» Friday, 14 December A.D. 2007
covenant society
As part of my slowly-plodding quest to understand what Christianity has to say about politics, I have been reading Christianity and Democracy by John W. de Gruchy. Following are two paragraph that command attention and study.
The idea of the covenant led, as H. Richard Niebuhr argued, to a particular mind-set which challenged the deist view of a mechanical universe in which society 'was largely a self-regulating mechanism' requiring little government intervention. Further, it replaced medieval organic theories of government in which hierarchy and absolute monarchy were an integral part of the cosmic scheme of things. The covenantal idea, in contrast, was based on promises made and kept between rulers and subjects. This, rather than deist or organic views, was the design of the ultimate ruler for the relationship between divinity and humanity; it was therefore the pattern for human government. Such government was neither natural nor contractual. It was not natural because human nature was fallen; it could not be contractual (how could humnaity enter into a contract with God?) because that meant pursuing self-interest rather than common interest, and a limited rather than an unlimited degree of commitment. Covenant, on the other hand, was voluntaristic; it meant freely choosing to make and keep a promise...
Covenant ideas were not the same as the social contract, nor can the latter simply be regarded as the secularization of the former. Bother were attempting to deal with the role played by human choice and action in society, yet they were essentially different. In contract theory everyone was equal by nature, but nature was such that it always sought self-interest; in covenant theory everyone was equal by virtue of sin, but also by virtue of the fact that every vocation was equal in the sight of God. Both these covenantal ideas undermined ancient distinctions of rank and privilege. Contract theory sought ways whereby individual self-interest could be accommodated without destroying social cohesion; covenantal theory sought to transform individual self-interest into a mutual commitment to the common good by the grace, and under the sovereignty, of God...
posted by Nate @ 1:38PM