providing intellectual inspiration for actual applications in the societies of our globalising world.

This artcle was published in Sfera Politicii, Volume 157.

[1] Jonathan Chaplin, Herman Dooyeweerd. Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 11.

[2] Chaplin, Dooyeweerd, 23.

[3] Cf. John Witte Jr., God’s Joust, God’s Justice. Law and Religion in the Western Tradition (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge UK: Eerdmans 2006), 88-90.

[4] Govert J. Buijs “Agapè and the Origins of Civil Society”, in Henk Geertsema, Rik Peels, Jan van der Stoep (eds.) Philosophy Put to Work. Contemporary Issues in Art, Society, Politics, Science and Religion (Amsterdam: VU University 2008), 39-40.

[5] Buijs, “Agapè”, 44.

[6] Bob Goudzwaard, Mark van der Vennen, David van Heemst, Hope in Troubled Times. A New Vision for confronting Global Crises (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House), 95.

[7] Johannes Althusius, Politica. An abridged translation by Frederick S. Carney (Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund 1995), 40.

[8] Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals, accessed on March 22, 2011.

[9] Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals, accessed on March 22, 2011.

[10] Peter S. Heslam, Creating a Christian Worldview. Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans 1998), 11-13.

[11] Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol. III (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. 1957), 434.

Bibliography

Johannes Althusius [orig. 1603, 3rd1614], Politica. An abridged translation by Frederick S. Carney (Indianapolis, Indiana: Liberty Fund 1995)

Harold J. Berman, Faith and Order. The Reconciliation of Law and Religion (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge UK: Eerdmans 1993)

Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution II. The Impact of the Protestant Reformations on the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, Harvard UP 2003)

Jonathan Burnside, God, Justice and Society. Aspects of Law and Legality in the Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2011)

Govert J. Buijs “Agapè and the Origins of Civil Society”, in Henk Geertsema, Rik Peels, Jan van der Stoep (eds.) Philosophy Put to Work. Contemporary Issues in Art, Society, Politics, Science and Religion (Amsterdam: VU University 2008), 18-50

Jonathan Chaplin, Herman Dooyeweerd. Christian Philosopher of State and Civil Society (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010)

Herman Dooyeweerd, A New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol. I-III + Index (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co. 1953-1958)

Bob Goudzwaard, Mark van der Vennen, David van Heemst, Hope in Troubled Times. A New Vision for Confronting Global Crises (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House 2007)

Peter S. Heslam, Creating a Christian Worldview. Abraham Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans 1998)

Abraham Kuyper [orig. 1899], Lectures on Calvinsim (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans 1931)

John Witte Jr., God’s Joust, God’s Justice. Law and Religion in the Western Tradition (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Cambridge UK: Eerdmans 2006)

"What is man" (Ps 8): Human Dignity & Christian Social Teaching as basis for Christian Democracy

Thu, 31 Mar 2011 11:21:21 +0200

After years of economic growth and welfare, revolutionary changes in means of communication, we are confronted with the global financial crisis. While governments and the European Union are trying to their best to save the economies by transferring large sums of money to emergency funds, the production is decreasing, the unemployment is rising, the salaries and governmental subventions are decreasing and the poverty in Europe is increasing significantly. With this article, the author is looking if human dignity as a base for Christian Social and Christian Democratic teachings could give an answer to the nowadays challenges and how the basic values of human dignity can be reintroduced as an answer on the nowadays challenges.

By Leo van Doesburg (Regional Representative East Europe and Officer Networking & Relations of the European Christian Political Movement)
Edited by Auke Minnema

Introduction
Right after the Second World War, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was established. After periods of conflicts and wars, a new era should start. A time of peace and stability where we should create a new economic community, “the basis for a broader and deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts and to lay the foundations for institutions which will give directions to a destiny henceforward shared.”[1] To reach this target, France, Germany, Italy, Benelux (Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg) signed the Treaty to establish the ECSC and a “High Authority” in order to create and safeguard the new common market for Coal and Steel. This was not only seen as the foundation for the (nowadays) European Union, but also as a base of a new era focused on establishing an economic community “to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty, and calling upon the other people of Europe who share their ideal to join in their efforts.”[2] Many of these ideals are realized. We are living in a global economic (European) community. In West Europe, there was peace and stability for more than half a century and borders were (even physically) taken away. After the fall of the communism also many East European countries joined the Union, hoping for the same stability and growth of economy and welfare and to join this ‘economic community’.

Critics to free market and capitalism
However, there are also critics to the focus on economic growth, free market and capitalism. Some people (mainly from the right part of the political spectrum) say that market forces destabilize the society, that they undermine the tradition and that they can corrupt culture. You see this especially in the East European countries that since 2004 have integrated in the European Union, or who will integrate soon. Aggressive lobby for liberal values from certain Western countries give the impression that economic integration also automatically means to give up certain (mainly Christian) traditional values. Other people (mainly from the left) believe that market forces oppress and alienate man, turning him into nothing more than a commodity that gets bought and sold on the open market.
These critics became very actual due to the effects of the financial crisis. Most of the people do not understand why the salaries are decreased, people are fired and governmental subventions are decreased; while governments spend a lot of money to save the banks in order to protect their economies. A big scandal recently appeared when certain financial institutions after they were financially saved by a government, paid a large sum of money as a bonus to their directors.

There is however one issue that both left and right have in common in their critics. “Each side of the spectrum voices important concerns that may be reduced to one much simpler: the fear that market forces treat people as objects, not as persons”. A central component of Christian Democratic teaching is however to “avoid objectifying man, how best to maintain a social order that retains both the dignity and the liberty of each individual, so that they may have the opportunity to develop their own accord following the footsteps of Christ.” If you take this into consideration then it is good to look carefully to these problems.[3]

To find answers to the challenges of these times, we will look first to the question if there is a relation between the Christian values and the development of the free market and capitalism. After this we will look to human dignity as a base for the development of Christian Democracy and the historical development. The article will finish with the practical application of human dignity as basis for Christian Social and Democratic teachings on the nowadays challenges.

Christian heritage is the base of the success of the West
The most well-known sociologist of economics who investigated the relation between “religious convictions” and “economic systems” was Max Weber. He examined the interplay of religion and economics among many books in the history of various cultures. Weber suggest that Judeo-Christianity (in one of its forms) expectations in ways favorable is to economic development.[4]

Although these conclusions have been debated for a longer time, it seems that recently the Chinese intellectuals came with the same conclusion: that the Christian heritage has made the West (economically) so successful. Former editor of the Sunday Telegraph Dominic Lawson carries a quote from a member of the Chinese academy of Social Sciences.[5] He said: “One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world. (…) We have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have doubt about this” .[6] It is interesting that this is quoted by a representative of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences which is atheistic and actually is used a lot of time by the Chinese communistic government to persecute Christians. Lawson mentions in his review also the city of Wenzhou which is rated as the most entrepreneurial city in the country and has 1,400 churches. The first careful conclusion is that there might be a connection between the Christian moral fundament that made the emergence of capitalism possible. But what is this Christian moral fundament? Do we find this back in the Christian description of human dignity?

Human Dignity as base for capitalism?
Indeed, Weber’s work suggests an important angle of vision for approaching the topic of human dignity. His hypothesis was that Judeo-Christianity shaped human expectations in ways favorable to economic development. Professor Randall Collins (Sociologist, University of Pennsylvania), showed already how from about 1100 to 1350 A.D. the international system of Catholic monasteries put in place several important characteristics of a capitalist economy: an explosion of economically useful inventions, the rule of law, and a rationalized system of responsibilities, although economic achievements were not the main end of the monastic life.[7] It is interesting how the monasteries and deaconates also contributed largely in the development and distribution of health care. They took seriously care of the dignity of the poor, the sick, the orphans and widows and offered those help, assistance. They also founded care and hospitals. Thanks to the conventuals the swamps in North Western Europe were cultivated and agriculture was developed.[8] The era of the Reformation brought the consciousness of the personal responsibility and individual relationship to God, based on His Grace by applying the principles of the Holy Scriptures in the daily life of the believer under the attention.[9] Martin Luther taught that labor, including manual labor was a noble calling, and that a person should apply himself and herself to that calling with a sense of worship for God. Therefore ‘work’ is seeing as a ‘calling’ or as a ‘vocation’.[10] Work was therefore seen not as something inferior as the ancient philosophers believed, but a calling from God: to use our talents, to be creative and inventive. Work is using science in order to investigate God’s Creation in the honor of God and in this way to “build the Kingdom of God”. At the other hand, the love for money was seen as “greed” and as a substitute for God. Even nowadays it has a special name: “the Mammon”. In His famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his listeners to not “lay up treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven”.[11] The call to creativity and inventiveness accounts for the dynamism of Jewish and Christian civilization, including economic dynamism. This was based on the fact that we are created in the image and likeness of God, our Creator. “The Lord God took Adam and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it” and brought all the beasts of the fields and the birds in the air to Adam “to see what he would name them and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name”.[12]

In The Netherlands for example, the growth of entrepreneurship, saving money and not to waste money is still seen by many as a “Calvinistic” character. The renowned Christian theologian John Stott defines work as “the expenditure of energy in the service of others (mental or manual or both) which brings fulfillment to the worker, benefit for the community and the glory of God.”[13] The fact that we are created in the image and likeness of our Creator and that work is therefore a “vocation” or a “calling” indeed gives openness for creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship but also that negatively is seen to “greediness” and “collecting treasures on earth”.

Human Dignity in the Enlightenment age
In the time of Enlightenment reason was advocated as the primary source for legitimacy and authority, also called ‘the Age of Reason’. The Enlightenment basically was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, morals, and a strong belief in rationality and science. Intellectual partisans of the Enlightenment were successful in pushing aside religious people by changing the rules to “Religion within the bounds of reason alone”.[14] Among the key figures of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was probably the one who most clearly spoke to the concept of Human Dignity. He formulated Human Dignity as follows: “Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only”.[15] In Kant’s formulation, this is a duty, a good to be pursued.[16] This in contrast to the Judeo-Christian teaching “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” and “this commandment have we from Him, that He who love God, loves His neighbor”.[17] However, hundreds millions of people in Europe died by violence by seeing people as means. In that century, the words Human Dignity has often sounded empty.

The term “Human Dignity”
The English word dignity is rooted in the Latin ‘Dignus’, “worthy of esteem and honor, due a certain respect, of weighty importance.[18] Both Aristotle and Plato said that most humans are, by nature, slavish and suitable only to be slaves. Most do not have natures worthy of freedom and proper to free men. Therefore the term dignity was not used for all human beings, only for a few. In the middle Ages, dignity was embedded in the social position of the person. His dignity was directly in line with his relations to the other one in the total of predefined relations. The honor and dignity of a Knight for example was embedded in his loyalty to his liege and relatives; he would die for it. Thus there was no room for self-interpretation of his dignity as a human being (and the question is if the, people missed that in these times). However, it becomes clear that the ‘modernization’ of dignity has been a painful process that has been characterized by geographical, political, social and religious confrontations. In The Netherlands for example, the Republic of the Seven United Provinces asked for tolerance and freedom. People in Europe re-discovered that the Gospel asks for free commitment and not for slavish forced piety and the Enlightenment saw the realization that human dignity does not depend on accidental circumstances, but on a reasonableness coinciding with morality.[19] The ‘discovery’ of other people ultimately underlined the view that every man, irrespective of skin color or culture, is entitled to dignity (although the general acceptance of it lasted several bloody centuries). ‘Dignity’ has gradually become the equivalent for ‘being human’ per se. To put it differently, ‘dignity’ became so directly associated with ‘humanity’ that both concepts became almost synonymous. Dignity supposes equality and equivalence (something is really human). On the other hand dignity for the modern man also has an inevitable connection with the concept of ‘individuality’ of each ‘individual’, with ‘being yourself’, with authenticity.[20] The generalization of dignity resulted in particular in a claim to equal rights (‘our perfect right!’), individualization especially in the ideal –and/or destiny – of self-development (‘become who you are’). This resulted in the transition from ‘bread of mercy’ to ‘right’. People depend on the collective and no longer on the charity of the employer or the parish and of the charitable initiatives of ladies from the highest social circles. It is ‘their own right’. However, the question is to what extend this emphasis on formal equality really leads to a more humane society. We are now responsible for each other, but no longer to each other. Needs became rights. Although of course we do not want to go back to societies of poorhouses, it is still the question if we do not need more for being a dignified human and a humane society, than only equal rights. Even in the Enlightenment period, freedoms of the individual with ‘I can say what I think’ or ‘do what I want’ were not void. The individual human being itself was called to account for his duties and responsibilities, as a sensible, mature, moral and therefore free creature. Nowadays, we hardly experienced them as normative objectives, but chiefly as conditions for self-development, to do and not do whatever we seem proper. Freedom has to be defended, as well individual freedom. But what are the limits of the ‘individual freedom’? The ‘freedom to choose’? We are restricted in our self-development in numerous ways, not only by physical limitations (we cannot do everything at the same time), but also because of the fact that the appeal that individuals, communities and society make to us. In the modern idea, visiting a sick father could be seen as a limitation of the ‘self’.[21] But even the brokenness of life plays a role in all this (how often do we not do the good that we want and do we do the evil that we do not want). Therefore there are questions and tensions about the limits of individual freedoms and individual rights. Does for example the right to choose for an abortion not conflict with the right of the unborn baby to live?

Catholic Social Thinking and Human Dignity
In the 18th and 19th century political changes and the industrialization brought many changes. There was a rapid urban growth, joblessness, and the destruction of the workers’ traditional organizations (such as the guilds) in the name of free competition. This provided some semblance of continuity and sense of security in the economic realm, but also family breakdown, poverty and other (social) problems. New solutions had to be found to secure the dignity of man that became more and more an empty word.

Pope Leo XIII was addressing the large social questions with a letter to the whole world in 1891: “the Rerum Novarum”, the Catholic vision of the ‘reconstruction of the social order’. This became known as the Catholic “middle-way”. He took Saint Thomas Aquinas as example to make a synthesis of faith and reason, grace and nature, Christianity and humanism.[22] He established the idea that the church has a social doctrine. This flows from the fact that “man is being made in the image and likeness of his Creator”, that individuals should have a positive duty to change institutions etc. in an effort to uphold the dignity of man and that a theological ethic adequate to the “new things” of modern political and economic life should be developed. The Church took role as an overseer ensuring that the basic Christian values are applied to the realities of the modern world. Pope Leo XIII took the middle way between socialism and liberalism. He criticized the socialists (and upcoming communism) by saying that the man by nature has the right to possess property, the liberty to have an increasing stock and to save money for better conditions of life. Furthermore he criticized the socialism seeing everyone as equal because in his view it is harming the creativity of the human mind and the hard work. The difference with animals is that a human being is not living by the day, but is also increasing stock and work for the future. Last but not least, he was afraid that when the parent is setting aside and the government is taking it over, the State will exercise control over the family as basic cell in the society. Against the liberals he defends the dignity, the rights of every person, the obligations concerning his life, the roles in the society and that workers should not be seen as “capital”. The Human Dignity (as being created in the image and likeness of God) should have priority and should be embedded in certain rights, especially the protection of the right to found a family from “the cruelty of men of greed”.[23]

Protestants and “the Social Problem and the Christian Religion
Abraham Kuyper, a Dutch theologian and politician, saw also the challenges of the industrial revolution by the late 1880s. He organized the first Christian Social Congress in the Netherlands, where he delivered a memorable speech, called the “Social Problem and the Christian Religion”, only months after Leo XIII had promulgated the Rerum Novarum.[24] Kuyper argued that “religion is not one thing among many that autonomous people choose to do, but that it is rather the direction that human life takes as people give themselves over to the gripping power of either the true God”.[25] This requires a total reaffirmation of one’s commitment to fellow man”. Similar to Leo’s call on individuals to the respect that their nature deserves to recognize their duties and to uphold their obligations to the poor as either their employee or employer, the implication Kuyper drew from his great truth and conveyed to his listeners was that all of life must be lived for God’s sake and from this comes our vocations and our responsibilities. Christians must not withdraw but must live with integrity and step forward to make distinctive contributions to the culture, the economy, political life, education, science, and the art of their day. All should be done in the service of God. Kuyper cited the French Revolution as the prime example of social reform when liberty in thought and action has been decoupled from truth and become distant from God. While the French revolution sees the authority based on free will, Kuyper sees that freedom and authority are bound together as being subject to the Creator and life on earth is part of an eternal existence (while the French revolution focused on temporary life). Kuyper expressed that the earth is a lost paradise and for that reason he calls us to humility and conversion. The French Revolution saw in the state of nature the criterion of what is normally human incited us to pride, and substituted the liberalizing of man’s spirit for the need of conversion. While Christianity focused on the love to others, the French Revolution was focused on egoism and passionate struggle for possessions. Finally he touched the real point that lies at the heart of the social problem, that Christian religion seeks personal human dignity in the social relationships of an organically integrated society. The French Revolution disturbed that organic tissue, broke those social bonds and left nothing but the monotonous, self-seeking individual asserting his own self-sufficiency. He founded therefore the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) that became the first party in The Netherlands based on (what would be later called) Christian Democracy. The government should respect and encourage the responsibility of all people and have the several sections of society do as much as possible on their own. The Christian Democracy choose the middle way between a (socialist) absolutism of the state in in which social life is authoritatively regulated and the liberal individualism in which the course of society is being left to the individual citizen. Man lives in a fundamental plurality of unique, specific relations and circles.[26]

Epilogue
We saw that the basis for the Christian-Social and Christian Democratic thinking is found in the concept of human dignity that first appears in Genesis 1:26-30, where we read that God, our Creator created man and woman in His own image and likeness, setting them apart from the rest of the creation. Unlike other animals, man was given a rational intellect and a free will. He was made capable of knowing and loving his Creator and was appointed by Him as master of all earthly creatures that he might subdue them and use by using his gifts and talents for the community, the love of the other and respond-sibility towards God. At the other hand, we saw the influence of the Enlightenment that put the human being as a free individual and wanted to ban religion out of the public atmosphere. Based on the free individual the person may in all fairness decide what is the best for him and come to agreement on it with other free, autonomous, reasonable human beings, with whom he has agreed on a fictitious ‘social contract. The basic rules of such a social contract have been legally embedded in the constitutions and in the declarations on human rights. The 1948 “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” mentions the ‘inherent dignity’ and thus ‘the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family’. Even dictators, accused of crimes against humanity, who will be brought to justice before the international tribunals, enjoy these rights.[27] We are thankful that these values have been formulated and that they appeal to individuals, cultures and people in a convincing way. Question only remains how far these freedoms go: the freedom of speech, freedom of religion? And what does equality mean exactly? Is equality the starting point or also an objective? By education? By leveling capital?

Therefore it is good to reintroduce the basic concept of Human Dignity. The recently established Human Dignity Institute introduced the “Universal Declaration for Human Dignity”. This declaration recognized the important role of the Christian Faith as basis for the “Imago Dei”.[28] It focuses on the fact that the true nature of Man is that “he is not an animal, but a human being made in the image and likeness of God, his Creator” and “to which the moral sense testifies certain properties as being inalienable; indelible in every single human life from conception until natural death”.[29] It gives the attention that these values are actually the base of the legal charters. Therefore Man’s Right should be recognized “as intrinsic to his being” (his ‘transcendent dignity’).[30] It calls everyone (politicians, representatives of religious institutions and organizations and others) to recognize the source: that we ‘are created in the image and likeness of God, our Creator’.[31] This is not only the base of the Christian Democratic thinking, but the base of the Western Civilization, a ‘historical collection of countries with strong identities formed and influenced through the Christian faith’.

This Article was published in 'Sfera Politicii' volume 157.

[1] European Community for Coal and Steel, Treaty Constituting the European Coal and Steel Community, (Paris 1951), Preamble, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/Treaty%20constituting%20the%20European%20Coal%20and%20Steel%20Community.pd f accessed on March 25, 2011.

[2] European Community for Coal and Steel, Treaty Establishing the European Community as amended by Subsequent Treaties (Rome 25 March 1957), Preamble, http://www.hri.org/docs/Rome57/ accessed on March 25, 2011.

[3] Michael Novak, “Human Dignity, Personal Liberty: Themes from Abraham Kuyper and Leo XIII”, Journal of Markets and Morality, 1 (2002), 59.

[4] Max Weber, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr 1934).

[5] Dominic Lawson, ‘Civilisation: The West and the Rest’, The Sunday Times, 27 February 2011, http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/non_fiction/article559771.ece accessed on 26 March 2011.

[6] Tom O’ Gorman, Christianity, the reason for West’s success, say the Chinese, Ioana Institute for religion and Society (3 March 2011), http://ionainstitute.ie/index.php?id=1336&sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d7f297a9a250209,0 accessed on 26 March 2011.

[7] Randall Collins, Weberian Sociological Theory (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986), 52-58

[8] Centre for European Studies and Christen Democratisch Appèl Wetenschappelijk Instituut: “Man where are you?” An exploration of the the Christian Democratic Potrayal of Mankind (The Hague 2008), 50.

[9] “This was brought under the attention by the main ideas of the Reformation: the five so called sola’s: Sola Fide (Alone by faith), Sola Scriptura (Alone by the Scripture), Sola Gratia (Alone by Grace), Solus Christus (Alone by Christ) and Soli Deo Gloria (Alone to God the Honour).

[10] Brian Tubbs, Evaluating the Protestant Work Ethic, What the Bible says about money, (30 June 2008), http://www.suite101.com/content/evaluating-the-protestant-work-ethic-a58828#ixzz1HqxKoIC1 Accessed 24 March 2011.

[11] Matthew 6:19 Bible, New International Version

[12] Genesis 2:15 and 19, Bible, New International Version

[13] John Stott, Issues facing Christianity Today 4th edition, (Zondervan 2006), Chapter 9.

[14] An explanation about this you can find in The Sociological Tradition (New York, Basic Books, 1966), 22–33.

[15] Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L. W. Beck (New York, Library of Liberal Arts, 1959), 429. For Kant, “man, and, in general, every rational being exists as an end in himself” (428).

[16] Michael Novak, Human Dignity.

[17] Matthew 22:37-39, Bible, New International Version.

[18] Michael Novak, Human Dignity, 65.

[19] Centre for European Studies, “Man where are you”, 46.

[20] Centre for European Studies, “Man where are you”, 47.

[21] Centre for European Studies, “Man where are you”, 48.

[22] Michael Novak, Human Dignity, 65.

[23] Roman Catholic Church, Rerum Novarum, (Vatican 1891), 33.

[24] Michael Novak, Human Dignity, 71.

[25] James W. Skillen, “Introduction,” to Abraham Kuyper, The Problem of Poverty, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker, 1991), 17.

[26] Centre for European Studies, “Man where are you”, 70.

[27] Centre for European Studies, “Man where are you”, 41.

[28] Benjamin Harnwell, International Committee on Human Dignity, Universal Declaration of Human Dignity, (Brussels 2008), article 9, www.dignitatishumanae.com accessed 25 March 2011.

[29] Benjamin Harnwell, Universal Declaration, article B and C.

[30] Benjamin Harnwell, Universal Declaration, article F.

[31] Benjamin Harnwell, Universal Declaration, article 11.

Bibliography

Centre for European Studies and Christen Democratisch Appèl Wetenschappelijk Instituut: “Man where are you?” An exploration of the the Christian Democratic Potrayal of Mankind (The Hague 2008).

Collins, Randall, Weberian Sociological Theory (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1986).

Dignitatis Humanae Institute, In His Image and Likeness God Made Man, (draft 2010).

European Community for Coal and Steel, Treaty Constituting the European Coal and Steel Community, (Paris 1951), http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/Treaty%20constituting%20the%20European%20Coal%20and%20Steel%20Community.pdf accessed on March 25, 2011.

European Community for Coal and Steel, Treaty Establishing the European Community as amended by Subsequent Treaties (Rome 25 March 1957), http://www.hri.org/docs/Rome57/ accessed on March 25, 2011.

Harnwell Benjamin and International Committee on Human Dignity, Universal Declaration of Human Dignity, (Brussels 2008).

Hunington Samuel, The clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon @ Schuster, 1996)

Kant, Immanuel, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L. W. Beck (Library of Liberal Arts, New York, 1959)

Kant, Immanuel, ‘Beantwortung der Frage. Was ist Aufklarung?” Berlinische Monatschrift (December, Berlin 1784), 481-494.

Kuyper, Abraham, The social Question and the Christian Religion, available in print as A. Kuyper, The Problem of Poverty, edited with an introduction by James W. Skillen, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1991).

Lawson, Dominic, ‘Civilisation: The West and the Rest’, The Sunday Times, 27 February 2011, http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/non_fiction/article559771.ece accessed on 26 March 2011.

Novak Michael, Human Dignity, Personal Liberty: themes from Abraham Kuyper and Leo XIII (Journal of Markts & Morality) Volume 5, Number 1 (Spring 2002), 59-85.

Novak, Michael, The Catholic Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism, (free press 1993).

O’ Gorman, Tom, Christianity, the reason for West’s success, say the Chinese, Ioana Institute for religion and Society (3 March 2011), http://ionainstitute.ie/index.php?id=1336&sms_ss=twitter&at_xt=4d7f297a9a250209,0 accessed on 26 March 2011.

Roman Catholic Church, Rerum Novarum, (Vatican 1891).

Skillen, James W., “Introduction,” to Abraham Kuyper, The Problem of Poverty, (Grand Rapids, Michigan, Baker, 1991).

Stott, John, Issues facing Christianity Today 4th edition, (Zondervan 2006).

Tubbs, Brian, Evaluating the Protestant Work Ethic, What the Bible says about money, (30 June 2008) http://www.suite101.com/content/evaluating-the-protestant-work-ethic-a58828 accessed 25 March 2011.

Weber Max, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, (edition of the Free Press, 1993).

Weber, Max, Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr 1934).

The Interplay between Religion and Society in Ethiopia: Towards a Hermeneutic of Covenant

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:33:11 +0100

The intention of this study was to make an inquiry into the notion of covenant as a hermeneutical tool that offers a framework to rethink the society-religion nexus in Ethiopia. This inquiry arose from a socio-political and cultural dilemma in the Ethiopian history. On the one hand, Ethiopia is a deeply religious society whose worldview is greatly shaped by religious beliefs and practices. Moreover the application of religion in social and political reality has left some positive legacies. On the other hand, history has proven, time and again, that the application of religion in the social and political reality of Ethiopia has produced as many problems as benefits.

By M. A. Girma [1]

I therefore started wondering: What would be a suitable conceptual framework to resolve this tension evident in the religion-society nexus in Ethiopia? Because the notion of covenant appears to be of basic importance to the Ethiopian identity I later rephrased this question as: How could we reformulate this concept which is already deeply embedded in the culture in such a way that it addresses the insufficiencies in Ethiopian conception without radically disentangling ourselves from Ethiopian culture and identity? Before answering this question, I asked: what actual models of interplay between religion and society were and are there in Ethiopia?

In order to answer this question, I made an in-depth exploration of three paradigms of the interplay between religion and society in Ethiopia. I try to unravel each paradigm in terms of its historical background, worldview (paying especial attention to metaphysics, philosophical anthropology and the idea of social organization), before subsequently making some critical and hermeneutical observations.

The first paradigm I discussed is the paradigm of wax and gold. This paradigm takes its name from a literary motif – sem-ena-werq tradition – which plays with a double layered meaning. Central to my analysis is a dualistic understanding of the created reality that this paradigm takes as its philosophical basis. As to the metaphysics of its worldview, I showed the complexity of its nature. The understanding of the relationship between God and the world has both monistic and dualistic features. God is seen as the creator of everything. At the same time the material world has a certain degree of independence over against God. As a result, a dualistic dichotomy between what is thought to be sacred and profane is the hallmark of the metaphysics of the wax and gold paradigm. Connected to this is the nature of its philosophical anthropology. The human person is thought to be a battleground between the sacred and profane. In the paradigm which elevates the ‘sacred’ over the “secular”, the main gadel (battle) of the human person has to do with the disowning of him or herself from the secular. This requires partially, and at times, totally, refraining oneself from involvement in “this worldly” activities, and enriching the spiritual aspect of human life by suppressing “worldly desires” such as a pursuit of tigab (satiety) which is often associated with autonomy. The paradigm presents a unique understanding of society. Given its dualistic philosophy, one expects this contour of thinking to characterize its social understanding. However, one can identify in its understanding of society an odd combination of dualism and monism. Namely, politics – a seemingly secular endeavor – jumps its secular boundary to be considered as sacred. The reasons are that, for one thing, the nation is considered to be a nation of covenant having a unique relationship with and receiving a special promise from God. For another, the kings are considered to be anoints of God and the church has also reckoned itself not only to be the custodian of the spiritual well-being of the nation, but also to be a powerful role player in influencing public agendas.

While tracing the historical background of the paradigm of wax and gold, I have discovered that such an enigmatic understanding of society could have been caused by combination two seemingly irreconcilable religious and philosophical traditions: Platonic dualism and Jewish monism. The Jewish influence connects with the fact that Ethiopia is mentioned in the Bible several times. For its later development of great importance is an influential myth – Kebre Negest. This takes the biblical story about the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon as a starting point but then embellishes it to fulfill its own agenda: linking the Ethiopian royalty to that of Israel and the church to Judaism with the aim of cementing the supposedly Solomonic Dynasty in Ethiopia. The Greek influence on the other hand derives from the origin of the EOC: the Alexandrian tradition in which Platonic philosophy made a considerable influence in terms of shaping their theology. Instead of trying to cancel the one tradition by espousing the other, the wax and gold tradition opted to approach both with touch of certain pragmatism to combine both Judaic and Greek philosophical elements and use them to meet its own ideological goal.

In the Critical Observations I elaborated on this odd mixture of two different traditions. First I briefly discussed the characteristics of platonic dualism and how they were adapted to the Ethiopian situation. Then I discussed the nature of Hebraic monism as exemplified on the one hand in the thought of the Jewish thinker Ben Sira and on the other hand in the relationship between politics and religion in the history of Israel. In this light, unlike the Ethiopian kings who used covenant-thinking as a means of insulating themselves from being criticized, although the kings in the line of David and Solomon had a special promise from God, they never immunize themselves beyond criticism, for example, by prophets who used to play the role of civil society at the time. Moreover, in a stark contrast to the Ethiopian traditional covenant thinking, the blessings of the covenant with God in Jewish thinking did as much about the material as the spiritual realm of life. I end by pointing out the conceptual problems involved in the combination of a dualistic worldview, in which the material part of the world was downgraded to elevate the spiritual, with the emphasis on the integrality of the world as God’s creation, which is characteristic of Hebraic monism. I showed also how this leads to negative consequences in a practical sense. Firstly, the strong espousal of covenant in the political and social faculties based on a dualistic metaphysics has created a hierarchical society in which the kings are cloistered themselves criticism because they are supposed to be chosen by God. Secondly, the hierarchical structure of society in a wider sense created mistrust among the social classes. Third, overemphasis on the spiritual dimension of society hindered the unfolding process of Ethiopian ingenuity which was highlighted in the creation of unique Ethiopian civilization.

In the last part of this chapter, Hermeneutical Observations, I focused on the influence of the wax and gold philosophy on the understanding of education, communication and literature. I showed that the educational philosophy emphasized denying ‘this world’ and, instead, espousing an ascetic lifestyle as the most ‘spiritually’ suitable way of life. Communication, true to the same dualistic influence, bears the signature of duplicity and indirection as its hallmarks, while literature and their interpretation often subscribe to what I call as “dogmatic allegorization”.

In the conclusion of this chapter I summarized its merits as well as hazards. Its merits include the creation of a national metanarrative (surplus-history), which keeps this ethnically and culturally diverse nation together, preserves a unique Ethiopian civilization and shapes the ethical principles under notion of fereha-egziabeher (fear of God). Yet, there are also untenable points which have to be overcome. These include, but are not limited to, the almost doctrinaire dualism between the “sacred” and the “secular”, a tendency to romanticize the past, a suspicion towards change and progress and a tradition of ambiguity clouding social practices and communication.

In Chapter Two I analyzed and evaluated the Paradigm of Demystification. This paradigm is characterized by its attempt to limit the role of religion in influencing public agendas and to undermine the notion that Ethiopia is the nation of covenant. It as well is closely connected with modernist thinking, which initially aimed to bring about radical social change in Ethiopia.

Because of the complex nature of the paradigm of demystification I started this chapter with a discussion of its historical background. In terms of time, the effort of demystification in Ethiopia goes back to the 16th century when Zará Yaeqob, a philosopher, preferred rationality to dogma and tradition as a guiding matrix. In terms of agents, it includes, besides Zará Yaeqob, Protestant movements from the 17th unto the 20th century, as well as the Dergue, the Ethiopian form of Marxism in the 20th century. This complexity derives not only from the span of time they covered, but also from the diverse agendas and ideologies that the agents had. For example, Zará Yaeqob appealed to the rationality of the human heart as a means of adjudicating truth, the Marxism of the Dergue aimed to bring about radical modernization while Protestantism presented itself as a reluctant modernizer. Besides, these modernizing efforts had not been carried out in a concerted manner. For example, Zará Yaeqob’s refusal to succumb to tradition and dogma sturdy appeal to rationality was very much an isolated event. Modernizing Ethiopian society was not the main agenda of the Protestant missionaries of the 17th century. Their main agenda was reforming the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. However, neutralizing their effort of reformation, the emperors tried to use them as agents to modernize the country. A clear interest to modernize Ethiopia came from emperor Haile Selassie in 20th century. However, his cautious attempt on modernization which aimed to bring about technological improvement without changing philosophical and sociopolitical dynamics did not sit very well with the newly emerging generation which was impatient for change. The Dergue therefore emerged as an opportunist movement which tapped into the desire for change on the ground. However, because of the lack of a well construed conceptual matrix that can keep the Ethiopian identity and the desire for change together, the Dergue adopted Marxism. This gave the movement a radical face; and, as such, it tried to bring about not only a fundamental challenge to the religiously laden wax and gold paradigm, but also it introduced a radically secularist paradigm for the first time in the Ethiopian history.

In the second part of Chapter Two I analyze the worldview of the paradigm of demystification. As could be expected from the Historical Background this is also complex. There are general elements though: all the agents of demystification react against the paradigm of wax and gold and its focus on mystery and put much more emphasis on the use of reason. As to metaphysics, Zará Yaeqob opted to maintained the place of God. In fact, he considered rationality as creational order installed in human personhood. But then he severely criticized dogma and tradition for failing to live up to the rational nature of human heart. Protestantism tends to retain Scriptures as a source of authority, and yet, it gives considerable recognition to the role of individual reason in understanding reality. In fact, in a communally oriented society it emphasized individual conversion. The Dergue, meanwhile, considered the application of religion to understand reality as superfluous, and so, it adopted a radical demystification. Instead, science and rationality became the only standards by which to approach a wide array of created reality. The human person also was understood quite differently by each of the agents. For instance, Zará Yaeqob understood the human person as a being whose essence lies in his or her rational faculty, while Imago Dei and individuality in making critical decision of life becomes crucial for a Protestant understanding of human person. The Dergue, on the other hand, defined the human person as homo-economicus, whose humanness is measured by what he or she could produce.

On the concept of society, Zará Yaeqob took an egalitarian approach on the basis of rationality, while the Protestants abstracted themselves from, especial, from political activities and defined themselves in terms of semayawi zega – heavenly citizens. The Dergue, on the other hand, introduced a cunning concept – hebretesebawinet – an ambiguous but unique brand of socialism. They chose this brand of socialism to make it appealing to the Ethiopian way of thinking as well as to geo-political situation, especially communism.

In the third part, Critical Observations, I started with the problem of modernization in Ethiopia. I discussed different meanings of the term and gave my own definition in light of an integral development of the rich potential of creation which at the same time does justice to the social and cultural identity of the society to which it is applied. Then I discussed Afework and Gebre-Yesus to illustrate the challenge which modernization presents to Ethiopia. This is because, on the one hand, Ethiopians, especially elites such as Afework and Gebre-Yesus, wanted to join the chorus of progress with other nations. On the other, they understood the hazard that modernism could bring to the Ethiopian identity. But their proposal to succumb to colonization (Afework) and implement “Japanization” (Gebre-Yesus) as a way out of “backwardness” did not materialize. The main problem of their proposal was originated from trying to stimulate the technological aspect of modernization without philosophically enriching the Ethiopian mind. When it comes to the “three agents of modernization”, we saw that Zará Yaeqob made some contribution in terms of re-discovering the goodness of material reality without much deviation from the religious roots. This is because he claimed that rationality is a part of the creational order, but the fact he was a lone voice meant his effort did not have a game-changing influence. The Dergue came with the denial of religion and replaced it with scientific socialism as the sole answer to the Ethiopian problem. This total deviation from the Ethiopian identity and subscription to violent methods such as “red terror” made it fail to win the Ethiopian heart and fail to deliver modernization. While Protestantism had a better balance in terms of combining spiritual and material, its emphasis on semayawi zeginet (heavenly citizenship) isolated it from wider society and made it unable to espouse an integralist approach.

In the Hermeneutical Observation, my analysis indicates that, like in the paradigm of wax and gold, education, communicative method and literature were used to reach ideological goals. In slight contrast to the wax and gold paradigm, a degree of directness and appreciation of material reality was shown in an understanding of education, communication and literature. This nevertheless does not mean that the duplicity and indirection of the wax and gold paradigm was totally overcome. While education was totally controlled by the state, literatures and ways of communication still bore the marks of allegorization and indirection.

In conclusion, I identified strengths as well as weaknesses of this paradigm. I paid special attention to the Dergue because of its great influence and the pervasive action it took to transform Ethiopian society. Its strengths included a forward-looking attitude and emphasis on progress, rejection of dualism and appreciation of the goodness of material reality, the maintenance national unity and integrity and an attempt on reconnecting land and identity. Its weak points were its failure to account for the religious nature of Ethiopian society and its failure to see the importance of the notion of covenant, and as a result, its disengagement from the cultural roots. Failure to explore and reinterpret the indigenous notions, such as covenant, that created surplus-history, underneath the actual history, caused a lack of understanding between the political elites who wanted a swift progress and change, and the people as the grassroots level whose identity and way of life was shaped by religious commitments. Hence, its explosive nature and adoption of violent methods to reach its goal did not help but exacerbated the Ethiopian problem.

In the Third Chapter, I went on to analyze the Paradigm of Compartmentalization. This paradigm emerged from the indigenous social and political dynamics. However, I posed the question whether the paradigm of compartmentalization betrayed some elements from the postmodern worldview. In pursuit of this question, I came up with evidence that there are some overlapping issues in the paradigm of compartmentalization and postmodernist thinking. For example, in the same vein with postmodernism, the paradigm of compartmentalization is suspicious and even bitter about the application of meta-narrative, and as the result, it takes the concern of marginal voices and ethnicities as its moral discourse. As a result, ethnic identity is considered to be an important basis to understand society, its organization as well as its social practices. This stance has wider implications that include its worldview.

A good illustration for its pervasive implications is that its emphasis on ethnic identity that brought an end to a metaphysics that is based on one religion. Instead of being considered as primitive or animistic, the tribal religions reemerged into national arena and got wide media coverage. In spite of seeking one religion, that makes one story and creates a national meta-narrative, this latest paradigm has made “nations and nationalities” which supposedly find their identities in ethnic and traditional religious systems. Instead of believing in one transcendent God who created everything, now mountains, rivers and trees have started to be venerated as tribal ways of inducing god’s favor. This paradigm does not put an emphasis on the human person in terms of universal human values; nor does it relate human personhood to economical production. It, however, sees the human person mainly as a product of ethnic, and even sometimes clannish interaction – homo ethnicus. This basically comes from the rejection of metaphysical coherence, the individual emancipation not on the basis of individual creativity and innovation but on the basis of belonging to an ethnic group. Moreover, it is based on the rejection of the national metanarrative that gives homage to every Ethiopian without necessary identification of ethnic group to which one belongs.

The understanding of social organization in the paradigm of compartmentalization is closely related to its metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. That means, ethnic federalism was taken as the point of departure for the reconfiguration of the Ethiopian society. Disillusioned with the role of the EOC in political life of the nation in the past, the paradigm of compartmentalization rejected the notion of covenant as a notion that created a surplus-history. This rejection of covenant as a unifying factor has given a way for an ethnic self-realization to take the political stage. Besides, this also brought about a considerable revival of traditional religious practices – a phenomenon some thought to be a back door attack on the EOC and on the notion of covenant as a major role-player in the Ethiopian history. This is because it tried to bring an end to the notion of covenant by deconstructing the Ethiopian meta-narrative and replacing it with ethnic “mini-narratives”.

Trying to explore historical elements providing a background for the paradigm of compartmentalization I discussed African liberationist thinking and globalization. African liberationist thinking has to do with the struggle to emancipate groups of people who are under repression from colonialism. Liberationist thinking is concerned with the people whose identity is undermined by the colonial forces, and as such it uses re-drawing the marginalized groups to their past as way of remaking their identity. Although Ethiopia has never been colonized by external forces, it had its own form of liberationist thinking. Some would say that there has been internal colonization by the ruling group. Others emphasize that Ethiopian theology has been liberationist by nature because of its importance for the defence of Ethiopia’s freedom. In both forms a connection with liberationist thinking can be observed in general. Globalization on the other hand created a platform where people who are complaining of being repressed and marginalized may exchange ideas and experiences. In doing so, these phenomena also have enhanced the process of compartmentalization and/or ethnic federalism in Ethiopia.

In my Critical Observations, I give special attention to ethnic federalism, African liberationist thinking and the concept of time in the paradigm of compartmentalization. I then come to the conclusion that there are important interconnections between ethnic federalism and African liberationist thinking. Firstly, both try to take the issue of marginal voices as their moral discourse, and secondly, they both are past orientated. This past orientation, albeit having some values in terms of dealing with injustices of the past, awkwardly position society with regards to going forward. This is because it tries to take the society forward with its face turned to the past. That means that instead of transforming the painful past into something productive to the future, it re-channels the pains and resentment of the past to generations coming. For example, education is used in this paradigm as a way of re-orientating the self to the past, while communication is supposed to take place in such a way that it is void of ‘logos’ in order to entertain multiplicity. In the opposite vein, literatures which are critical of such a stance lament the supposed ‘nothingness’ that has come about as the result of the inability of the paradigm to create a coherent society.

In the conclusion, I list the strengths and drawbacks of the paradigm of compartmentalization. The main strengths of this paradigm are making marginal voices a part of its moral discourse and trying to account for the diverse nature of Ethiopian society. The drawbacks of this paradigm come from the fact that it has rejected the unifying role of religion, especially the notion of covenant, in society. The problems with this include the lack of framework to bring diverse society together, unconditional negation towards the past failing to appreciate Ethiopian history as a unified society, the superficiality of ethnic freedom that constitution appears to be granting and wanting to go forward while the face of the society is turned to the ethnic and tribal past.

Chapter Four picks up the main question of my research: is it possible to use the notion of covenant to provide a perspective for Ethiopian society that is true to its identity and open to healthy developments in the future? In this chapter I attempt to present a positive answer to this question. In order to do so I summarize in the first part the strengths and weaknesses of the three paradigms discussed in the earlier chapters and give an argument why at the one hand the notion of covenant is so important for the Ethiopian identity and way of life and on the other hand why the need for rethinking it is so urgent. For the first point I try to show that the notion of covenant is deeply engrained into Ethiopian religiosity, social practices and the understanding of time, especially of ordinary folks. For the second point I only need to reiterate the influence of the paradigm of wax and gold on its traditional understanding.

In the second part I try to relate elements of the Reformational philosophy and Rabbinic Jewish thinking to the Ethiopian problems. I chose these traditions based on the criteria of relevance and plausibility. Reformational philosophy can provide tools to overcome dualism because of its emphasis on the integrality of creation. It also provides a framework to integrate science and rationality with indigenous culture and norms because of its distinction between everyday life (naïve experience) and scientific knowledge. This is because the latter can never claim an encompassing knowledge of reality because of its abstract nature. Reformational philosophy also offers a means to overcome individual or state sovereignty because it points to the diversity of social spheres, each with its own character and norms, and it overcomes an orientation to the past because it shows how the original creation is meant to be developed in such a way that its creational potential is realized. Rabbinic Jewish thinking on the other hand, offers a conceptual framework to address unproductive exceptionalism, social divisiveness and hegemonic tendencies, by relating the notion of covenant to the social issues of contemporary society such as democracy and multiculturalism.

In the third part, I have tried to construe the hermeneutic of covenant in relation to the Ethiopian social reality. I discussed the concepts that I dealt with in the other three chapters: metaphysics, philosophical anthropology and an idea of society by combining the notion of call and answerability – the ideas I borrow from the Reformational philosophy – with some Ethiopian indigenous concepts. In relation to metaphysics I discuss fereha-egziabeher (fear of God), and connect it with the understanding of creation as answering to a promise-command to be. In this way the dependence of creation on the Creator, the integral goodness that is connected with it and its openness for development in time are emphasized.

Regarding anthropology I connected the notion of sew le sew (human person for human person) to the understanding of the human person in terms of call and responsibility (homo respondens). In this way mutual responsibility in the context of communal relationships is connected with an emphasis on the creational potential of each individual. In relation to society, the notions of mechachal (toleration) and metesaseb (mutual support) are shown to have a connection with the principles of differentiation and integration which were discussed as part of Reformational philosophy. While the integration of fereha-egziabeher (fear of God) with the notion of integrality from Reformational philosophy is aimed to show how dualism can be corrected, integration of sew le sew with homo respondens is intended to make a balance in the concept of the human person as an individual as well as a social being. On the other hand, integrating mechachal and metesaseb (toleration and mutual support) with Reformational and Jewish thinking I tried to show how hierarchy, unhelpful exceptionalism and political hegemony could be overcome. This, according to my recommendation, can be done by applying a more participatory social and political system which at the same time respects the boundaries of the different social spheres, keeping them from an unhealthy intrusion by others, especially the state and church.

I close the chapter by illustrating how the hermeneutic of covenant can be fruitful in terms of rethinking education, communication and literature. The relevance of the hermeneutic of covenant to Ethiopian educational philosophy is diverse: setting education free from the control of regimes and ideologues on the principle of sphere sovereignty, re-installing the sense of call and responsibility which helps students discover their vocation and execute their action with a sense of responsibility. It also gives Ethiopian history and identity a proper place, and yet gearing towards the future with a disclosive vision.

Emphasizing these points I argued that the notion of covenant understood in terms of call and answerability can be a more plausible tool than a musical motive viz,. tezeta (nostalgia), a concept proposed by Maimire. In the domain of communication, the hermeneutic of covenant takes the sem-ena-werq (wax and gold) trope as an example of the disclosive vision of Ethiopian society in the past, and yet, I suggest covenantal thinking, especially in terms of responsibility and transparency, to reverse the unproductive outcome the sem-ena-werq (wax and gold) mentality has created. In the domain of literature, I point out that its rigid character as marked by indirection, dissimulation and duplicity, needs to be overcome by allowing other genres which give room to unique individuality and a more lucid style. Especially important is that literature is not controlled either by the state or the church, yet it should be able to address social issues. I argue for a covenantal approach which would not only free the authors, but would also provide the society with easily accessible meaning to propel them to socio-economic transformation.

Based on this analysis, I have come to the conclusion that the notion of covenant as reinterpreted can indeed provide a framework that is able to resolve the apparent tension in the religion-society nexus in Ethiopia. Yet, it is important to state that the hermeneutic of covenant that I propose in this study is far from being a golden parachute. It may have its own limitations. However, I have tried to show that it is the most plausible tool not only to reconstruct the Ethiopian identity, but also to keep this society productively involved with political and economic practices. This is because the hermeneutic of covenant, in a way, is a double hermeneutics. This means it does not try to rigidly impose a ready-made interpretive concept that descends from the top to the bottom. Rather it strives to integrate the surplus meaning of the surplus history of Ethiopia (a hermeneutic of the grassroots) in the pursuit of meaning in such a way that it triggers a healthy development in society.

[1] Note this document is not a full-fledged analysis of the nexus between religion and society in Ethiopia, neither is it a comprehensive defense the “time-honored” covenant-thinking in Ethiopia. It rather is a summary and conclusion of my Ph.D. dissertation which was defended on December 02, 2010 at the VU, University of Amsterdam (NL).

Free Trade Agreements and the Christian Faith

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:16:47 +0100

Various political analysts in Colombia and in the United States are stating that the control of the House of Representatives by the Republicans after January 2011 will enable the approval of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia very soon. These analyses are confirmed with the visit in January 2011 of John McCain, the ex-Presidential candidate and current Republican Senator, and Democrat Senders Levin who is part of the Committee in the House of Representatives which is responsible for foreign trade and economic growth where the FTA with Colombia is lodged.

by Milton Mejia, Presbyterian Professor of Theology and Coordinator of the Church and Society Observatory of Reformed University in Colombia

During their time in Colombia, both political leaders expressed their commitment to promote the trade agreement signed at the end of 2006 between the governments of Colombia and the United States - approved by the Colombian Congress but not by its counterpart in Washington due to concerns raised by the Democrats about human rights in the Andean country.

With the possibility that the Republicans and Democrats will come to an agreement to approve the FTA with Colombia, members of social organizations and churches believe that we have los many years of work and they ask themselves what they can do to continue showing their disagreement with free trade agreements like this one. To respond to this question and not feel disheartened, we must be clear that as Christians we are not opposted to this trade agreement for political reasons. Our opposition is for reasons of faith and ethics. The reasons for which we believe that these trade agreements do not go along with faith and Christian ethics are menctioned in the Confession of Faith of Refomed Churches in their gathering in Accra, Ghana in 2004.

In this confession the economic model that is promoted by this type of trade agreement is described in the following way: “The signs of the times have become more alarming and must be interpreted. The root causes of massive threats to life are above all the product of an unjust economic system defended and protected by political and military might.” According to the Confession of Accra, this unjust economic system, in its hurry to increase the profits of the wealthiest, increases poverty, causes the death of millions of human beings, and today is evident in the way in which it is destroying the creation of God.

The Confession of Accra affirms that this is occuring because in neoliberalism, the economy is intended to increase profits and performance for the benefit of the ownders of production and of financial capital while excluding the majority of people and treating the environment as a commodity. The relationship between the economy and our faith in the confession is established in the following way: “We see the dramatic convergence of the economic crisis with the integration of economic globalization and geopolitics backed by neoliberal ideology. This is a global system that defends and protects the interests of the powerful. It affects and captivates us all. Further, in biblical terms such a system of wealth accumulation at the expense of the poor is seen as unfaithful to God and responsible for preventable human suffering and is called Mammon. Jesus has told us that we cannot serve both God and Mammon (Lk 16.13).”

Thus the Confession of Accra encourages us to strengthen education in our churches in society about the danger of an economy that promotes this type of trade agreement which does not protect the life of human beings nor of creation and intends to take the place of God. Along with this, we as Christians need to continue helping communities that organize themselves to develop a product and commercial interchange that has at its center justice and care of all human life and nature. We believe that in this way the proclamation of the good news as life abundant will have greater acceptance among the millions of human beings that have been impoverished and suffer the violence of the economic system that prevails in our world.

Macho's, snakes and doves: Christian attitude in political games.

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:13:54 +0100

Christian politics is all about content. Political views, context analysis, considerations, they are all content-based elements that lead to a political stance of a party or person. However, Christian politics is also about the personality of the politician. If you dare to call your party "Christian" you also create a set of obligations. And this creates tension.

By Menno van Hulst, Executive Director ChristenUnie (NL)

It is part of a Christian’s lifestyle to be humble, live by the grace of God and thus give praise to Him and not ourselves. If we achieve remarkable results we do (like Paul) not pride one another, but He who gave us this blessing. Our right-hand does not have to know the wonderful work of our left-hand and is even suffering from memory-loss concerning its own performances.

But if you want to be successful in politics, you need to deal with things differently. It is not only important that a law is amended for the good. It is just as important that the media is aware of the ones that got these results. You should not only be a good governor, you should also get the credits for it from the voters. The attitude of willing to “be the least” is a good biblical principle but does not function as an effective political strategy. After all, if your achievements are unnoticed by the media and by the people, you will not get re-elected. And if you’re not re-elected, you cannot continue achieving even more for your society in the next term. Having a big “ego” seems to be indispensable for survival in politics. That’s why politics often attracts a disproportional amount of machos (male or female).

What to do? Refrain from being a macho and stay away from politics? Leaving the “dirty political game” to followers of a different god than ours? Many Christians are inclined to do so. In their view, politics is by definition a bad business ran by powerhungry and moneythirsty crooks.

However, I would plead for the opposite approach. Especially as Christians we have a responsibility to be wise stewards of this earth and to contribute to our societies. I do plead for an awareness of the existing tensions between the rules of the political game and the following of Jesus Christ. I wish all politicians a “mirror” for regular personal reflection. This can be mutual reflection, but also in “job evaluations” of politicians by his or her family member. A mirror can help to locate and evade pitfalls and to regain the balance in the exiting realm of Christian politics.

When we are fully aware of these tensions, and deal with them in the right way, we can be wholeheartedly Christian in politics. A list of achievements will then become a list of blessings and Christian politicians will not act like macho’s but act as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16).

The Middle East in Turmoil

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 12:05:54 +0100

The situation in the Middle East may look hopeful for many Westerners who have followed the developments in the news every day. Is it a sign that these countries will finally have democracy instead of Islamic dictatorships? Young people from Morocco to Iran have come out onto the streets to revolt against totalitarian regimes. They are unhappy with poverty, corruption and lack of democracy. Young people, who make up over half of the population in all of these countries, want to have a different future. Naturally, I am also thrilled by the idea of more freedom and democracy in the Middle East, and I sincerely hope that current events will lead to more freedom for the people of Egypt, Tunisia etc.

By Peeter Võsu, chairman European Christian Political Movement.

However, we should also ask questions. Are the revolutions in these countries spontaneous or organized? If organized, then who is behind them? Is it likely that democratic forces will really prevail?

From recent history we have no good examples about changes to democracy in the region. The revolution in Iran in 1979 against the pro-Western dictatorship ended in an Islamic Republic with even less freedom. Democratic elections in Gaza ended with the terrorist organization Hamas in power in 2006.

Shortly after the revolt in Tunisia, Mohammed El Baradei called Egyptians to rise up for change. El Baradei has returned to politics after serving as a head of the UN International Energy Agency for 12 years. He has the support from the Islamic movement the Muslim Brotherhood who might see this as their chance to come to power.

Muslim Brotherhood, who wanted to establish a fundamentalist state, was founded in 1928, but was banned as a political group after the assassination of Prime Minister Mahmoud Al-Nuqrashi Pasha in 1948 and another attempt to assassinate Abdul Nasser in 1954. In 2005, the members of the group won 88 seats in the Parliament as independent candidates indicative of their high popularity. The Mubarak regime saw this as a threat to his government and they let no members of the Muslim Brotherhood enter Parliament in 2010.

The Muslim Brotherhood has called the people to support Mohammed El Baradei as “a donkey of the revolution” whom they can use to overthrow the previous regime and then push away in order to create an Islamic State, based on Sharia Law. The Muslim Brotherhood had a slogan: “Our Mission: World Domination” that was changed after 9/11 (2001). The current leader Muhammad Badi said in his speech in Sept 2010: “The improvement and change that the Muslim nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death, just as the enemy pursues life” (JCPA, Feb 2, 2011. Until now, the Muslim Brotherhood has been keeping a low profile in Egypt, the question is whether this is strategy or do they really support more democracy and freedom?

Behind the revolts in the Middle East are different groups with strong ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In spite of the fact that the young people in the streets fight for a better life and a more democratic society, the Islamic groups may be the strongest and most organized ones in all of these countries. The outcome of the struggle may be the opposite of the expectations for a better and freer society.

The Muslim Brotherhood has declared it would change the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The same message has also come from Mohammed El Baradei. The Mubarak government was undemocratic, but has kept cold peace with Israel for 30 years. There is a similar peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. The change of the situation may lead to another attempt by the surrounding Arab countries to wipe Israel off the map as it happened in 1967 (The Six-Day-War) and 1973 (The Yom Kippur War). Islamic fundamentalists are unhappy that Egypt, as a regional power, has sided with Israel for the last 30 years.

The situation in the Middle East is a dilemma for the Western societies. The autocratic rulers in the region, like Mubarak in Egypt and Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, have been the best allies of the West. Although siding with Western interests in foreign affairs, these regimes fueled discontent in their own countries by their very corrupt and mostly inefficient rule concerning domestic affairs. The most likely alternative to the autocratic presidents might be Islamic fundamentalist governments that are far worse for the region and for the whole world.

We are used to thinking in the West that democracy is the answer to the problems in all societies. Is it really? Maybe we fail to see that democracy has worked for us because of our Christian roots. Without the foundation of certain values, the effect of democracy may be very different. Throughout the world you can see a clear link between free democratic states and Christian roots. Democracy still has a long road ahead in many societies that have different religious or ideological roots…

The difference between state, government, party and organs of civil society

Tue, 15 Feb 2011 10:03:50 +0100

South Africa (SA) enacted a new constitution in 1996 by Act 108. Prior to 1993 SA was a parliamentary democracy. After the enactment of the first constitution in 1993 and specifically after 1996, SA became a constitutional democracy. The Constitution is the supreme law of the Republic - law or conduct inconsistent with the constitution is invalid and its obligations must be fulfilled. The state concept is therefore defined by the Constitution of SA. SA is a constitutional state.

by Christo Landman, PhD; Former Constitutional Commissioner (s.185) for the Protection and Promotion of Civil Rights

The Bill of Rights (Chapter 2) is a cornerstone of democracy in SA. However, the Bill of Rights is subject to limitations contained or referred to in section 36, or elsewhere in the Bill. Section 36 reads that the rights in the Bill of Rights may be limited only in terms of law of reasonable general application.

This poses severe problems. Hence any party - such as a communist party or Christian Democratic Party – can utilize section 36 to interpret each and every stipulation of the Bill of Rights. For instance, section 11 of the Bill of Rights reads that everyone has the right to life:

The ANC as majority party interprets section 11 as ample grounds to abolish capital punishment but legitimize abortion and applies s. 36 to enact accordingly.
The CDP, for instance, argues that God has given the state the power of the sword. Hence capital punishment is allowed under limited conditions. Abortion is prohibited, because human life starts at the moment of conception.

Another example: the equality clause (s. 9) allows for special legislative and other measures to protect or advance disadvantaged persons or categories of persons:

The ANC applies s. 9(2) on Blacks.
The CDP, on the other hand, applies s.9(2) on all disadvantages persons.

From this state of affairs flows a logical conclusion that since government offers a unique interpretation of the constitution, within its own dogmatic presuppositions, that government should be distinguished from the constitution itself.

The majority party functions according to its own structures and party structures do not coincide with the structures (departments, etc.) of government.

However, in a totalitarian context, such as the ANC majority party, the differentiation is uprooted and the differences between state, government and party are progressively eliminated.

Although the constitution provides for freedom of expression (s.16) and that persons may not be denied the right with others to form, join and maintain organs of civil society [s.31(1)b], the governing ANC tends to see organised education and organised sport, among other aspects, as organs of state. Hence, President Mandela at one point in time appointed a commission to investigate organised sport in SA.

The inevitable conclusion is that a party with a Christian democratic agenda differentiates between state, government, party and organs of civil society. But, a totalitarian party, such as the ANC, erodes the differences and, in the end, the party becomes the state and the state a one party state.