Western Capitalism and Christianity

Max Weber, one of the leading sociologists has discovered deep connection between Christianity and capitalism. “He believed that the Protestant ethic of Calvinism most clearly expressed the origins of the spirit of capitalism.”[1]
He argued that, Protestant Ethic, Calvinism and Puritanism give birth to the modern day capitalism.

Democracy and Christianity

“Modern democracy has its roots deep in religion.”[1] Origin and development of modern day democracy has been taken place totally in Western Christian countries. In ancient Greece citizen elected their leaders through direct plebiscite. Christian scholars like Machiavelli, John Lock, and Woodrow Wilson are the proponent of modern democracy. Present successful democratic states are largely existed in Christian populated Euro-American region. They are successful because this democracy is fundamentally linked with their norms, culture and Christianity. For this reason Elizabeth argues, “Secular government must be firmly embedded in the Judeo-Christian faith for democracy to survive.

The West’s religious heritage bolsters democracy by offering a set of common assumptions within which politics can be conducted.” [2]


Western democratic countries desires to present democracy free of religious influence, but they cannot disclaim the history and cultural root of democracy. Therefore, when western leaders promote the idea of democracy beyond their region, they implicitly promote a religion guided ideology.

[1] “Religion: Christianity & Democracy,”, The Time magazine, U.S. June 25, 1951, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,806060,00.html (accessed: June 24, 2012).

[2] Elizabeth Shakman  Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations,  op.cit., 6.

Christianity with Secularism

The Westphalian international world order is designed on the ground of secularism where principal suggestion is the separation of religious institutions and state. But the origin of secularism is deeply rooted in the culture of Christianity
For Elizabeth, “tradition of secularism that is influential in the international relations literature emphasizes the role of Christianity, and more recently Judeo-Christianity, as the foundation for secular public order and democratic political institutions.”[1]
In private sphere of life, religious rituals are observed in a regular manner in comparison. From the country based statistics of Nation Master.com it is found that, “26.2% of total Christians attend Church services in one or more times per week. However average percentage does not show the complete picture. For instance in United States 44% of Christians attend Church services per week. The percentage of Church attendance in Nigeria is 89%, whereas in Russia it is only 2%.”[2]

Christianity and Islam: Christianity, an Implicit Impetus of International System

Christianity, being the second largest religion has implicitly influence international politics through its norms and customs at the name of secularism. Several prominent scholars have identified secularism as a set of norms and behaviors derived from one or more than one version of Christianity. Christian driven concepts like, secularism, democracy, capitalism are in the centre of administration and economy of most of the countries for last four hundred years. Therefore, the expansion and application of these ideas can be thought as the validation and intensification of Christianity, Christian norms and rules. Direct connection between church and state is not noticeable, although in USA and Germany religious involvement has increased to some extent.

However, the implicit features of Christianity which have dominant role in international level are:

Christianity with Secularism
Democracy and Christianity
Western Capitalism and Christianity