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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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There is some scriptural evidence for separation of church and state, but on the other hand, the civil power of Pilate comes from God, and theocracy was tolerated for a least 1500 years in Christendom.

Depends on what you mean by theocracy. Sharia-style religious law as a substitute for civil codes is something that is forced on Christianity occasionally(eg in the millet system), but it's not an endogenous tendency. On the other hand, technically England is a Christian theocracy based on its legitimating principles today.

I tend to take the view that true theocracy is something foreign to Christianity, because Christianity tends to nearly always, when it has a choice, put a lay ruler in command who has an understanding of the boundaries of religious influence in his kingdom(and historically it has been a kingdom, or at least some form of one-man rule). But at some level this is a category/definitional debate- was Ireland a theocracy in 1950? Spain?

Depends on what you mean by theocracy.

I also see this term as well as "separation of church and state" as very confusing. After some deliberation looking into constitution of my country to me theocracy means that the power of government rests in religious institutions. As an example, if local archbishop or some religious council has power to unilaterally declare a new religious public holiday or enforce blasphemy laws, then it is theocracy.

However, this does not mean that people any society where religion has sway is automatically a theocracy. If local church preaches blasphemy laws and general public votes in religious leaders who establish such laws via structure like parliament then it is not a theocracy. To me it is sufficient to have differentiation between government and church structure, not that religious people cannot be part of government implementing their religious ideas.

Paradoxically this is often lost on many secular atheists, who deem anything not in line with their own secular ideology as theocracy. It is just a power move where they want to make secular atheism as reigning state religion preventing other ideas from establishing themselves.