I have been providing some resources of articles about theocracy to further the discussion. Here is another:
"Since one of the key words the authoritarian Christian nationalists have grossly distorted is “Christianity” itself, it will be necessary to clarify my own terms before I proceed with my critique of the so-called “Christian worldview.”
It is rather misleading to refer to America’s politicized theocratic movement as Christian (their preferred term), because the word has so many different referents, many of which bear no resemblance to this movement. To allow this network of politically active social conservatives to monopolize the term Christian is grossly misleading. I prefer theocrats because it more accurately describes the values this movement represents. It seems the proper question is not whether it is ‘Christian’ to be homophobic, feminist, or “anti-contraception and anti-abortion”.[2] Rather, the question is whether the word ‘Christianity’ refers to any single thing. Mainline moderate Christians concede too much to their theocratic rivals by taking for granted the unity and coherence of the New Testament (i.e. the Christian Bible).
There has simply never been a coherent Christian moral philosophy capable of reconciling the inherent tension between the Synoptic Gospels and Paul’s letters. The latter are commentaries on the significance of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection for human salvation. Paul demonstrates astonishingly little knowledge of, or interest in, the traditions about Jesus. This, according to Dr. John Ziesler, is “one of the strangest and most puzzling areas of early Christianity.”[3] The West has no single, coherent basis for ‘Christian’ ethics because the New Testament contains two conflicting ethical systems. One can be traced to the traditions of the followers of the historical and fully human Jesus of Nazareth (i.e. the ‘Q’ source), and the other takes its authority from the salvation-by-atonement interpretation of Jesus’ death found in Paul’s epistles.
Jesus was never a Christian. He died a Jew. Christianity was founded by St. Paul and did not exist until approximately twenty years after Jesus’ death. As historian Paul Johnson has noted, it was Paul who insisted that Jesus was God. This insistence on the divinity of Jesus, says Johnson, is the only thing that really matters, otherwise the Pauline theology collapses, and with it Christianity. The divinity of Jesus is crucial to maintaining theocratic authority. If Jesus was a human being who set the supreme example of human virtue, then his followers could strive to imitate him. Many people who today call themselves “Christians” are followers of Jesus’ teachings, including the one that enjoins them to “pick up your crosses and follow me.” But Pauline Christianity rests upon the doctrine that this is impossible. By making Jesus into an instrument of God’s agency Paul was able to preserve the myth that human free will, unassisted by God’s saving grace, cannot bring about any good. This move preserved the mediating function of the theocratic authorities, and protected the theocratic form of government from the immanent threat of democracy and direct personal faith grounded in the individual’s relationship to God.
When Christianity Is UnAmerican
