The Blurring of Church and State: A Road Map to Theocracy
Recently I’ve been hearing the word theocracy bandied about. I’ve also recently developed a strong aversion to kool-aid. Wasn’t it a theocracy that Jim Jones wanted to have down there in the jungle? That didn’t work out so well if memory serves me. Albert Einstein is credited with saying that doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity⁴. Is it really necessary for all of us to check to see if he knew what he was talking about?
The separation of church and state was the reason for the people leaving England and coming to the New World. When the state or the crown tried to dictate how proper English folk were to believe it didn’t set well with a lot of people, so they got up and left to go to what became the United States of America. That wasn’t even the first time that freedom to believe as one finds necessary was met with a grand exodus.
For those of you who are familiar with the Bible, Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt for the same reason. He argued to the pharaoh to let his people go and then he parted the Red Sea and they all skedaddled. And a piece of history to remind most evangelicals about their own roots is that Martin Luther was a rebel fighting against the Catholic corruption known as absolution. Martin saw that there was no advantage to anyone other than the local church officials for paying money to be absolved of sin. He protested the practice and the name of “Protestant” stuck. In other words, thought policing is not a new thing. It has been tried many times in history and has always been a dismal failure. What part of that is hard to understand?
It’s fairly obvious that folks who believe they are right about the way the truth and the light of belief are not aware of what they actually believe. It isn’t about their religion. It’s about how selfish they can be, but they can not see that. What they believe is what they observe the world with. And we all know that we can not see the color of our own eyes. If we’re using a belief we can not see that belief any more than we can see the color of our own eyes.
However, that is the reason we have a free press. I don’t think there are two sides to this issue. I think that white Evangelicals are fulfilling a decades-long effort to take over the government and subvert the constitution. In short, they are working towards a theocracy. That it makes no sense at all for a theocracy to exist does not seem to be on their radar. It seems to have escaped them that Genghis Khan who built one of the world's greatest empires allowed all people in his domains to worship as they wished⁷. That caused conquered people to be much more willing to accept Mongol rule. It also allowed for political stability at home within the Mongol tribes as there was a diversity of religious practices at the time in the Mongol lands.
Genghis may well be the most compelling historical example of religious tolerance being good for political gains. Unless, of course, you consider the United States. While Genghis had to travel far and wide to conquer people with diverse religious beliefs, people in the United States of many stripes of religiousness have arrived to willingly participate in the democratic experiment. The United States has conquered through ideas, not through force. But then force seems to be a concept that white Evangelicals embrace wholeheartedly. According to a 2017 study, some 41% of American Evangelicals are gun owners. That’s the highest percentage of any religious group in the US³.
The most disturbing part of those who champion theocracy is the domination of women. This push to ban abortion is only the beginning of their agenda. Moscow Mitch has, in recent days, stated that he can see a law banning abortion in the entire country⁶. In other words, Mitch is saying that a woman does not have any rights concerning her own body. That her body belongs to the state. The state is poised to say that her body is to make babies and nothing more.
Since 2021, even Mexico has allowed abortion. It is unconstitutional in Mexico to penalize abortion; it is how the Mexican Supreme Court ruled on the issue⁸. Most of the world is moving in the direction of more freedom of choice for citizens. Only retro societies like the Taliban still try to control women by force. It is wholly unbecoming for the world’s leading democracy to champion control of women as a political expediency.
Some of you may remember the hornet’s nest Hilary Clinton stirred up when she stated she could have stayed home and baked cookies². White Evangelicals were incensed. How dare a woman say such a thing. This is the reason that the “lock her up” chant resonated with so many Trumpers. If the Evangelical group was just that, it wouldn’t be so offensive, but when they are also QAnoners, one has to begin to wonder what in the world is going on. How can otherwise sane and rational people be so fervently obsessed with religious bigotry? It clearly is not because they think it is improving their standing before the Lord God Almighty. There is no way that they can justify bigotry in the scriptures. There is no way they can justify dishonesty, in or out of the scriptures. Yet the entire white Evangelical wing of the Republican Party religiously repeats the “election was stolen” mantra. I don’t see anything evangelical about any of that. It’s nothing more than a lie and the scriptures say thou shalt not bear false witness.
Here’s the problem with all of this. The majority of the country favors the right for a woman to have an abortion. The folks who are against abortion and women’s rights, in general, are a decided minority. I’m not really upset with them, but I am upset with the press and the Democrats for allowing the minority to rule all of us. The press seems to give the Republican Party a pass on responsibility for their bad behavior. Marge and Matt are reported as traveling around the country raising money, but their foolishness is not reported. Well, it is, but it is not reported as foolishness. It’s reported as though they have a God-given right to act the fool as much as possible. The Democrats propose a bill to protect a woman’s right to an abortion¹, but allow the Republicans to block the bill. That’s not what I’m looking for with either of those entities. I’m looking for political folks who can play ball in the bigs. If Moscow Mitch can block Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court⁵ and not even allow it to come up for a vote, then Chuck should be able to protect women’s constitutional rights. One would think that Nancy should be able to discipline congressional people who stray too far outside of congressional protocol. The press should bring public pressure to bear on congressional and senatorial foolishness without fear of losing the next big story. Have we all fallen prey to transactionalism? Perhaps we have and if we have, perhaps we no longer can afford the price of democracy. What do you think?
References
1. Abortion-Rights Bill Backed by Democrats Fails in Senate. (2022, May 11). Wall Street Journal. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/senate-to-vote-on-abortion-access-law-as-supreme-court-weighs-roes-fate-11652274305
2. Chozick, A. (2016, November 5). Hillary Clinton and the Return of the (Unbaked) Cookies (Published 2016). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-cookies.html
3. The demographics of gun ownership in the US. (2017, June 22). Pew Research Center. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/
4. Higgins, N., & Wilczek, F. (2015, September 23). Einstein’s Parable of Quantum Insanity. Scientific American. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einstein-s-parable-of-quantum-insanity/
5. Kelly, A. (2016, March 16). McConnell: Blocking Supreme Court Nomination ‘About A Principle, Not A Person’. NPR. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2016/03/16/470664561/mcconnell-blocking-supreme-court-nomination-about-a-principle-not-a-person
6. Klein, C. (2022, May 8). Mitch McConnell Acknowledges a National Abortion Ban Is “Possible” if ‘Roe’ Is Overturned. Vanity Fair. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/05/mitch-mcconnell-acknowledges-a-national-abortion-ban-is-possible-if-roe-is-overturned
7. Mongols in World History. (n.d.). Mongols in World History | Asia for Educators. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/mongols/history/history7.htm
8. Romo, V. (2021, September 7). Mexico’s Supreme Court Decriminalizes Abortion. NPR. Retrieved May 16, 2022, from https://www.npr.org/2021/09/07/1034925270/mexico-abortion-decriminalized-supreme-court
