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It would be unwise, for example, as well as uncharitable, to prohibit
all divorce simply because the majority of citizens believed that divorcc
is contrary to God’s will. Such a law would ignore the sinfulness of
men and the moral and spiritual corrosiveness of homes which arc
filled with strife and hostility.
A second contribution of Christianity to the strengthening of
democracy lies in the Christian understanding of liberty and rights.
A major weakness of democracy has been the tendency to interpret
liberty exclusively in the negative terms of freedom from restraint
while understanding rights primarily in individualistic terms. When
the liberty of one citizen or one group is defined without reference to
the liberty of other citizens and groups, the liberty of the people as
a whole is threatened, and the way is prepared for the emergence of a
new tyranny of the strongest. Similarly, when rights are understood
in exclusively individualistic terms, the basic equality of men is
jeopardized. Moreover, such a conception of liberty and rights leads
to the loss of that real sense of unity which is essential if there is to
be genuine government for the people as a whole, as well as govern
ment by the people.
An authentically Christian approach to the concept of the rights of
man does not begin with the empirically observable nature of man
but rather with an understanding of his obligations to God and
to his neighbors under God.17 According to this view, the rights of
man are grounded in the biblical conception of the nature and destiny
of man, with emphasis placed upon the underlying duties upon which
the rights of the individual are based. Men have rights—e.g., freedom
of speech, the ballot, and freedom of religion—because they have
responsibilities which stem out of the moral and spiritual relationships
with which they are endowed.18
Biblical faith thus provides strong support for the democratic
doctrine that
all
men have certain inalienable rights regardless of
whether or not they are recognized as such by the laws of a particular
17 See Paul Ramsey,
Basic Christian Ethics
, New York, Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1950, pp. 353 if.
18 Professor John H. Hallowell maintains that democracy can remain viable
in the long-run only if its conception of the rights of man is theologically
grounded: “Because we have a destiny that transcends time and, as a conse
quence, responsibilities that transcend the demands of the particular time and
society in which we live, we must have the freedom proportionate to those
responsibilities
and the rights that are derived from those obligations
.”
(Hallowell,
op. cit.,
p. 84. Italics added.)
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Biblical Faith and Social Ethics