Christian Faith and Modern Democracy
Kraynak, Robert P. & Deneen, Patrick J.
MONARCHY, ANYONE? Christian Faith and Modern Democracy God and Politics in the Fallen World Robert P. Kraynak University of Natre Dame Press. $24.95.307 pp. Patrick J. Deneen Alexis de...
...Kraynak continually points out the morally corrosive tendencies of modern liberal democracy, suggesting at each turn the need to correct purely material conceptions of human flourishing...
...Tocqueville considers the modern emergence of democracy to be "a providential fact," and argues that the attempt to halt it would require one "to struggle against God himself...
...Kraynak's hostility toward skeptical and individualistic liberalism inclines him to overlook the virtues of democracy...
...He placed great hope in the existence of an active civil society, in which citizens would take into account the situations, interests, desires, and passions of others, and thereby partially overcome selfishness and pride...
...however, he passes too quickly over Augustine's endorsement of small republics for their closer approximation to a justice on earth...
...In the first and most obvious instance, Kraynak at no point discusses whether a Christian standard can be shared in a religiously heterogeneous society...
...Patrick J. Deneen teaches political philosophy at Princeton University...
...Patrick J. Deneen Alexis de Tocqueville begins Democracy in America with what seem to be contradictory observations...
...Moreover, Kraynak seems unnecessarily hostile to a democracy that could be deemed an exemplary regime from a Christian perspective, and one that non-Christians could find similarly appealing...
...He is right to remind us that Augustine in the main regarded political regimes as enormous "robber gangs...
...At least Augustine and Aquinas discussed the manner by which Christian princes should deal with non-Christians (to oversimplify, grudging tolerance and sometimes forced conversion) and apostates (death...
...Commonweal 28 October 26,2001...
...Committed secular thinkers will summarily and too quickly dismiss Kraynak's deeply antiliberal Commonweal 26 October 26,2001 arguments...
...One finds a more positive endorsement of democracy for similar reasons in Tocqueville...
...However, his attempt to revive a "mixed" model of Christian constitutionalism that includes elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and popular sovereignty is unacceptable by non-Christian standards, and finally dubious according to the same Christian standard that he invokes...
...that one sees still advancing today amid the ruins it has made...
...Robert Kraynak, a professor of political philosophy at Colgate University, shares Tocqueville's religiously inspired terror of democracy, but breaks with Tocqueville over democracy's inevitability...
...To the former he contends that "modern liberal democracy needs the Christian religion to support its institutions and to provide a grounding for its deepest moral claims...
...He spoke admiringly of the conception of "commonwealth" animated by "a common sense of right," including the virtues of selfrule, mutual restraint, and an abiding regard for other humans...
...He seeks to persuade the latter that "Christianity is not necessarily a liberal or democratic religion, nor does it make support of a political order its highest priority...
...We prudentially accept political arrangements that secure peace without overly emphasizing temporal justice, as perfect justice is possible only in heaven...
...Democracy is inevitable and terrible, something to be embraced and feared...
...Inasmuch as modern democracy emphasizes temporal satisfaction and social justice, in Kraynak's view it fails the crucial Augustinian test of legitimacy...
...Christians, particularly conservative believers, will find Kraynak's arguments more challenging and potentially persuasive, particularly his contention that modern Christianity has too readily accepted the idea that democratic equality is a reflection of Christian doctrine...
...In spite of his "religious terror," Tocqueville believed that democracy had internal resources by which it could resist corrosive tendencies toward atomism...
...Kraynak altogether avoids this essential topic...
...Governments are judged by the standards of the divine, not the earthly...
...In that context, Kraynak calls for a revival of the Augustinian doctrine of the Two Cities...
...He is skeptical about liberal democracy's tendency to encourage the belief in a human-centered universe, its inculcation of materialism, rights-based individualism, growth-oriented capitalism, dissolute mass culture, and, above all, Kantian-inspired claims to human autonomy that leave questions of ultimate human good to the untutored judgment of the individual...
...In his important and controversial new book, Kraynak argues that democracy is the result of several historical and political developments that were not in themselves the inevitable result of either Providence or the secular course of history...
...It encourages a conception of government that attends to the moral character of its citizens while Commonweal 27 October 26,2001 strenuously opposing modern totalitarianisms that attempt to absorb civil society or theocratic regimes that try to absorb the state...
...The modern esteem for democracy, as well as the modern disdain for aristocracy and monarchy, should be reconsidered, he says...
...Augustine in various instances praises the ancient republican ideal for its attempt to constrain human ambitions, particularly the cravings for empire and expansion of material wealth...
...We exist in the City of Man as pilgrims whose sight should remain fixed on the ultimate destination, and it behooves us not to be distracted by thoughts of perfecting or even too ambitiously seeking improvement of the fallen human city...
...hence, while no polity is good in itself, those regimes that ensure domestic tranquillity—point us toward a moral life, limit our ambitions and craven desires, and most important, do not interfere in our ultimate aim of participating in the world to come—are praiseworthy from a Christian standpoint...
...Kraynak is correct to remind Christians that they should grant only provisional allegiance to any regime...
...Although it has been incorporated in official Catholic teaching in no less than the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, the modern interpretation concerning democracy's Christian roots departs radically from the biblical and canonical tradition...
...Augustine understood the two realms—the City of God and the City of Man—to be radically divided...
...Kraynak's neo-Augustinianism has many virtues...
...The City of Man is a world of profound imperfection, peopled by fallen, sinful beings who can only hope for ultimate citizenship in the City of God through an earthly life of piety...
...On the other hand, Tocqueville regards this heaven-sent political development with "a sort of religious terror" that is "produced by the sight of this irresistible revolution...
...According to Kraynak, that tradition allows for, even appears to demand, ranked political orders that reflect hierarchies in the divine order...
...Unlike many conservatives, he gives equal time to a critique of capitalism—its ravages on human communities, its promotion of a thoroughgoing materialism, and its pervasive inculcation of relativism...
...Like Tocqueville, Kraynak views democracy with deep misgivings...
...Writing explicitly as a Catholic thinker, Kraynak directs his critique at two audiences, namely "secularists" and "committed [Christian] believers...
...By his own standards—for potentially cultivating a sense of common good, promoting ennobling forms of self-sacrifice, and restraining self-interest—democracy offers to Christians a regime deserving of our best efforts and even our devotion...
Vol. 128 • October 2001 • No. 18
