Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Theocracy
When i get deep into my research, i find that i stumble across the same word again and again. The word is Theocracy. The Webster's Dictionary defines Theocracy as government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by officials that are regarded as divinely guided. I see the most relevance to my research in the later part of the definition. The phrase "Divinely guided officials" is open to intrepretation, but i tend to think it means any leader who is being swayed or guided by a religious instituion. In this regard it is basically the opposite of secularism, the idea of a separate of church and state by which our country was founded.
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Jon,
There are two ways to look at that idea of "divinely guided leaders." in the case of President Bush, he claims to speak to God, and that would suggest that his decisions are based on "divine guidance." This is a disturbing thought, especially if you don't have the same religious beliefs as the president. But a theocracy also means a government by people who are motivated to follow religious laws, that were ultimately from a divine source, but these people aren't necessarily in constant contact with God. This is another way of interpreting Bush's position that he is "divinely guided", that he is simply doing whatever the powerful, religious interests want him to do. This is also pretty scary, but there you go. Good luck with the paper, and let me know if you have any questions.
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