Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Many prominent blogs, including many people I consider allies and colleagues, are participating this weekend in the Blogswarm Against Theocracy. It's a worthwhile project, of course, and I applaud the effort in general. However, at the risk of being accused of indulging in a self-aggrandizing iconoclasm, I'm going to take a slightly different tack. I'd like to take the opportunity to deliver a word of caution to people with whom I am generally allied in the fight against theocracy to avoid the kind of simplistic over-generalizing that we fight against and object to when it's engaged in by our opponents.
Let me start by being blunt: I think we overuse terms like "theocracy" and "dominionism" (and by "we" I mean those of us who are engaged in various culture war issues and in political battles against, for lack of a better term, the religious right). I'm not going to be specific on who I think does that, but I think it's something that needs to be confronted. I've written a great deal over the last few years against those who advocate theocracy; it's something I feel very strongly about and will fight to the bitter end to avoid.
But I think we must be careful not to allow that passion to override our intellectual rigor and cause us to paint with too broad a brush, or to over-apply a term to those who don't fit it. Too many on our side of the battle lines, I think, use those terms too broadly. In particular, I think we tend to throw it around too casually and stick it on someone for little reason other than guilt by association. I learned this lesson myself a couple years ago when I falsely labeled Herb Titus a reconstructionist.
Herb Titus used to be the dean of Pat Robertson's law school at Regent University. I had heard stories that he was fired because Robertson was trying to distance himself from Christian reconstructionists (that story came from Sara Diamond, a prominent anti-theocracy writer). I mentioned that story on this blog and was surprised to find out that one of my regular readers, who is an atheist, is good friends with Titus. And through a now-mutual friend, I got to go on a radio show with Titus and we began communicating after that. Turns out that story is false and that Titus is not a reconstructionist at all.
After appearing on the radio show with Herb, we had the opportunity to communicate. He also began communicating with Jon Rowe, who had also written that he was a reconstructionist. Herb was kind enough to send me copies of several articles and a book he's written on the subject and they show that he rejects reconstructionism, largely on theological grounds, and that his views, while I still disagree with them strongly, are not reasonably labeled that way.
Don't get me wrong: I strongly disagree with most of his positions on most issues (though not all of them). I find some of them quite disturbing. But he's not a theocrat, nor a reconstructionist. That he sometimes speaks at conferences with Gary DeMar and other actual theocrats does not make him one and we should be careful about glossing over genuine distinctions and differences of opinion even, perhaps especially, among those whose views we oppose.
Sometimes the overly broad generalizations turn into the absolutely absurd. For instance, I have seen several writers just casually combine theocracy with libertarian ideas. I presume they do this because some theocrats, like Gary North, like to call themselves "Christian libertarians." I've seen them claim that libertarians are somehow in league with theocrats to destroy democracy. This despite the fact that libertarians actually tend to be atheists and that theocrats are the furthest thing from libertarians.
I also don't think we should use the term theocrat to describe all conservative Christians, evangelicals or fundamentalists; that is simply painting with too broad a brush. A theocrat is someone who wants the country to be ruled by the rules of a particular religion, in this country nearly always Christian of course. It's reasonable, even necessary in my view, to fight against the views held by many conservative Christians; I do so constantly on this blog. But while people like Joe Carter and David Heddle may be conservative evangelicals, and I may disagree with them on most things, they certainly are not theocrats or dominionists, and it's not reasonable to lump them in with the RJ Rushdoonys of the world.
And when it comes to separation of church and state, we really need to distinguish between accomodationists and theocrats. Some people who oppose separation of church and state are theocrats who really do believe that the nation should be ruled based on Biblical law (Roy Moore, for example); most, however, are merely accomodationists, people who support non-coercive public propping up of religious belief in general. If that alone makes one a theocrat then George Washington and John Adams were both theocrats, and that's a pretty silly claim to make.
By over-generalizing we run the risk of ruining the word theocrat when it really does apply and becoming like the boy who cried wolf. Just because someone thinks the phrase "in God we trust" should be on the money doesn't mean they think we should be stoning homosexuals to death or imprisoning people for blasphemy. The vast majority of people who support such incidental government support for religion, I have no doubt, would be appalled by the idea of replacing the civil and criminal law of the land with the Mosaic law.
So that is my plea to those I know and to those I don't who are engaged in these culture war battles with me. Please be careful when using such terms and not apply them too broadly. We need not fall into the same trap that so many of our opponents do when they regularly paint anyone who disagrees with them as Satan-worshiping communists out to destroy Christianity. Save those labels for those they really fit so that we can preserve their meaning and engage our opponents with more intellectual seriousness than they often engage us with. There are real theocrats out there, some of whom have access to power, and they must be fought. But we do not help our cause in that fight by draining the relevance and meaning out of our rhetoric through overuse and false application.
Comments
Ed, why aren't you taking part in the "Blog Against Theocracy"? I would think this post, in particular, would fit right in and help bring the focus onto those genuine theocrats we should be fighting.
Posted by: doctorgoo | April 7, 2007 7:48 PM
Well, I guess this is my contribution to it. I don't know if it'll get linked or not.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 7, 2007 8:00 PM
WTF! shades of gray and talking to people you disagree with like they were people!? You'll never get anywhere in the pundit biz.
Posted by: kellgo | April 7, 2007 8:58 PM
I don't know what thinking went into the planning of the swarm, but timing it to coincide with Easter probably wasn't the best way to avoid Christian Persecution Syndrome(TM)among the O'Reilley's and Donahue's of the world. Frankly, if Jesus were into politics, I imagine he would have done something about the Romans, rather than that "render unto Caesar" blather. Where Jesus rules the heart, the state is pointless; where he does not, it is useless: In any case, it is of no concern to His church.
So I will wake in the morning to the strains of the Bach St. Matthew's Passion and give thanks for each of my friends, Christian and secular alike, and proclaim with the angels, "He is risen, He is risen indeed!"
Happy Easter and peace to all.
Kurt
Posted by: kehrsam | April 7, 2007 9:22 PM
I've just been watching a fascinating BBC documentary about the religious extremist Fred Phelps and his family. It shows that things are never as simple as they seem on the surface, and when you did a little you can be surprised at what you can find:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2fUyJQgRuM&mode=related&search=
The show left me deeply saddened, not by anything Phelps has done to America, but what he has wrought on his own extended family.
Posted by: tacitus | April 7, 2007 10:25 PM
If the only people you want to call theocrats are people who openly endorse the ideas of R. J. Rushdoony, then you may as well forget about fighting theocracy, those people aren't a threat.
The threat comes from people who pay lip service to religious freedom, but cannot tell the difference between an assult on their freedoms and the free exercise of freedoms by people of other viewpoints. This is a viewpoint that has been cultivated by many leaders of the religious right, and we shouldn't be afraid to call them hypocrites.
Posted by: Chris Hallquist | April 8, 2007 12:26 AM
Happy Easter and peace to all.
You have a happy Easter too, man.
Posted by: 386sx | April 8, 2007 2:28 AM
I'm with Chris Halliquist on this one - the threat I see from the social conservative movement is not the institution of a "Christian" version of the Taliban regime, but rather the insistence of specific social conservatives on enshrining their religious viewpoint in our laws on social policy. If you read the writings of the "religious right," you find the continuing argument that "Christian" values and ideals, as interpreted by them, of course, are not only the bedrocks of our civilization, our civilization will actually collapse if we move at all away from those values and ideals - that there is no other viable platform on which to build social understanding and the social contract.
It is not the threat of a theocracy being put into place that worries me, it is those who argue we already have one - and that the freedoms promised us in the Constitution are interpretable only in the narrow framework of the "Christian" viewpoint.
Posted by: CPT_Doom | April 8, 2007 8:06 AM
Apropos of this comment by Mr. Brayton, is an article in todays' Washington Post about the hiring practices in the Bush justice department. The article describes the infiltration of the Government during the current administration of graduates of third rate religious colleges like Pat Robertsons' Regent University. In particular, the presence of people like "I'm taking the Fifth Amendment" Monica Goodling should be a wake up call to anyone concerned about the separation of church and state. The only question is, why haven't the MSM been writing about these hiring practices earlier?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR2007040601799.html?sub=AR
Posted by: SLC | April 8, 2007 8:49 AM
Nice job Ed.
I would like to make an additional, hopefully relevant comment . . .
In addition to the problem that all sides have in painting each other with too broad a brush, I think there is also a lost opportunity that comes from not exploring areas of agreement with an energy and passion roughly equal to what we spend on our disagreements. It is very easy to assume that because the various sides in the "culture war" disagree on many, important things, that there are no such areas of agreement. I have found this to be incorrect. I have also found that when these areas of agreement are sought and discussed, interesting and productive things start to happen on the disagreement side of the ledger.
For what it's worth ...
Perry
Posted by: Perry Willis | April 8, 2007 10:06 AM
To CPT and Chris Hallquist-
No one, least of all me, is suggesting that we not take seriously the agenda of the religious right. After all, that is what I spend most of my time and effort on here. I am only suggesting that we not allow that battle to obscure relevant distinctions. The problem is that we may well do to 'theocracy' what has already been done by the right to words like 'liberal' or 'pagan' or 'Darwinist' - turn them into nothing more than a buzzword that means "whatever we hate." I don't think we should be emulating the worst traits of our opponents here. We can, indeed must, fight against those things we all agree on; we don't need to engage in the same sort of sloganeering that we object to when applied to us in order to do that.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 8, 2007 11:56 AM
"I think we overuse terms like "theocracy" and "dominionism" ... By over-generalizing we run the risk of ruining the word theocrat when it really does apply and becoming like the boy who cried wolf."
You are absolutely right. It is a gross distortion of a term in order to rhetorically poison the well against all Christian conservatives. Instead of confronting a particular position on its own terms, there is a tendency to exclaim "Dominionist!," or even more colorful labels like "Christian Taliban," "Christofascist," and "Christopath."
There is an irony here in that many of those who are hypervigilant about Christian conservatives and demonize them as Taliban, fascists etc. hardly say a peep about a much larger network of real theocrats, the counterparts not of ordinary Christian conservatives, but of Reconstructionists or even worse groups like Christian identity - namely, the actual Taliban, Ikhwan, Deobandist, Salafist, and Khomeinist movements. "Anti-theocrats" talk about an American Gilead, but often regard reports of real Handmaid Tale countries (or their manifestation in Europe, such as neighborhoods where immigrant women are subject honor killing) as neocon propaganda or racism against those they post-ironically call "brown people." Such situations are only visible if they are useful for bashing US foreign policy (the alliance with the Saudis, Islamism in the wake of Saddam, the failure to rid Afghanistan of theocracy). Otherwise, who cares? Condemn Iran for hanging gays or the murder of Iranian-Canadian journalist Zahra Kazemi? Why, that's neocon hate-mongering.
(Curiously, while Darfur is a popular progressive cause - though there are cracks in the left of center like a wretched piece Mahmood Mamdani linked to by 3 Quarks Daily - few progressives seem prepared to link the genocide in Darfur with the larger issue of Islamist jihadism.)
I read almost nothing on left of center blogs and websites about brave Muslim reformers like Asra Nomani (friend of Daniel Pearl), Irshad Manji (Canadian lesbian Muslim), jailed Egyptian blogger Abdul Kareem Nabeel Suleiman and many others. And certainly nothing about those, like Turkish author Necla Kelek, who have left Islam for freethought and atheism, often risking their lives. Leftists who are consumed with demonizing ordinary Christian conservatives (or trashing Christianity in general) have no use for such people, even though they also oppose theocracy and religious extremism (but far more bravely).
Posted by: Colugo | April 8, 2007 1:09 PM
Tacitus,
Thanks for the hat tip. For some reason their hate filled bizzare rants entertain me. That was a great documentary.
Posted by: Jon Rowe | April 8, 2007 3:45 PM
It's that fine line that I wonder about sometimes. I've written at length about the Bush administration's "faith-based initiative," which seems to be little more that a taxpayer-funded cottage industry for evangelical proselytizing, and pay-off for the Republican party's religious conservative supporters.
However, I've had at least one (Christian) friend argue to me that just because this Bush initiative has been a joke at best and a scandal at worse doesn't mean I should be against tax dollars going to religious organizations. But I think it's illustrative of exactly why the state shouldn't be funding religion.
Is the concept of a "faith-based" initiative accomodationist? It certainly doesn't count as "non-coercive" in my book, given what happens if I don't pay taxes. At this point, as a gay man, I'm paying taxes to support religious organizations that discriminate against gays. I guess I'm just wondering what falls into the category of "non-coercive" and what doesn't?
Posted by: Terrance | April 8, 2007 5:46 PM
Kurt wrote:
Where Jesus rules the heart, the state is pointless; where he does not, it is useless: In any case, it is of no concern to His church.
Worth repeating. The Jesus promoted by the Christian right (and the Christian left) is a Jesus I don't recognize.
Posted by: Dr. X | April 8, 2007 8:03 PM
Terrance wrote:
I would not call this coercive, no. By non-coercive I mean that a policy does not force you to participate in any religious exercise. A government thanksgiving proclamation is also printed at government expense, but I don't think that makes it coercive rather than accomodationist. Washington and Adams, as I've mentioned many times, issued innumerable such declarations because they were merely suggestive and no one was actually forced to participate. They both believed that such non-coercive support for religion was not only constitutional but very important for maintaining a virtuous society, but neither would have allowed a policy that actually required a citizen to believe something or act as though they do.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 8, 2007 9:27 PM
Beware of Zach Johnson. (heh)
Posted by: stevesh | April 8, 2007 9:41 PM
There's a fine line between being an accomodationist and an enabler. Just don't paint the accomodationists with too broad a brush Ed.
Posted by: Soldats | April 9, 2007 10:53 AM
Maybe theocracy will always be an overblown threat in this country. The 1% who control the vast amounts of wealth and power -- corporatist quasi robber barons like the oil exec who made $400, 000, 000 last year -- would never allow any religious control of the nation. Their major spiritual (mental?) illness -- manic greed -- has, as corollaries, narcissism and hedonism. No "moral" Christian coersion would ever be permitted to infringe on the lifestyles of millionaires and billionaires. That's my assertion, anyway.
Posted by: Tim B. | April 9, 2007 8:21 PM
I really could not disagree more. Sure, there are many examples of things that are NOT theocracy, but the blogsward is not in response to those. Instead, it is in response to a Justice Department being managed at the level immediately below the Attorney General by grossly inexperienced and unqualified attorneys whose only "qualificiation" is attending a fourth (out of four) tier lawschool with a religious basis. It is an Administration that thinks "faith-based" means "Christian-based," and pumps federal funds into evangelical causes. It means a Civil Rights division that stopped performing the task for which it was created, protecting the rights of racial and ethnic minorities to vote, and started actively pursuing the cause of religion in our schools and public institutions.
Sorry, but the fact that there are some religious people who are not theocrats does not mean theocracy is not a threat.
Posted by: dhonig | April 10, 2007 10:04 AM
dhonig wrote:
I agree. Now if you can show me where I said that theocracy is not a threat, you might have a point. But I didn't say that. I said that not every bad idea coming from the religious right is tantamount to theocracy and we shouldn't misuse the label to apply to ideas it doesn't apply to.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 10, 2007 12:11 PM
Ed wrote:
"...Gary DeMar and other actual theocrats..."
I wonder if you have actually read much by DeMar. You may enjoy reading what he has to say about "theocracy." I wonder whether you agree with his definition of it, and if not -why.
It would have been nice if the bloggers-contra-"theocracy" actually defined their terms and quoted sources in context. I couldn't find any who did.
http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/12-03-04.asp
http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive/08-10-06.asp
http://www.americanvision.org/articlearchive2007/02-26-07.asp
Posted by: Baus | April 10, 2007 8:17 PM
Baus-
Yes, I've read quite a bit from DeMar. And nothing in those three links you left changes my judgment in the slightest - DeMar is a theocrat. I am well aware of his claim that theocracy is inevitable and that the lack of theocracy IS theocracy; I find it absolutely laughable, every bit as laughable as when people claim that science is a religion.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | April 10, 2007 10:35 PM
Could you point me to where you (or someone you agree with) has addressed DeMar's argument that theocracy is inevitable (viz, that all law/law-making takes something as its Ultimate source)?
I would like to hear your reasons for finding it laughable.
Posted by: Baus | April 13, 2007 3:56 PM
Also, how is the position of Herb Titus any different on that point? My understanding is that Herb makes the same claim.
Posted by: Baus | April 13, 2007 4:34 PM
I don't mean to go overboard with the follow-up inquiry, since you haven't had the chance to reply yet... but I should include this last question too:
You wrote that:
"...the fact that... theocrats are the furthest thing from libertarians."
How do you account for the radical libertarianism of Christian Reconstructionist advocates of "theocracy" such as Rushdoony who identity their libertarianism along the lines of A.J. Nock?
http://www.chalcedon.edu/articles/article.php?ArticleID=2718
Posted by: Baus | April 15, 2007 3:04 PM
WELL, DUH!
Of course we'll link you, Ed honey. All you hadda do was email it to me.
All bloggers invited, smart bloggers impelled.
Welcome to the party. Grab some punch: I saved ya a seat near the dais. xo
Posted by: Blue Gal | April 15, 2007 5:58 PM
I know this conversation is long over, but I found it interesting.
From my perspective, the anti-religious left's hysteria about "theocracy" is amusing. Yes, there are a few crackpots who want to have a theocracy, just as there are a few crackpots who believe that evolution implies Nazi-like social policies.
Getting all upset about such people is the adult equivalent of a young boy wishing there were dragons for him to slay.
Posted by: GregK | August 13, 2008 3:20 PM