Concept

Christian democracy

Overview

Christian democracy is an ideology inspired by Christian social teaching to respond to the challenges of contemporary society and politics.

Christian democracy has drawn mainly from Catholic social teaching and neo-scholasticism, as well as the Neo-Calvinist tradition within Christianity; it later gained ground with Lutherans and Pentecostals, among other denominational traditions of Christianity in various parts of the world. During the nineteenth century, its principal concerns were to reconcile Catholicism with democracy, to answer the "social question" surrounding capitalism and the working class, and to resolve the tensions between church and state. In the twentieth century, Christian democrats led postwar Western and Southern Europe in building modern welfare states and constructing the European Union. Furthermore, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, Christian democracy has gained support in Eastern Europe among former communist states suffering from corruption and stagnation.

On the European left–right political spectrum, Christian democracy has been difficult to pinpoint, as Christian democrats have often rejected liberal economics and individualism and advocated state intervention, while simultaneously defending private property rights against excessive state intervention. This has meant that Christian democracy has historically been considered centre-left on economics and centre-right on many social and moral issues. More recently, Christian democrats have positioned themselves as the centre-right, as with both the European People's Party and European Christian Political Party, with which many Christian democratic parties in Europe are affiliated. Christian democrats support a "slightly regulated market economy", featuring an effective social security system, thus a social market economy.

Worldwide, many Christian democratic parties are members of the Centrist Democrat International. Examples of major Christian democratic parties include the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, the Dutch Christian Democratic Appeal, The Centre in Switzerland, the Spanish People's Party, the Mexican National Action Party, the Austrian People's Party, and the Christian Democratic Party of Chile. Many Christian democratic parties in the Americas are affiliated with the Christian Democrat Organization of America.

Christian democracy continues to be influential in Europe and Latin America, although it is also present in other parts of the world.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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From hence arose the several orders, with or without a monarch (which are called states), in every European country; the strong traces of which, where monarchy predominated, were never wholly extinguished or merged in despotism. In the few places where monarchy was cast off, the spirit of European monarchy was still left. Those countries still continued countries of states; that is, of classes, orders, and…
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
States what Christian democracy is; the author is tied to Christian democracy in the knowledge graph.
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Moreover, there are some other states which are called by the same name, that differ both from oligarchies and free states, wherein not only the rich but also the virtuous have a share in the administration; and have therefore acquired the name of aristocracies; for in those governments wherein virtue is not their common care, there are still men of worth and approved goodness. Whatever state, then, like the…
Aristotle, Politics
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However, against the allied bourgeois, a coalition was made between the small traders and the workingmen—the so-called _Social Democratic_ party. The small traders found themselves ill rewarded after the June days of 1848; they saw their material interests endangered, and the democratic guarantees, that were to uphold their interests, made doubtful. Hence, they drew closer to the workingmen.
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
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Christian democracy

Overview

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