Protestanism and Deliberation

Abstract

Deliberacija oziroma kritična, odprta, vključujoča in argumentirana javna razprava o stvareh javnega interesa je ključen mehanizem demokratične politične ureditve. Po prepričanju zagovornikov deliberativne demokracije, kot je Jürgen Habermas, deliberacija prispeva k doseganju boljše in pravičnejše družbe. Prispevek analizira prepletenost razvoja te politične vrednote v evro-atlantskem svetu s protestantizmom in njegovim razvojem. Novejša raziskovanja zgodovine protestantizma in politične zgodovine demokracije kažejo kompleksno, a zgovorno sliko: kljub prisotnosti religijskih konzervativnih tendenc v protestantizmu se zdi, da je za družbe, v katerih je protestantizem postal prevladujoča religijska kultura, postala značilna precejšnja mera svobode raziskovanja, verovanja in debatiranja. To dejstvo je bilo delno rezultat naključnih zgodovinskih dogodkov, delno pa notranjih teoloških impulzov v protestantski misli. Deliberation as critical, open, inclusive and argument-based discussion about matters of public interest is a crucial mechanism of a healthy democracy. According to deliberative democracy defenders, like Jürgen Habermas, deliberation contributes to achieving a better and more just society. The present essay analyses the intertwinement between the development of this political value in the Euro-Atlantic world on the one hand, and Protestantism and its development on the other. Recent works in the history of Protestantism and the political history of democracy paint a complex, but powerful picture: despite the religious conservative tendencies in Protestantism, it seems that a notable measure of freedom of research, belief and debate could be found in the societies where Protestantism had become a dominant religious culture. While this development is partly a result of contingent historic events, it also had much to do with internal theological impulses within the Protestant thought.