Christensen gave an example of a question he asked a Chinese Marxist economist friend who was completing a fellowship in Boston where he had come to study American democracy and capitalism. He asked if there was anything that his friend had discovered that surprised him about those two topics. The friend’s answer surprised Christensen—and me.
“I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy and capitalism,” the friend replied. He said he knew that many Americans had attended church or synagogue in their younger years and in these places had been taught to voluntarily obey the law, value the sanctity of life, respect other people’s property, avoid stealing and lying.
“Democracy works because most people most of the time voluntarily obey your laws. You can say the same for capitalism. It works because Americans have been taught in their churches that they should keep their promises and not tell lies. Capitalism works because most people voluntarily keep their promises.”
Christensen’s Chinese friend is not the first visitor to America who has commented on the importance of religion in sustaining our democracy. Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1831 and wrote in Democracy in America: “Despotism may be able to do without religion but freedom cannot.”
In The God of Liberty: A Religious History of The American Revolution, historian Thomas Kidd summarized de Tocqueville’s conviction about the importance of religion for a democracy.
“An absence of fixed ideas about God would condemn people to anarchy, which would inevitably lead the rise of a despot, Tocqueville believed. Those who abandoned their core religious convictions would be unable to prioritize and defend their most important values; society would degenerate into survival of the fittest, a condition under which the majority of people would not wish to live long. At that point, a strong leader who promised law and order would be able to seize control of a rapidly degenerating and aimless society.” (p.246-247)
It’s time for many of us to remember and honor the importance of religion and its contribution to the preservation of our democracy. As John W. Gardner points out in his book On Leadership:
Values always decay over time. Societies that keep their values alive do so not by escaping the process of decay but by powerful processes of regeneration. There must be perpetual rebuilding. Each generation must rediscover the living elements in its own tradition and adapt them to present realities. p.13)
Religion has been critical in fostering in Americans the virtues and values that ensure that our democracy will survive. John Adams, one of our Founding Fathers, reminds us:
"Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
As we approach Christmas and the beginning of a New Year, it is essential that we remember the importance of religion for preserving our democracy and that each of us rededicates himself and herself to practicing the virtues that religion has taught us.
“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom”—Benjamin Franklin