Should Christians want a Theocracy?

 In recent years, the topic of Christian Nationalism has emerged as, well, popular and much discussed.  A big part of the debate is what Christian Nationalism even is.  But more importantly, there is the big question of whether Christians should want to make the Bible the foundation of the law of the United States.  Should we make it against the law to skip church?  Should there be a fine?  If you say no, then how about abortion?  Should abortion be outlawed purely because of religious motivations?  Until recently, homosexual practice was technically illegal in many areas due to sodomy laws.  Although perhaps not really enforced, should Christians work to bring such laws back?  Doesn't the Bible condemn such activities as sinful?

Sometimes, it troubles me how many controversies are actually philosophical in nature.  People can argue about many things.  And as arguments continue, they go to more and more foundational disagreements.  Eventually, you go into areas that are just assumptions, and nobody really questions.  That is, nobody really questions it until a new group emerges that does.  Nobody else is sure how to respond because people don't study philosophy.  They are learned in fields that just make all sort of assumptions.  It's in philosophy that those questions are debated.

Whenever we are dealing with politics and law, it's at root a question of morality or ethics.  Ethics is the philosophical study of morality.  Morality is about good and evil, right and wrong.

Generally, law is about what's tolerated, not what's desired.  It's immoral to be a compulsive liar, but you can legally lie except in certain situation such as court testimony.  But since the Bible condemns lying as sin, then this sort of question is exactly what the debate over Theocracy is about.

Nevertheless, law is ultimately about ethics.  It's rooted in good and bad choices.  We make it illegal to steal because we believe it is immoral to steal. It is wrong.  But what is our basis for this belief?  It seems clear that such beliefs are based on what philosophers call a moral sense.  We have this direct sense experience of the wrongness or goodness of something.  If you were to see a 6 month old baby girl being tortured to death, you'd (hopefully) have a strong sense of the evil you are seeing.  While some will try to defend ethical skepticism in such cases, I'll leave that debate for another time.  For our purposes today, let's just assume that people really do have a moral sense about right and wrong.

Logically, if God exists, then God must know things that we do not.  Therefore, God could know moral truths that we do not.  Therefore, God could command us not to do things even though we have no moral sense of the wrongness of those things.  And this is the rub.  We cannot hold people responsible for immoral actions which they have no way of knowing to be immoral.  We may know those actions to be immoral because we know God prohibits them.  This is because we have many good justifications for the belief that the Bible is God's word.  But that handy set of apologetics for the Bible is loaded with arguments that one must think about.  They aren't obviously good arguments.

Here is a thought experiment.  Let's say that Jim is mentally handicapped and leaves the stove on in his house leaking natural gas.  Let's say that Jim's mother, Sally, lights a cigarette later and dies in the fire.  Given Jim's mental state, we should place the blame for whoever is supposed to be watching Jim, not Jim himself.  We cannot hold people morally responsible for things they had no way of knowing anything about.

What's more, Paul's letter to the Romans in the second chapter says the same thing I'm getting at.  He argues that Gentiles who do not know God's law still know enough about sin.  He simply argues that Jews who have God's law should know even better how they've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So the issue here is how is one rationally justified in holding a certain belief about morality.  Is it the moral sense, or is it the Bible?  Furthermore, the political question is whether the average person has access to the information.  Does the average person know that homosexuality is sinful, or is that simply God's law revealed through the Bible?  

Personally, I think it's merely a matter of revealed knowledge, not moral sense.  But the matter can get even more complicated.  In 2000 BC, nobody had a problem with slavery, even the slaves!  People didn't believe in human equality.  They had myths talking about how the smarter people really should tell everyone else what to do.  But the Bible introduced this idea of everyone being a child of God.  Thus, all people are now able to have the highest royal rights possible.  You can't enslave a child of God without bringing on God's wrath.  Over time, this concept evolved into generally accepted ideas of basic human rights and human equality.  Today, most people seem to have a moral sense that slavery is a great evil.  

 

While this is a win for Christianity, it complicates the question of Christian Theocracy.  The moral senses of the general population can actually become more attuned to reality of God's goodness.  This is very much a good thing and the world has been largely Christianized in a sense.  But I just don't think we are there with Biblical commands about fornication, pornography, divorce, and homosexuality.  In fact, we Christians seem so threatened about these issues that we try to make them the worst of sin.  I've heard many a sermon about how if a person is living a gay lifestyle, he must have never truly accepted Christ.  I can't help but think that this stems from a lack of confidence in the Bible itself.  But that's merely a speculation on my part.