Editorial Introduction (2): Making Peace with
Democracy
William Wesley Elkins
Drew University and New Brunswick Theological
Seminary
In the gospel of Luke, Jesus, standing on a hill
overlooking Jerusalem, says "If you, even you, had
only recognized on this day the things that make for
peace! But now they are hidden from your
eyes."[1] This sorrowful cry is
echoed in the midst of WWI in Josiah Royce's 1916
volume, "The Hope of the Great Community."[2] Despite
the shocks of the First World War, which was
optimistically characterized in 1917 by President
Wilson as the war "to make the world safe for
democracy," Royce's response, despite the traumas
that promised to bring an end to the Enlightenment,
was to describe the hope of an idealist that would
constitute, despite the darkness, "a song before the
dawn." Without any assurance that the historical
facts would justify his position, he described a
"vision of what the community of mankind (sic) may
become, despite this tragic calamity."
For Royce, although this vision was certainly
idealistic, it was not universalistic. It was "the
hope of the great community" which would) unify
"...the already existing communities of mankind into
higher communities, and not through merely freeing
the peoples from oppressors, or through giving them a
more popular government, unless popular government
already takes the form of government by
the united community, through the united
community, and for the united
community."[3]
Royce's somewhat indirect reference to Lincoln's
"Gettysburg Address" [4] is certainly
intentional. It is a commonplace in scholarship of
American Philosophy that it was the trauma of the
American Civil War that led to the development of
Pragmatism. For Royce, in his mature, pragmatic
ethics, the shocks of the Civil War led him to limit
democracy by a community of communities which is
constituted in two ways. First there is the community
which is formed by a loyalty to particular purposes.
Second, there is the community of communities which
is constituted by a form of loyalty that encourages
the loyalties of different communities. For Royce,
this is the highest ethical principle, "Loyalty to
Loyalty", which, when reflected upon, Royce describes
in religious terms as affecting the salvation of the
detached individual, not by democracy, but by loyalty
to the cause of forming communities of loving
interpreters: "...lost individuals do not become
genuine freemen merely because they all have votes.
The suffrage can show the way of salvation only to
those who are already loyal."[5]
In the traditions of reflection upon democracy and
religions, the work of Royce is somewhat overlooked.
But what is the point of this bit of WWI history and
the value of the application of Royce's
interpretation of the Civil War for an introduction
to articles which apply scriptural reasoning to
reflection upon democracy and the Abrahamic
traditions? Simply this: If in the first decades of
the twentieth century one ideal solution for the
first great clash of western (Christian) cultures was
the hope of the great community, then it is possible
that in a conflict between different (and differently
religious) cultures the ideal cultural and religious
solution may be the same: the hope of the great
community of communities.
In essence, the First World War was not to make
the world safe for Democracy, but to protect and
promote communities through which the democratic
activities of individuals would have a purpose beyond
the assertion of individual interests. A Roycean
conclusion to the question of democracy and religious
tradition would be that, given the advances in
sciences, democracy could be a necessary condition of
the good of the community, but it certainly is not a
sufficient condition. Given this, as scholars
committed to religious practices in one of the
Abrahamic communities, it appears that we are also
committed to make peace with democracy i.e. we are
committed to constitute a logical space in which the
goods of our communities are represented in the give
and take of democratic discourse.
If Royce is correct, in the final analysis we do
not want to give up democracy, but neither do we want
to give up our loyalty to our distinctive religious
communities. We certainly would not want a community
where it was possible to vote out of the
commandments. But, in addition, we would not want a
democracy where matters of religious commitment and
practice were ruled out. So, if it is neither one nor
the other, but some shifting balance of both, what
are these third ways?
The purpose of the essays in this sixth volume of
the Journal of Scriptural Reasoning is to begin a
sketch of different answers. Admittedly each essay is
a preliminary attempt, a part of a renewed tradition
of interpretations and applications of scripture to
the development of multiple third ways. If a
community of communities in and for and through a
democracy and democracies in for and through
community develops, it will, according to Royce be
"...no place for that sort of internationalism
(universalism) that despises the individual variety
of nations, and which tries to substitute for vices
of those who at present seek merely to conquer
mankind, the equally worthless desire of those who
hope to see us in the future as men without a
country."[6] In this regard the
following articles are examples of how this hope of
the great community might be realized.
But beyond the practical virtue of each, is there
something general (not universal) what we might lean
from these examples? If we take Royce as a guide
(since he was the most the obviously religiously
communitarian of the pragmatists), we might
hypothesize that scriptural reasoners are responsible
for insuring democracy through community and
community through democracy. We are, according to
Royce, committed to mediate between these loyalties
so that adherent of one and the other are able with
us to function, prosper and be preserved as a
community. In Royce's words: "...in each of these
communities, one of the members has the essentially
spiritual function or task of representing or
interpreting the plans, or purposes, or ideas, of one
of its two fellows to the other of these two in such
a wise that the members of the member of the
community which I call the 'interpreter' works to the
end that these three shall cooperate as if they were
one; shall be so linked that they shall be members of
one another, and that the community of the whole
shall prosper and be preserved." [7]
There is, however, a problem with this ideal.
However much the ideal might shape the way things
are, it is not yet real. In this regard, any casual
observer of practical affairs, especially those
committed to the work of Scriptural Reasoning, can
note, that at best, things are more in two ways more
complicated. The first complication is that it is
difficult to represent any one of our communities to
another, especially if there are divisions in our
communities. There will be (perhaps always) conflicts
of interpretations. The second complication is that
we may have loyalties that are divided between
commitments to democracy and the commitments to the
values of our different religious communities. Of
course, these are somewhat abstract statements and
may not represent the plight of any one individual or
community. It may be the virtue of the facts that we
often find individuals and communities with very
complex spirits. If so, (and this is the purpose of
this issue of the Journal of Scriptural reasoning)
the following essays are an attempt to further the
development of a spirit of, by and for a community of
communities. Read in this way they offer a particular
instance of "the hope of the great community" that is
an attempt at making peace with democracy and of
recognizing "the things that make for peace."[8]
ENDNOTES
[1]The Gospel of Luke (NRSV):
19:41-42
[2]Josiah Royce, "The Hope of
the Great Community" The MacMillan Company, (New
York), 1916. (HGC)
[3]HGC pp 49-50 (emphasis
added).
[4]"Four score and seven years
ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a
new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and
so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great
battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a
portion of that field, as a final resting place for
those who here gave their lives that that nation
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that
we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we
can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this
ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled
here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power
to add or detract. The world will little note, nor
long remember what we say here, but it can never
forget what they did here. It is for us the living,
rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work
which they who fought here have thus far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to
the great task remaining before us -- that from these
honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause
for which they gave the last full measure of devotion
-- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall
not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that
government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth." (The
Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, edited by
Roy P. Basler. The text above is from the so-called
"Bliss Copy," one of several versions which Lincoln
wrote, and believed to be the final version.)
[5] HGC, p. 49.
[6] HGC, p. 50.
[7]HGC, P. 64.
[8]Luke: 19:41
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