Democracy, Truth, and Jesus.

The reigning paradigm of Modernity continues to disintegrate.  We find ourselves bereft of a common understanding of truth.  Large percentages of people in our country succumb to self-serving lies based on no more evidence than “I feel it in my heart.”  Democracy itself is therefore threatened, as people are tempted by authoritarian autocracy that seeks to impose arbitrary and convenient lies as “truth” by force.

Democracy and truth are related.  One way to come to a consensus about what is true is to gather as many perspectives as possible, thus avoiding the classic blind-people-describing-an-elephant problem where we take our own views as universally valid.  If many different people look at something, the truth is likely to be what most of them see.

Not always, of course.  We know how easily large numbers of people are influenced, and their perspectives determined, by mass media, propaganda, advertising, religion, and even word-of-mouth.  The fact that a large majority believes something is not necessarily a guarantee of its truth.  Many would suggest that the opposite is true: that most people are clueless and only a tiny minority have any grip on truth at all.

We saw this kind of elitism at the beginning our our republic, when only white, male, property owners could vote.  And even they could not be trusted to elect a President; that was left to a group of insiders called The Electoral College.  African-Americans were counted as 3/5 of a person.  Native Americans were excluded altogether.  And of course women were second-class citizens.  Even what was considered “white” was limited mainly to people of Anglo-Saxon heritage.

And it is white people who now feel most threatened by the expansion of democracy to include more different kinds of people.  It is as if democracy is expendable if it calls white supremacy into question.

White supremacy is the Big Lie that an increasing democracy erodes.  It is the shared consensus we are now losing.  And that is a good thing.  If we want to base our life together on truth, then I suggest that our democracy is still not wide enough.

For Christians, Jesus Christ is the Truth (and the Way and the Life).  One thing we know about Jesus is his radical inclusion.  Throughout his ministry he makes a point of welcoming and healing all sorts of people, especially those who were excluded or marginalized by the leaders and cultural/religious habits of his own society.  Indeed, his vision of God’s Kingdom was one of social reversal, as we see in his mother’s hymn before he was even born, which sets the tone for his whole mission.

Jesus Christ therefore embodies the Truth in practices of radical democracy that advocate for and embrace everyone, from women and children, to lepers and Samaritans, from Roman Centurions to the blind, deaf, and lame, from Judean shepherds to “enemy” foreigners.    

If our democracy is failing it is not for being too broad, but not broad enough.  The answer, if Jesus is any example, is not to re-impose a system where power is limited to an elite class or race, but to break down the walls and start listening to, respecting, providing for, and loving everyone.   

In short, we have to continue to move away from the old consensus based on contradictions and lies that characterized the original slave-republic that was America.  And we have to keep moving into the only sustainable Truth, which is where everyone has a place at the table and a voice in the conversation.

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