ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the relationship of Christianity and democracy in Europe. It discusses the affinity between Christian faith and democracy. The chapter describes this affinity with the delayed acceptance of Modern forms of democracy by the churches in Europe. It considers some aspects related to the present challenges for the development of Europe’s political culture. The understanding of human persons as responsible actors and as capable of cooperation is typical of a Christian understanding of human persons under God. The anticlerical and anti-ecclesiastical attitude of the leading revolutionaries in France and the bloody terror of the revolutionary epoch left many Protestants disenchanted with the democratic ideal. The tradition of Christian Democracy tends toward an integralistic view of the European political culture. In opposition to the tendencies towards a new kind of integralism it has to be emphasized that a European identity to come necessarily includes the equal freedom of the diverse.
