Theocracy: a form of government in which a deity is the source from which all authority derives.
1. All Christians want theocracy (properly understood).
2. Theocracy in the sense that the national life - its laws, rules and regulations, customs and habits, social practises - should be at-least compatible-with, and in practise supportive-of, Christian life.
3. The Christian life is (necessarily and always) individual, opt-in and voluntary - but it is susceptible to incentive: positive and negative.
4. So - Although Christianity cannot be enforced upon anybody (and even the attempt should not be made); and despite than any genuinely Christian society will always contain non-Christians (at least in this world) (and probably in a considerable proportion); given that there is a stark choice between either a pro- or an anti-Christian society (a steady-state of neutrality being logically- as well as practically-impossible) - All Christians may be presumed to want a theocracy.
5. Different types of Christian will, presumably, want different types of theocracy. The best known would be the divine monarchy of Byzantium or Holy Russia; or the dual system of Pope and his anointed monarch under spiritual authority; but have also been decentralised and non-episcopal and non-priestly models of theocracy such as Calvin's Geneva and other 'puritan' polities (eg. in New England up to the early 1800s) - and Brigham Young's Prophet-led Mormon republic of Deseret.
6. Many other versions of Christian theocracy are, in principle, possible. But one or another theocracy is the only viable destiny of any possible future Christian society.
I know it is completely asleep, but is that not what we have in England? I don't know the constitutional nicities but is not the Queen still "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church"? And are not her ministers are charged with ruling by God and if necessary punishing "evil-doers"?(Articles of religion 37) There is a separation of Ecclesiastical and Temporal so perhaps after all we don't have a true theocracy. You are right, it needs a true change of heart to make any of this come alive.
ReplyDelete@Howard - Um, no!
ReplyDeleteThere are hardly any public and real Christians in England (among the native population) and essentially none at all among the ruling Establishment (including the mainstream churches).
And indeed it is illegal to express Christian views in the public domain (punishable by media/ mob vilification, work disciplinary measures, loss of job and prosecution for hate crimes etc).
The Establishment is in practice mandatorily secular in all significant decisions; but Christianity is the only forbidden religion among the powerful elites in England - since the laws and sanctions are only applied against Christians.
Under advanced Leftism - such has developed in the UK (and the whole West - powerful institutions are all and without exception very thoroughly subverted and inverted.
But Bruce, given that what you say is true of a formally Christian realm in which the Queen rules by the grace of God, having been anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury: what guarantee can any institution give us that the Spirit of God will remain with the nation?
ReplyDelete@Karl - None - no guarantee whatsoever.
ReplyDeleteSystems do not provide any guarantee.
We need to stop 'dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good' (to quote TS Eliot).