This last Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King in the traditional liturgical calendar in the Roman Catholic Church. The feast was instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. In doing so, the Pope pointed out in his encyclical Quas Primas that “Jesus Christ was given to man, not only as our Redeemer, but also as a law-giver, to whom obedience is due. Not only do the gospels tell us that he made laws, but they present him to us in the act of making them.” While Christ certainly has authority over spiritual affairs, he also has ultimate authority over temporal/earthly affairs. Pius XI reminds us,
“It would be a grave error…to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power… Thus, the empire of our Redeemer embraces all men.”
Christ’s eternal reign as King has tremendous implications for the world, Christian and pagan alike. One of those consequences is that “once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony.”
Such ideas as quoted above tend to cause massive triggering events and vitriolic anger among secular humanists of all stripes, particularly atheists, progressives and secular libertarians who literally loath the thought of Jesus Christ having any authority over their public or private lives. They reject God’s authority, not unlike Satan or his demons. So many modern Americans believe they “rule themselves” and get to determine for themselves what is moral, legal, and consistent with natural law. This is why whenever they get the remote whiff of a public policy position that is based on Biblical principles the red flags go up and the knives come out.
And what’s the inevitable, initial reaction to the idea that a civil law is a good idea because it is consistent with divine law or even the natural law? THEOCRACY! “You just want a theocracy!”
Of course, this is equivalent of calling someone a racist before the debate even begins—it is intended to shut down the conversation by marking the Christian with a label that they think everyone would reject with the hope of immediately discrediting the Christian in the eyes of “rational” people and rendering void anything that subsequently comes out their Christian opponent’s mouth, regardless of the substance or merits. After all, would anyone really want to agree with Hitler on anything? Almost as bad, does anyone want to be a “theocrat”? (Gasp!) It’s an intellectually lazy and dishonest debate tactic, but it’s an effective maneuver especially in modern political debates and discussion—precisely because it’s a cheap, easy way of “scoring points” without actually having to defend your position, especially when you can’t defend your own position on the merits.
Just to give a quick example of this would be the legalization of prostitution. Prostitution is a vile, violation of the natural law, divine law, and the sensibilities of most practicing Christians in America. Participating in prostitution has traditionally been considered a criminal act in most jurisdictions in the United States. Despite this reality, there is a large (and not insignificant) sect of secular humanist thought in America that actually supports the civil legalization of prostitution and loves to level the “this is theocracy!” charge against Christians who oppose such efforts.
I do not want to discuss the problems with prostitution under the natural law in this post, but my point is simply that the charge of “theocracy” is often used in this context. It gets used in other contexts as well, even when discussing abortion, euthanasia laws, blue laws, contraception, religious education…the list goes on.
But let’s go ahead and address the charge of “theocracy” when a Christian promotes and seeks to defend Christ the King and the natural law, including the Ten Commandments, in the public square.
In order to address the charge of theocracy, we first should define what a theocracy is. The online version of Webster’s Dictionary defines “theocracy” as “Government of a state by the immediate direction or administration of God; hence, the exercise of political authority by priests as representing the Deity.” The key here is that a priest, or religious official of some type, would exercise the political authority of the state. A classic example of this would be in Iran, where the Supreme Leader is Ali Khamenei, who holds both religious and secular authority.
As a matter of traditional, Catholic Christian doctrine, dating back to the time of Christ, it has never been the teaching or dogma that a secular political state must be, or should be, governed by a religious cleric or council of clerics. This is actually a myth developed over the centuries in effort to discredit the Church from exercising legitimate influence in matters of secular public policy. That’s not to say some individual bishops and popes have not sought or wielded significant power in secular affairs over the centuries, but there is a huge difference between influencing public policy and holding the actual reigns of secular government control. Nor does individual cases of clerical overreach in secular affairs affect the actual teaching of the Church. For an excellent treatment on how such a relationship between clerical and secular authorities worked together to further the Kingdom of Christ the King while maintaining separate spheres of authority, read Before Church and State: A Study of the Social Order in the Sacramental Kingdom of St. Louis IX by Andrew Willard Jones.
Without diving into very specific Biblical passages that address this issue such as Matthew 22:17-22 (“Repay to Caesar What Belongs to Caesar”)(this requires an individual post of its own), it was clear that while Christ certainly is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He also intended that secular authorities maintain a sphere of influence independent of religious authorities. Shockingly, Christ even acknowledged Pilate’s authority to put Him to death without denying he was in fact a king in his own right (John 18:36-37).
These concepts concerning the role between church and state became more important after Christianity was legalized by Constantine. Here St. Augustine makes a key point and distinction:
“If therefore anyone thinks that because he is Christian, he is not obligated to pay taxes or imposts or does not have to render the honor due to those powers which deal with these matters, he is seriously mistaken. Likewise, if anyone thinks that he must be subject in such a manner that the man who excels with a certain majesty in the administration of temporal affairs is thought to have power even over his faith, he falls into an even greater error.” (Expositio Quarumdam Propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos, 72).
What we see here is that Augustine recognized both civil authority and God’s authority with respect to secular civil affairs. Consistent with Christ’s admonition to “repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God” he granted to the civil authority significant power but also recognized it was subservient to God’s law. In other words, Augustine held that there are essentially two spheres of authority: secular and religious. And in the event there is conflict between God’s law and civil law, God’s law prevails. Saint Thomas Aquinas agreed with this later on and stated clearly that human (or positive/civil) laws that are contrary to the commandments of God must not be obeyed (see Summa Theologica, I-II q. 96, art. 4.)
This idea was more formalized in Pope Gelasius I’s letter to Roman emperor Anastasius in 494. His ideas have become known as the “Gelasian dyarchy”. The relevant portion of Galasius’ letter is as follows:
“For Christ, mindful of human frailty, regulated with an excellent disposition what pertained to the salvation of his people. Thus he distinguished between the offices of both powers according to their own proper activities and separate dignities, wanting his people to be saved by healthful humility and not carried away again by human pride, so that Christian emperors would need priests for attaining eternal life and priests would avail themselves of imperial regulations in the conduct of temporal affairs. In this fashion, spiritual activity would be set apart from worldly encroachments and the ‘soldier of God’ (2 Timothy 2:4) would not be involved in secular affairs, while on the other hand he who was involved in secular affairs would not seem to presided over Divine matters. Thus the humility of each order would be preserved, neither being exalted by the subservience of the other, and each profession would be especially fitted for its appropriate functions.”
There is obviously a lot more that could be said about the Church’s understanding of Church/state relations, but the key to understand is that the Church does not teach that individual clerics, religious authorities, or even the Pope must exercise sovereign authority over every political state. We don’t want the Bishop deciding rules about where and when you can park or what your tax rate should be! No! The Church simply teaches that the Church and natural law have a role to play in influencing public policy and that in the event a secular policy conflicts with the divine or natural law, the civil law cannot be followed. And yes, ideally we would like to have our secular rulers (non-clerics) govern using Christian principles and values in accordance with the divine and natural law. But that is not the same thing as a theocracy!
Furthermore, those who dispute that the Church or natural law has a role to play in influencing the civil law should be reminded that numerous criminal statutes on the books against such acts as murder, stealing, rape, obscenity, etc. all are consistent with natural law teachings and historically have had their roots in the Ten Commandments and Christian thought, at least in Western Civilization. While religious authority can advise and guide, ultimately it is the role of lay people to implement these ideals and principles in the public square and civil government.
The bottom line is that the charge of “theocracy!” is a straw man argument and one that should be dismissed right away. Wanting Christian values and principles enacted into law is not the same thing as wanting your pastor to run the local DMV or become the absolute monarch of a state.