Introduction
Christian democracy is a political ideology that emerged in nineteenth-century Europe under the influence of Catholic social teaching, as well as Neo-Calvinism. Christian democratic political ideology advocates for a commitment to social market principles and qualified interventionism. It was conceived as a combination of modern democratic ideas and traditional Christian values, incorporating the social teachings espoused by the Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Pentecostal traditions in various parts of the world. After World War II, the Protestant and Catholic movements of the Social Gospel and Neo-Thomism, respectively, played a role in shaping Christian democracy. Christian democracy continues to be influential in Europe and Latin America, although it is also present in other parts of the world.
In practice, Christian democracy is often considered centre-right on cultural, social, and moral issues (and is thus a supporter of social conservatism), and it is considered centre-left "with respect to economic and labor issues, civil rights, and foreign policy" as well as the environment. Specifically, with regard to its fiscal stance, Christian democracy advocates a social market economy.
Selected general articles
- Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate (or local) level that is consistent with their resolution.
Subsidiarity is perhaps presently best known as a general principle of European Union law. Read more... - The social market economy (SOME; German: soziale Marktwirtschaft), also called Rhine capitalism, is a socioeconomic model combining a free market capitalist economic system alongside social policies that establish both fair competition within the market and a welfare state. It is sometimes classified as a coordinated market economy. The social market economy was originally promoted and implemented in West Germany by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1949. Its origins can be traced to the interwar Freiburg school of economic thought.
The social market economy was designed to be a third way between laissez-faire economic liberalism and socialist economics. It was strongly inspired by ordoliberalism, social democratic ideas and the political ideology of Christian democracy, or more generally the tradition of Christian ethics. The social market economy refrains from attempts to plan and guide production, the workforce, or sales, but it does support planned efforts to influence the economy through the organic means of a comprehensive economic policy coupled with flexible adaptation to market studies. Combining monetary, credit, trade, tax, customs, investment and social policies as well as other measures, this type of economic policy aims to create an economy that serves the welfare and needs of the entire population, thereby fulfilling its ultimate goal. Read more... - The European Christian Political Movement (ECPM) is a political party at European level that unites national parties from across Europe that share Christian democratic politics. The member parties are generally more socially conservative and Eurosceptic than the European People's Party. The ECPM unites parties with a Christian social view.
The party was founded in November 2002 in Lakitelek, Hungary. It elected its first board in January 2005, and was registered in the Netherlands in September 2005. The first ECPM president was Peeter Võsu of the Party of Estonian Christian Democrats. The party has thirty members from across sixteen countries. Youth movements are united in ECPYouth. The youth organisation started in 2004 and installed its first board in summer 2005. Read more... - Neo-scholasticism (also known as neo-scholastic Thomism or neo-Thomism because of the great influence of the writings of Thomas Aquinas on the movement), is a revival and development of medieval scholasticism in Roman Catholic theology and philosophy which began in the second half of the 19th century. Read more...
Eduardo Nicanor Frei Montalva (Spanish pronunciation: [eˈðwaɾðo fɾei̯ monˈtalβa]; January 16, 1911 – January 22, 1982) was a Chilean political leader. In his long political career, he was Minister of Public Works, president of his Christian Democratic Party, senator, President of the Senate, and the 28th president of Chile from 1964 to 1970. His eldest son, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, also became president of Chile (1994–2000).
Frei's Christian Democratic Party supported the Armed Forces intervention to remove his successor Salvador Allende from office in 1973, after the Chamber of Deputies, on August 22, 1973, accused Allende of violating the Constitution and called for his overthrow. He was later a vocal opponent of the Augusto Pinochet regime. On January 22, 1982, Frei was assassinated in Santiago, Chile. Read more...- Jacques Maritain (French: [maʁitɛ̃]; 18 November 1882 – 28 April 1973) was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas for modern times, and was influential in the development and drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pope Paul VI presented his "Message to Men of Thought and of Science" at the close of Vatican II to Maritain, his long-time friend and mentor. The same pope had seriously considered making him a lay Cardinal, but Maritain rejected it. Maritain's interest and works spanned many aspects of philosophy, including aesthetics, political theory, philosophy of science, metaphysics, the nature of education, liturgy and ecclesiology. Read more...
Abraham Kuijper (/ˈkaɪpər/; Dutch: [ˈaːbraːɦɑm ˈkœypər]; 29 October 1837 – 8 November 1920), publicly known as Abraham Kuyper, was Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1901 and 1905, an influential neo-Calvinist theologian and also a journalist. He established the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, which upon its foundation became the second largest Reformed denomination in the country behind the state-supported Dutch Reformed Church.
In addition, he founded a newspaper, the Free University of Amsterdam and the Anti-Revolutionary Party. In religious affairs, he sought to adapt the Dutch Reformed Church to challenges posed by the loss of state financial aid and by increasing religious pluralism in the wake of splits that the church had undergone in the 19th century, rising Dutch nationalism, and the Arminian religious revivals of his day which denied predestination. He vigorously denounced modernism in theology as a fad that would pass away. In politics, he dominated the Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) from its founding in 1879 to his death in 1920. He promoted pillarisation, the social expression of the anti-thesis in public life, whereby Protestant, Catholic and secular elements each had their own independent schools, universities and social organisations. Read more...
The cultural mandate or creation mandate is the divine injunction found in Genesis 1:28, in which God (YHWH), after having created the world and all in it, ascribes to humankind the tasks of filling, subduing, and ruling over the earth. Read more...
Laudato si' (English: Praise Be to You) is the second encyclical of Pope Francis. The encyclical has the subtitle "on care for our common home". In it, the pope critiques consumerism and irresponsible development, laments environmental degradation and global warming, and calls all people of the world to take "swift and unified global action."
The encyclical, dated 24 May 2015, was officially published at noon on 18 June 2015, accompanied by a news conference. The Vatican released the document in Italian, German, English, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese and Arabic, alongside the original Latin. Read more...
Pope Leo XIII (Italian: Leone; born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci; Italian: [vinˈtʃɛntso dʒoakˈki:no raffaˈɛ:le luˈi:dʒi ˈpettʃi]; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 to his death. He was the oldest pope (reigning until the age of 93), and had the third-longest confirmed pontificate, behind that of Pius IX (his immediate predecessor) and John Paul II.
He is well known for his intellectualism and his attempts to define the position of the Catholic Church with regard to modern thinking. In his famous 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum, Pope Leo outlined the rights of workers to a fair wage, safe working conditions, and the formation of labor unions, while affirming the rights of property and free enterprise, opposing both Marxism and laissez-faire capitalism. He influenced Mariology of the Catholic Church and promoted both the rosary and the scapular. Read more...
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (German: [ˈhɛlmuːt ˈkoːl]; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German statesman who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 (of West Germany 1982–1990 and of the reunited Germany 1990–1998) and as the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. From 1969 to 1976, Kohl was minister president of the state Rhineland-Palatinate. Kohl chaired the Group of Seven in 1985 and 1992. In 1998 he became honorary chairman of the CDU, resigning from the position in 2000.
Born in 1930 in Ludwigshafen to a Roman Catholic family, Kohl joined the Christian Democratic Union in 1946 at the age of 16. He earned a PhD in history at Heidelberg University in 1958 and worked as a business executive before becoming a full-time politician. He was elected as the youngest member of the Parliament of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1959 and became Minister-President of his home state in 1969. Viewed during the 1960s and the early 1970s as a progressive within the CDU, he was elected national chairman of the party in 1973. In the 1976 federal election his party performed well, but the social-liberal government of social democrat Helmut Schmidt was able to remain in power, as well as in 1980, when Kohl's rival from the Bavarian sister party CSU, Franz Josef Strauß, candidated. After Schmidt had lost the support of the liberal FDP in 1982, Kohl was elected Chancellor through a switch of the FDP, forming a christian-liberal government. After he had become party leader, Kohl was increasingly seen as a more conservative figure. Read more...- Stewardship is a theological belief that humans are responsible for the world, and should take care of it. Believers in stewardship are usually people who believe in one God who created the universe and all that is within it, also believing that they must take care of creation and look after it. Creation includes animals and the environment. Many religions and denominations have various degrees of support for environmental stewardship. It can have political implications, such as in Christian Democracy.
Many moderate and progressive Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Evangelical Protestants see some form of environmentalism as a consequence of stewardship. In Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions, stewardship refers to the way time, talents, material possessions, or wealth are used or given for the service of God. Read more...
The Centrist Democrat International is a Christian democratic political international. Until 2001, it was known as the Christian Democrat International (CDI) and before 1999 as the Christian Democrat and People's Parties International (this earlier name is, since October 2000, sometimes used colloquially). It was formed in 1961 in Santiago, Chile as the Christian Democrat World Union, building on the legacy of other Christian Democrat internationals who tried to create a Christian-inspired third way alternative to the socialist internationals. In 1982, it was renamed for the first time to Christian Democrat International. The name was officially changed due to the participation of groups of various faiths. It is the global international political group dedicated to the promotion of Christian democracy. Although it gathers parties from around the globe, its members are drawn principally from Europe and Latin America. Some of them are also members of the International Democrat Union (IDU), although the CDI is closer to the political centre and more communitarian than the IDU.
The CDI's European division is the European People's Party, currently the largest European political party. Its Latin American equivalent is the Christian Democrat Organization of America. The Democratic Party of the United States of America maintains links with CDI through the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. A youth organization of the CDI is currently being established under the name of Youth of the Centrist Democrat International (YCDI). Read more...- The Conservative Christian Fellowship (CCF) is an organisation working within the British Conservative Party. Established in 1990 by Tim Montgomerie and Conservative MP David Burrowes, while they were students at Exeter University, the organisation supports Christians in the Conservative Party and represents the party to the Christian world. Its purpose is to be a bridge between the Christian world and the Conservative Party.
The mission of the CCF is to:- bridge the Christian world and Conservatives
- inspire Christians to go into public life and equip them when they get there
- be "salt and light" in British politics.
- In Neo-Calvinism, sphere sovereignty (Dutch: souvereiniteit in eigen kring), also known as differentiated responsibility, is the concept that each sphere (or sector) of life has its own distinct responsibilities and authority or competence, and stands equal to other spheres of life. Sphere sovereignty involves the idea of an all encompassing created order, designed and governed by God. This created order includes societal communities (such as those for purposes of education, worship, civil justice, agriculture, economy and labor, marriage and family, artistic expression, etc.), their historical development, and their abiding norms. The principle of sphere sovereignty seeks to affirm and respect creational boundaries, and historical differentiation.
Sphere sovereignty implies that no one area of life or societal community is sovereign over another. Each sphere has its own created integrity. Neo-Calvinists hold that since God created everything “after its own kind,” diversity must be acknowledged and appreciated. For instance, the different God-given norms for family life and economic life should be recognized, such that a family does not properly function like a business. Similarly, neither faith-institutions (e.g. churches) nor an institution of civil justice (i.e. the state) should seek totalitarian control, or any regulation of human activity outside their limited competence, respectively. Read more... - The European People's Party (EPP) is a conservative and Christian democratic European political party. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties, not individuals. Founded by primarily Christian democratic parties in 1976, it has since broadened its membership to include liberal-conservative parties and parties with other centre-right political perspectives.
The EPP has been the largest party in the European Parliament since 1999 and in the European Council since 2002. It is also by far the largest party in the current European Commission. The President of the European Council, President of the European Commission and the President of the European Parliament are all from the EPP. Many of the Founding fathers of the European Union were also from parties that later formed the EPP. Outside the EU the party also controls a majority in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The EPP has alternated with its centre-left rival the Party of European Socialists (PES) as the largest European political party and parliamentary group. Read more...
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer (German: [ˈkɔnʁaːt ˈʔaːdənaʊ̯ɐ] (listen); 5 January 1876 – 19 April 1967) was a German statesman who served as the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1949 to 1963. He was co-founder and first leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) (until 1966), a Christian Democratic party that under his leadership became one of the most influential parties in the country.
In the early years of the Federal Republic he switched focus from denazification to recovery and led his country from the ruins of World War II to becoming a productive and prosperous nation that forged close relations with France, the United Kingdom and the United States. During his years in power, West Germany achieved democracy, stability, international respect and economic prosperity ("Wirtschaftswunder", German for "economic miracle"). Read more...- Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in "behaving with dignity". Read more...
- Neo-Calvinism, a form of Dutch Calvinism, is the movement initiated by the theologian and former Dutch prime minister Abraham Kuyper. James Bratt has identified a number of different types of Dutch Calvinism: The Seceders, split into the Reformed Church "West" and the Confessionalists; the Neo-Calvinists; and the Positives and the Antithetical Calvinists. The Seceders were largely infralapsarian and the Neo-Calvinists usually supralapsarian.[page needed]
Kuyper wanted to awaken the church from what he viewed as its pietistic slumber. He declared: Read more... - Social conservatism is the belief that society is built upon a fragile network of relationships which need to be upheld through duty, traditional values and established institutions. This can include moral issues. Social conservatism is generally skeptical of social change, and believes in maintaining the status quo concerning social issues such as family life, sexual relations, and patriotism.
Social conservatism encompasses a range of what may be thought of as reactionary positions on social issues. It developed as a reaction to what was perceived as dangerous tendencies within the liberal movements toward political radicalism and a wholesale rejection of "traditional values". In North America, since the mid to late 20th century, social conservatism arose as a response to federal action on social issues—such as LGBT rights and abortion—which members perceived as a threat to conservative values. Social conservatives also value the influence of religion in the public square, thus supporting state Churches or accommodationism, while opposing secularism and state atheism. Read more... - Keith Sinjohn Joseph, Baron Joseph, CH, PC, QC (17 January 1918 – 10 December 1994), known as Sir Keith Joseph, 2nd Baronet, for most of his political life, was a British barrister and politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he served in the Cabinet under four prime ministers: Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher. He was a key influence in the creation of what came to be known as "Thatcherism" and the subsequent decline of one-nation conservatism and the postwar consensus.
Keith Joseph was the first to introduce the concept of the social market economy into Britain, an economic and social system inspired by Christian democracy. He also co-founded the Centre for Policy Studies writing its first publication: Why Britain needs a Social Market Economy. Read more...
Giulio Andreotti OMI SMOM OCSG OESSH (Italian: [ˈdʒuːljo andreˈɔtti]; 14 January 1919 – 6 May 2013) was an Italian politician and statesman who served as the 41st Prime Minister of Italy (1972–1973, 1976–79 and 1989–92) and leader of the Christian Democracy party; he was the sixth longest-serving Prime Minister since the Italian Unification and the second longest-serving post-war Prime Minister, after Silvio Berlusconi. Andreotti is widely considered the most powerful and prominent politician of the so-called First Republic.
Beginning as a protégé of Alcide De Gasperi, Andreotti achieved cabinet rank at a young age and occupied all the major offices of state over the course of a forty-year political career, being seen as a reassuring figure by the civil service, business community, and Vatican. In foreign policy, he guided Italy's European Union integration, and established closer relations with the Arab world. Admirers of Andreotti saw him as having mediated political and social contradictions, enabling the transformation of a substantially rural country into the fifth-biggest economy in the world. Critics said he had done nothing against a system of patronage that had led to pervasive corruption. Read more...
Freiherr Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler (25 December 1811 – 13 July 1877) was a German theologian and politician who served as Bishop of Mainz. His social teachings became influential during the papacy of Leo XIII and his encyclical Rerum novarum. Read more...- Progressive conservatism is a political ideology which attempts to combine conservative and progressive policies. The initial origins of progressivism come from Western Europe during the 18th century and the Age of Enlightenment when it was believed that social reform and progression in areas such as science, economics, education, technology and medicine were necessary to improve human living conditions. However, during the 19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli advocated an alternative form of progressive politics known as progressive conservatism under his one-nation conservative government.
Witnessing the negative impacts current working conditions had on people during the time, mainly brought about by the Industrial Revolution, Disraeli started to believe that changes to society were needed to improve human and environmental conditions. However, this progression needed to be done through conservative thinking and policies, namely that the government can do good and should get involved, but only when it is necessary and within its own means, being a limited but obligatory government. The idea advocates that a social safety net is required, but only in a minimal form. Christian democracy and Catholic social teaching promotes some form of progressive conservatism, derived from the text of Rerum novarum. Progressive conservatives also believe instant change is not always the best and can sometimes be damaging to society, therefore cautious change is necessary which fits in with the nations social and political traditions. Read more...
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