Deism and Democracy

The basic narrative of classical deism goes like this:

God created the world as we know it. He set the deterministic laws of nature — gravity, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, etc. — and now those forces continue to play out across the millennia with no further need for intervention. To use the most popularized textbook analogy, God is a watchmaker; the world is a watch. He wound it up, and now it just keeps ticking.

I’m not here to defend the opposite notion of God, but I take it for granted that most of my readers will want more theological depth than deism has to offer. I think dedication to deism has the consequence of creating a practical atheism. If God is only the starting point of an otherwise independent world, then our lives need no direct involvement with him either.

Political Deism

There are countless other ways that deism might be theologically deficient. Yet while some people reject deism in their religious philosophy, they construct the exact same narrative when it comes to their political philosophy. A deistic view of America can be as damaging to our civic involvement as a deistic view of the cosmos can be to our religious involvement.

Take, for example, what might pass as the narrative of our democracy:

The Founding Fathers created the government as we know it. They set the deterministic laws of politics — checks and balances, separation of powers, federalism, etc. — and now these forces continue to play out across the centuries with no further need for intervention. James Madison is the watchmaker; America is the watch. He wound it up, and now it just keeps ticking.

This view leads to a doctrine of infallibility for the way things are. We the people, though designated the creators of our country and our democracy (who else could be?), sometimes take a hands-off approach to its workings. Much like the god of the deists, we cannot be bothered to involve ourselves in our own world.

Of the people, by the people, for the people

I will grant that election day is one glaring exception to this tendency. Unfortunately, the moment of intervention is repeated rarely, constrained by all sorts of uncharitable notions about what our country might achieve or deserve. Inevitably, talk turns to the “lesser of two evils” or a “protest vote” that accomplishes nothing except to soothe one’s sense of personal integrity.

Then between elections we descend into the deistic delusion once again. The election itself becomes the locus of our creation story. The watch was wound on November 8th, and it shall not be wound again for four more years. In between, things will be what they will be — no need to get involved.

Is this really democracy? We act as though a single quadrennial vote for a single political office is all that constitutes a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. This is not what our founding fathers signed up for.

Living Democracy

Marilynne Robinson, one of my favorite Christian novelists and essayists, recently published this article with The Guardian. In it, she argues that America ought to be a “living democracy,” continually shaping itself into a better representation of our ideals, not only by elections but by the host of democratic processes that resist authoritarian regress.

No more deistic contributions of a single vote every four years. Her call is specific:

We have to be far more committed to social reform than we were when the government supported reform. For example, we know that incarceration as it has been practiced for decades is a vast offense against justice. We have to stop being passive in the face of what we know. If this is a living democracy, then there should be a public conscience able to trouble us deeply for injury done to those who might seem least like us, whom it has been convenient to forget.

Here one might object that this is already happening. Have we not recently seen some of the largest political involvement to date? What about the women’s march? Black Lives Matter? To answer Robinson’s specific reference to incarceration, one might say that the Netflix documentary 13th has already gained enough traction to count as a sign of an active “public conscience.”

While I count these as victories for living democracy, they are hardly enough to call the problem resolved. Certainly no one who participated in these movements feels like there is enough involvement. Quite the opposite: participation highlights the need for more participation.

Too many people take all of the impending consequences of Donald Trump’s election as a foregone conclusion. They need not be.

Robinson’s ideas fit the concept of a democracy continually re-created by the people that inhabit it. When we the people are creators, we have a particular and persistent responsibility to shape our creation in our image. Our voice must be heard now, perhaps more loudly than when we are called to privately and politely cast our ballots.

We the living, in Lincoln’s phrase, we the generations that happen to be sharing this moment with Donald Trump, are suddenly and with no special qualifications called on to take a decisive role in American history, and world history. The values we hold have to be vividly alive in a time when we cannot count on government to protect them for us.

This all stands in opposition to the idea that democracy is a function of political machinery. Election day is not the culmination of our voice.

I still shudder every time I hear someone refer to our nation as “Trump’s America.” Whatever that phrase means to you, it isn’t true. This is still our America. Trump just happens to be governing.