Charles Colson has done a lot of good stuff, and God bless him as he continues. But among his many good works, he has recently contributed to one the central muddles of our times. He did that here.
In this Breakpoint commentary, he was responding to secular critics who are hyperventilating over the rising American theocracy — our “religion-soaked political regimes.” If they are talking about the Bush administration it might be more accurate to call it something like religion-dabbed. Now while I want to engage with what I take to be an important confusion in Colson’s thought here, let it still be said at the outset that I agree with his assessment of those secular critics who are breathing into paper bags to keep from swooning. There is no incipient American theocracy, at least not of the kind that is making them so nervous. But part of the reason that won’t happen anytime soon is that Colson does represent the evangelical mainstream on this. Here is the problem.
It shows up right near the beginning, when Colson defines a theocracy as an ecclesiocracy.
Now someone might reply that all theocracies are functional ecclesiocracies because there is always an religious establishment on hand to interpret the words of the god (how fortunate!). There is an element of truth here, but again, this already is true of all the gods of all societies. There is nothing unique about it just because Christians are involved. Let me take that back — the unique thing is that Christians have developed the biblical idea of a governmental separation of church and state. The confusion enters when people start thinking this means the separation of God and state, or biblical morality and state, or the separation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and state.
Colson laments the times when Christians have tried to impose their values, resulting in “bloody crusades and inquisitions.” But of course, during those times in history where Christians have been guilty of outrages, it is because they weren’t imposing their values, not because they were.
And Colson goes on to allow that “on the fringes” there are a few who want to impose “actual religious values by force of law. They are called reconstructionists, or Dominionists, and they are wrong, both theologically and politically.”
But what could he possibly mean by an “actual” religious value? I want abortion outlawed because the unborn child is created in the image of God. Is that an actual religious value? I want to reject homosexual marriages because of what the Bible says about sodomy. Is that an actual religious value?
If Colson is rejecting “theocracy” because he thinks it means ten or twenty recons with twenty or forty guns, along with plans to capture the local television station and county courthouse, I am right with him. But what would happen if a future Wilberforce, working within the system, using democratic means like crazy, got a constitutional amendment to the Constitution passed that acknowledged the lordship of Christ over all the kings and presidents of the earth? Would that advance the cause of justice and human good? Or would Colson oppose it because he insists on keeping the faux-neutrality of a secular system?
Put another way, is secularism self-authenticating? Or does Colson support it because he believes that this is the system that Jesus wants us to have? If the former, then how is this not compromise with the deities of another system? If the latter, then how is this not Christian theocracy?
This is the heart of the question. Does Colson believe the god of the political process to be Demos? And that Christians may let their private faith shape and inform their political labors and voting, just so long as they don’t challenge that? Or is Christ the Lord of the political process, just like everyone and everything else?
Colson quotes Martin Luther saying how futile it would be for a Christian magistrate to try to govern a people with the gospel. But at least he didn’t use the wise Turk quote. Luther said it would be like a shepherd who should place in one fold “wolves, lions, eagles and sheep together and let them freely mingle” But this represents a confusion about Luther’s political thought — Luther was not objecting to Christians governing, but rather to Christians trying to govern with the gospel, instead of with the law.
Not only that, but there are two other options — the wise Christian and the foolish Turk. And I am afraid that there are Christian today who say they would rather be governed by a wise Turk than a foolish Christian find themselves instead governed by a foolish Turk instead of a wise Christian.