Quote:
Originally Posted by Nell
In the continuing "progress" of the pandemic, this commentary shows that this virus may be affecting us in ways we could not previously imagine.
This video was posted on YouTube in March, 2014. I first saw it around that time. It was chilling then. Now it's beyond chilling.
Democracy doesn't work without Religion
Clay Christensen, professor at (of all places) Harvard Business School, recounts a conversation.
Video Transcript:
"Some time ago I had a conversation with a Marxist economist from China. He was coming to the end of a Fulbright Fellowship here in Boston. I asked him if he had learned anything that was surprising or unexpected and without any hesitation he said 'yes'.
'I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy. The reason why democracy works,' he said, 'is not because the government was designed to oversee what everybody does, but rather, democracy works because most people, most of the time voluntarily choose to obey the law.
'In your past, most Americans attended a church or synagogue every week, and they were taught there by people who they respected.'
My friend went on to say that 'Americans follow these rules because they had come to believe that they weren’t just accountable to society but that they were accountable to God.'"
"As religion loses its influence over the lives of Americans, what will happen to our democracy? Where are the institutions that are going to teach the next generation of Americans that they too need to voluntarily choose to obey the laws, because if you take away religion, you can’t hire enough police.”
Prof. Christensen passed from complications of cancer January 28, 2020. He never saw what would happen in America in 2020 and how right his Chinese coworker might be.
Question: If a Chinese Marxist can see the correlation of Religion/God and Democracy, why can't Americans see it?
What do you think?
Nell |
Dear Nell,
My own Dad has said exactly the same thing for years. Being an historian and a very intellectual Christian, he narrows it down to not just any religion, but democracy only works in a judeo-Christian world, with layers of generations behind it such that the ideas and values of a Christian world veiw permeate the mentality and values of the people on a profound level.
He said all the efforts to introduce democracy into the poor nations of the world, the Muslim world etc, don't take hold as they did when they evolved in countries like England, and then got transported alongside the British empire to what is now the 'free world'.
(This does not exempt the British empire from its mistakes and abuses, in any way. They exist too just as much. Sometimes the evil done does mask and distract from seeing the deeper underlying dynamic at work, which was more powerful in the long term.)
Catholic nations remain poor and corrupt... (Think of the Philippines and South America). It is the nations founded on protestant Christianity that have flourished. The exception in part, being India.
But the Muslim world, being very religious, is as yet unable to grasp a healthy democratic way of life for its people and no amount of trying to impute such as system onto any Muslim nation has succeeded. An it has been tried. American troops have gone in, tried to established stability, and set up an elected leader, then withdraw gradually, and its
never worked!!!
So I think this is a profound truth that this insightful Marxist has seen for himself. An important truth for us all to be aware of, though the world around us won't want to acknowledge it....You can't escape that the God of the Bible IS the source of all that is good in this world, no matter on what scale you look at it.
Big endorsement from me.