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mdgspencer
Guest
The people here seem to consider any country where religion determines laws a theocracy. I wonder how those who speak against this look at the Israel of the Old Testament?
- Status
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Detales
Guest
And how do you see it, Spencer? From here the OT looks like the alleged history of a people bent on using their god as an excuse to smite their enemies so they themselves could survive and prosper. Clearly this is no different than any other people who did then and today do the same thing, even to two sports teams praying for their Protestant, Catholic, LDS or whatever, God’s backing. From the outside, they are indestingishable as to pattern. From the inside, each one has the alleged one true Way.
Does this sound familiar?: “Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.” ~Mark Twain
Or “Scriptures: the sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.” ~Ambrose Bierce
And in particular, as we have seen from theocracies in history, we might pay attention to RA Heinlein’s admonition that "Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. ~R H, Notebooks of Lazarus Long
As Catholics, I think it is of paramount importance to avoid the arrogance of singular rightness. If you really think that this religion is the one true one, prove it by living your own internal theocracy and let the alleged infidels be attracted and converted by your own success. In the mean time, allow that perhaps someone not Catholic might have some insight that you yourself may lack.
Does this sound familiar?: “Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven.” ~Mark Twain
Or “Scriptures: the sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.” ~Ambrose Bierce
And in particular, as we have seen from theocracies in history, we might pay attention to RA Heinlein’s admonition that "Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. ~R H, Notebooks of Lazarus Long
As Catholics, I think it is of paramount importance to avoid the arrogance of singular rightness. If you really think that this religion is the one true one, prove it by living your own internal theocracy and let the alleged infidels be attracted and converted by your own success. In the mean time, allow that perhaps someone not Catholic might have some insight that you yourself may lack.
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ncjohn
Guest
Well, let’s see.
God didn’t want the people to have a king or another beyond Him to serve and went to great lengths to point out why it was a bad idea. Eventually He gave them what they demanded (free will and all that) so they could find out for themselves. And Saul turned into everything He had predicted. Even the great King David was at times morally bankrupt and willing to bend the law for his own desires, however much his overall desire might have been to please God.
And then there’s the fact that this very religious theocracy was behind demanding that Jesus be crucified…
Sorry, but if that’s what theocracy leads to–and every example I’ve seen does–with even the “purest of the pure” becoming blinded and corrupted, I’ll do without it, thank you.
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Detales
Guest
I agree, NCjohn,
This guy said it very well: “I believe in God; I just don’t trust anyone who works for him.” ~Author unknown,
This guy said it very well: “I believe in God; I just don’t trust anyone who works for him.” ~Author unknown,
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EasterJoy
Guest
If by theocracy you mean a government in which God’s law is the guiding principle, then no, I don’t think that is bad. That’s the ideal. I would hope that every lawmaker, regardless of the political system, would use his or her knowledge of God’s law and the demands of God’s love as the guiding principle in every political action he or she ever takes.
Nor would I think it problematic if people were to vote for political leaders based on whether those leaders actually did act according to the dictates of moral law. (Promising to do so or talking as if they do so or picking just one hot-button area in which they do so or belonging to a group that you’d like to think would do so or the like is another kettle of fish. I am not talking about looking over the ballot and checking the box every time you see the descriptor “Catholic.”)
If you mean giving religious leaders the office of being political leaders, though, then there is a problem. For every King David, there needs to be a Prophet Nathan. Those with the office of religious leadership need to be able to speak the truth to those who have been given political power. Otherwise, political power will be able pretend that whatever it likes is righteousness, and that righteousness means whatever those in political power happen to like.
Nor would I think it problematic if people were to vote for political leaders based on whether those leaders actually did act according to the dictates of moral law. (Promising to do so or talking as if they do so or picking just one hot-button area in which they do so or belonging to a group that you’d like to think would do so or the like is another kettle of fish. I am not talking about looking over the ballot and checking the box every time you see the descriptor “Catholic.”)
If you mean giving religious leaders the office of being political leaders, though, then there is a problem. For every King David, there needs to be a Prophet Nathan. Those with the office of religious leadership need to be able to speak the truth to those who have been given political power. Otherwise, political power will be able pretend that whatever it likes is righteousness, and that righteousness means whatever those in political power happen to like.
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Detales
Guest
“If by theocracy you mean a government in which God’s law is the guiding principle, then no, I don’t think that is bad. That’s the ideal.”
OK, then which God? Buddhist? Shintoist? Christadelphian? Anthropotheistic? The Unknown God whom we ignorantly worship? Which one?
“Nor would I think it problematic if people were to vote for political leaders based on whether those leaders actually did act according to the dictates of moral law.”
Here’s what a conservative Senator had to say about that: “On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.” ~Barry Goldwater
Does anyone else on here find that responders to these threads seem to be wearing blinders to the fact that less than a third of the world is christianist? And that statistically about nine out of ten of those are so my accident of birth, culture, and habit? That does not contradict the obvious sincerity and devotion of many, or impinge necessarily on the rightness of any teachings, but it does make some of us wonder if a global and historic perspective is being engaged in some of these comments.
OK, then which God? Buddhist? Shintoist? Christadelphian? Anthropotheistic? The Unknown God whom we ignorantly worship? Which one?
“Nor would I think it problematic if people were to vote for political leaders based on whether those leaders actually did act according to the dictates of moral law.”
Here’s what a conservative Senator had to say about that: “On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of conservatism.” ~Barry Goldwater
Does anyone else on here find that responders to these threads seem to be wearing blinders to the fact that less than a third of the world is christianist? And that statistically about nine out of ten of those are so my accident of birth, culture, and habit? That does not contradict the obvious sincerity and devotion of many, or impinge necessarily on the rightness of any teachings, but it does make some of us wonder if a global and historic perspective is being engaged in some of these comments.
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NewEnglandPriest
Guest
Exhibit A: Iran
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EasterJoy
Guest
You are sick of people who vote or tailor their rhetoric to their consciences or their religious beliefs to extreme measures, but not people who vote their wallets or their desire for personal license to the extreme? I don’t think you are talking about a problem that is inherently religious. I think you’re talking about arrogance, or cynical manipulation, or both. While that may be particularly galling when it comes from the mouth of a Christian, that is not an inherently religious problem.
If you are sick of people swaggering in and making false claims about God’s law, then why don’t you do the same thing that scientists have to do when people make false claims about the findings of science? Correct them! I wouldn’t throw science out of the public arena because of the nuclear bomb or even the honest mistakes of science, let alone the frank evil that people have perpetrated by making bad use of the work of scientists like Darwin. I also wouldn’t throw moral reasoning out because some people have used moral law as a starting point to run roughshod over their fellow human beings. Yet this is just what some people want us to do. They don’t want to hear ideas that don’t have a rationalist underpinning, forgetting that so-called rational arguments have been used to perpetrate evils of their own.
So maybe there is a reason not to have governments that can be called theocracies: because when the people in power inevitably find a way to use religious rhetoric to violate the rights of those they have made vulnerable to their lust, greed, and need to exert control over others, it will be God and religion who gets the blame. Maybe we should just be open to the obvious fact of history: God doesn’t run governments. People do. If so-called theocracies are banned, then God and religion won’t get blamed for things that neither was responsible for.
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Detales
Guest
Joy, not sure what your response has to do with my post, but thanks.
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JSSebastianoP
Guest
You’re not alone!
You two have pretty much already summed up my own opinions in this thread though…
Pax.
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EasterJoy
Guest
Is Iran’s problem the guidance of Islam, or the fact that the regime is totalitarian? For what way of human thinking or being or imagining cannot be perverted into evil by a leaders who want control over everyone else?
Iran has a lot of problems, but I wouldn’t make Islam into the primary cause.
If you are saying that it never works to give a small group of people total control over everyone else, even if you select that small group from among religious leaders, I’d have to agree. (I’d even go so far as to say “especially if…”, since religous leaders have the trust of the very people whom one would hope would stand up against evil.)
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EasterJoy
Guest
Oops…You didn’t say you were “sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are?”. The Senator you quoted did.
I was just saying that the “you must believe in A, B, C, and D to be good” fallacy isn’t restricted to those who say that God is their guide. That attitude is so ubiquitous that the particular source of the guidance the person has cannot also be source of that attitude.
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Detales
Guest
Granted, Joy, but it is ubiquitous enough that it also infects those who might be the proponents of a theocracy. For my part I find attitudes such as JSSebastianoP, Kindered Soul, and Pope Noah frightening, equal at least to an atheist regimen or such. As far as I can see, the seeds of anarchy are already evident in their however well intentioned schemes. Goodness and religion do not operate on the same axis.* They only seem to overlap in the eyes of the pious, something they would immediately perceived if they weren’t wearing the aforementioned blinders. Politics, from “polis” means the running of a city, not of a morality. That is an individual job, and only becomes public when the rights granted to members of society are transgressed.
Right now the only “Theopolis” we have is the Vatican, and perhaps a few compounds owned and operated by religious groups. But I will grant that even the government is not impartial in dealing with those. Witness Waco, where the ethics of that mess are highly questionable, though I am not in agreement with the unfortunates who perished there. Nevertheless, I fear that that scene would become wholesale under the the descendants of of such posters as some on here. I would fear for the liberties and lives and of any not subscribing to their brand of Catholicism. That evil has already been adequately demonstrated. God save us from such as they.
And again, this is not against Catholicism. I would be equally horrified about at theocratic regime run by any faith based group. But one’s religion is a concern between one’self and their stage of their perception of relationship with Diety. Let’s keep it that way, so the kidergarteners and middle schoolers in religious matters, being the majority, don’t have sway over matters beyond their ken.
*Here are some quotes from similarly minded folks:
“There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.” ~G.C. Lichtenberg
“Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.” ~Ambrose Bierce
“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” ~George Carlin
“Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.” ~William James
“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” ~Anne Lamott
"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? " ~Mark Twain
“The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.” ~Richard Burton
“No creed can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can be made as large as man.” ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays
“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.” ~David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, 1739
“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.” ~Thomas Jefferson
Right now the only “Theopolis” we have is the Vatican, and perhaps a few compounds owned and operated by religious groups. But I will grant that even the government is not impartial in dealing with those. Witness Waco, where the ethics of that mess are highly questionable, though I am not in agreement with the unfortunates who perished there. Nevertheless, I fear that that scene would become wholesale under the the descendants of of such posters as some on here. I would fear for the liberties and lives and of any not subscribing to their brand of Catholicism. That evil has already been adequately demonstrated. God save us from such as they.
And again, this is not against Catholicism. I would be equally horrified about at theocratic regime run by any faith based group. But one’s religion is a concern between one’self and their stage of their perception of relationship with Diety. Let’s keep it that way, so the kidergarteners and middle schoolers in religious matters, being the majority, don’t have sway over matters beyond their ken.
*Here are some quotes from similarly minded folks:
“There were honest people long before there were Christians and there are, God be praised, still honest people where there are no Christians. It could therefore easily be possible that people are Christians because true Christianity corresponds to what they would have been even if Christianity did not exist.” ~G.C. Lichtenberg
“Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.” ~Ambrose Bierce
“I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” ~George Carlin
“Religion is a monumental chapter in the history of human egotism.” ~William James
“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” ~Anne Lamott
"But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? " ~Mark Twain
“The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.” ~Richard Burton
“No creed can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can be made as large as man.” ~Lemuel K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays
“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.” ~David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, 1739
“In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.” ~Thomas Jefferson
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JSSebastianoP
Guest
And so it should be that the running of a city should be just that but I am convinced that with modern culture, people feel that they can disrespect authority and morality and get away with it. The government has a duty to it’s people and the people to their government. Now it is time for the government to help it’s people through morally strenuous times, not for the immorality of the populus to override the government. Even China’s president Hu Jintao realised this and so released his 八荣八耻 (8 honors and 8 shames). While I disagree theoretically on the aformentioned honors and shames, I applaud him for addressing in the bud the moral decline of Chinese society. In otherwords, he started by asking the right questions and came up with the wrong answers. I’m afraid democracy just doesn’t work and frankly - it’s because some people just don’t know what’s good for them.
So what? It is a Christian’s duty to evangelise those people; only Catholicism has the fullness of truth.
Again so what? What does this have to do at all with our conversation?
Separation of Church and State is an economic doctrine that is being applied to philosophy when it shouldn’t be. The economic body of the Church is separate from the economic body of the State - but my Faith should always infulence my politics.
How so?
GOD hates none; He loves all but fatherly rebukes transgression.
“He who spares his son the rod does not love him.”
Yes. We should pray for sinners. But what does this have to do with Theocracy?
Again: how so? Man worships GOD, who is above.
The Church contains the fullness of Truth and is larger that man for it was founded by the divine.
That is why, as was said by KindredSoul, we have to be careful to avoid those errors. And to fix the ones we make.
Not to liberty in and of itself but the wrong choices that arise when certain liberties are afforded.
Since you like famous quotes so much here are some from Mussolini,
“Liberty is a duty, not a right.”
“Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy. You in America will see that some day.”
When he said that second quote, he was so right; many of us are now starting to finally see that: the ‘stinking corpse of democracy’ (if I recall his words correctly) is all that is left in the U.S. …
Some countries do have democracy and are doing all right, such as Japan, the culture of which tends to be very conservative and hierarchial. They can get through democracy because they understand authority. So can the Polish, Irish, and Maltese, because they understand that GOD is most important. But in the US and UK, people have forgotten their GOD and so democracy falls apart. Back when politics was concerned mainly with economic issues and less with an ideological difference of what right and wrong are, democracy could work. But now we are left with its stinking corpse…
-Justin
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KindredSoul
Guest
Anarchy? For my part, I never spoke of overthrowing America and forcing theocracy on it. I simply voiced my opinion
eek that theocracy is not independently bad anymore than democracy, and that both types of governments have been misused by people to rather equal extremes. I did say I would like to live in a theocracy, but that’s an opinion, not a plot. If you call that a “frightening scheme” or “anarchy” then you have a strange way of defining things. 
It’s funny that anyone who disagrees with you is wearing blinders. You have voiced an opinion on this matter, and ironically for someone seemingly so dead set against proclaiming one absolute sense of “rightness” you are quick to assume your own opinion on this matter is the only right one and everyone else is wearing blinders.
Specifying the descendants of “such posters as some on here” combined with “God save us from such as they” seems as though you’re trying to make a personal jab at anyone who disagrees with you. Not only that, it is incredibly presumptuous. Your own problem is that, while you quite like living in a secular democracy (and it is your right to have your own preference) you equate anyone who has a different preference with tyrants and murderers. In short, you are overreacting to a simple opinion. For what it’s worth, I fear for the lives and liberties of the unborn in a society that pays no heed to the moral guidance of religion…and my fear is very well founded seeing as how abortion has been legal for years in our own secularized democracy. Should I blame you for that abuse of secular democracy, even though I do not know you and (for all I know) your brand of secular democracy may not include such atrocities? No, not unless I stooped to your brand of jumping to conclusions.
Yet you do not realize that horrors and such can be the direct result of a purely secular democracy as well? People cause such horrors, and they can cause them just as equally in any sort of government, even a completely non-“faith based” one, including secular democracy (again, abortion would never have gained such root in a theocracy). You blame the theocracy, when it is people who are to blame, and people are perfectly capable of using any type of government to do evil, theocracy, democracy, or whatever type it may be.
Those quotes show only that a lot of historical and influential people are like-minded to yourself. I suppose, if I were to become a president or famous author or political figure, then my opinion could be quoted and then cited as proof that any opinion I had was right? Of course not. Those people are no different; they were obviously paranoid of the power of religion, and they were quite biased in that regard. I could just as easily quote influential people in history who believed religion and the state should be combined, but unlike yourself, I realize that such quotes on their own prove nothing.
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EasterJoy
Guest
You won’t find a method of governance, including theocracy, that either forces people to love God (or even an ordered society) or makes up for the consequences when they don’t. And I would not be so hard on the United States. We’ve had a little more time than the others to drive the thing between the ditches. So far, no total roll-overs. Power has been freely and peacefully transferred over and over and over again. Let’s all hope that all of the world’s democracies do so well. As for the conservative and the heirarchical, those are also the enemies of innovation and the meritocracy. There is always that trade-off. Politics will always veer around, trying to find a good balance between the various levels and ways of taking risk.
I do not know when it was that politics did not concern itself with right and wrong. When was that? In what way was that some kind of an ideal?
I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no form of government that is not prone to the taint of self-interest and the desire to control, rather than govern, others.
If there is a theocracy, then God and religion are blamed when things go to pieces. History would say that it is a vanity to say that God rules, when people do. It is a bad idea to give someone the opportunity to gain secular power by saying “Thus says the Lord…”. It is inevitable that God’s name will be profaned. Even the some of the Popes have fallen into that trap, and the papacy itself became a jewel for the self-interested to angle for. This was the reason that Theodore Roosevelt did not want “In God We Trust” to be put on our money. It wasn’t that the use of money couldn’t be elevated by being associated with the name of God. It was that he felt it a greater danger that God’s name would be profaned by being associated with our money. The sword cuts both ways.
It was the devil who tempted by offering dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth, not the Lord. When the Lord Himself was offered political power, He rejected it, over and over and over again. Rather, he told his disciples that if they wanted to be the most important, they needed to be servants. The Lord didn’t send us out to seek power, but to speak the truth to power, even when power doesn’t know what truth is. That doesn’t sound like any theocracy I know of.
Now, I am not talking about barring religious sensibility from the opinions of lawmakers. Mistakes will be made, but those mistakes can be called out for what they are. There is no realm of human thought or feeling that cannot be used to rationalize a hidden and inappropriate agenda. Rationalism and so-called “logic” fails sometimes, too. That doesn’t mean that we don’t want people polluting the political process by daring to try to think things out. Likewise, the reasons of the heart have their place in politics, too. Religious people do belong in politics, as long as they are open to correction.
I am talking about a true theocracy, where religious officials make the civil laws. History shows that this is a bad idea. When the Lord said that the Kingdom of God was at hand, he did not mean a human government. He meant dominion over hearts. There is no reason to believe that we were meant to take over governments in His name. We aren’t failing God if we don’t. We may very well be failing God if we do.
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Bluegoat
Guest
One state that has incorporated religion into it’s government in a way that seems to work is Bhutan. The religious institutions are given, I believe, a number of seats in the parliament. Not a majority by any means, but they can speak and I believe vote.
Bhutan, however, has only one religion, supported by the state. The population is relativly homogeneous, and those few non-Buddhists are in a real way out of the loop. I’m not sure that this is something I would want to copy, and in the West, who would decide what the state religion was going to be? If we were to go by the majority it would likely be nothing.
Bhutan, however, has only one religion, supported by the state. The population is relativly homogeneous, and those few non-Buddhists are in a real way out of the loop. I’m not sure that this is something I would want to copy, and in the West, who would decide what the state religion was going to be? If we were to go by the majority it would likely be nothing.
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KindredSoul
Guest
I agree. I do believe, however, that as long as we choose to have government instead of anarchy (and most of us would not say God smiles upon anarchy) we must try to make it a system that works. For whatever the reason may be, there are those who do not believe that Secular Democracy works any better than theocracy; ergo, if secular democracy (such as we have in America) in which there are such legalized atrocities as abortion, is not considered “bad” then theocracy isn’t either.
It is true. However I do not believe that theocracy is any more prone to this than democracy or any other government.
Though this doesn’t erase the allure of theocracy for me, yours is the best argument I’ve heard against having a theocracy; but notice, that still doesn’t say that theocracy is inherently bad, just that people, being people, are more prone to jump to conclusions and blame God when something goes wrong in a theocracy even though things would have gone equally wrong in a democracy. Thus, while this is not a reason why theocracy is “bad” (which was the OP’s initial question) it does work as a reason why one might think twice before having a theocracy.
We could just as easily take the Lord’s rejection of political power as meaning that Christians should not be involved in politics at all, nor should a Christian ever hold a political office. As you later say, that’s not what you mean:
But you should be aware that, if the “Jesus had no political power” argument works as a reason why Theocracy is bad, it also would work as a reason why Christians taking part in any sort of government is bad. After all, if every individual Christian had as little to do with government as Christ did, we would not be involved at all, and our rights would have little to no representation in even a democracy. In other words, I feel that Jesus’ rejection of political power has more to do with the means of which He was to accomplish His mission in His earthly life (had He had any real political power, He would not have lived up to His mission of being sacrificed) but had nothing to do with what sort of government we should seek to have, unless we think that His rejection meant Christians should have no interest or stake in government at all (which I do not believe).
With such things as abortion and the serious flirtation with making hate crimes out of certain religious moral teachings, one could say that history also shows that having a democracy is a bad idea. The point is, just because there is an instance (or many many instances) where a certain governmental system has been horribly abused doesn’t mean we can say that history has proven that system of government to be a bad idea. It only shows that people will use any government to their own selfish ends.
For what it’s worth, though, I do not believe that priests, monks, and nuns should be Presidents, kings, etc…but that’s because their number one job should be in the spiritual realm. However, if certain civil laws are based upon a certain religious code of morality in such a way that colors the public atmosphere of the nation but still allows those who disagree the freedom to live their lives privately, I see nothing wrong with that. Again, I’m not saying “Let’s force this on America” but if such a Catholic nation existed, I’d rather live there. I’m glad that countries with an American-like democracy exist for those who prefer it. But there is no country, at least not of reasonable size so as to accommodate many, for those who would like to live in a Catholic theocracy. That is what I consider the pity.
And indeed, if a theocracy claims to be trying to force the realization of the Kingdom of God, that would be wrong; it would be hubris. However, if a theocracy is founded simply because the founders honestly believe that to be the best way to guide their people, or even simply at least as good a way as any other system, I see no reason why this is bad, at least any more than democracy. It is not about taking over governments in God’s name. It is, as I have said before, about finding a system that works. If you feel that secular democracy works best, consider yourself blessed you live in one. For those who feel that a theocracy would be more suited to them, there is no place. And many on this thread would deny that there ever should be a place for them.
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ncjohn
Guest
And in the end that’s the whole thing. We’ve had theocracies, including Catholic ones, and they have always, without fail, degenerated to this.
If we really wanted a “Christian” country right here, governed by the Bible, or the Creed, or whatever, we could have it. If we really wanted government to have every law pass a “morality” test we could have that.
The fact is that we are weak human beings though, and even a good proportion of us–the overwhelming majority from all polls I’ve see–who identify as Christian are unquestionably voting for politicians and laws and referendums that support the exact immoral policies that we then whine about. We support economic policies by our buying choices. We allow poverty to continue to exist by both our political choices and our personal choices as to where to allocate our “time, talent and treasure.” We give power to the media to far too disproportionately influence us on these matters by both our support of their sponsors and by spending money to watch what they push out, allegedly in total contradiction to what we want to see. Yet without our participation and support neither government or media can continue to exist. They only have the power they have because we continue to give it to them. We are too weak overall to keep ourselves from acting on our baser instincts and our worldly interests.
I can only imagine what those martyrs in heaven make of what we’ve done with what they gave their very lives for!! Talk about casting your pearls before swine!
Maybe in a fantasy Utopic world a good theocracy could exist. But I fear it would have to be run by angels rather than humans. In the end I have to live in the world, but I will choose to serve God as my one and only King. And come to think of it, if we all did that we’d understand why God didn’t want His people to have a ruler over them like other people, nor would we need a “government” per se. We might actually be able to live the early Church of “from each according to his means, to each according to his need” while actually living in peace with one another and God.
W
Wesley7
Guest
It is the people that make the government(s) work.
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