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DOI: 10.5553/NJLP/.000083
Liberal Democracy and the Judeo-Christian Tradition
Tamar de Waal
Suggested citation
Tamar de Waal, "Liberal Democracy and the Judeo-Christian Tradition",
Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy, Pre-publications, (2019):
Introduction
Over the past few decades, politicians and policy documents in
Western democracies (broadly defined as Europe, North America, and
Australasia) have increasingly begun to state that the universal values
underpinning liberal democracy are (historically) connected to the
‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition of these nations. To name a few examples,
the Italian Charter of Values that newcomers are required to sign
mentions that ‘Christianity (…) together with Judaism has paved the
way of acquiring modernity and the principles of freedom and
justice’. In the Netherlands, the manifesto of the liberal party VVD
(the largest party in the cabinet) states ‘Dutch society finds its origins
in the Judeo-Christian tradition (…).’ Brexit Party politician Nigel
Farage regularly states that Britain ‘needs to stand up for its Judeo-
Christian values’. In addition, U.S. President Donald Trump said in a
speech on October 13, 2017, ‘we are stopping cold the attacks on the
Judeo-Christian values (…).’ Often, the term Judeo-Christian is
invoked as self-explanatory and consensual, but its precise meaning is
almost never articulated.
Academic scholarship shows that the term has a varied history. In the
middle of the last century, the term was used in the United States to
emphasize the (religious) pluralism and spirit of inclusion that
underpinned American democracy, as opposed to Nazism as well as
‘godless Communism’. A few decades later, the term became
associated with evangelical conservative voices in the United States in
the so-called culture wars over abortion and same-sex marriage.
Since the 1990s, the usage of the term has surged worldwide and is
now primarily invoked in discussions on the inclusion and integration
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of Muslims in Western liberal-democratic states. In this form, the
notion of the Judeo-Christian culture was initially only mentioned by
activists, commentators, and politicians positioned on the far right of
the political spectrum. More recently, however, it has slowly but
steadily begun to influence and establish itself in mainstream political
party positions, official political documents, and public stances.
This article explores the legitimacy of this trend from the perspective
of liberal-democratic theory and its functional usefulness. Indeed, on
the one hand, the article interrogates whether it would cohere with
liberal-democratic norms if current-day Western democracies would
officially adopt a national identity asserting that their values originate
in a Judeo-Christian tradition. On the other hand, the article explores
more pragmatic concerns surrounding this claim. Would this
assertion nurture the social integration, solidarity, and stability that
contemporary liberal-democratic countries need to function? To
answer these questions, I will first roughly sketch the relationship
between liberal democracy and national identities. Subsequently, I
will raise the question of whether historical claims must be factually
correct to qualify as legitimate national historical narratives of a
liberal-democratic country. Then I will focus on how the claim might
undermine the value of equal citizenship and equal democratic
deliberation between all citizens. Subsequently, I will discuss several
practical issues and drawbacks relating to the scrutinized
development. Lastly, I will summarize the outcomes of my analyses.
Before proceeding, it is important to clarify two points. First, as I
evaluate at face value the normative coherency of the claim that the
universal values underpinning liberal democracies are historically
linked to the Judeo-Christian tradition of Western states, I will not
discuss whether these values are universal or culturally relative. Put
differently, the presented analysis contributes to academic debates on
the internal coherence of liberal-democratic theory (in the context of
historical national narratives), not on whether liberal-democratic
values are or can be universalized at all. In the same vein, I do not
engage with political voices – most notably Hungarian Prime Minister
Victor Orbán – that argue that liberal values threaten more
protection-worthy Christian values. This concerns a different issue
that surely deserves academic attention – namely, that Christianity is
(explicitly) used to advocate illiberalism.
Second, this article does not present a full theory on secularism or
different strands of secularism, such as offered by Cécile Laborde in
her Liberalism’s Religion. Rather, it focuses on the underlying
normative and practical concerns of statements in favor of liberal
democracy and its universal core values, but describe it as historically
fastened to a Judeo-Christian tradition. Nonetheless, prima facie, it
seems that parts of my analyses are applicable to other related and
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similar discussions. An example would be discussions on whether
human right treaties or EU policy documents should mention a link
between Christian, humanist, or European heritages or a Western
Leitkultur of fundamental rights. However, future research is
warranted to confirm this.
1 Liberal democracy and national identity
An important part of the question of whether it is normatively
legitimate for states to frame (Western) liberal democracy as the
product of a Judeo-Christian heritage or culture can be found in the
longstanding debate in political philosophy on what the social
preconditions of liberal freedom and equality are. Most academic
commentators broadly agree that political communities including
liberal ones presuppose what David Miller calls ‘ethical
communities’ and, therefore, have a legitimate interest in nurturing
and upholding these. Indeed, political theorists generally agree that
liberal justice requires a sense that citizens belong together in a
country, feel solidarity with each other, and govern themselves
collectively. However, this begs the following question: what can and
should be the basis for such a shared sense of communal belonging?
Both theoretically and practically, it is widely regarded as permissible
and promising for states to build solidarity by appealing to ideals of
nationhood. Today, virtually all liberal-democratic states deploy
nation-building tools, such as compulsory education, national media,
official language laws, naturalization rituals, and national holidays
and symbols. In academic debates, this is called a ‘liberal nationalist’
approach to social unity. The objective of this approach is to
consolidate a feeling among citizens that they belong to an ethical
community of people who share an intergenerational society with a
territory, shared institutions, history, and future. More specifically,
academic advocates of liberal nationalism argue that states are
permitted to foster forms of nationhood in order to secure solidarity
and stability as long as the national identity is ‘thin’ and underpinned
by the principles of liberal democracy (e.g., individual and
constitutional norms, tolerance, and equality). This thinness entails
that the state may promote national languages, public holidays, and
the like, but that the national identity promoted simultaneously
remains inclusive of people from different backgrounds (ethnic,
cultural, religious, etc.) and does not limit the capacity of individual
citizens to choose or revise their personal conceptions of what a
meaningful life is. On a more fundamental level, liberal nationalists
assert that the norms and skills of democratic citizenship are not
innate but must be learned, socialized, and practiced. Therefore, the
state is permitted to create an ethical community with an official
language, symbols, and common institutions. Under these
circumstances, it is thought that people are most likely to fulfill their
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obligation of promoting justice toward each other and be able to
participate as equals in democratic deliberation and societal life.
Hence, liberal nationalists not only see liberalism and images of the
nation as reconcilable but as complementary and capable of
strengthening each other. Or as Yael Tamir writes, ‘No individual can
be context free, but… all can be free within a context.’
From this perspective, it becomes clear that the inner logic of liberal
democracy indicates that if a state fosters its national identity and
values as outright Judeo-Christian, this is exclusionary toward citizens
with different religious or non-religious backgrounds, who then
(discursively) cannot belong to the nation or have access to the core
values of the state. Indeed, if invoked this way, Judeo-Christian is a
term ‘defined by exclusion’, implying the direct rejection of both
secular citizens and those of different faiths. This jeopardizes liberal
democracy because this political regime is distinguishable from
illiberal or undemocratic states precisely by not promoting the
national identity and connected conceptions of citizenship as
exclusively based on a particular religious orientation (or cultural
background, ethnic descent, political outlook, etc.). The current
increase in politicians in power and policy documents suggesting that
present-day Western democracies and their values are (still) Judeo-
Christian can, therefore, be qualified as signs of illiberal tendencies
that Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos coined as ‘Schmittian liberalism’.
This entails the suggestion that the exclusion of (putatively) illiberal
and dangerous groups (most often Muslims) is deemed a requirement
to protect the universal values of the West that, paradoxically, requires
cultural homogeneity.
However, it must be observed that most policy documents or
statements by (mainstream) politicians in power do not stress that the
liberal-democratic state today is exclusively for Jewish and Christian
citizens. Instead, they emphasize that the Judeo-Christian tradition of
Europe is the historic seedbed of present-day liberal-democratic
values. Such statements raise the question: what are the normative
guidelines for liberal-democratic states to make such historical
statements about the national identity? This question touches on
scarcely explored territory within political and legal theory. Yet if the
state is indeed permitted to foster a national identity – as liberal
nationalists claim – this evidently includes promoting at least a few
historical reference points to foster sense of belonging to a society
with a common past and a shared common future. Then, how should a
liberal-democratic state determine what these historical reference
points are, and who gets to decide?
2 National historical narratives: true story?
The first pertinent question in this context appears to be: must the
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state-promoted national historical narrative be true? This is relevant
for evaluations of the claim that the Judeo-Christian history of
Western democracies is the historical context of the birth of liberal-
democratic norms because a much heard, and at first glance
reasonable, critique of it is that it is simply untrue. Most academic
studies on the term strongly reject it and conclude that the Judeo-
Christian tradition is, above all, a retrospectively ‘invented
tradition’. Among other things, scholars argue that the term
problematically conflates the story of Christianity with that of the
Jewish people in the West, concealing the centuries-long anti-Semitic
prosecution of Jews by Christians throughout Western history and
even camouflaging the memory of the Holocaust. Indeed, the
academic communis opinio appears to be that to describe the history
of Western liberal democracies as Judeo-Christian is not only false but
also cynical, because it whitewashes the blackest pages of Western
history. Additionally, it is often critically observed that the Judeo-
Christian history of Western democracies is frequently invoked to
stress that women’s and gay rights have been protected ‘for centuries’
in these countries (in contrast to in the Muslim world), while this is a
form of historical negationism because their commitment to (equally)
protecting these rights is a relatively recent phenomenon. Lastly, the
historical relationship between Christianity and contemporary liberal
values is contested and a subject of long-standing debate. For
example, Robert I. Moore argues that ideas of human rights have
emerged in Europe rather despite than due to Christianity – a religion
that is historically responsible for fueling wars, legitimizing slavery,
punishing heresy, and violently censoring scientists and
philosophers. However, in response, other historians, such as Larry
Siedentop, have argued that individualism, equality, and liberalism
are products of Christianity.
Yet prior to resolving this matter, one can question how normatively
relevant the truthfulness of official national historical narratives is.
For instance, in his famous 1882 lecture ‘Qu’est ce qu’une nation?’
Ernest Renan claimed that national identities always depend on
selective and even distorted memories of events. Indeed, Renan
argued that the nation is always constituted by two things: shared past
memories and the present will to live together. The latter he described
as the normative requirement for the legitimacy of the state, while he
saw the former as the affective source that empirically motivates
people to participate in an ethical community (avant la lettre).
Interestingly, he reasoned that careful historical studies can pose a
threat to the capacity of a national identity to keep a society together.
According to Renan, forgetting, and even historical errors, ‘are an
essential factor in the creation of the nation, and so it is that progress
in historical studies is often a danger to nationality’. Renan does not
stand alone in this. Other commentators, such as Benedict Anderson,
have also famously written that states are ‘imagined communities’.
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Additionally, Miller asserts, ‘[n]ational identities typically contain a
considerable element of myth’ and, therefore, ‘it may not be rational to
discard beliefs, even if they are, strictly speaking false, when they can
be shown to contribute significantly to the support of valuable social
relations’. This line of reasoning suggests that creating a historical
narrative that is not (fully) true – for instance, one that is based on a
Judeo-Christian culture that never really existed – is not per se
problematic because its purpose is not to be true but to further social
integration and stability. Put differently, from this perspective, if a
national identity is appealing and strengthens forms of solidarity and
spirituality, which a liberal democracy requires to function, there
might be no direct normative problem.
Nonetheless, this argumentation leads to a new set of issues. For
example, from the perspective of liberal democracy, all citizens should
be able to contest the character of the national historical narratives
that are promoted by the state. Thus, if, say, the stories of aboriginal
groups in Canada or Australia were to be ignored in the official
national self-images of these countries, the liberal-democratic core of
these states would make it possible for citizens to contest such a
national historical self-image. In the same vein, the current debate in
the Netherlands on whether the 17th century should still be described
as ‘the Dutch Golden Age’ – which is said to problematically reject the
dark sides of colonialism and slavery – is in principle legitimate.
Irrespective of the outcomes of such debates, in a liberal democracy,
all citizens should be invited to contribute to constant dialogues on
how the national history should be depicted.
However, if we accept that national narratives are not, and do not
need to be, genuinely historically true, citizens, then, cannot criticize
the national historical narratives on the basis of their truthfulness.
Indeed, a strange situation arises if we accept that promoted historical
narratives contain myths and do not need to be (fully) true. Liberal-
democratic states must reply to citizens who contest the official
version of the national narrative with paternalistic lies (‘but it is true!’
while knowing better) or admit that it is indeed not much more than a
fixed but helpful story of the nation, which has little do to with truth,
but has been chosen by the state to create a sense of community. As
I see it, both options are self-defeating for a liberal democracy, where
democratic deliberation must be open to contest certain power
structures. This implies that citizens deserve respect (i.e., not being
lied to by the state) and should have equal opportunity to discuss and
challenge the dominant historical national narratives. In other words,
it cannot be demanded of liberal-democratic citizens to take the
official national historical narratives for granted. This is important
because differences in positions of sociopolitical power that stem from
historical narratives – for example between those who emphasize that
contemporary Europe owes its values to Judeo-Christian influences
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rather than to Enlightenment thinkers (as argued by Jonathan
Israel ) or Islamic-Christian influences (as argued by Richard
Bulliet ) – are significant. For this reason, the national identity must
always be subject to democratic scrutiny.
Based on this line of analysis, Arash Abizadeh reasons that it is indeed
not coherent with liberal-democratic norms if truth cannot be a basis
for critique of state-promoted national historical narratives. He writes,
‘[t]aking certain myths for granted (…) is incompatible with the
liberal-democratic commitment to the critique of power’. For this
reason, he concludes that the argumentation of Renan, Anderson, and
Miller is either incorrect or incomplete. Abizadeh’s full analysis is
multi-layered. For instance, he makes distinctions between the
different types of myths that a state can promote and analyzes their
different normative implications. However, for the purposes of this
article, what is most relevant is his convincing demonstration that
liberal-democratic norms require that national historical narratives
should be perpetually subjected to political contestation and should be
criticized on the basis of (1) truth/falsity and (2) significance.
To begin with the first criterion, Abizadeh explains that liberal-
democratic principles require that critical discourses about the truth
or falsity of national historical narratives must occur because,
otherwise, forms of state power are not governed by democratic
deliberative processes. These debates about the truth or falsity of
promoted national historical narratives will always continue –
presumably with historians, but other citizens as well, playing an
important role – because all historical narratives omit true statements
about the past. These debates can be the result of a lack of historical
data or because new data have become available. However, the
continuous nature of these debates is inevitable because it is simply
impossible to sum up all true historical facts as the official national
historical narrative: one must add interpretation, a storyline, and
emphasis on what should be viewed as historically most important. On
that account, Abizadeh states that debates about historical truths have
a ‘semi-autonomous logic of their own’. This means that debates on
the truthfulness of nations’ historical narratives take place
independently of both what these states want these narratives to be
and what would be the most useful narrative for these nations.
In relation to his second criterion, Abizadeh explains that this touches
on more normative and ethical questions about what is significant to
the nation and what its interests are. In other words, in a liberal-
democratic state, part of the debate on the national historical
narrative should focus on whether the promoted national narrative is
‘appropriate’ as the identity-grounding narrative of a liberal-
democratic country. What does the societal ‘we’ want its big story to
be? To be sure, considering Abizadeh’s first criterion, this does not
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mean that (parts of) the national historical story can be (partly)
untrue. However, it does require the selection of historical facts
fostered by the state as the national historical narrative should
promote ethical lessons that are justifiable according to what people
deem important for their liberal-democratic state. Also in this context,
all citizens should have an equal voice in what is significant to them,
as this is necessary for the liberal-democratic justification of the
exercise of power that the promotion of a particular historical
narrative entails.
I will return to this significance criterion in relation to the Judeo-
Christian tradition in section 3, but only after addressing the main
question of this section pertaining to whether, from the perspective of
liberal democracy, historical narratives are required to be truthful.
The answer to this question is that Renan, Anderson, and Miller
(among others) are right that upholding a particular national
historical narrative necessitates ‘forgetting’ or, rather, omitting certain
true historical facts. Indeed, given that, on the one hand, promoting
all historical facts is practically not possible and, on the other hand,
national historical narratives ideally should be both true and
appropriate, this unavoidably leads to the effect that certain historical
facts will not be part of these narratives. However, this is not the case
because the state’s historical narrative is a myth for which the
criterion of truth is not relevant. Rather, from the perspective of
liberal democracy, the aspiration should be that historical narratives
are, first of all, true. Subsequently, the final selection of true facts that
together form the national historical narrative should be legitimized
and based on their ethical significance for the identity-grounding
historical narrative of a liberal-democratic state.
On that account, if we return to the question of whether promoted
historical narratives need to be true, it must be concluded that this is,
in fact, of (vital) importance, even though Renan, Anderson, and
Miller seem to conclude otherwise. Furthermore, given that the
academic communis opinio is that historical evidence for the claim
that Western democratic values originate in a Judeo-Christian
tradition is relatively weak, it is likely – although the debate on
matters such as this will and should always continue – that there are
‘better’ (in the sense of truer) historical national narratives available
for current-day liberal-democratic nations.
3 The Judeo-Christian identity and equal citizenship
To briefly take stock, so far, I have established that liberal-democratic
theory indicates that a national identity is permissible as long as it is
‘thin’ and inclusive of all citizens. This implies that a liberal-
democratic state should preclude presenting its present-day national
identity and core values as exclusively or inherently Judeo-Christian.
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In addition, I have explained that state-endorsed national historical
narratives should be true and appropriate and, based on these criteria,
subjected to ongoing democratic deliberation. Further, from this
perspective, the available historical scholarship suggests that there is
relatively little evidence to support the historical interpretation that
democracy and human rights are products of a Judeo-Christian
history of Europe.
In this section, I will further scrutinize the appropriateness of state-
endorsed statements indicating that the values of Western liberal
democracies are historic products of the Judeo-Christian tradition of
the West. In particular, I will focus on the normative issue that such
official national historical narratives carry the risk of reinforcing social
hierarchical differences between, in this case, citizens with and
without Jewish and/or Christian backgrounds in their status as equal
citizens. This would make this historical narrative unfit to become the
big historical story of liberal-democratic states, as these states have a
special responsibility to promote equal citizenship to legitimately
govern a people in a territory.
To demonstrate this, it is important to highlight that if the universal
liberal-democratic core norms are claimed to derive from the Judeo-
Christian history of the West, it is often implied that these values are
directly and fully intertwined with this specific history. On that
account, the claim carries the risk of suggesting, as Christian F.
Rostbøll puts it, that ‘there is only one true way of understanding and
accepting liberal principles’, and that is through the exact same
historical path that (allegedly) originally Judeo-Christian societies
have taken. Relevant to this argument are the timing and context in
which ‘new’ historical narratives are introduced. As mentioned in the
introduction, the rise of statements that a Judeo-Christian belief
system has been crucial for the development of liberal-democratic
values has taken place against the background of discussions on
Muslim integration in Western democracies. In particular, within
these debates, an image is frequently sketched in which ‘natives’ and
citizens with immigrant backgrounds from (historically,
predominantly Christian) Western countries are assumed to be
culturally, morally, and psychologically formed by the Judeo-Christian
historical tradition such that they are able to understand and embrace
liberal-democratic universal values. Thus, within this image, even
atheists are seen as belonging to this group; despite their lack of faith
today, they are implicitly or explicitly seen as subconsciously formed
by a Judeo-Christian tradition (and are at times described as
‘culturally Christian’).
At the same time, Muslim citizens and immigrants are implicitly or
explicitly problematized because they are singled out as being
culturally, psychologically, and morally formed by (religious) histories
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that suffer from value-based incompatibility with ‘the West’. To be
sure, Muslims are portrayed, in principle, as capable of supporting
liberal-democratic core norms, but only if they undergo the exact
same transition that initially Judeo-Christian cultures underwent in
the past (i.e., a Muslim Enlightenment that reproduces the European
Age of Enlightenment). In this context, for instance, Per Mouritsen
describes how Denmark presents itself to Muslim immigrants as
having a ‘particular universalism’, in which an intrinsic relationship is
suggested between the ‘Lutheran Danish identity’ and the values of
democracy, liberal tolerance, and redistribution. For this reason,
Muslims in Denmark are seen as able to support the liberal-
democratic values of the state only via the privatization of their
religion as exemplified by Luther.
Understanding that this approach jeopardizes the value of equal
citizenship is significant because several academic commentators have
argued that if ‘nationally anonymous’ universal values are propagated
in liberal-democratic states, such as freedom, the rule of law,
tolerance, and so forth, this cannot be exclusionary. However, this
analysis shows that referring to universal values in fact can be
exclusionary if one fails to distinguish the history of a certain
(majority) culture in relation to these values from the more abstract
ideas. On that account, if a state officially promotes the core universal
norms that underpin it as (exclusive) products of the history of the
cultural majority – especially if it does so as a direct response to public
tensions regarding matters of immigration and diversity – it risks
fueling a social hierarchy in which citizens with minority backgrounds
are marginalized, rather than seen as equal partners, in democratic
deliberations. In particular, it signals that, at the end of the day,
citizens who belong to the (in this case, traditionally Judeo-Christian)
majority are, for historical reasons, better equipped than other citizens
to determine the meaning of universal values. More precisely, if
liberal-democratic states invoke their Judeo-Christian cultural
heritage in this way, this frame is susceptible to insinuating that there
is a binary social opposition between a homogeneous culturally Judeo-
Christian (native) ‘us’ and a homogeneous culturally (foreign) non-
Judeo-Christian ‘them’. This further implies that the former group has
historical access to the correct interpretation of universal values – a
privilege that non-Judeo-Christian citizens in principle (still) lack.
Of course, this binary opposition distorts a far more complex reality.
For instance, it suggests that the historically Judeo-Christian cultural
majority fully embodies and supports these universal values, whereas
this is virtually always not fully true. Moreover, the value of equal
citizenship requires that if citizens contribute to deliberative
democratic processes used to interpret, refine and revise the core
norms of the state, they should not be marginalized in their status as
equal citizens. This means that all citizens should be taken seriously as
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being able to discuss universal rights (also if they hold completely
different, perhaps religious, views on the meaning of certain core
values than the cultural majority). Therefore, the liberal-democratic
state should emphasize that all citizens are equally invited, equipped,
and entitled to participate as interpreters of the values that underpin
the state. They may equally point out where they believe their
implementation can be improved, irrespective of the cultural or
religious historical background of the group to which they (are
perceived to) belong. Therefore, any identity-grounding historical
narrative of a liberal-democratic state should insist this, as Abizadeh
puts it, be appropriate for its function.
Undeniably, this line of analysis acknowledges that the realization and
protection of universal values in specific liberal-democratic countries
is a precarious and praiseworthy achievement. Moreover, it
acknowledges that this realization is historically situated and
culturally contingent – and that in several Western democracies, these
values are relatively well secured. Lastly, it does not reject that it is a
matter of public concern if citizens outright reject liberal-democratic
core norms. For all these reasons, present-day liberal-democratic
countries have a legitimate interest in defending their basic principles
and values and have every right to deem it as invaluable to, for
instance, teach them to both born citizens and newcomers. In this
education, references to certain religious or spiritual histories can
even be seen as valuable. However, the crux is that if one truly believes
in the normative validity of universal rights, the fact that a particular
country, culture, or part of the world currently manages to protect
them relatively well does not prove that it is impossible for people
from other countries, cultures, or parts of the world to equally adopt
them through their own historical heritages and traditions. Quite the
contrary, if one truly believes that certain values are universal, one
must defend that, in principle, all routes can lead to Rome, so to
speak, and one can come to understand and accept these values via
different (historical, religious, cultural, etc.) paths. Conversely, if one
argues that universal values cannot be separated from certain
religious or cultural histories – and all groups must adopt exactly the
same path that other groups have taken to be able to support these
values – the claim to universalism must be abandoned. The
challenge, therefore, is to identify ways to publicly talk, encourage,
and promote liberal-democratic values and uphold a specific ethical
community based on these while simultaneously explaining that the
connection between these values and the specific religious-cultural
history of that community does not make these values inseparable
from any specific culture or cultural history. Only in this way can
universal values be invoked in an inclusive manner.
4 Sharing liberal democracy: some practical concerns
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In the previous sections, I established from the (normative)
perspective of liberal-democratic theory that if Western liberal
democracies would adopt the official national narrative that their
universal values are historically linked to their Judeo-Christian
heritage, this would lead to tensions with liberal-democratic norms. In
this section, I will raise a few more pragmatic concerns that I think
would arise if this were indeed to become the official historical
narrative of Western democracies.
First, the liberal-democratic state should devise strategies to ensure
that its core values remain attractive for future generations and strive
to successfully encourage and socialize all citizens to support them.
For this reason, emphasizing that the origins of liberal democracy and
human rights are Judeo-Christian might not be the most pragmatic
way forward. This presentation of these values may render it virtually
impossible, or at least very difficult, for citizens from non-Judeo-
Christian backgrounds to support them without entirely disconnecting
themselves from their religious history and heritage. Indeed, if the
cultural majorities of Western democracies promote their values as
‘historically ours’, this may prevent these values from providing a solid
foundation for a society that operates on the basis of equality. This
might demotivate persons from different backgrounds to feel
genuinely invited to participate in liberal-democratic debate while the
cultural majority simultaneously will also be less inclined to perceive
them as such. All of this is unfortunate because notions of universal
values and fundamental rights seemingly do have the potency to
function as fertile common ground for cultivating a political
community based on peaceful co-existence. Thus, if the universal
aspirations of liberal democracies are supported, the state should
promote these values as, in principle, transcending particular histories
and cultural traditions and as equally accessible to all citizens in order
to foster equal belonging and democratic attitudes. In the academic
literature, the concept of ‘constitutional patriotism’ developed by
Jürgen Habermas would be a possible version of this ideal leaning on
a very thin conceptualization of national identity. However, forms of
‘multicultural nationalism’, such as proposed by Tariq Modood would
also fit this ideal, entailing a considerable ‘thickening’ (as opposed to
thinning) of the national identity by constantly striving to include
traditions, cultures, and heritages of all (immigrant/non-immigrant)
citizens in it.
Second, the claim that the universal values of liberal democracy are
the result of the West’s Judeo-Christian history may quickly lead to
the public perception that certain forms of diversity (e.g., involving
Muslims) are a challenge as such to the preservation of the liberal-
democratic state. Indeed, if a state strives to uphold universal liberal-
democratic values, one would expect this to lead to the promotion of
negotiation, tolerance, reciprocity, and a willingness to accommodate
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groups in a liberal fashion. Yet this is not necessarily the case if these
values are increasingly seen as tribalistic notions that should be
culturally protected against groups of citizens with different heritages.
Triadafilopoulos writes that such ‘aggressive liberalism is likely to
deepen rifts between groups, intensifying ill-will and cutting off
possibilities for dialogue’, because conducting ‘polite conversation’
with citizens from historically non-Judeo-Christian backgrounds
‘would be a grave mistake’ because they pose a cultural threat to
liberal democracy. Consequently, this particular historical self-
image of liberal-democratic states might, instead of fostering social
unity, in fact exacerbate the problems that it should aim to resolve,
such as the unequal sense of belonging among citizens and social
tensions between groups.
Third and lastly, the idea behind liberal democracy is that it works
best if it succeeds in upholding inclusive communication to ensure
that all citizens’ basic interests are met. Accordingly, the state
should promote inclusive democratic debate because its practical
capacities for protection and problem-solving depend on ongoing
debate and unwavering commitment. Therefore, democratic states
should emphasize that the meaning and interpretation of their core
norms are not set in stone but, rather, are constantly up for debate.
More precisely, as liberal democracy rests on the conviction that it is
always possible for citizens, if they carefully listen to each other’s
perspectives, to acquire a better understanding of what these universal
values are, they should adopt the required attitudes to achieve this
end. For this reason, liberal-democratic states should nurture a form
of ‘reasonableness’, defined by Iris Marion Young as, at least, a
willingness to listen to others, even if citizens deem each other’s ideas
incorrect or outright repulsive. Surely, this reasonableness will not
ensure that citizens will always be able to convince each other and
reach a consensus. Political disagreement will never disappear.
However, when it comes to the protection of universal values and
human rights, Martha Nussbaum duly writes that all countries will
always remain developing countries. This implies, among other
things, that the state should accentuate that no group of citizens ever
perpetually owns universal values, for historic reasons or otherwise.
Or as Kwame Anthony Appiah puts it, supporting a culture of liberty
and tolerance is not a ‘birthright’ but is determined by who actually
cares about it. On that account, all citizens should, in principle, be
able to speak freely in political discussions, without being
marginalized owing to their cultural or religious identity, to be able to
solve collective problems and promote justice.
Conclusion
In this article, I explored from the perspective of liberal-democratic
theory the legitimacy of the trend in Western democracies whereby
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the universal values that underpin the state are increasingly described
as historically linked to a Judeo-Christian heritage. In addition, I
briefly examined various more pragmatic challenges that I believe
would arise if this national historical narrative and self-image would
be adopted.
My findings are critical for several reasons. First, I established that if a
democratic state promotes its current national identity as exclusively
Judeo-Christian, this would exclude citizens from other or no religious
background from truly belonging to the nation. Second, I reasoned,
primarily drawing on the work of Abizadeh, that the historical
national narratives of liberal-democratic states should be criticized
according to the criteria of truthfulness and appropriateness, and that
the historical narrative scrutinized in this article, on the surface,
seems to fail to meet either criterion (but debate on these matters will
always continue). Third, I reasoned that if the national historical
narratives of liberal democracies emphasize that their values stem
from a Judeo-Christian heritage, this would carry the risk of damaging
the value of equal citizenship. That is, it could inculcate the perception
that citizens from non-Judeo-Christian backgrounds are perceived as
less equipped to interpret liberal-democratic core norms. Lastly, I
determined more pragmatically that this historical narrative might
alienate groups, hamper feelings of belonging, and prevent inclusive
political communication. It is not likely to facilitate the best conditions
under which all citizens can be(come) committed to nurturing a
shared society and recognizing each other as equally belonging to it.
Noten
1 Paolo Cuttitta, ‘Mandatory Integration Measures and Differential
Inclusion: The Italian Case’, Journal of International Migration and
Integration 17, no. 1 (2016): 289-302, here 297.
2 Concept-Beginselverklaring VVD 2008,
http://pubnpp.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/beginselprogramma/vvd2008con/con-
begverk08.pdf.
3 Kiran Moodley, ‘Nigel Farage says Britain needs to stand up for its
“Judeo-Christian values” to combat homegrown militants’,
Independent, September 3, 2014.
4 Douglas Hartmann, Xuefeng Zhang, & William Wischstadt, ‘One
(Multicultural) Nation Under God? Changing Uses and Meanings of
the Term “Judeo-Christian” in the American Media’, Journal of Media
and Religion 4, no. 4 (2005): 207-34, here 210.
5 Jeffrey Haynes, ‘Donald Trump, “Judeo-Christian Values,” and the
“Clash of Civilizations”’, The Review of Faith & International Affairs
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15, no. 3 (2017): 66-75, here 69.
6 Bart Wallet, ‘Zin en onzin van de “joods-christelijke traditie”’,
Christen Democratische Verkenningen 3 (2012): 100-108; M.S.
Berger, ‘Islam, Europa en de “joods-christelijke beschaving”’,
Tijdschrift voor Religie, Recht en Beleid 8, no. 2 (2017): 36-56.
7 The article will not provide a detailed and intricate empirical study
of political and societal contexts in which the Judeo-Christian culture
is mentioned because it focuses on underlying normative and practical
concerns.
8 See, e.g., Bhikhu Parekh, ‘The Cultural Particularity of Liberal
Democracy’, Political Studies 40 (1992): 160-75.
9 Krisztina Than & Sandor Peto, ‘Hungarian PM Sees Shift to Illiberal
Christian Democracy in 2019 European Vote’, Reuters, July 28, 2018.
10 Cécile Laborde, Liberalism’s Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2017).
11 See, e.g., Joseph Weiler, Un’Europa cristiana: un saggio
esplorativo (Milan; Bureau, 2003); Agustín José Menéndez, ‘A
Christian or a Laïc Europe? Christian Values and European Identity’,
Ratio Juris 18, no. 2 (2005): 179-205.
12 David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). See
also Christian Joppke, ‘A Christian Identity for the Liberal State?’, The
British Journal of Sociology 64, no. 4 (2013): 597-616; Roland Pierik,
‘State Neutrality and the Limits of Religious Symbolism’, in The Lautsi
Papers: Multidisciplinary Reflections on Religious Symbols in the
Public School Classroom, vol. II, Studies in Religion, Secular Beliefs
and Human Rights, ed. Jeroen Temperman (Leiden: Brill/Nijhoff,
2012).
13 See also, e.g., Yael Tamir, Why Nationalism (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2019).
14 Will Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy: An
Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 264.
15 Kymlicka, Contemporary Political Philosophy, 265.
16 An open question for liberal nationalists remains why the nation-
state would be the best (or perhaps even only) political unit and social
context to achieve such an ‘ethical community’. For a more
cosmopolitan critique of liberal nationalism, see, e.g., Dora
Kostakopoulou, The Future Governance of Citizenship (Cambridge:
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Cambridge University Press, 2008).
17 Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1995), 4.
18 Haynes, ‘Donald Trump’, 69.
19 An example would be that the Dutch anti-Muslim party, PVV
(Party of Freedom), proposed to reject the first article of the Dutch
constitution – which contains the principle of equality and
proscription of discrimination – with a reference stating that Dutch
society is based on the Judeo-Christian tradition. PVV, 2010,
https://pvv.nl/index.php/component/content/article.html?id=5516.
20 Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos, ‘Illiberal Means to Liberal Ends?
Understanding Recent Immigrant Integration Policies in Europe’,
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 37, no. 6 (2011): 861-80,
here 867.
21 See, e.g., Ernst van den Hemel, ‘“Hoezo christelijke waarden?”
Postseculier nationalisme en uitdagingen voor beleid en overheid’,
Tijdschrift voor Religie, Recht en Beleid 8, no. 2 (2017): 5-23; Anya
Topolski, ‘A Genealogy of the “Judeo-Christian” Signifier: A Tale of
Europe’s Identity Crisis’, in Is There a Judeo-Christian Tradition?: A
European Perspective, eds. Emmanuel Nathan & Anya Topolski
(Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2016), 221-66.
22 See, e.g., Hartwig Pautz, ‘The Politics of Identity in Germany: The
Leitkultur Debate’, Race & Class 46, no. 4 (2005): 39-52.
23 Berger, ‘Islam, Europa’, 46.
24 Van den Hemel, ‘“Hoezo christelijke waarden?”’, 15.
25 Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, ‘Christianity and Human Rights,’ in
Religion and Human Rights: An Introduction, eds. John Witte & M.
Christian Green (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 42-55.
26 Robert I. Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society:
Authority and Deviance in Western Europe 950-1250 (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 2008).
27 Larry Siedentop, Inventing the Individual (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2014).
28 Ernest Renan, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?’, Oeuvres complètes de
Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1947 [1882]), 904.
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29 Renan, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?’, 891.
30 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the
Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: New Left Books, 1983).
31 Miller, On Nationality, 34-35.
32 ‘Amsterdam museum ditches “Golden Age” in favour of inclusive
“17th century”’, Dutchnews.nl, September 13, 2019,
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/09/amsterdam-museum-
ditches-golden-age-in-favour-of-inclusive-17th-century/.
33 Arash Abizadeh, ‘Historical Truth, National Myths and Liberal
Democracy: On the Coherence of Liberal Nationalism’, The Journal of
Political Philosophy 12, no. 3 (2004): 291-313, here 299.
34 Jonathan Irvine Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and
the Making of Modernity, 1650-1750 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2001).
35 Richard W. Bulliet, The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization
(New York/Chichester: Columbia University Press, 2006).
36 Abizadeh, ‘Historical Truth’, 302.
37 Abizadeh, ‘Historical Truth’, 309.
38 See also Arthur C. Danto, ‘Narration and Knowledge’, Philosophy
and Literature 6, no. 1 (1982): 17-32.
39 Abizadeh, ‘Historical Truth’, 310.
40 Abizadeh, ‘Historical Truth’, 308.
41 See, e.g., Carina Fourie, Fabian Schuppert, & Ivo Wallimann-
Helmer, Social Equality: On What It Means to Be Equals (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2015); Nancy Fraser, ‘Recognition without
Ethics?’, Theory, Culture & Society 18, nos. 2-3 (2001): 21-42;
Elizabeth S. Anderson, ‘What Is the Point of Equality?’, Ethics 109, no.
2 (1999): 287-337.
42 Christian F. Rostbøll, ‘The Use and Abuse of “Universal Values” in
the Danish Cartoon Controversy’, European Political Science Review
2, no. 3 (2010): 401-22, here 406.
43 In the Netherlands, for instance, politicians Frits Bolkestein, Pim
Fortuyn, and Thierry Baudet argued this about atheists. However, it
must be noted that within this cultural-religious historical framework,
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it remains unclear what the positions of certain groups are, such as
atheists who are former Muslims and Christians from African or Asian
backgrounds. Are they members of the Judeo-Christian tradition? See
also Van den Hemel, ‘“Hoezo christelijke waarden?”’, 15-18.
44 Haynes, ‘Donald Trump’, 67.
45 Per Mouritsen, ‘The Particular Universalism of a Nordic Civic
Nation’, Multiculturalism, Muslims and Citizenship: A European
Approach, eds. Tariq Modood, Anna Triandafyllidou, & Ricard
Zapata-Barrero (London: Routledge, 2006), 76.
46 See, e.g., Christian Joppke, ‘Immigration and the Identity of
Citizenship: The Paradox of Universalism’, Citizenship Studies 12, no.
6 (2008): 533-46; Liav Orgad, ‘"Cultural Defence" of Nations: Cultural
Citizenship in France, Germany and the Netherlands’, European Law
Journal 15, no. 6 (2009): 719-37.
47 See also Tamar de Waal, ‘Conditional Belonging: Evaluating
Integration Requirements from a Social Equality Perspective’, Journal
of Intercultural Studies, forthcoming.
48 A case in point would be the current rise of nativist populism in
Western democracies. See, e.g., Yascha Mounk, The People vs.
Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018).
49 Rostbøll, ‘Use and Abuse of “Universal Values”’, 408.
50 Kwame Anthony Appiah, The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity
(London: Profile Books, 2018), chap. 6.
51 See, e.g., Jan-Werner Müller, Constitutional Patriotism (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).
52 Tarid Modood, ‘A Multicultural Nationalism?’, Brown Journal of
World Affairs 25, no. 2 (2019): 233-46.
53 Triadafilopoulos, ‘Illiberal Means to Liberal Ends?’, 864-72.
54 Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002).
55 Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 25.
56 Martha C. Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2011), preface.
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