Crucial Faves Govt Going Bad Religious Right

Christian Theocracy (Some Religious Group Runs the Government) – We’d Regret this Nightmare for Democracy.

I am a church person, a person of Christiain faith, but opposed to Christian theocracy (or any kind!). I don’t think we need rulers who rule as if they were God.

Christian Theocracy

Our Constitution was written partly to help us avoid Christian theocracy.

Unfortunately, theocracy is the goal of many Americans today who clearly think the Founders were wrong. They want their groups of churches to dictate to the White House, the Congress, the Courts and the rest of us.

Theocrats claim to know just what God wants – therefore their decisions are in effect the very will of God. And you WILL obey. The Founders were wise to resist that.

We do need God’s wisdom, help, and protection.

I hope we seek and pray for those things daily. And we need to practice the faiths we profess.

But we have three branches of government precisely in order to keep any group from running things their way without criticism or restraint. Is theocracy good or bad?  This idea of running things their way without criticism or restraint should make that clear. <u>That is the way to stifle all the good gifts God has put among us in our people</u>.  That is the way to destruction of God’s good will.

Violence - thuggish activity - is profoundly unChristian

Are there pros and cons of theocracy.  No. America’s would-be theocrats raise some important concerns that we need to consider. Unfortunately, they also fully intend to have their group running things just as they wish, without criticism or restraint. In that they are wrong. We do not welcome that nightmare – their efforts to stamp their image on all of us.

John Danforth was an Episcopal Priest, then a US Senator. He said this last year, about seeking theocracy:

“Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of Conservative Christians

If we let our country surrender its freedoms to our home-grown theocrats, we, our kids, and our grandkids will deeply regret it.
… The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.” (Quoted from Jimmy Carter’s Our Endangered Values)

In the contest of theocracy vs democracy I quickly choose democracy.  Theocrats tend to hold more than their fair share of traits like authoritarianism, arrogance, violence, hypocrisy, dishonesty. Yes, those traits are spread throughout the population, but we DO want to keep them out of the higher positions of power as much as possible. We really do.

We are free today to practice our faiths.  If we each did that more thoroughly this would likely be a happier and safer nation. But if we let our country surrender its freedoms to a home-grown theocracy, we, our kids, and our grandkids will deeply regret it.

(This is from one of my letters to the editor of a local newspaper, September 20, 2006.)


See also – other articles on Christian theocracy (by other names):

1. What is Christian Nationalism? It Wears Christian Words & Symbols Like Sheep’s Clothing.    (2023)
Excerpt (starting with a quote from Lauren Boebert):

“The church is supposed to direct the government, the government is not supposed to direct the church,” she said at a church two days before her primary election (and victory) in late June. “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk.”

Ma’am, a key reason so many of us are NOT “tired of this separation of church and state junk” is precisely that ignorant and unprincipled people like you assume you represent the church that should have power over the rest of us, especially over our shared governmental structures.
And that is a repulsive thought! We have the separation ideal so that NO religious institution, no petenders to religious authority, can grab that power.

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2. Christofascism – It’s Real, It’s Deadly, And It Intends to Dominate Us All    (2023)
Excerpts:

They must accomplish their mission by any means necessary. What then could be more tantalizing than a white racist billionaire who claimed to be a Christian …

Domination
“Christian fundamentalism has one endgame: Domination. By way of televangelism, foreign missionary efforts, local church outreach, or direct involvement in local, state and national politics … People of color must be colonized; women must be subdued; non-heterosexuals must be eliminated; nature must be conquered; white males must prevail.” (p90)
Healing
“It is possible to attend to your own healing AND also actively oppose authoritarianism in its many forms whenever and wherever you observe it. You need not do this alone, nor should you. A host of supportive resources exist that did not when I was exiting Christian fundamentalism fifty years ago.” (p 167)

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3. Christians & Churches Should Not Enforce the Bible on Us. (2017)  [Christian Theocracy]
Excerpt:

Paul was writing about one specific very public offense by one specific person. The real sanction against the “sinning” person in this case (in I Corinthians) was temporary exclusion from the local voluntary association.

That is HUGELY different from the agenda of the ‘religious right’ – passing legislation at the very highest levels, enforced by the weapons and courts of the secular powers, in order to establish one narrow view of the requirements of Scripture on every person in the land.

Very Important! “One narrow view”!  I bet they won’t be asking you, or me, what that view should be.

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4 Comments

  • Here is a poignant repost! Isn’t there some irony in that the chief charges you laid against Christian conservatives 8 years ago, exactly describe (and with much greater justice, too) progressive Democrats today?

    THIS administration rules as if it were the voice of god, by arrogating its own political agenda over the Christian’s conscience and the clear teachings of Scripture. It does this with little restraint, simply ignoring whatever laws- Amendments, even- happen to stand in the way. Criticism is suppressed beneath the cogs of the tax code, or failing that, discounted as racist. Of the three branches of federal government, one is blithely lawless, another has long ago ceded its power to ungovernable regulators, and of the last many rule as if the Constitution were mere guidelines and not the supreme earthly authority in this country.

    Perhaps, 8 years ago, Sen. Danforth may have touched on something, but the fact is that Republicans vote now along much the same lines as they have for the past 150 years. The Democratic Party however, has been completely overturned by its bloated Saul Alinsky underbelly. Theirs is no theocracy of God, but it is a theocracy nonetheless; a radical secularism with its own perverted scriptures and self-righteous dogma, its own inquisition, and an ugly strain of coercion. Do not welcome their efforts to stamp their image on all of us.

    • Right-wing writers are kinda like country music. The setting varies but the themes remain the same. Except with country music the themes were the same 10 years ago or 40. But Republican propagandists worry deeply about the Constitution when a Democrat is in the White House. Not at all when Bush was running rampant. They (falsely) believe the IRS is persecuting “conservative” groups but have nary a worry about the enormous tax benefits churches and religious organizations enjoy – even when those organizations’ blatant and dishonestly political activities are ignored by the IRS. Your thoughts are well and interestingly expressed, JDK, but that makes them no more valid than when vented by less educated Tea Partiers. 🙁

  • I’ve always thought that the only Christian belief that was empirally proveable, was the doctrine of Original Sin. 😉
    What is mindboggling is the fact that these folks can’t see that they, too, are sinners. Though many non-pentecostals would
    deny it, I think they, in practice, hold “Perfectionist” beliefs (I also think that, in practice, they believe in works righteousness.)
    Though many are willfully anti-intellectual, I wish they’d read the history of the 30 yrs war and the English Civil war, so they know why the Founding Fathers
    approached religion the way they did.

  • Evangelicals claim a gift of devine wisdom when they accept Christ – they show no sign of it in their politics!!! Pretty bogus witnes.