Was America a theocracy for most of its history?

Great Debates
1

I’m a bit curious about statements like this one equating certain positions with “theocracy”. The term is defined as a system of government in which ecclesiastic authorities hold power. If the people hold power through elected representatives, that’s democracy, regardless of whether or not the people choose laws of a religious character. However, many on this board insist that certain laws are examples of theocracy. The most commonly listed are gay marriage, abortion, and religious practice and teaching in public schools.

Regarding gay marriage, it was nowhere legal at any time from the country’s founding until Massachusetts first legalized it a decade ago. If we use that as a yardstick, then America must have been a theocracy for over two centuries.

Regarding public schools, it was the norm to have students pray and to use the Bible to some degree, for most of American history until the Supreme Court changed the law in a series of decisions in the 60’s and 70’s. Of course public schools didn’t always exist everywhere in the early years, but where they did, that was the norm. So by that yardstick as well, America has almost always been a theocracy.

The history of abortion law in more complicated. It’s my understanding that in the early years there were few abortion laws, mainly because there were few abortions. However for most of the 20th century at least, abortion on demand was not legal in most states. So by that yardstick, once again the USA has a long history of theocracy.

The odd thing is, though, that many of the same people who insist that these things are examples of theocracy also tell me that the United States is quite definitely not a Christian nation and that the founding fathers quite definitely wanted a strict divide between religion and government. The two beliefs would seem to be in conflict.

We could also note that many nations which are widely acknowledged as not religious have precisely those laws which some claim are examples of theocracy. On the abortion issue, laws which drive abortion rights advocates berserk in the USA are the norm throughout most of the world. For instance, here efforts to make abortion illegal past the 20th week of pregnancy provoke cries of outrage. In France, by contrast, abortion for non-medical reasons is illegal past the 12th week of pregnancy, and I’ve never heard anyone complaining about this fact. Yet France is often listed among the least religious countries. Why doesn’t anyone claim that France is a theocracy?

2

It was at least a semi-theocracy yes.

Not if the elected officials do what the churches tell them; then it’s still a theocracy, just an indirect one. And most people aren’t all dictionary-definition nitpicky when they use the term anyway; I think that most people would consider a society run according to religious rules a theocracy whether or not the people making the decisions called themselves priests, senators or lords.

Only if you assume that the “founding fathers” got what they wanted.

Because France is “among the least religious countries”, of course. Opposition to abortion is about misogyny; it’s strongly connected to religion because hatred of women is central to most religions. But it’s not the only source of misogyny, just one of the most common and pernicious.

3

I say no, and certainly not for two centuries. You might have a case for the earliest years of the nation, when we had things like Massachusetts’s official Congregationalist Church.

A democracy will always reflect the culture of the people that make up the nation, that’s a given. And, religion is a major part of culture, so some religious values will become law.

But that doesn’t make a nation a theocracy. For that, you’d need a direct link between a religion and a government. As you note, American government officials are seldom-to-never priests. Also, do we see religious doctrine being made directly into law? I say no. Consider the Ten Commandments, a central tenet of Christianity.

Was it illegal to hold other Gods before the Christian one? No.
Was it illegal to make graven images? No.
Was it illegal to take the Lord’s name in vain? No.
Was it illegal to work on the Sabbath? No.
Was it illegal to dishonor your parents? No.

And so on. Now, I’m sure that early on in our history, some of that was illegal. But certainly not for two centuries!

4

America’s never been a theocracy. Even those American colonies preindependence, like Massachusetts, where there there was a state church with major influence, weren’t theocracies. A theocracy is a state that’s ruled by God (through God’s mortal representatives), where people have control by virtue of their religious position. So, 1990s Arkansas wasn’t a theocracy just because the governor was Baptist minister Mike Huckabee, and 1970s Massachusetts wasn’t a theocracy just because one of its congressional representatives was Catholic priest Fr. Drinan.

Actual theocracies are pretty rare in this world, and somebody who says the US was ever a theocracy is using hyperbole. Of course, there’s a pretty large range of viewpoints between “theocracy” and “no religious influence in government.”, and, in the past, like you said, more laws had a religious character than is true today. And, you can criticize a country’s laws as being overly motivated by religious belief or insufficiently secular without at the same time claiming you live in a theocracy.

5

In GD, we call that 100% weasel wording.

No, it’s not.

Some of the colonies were clearly founded on Theocratic grounds, but by the time of the ratification of the Constitution, we can safely say that was a thing of the past. A few states had Established Churches and even laws about church attendance, but they didn’t last very long.

6

There is no conflict or disconnect there; they are saying simply that the persistence of theocratic impulses in our political culture is not consistent with what the drafters of the Constitution intended, envisioned and hoped for.

7

You are confusing history with future projection.

When prayer was common in public schools, there was a nearly monolithic, generally Protestant, culture in the U.S. that simply included such prayer in schools as the norm. There may have been a theocratic tinge to it, but there was no claim that they were doing so because God demanded it or that God ordained it.
It got a bit closer to theocracy when mobs went out and murdered Catholics and burnt down their neighborhoods to regulate which translation of the bible would be used in schools, but there still was pretty much no invocation of the Divine to support the actions of the various school boards. In fact, a number of efforts to make God more prominent in government were explicitly rejected by the majority prior to the Civil War. (Getting “In God We trust” stamped on the coinage in 1864 was a sort of “Hey! We’re at war. Let’s sneak this in, to curry God’s favor” act that had no follow-up.) Later expansion of that phrase to the currency, adding a new Motto (E Pluribus Unum has never been officially rescinded; we have two mottoes), and throwing “under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance were all more or less attempts to express cultural beliefs (against the “godless commies”) than they were actual efforts to bring God into government.

The secular aspect of the government has held steadily through our history. In a period when the overwhelming majority of people shared a fairly consistent set of religious beliefs, those beliefs were expressed in government declarations, simply because few people would have spoken without invoking those beliefs.

However, beginning with the horde of Catholic immigrants and extending through Jewish immigration and, later, the decline in general Religious belief, the common religious cultural assumptions have fragmented and it is no longer normal for every utterance to be couched in religious terms.

Where the theocracy tag comes into play is when efforts are made to introduce legislation that explicitly invokes God as the source of the effort. “God” wants prayer back in schools. “God” prohibits abortion. “God” opposes homosexuality. And so on.

If the very reason that legislation is introduced is to carry out the will of God, then we are, indeed, acting in a theocratic manner.

8

A weird historical note is that most of the accusations of theocratic rule that were made in this country were made by mainstream Protestants. It was an accusation made against Catholics. The Protestants claimed that Catholics couldn’t participate in democracy or hold elected offices because they were subject to orders from religious authorities in Rome.

9

When I was in first grade, in a Philadelphia public school where vitually all students were Jewish, Mrs. Sullivan read us passages from the King James Bible. This was common throughout Pennsylvania at the time. The next year, the Supreme Court ruled against it, and it was quickly stopped.

I do not think prayer in school was the norm, unless you count incidental prayers in the Bible.

And, putting on my asbestos suit, I think being exposed to stories from the Christian Bible was more educational than the readings from modern fiction that replaced the Bible.

America was not a theocracy through most of its history. Connecticut was, until the 1840’s, the exception, with non-Chrisitians forbidden from worshiping openly or voting.

10

No the US was not a theocracy. Some over-wrought people may post on the internet that it was, but it wasn’t.

That said, it is nice that non-christian students do not have to recite Christian prayers, Gays can get marriage benefits for those they love, and women do not have to bring babies they can’t raise to term.

Glad we got that sorted out.

11

I disagree. Theocracy is rule by a religious organization. As long as there is republican government via a democratically-elected legislature, the fact that some legislation expresses the values and mores of religious people does not, in my view, constitute a theocracy. Indeed, to argue that only non-religious value judgments belong in the political arena strikes me as discriminatory (and unworkable – should it be impermissible for the government to prohibit theft because for some people, that prohibition originates from the Bible?).

12

By this standard Saudi Arabia isn’t a theocracy.:dubious:

13

I am not sure what your disagreement is. I have made no claim that we are or will become a theocracy. However, when the goals of those who wish to govern are determined almost exclusively by their particular religious belief, they are acting in a theocratic manner, even if they do not achieve a theocracy.

If the Religious Right was able to actually take control of the government, (something I doubt will occur in the foreseeable future), then they would, indeed, have a “religious organization” in charge, even if the country still (barely) tolerated opposition parties.

14

I see the term as structural, while I think you see it as ideological. As I see it, as long as the mechanisms for obtaining power and passing legislation remain neutral as to religion, it’s not a theocracy. A functioning pluralist democracy remains rule by the people and not rule by a religion, even when religious people or a religious party sometimes win, in my view.

Likewise, I do not believe that voters or politicians whose goals are motivated by religion are acting in a theocratic manner, as long as they are acting within the normal political processes of a pluralist democracy, and their goal is not to subvert those processes. I think they’re acting like every other voter and politician in promoting the values and laws that they think are best for the country.

15

I agree with Tom and not Tom on this one.

I also think it’s a structural issue. If a country enacts a law against gay marriage, for example, because the majority of its citizenry wants it that’s democracy, even if the reason for their opinion is their religious belief. Theocracy would be when some religious authority is in a position to enact a law against gay marriage without being answerable to any secular authority.

16

Does anyone think Saudi Arabia is a theocracy? Political power there rests in the monarch and the royal clan. While the law is based on Islamic law, it’s the monarch that enforces it, not the religious heads. The power of the religious heads is limited to how much they can influence the monarch, no different than any other faction.

Of course, by that same standard, the United Kingdom is a theocracy, since the head of the Church of England is also the head of state. But then we’ll have to quibble about exactly what “holds power” means.