Associate Research Professor, Department of Systematic Theology, University of Aarhus..

Project: "Religion and justification of democracy."

In many investigations and discussions, the self-understanding of democracy moves between two poles: secularism and religious moorings. Secularism is understood as the assertion that politics and religion should be separated, i.e. religion is restricted to the private sphere. On the other hand, it is claimed that a democratic society can only exist if based on religious principles.

The aim of my project is to investigate the connection between religion and justification of democracy. How can democracy and constitutional state be justified if it must be understood as secular and is the secular not exactly a condition of peaceful coexistence among different religious communities? And, not least, how can religion (and obviously Christian theology) claim to be based on divine commitments and still support secular legislation?

The thesis is here that the latter is primarily due to religion's ability to character cultivation and even if democracy can and should be justified secularly, it exists on premises which it cannot procure by itself.