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导读：这是一篇政治学essay范文，讨论了基督教对西方政治的影响。基督教从诞生到现代对西方世界产生了深远的影响，也对世界格局、世界秩序带了巨大改变。就政治而言，在中世纪基督教通过对人们的严格控制一定程度上维护了西方社会秩序的稳定。长期植根于封建王权社会中的基督教，其实整体上并不是革命的，但宗教改革时期的宗教领袖在基督教原有的平等、法治、博爱等教义的基础上，又发展出一些新的理论。 Essay题目：The influence of Christianity on western politics Christianity has always played a complex role in western politics in the history and culture of the west. The basic doctrines of western Christianity became the basis of western politics, and the protestantism produced by the religious reform gave rise to modern western democratic politics to a certain extent. However, different factions of Christianity had different influences on western democratic politics. The analysis of the influence of Christianity on western politics has also led to the consideration of the political development of developing countries. From Jesus' missionary work to 313, Roman emperors Constantine I and licinius issued the edict of milan, which recognized the legal status of Christianity and returned the previously confiscated church property. Until 393 AD, the Roman emperor theodosius made Christianity as the church of Rome empire, and the abolition of all other religions, banned pagan activities, the status of Christianity from fixed, become after the vital important factors affecting the development of western society, despite the religious revolution, the scientific revolution, the enlightenment and the industrial revolution, the Christian influence on western society is very significant. Western politics is formed and developed gradually from the historical process of its own culture, and is less affected by the ready-made system of other societies. As an official ideology since the Roman empire, Christianity has played a complex role in western politics, which is also the topic of this paper. Christianity originated from the people. As Marx said, Christianity was "the religion of slaves and freed slaves, the poor and the powerless, the people who were expelled by the Roman government or the Roman government. When Christianity rose to the official ideology, it became the tool of the ruling class to some extent, and some of its doctrines were also used to serve the ruling order, such as obedience and patience. In general, Christian doctrine has played a very important role in western society. To understand the influence of Christianity on western politics, we should start with Christian doctrine. The doctrine of original sin was first proposed by augustin, a Roman Catholic thinker at the time of the Roman empire. After the creation of the world, god placed Adam and eve in the garden of Eden to take care of them. They could eat fruit from any tree except the tree of wisdom. But under the temptation of snakes, Adam and eve ate the fruit of wisdom, disobeyed god's will, and were expelled from the garden of Eden. Because Adam and eve were the ancestors of human beings, everyone was born with sin, that is, original sin. "It is as if sin came into the world from one man, and death from sin, and then death came upon all men, for all had sinned." The doctrine of original sin reflects Christianity's thinking on human nature, which implies the face of the dark side of human nature. This provides a human basis for western politics. Since human nature cannot be trusted, western countries attach great importance to the enactment of laws, and hope to restrict human behavior through institutions and laws, so as to reduce the harm of human nature in the face of society British politician ? Thomas Hobbes from the perspective of human nature this evil, also proposed the "natural state" and the national origin, 'said in Hobbes describe the state of nature, everyone for everything in the world there is demand, but because of things in the world is insufficient, so the battle for "all the people for all the war" and never end. Life in this state of nature is "lonely, poor, filthy, wild and short". Therefore, he is in favor of absolute monarchy, and advocates the use of "national religion" to control the people and maintain "order". The British philosopher John Locke ? Locke also think human nature is selfish, in order to prevent the degradation of high, he advocated the national power is divided into three legislative power, executive power and external power, legislative and administrative power should be separately by different state organs to exercise. Madison also believed that if everyone was an angel, there would be no need for government. If angels rule, there is no need for any external or internal control over government. The biggest difficulty in organizing a government where one person rules over another is that the government must first be able to govern the governed, and then the government itself. It can be seen that these thinkers think on the basis of "original sin theory" derived from the view that human nature is evil. Equality and fraternity are the basic doctrines of Christianity. These demands from religion have gradually been deeply rooted in people's hearts and become the collective unconscious of the western world, playing a key role in the formation of western political concepts on human rights. John Dunn, a Cambridge historian, pointed out that although Locke's interpretation of the state of nature in the form of human society is gradually de-christianized, in the theory of government Locke thought about human society and came up with a political structure full of Christian assumptions. In Locke's day theology was probably the only important basis for human rights. After that, the American declaration of independence and the French declaration of human rights also mentioned the "natural human rights" and so on, regarding human rights as given by "god". Christianity converts faith in god into faith in the precepts of god in order to be redeemed from the judgment of god. This also provided the basis for the later concept of the sanctity and supremacy of law in the secular world. Some contents of the law of god were also used for reference by later enlightenment thinkers to form the modern theory of natural law. As friedrich said, divine law and natural law, as the concrete embodiment of god's eternal law governing the world, stipulate the true constitutional government. This constitutional government relies on an unwavering belief in human reason and direction Justice is a reflection of god's power in man, and this transcendental belief in justice is the source of medieval constitutional theory. As the orthodox religion of western countries for more than one thousand years, Christianity has been developing and improving its doctrine continuously. Therefore, it has a fairly rich and broad connotation and affects all aspects of western civilization. Even in modern Christianity it is clear to the west, for example, that American presidents swear by the bible when they take office. The influence of Christianity on the politics of western countries is still very significant, which is mainly reflected in the influence on the basic ideas of western political civilization and on the political system. Of course, Christianity of different factions has different influences on the politics of western countries. Western political civilization is based on the concepts of human rights, freedom, equality and democracy. It is generally believed that these ideas originated from ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Christianity does not directly propose these ideas, but there are many related statements that can be found in the bible, which are already mentioned in the first verse. It is on the concepts of human rights, democracy, equality and freedom that the modern democratic politics in the west gradually developed. Many countries will be "natural rights" and "equality" for thinking about the beginning of the written in the constitution of human rights, such as the United States declaration of independence at the beginning of it reads: "we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, the creator gives them a number of inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It can be seen that many western countries have regarded the respect and protection of human rights as one of the most basic functions of their countries. In addition, the Christian doctrine of "gratitude" and "charity" has exerted a great influence on the public management theory of western countries. Due to the emphasis on human rights, the protection of people's right to freedom, equality and subsistence, as well as the emphasis on "gratitude" and "fraternity", the implementation of social security and social assistance in western countries has been strongly supported and developed at a high level. The influence of Christianity on western politics is not only at the conceptual level, but also has certain influence on many western current political systems. The decentralization theory, which originated in the enlightenment movement, advocates that the state power is divided into three parts: administrative power, legislative power and judicial power, which are respectively exercised by three state organs and supervised and restricted each other to prevent autocracy. Although there was no systematic separation of the three powers in the middle ages, Christianity broke away from the rule of the king after the papal revolution, and the two-sword theory became a reality. For more than a thousand years, Europe has been divided between church power and secular kingship. Although church power and secular power have been gradually clarified after the religious reform, the concept of mutual restriction of power has been rooted in western society.#p#分页标题#e# Scotland's religious reform was led by John ? Knox, he studied the calvinism in Geneva, returns to Scotland in 1560 and led the church of Scotland to accept reform. In the church system, his reform took the form of Presbyterian church, that is, in the church system, the church attached great importance to the rules of the church and was supervised by the elders. In the Presbyterian church, the local council elects elders to form a hall presided over by a priest. At the district level, a district composed of priests and elders representing the synagogues is administered. We can see that this is actually the beginning of representative democracy in the west. Christianity has been the dominant religion in Europe for more than a thousand years since emperor theodosius I declared Christianity the church of the Roman empire in 393 a.d. Including the Catholic church in a long period of time in the absolute dominance, only after the religious reform of the modern protestant rise gradually, and predominates in some countries, but most of the continental European countries still predominantly Catholic, part of Russia and eastern European countries is given priority to with orthodox faith. To some extent, the orthodox church is the most conservative Christian. Orthodox conservatism is inseparable from the slow feudalism of the eastern Roman empire, which is attached to it. As far as democracy is concerned, countries that are predominantly orthodox have the slowest democratic processes, sometimes even later between the two world wars. Catholicism has the largest congregation of nearly 1.1 billion people. Before the reformation, Catholicism was the mainstream religion in the west. In the 19th century, the Catholic church was generally opposed to liberal democracy, and Pope Gregory xvi, in his 1832 encyclical, even strongly opposed democratic elections and the separation of the church from the state. It can be said that to some extent, Catholicism is a hotbed of authoritarianism, and the doctrine of original sin in Christian doctrine has become an instrument of authoritarianism. Protestantism was born out of religious reform, and protestant countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, took the road to democracy relatively early. This is mainly because the emergence of protestantism is closely related to the needs of the new bourgeoisie. Protestantism generally emphasizes freedom, equality and democracy. From its birth to modern times, Christianity has exerted a profound influence on the western world and brought about great changes to the world pattern and world order. In terms of politics, Christianity maintained the stability of western social order to a certain extent through strict control of people in the middle ages. Christianity, in long-term in feudal monarchy society as a whole and not revolutionary, but the reformation period of religious leaders, such as ? Martin Luther, Calvin, in Christian original on the basis of equality, the rule of law, such as humanity doctrine, and developed some new theories, for the old Christian injected new blood. At the same time, it also provides a certain theoretical basis and practical reference for the western political revolution. It can be seen that the influence of Christianity on western politics is very complex. First of all, Christianity has exerted an important influence on western politics both in theory and practice, and this influence has existed from the middle ages to the present. Secondly, on the one hand, Christianity provided the basis for modern western democratic politics and gave birth to modern western democratic politics. On the other hand, due to the different factions within Christianity and the great divergence of doctrines among different factions, the protestant countries started the democratic process earlier, while the orthodox church and the Catholic church were more conservative, which to some extent became the obstacles to the development of democratic systems. However, democracy is still the trend of international political development. No matter which denomination of Christianity will gradually accept democracy in the future, the differences between denominations will be smaller and smaller. |
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