Blog Against Theocracy: why religious people should resist theocracy April 6, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, News and politics, constiutional issues, wingnuts.trackback
There are many reasons to Blog Against Theocracy, and this weekend, where we’ll hear theocrats loudly proclaiming the evil of “secular society,” is a great time to discuss exactly why. You can check out what other bloggers had to say here.
Since so many others are on board, I’m going to focus on one particular reason to blog against theocracy: if you’re a religious person, theocracy is your worst enemy. I’ll illustrate why below the fold.
In the widely told story of Thanksgiving, we see the persecuted Pilgrims fleeing religious oppression in the Old World. And they were: their beliefs made them the subject of much scorn and violence from the institutionalized Church. So the Pilgrims left to come to the new world, where they could be free to practice their beliefs in peace.
And, unfortunately, to use their newfound freedom to persecute those who did not share their beliefs. Indians, Catholics, Anglicans, and even Quakers: they hated everybody that wasn’t a Calvinist, and probably most of those too.* Free to practice religion as they saw fit, their first goal seems to have been to deny others that right.
But I don’t mean to pick on the Pilgrims particularly. The Catholics persecuted the Anglicans; the Anglicans the Catholics; the Christians the Jews; the Muslims the Jews; the Jews, other Jews; the Protestants persecuted the Hindu, and everybody went hard after indigenous religions.
The problem with this model is, of course, that you don’t get to be the one doing the persecuting very often. One day you’re enforcing the will of the Pope in England, and the next you’re out of a job because the King wanted to divorce his wife. Now you’re hoping the new Religion treats you better than you treated others.
Simply put, theocracy is a government model for those who are only capable of caring about their short-term interests. No matter how much they may believe God is on their Side,** the simple historical truth say someone will come along and declare their views heretical, and then they will be the ones being oppressed by theocracy.
This is the unfortunate way of power-struggles in the world, and not simply among religion. But religion has a unique claim to such thinking in this era, for it declares that it’s narrow vision does the will of God. All theocracies claim this, by definition. But only one of them, at most, can be right about this. God certainly cannot support both the Bible-thumper and Koran-thumper theocracies as the One True Expression Of His Will.
So, if you’re convinced that God is with you, the last thing you want is a theocracy, for it is self-evident that the vast majority of such governments were not following His will, and even if some were, they had to have been quickly subverted by the ever-shifting laws their leaders claimed were made by God.
In other words, if you value your religious liberty, you must be against theocracy, for it works against you. The only way to protect your beliefs from government persecution is to protect every faith’s from that persecution. Any other solution leads to disaster for everyone.
*Calvinism practically demands that kind of self-hated. And if you disagree with me, you’re not much of a Calvinist.
**Abraham Lincoln famously suggested that we should ask ourselves if we were on God’s side, not He on ours. Not a bad standard to hold, I suspect.
Gotta agree there with you Evilbender, theocracy just won’t work and is, in my opinion, plain wrong, in today’s world.
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I find this quote from “Faith at War” by Yaroslav Trofimov chilling when you imagine the results of a theocracy:
“Freedom of religion, in the concise words of the U.S. State Department’s annual human rights report, ‘does not exist’ in Saudi Arabia. Only Muslims can be Saudi citizens, and any public expression of other religions–even by the six million or more foreign workers who make the Saudi economy run–is a crime. Saudi authorities have been known to bar companies from using the letter X in their names, on the grounds the X looks too much like a Christian cross. Unrelated women and men cannot socialize–even McDonald’s restaurants keep isolated male and female sections, with separate entrances. Crimes like sorcery, adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, and witchcraft are still punished by death–often by stoning or beheading on a Riyadh plaza ringed by cafes and toy stores, and popularly known as ‘chop-chop square.’ Nor is there freedom of the press, speech, or assembly.”
Note that he doesn’t even mention the Virtue Squads of more than 5,000 people who patrol the streets to be sure that everyone is following the stifling theocratic laws of the state.
I suggest this effort for those who imagine God in our government. Read the Old Testament and put yourself in place as the recipient of the laws the leader of a government that wanted to apply every murderous dictate of God covered in the OT. If you think that can’t happen, read the desires and goals of John Hagee’s Cornerstone Church Website, just one of which I quote below:
“The Sacred Scripture
We believe in the scripture as the inspired Word of God and that it is the complete revelation of God’s will for mankind. We believe in the absolute authority of the scripture to govern the affairs of men.”