Theocracy


 * For the metal band, refer to Theocracy (band).
 * For the computer strategy game, refer to Theocracy (computer game).

In modern, typical usage, theocracy means either government by divine guidance or, more commonly, government by or subject to religious institutions and leaders. Theocracies are either oligarchies or autocracies by the ruling priests. For believers, theocracy is a form of government in which divine power governs an earthly human state, either in a personal incarnation or, more often, via religious institutional representatives (i.e.: a church), replacing or dominating civil government. Theocratic governments enact theonomic laws.

Theocracy should be distinguished from other, secular forms of government that have a state religion, are influenced by theological concepts, and monarchies held "By the Grace of God".

A theocracy may be monist in form, where the administrative hierarchy of the government is identical with the administrative hierarchy of the religion, or it may have two 'arms,' but with the state administrative hierarchy subordinate to the religious hierarchy.

Some democratic political parties and other organizations advocate reconstruction of governments as a theocracies. See the article on the Islamic party. Other alleged examples include the Unification Church and Christian Reconstructionism.

Since theocracies are considered oppressive in democratic societies, states or political parties are sometimes called theocracies for rhetorical or propaganda purposes. For example, the book American Theocracy alleges that the United States is a theocracy.

History of the concept
The word theocracy originates from the Greek θεοκρατία (theokratia), meaning "the rule of God". This in turn derives from the Greek words θεος (theos, from an Indo-European root occurring in religious concepts), meaning “god,” and κρατειν (kratein), meaning “to rule.” Thus the meaning of the word in Greek was “rule by god(s)” or human incarnation(s) of god(s).

It was first coined by Josephus Flavius in the 1st century to describe the characteristic government for Jews. Josephus argued that while the Greeks recognized three types of government: monarcy, aristocracy, and anarchy, the Jews were unique in that they had a system of government that did not fit into those categories. Josephus understood theocracy as a fourth form of government in which only God and his law is sovereign. Josephus' definition was widely accepted until the enlightenment era, when the term started to collect more universalistic and undeniably negative connotations, especially in Hegel's hands.

The first recorded English use was in 1622, with the meaning "sacerdotal government under divine inspiration" (as in Biblical Israel before the rise of kings); the meaning "priestly or religious body wielding political and civil power" is recorded from 1825.

The word has been mostly used to label certain politically unpopular societies as somehow less rational or developed. The concept is used in sociology and other social sciences, but the term is often used inaccurately, especially in popular rhetoric.

Definition
In the most common usage of the term theocracy, some civil rulers are leaders of the dominant religion (e.g., the Byzantine Emperor as patron of the head of the official Church); the government claims to rule on behalf of God or a higher power, as specified by the local religion, and divine approval of government institutions and laws. These characteristics apply also to a Caesaropapist regime. The Byzantine empire however was not theocratic since the Patriarch answered to the Emperor, not vice versa; similarly in Tudor England the crown forced the church to break away from Rome so the royal (and, especially later, parliamentary) power could assume full control of the now Anglican hierarchy and confiscate most church property and income.

Taken literally or strictly, theocracy means rule by God or gods (but is commonly used as the generic term). The more specific term ecclesiocracy (literally: congregation-rule) denotes rule by a church or analgous religious leadership.

In a pure theocracy, the civil leader is believed to have a direct personal connection with God. For example, a prophet like the Israelites when they were ruled by Moses, or the early Muslims who were ruled by Mohammed. Law proclaimed by the ruler is also considered a divine revelation, and hence the law of God. An ecclesiocracy, on the other hand, is a situation where the religious leaders assume a leading role in the state, but do not claim that they are instruments of divine revelation. For example, the prince-bishops of the European Middle Ages, where the bishop was also the temporal ruler. The papacy in the Papal States occupied a middle ground between theocracy and ecclesiocrasy, since the pope did not claim he is a prophet who receives revelation from God, but merely the (in rare cases infallible) interpreter of already-received revelation.

Hierocracy is a term coined by Max Weber for the institutional forms of authority within a religious community. Despite its appearance it does not in fact refer to a form of general government. A related term is ecclesiastical government.

Governments commonly mistaken as theocracies
Theocracy and ecclesiocracy should be distinguished from governments that are influenced by religious concepts, or in which religious believers have positions of power gained by political means. An ecclesiocracy or theocracy is rule by the hierarchy of a specific church or sect, not simply a government influenced by religious concepts.

Monarchies in which the crown is held "By the Grace of God" are not necessarily theocracies. A monarchy that has religious legitimation may also dominate the religious sphere (Caesaropapism), or it may be so dependent on the religious hierarchy for legitimation that the state has no autonomy from religion (theocracy). Typically, religiously endorsed monarchies fall between these two poles, according to the relative strengths of the religious and political organs.

Secular governments can also coexist with a state religion or delegate some aspects of civil law to religious communities. For example, in Israel civil marriage is governed by Jewish religious institutions for Jews, by Muslim religious institutions for Muslims, and by Christian religious institutions for Christians. India similarly delegates control of marriage and some other civil matters to the religious communities, in large part as a way of accommodating its Muslim minority.

Iran
Most observers would consider Iran a theocracy, since the elected president and legislature are constitutionally subject to the supervision of two offices reserved for Shia clerics: the Supreme Leader of Iran (Rahbar) and the Guardian Council, which even decide who may run for office.

Iran is also considered a "semi-democracy", like China or Russia. However, Iranian authorities themselves consider Iran a theo-democracy or religious democracy. The Supreme Leader is considered as the ultimate head of state and government, whereas the President is granted as the prime executor of policy. However, in the recent years Mohammad Khatami has called Iranian political system as an alternative democratic model so called religious democracy.

Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is run according to a version of shari'a (traditional Islamic legislation) with the Quran declared to be the constitution and is therefore sometimes classified as theocratic, but it is officially and in political fact a hereditary monarchy, with the King wielding near-absolute power and the organs of official religion subservient to them, which is rather caesaropapism: a state structure in which the government ('Caesar') is also in control of the main religious institutions.

The Vatican
The Vatican City State is theocratic in a very limited sense, since it has temporal rule over a small territory, but that is not its primary function. As per the Lateran Treaties, secular laws and practices in the Vatican follow those of Italy. Responsibility for security, including keeping outside invaders at bay and prosecution of criminals, is shared by the Vatican's own armed force, the Swiss Guard, and the Italian state.

The Papal States -- the predecessor to the Vatican City State -- functioned more theocratically, with penalties that included excommunication.

Athos (The Holy Mountain) Greece
Mount Athos is the only autonomous administrative department in Greece, which is a country run according to Roman Law and is otherwise entirely a unitary state. Mount Athos is theocratic in that it is ruled entirely by the monks under their own council from the capital Karyes, and it controls who can visit. Only Orthodox Christian males are allowed to stay permanently on Athos, which consists of 20 Monastic establishments. Its spiritual leadership is the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople based in Istanbul. There is a religious police guard that has the authority to impose order, e.g. bans the playing of musical instruments by visitors. The Greek police also have authority with the monks' permission to enforce the civil law of Greece and decisions of the Patriarchate in accordance with the Canon, e.g. the decision to evict the monks of the renegade Esphigmenou monastery. Athos has upheld derogations from the EU allowing them to continue the prohibition of the entry of females (including female mammals) on the mountain. This isn't because they are male monks, but because the mountain is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and this is an important historical fact of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Religious communities
Theocracy, as a form of ruling the state, should be distinguished from the internal order of a religious community. The Knights Hospitaller is a religious order with an internal rule, but this does not make it a theocracy. Many states incorporate elements of religious law in their civil laws, but if these laws are administered by civil courts according to the logic of the state, this does not constitute a theocratic element in their constitutions.

Andorra
Andorra's government is in some aspect nominally theocratic in that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgell is one of its co-princes, although the role is virtually entirely ceremonial.

The UK
England has a minor theocratic aspect because the monarch is "Supreme Governor" of the Church of England and "defender of the faith." This has been the case since the Protestant Reformation in England, under Henry VIII. It should be noted however, that the monarch has virtually no real power and their positions as head of state and of the church are purely ceremonial. Hence, the ruling government is not subject to any religious interference, and England is a multi-faith society. This does not apply to Scotland, whose Church of Scotland does not have the same relation to the Country, nor to Wales and Northern Ireland, which have no established church. Queen Elizabeth II, however, is a member of the Church of Scotland and appoints a representative to the General Assembly of the church if she cannot attend personally.

Norway
While Norway's population is relatively non-religious in their day-to-day lives, the Norwegian state retains a few vestigial religious overtones. As in many constitutional monarchies, the Head of State is also the leader of the state church. The 12th article of the Constitution of Norway requires more than half of the members of the Norwegian Council of State to be members of the state church. The second article guarantees freedom of religion, while also stating that Evangelical Lutheranism is the official state religion.

On July 9, 2006 a prominent member of HEF, Jens Brun-Pedersen, called for the Prime Minister to advocate the separation of church and state. He argues that the 12th article of the constitution is discriminatory, and that Norway can't criticise countries advocating sharia law when the constitution favours Lutheran members of society.

Israel
Israel can be regarded as somewhat theocratic given the state promotion of Jewish institutions for the purposes of the country's integrity as the 'Jewish Homeland'. Israel's Law of Return grants any Jew the right to become a citizen of the country with the aim of facilitating their immigration to what the State of Israel views as their ancestral homeland. Israel's Basic Law: The Knesset (1985, Amendment No 9) states that a political list may not participate in elections if its party platform implies the "denial of the existence of the state of Israel as the state of Jewish people".

There is a small amount of intertwining of Jewish law (Halakha) and civil law, particularly with regards to the enforcement of Orthodox Jewish weddings for Jewish citizens, rather than allowing freedom to have a civil marriage (although these sorts of laws are being fought and revoked on a constant basis). Another promoted institution is that of the 'yeshiva'- an Orthodox Jewish seminary, often funded to a large extent by the state. A member of any religion can be a citizen of Israel with full and equal rights under the law.

Historical theocracies
The largest and best known theocracies in history were the Umayyad and early Abassid Caliphate, and the Papal States. And as with any other state or empire, pragmatism was part of the politics of these de jure theocracies.

In Antiquity
An example often given from Antiquity is Pharaonic Egypt when the king was a divine or semi-divine figure who ruled largely through priests. Properly speaking this was originally a caesaropapist order, rather than a theocratic one, since the worldly rulers took charge of religion, rather than vice versa, but once the Pharaoh (since Ramses the Great) was recognized as a living (incarnated) god both definitions concurred.

Protestant Theocracies
Geneva, during the period of John Calvin's greatest influence and the Massachusetts Bay Colony of the "Puritans" had many characteristics of Protestant theocracies.

Florence
During the short regin (1494-1498) of Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican Priest, the city of Florence could have been considered a theocracy. During his rule, un-Christian books, statues, poetry, and other items were burned (in the Bonfire of the Vanities), sodomy was made a capital offense, and other Christian practices became law.

Deseret
Another ecclesiocracy was the administration of the short-lived State of Deseret, an independent entity briefly organized in the American West by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. See also Theodemocracy.

Montenegro
Montenegro offers a singular example of monarchs willingly turning their power to ecclesiastic authority, as the last of the House of Crnojević (styled Grand Voivode, not sovereign princes) did, in order to preserve national unity before the Ottoman onslaught as a separate millet under an autochthonous Ethnarch. When Montenegro re-established secular dynastic succession by the proclamation of princedom in 1851, it did so in favor of the last Prince-bishop, who changed his style from Vladika i upravitelj Crne Gore i Brde "Vladika [bishop] and Ruler of Montenegro and Brda" to Po Bozjoj milosti knjaz i gospodar Crne Gore i Brde "By the grace of God Prince and Sovereign of Montenegro and Brda," thus rendering his de facto dynasty (the Petrović-Njegoš family since 1696) a hereditary one.

Historical Islamic theocracies
In Islam, the period when Medina was ruled by the Prophet Muhammad is, occasionally, classed as a theocracy. By 630, Muhammad established a theocracy in Mecca. Other plausible examples of Islamic theocracy might be Mahdist Sudan and the Taliban state in Afghanistan (1996-2001). Most irregular was the non-permanent rule of the Akhoonds (imams) in the later princely state of Swat, a valley in (first British India's, later Pakistan's) North-West Frontier Province. Theocratic movements arose in the Arab world in the 1970s. Reaction against Western domination was expressed by nationalism which led to Theocratic fundamentalism.

Historical Buddhist theocracies
The period when Dalai Lamas ruled Tibet, especially before certain twentieth century reforms, has also been deemed a Lamaist (Buddhist) theocracy till his government was forced into exile by the People's Republic of China which annexed the country. However the nature of Tibetan Buddhism makes the use of the term technically incorrect, since in Buddhism not divinities but 'saints' are reincarnated as bodhisattvas, rendered as 'living Buddhas,' and often assume clerical, occasionally even political offices. Outer Mongolia also had a theocratic Lama (before the Soviets installed a satellite communist state), but there since the start in 1639, when the son of the Mongol Khan of Urga was named a Living Buddha (Bogdo gegeen), the dynasty espoused theocracy and secular aristocracy.

Other
Japan was a nominal theocracy until it was defeated in World War II when emperor Hirohito was forced to deny in the Ningen-sengen (人間宣言) the traditional claim that the Emperor of Japan was divine, and a descendant of Amaterasu (天照) (the sun goddess). During this period, although the Emperor had some influence, Japan was a constitutional democracy ultimately dominated by the military.

Sources and external links

 * EtymologyOnLine
 * Is Judaism a Theocracy? chabad.org
 * First Things, August/September 2006, p. 23-30 - Theocracy, Theocracy, Theocracy
 * Caliphate: The Future of Islamic Theocracy
 * Freedom of Religion in Israel

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