3min chapter

Grace in Common cover image

Christian Politics, Pluralism and Kate Forbes

Grace in Common

CHAPTER

The Importance of Persuasion in a Liberal Democracy

A big part of the conversation in Scotland so far has been a lot of people are very perplexed about how on earth a Christian politician could fit within a liberal democracy. I instinctively want to push back against that is to say that liberal democracy is itself a fruit of Christianity. The idea that this is a really striking feature actually of Kate Forbes election campaign so far where she really stands out as someone who's very deeply ingrained with Christianity.

00:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, so a big part of the conversation in Scotland so far has been a lot of people are very perplexed about how on earth a Christian politician could fit within a liberal democracy, because the assumption is that Christianity is somewhat incompatible with liberal democracy. One of the ways that I instinctively want to push back against that is to say that liberal democracy is itself a fruit of Christianity. And therefore, I argued this in a times op ed recently for someone like it for a business is a very intelligent Christian, a really thoughtful person who is deeply shaped by a worldview that itself produced the liberal democracy that she wants to operate in. When you start to think of it in those terms, and you know, and kind of capacious terms about Western society and liberalism and how local these things are, and they're specifically very heavily influenced by Christianity. To me, it seems like it just seems quite an odd juxtaposition to set up how on earth could a Christian fit within a liberal democracy? I think that there are pretty good reasons for why a Christian could. But I'm curious to know how you guys would think about that as a public debate. So is that is the idea here that we're trying to get at that that the way that Christians fit or the Christians actually play a really important role within a diverse pluralistic liberal democracy because of the resources they bring within an older Christian tradition to do with ideas like persuasion or the image of God idea that Gray was just bringing up, for example, those things to me seem like really key ingredients in what became liberal democracy. The idea that I think this is a really striking feature actually of Kate Forbes election campaign so far where she really stands out as someone who's very deeply ingrained with Christianity that she lays a huge emphasis on persuasion. It's one of her keywords that she's out there to persuade people. And that I think is that makes some people here quite uncomfortable because they're not used to the art of persuasion. We have a lot of quite intolerant progressive culture in Scotland where the goal of persuading someone is it's just not intuitive. If they're not in your camp, then you want to assert power over them and you shout them down or you find some way to assert dominance, but persuading that person to get them to see your side and then come over to your side is actually a bit of a lost arch at the moment in Scotland. So is this a layer of what Christian if you don't have Christians in a liberal democracy, is it actually a threat to the liberal democracy?

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode