Faith, Democracy, and the Public Space: Reflections from Paris

By Mhambi B. Musonda, WSCF-US Leadership Team 2026-27

This summer, I had the privilege of traveling to Paris, France, to participate in the WSCF-Europe Youth Perspectives for Democracy Summer School, an experience that brought together 34 young leaders from across Europe to reflect on faith, justice, civic engagement, and democracy. I participated alongside Hannah Beard, a member of the WSCF-US Student Leadership Team, and together we were the only two participants representing the United States. Being among young Christians from such diverse national, cultural, and political contexts made the experience particularly meaningful. It challenged me not only to think about democracy as a political system, but also to consider it as a moral and communal responsibility.

The summer school created a space where questions of faith and public life could be explored honestly. We examined what it means for Christians to participate in societies shaped by political disagreement, inequality, polarization, and competing visions of justice. Rather than treating faith and civic engagement as separate spheres, our conversations invited us to consider how Christian convictions can shape the ways in which we understand human dignity, justice, community, and responsibility toward one another.

One of the most significant aspects of the experience was our engagement with the public space. We were challenged to think beyond traditional understandings of political participation and to ask what it means to be active citizens in our everyday lives. Democracy is often reduced to elections, political parties, institutions, and government. Yet our exercises encouraged us to recognize that democracy is also lived through relationships, communities, conversations, advocacy, and the ways we respond to people whose experiences differ from our own.

Through various interactive exercises and critical reflections, we were encouraged to confront an important question: How do we make the promise of democracy real? It is easy to speak about democracy in abstract terms—to celebrate freedom, equality, participation, and human rights. It is much more difficult to translate those ideals into the realities of everyday life. Democracy becomes meaningful when people have a genuine voice, when institutions are accountable, when differences can be expressed without dehumanization, and when communities work intentionally to ensure that no one is excluded from the public life of society.

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For me, this question carried particular significance because of my own interest in civic engagement and public leadership. The experience reminded me that leadership cannot simply be about occupying positions of influence. It must also be about cultivating the conditions in which other people can participate, speak, organize, and exercise their own agency. Public leadership, at its best, is not merely about being heard; it is about creating space for others to be heard.

Being one of only two Americans in the group also gave me an opportunity to see the United States from a different perspective. Conversations with young leaders from across Europe reminded me that democracy looks different depending on a society’s history, institutions, culture, and lived experiences. Yet beneath those differences were remarkably similar questions: How do we address political polarization? How do we ensure young people have meaningful opportunities to participate? How do we respond to injustice? How do we build communities where differences do not automatically become divisions?

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Paris itself provided a powerful backdrop for these conversations. A city so deeply associated with ideas of liberty, citizenship, revolution, human rights, and public life became more than simply the location of our summer school. It became part of the reflection. Walking through the city while discussing democracy and the role of faith in public life made the themes we were exploring feel tangible. The public square was no longer simply a theoretical concept; it was something we could observe and experience.

Perhaps my greatest takeaway from the summer school is that democracy requires participation, but participation requires formation. Young people need more than invitations to vote or join political institutions. We need opportunities to develop the critical thinking, courage, empathy, theological imagination, and civic skills necessary to participate meaningfully in public life.

The training included experiential learning at sites of democratic importance around Paris. Mhambi and his small group braving the heatwave to learn about the city!

As Christians, this responsibility is particularly important. Our faith calls us to take seriously the dignity of every person and to pursue justice not simply as an abstract principle, but as a lived commitment. Engaging the public space therefore means asking how our faith informs the way we treat our neighbors, how we respond to injustice, how we listen to those with whom we disagree, and how we contribute to the communities of which we are a part.

The WSCF-Europe Youth Perspectives for Democracy Summer School reminded me that democracy is not something that can be taken for granted. It is a promise that must continually be renewed through the participation and commitment of ordinary people. For young Christians, that means refusing to retreat from public life. It means bringing our faith, questions, convictions, and compassion into the spaces where our communities are being shaped.

I left Paris with more questions than I arrived with—and I consider that one of the greatest gifts of the experience. The summer school did not simply give me answers; it gave me a deeper sense of responsibility. It challenged me to think about the kind of citizen, Christian, and leader I want to become and, more importantly, how my own life can contribute to making the promise of democracy more real for others.

The work of democracy does not begin and end at the ballot box. It begins wherever people choose to participate, listen, organize, serve, and stand for the dignity of others.

And that work is ours.