ABSTRACT
The time is ripe for a cosmopolitan inquiry into the interactions of Christianity and democracy. Democratic agitation has reached even Tiananmen Square. It is time for the Christian church to take stock of the role that it has played and can play in the drama of democracy. Christian theologies have helped to cultivate democratic ideas of equality, liberty, and responsibility. But they have also helped to perpetuate repressive ideas of statìsm, elitism, and chauvinism. The cardinal social ideas of democracy are equality and freedom, pluralism and toleration. Democracy confirms the individuality and equality of persons and their inherent freedoms of life, belief, and expression. The cardinal political idea of democracy is that government must be limited and self-limiting. The political office must be distinct from the political official and defined narrowly by external standards, whether constitutional or customary. Democracy provides Christianity with a system of government that balances its concerns for human dignity and depravity, social pluralism and progress.
