The Democracy of the Dead

For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing. JOB 8:8–9

Chesterton called himself a democrat all his life, and he meant it. He believed that the ordinary man’s instincts about the great things of life — love, birth, death, home, God — were more trustworthy than the theories of the clever. In The Ethics of Elfland he stated his democratic creed in two parts. The first was “that the things common to all men are more important than the things peculiar to any men.” The second was that the ordinary man should be trusted with the most important things, such as choosing his own government or falling in love, rather than having them decided for him by experts. From this he drew a conclusion that surprised his readers.

Votes for our ancestors

If we trust the opinion of ordinary men when they agree in great numbers today, he asked, why should we not trust their opinion when they agreed in great numbers yesterday, and the day before, and for a thousand years? The modern habit was to treat the beliefs of the past as automatically out of date, simply because they were old. Chesterton thought this was a kind of snobbery — a snobbery of time, which disqualifies men by the accident of when they were born, as the old aristocrats disqualified them by the accident of birth.

He put it, in the same chapter, in a paragraph that has become one of his most famous: “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”

One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. PSALM 145:4

Why tradition matters to the Christian

This is more than a clever saying. It goes to the heart of how Christians receive their faith. No believer starts from nothing. We learn the gospel from those who learned it before us, and they from others, back to the apostles who were eyewitnesses of Christ. Scripture itself commands the passing on of the faith from one generation to the next, and it warns against a restless craving for novelty.

And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. 2 TIMOTHY 2:2

Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set. PROVERBS 22:28

Chesterton’s point was that the great Christian consensus — the creeds, the shared convictions of believers across the centuries — deserves a hearing that the latest fashion does not. A belief held by Augustine and Aquinas, by Luther and Wesley, by countless unnamed believers in every land and century, is not refuted because a lecturer in London finds it unfashionable.

The fence in the field

He made the same point in a later book, The Thing (1929), with a famous parable, about a reformer who comes upon a fence or a gate across a road and wants to clear it away, because he can see no use for it. The wiser man tells him that he must first go and find out why it was put there; only when he knows its purpose may he decide whether to take it down. The parable is a plea not against change but against careless change: the institutions and customs we inherit were usually built for a reason, and the reason should be understood before they are destroyed.

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:21

Weighing it

There is great wisdom here, and evangelical readers, who are sometimes too quick to treat everything before the last revival as irrelevant, need to hear it. The church did not begin with us, and we are foolish if we ignore the saints who have gone before.

But a careful distinction is needed. For Chesterton, especially in his later years, tradition came to carry an authority alongside Scripture, as the Roman Catholic Church teaches: the living voice of the church interpreting and, in effect, adding to the written Word. Evangelical Christians honour tradition, but they place it under Scripture, not beside it. The fathers and the creeds are precious because, and in so far as, they are faithful to the Bible. Jesus Himself rebuked the religious leaders of His day for allowing their traditions to override the commandment of God.

Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. MATTHEW 15:6

The democracy of the dead is a wise principle for weighing human opinions. But the Word of God is not one voice among the voters. It is the law by which the votes are counted.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Have you dismissed a belief simply because it was old? Consider whether it was ever actually refuted.

2. Name three Christians from earlier centuries whose faith has shaped yours. Thank God for them.

3. Read Psalm 78:1–8 and notice how the faith is passed from one generation to the next.

4. Is there a fence in your life — a habit, a custom, a rule — that you are tempted to tear down? Find out first why it was put there.

5. Read Matthew 15:1–9 and ask where your own traditions may have crept above God’s Word.

A PRAYER

Lord, You have been the dwelling place of Your people in all generations.

Thank You for the saints who kept the faith and handed it on to me, through dark centuries and bright ones.

Keep me from the pride that thinks my own age wiser than all others, and from the folly that tears down what it does not understand.

Above all, keep me under Your Word, by which every tradition is tested, and let me hand on the faith faithfully to those who come after me. Amen.