{"id":1026,"date":"2015-10-25T00:25:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T00:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=1026"},"modified":"2015-10-25T00:25:51","modified_gmt":"2015-10-25T00:25:51","slug":"theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html","title":{"rendered":"Theocracy is not necessarily bad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"theocracyThe word “theocracy” tends to elicit negative reactions in the English-speaking world. Shall we conclude\u00a0theocracy is\u00a0always\u00a0bad,\u00a0or\u00a0that\u00a0theocracy is sometimes good?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Theocracy is a model of state governed by authority from an allegedly\u00a0divine source. All government is\u00a0built upon idolising documents, flags, ideas and myths<\/a>. Should the alleged source of a law, e.g. God or man, matter more than what a\u00a0proposed law says? If someone says a law is from God, does that automatically make the law unjustifiable or even primitive?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Governments with an Islamic basis, such as the Islamic Republic of Iran<\/a>, may today be described as a theocracy, usually in an attempt to criticise\u00a0them. It is true to say Islamic thought leans somewhat towards the establishment of what could\u00a0be called a religious-moral state, a theocracy, considering the strong political dimension of Islamic teaching.<\/p>\n

Such a dimension is undeniable\u00a0if one researches the abundant Quranic and expanded Islamic historic commentary on matters of law, economics and other aspects of governance. Depending on whether a Muslim\u00a0agrees with placing emphasis on\u00a0the political aspect of Islam rather than only\u00a0the personal aspect of Islamic worship (which is certainly the case in Iran) they may recognise\u00a0the possibility of\u00a0a righteous form of so-called theocracy.<\/p>\n

Islamic teaching does not recognise\u00a0the word theocracy<\/em>, itself, although the idea of the caliphate<\/em>\u00a0or even Islamic republic<\/em>\u00a0(today an accepted constitution\u00a0of\u00a0modern\u00a0state) carries with it similar meanings. A righteous state based on Islamic teaching is desired by many Muslims, who view it as the ideal model of state. And Islam’s history – unlike Europe’s – is filled with benevolent and civilised Islamic regimes\u00a0who\u00a0helped to develop and educate\u00a0the region in which they were based, at least in the Medieval era. For Muslims, the concept of a religious-moral state does not imply a path to persecution or holy war (traumas that the West tends to expect everywhere only because it experienced them extensively for itself).<\/p>\n

In Europe and in the Anglo-Saxon domain beyond it, theocracy is viewed as a negative type of regime. This is because theocracies in Europe were almost entirely negative, proceeding from or causing massacres, civil wars, sectarian wars, torture of alleged heretics, and the burning of witches.\u00a0Worse still is that these theocratic regimes in Europe were never\u00a0themselves governed by clergy but by kings claiming a divine right, with Frankish king Charlemagne<\/a> being a prime example. Roman Emperor Constantine<\/a> began this sordid adventure in Europe by claiming a political office that was basically akin to being top Bishop\u00a0and Emperor simultaneously. All political, religious and moral authority was concentrated in one man who governed arbitrarily.<\/p>\n

Outside of Europe, theocracies were a different story. They almost always tended to bring political stability. The Aztec civilisation, for example, was based upon theocracy and was quite modern, able to sustain vast populations before the\u00a0Spanish\u00a0conquistadors\u00a0destroyed it. Native American culture may have\u00a0entailed\u00a0a type of theocracy that enabled communities\u00a0to live in harmony with their environment and not hunt animals to depletion.<\/p>\n

The reason European Christian theocracies were such a disaster, and led to the Western assumption that\u00a0all theocracies are to be\u00a0ignorant, violent and unjust, was that Christianity\u00a0actually contains no political instructions. This means that in the West, theocracy is tantamount to arbitrary rule. The same fault existed with Buddhism, as it contained no political instructions, so various authority figures arose like Ashoka<\/a> who governed arbitrarily or acted as warlords on behalf of Buddhism. So, because of such examples, when\u00a0we hear of a theocracy, our assumption is that a dictator or emperor is claiming a divine right to govern however he wishes, like the Roman Emperors. But outside our own history, in the case of religions other than Christianity and Buddhism, that assumption may simply be wrong.<\/p>\n

So-called\u00a0“theocracy” in Iran, for example, has not demonstrated\u00a0any great deal\u00a0of arbitrary rule, persecution, or tendencies to declare\u00a0war or threats of massacres against other countries. On the other hand, Western governments uphold democracy\u00a0as a sufficient reason to march off to war, and routinely threaten others in the name of an apparently perfect political system.<\/p>\n

History may not be warning us\u00a0against theocracy at all, but against arrogant and arbitrary rule. It may be that theocracy and arrogance often coincided historically in the events of\u00a0the West’s own history, when kings claimed their crowns and their swords had descended from heaven, but arrogance will be the true menace.<\/p>\n

It is in fact possible for a theocracy to be harmless or even a positive and stabilising influence in the world, as long as it is legitimate, based on a real\u00a0tradition,\u00a0and has a proven positive historical record.<\/p>\n

\"theocracy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word “theocracy” tends to elicit negative reactions in the English-speaking world. Shall we conclude\u00a0theocracy is\u00a0always\u00a0bad,\u00a0or\u00a0that\u00a0theocracy is sometimes good? Theocracy is a model of state governed by authority from an allegedly\u00a0divine source. All government is\u00a0built upon idolising documents, flags, ideas and myths. Should the alleged source of a law, e.g. God or man, matter more…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,37,72,892,153,67,66,3,70,15,69],"tags":[1253,1252,1254,210,1256,1255,880,1257,945,611,555,509,173,25,608],"class_list":["post-1026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alter-globalization","category-history","category-international-relations","category-islam","category-lordre-2","category-middle-east","category-politics-2","category-religious-studies","category-religious-violence","category-us","category-violence","tag-ashoka","tag-buddhism","tag-charlemagne","tag-christianity","tag-clergy","tag-constantine","tag-constitution","tag-divine","tag-europe","tag-god","tag-government","tag-iran","tag-islam","tag-politics","tag-theocracy"],"yoast_head":"\nTheocracy is not necessarily bad - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Theocracy is a destructive model of government only when it is synonymous with arbitrary rule, with the main historic examples being Christian and Buddhist.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Theocracy is not necessarily bad - L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Theocracy is a destructive model of government only when it is synonymous with arbitrary rule, with the main historic examples being Christian and Buddhist.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-10-25T00:25:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/Cartoon-theocracies-good-or-bad.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Harry J. Bentham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Theocracy is not necessarily bad - L'Ordre","description":"Theocracy is a destructive model of government only when it is synonymous with arbitrary rule, with the main historic examples being Christian and Buddhist.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Theocracy is not necessarily bad - L'Ordre","og_description":"Theocracy is a destructive model of government only when it is synonymous with arbitrary rule, with the main historic examples being Christian and Buddhist.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html","og_site_name":"L'Ordre","article_published_time":"2015-10-25T00:25:51+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/Cartoon-theocracies-good-or-bad.png"}],"author":"Harry J. Bentham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html","name":"Theocracy is not necessarily bad - L'Ordre","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/Cartoon-theocracies-good-or-bad.png","datePublished":"2015-10-25T00:25:51+00:00","dateModified":"2015-10-25T00:25:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e"},"description":"Theocracy is a destructive model of government only when it is synonymous with arbitrary rule, with the main historic examples being Christian and Buddhist.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/Cartoon-theocracies-good-or-bad.png","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/Cartoon-theocracies-good-or-bad.png"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/10\/theocracy-is-not-necessarily-bad.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Theocracy is not necessarily bad"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/","name":"L'Ordre","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Harry Bentham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e","name":"Harry J. Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. He edits The clubof.info Blog (http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/search\/label\/Harry_J_Bentham).","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Harry-J.-Bentham\/e\/B00D4MSEY0\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/author\/hbentham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1031,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions\/1031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}