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In
the beginning
was theocracy. It came to this country on the Mayflower. And the Pilgrims
and the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony said, “Amen.”
Today, in our country, theocracy is manifesting itself again and people
are asking, “What is happening?” What is happening is a
threat to our democratic society. The American Heritage Dictionary
defines theocracy as
Government
by a god regarded as the ruling power or by
priests or officials claiming divine sanction
Officials claiming divine
sanction. That is the new theocracy in America today.
In the early 17th century,
the Pilgrims and the Puritans fled the intolerance of the Anglican
Church of England. They desired religious freedom for themselves,
and were willing to risk their lives in its pursuit. The irony is
that once they established themselves in the Massachusetts Bay Colony,
they combined their religious faith with their political institutions
and became harshly intolerant of all non-conformist religious expressions.
They believed that their success in settling in America was a mark
of God’s approval, with the corollary that their way of life
had divine sanction. They concluded that other religious expressions
were not to be tolerated. It was our country’s first expression
of Praise God, and damn any that do not conform.
The results were as predictable
then as they are today. The Rev. Roger Williams was banned from the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636, and to his credit, established a
more tolerant colony that is now the state of Rhode Island. It became
a refuge for persecuted religious groups. The First Baptist Church
was established in Providence in 1639, a Quaker meeting house was
formed in Aquidneck in 1657. The first Jewish congregation met in
Newport, Rhode Island in 1658 and a band of French Huguenots put down
their religious roots in East Greenwich in 1686.
Theocracy in the Massachusetts
Bay Colony, centered in the Congregational Church, and increased its
intolerant and violent expression. The Quaker Anne Hutchinson was
banned to Rhode Island in 1638. Her friend and companion Mary Dyer
did not fare as well. For the crime of publicly espousing Quakerism,
she was hung on the Boston Common in 1660. The home of the free
and the brave was off to a poor start. Today, in front of the
Boston State House, there is a statue honoring Mary Dyer as a martyr
in the struggle for religious freedom. When people come to their senses,
yesterday’s enemies sometimes become a new generation’s
heroes.
We look north of Boston
to Salem, Massachusetts, to remember another tragic example of what
can happen when religious intolerance gets out of hand and co-opts
the political system as its ally. Between June and September, 1692,
nineteen men and women were hung for the crime of witchcraft in Salem
and another was crushed to death for failing to confess. Dozens of
others languished in jail for months, without benefit of trial.
Those who refuse to yield
to fear and hysteria in a theocratic society often pay a heavy price.
Rebecca Nurse was one who was hung in Salem. On the monument that
marks her grave, John Greenleaf Whittier’s words are inscribed:
O Christian
Martyr for Truth could die
When all about thee Owned the hideous lie!
The world, redeemed from superstition’s sway,
Is breathing freer for thy sake today.
The Rev.
Cotton Mather, a Congregational minister, was a chief instigator of
the fear and hysteria that gripped our forbearers during that sordid
piece of our nation’s history; a chapter in America’s story
that we dare not forget. It is said that those who do not learn from
the mistakes of our past are destined to repeat them. I grew up in New
England and in 1954 I was ordained a Congregational minister. I remember
my ecclesiastical history when religion and politics were joined together
against a real or imagined enemy.
However, those who suffered
the most during the theocratic period of our nation’s early beginnings
were not the non-conformist settlers, but the Native Americans whose
territory was invaded and whose lands were coveted. The Pequot War
of 1637 and King Philip’s War of 1662 directed against the Wampanoags
essentially destroyed the way of life for the Native Americans of
New England. Treaties were broken and their land was taken. For the
Massachusetts Bay and Plimoth settlers, the Pequot and Wampanoaog
Native Americans were an axis of evil threatening their security
and their expansion into the lands they coveted. Native Americans
had to yield or be destroyed.
The rationale was simple
and is oft repeated in our nation’s history. It begins with the
declaration that my god is better that your god, my way of life is
superior to your way of life; therefore I have an obligation to convert
you to embrace my god and my convictions. If you don’t, you bear
responsibility for my behavior. It was a precursor to the American
declaration of manifest destiny that under girded the westward
movement in a later century and led to what one has described as America’s
first drive-by shootings. A good Indian was a dead Indian.
It was a callous, dehumanizing conviction, grounded in a theological
idolatry, that the life of another has no intrinsic value, because
god is on my side. Through the centuries it is a formula often couched
in refined diplomatic language, but the end results are always the
same: I insist on having my way and if you resist, the consequences
that befall you are your fault for not seeing and responding to my
superior mandates.
When the United States
ratified our country’s Constitution on June 21, 1788, it required
a separation of church and state. Those who believe that their political
policies are ratified by God are the most dangerous and anti-democratic
citizens of a nation.
During World War II as
an American soldier, I had no reluctance in singing Praise the
Lord and pass the ammunition. Hitler and the Nazi regime were
such demonic forces; I welcomed the opportunity to participate in
their demise. On April 13, 1945 I walked into Buchenwald Concentration
Camp and saw up close and personal an expression of evil beyond my
comprehension. But I had other experiences in Europe. Toward the end
of the war I was handling German prisoners. They were men over 60
or boys 16 years old and younger, who were scared to death. They were
not human monsters. They were not a part of Hitler’s fanatical
SS troops. They, too, were victims of their nation’s history
led by depraved leaders, who proclaimed that they were a superior
race destined to bring all others under their rule by whatever means
necessary. At the end of the war, I saw hordes of men and women wandering
aimlessly along the highways and byways. I did not know their nationalities
or their countries of origin. I did know they had no place to go.
In Berlin, Germany outside
the iron picket fences that encircled the compound in which I was
billeted in the fall of 1945, gaunt, emaciated men and women pushed
tin cans through the pickets in the hope that a morsel of food would
be shared by those of us who ate our meals in the courtyard. They
spoke not a word. Never before had I experienced the sound of silence.
At night our secured compound was filled with young girls and
women exchanging sex for food. Under such circumstances, who could
blame them? The needs of the stomach far outweighed the morality of
the Book. Those people were not our enemies to be despised. They were
raised with the hopes and aspirations we all share. They had lost
everything. They were the victims of a depraved theocracy.
I returned from Europe
in 1946, and under the G.I Bill of Rights, I entered Wesleyan University
in Middletown, Connecticut. I majored in history. Having received
my college degree, I spent four years in graduate school at Union
Theological Seminary in New York City.
It was not until the 1960’s
that I took seriously the theocracy, expressed as racism, that plagued
our American society. Idealistically I had fought in World War II
for the cause of liberty. Germany, Italy and Japan had been defeated
at an enormous cost. But the civil rights and privileges, which I
took for granted and were guaranteed to all by the U.S. Constitution,
were systematically denied to a significant portion of our population.
The sole reason: the color of their skin was black. Many in
our white population considered themselves superior to other ethnic
groups and utilized the political systems of state and local governments
to enforce their power and privilege at the expense of the underclass.
It was a covert and overt expression of theocracy that was not confined
to the color of one’s skin, but included a distinctly religious
bias expressed in anti-Semitism. The Christian churches’ history
of Jewish bias stretches back to the earliest formation of Christendom
and is documented in detail by the former Roman Catholic priest, James
Carroll, in his book, The Sword of Constantine.
In 1943 I was drafted into
the U. S. Army. In the 1960’s, I volunteered to join ranks with
those who would make an assault upon racism and the religious and
political structures that supported it. Equal educational opportunities
and open-housing were major battlegrounds. Battles over the integration
of eating establishments were headline stories on nightly television
programs. Violence disrupted our cities. It was said that the most
segregated hour of the week was eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings.
In all of this, I am not
suggesting that church and government should not work together. The
question is how? To what end? In my ministry in Massachusetts, I learned
what could be done in behalf of those who had no political voice or
power. I discovered how church and government together could meet
a major social need. Through a consortium, known as Cooperative Metropolitan
Ministries, churches and synagogues utilizing the federal housing
code, 221-d3, developed millions of dollars of low cost housing in
Boston to meet an urgent social problem created by the city’s
urban renewal projects.
The most significant experience
for me, however, was to go to Greenwood, Mississippi in 1964 at the
request of the national Council of Churches, to lend support to African-
Americans who were seeking to gain their voting rights. One hundred
years after the Emancipation Proclamation, some in my congregation
told me that black people were moving too fast. In Mississippi, I
encountered the hatred and the violence that helped me understand
my experience in Buchenwald Concentration Camp twenty years earlier.
I returned to Boston from
Mississippi with a better understanding of the Christian Church. Many
who participated in the Mississippi Summer were young college men
and women. In effect, they were the core of the civil rights troops
that were exposed to genuine danger. Before I arrived, four had been
murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Parents were fearful for
the safety of their sons and daughters. Some came to Mississippi urging
their children to come home out of harm’s way. Some of the children
said,
Mother, father, you
taught me at home to love our neighbors as ourselves and to respect
and honor the needs of others. That is what I am doing.
The children took seriously
what were only pious words for their parents.
In the 1950’s and
1960’s, Republican and Democratic administrations supported the
struggle for the civil rights of African-Americans, by being willing
to enforce laws that guaranteed the constitutional rights of all.
Theocracy at the state level, which combined religious convictions
of segregation and political power, were doomed.
The Little Rock, Arkansas
School Board had asked the local courts for, and was granted, an injunction
against integration of the public schools. But in August, 1958, the
United States 8th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the injunction.
It was a decision that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on September
12, 1958.
In response, Governor Orval
Faubus signed a package of segregationist bills passed by the Arkansas
legislature, including the right of the governor to shut down the
public schools in any part of the state. The governor acted and closed
the doors of four Little Rock high schools with the declaration:
If Daisy Bates (an
NAACP leader) would find an honest job and go to work, and if the
US Supreme Court would keep its cotton-picking hands off the Little
Rock School Board’s affairs, we could open the schools.
On August 12, 1959, the
Little Rock School Board reopened the high schools, whereupon Governor
Faubus dispatched the Arkansas National Guard to prevent integration.
President Dwight Eisenhower responded by sending federal troops to
Little Rock to force compliance with the law and to protect the nine
black students who entered Central High School. Governor George Wallace
met a similar fate on June 11, 1963 when he stood in the doorway of
the University of Alabama in his effort to block integration. Theocracy
at the state level was trumped by federal law.
In Arkansas the cost to
the black students was enormous as they endured the intense hatred
of the racist white students. Parents of three of the students lost
their jobs. Four families moved away, as Roger Williams was forced
to leave the Massachusetts Bay Colony more than three hundred years
earlier. Prejudice, grounded in religious convictions, is a challenge
for every generation.
When I married in 1948,
between my sophomore and junior years at Wesleyan University, condoms
were illegal by Connecticut state law. They had to be purchased under
the counter. When the law was challenged, it was laughed out of court.
However, the impulse that originally put the law on the books was
not a laughing matter. It was an act to enforce the entire population
of Connecticut to conform to one group’s moral code.
That is the current threat
to American democracy. There is a coordinated and energized effort
today that extends from our local communities to the federal government,
to impose a restrictive code of ethics upon all of us. The ground
troops for this assault upon our democratic values are collectively
known as the radical religious right. The autocratic religious
zealots of today, who want to shape our society to their values, are
as dangerous and intolerant as were the theocratic Puritans of New
England.
Recall the trademarks of
theocracy.
1. It makes a claim
to absolute truth—relieving itself of the need to consider
any other points-of-view.
2. It claims divine
sanction for its “truths.” The mantra is my god
is better than your god. My way is better that your way. Racial
discrimination and ethnic cleansing are expressions of that perspective.
3. The projected ideal
goal justifies any means to achieve it. Secret agreements are
made that trample the requirements of an open, responsive government,
essential to a democratic society.
4. Political decisions
are cast in the framework of a holy war. Foreign policies describe
opponents as an “axis of evil,” combined with a declaration
to our friends that they are “either with us or against us,”
thereby eliminating the need for any discussion or compromise of
our nation’s actions. At the domestic level, it means “follow
the leader,” or be labeled subversive. It is an echo during
a recent period of our country’s history of calling dissenters
“communists."
Today, at the local level
some are seeking to gain control of the school board in order to introduce
“creationism” into the classroom. Another objective is prayer
in the classroom. But whose prayer? How many realize that this coming
Sunday there will be more religious gatherings in Boston that are
non-Christian, than Christian. That data comes from a survey done
by students at Harvard Divinity School. Boston is not an isolated
example. Our nation is becoming more religiously diverse than many
desire or care to acknowledge. The exclusion of sex education from
school or church curriculums is another target at a time when all
surveys of teenage sexual behavior point to the need for something
more than simply encouraging abstinence. Any discussion of homosexuality
is met with fierce hostility.
The opposition of evangelical
Christians to granting basic civil rights to homosexuals has come
to the fore again following the decision of the US Supreme Court on
November 18, 2003 in its decision Lawrence v. Texas overturning Texas’
anti-sodomy laws. That was followed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court declaration that gay couples have a constitutional right to
marry. The decision brought an immediate outcry by the religious right
to amend the US Constitution.
The reproductive rights
of women, guaranteed by the 1973 US Supreme Court decision Roe v.
Wade, are under constant assault. The most direct attack is to place
on the bench judges attuned to the religious agenda of those who would
subvert the rights of women. An example was the nomination of Alabama
attorney-general, William Pryor, to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Pryor has called Roe, “The worst abomination of constitutional
law in our country.”
The religious sexual agenda
has already impacted US foreign aid. Money channeled through the United
Nations to educate and support women in Third World countries has
been sharply reduced in response to the religious body in this country
that fear that some of the money might be used to teach family planning
through the use of contraceptive devises. In like manner, both the
Clinton and Bush administrations have made it difficult for generic
drugs to be used in the fight against AIDS in those countries that
need them the most. To placate our largest pharmaceutical companies,
we have sacrificed urgent health needs to the god of money.
My greatest concern is
an attitude that has been growing in this country since 9/11. In an
October 2000 presidential debate, candidate Bush, with respect for
other nations, said, “If we are an arrogant nation, they will
resent us…If we are a humble nation, but strong, they’ll
welcome us.” Unfortunately, President Bush’s prediction
has come to pass. As a nation we have been arrogant beyond measure,
and for many people we have become a pariah, a self-righteous bully
on the international highway.
Theocracy lies at the base
of the shift that has occurred. Since the destruction of the Twin
Towers in New York City, and the declaration of a war against terrorism,
President Bush has increasingly seen his presidency as part of a divine
plan. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention recalls the
President saying, “I believe God wants me to be president.”
After September, 11 Michael Duff wrote in Time magazine that
the president spoke of “being chosen by the grace of God to lead
at that moment.” I wonder how Pharaoh must have thought of himself
when the Israelite terrorists rose up against him.
On the first anniversary
of the 2001 terrorist attacks, President Bush said at Ellis Island,
“The ideal of America is the hope of all mankind….That hope
still lights our way. And the light shines in the darkness. And the
darkness has not overcome it.” Those last two sentences come
from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. But in the Gospel the
light in the darkness is the Word of God, not the policies of a holier-than-thou
nation, which is the way our country is being unapologetically portrayed
to the nations of the world.
In his aspiration for an
American Empire, William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard,
said, “If people want to say we’re an imperial power, fine.”
Kristol adds that Europe is unable to lead because it has been “corrupted
by secularism.” Such is the mood and attitude that has gripped
many in America, and if you and I don’t go along, we are unpatriotic
or weak on fighting terrorists. Sound familiar?
In his Christmas card,
our vice-president, Dick Cheney, leaves us with this thought, “And
if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable
that an empire can rise without His aid?” That is bad theology
and bad foreign policy.
I call to your attention
words from Eugene Peterson in the introduction to his book about the
Biblical prophet Amos,
Religion is the
most dangerous energy source known to humankind. The moment a person
or government or religion or organization is convinced that God is
either ordering or sanctioning a cause or project, anything goes.
The history worldwide, of religion-fueled hate, killing, and oppression
is staggering.
Judaism and Christianity
are both politically oriented. Synagogue and church can and must work
with governmental agencies to promote the causes of peace, justice,
and human rights. But when the government becomes the moral agent
and enforcer for a particular religious body or consortium, the results
are unequivocally disastrous. That is when the combination of religion
and politics is lethal.
The authors of our nation’s
Constitution were correct in making the separation of church and state
an imperative. Religion is a motivator and a key to our spiritual
lives. But there is no room for liberty in a theocracy. History is
our witness.
©
copyright 2004, Harold R. Fray, Jr. All Rights Reserved.
Harold
R. Fray, Jr. is a United Church of Christ minister
and has authored three books—Conflict and Change in the Church,
The
Pain and Joy of Ministry
and Choices I Made: One Man's Journey into Freedom.
