What is Christian Democracy?

Christian Democracy is a democratic political and social tradition influenced by Christian understandings of human dignity, responsibility, solidarity, community and the common good.

It asks how these convictions should shape democratic institutions, the economy and public policy. Christian Democracy is not a church, and no one needs to share a particular faith to engage with its ideas. People of goodwill can draw on the tradition as they think about freedom, responsibility and the limits of power.

Christian Democracy is also not a single party or programme. It is a way of thinking about public life that has taken different forms in different countries. What its adherents share is a set of convictions about the human person and society.

The tradition grew from Catholic social teaching and from Reformed thought, which reached similar conclusions by different paths. Both insisted that people are more than economic units, that families and communities matter, and that the state has limits.

After the Second World War, Christian democratic parties helped rebuild societies in Europe and Latin America around constitutional government, social market economies and reconciliation. The tradition has influenced constitutional democracies on several continents.

CDFSA studies what this tradition can offer South Africa: a young constitutional democracy with deep divisions of income, opportunity and trust. Our aim is not to transplant another country's politics, but to test whether these convictions can serve the common good here.