This is a past event
Dr Jonathan Chaplin (Cambridge) is a well-known British political theologian who will be in Aberdeen this coming Wednesday 22 January at 2-3.30 in the Court Room to present a paper on the role of Christian nationalism in undermining Christian support for democracy. In more detail:
Christianity and democracy: repairing the intellectual deficit After centuries of official indifference or resistance, the theological legitimacy of democracy came to be widely recognised in Protestantism and Catholicism by the mid-twentieth century. Yet today, millions of professing Christians in several nations are being lured into supporting authoritarian political projects and seem willing to subordinate democratic norms and processes to other goals, notably the promotion of a 'Christian nation'. This substantial popular Christian retreat from democracy only contributes to its wider global undermining (occurring for multiple reasons). At a time when renewed Christian intellectual defences of democracy are urgently required, however, such defences are thin on the ground. This paper suggests resources to repair this deficit, drawing from stands of pre-modern, Reformation and modern theological reflection. It identifies and explores the grounding and relationship between three principal families of theological justification for (what the paper will define as) 'constitutional democracy': consent theories, participatory theories, and defensive theories. Suitably combined and applied to contemporary political realities, they offer a robust Christian defence of democracy that might help intellectual and practical leaders to reverse the retreat.
All faculty and staff are warmly invited to this interdisciplinary event, run by the Centre for Society and the Rule of Law, and which promises to be a lively and important discussion.