Theocrats and the Separation of Church and State

The most extreme position opposed to separationism in all of its forms is held by those who can be called “theocrats,” these are people who wish to create a theocratic government in the United States. To state it plainly, the theocrats consider even the most conservative Christians in the Religious Right to not be “godly” enough. Sometimes arguing that a theocracy was intended for the United States from the very beginning, theocrats believe that any sort of compromise would be invalid.

The theocracy they want would, of course, be entirely Christian in nature. Theocrats oppose the “neutrality” among various religious groups which is advocated by non-preferentialists, and they even oppose the more extreme views held by some “accommodationists” which would allow for local communities to impose some particular religion on minorities (because in some communities, the majority might be non-Christian).

Despite their extremism, however, theocrats have a lot of support from the rest of the Religious Right for many of their basic principles. For example, their arguments that the United States is a “Christian Nation” is echoed by many who would not otherwise admit to wanting to replace American democracy with a more repressive system.

One way of understanding this phenomenon is to consider the label “Christian Nationalism” (also sometimes referred to as "Christianism," an analogue to the label "Islamism"). For Christian Nationalists, America is God’s chosen country which he has blessed beyond all others for our faith and belief in him. American leaders are directly empowered by God to do his work here on earth. Anyone who opposes the work of American leaders must, therefore, also be opposing the will of God. This makes them simultaneously blasphemers and traitors.

As should be evident, such an ideology conflates America and Christianity to a great extent — a Christian Nationalist is quite unable to differentiate between American Patriotism and Chrisitan Dogma. They portray America as ever being under attack by enemies — whether enemies of the body politic or enemies of God (rhetoric usually starts out by describing someone as belonging to one of those two categories, but by the end they become a member of the other as well).

Christian Nationalism owes a great deal to Christian Reconstructionism — and, in fact, can probably be regarded as a form of Reconstructionism. They share with Reconstructionists the idea that American laws should be modeled on biblical laws. The primary difference seems to be that whereas Reconstructionists emphasize in their writings the Bible and biblical laws, Christian Nationalists give equal weight to American patriotism and the Bible. Reconstructionists might actually argue that the Christian Nationalists are making idols out patriotic symbols like the American flag, but in the end the goals of both groups are largely the same.