In Matthew 25:31–33 Jesus foretells the great judgment. “When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, he shall sit on the throne of his glory and all nations shall be gathered before him. And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats, and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.” His words no doubt struck a familiar chord with his Jewish audience, familiar with Psalm 33:12, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord; and the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.” And a very similar one on the way to win God's favor: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin brings reproach to any people” (Psalm 14:34).

Many conservative Christians use these verses from the Psalms to make a case for bringing more godliness to America or even making it, or declaring it, a Christian nation. But liberal critics see a specter of theocracy in such talk, and sociologists suspect that what the conservative Christians are doing is promoting their religion as America's civil religion.

Theocracy

“Theocracy,” or a government subject to a religious authority, has become a label in many media treatments of Christian political action, especially when describing the political initiatives of the red-state conservatives. Writing in the Village Voice before the second George W. Bush election tallies were complete, James Ridgeway, under the headline, “Bush gets mandate for theocracy,” wrote, “The dream of a secular, liberal democracy is lost: Christians are stronger than ever. …” It was a note sounded by many magazine feature writers and columnists in the subsequent months.

The president's invocation of Jesus as his favorite thinker and reports from journalists or White House insiders that he has a daily prayer life has been interpreted by some critics to imply that he thinks he has a pipeline to God or that he thinks he is getting his daily assignments through prayer exercises, and this gets him labeled a theocrat.

Though the American liberal political movement also has notable religious leaders among its well-known figures (for example, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jim Wallis, Barry W. Lynn, Dr. Bob Edgar), their pronouncements are seldom described as injecting religion into politics, or promoting their own theocratic vision. Looking at the word in its roots, theocracy means government (ocracy) by God (theos) directly. First introduced as a term by Flavius Josephus in Jewish Antiquities, it described the way ancient Israel was governed under the Patriarchs (Moses in particular) and the judges (among the best known being Joshua, Gideon, and Samson, plus a dozen others between Moses and the first king, Saul). As Judges 8:23 puts it, “Gideon said to them, ‘I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you.’”

Even after the establishment of the new Old Testament government as a monarchy, however, God continued to let his will be known directly to the king and the people through the prophets, whose sermons were God's word to them. For many generations after establishing the monarchy, Israel had good kings and bad kings. Good kings listened to the prophets and acted in accord with God's will revealed through them. Bad kings did “that which was right in their own sight.”

Democracy or Anarchy?

As political theorists have observed, the theocracy under the patriarchs and judges was close to a true democracy or anarchy. If the judges told the people what to do and they voluntarily and ungrudgingly did it, it was democratic. If the judges told the people what God wanted and they refused, it was anarchic. Despite there being no physical coercion, rebellion against the judges seldom occurred. The Old Testament simile for this is expressed in 1 Kings 4:25: “every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan to Beersheba.” Sitting under his own “vine and fig tree” symbolizes the peace and security in Israel when they were faithful to God. Dan and Beersheba, the southernmost and northernmost cities in the land, is a simile for, “from border to border.”

Current use of theocracy, as cited above, attempts to apply it to any political theory that supports a role for God or of godliness in any approach to governing. In November 2004, writer Stephen Pizzo said that the Democrats should avoid “values politics” rather than imitate the Republicans, because to do so would even more “Talibanize” the United States. Afghanistan under the Taliban and Iran under the Ayatollahs may be genuine theocracies, but using the democratic process to advocate for one philosophy of what constitutes public morality over another is politically poles away from such totalitarian systems. And though there is much work among Christian scholars to propose the best configuration of democracy in a Christian worldview, no Christian scholar or professor of political theory has been found who advocates turning modern democracies into theocracies.

Christian Theocracy Is an Oxymoron

Though many authoritarian figures in history have claimed to govern as Christians (Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, 1892–1975, to cite one recent example), Christian political theorists say the New Testament precludes theocracy as a viable form of government in pluralistic societies. The way the Gospel should be spread — by voluntary assent of the heart, rather than coercion of either the intellect or the body — favors pluralistic societies for Christians over monolithic or totalitarian ones. Jesus said the tares, weedy plants that grow in grain fields and a symbol of unbelievers, are to be lived with in toleration by the wheat, his metaphor for the believing children of God (Matthew 13:25–30 and 36–40).

Civil Religion

Defined as “the folk religion of a people,” civil religion usually appears as a widespread acknowledgement of divine approval, guidance, or help in public life, usually by elected officials like the president, governors, mayors, and professional administrators, and especially in former times, in institutions like public schools and the military. Patriotism and civil religion are intermingled; ceremonies like military funerals, Memorial Day programs, and, formerly, high-school graduations use prayers, and even participation of clergy, but usually without sectarian or denominational distinctions.

Some Christian scholars and authors caution against confusing civil religion or patriotism itself with Christianity, lest the government or its institutions become idols and God be nationalized as America's God, at the expense of any nations opposing America. Scholars also caution against equating the United States with Old Testament Israel or God's chosen people, or failing to understand biblical prophecies for Israel in historical and geographical context. Christian writers on this topic usually advocate looking for the personal and organizational application of biblical teachings, and making them part of a personal or organizational political perspective rather than trying to apply them to the nation. In the Constitution, the nation as a whole considers itself to be “governed by the people,” not by God, and biblical revelation does not specify the role God has for the United States, as he had for the Israel of old.

Light and Darkness

A central teaching of Jesus that has been applied to Christian action in political situations is Matthew 5:15–16: “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” The passage was adapted by the Puritan colonists who came to Massachusetts in the early seventeenth century to describe how they perceived their goal and their mission as being “a city on a hill” to enlighten the other nations. Their minister, John Winthrop, used this passage in a sermon given while they were en route to the new world. Christians working on helping the still relatively new nation clarify and pursue its vision have reiterated this passage many times since.