Challenges to Democracy
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What are some of the core characteristics of a democratic society?
What examples of authoritarian practices or characteristics do you observe in the U.S. or your own contexts?
In one sentence, what is one thing I can do in my own context to promote democratic values and practices?
Common Attributes of Democracies (Renew Democracy Initiative)
Rule of law - nobody is above the law and the law applies equally to everybody
Independent judiciary - judicial branch is able to interpret the Constitution free from the influence of other branches of government, political parties, or public opinion.
Equal protection under the law - 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Marketplace of ideas - the concept that different beliefs can freely compete with one another in an open, transparent public discourse instead of being censored by the government or some part of society.
Bill of Rights - including freedoms speech, assembly, religion, and press
Federalism - power is divided between national and state governments
What is meant by Authoritarianism?
Definition by the Renew Democracy Initiative:
“Authoritarianism involves a single person or small group of persons who believe that they, and only they, can speak for the People at large. As supposed representatives of the People, they minimize checks and balances, limit political pluralism, suppress or discredit those who oppose them, and take advantage of expansive executive authority to maximize their own power.”
How Democracies Die: Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, 2018
Levitsky and Ziblatt’s “Four key indicators of Authoritarian Behavior”:
Rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game
Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents
Toleration or encouragement of violence
Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media
Rejection of (or weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game
Do they reject the Constitution or express a willingness to violate it?
Do they suggest a need for antidemocratic measures, such as canceling elections, violating or suspending the Constitution, banning certain organizations, or restricting basic civil or political rights?
Do they seek to use (or endorse the use of) extra-constitutional means to change the rules of the game government, such as military coups, violent insurrections, or mass protests aimed at forcing a change in the government?
Do they attempt to undermine the legitimacy of elections, for example, by refusing to accept credible electoral results?
Denial of the legitimacy of political opponents
Do they describe their rivals as subversive, or opposed to the existing constitutional order?
Do they claim that their rivals constitute an existential threat, either to national security or to the prevailing way of life?
Do they baselessly describe their partisan rivals as criminals, whose supposed violation of the law (or potential to do so) disqualifies them from full participation in the political arena?
Do they baselessly suggest that their rivals are foreign agents, in that they are secretly working in alliance with (or the employ of) a foreign government—usually an enemy one?
Toleration or encouragement of violence
Do they have any ties to armed gangs, paramilitary forces, militias, guerrillas, or other organizations that engage in illicit violence?
Have they or their partisan allies sponsored or encouraged mob attacks on opponents? Have they tacitly endorsed violence by their supporters by refusing to unambiguously condemn it and punish it?
Have they praised (or refused to condemn) other significant acts of political violence, either in the past or elsewhere in the world?
Readiness to curtail civil liberties of opponents, including media
Have they supported laws or policies that restrict civil liberties, such as expanded libel or defamation laws, or laws restricting protest, criticism of the government, or to curtail civil certain civic or political organizations?
Have they threatened to take legal or other punitive action against critics in rival parties, including media civil society, or the media?
Have they praised repressive measures taken by other governments, either in the past or elsewhere in the world?
Other cultural indicators of authoritarianism:
Calls to restore a mythic past
Cultivating a state of unreality
Distrust of intellectuals
Law and order rhetoric
Scapegoat mechanism
Threatened masculinity
“Polarization can destroy democratic norms. When social, racial, or religious differences give rise to extreme partisanship, in which societies sort themselves into political camps whose worldviews are not just different but mutually exclusive, toleration becomes harder to sustain. Some polarization is healthy - even necessary - for democracy. And, indeed, the historical experience of democracies in Western Europe shows us that norms can be sustained even where parties are separated by considerable ideological differences. But when societies grow so deeply divided that parties become wedded to incompatible worldviews, and especially when their members are so socially segregated that they rarely interact, stable partisan rivalries eventually give way to perceptions of mutual threat. As mutual toleration disappears, politicians grow tempted to abandon forbearance and try to win at all costs. This may encourage the rise of antisystem groups that reject democracy’s rules altogether. When that happens, democracy is in trouble.”
How Democracies Die (p. 115-116)
Resources
Religion and Incarceration in the U.S.
As of 2020, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world, by far, with almost 2.3 million people in prison or jail. About 1 out of 140 Americans were incarcerated at any time and millions pass through correctional systems each year. The results have disproportionately impacted poor and disenfranchised communities (mostly communities of color). Although African Americans only make up 13% of the population, they comprise 40% of the population in prison or jail. Legal scholar and civil rights lawyer Michele Alexander has described the modern era of mass incarceration as “The New Jim Crow,” arguing that the current system is a rebirth of a caste-like system that relegates African Americans to a permanent second-class citizen status. To learn more about current state of incarceration in the U.S., view the Prison Policy Initiative Report from 2020.
How did this state of affairs come about? And what role has and does religion play in the ways the U.S. approaches criminal justice?
Detainment vs. Rehabilitation: As the colonies developed in the beginning of the 18th Century, the earliest examples of incarceration were merely meant to detain criminals until their trial and sentencing, many of whom were charged in matters relating to a political or religious nature. Methods of reform and rehabilitation would arise later during the aftermath of the American Revolution, with emphasis on religious redemption and educational transformation.
How and why would events such as the Great Awakening and the American Revolution influence how religion, reform and rehabilitation entered the prison setting?
Religion and Incarceration in Early Philadelphia:
Walnut Street Jail, upon its opening in 1775, was a correctional facility primarily constructed for holding numerous criminals together in large rooms while upcoming trials were being arranged. Early reliance on prisoner punishment gradually shifted over the years from public to private, with emerging methods of isolation and labor used in response to petitions made by individuals within organizations such as the Pennsylvania Prison Society, known then as the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating Miseries of Public Prisons. Experimenting with more serious offenders in complete isolation as a method of reflection on the crimes they had committed, the system fell to controversy in the very end of the century, and suffered from overpopulation of the establishment. This prompted the idea and construction of a larger facility to house incarcerated men and women which focused more heavily on reform rather than simply detainment, thus giving birth to the Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829. Religious influence and structure impacted both facilities, as Sunday was reserved for no labor and sermons by ministers for the prisoners within the prison walls. See slideshow: Religion and Incarceration in Early Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania vs. Auburn Systems:
Pennsylvania System:
Emerged from the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (later renamed the Pennsylvania Prison Society)
Based primarily on Quaker ideals, emphasizing solitary confinement at all times and prisoners have no contact with each other, preserving anonymity
First attempted at the Walnut Street Jail, the idea really took form at the opening of Eastern State Penitentiary in 1829
Architect John Haviland designed the prison with the idea of this new “separation system” in mind
Through isolation it was believed that inmates would spend time reflecting on past behaviors and repenting for them, without any contamination from outside influences
Bibles were provided by the Philadelphia Bible Society to every person incarcerated in Eastern State, and Sundays would feature sermons by ministers visiting the prison
Criticized for financial cost and subsequent mental/emotional issues that were emerging in inmates due to constant solitary confinement; abandoned the “separation system” in 1913
Auburn System:
Opened in 1816, the Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York was one of the earliest prisons in the state
In the early 1820s, reorganization of the facility’s methods stressed a Puritan belief that criminals were inherently bad, based on the notion of “Original Sin”
Rather than rely on isolation and repentance with the aid of religion, Auburn exhibited an emphasis on rehabilitation rather than reform
Prisoners maintained a strict code of silence, while during the day performing manual labor and returned to solitary confinement at night
Though prisoners had contact with one another, by enforcing silence at all times the idea was that inmates could not negatively influence each other through dialogue
Constant labor and strict codes to live by were meant to conform the convicts to the laws of society, thus discipline was an underlying theme that was aimed to be instilled in all that were incarcerated
Rather than try to harness the spirit, this system tried to break it
The Auburn System surpassed the Pennsylvania system as the 19th Century progressed, and the modern penal code in the United States can see aspects of both it and the Pennsylvania System enforced in large-scale prisons today
Education and Reform: Early examples of reform in locations such as Eastern State Penitentiary and Auburn Prison relied heavily on forced labor, strict discipline and religious influence to change the incarcerated individual. As prison systems progressed in the United States, education became more and more important in trying to tame the criminal mind and rehabilitate them well enough to possibly allow assimilation back into society. Zebulon Brockway was perhaps the first and most notable figure in prison education history, viewing criminal behavior as a mental illness of sorts. Developing a reward system for teaching inmates confined to prison environments, especially those of a younger age, Brockway set standards for education reform during his time working at Elmira State Reformatory in New York.
How did general education help to prepare incarcerated men and women for a return to society in ways that religion could not?
Religion and Incarceration In Recent Years: The United States is notable for its extreme level of mass incarceration, surpassing any other nation on the planet. Through the 20th Century as prisons reformed according to the times, the population of state and federal prisons saw a gradual increase. Factors such as Nixon’s “War on Drugs,” the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act passed under the Reagan Administration, and the 1994 Crime Bill passed under the Clinton Administration set forth a domino effect that saw incarcerations occur much more frequently. Race, gender and religion all became subject to prejudice as social stereotypes played into direct association with certain crimes. Religion in Prisons observed in 2011 from prison chaplains across the United States display statistics and graphs on the prominent religions of inmates, levels of religious extremism, and religious accommodation behind bars.
How would the increase in mass incarceration across the United States influence the hierarchy of different religious groups inside prison walls?
How would society on the outside of a prison affect living conditions on the inside?
Notable Figures:
Benjamin Rush: Famous Philadelphia physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, he was an early member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society and advocated against public labor as punishment for incarcerated criminals.
William White: Known as the first Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, he was also the first president of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, combining his Episcopalian background with prominent Quaker beliefs of the group. He also served as the first president of the Magdalen Society, a group oriented around the reform of female convicts.
John Haviland: Architect of Eastern State Penitentiary, he utilized gothic influence in the construction of the building which emulated church design, and built cells to endorse the idea of constant isolation that the inmates would be subjected to.
Charles Dickens: Famous British author and one of the harshest critics of Eastern State’s “separation system,” bringing to light the toll isolation takes on the prisoners and how mental illness is more of a probable outcome than repentance.
Zebulon Brockway: Pioneer in education reform within prisons, he took the idea of religious reform and steered it more towards teaching basic skills and lessons in order to educate criminals rather than simply rely on labor and isolation.
Evangelicals and Politics in the Twentieth Century U.S.
Who are Evangelicals?
In religious terms, it refers to a focus on a belief system committed to an adherence to Biblical authority and spreading the gospel message.
In political terms, it refers to certain political orientation.
Although Evangelicals are from many backgrounds, they are often portrayed as white in the media. The question of slavery split American Christians, northern churches and southern churches. Christians used the same Bible to argue opposite sides.
The Scopes Trial in 1925 became a key moment for Evangelicals. From the 1920s until the 1950s, Evangelicals avoided politics. Something changed after the Second World War with the rise of Communism.
Suggested Reading: Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race, and American Politics
“The conversion of African Americans was arguably the greatest contribution of the evangelical revivals to the future of American Christianity. “Early American white evangelicals’ commitment to evangelization set in motion perhaps the most remarkable change in American religious history: the nearly wholesale conversion of African Americans to some form of evangelical Christianity. That great transformation began in force in the mid-1780s, and by the early nineteenth century African Americans were converting at almost unparalleled rates,” writes Thomas S. Kidd. The conversion of black slaves, and attempts to evangelize them by whites, represented the first egalitarian contact between whites and blacks that moved relations between the two races beyond the level of master and slave. Evangelical revivals were the first instance of southern slave-holding whites looking at blacks as more than some sort of economic tool or resource on the level of livestock. The challenge for white evangelicals would be whether or not they could fully perform the egalitarian logic of the Gospel by dismantling the slave system on which the southern economy was built.” (Heltzel, pg. 17)
“The story of the black church is central to the white evangelical story because both are organic, independent, and interdependent movements within American religious history. Thinking historically about the relation between black and white evangelicalism in the formation of different streams of American political culture requires revisions in the way we think of the theological ideas, political practices, and legacies of evangelicalism.” (Heltzel, pg. 15-16)
