Theocracy

I had a conversation with a friend the other night, in which the topic of theocracy came up, in particular, as it applies to a potential future system of government for the US (or some other country, but we were talking about this one in particular). I kept thinking about that last night, and I came to the conclusion that I can't really support establishing a theocratic government here in the US.

This is despite the fact that I'm a Christian and a) believe in God, and b) believe that God is basically a good and benevolent being. Certainly, then, it should make sense that putting God in charge of running the country can only be a good thing. After all, God is better able to see the "big picture" and make decisions based on how things truly are, rather than being limited by personal perception and prejudice, as human beings are. The Bible is full of passages describing Him in terms appropriate for a great ruler or leader, so why not put Him in charge of the country?

And I can't really argue with that. If God's name was on the ballot (for any office, not just President) He'd have my vote hands-down. Problem is, He's not on the ballot (as far as I've seen at any rate). And, I doubt He'd step into the oval office even if we wrote His name in.

Which leaves us with the closest alternative--electing some human representative to stand in for God, to rule as He would rule and to speak His words to the people to be their laws. Such a person would be a sort of living conduit for divine will, much as the prophets were in the Old Testament. The OT is full of God talking in the first person, through the prophets, who were talking as if they were God, though they weren't. Rather, it was God speaking through them. I can envision something like this working as well. The problem here comes in finding someone who is a completely reliable prophet of God, and not either a) a false prophet who speaks his own words as if they were God's, but instead serves some other power (such as a false god, himself, or some conspiratorial organization) or b) a genuine prophet who is still a mere human with his own failings, who will sometimes fail to properly channel God's words for reasons similar to those given above.

This brings us to a third alternative, which is probably the closest to what comes to mind when one hears of a theocracy. That is, a person or person who rules in the name of God, and who probably claims divinely-granted authority, but who does not claim to BE God, or to speak directly for God. Priests, rather than prophets.

The Old Testament had its priests, of course. So did the New Testament--and they were often the ones whom Jesus was slamming hardest. So it isn't entirely sure that a priest-ocracy is what we need either. In general, Theocracy generally turns into Me-ocracy, where Me is typically the person proposing the theocracy (i.e. "Why don't you just put me in charge--I'll get things back to the way God wants them!").

So we have to be wary of leaders claiming to be/speak for/rule by God. But what about God's laws? The OT's full of them--people who set out to read the Bible from cover to cover often don't make it past that point in Exodus where was had been a rousing adventure story full of armies clashing and waters parting and strange Fortean meteorological phenomena descends into something more akin to a legal text. The laws of Moses are pretty extensive, and parts are surprisingly modern to readers such as myself (I was intrigued to note that the Bible distinguishes between degrees of homicide, for instance).

Still, Jesus died to set us free from "The Law" which seems to imply at least some subset of the Mosaic Law. Certainly the dietary laws are mentioned explicitly in the NT as not being binding anymore. On the other hand, there are parts of the law that we like, such as that old favorite "Thou Shalt Not Kill." I don't want to be killed, and I'll bet you don't either, so we want to hang onto that law. We don't want Jesus's death to separate us from that one.

The thing is, even if that law is no longer binding on us, that doesn't mean we should go around wantonly murdering people. If I don't kill people, it's not necessarily because the Ten Commandments contain "Thou Shalt Not Kill." It could be because there's nobody I really want to kill--because I personally consider killing so unpleasant and distasteful that it would take a lot to make me do it. It could also be because a totally separate set of laws (the ones that happen to govern the land in which I live) also contain homicide laws that differ from those given in the Bible (perhaps postulating more degrees, and stipulating different sets of punishments) but still are generally along the "Don't do it" vein.

There are a lot of laws in the modern world that have nothing to do with morality. We don't really think the Brits are going to Hell because they drive on the left side of the road--but if one of them comes over here and decides to go for a drive, he'd better stay on the right side instead. I call these laws "Protocols" in the sense of networking protocols. When you're writing network software that's meant to interact with pre-existing hardware and software, you have to follow certain rules in order to ensure that the other machines can make sense of the data you send, and you can make sense of that which you receive. Network protocols ensure the smooth functioning of the network, and protocol laws ensure the smooth functioning of society.

Even the murder laws can be seen this way. Killing people is bad because murder is morally wrong, but it is a crime because it disrupts the smooth functioning of society. Morality does not necessarily enter into the picture (though there's often a lot of overlap). The New Testament talks a lot about love--God's love for us, and our love for God and for each other. To me, this is the source of true morality, not the law of Moses and certainly not the laws of the State of California. But you can't legislate love. You can't put a gun to someone's head and say "You WILL love your fellow man or I will blow your effin' brains out!" Or rather, you CAN, and I have heard proposals from some who favor theocracy that amount to basically this. Or worse, something like "You will believe the things I believe or I will blow your effin' brains out!" Romans 10:9 states "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." You can make someone confess at gunpoint, but you can't make him believe. Force, and thus law (which is backed by force or threat of force) cannot truly convert and cannot truly save. It can only make people act in a semblance of salvation.

But is this enough to be worth the threat of this kind of coercion being misapplied? The current US constitution is incompatible with Mosaic law (which IS law and CAN be applied through force, unlike love and belief). Applying a system of government like that specified in the laws of Moses would necessitate changing or removing many parts of the constitution (which is perfectly possible, and explicitly allowed by the constitution itself--it's a meta-document meant to be changed as needed). However, I personally don't believe that the benefits to be gained by doing this are worth the cost. I think that one of the reasons why Christianity has thrived so well in this country is because there is no official religion. People are free to believe whatever they want. There are countries in Europe where everyone's automatically Lutheran (or whatever) unless they state otherwise, which has resulted in a lot of apathetic, non-practicing Lutherans. Here, you're a Lutheran (or a Baptist, or a Methodist, or whatever) because you choose to, or because you were raised that way and have chosen not to rebel, not because the government says you are. If everyone were forced to at least behave like Christians should, to me that would negate the whole significance of a person behaving like a Christian because he IS one. The law of Moses is not the only legal system that can ensure a smoothly functioning society, and it's certainly not the only one under which Christianity can thrive and grow.

So what do I propose? Keep things basically the way they are, in terms of religion's role in life. A person's faith is a deeply personal thing, not something that can be spread at gunpoint, at least not without perverting it and turning good spiritual food into poison. I'm a Christian, and would prefer it if everyone else were too, but I also believe in freedom of religion. I'd rather you were a Christian, but if you want to worship Cthulhu instead, you're free to do so. If you ever get tired of squid-gods and want a more loving (and lovable) deity to worship, I'll be here for you, ready to tell you the good news of Jesus Christ. But if you choose to worship Cthulhu instead, I'll not stop you with violence or threats thereof, unless you take some action to interfere with the functioning of society (i.e. violate the protocols that we happen to be living under now). So no human sacrifices, for instance, because that's not allowed, because it prevents the victim from functioning in society (due to being dead). But aside from that, your faith is your business, and that's the way it should be here in the US.