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What Would Yoder Do?

Tags: yoder, politics, democracy on 2008-11-03 -All Annotations (6) -About

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democracy, while certainly superior to more coercive forms of government, is nonetheless still a system in which “some men exercise power over others.”
If we refuse the mythological explanation of democracy as a fundamentally new kind of social order, we can rejoice in the immensely increased possibilities which it provides of speaking to those who exercise power; the decentralization of authority, the election of legislators by a local constituency, and the constitutional and judicial controls on abuse of authority are all factors which oblige the men in power to listen to criticism with a greater degree of seriousness than in the age of absolutist monarchs.
To go to the polls is then not, as the Hutterite and the hippie on one side and the superpatriot on the other contend, a ritual affirmation of moral solidarity with the system. It is one way, one of the weaker and vaguer ways, to speak truth to power. We may do well to support this channel with our low-key participation, since a regime where it functions is a lesser evil (all other things being equal) than one where it does not, but our discharge of this civil duty will be more morally serious if we take it less seriously.
A related misunderstanding is the notion that it might be possible for Christians to avoid or withdraw from the political realm simply and entirely. … It is possible to avoid having an outspoken political witness or to avoid criticizing existing structures, but then that silence is also a positive political action, accepting things as they are.

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Todd Way's Bookmarks tagged democracy → View Popular

What Would Yoder Do?

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