[This is part 3 in a series on “False Dichotomies in Political Theology.” See part one, two, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

As with the other false dichotomies previously discussed, all of these errors are inseparable from one another. The case is no different here. The false dichotomy of “Christian” versus “secular” statism rests on the idea that true theocracy—the direct rule of God—can be found in a State, and that a genuinely non-theocratic and neutral State actually exists. The false dichotomy presented here, in these terms, is a statist-theocracy vs. non-theocratic statism. 

The misconceptions of theocracy

This term “theocracy” gets thrown around loosely as a pejorative by men who believe they are “secularists” for use against statists who believe they’re “Christians.” To them, “theocracy” means a society where priests or ayatollahs rule over a people — still a thoroughly statist arrangement that is just run by “religious” leaders. They imagine some Middle Eastern country yet with crosses on the political system instead. Their idea is that we must avoid theocracy. Furthermore, they wrongly concede that the professing Christians who pursue this “Christian” agenda through worldly politics are actually seeking a genuine theocracy — that statism is a legitimate politics of a Christian rather than a contradiction.

On the other hand, the “Christians” who are accused of wanting to institute a “Christian theocracy” happily embrace the label and accuse any Christian who doesn’t pursue this statist political agenda as being someone who doesn’t care about having the Lord as “the King of the United States” and will only leave the State in the hands of “secularists” through their non-participation. Both of them understand “theocracy” as some sort of political system where God’s rule is mediated through the State. One side rejects it, believing the State should be non-theocratic; the other embraces the charge, believing the State should be “Christian.” 

In reality, both sides are pursuing a “theocracy” in human government itself — which, to be sure, is not the true theocracy of God’s Kingdom, which is anarchist. Both of them accept the throne of human government and merely argue over who should sit on it: a professing Christian who takes the Lord’s name in vain or a professing atheist who doesn’t realize he has only adopted another competing theocratic order in the State itself. The former imagine they are doing it to assure that “Christian rulers” are in control; the latter to assure that the government remains “non-religious” and is not run by “Christians.” In reality, the type of person that seeks political power and takes office in worldly kingdoms is always an ungodly man who rejects God’s rule.  

Although the popular conception of a theocracy in the minds of both “Christians” and “secularists” is a statist one, what we are getting at here is that the only genuine theocracy, the only society of people who have God as their only ruler, is an anarchist one. As the Christian Anarchist, Kevin Craig, defines this true theocratic order we are trying to express here, it is “a society without priests and kings, all people reconciled to God and to each other, living in harmony and prosperity, blessed by God, governed by God.” A society of people governed by men is not a society of people who are governed by God alone. Thus the society where God truly rules must be an anarchist one, without human rulers. (For brief clarification, it is not one where there are no archists necessarily. This is the very point we are trying to make: that men cannot avoid archists or gods. The Christian Anarchist point is that we are seeking a society where there are no human archists. Anyone who accuses us of trying to avoid God because we object to being ruled by false gods is attacking a strawman).

The “Christian” vs “secular” State myth

We see here the great confusion on both sides. “Theocracy” is understood to mean a statist order run by clergymen. One side (the false Christians) supports this idea and says we must not leave human government to be non-theocratic; the other side (the false atheists) condemns it and says it must be kept non-theocratic. Their only debate is who should sit on the same ungodly throne: false coverts or pretend-atheists. 

In reality, every State and every social order period is a “theocracy” of sorts, albeit a false theocratic rule that rejects the throne of the Lord and installs man-gods in His place. A “secular” government is not an absence of theocracy, because all human government is merely another theocratic order where men are made into gods. This means that a Christian cannot support it without contradicting their professed allegiance to King Jesus on the other hand. To do so is to seek another theocratic social order than the one where God alone is the ruler, which is found only in an anarchist society where there are no rival kings and princes in presidents and congressmen and other politicians.

Far from there being such thing as a “Christian State,” the proclamation of such a thing is merely a blasphemy of the highest order that takes the Lord’s name in vain, pretending to represent Him while having placed human rulers between Him and the people. There is no such thing as a “Christian State” that mediates between the people and the Lord because the Lord doesn’t need human mediators to rule; He does this directly between the people and Himself in an anarchistic society that is organized without authoritarian systems. This is why anytime men have sought human kings to rule them, the Lord has said “they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). This is why the Lord has taught “do not call anyone on earth your father, for you have one Father, who is in heaven” (Matthew 23:9). God’s people are not in need of civil fathers to rule over them, and any people who do have “Founding Fathers” are people who have substituted false gods (eg, Washington) for God. 

Theocracy as an inescapable concept 

What we see is that all social systems are “theocratic” in nature. The State is its own “theocratic” order too, albeit one whose gods are not the Lord. It is still a system that has gods, albeit one that installs men as its gods and where clergymen or “secularists” act as the rulers over this religious system of human government. It is still a religious system, whether its people (mis)quote the Bible or whether their guiding philosophy is the Communist Manifesto, whether they vainly talk about the Lord or cite the latest studies of some “secular social scientist” as the infallible and god-like guides of this society. (It should not be surprising that the State therefore appoints “health czars” like Anthony Fauci as the figureheads of its public policymaking, as they are the god-like labcoats of this religious order).

The only difference between a “Christian state” and a “secular state” is that one takes the Lord’s name in vain and the other doesn’t. One chisels “In God We Trust” on their extortionist legislatures, courthouses, police vehicles, and fake paper currency; the other says it should be removed. They are both, however, religious orders the same, despite them both being in denial about it. 

What we see is that theocracy is an inescapable concept. All politics, whether that of God’s Kingdom or man’s, is inherently “theocratic.” All societies must choose their God: whether the Lord in heaven, who rules His people directly, or the false gods of human government. This is always what it meant to call Jesus Lord. It meant that Caesar was not.

This picture of the anarcho-theocracy of God or the statist-theocracy of false gods is however lost on both “Christians” who believe they can pursue worldly politics without contradiction and “atheists” who imagine they escape being religious or pursuing a certain theocracy by keeping their State “secular.”

Biblical anarcho-theocracy

As much as we need to call every social system a certain “theocracy” to demonstrate that States are rival religions to that of the Lord’s Kingdom, we must still be clear that not every theocratic system is genuine or true or the type of political order that we derive from Biblical political theology. The true (anarchist) theocracy of Scripture is the direct rule of the Lord God alone. The central rebellion in scripture of men against God has always been of a statist nature. It was a quest for kings and alternative kingdoms that characterizes man’s rebellion against God all throughout the Bible and in our present day. 

Perhaps the best Biblical example of this anarcho-theocracy are the pre-monarchical days of Israel in the books of Exodus-Judges, before the people had sought human kings in their sin and rebellion against God’s Kingship (Sam 8). In these days God alone was the King of this people. There were judges and such in these days, but they were part of a decentralized, and not a statist, order. There were no tax collectors, legislators, or police forces enforcing man-made law. There were no ruling authorities as we know them today. Law was taught by priests and elders of families in a decentralized system. The people were organized in tribes and families and had avoided human kings up to this point. Military defense was, at most, an ad-hoc militia that was thrown together whenever it was needed. There were no standing armies or trillion-dollar annual budgets that funded them. 

For people to cite the judges of these days and simply conflate them with the existence of statism is something that is only born out of the general conception by statists of an anarchist society as one that has no order whatsoever. As my Christian Anarchist brother, Michael Plaisted, writes, the statists are “unable to distinguish the role of ad hoc judges in free Israel from the concept of ruling judges that exist in western society today.” These judges were then completely unlike the statist usurpation of this role that we see today. He goes on to explain how the “judges of Israel had no guaranteed income like the judges of pagan societies do. They had no positional recognition. They were adhocratic functions according to the needs of the people, limited to the context of those needs, as based on their knowledgeability of the framework of God’s Law, and their wisdom in applying that Law to the matters presented to them. Without income or positional authority, there was no way for them to rule over the people or enforce their interpretations and advisory decisions.”

The Sinai covenant is another example of this same era that precedes the kings. God spoke the Ten Commandments directly to His people (Exodus 19-20). God told the people to obey His voice directly (Ex 19:5) and told the whole people they were a kingdom of priests (Ex 19:6). There was no separate political class being set up here, no kings acting as mediators between the people and God. Moses was not a king, but a prophet and servant of the people.

Another significant moment is Gideon’s refusal to rule over the people, who we see already had this sinful idea in them to raise up rulers. After one of his victories, “the Israelites said to Gideon, ‘Rule over us—you and your son and grandson—for you have saved us from the hand of Midian.’ But Gideon replied, ‘I will not rule over you, nor will my son. The LORD shall rule over you” (Judges 8:22-23). Gideon clearly says that the Lord alone shall be a people’s ruler, and that man-kings are a violation of this anarcho-theocracy of God. 

Statism betrays God

The real political-theological dichotomy we are dealing with then is (1) true theocracy (anarchist) versus (2) false theocracy (statist), not theocracy vs. no theocracy, or statist-theocracy vs. secular statism. The true dichotomy is never between theocratic and non-theocratic human civil government, but always between the true theocracy (rule by God in an anarchist society) and every false one (various brands of facades of statism). It is never between God or no gods, but between the King of Heaven and false human kings. 

This true dichotomy allows us to indict both the “Christian statists” (contradiction) and the “secular statists” (contradiction) as enemies of God and His decentralized and anarchist order. The statist-theocracy is a false theocracy that rejects God’s rule and installs men as gods in His place. But it is still a “theocracy” for all intents and purposes. All statists, whether they think of themselves as Christians or secularists, support an ungodly theocratic order (or, we might clarify, a theocracy whose gods are men). It is not the true theocracy, which is an anarchist society where God alone as King, yet we may still rightly label statism as a “theocratic” in order to expose the myth that a “Christian” State or a “secular” State is anything other than two versions of the same false theocracy.

This means that even professing Christians who embrace statism are simply joining the same statist-theocracy as the “secularists,” who are likewise devoted to an ungodly theocracy (one whose gods are not the God of the Bible). There are no different variations within the statist-theocratic side of the true political-theological spectrum beyond stylistic or aesthetic ones (eg., crosses on the camouflage uniforms instead of hammers and sickles, misinterpreted Bible verses instead of Marx quotes, “In God We Trust” on the fake paper currency instead of “Workers of the World, Unite”). All statists, whether they call themselves Christians or atheists, belong to the statist-theocratic camp. And all true Christians must stand in the anarcho-theocratic camp alone, or else they are men who make men their gods and drift into the false (statist) theocracy camp.

Anarcho-theocracy vs. statist theocracy 

It has largely been the failure to understand this true dichotomy of anarcho-theocracy on one side and statist-theocracy on the other that men have been able to invent other options that don’t actually exist: namely, the idea that one can be a Christian while being a statist or that one can be a statist without buying into a (false) another religio-theocratic order. It has been the failure to see that all social systems are theocratic in nature and that the only legitimate options are anarcho-theocracy (God alone as the ruler) or statist-theocracy (men as the ruler-gods) that men have thought it possible to have the mythical “godly state” or the mythical “non-theocratic state.”

Hopefully one would not think that by acknowledging the possibility of “statist theocracy” that we are advocating it or suggesting that it is true. All statists are ungodly men who fight against the Lord and His Kingdom. This statist-theocracy is not the political theology of Scripture, nor is it a true theocracy where God is the ruler. It is precisely the politics of the world where men reject God and raise up human rulers as their gods. Yet we can still acknowledge it as being at least being an actual option on the political-theocratic spectrum of Godly Anarcho-Theocracy versus Ungodly Statist-Theocracy, where men either make the Lord their God and reject statism or where they embrace statism and reject the Lord as their God. It is at least possible to reject God by embracing statism, and this is very much so the main way that men turn away from God and what they have done today.

What we cannot accept is the idea that legitimate Christian theocracy is statist or that there is a form of statism that is either Christian or non-religious. Though we rebuke all statists as one and the same people who are chasing after a false theocracy that rejects God as its ruler, we can at least view it as the only other alternative to anarchist theocracy, which, as opposed to statism which always rejects God, is the only social system where God is actually the ruler. Men can make their god the State if they so wish. This is what all men do when they believe in human government and support these systems. What men cannot do is support the State without making it their god. Whether they call themselves Christians and imagine they are advancing God’s rule, or call themselves atheists and imagine they are escaping all gods, what men cannot do is pursue human government without embracing another religion than the pure religion of Christianity that does not operate on force, compulsion, and authority. 

The true dichotomy 

We see here how the failure to see or understand the anarchistic Kingdom-politics of God—a theocratic order where human government is abolished because God is our only ruler—helps to perpetuate these false dichotomies. When the idea of an anarcho-theocracy is excluded from the political-theological picture, men inevitably think their only choices are to make human government “Christian” or make sure it remains “secular.”  

Hence the “Christian” nationalists tell us that those who don’t support their worldly political pursuits don’t want a “Christian nation” at all and are just handing it over to “ungodly rulers,” “secularists,” and “socialists.” Yet these men are standing squarely on the side of statist-theocracy with the “secularists” who they think are so different from them. Christian Nationalism is simply statist-theocracy with cross necklaces and (unread) Bibles sitting around. It is just vain professions of faith while still maintaining the machinery of socialism. It is vain professions of “Christ is King” while keeping human thrones. It is writing “In God We Trust” on all the courthouses and police vehicles while robbing the people who don’t give them money. It is just saying “God bless America” while pledging allegiance to worldly kingdoms. 

Thus it becomes necessary to dispose of this idea of “neutral” human government that is not inherently religious but just depends on who does what with it. We must show that all societies are theocratic and that men can either worship and serve the true God in an anarchistic society, or false gods in a statist society. We must show that statism is but its own tyrannical religion with its own gods (politicians), temples (welfare offices), and salvation myths (“soldiers fight for your freedom”) and gospel-promises (“vote for me and I’ll Make America Great Again”). 

An accurate picture of the true dichotomy is a godly-anarchist society vs. ungodly-statist systems, where conversely there is no such thing as a godless anarchist society or a godly statist society. All advancements toward human government represent a deviation from God, and all deviations from God are characteristized by the pursuit of human government. Anyone who will not make the Lord their God will have men as their gods, and all who make men their gods have abandoned the Lord as their exclusive God. There is no such thing as ungodly anarchism or godly statism (though, again, we must clarify that statism is only “ungodly” in the sense that it rejects the rule of the Lord, but it is not “ungodly” in that it manages to avoid gods, ie., rulers). Those anarchists who imagine they can achieve an anarchist society without God are just as mistaken as the statists who believe they can have a “secular” or “Christian” State. Any refusal to be ruled by God will pave the way for the rule by man. All pursuits of the rule by man, whether they are shameless or ignorant, imply an embrace of false gods. There is no truly Godly society that leaves room for human civil government, and all advancement of human civil government abandon the godly-anarchist society. The Kingdom of God operates as an anarcho-theocracy where the Lord Jesus is a people’s direct ruler, without any human intermediaries standing between Gd and man.

The true spectrum of valid political options spans from (1) anarcho-theocracy where God alone is the “archist” or ruler to (2) statist-theocracy where human rulers are the gods of a society (again, regardless of whether they misquote the Bible and pretend to be Christians or are animated by the “scientific socialism” of Karl Marx). The true political spectrum is statelessness → godlessness, implying that any anarchist society must have God as its ruler, that all societies that reject God will be statist, and that all societies that seek statism are godless in the sense that they turn away from the God of Heaven. 

Anarcho-theocracy in theory

It should be abundantly clear by now that though we are calling all socio-political systems—anarchist as much as statist ones—by the name “theocratic,” that, contrary to those who imagine it to mean a “statist rule by religious people,” the whole point is that anarcho-theocracy is the only authentic theocracy by precise definition where God is a people’s ruler. The point is to rightly present all statist systems as false theocracies, namely to refute the idea that “Christian theocracy” is some sort of statist order and to show that all those who go the statist route are abandoning God as their ruler. This should serve to expose all statists who claim to be Christians as false converts who gods are really men. 

Anarcho-theocracy is the idea that Jesus Christ is the sole legitimate King and Lawgiver over ever person and every family, and that all attempts at human kingship are an earthly usurpation of His heavenly throne. It is presented in such terms to show that all forms of statism are a false theocracy that reject God’s rule for false gods, so that it is impossible (rightly so) for Christians to claim that statism is reconcilable by God. It is “anarcho” because no humans (presidents, lawmakers, magistrates, police officers, etc) possess any rightful authority from God to rule politically over other human beings in His place. Every attempt to create a human “civil government” that claims jurisdiction over men is an illegitimate usurpation of a throne that rightfully belongs only to the Lord. Statism is but an organized, institutionalized rebellion against the rule by God. Far from the idea of those who think their voting or campaigning for worldly political office is a method of making a “Christian government,” the pursuit of human government is the main way that men defy the Kingship of the Lord.

It is only under this watered-down thinking of modern Christianity, where major concepts like salvation and the gospel are stripped of their political essence, that anyone could think that voting for men does not imply an alternative belief of salvation in human government when voting is, in fact, praying to false gods to save you and buying into the gospel of Caesars rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ of salvation in another Kingdom not of this world. It is only under this overly spiritualized view where Jesus is nothing more than our afterlife soul-saver that anyone could think they can have earthly saviors “down here below” without contradicting their faith in God alone. Yet this idea prevails today. People say that they are not making politicians their saviors when they enter the ballot box because “Jesus has got my soul already and saved me with His finished work on the cross.” This sort of thinking, which presents another false dichotomy between a spiritualized and heavenly kingdom versus the earthly kingdoms of the world, is what allows men to say with a straight face that “Jesus is my savior and Trump is my president.” This temporal faith in human government would not be possible if men did not relegate Jesus’s salvation to being nothing more than a ticket to heaven when they die, and would instead be seen as a grievous forsaking of the Lord. 

Notwithstanding the dominance of the false dichotomy where “Christians” think they can seek a statist theocracy without abandoning God and where “atheists” think they can have a “secular” one without embracing a religion of their own, it is not actually possible to avoid theocracy. The real question is whether you embrace the true, anarchist theocracy where God alone is your ruler, or the false, statist theocracy where men are your gods. “Atheistic” and “Christian” statists fall into the latter camp together, despite imagining themselves as distant and distinct enemies. They both share a god and religion in the State. They both pursue the ungodly theocracy of human rule. 

If we take “theocracy” to mean “God rules,” then far from this being compatible with statism, as both “Christians” and “atheists” take it to mean (one in support and the other in opposition), the only genuine theocracy—the only society where God is a people’s ruler—is an anarchist one. The statist society is precisely the (false) theocracy where men abandon God as their ruler for other false gods instead. A true theocracy is where God alone rules, which is only possible in an anarchist society with an absence of human ruler-gods to stand in His place. There is no reason that we should understand this term to mean “a society where priests rule” (which is better labeled an ecclesiocracy). It means rule by God, not rule by men who claim to represent Him on earth. 

Conceiving of anarcho-theocracy 

An anarchistic society is not invalid because the masses cannot understand how it would function. All the hangups that men have over who would do X, Y, and Z (law, justice, defense) without taxation and authoritarians only demonstrate the essence of man’s sin that is bound-up with his worldly ideology of statism: the inability to trust in God alone to provide for them and the belief that human kings are needed to “fight our battles for us” (Samuel 8:20). The belief in statism can only come from the lack of belief in the Lord to provide for those who seek His ways. Men believe in the alleged necessity of human government because they have no faith in God. They seek systems of human government because they do not actually believe that “with God, all things are possible.” Those who question who would provide law and justice in a godly (ie., anarchist) society only confess that they are unwilling to take up the responsibility of keeping the “weightier matters” Jesus called us to. Whereas opponents of anarchism who don’t profess the Lord reject this decentralized society out of their outright ungodliness, things become even worse when done by a professing Christian: For now we have an explicit rejection of God’s commands. Justice and protection of the innocent are still duties, but they are carried out decentrally by families, the true church (ekklesia), and voluntary associations — not by a monopolistic, coercive, tax-funded institution that claims a divine right to rule and uses quasi-Christian imagery like crosses to pretend that it is “of the Lord.”

When people are so locked into the statist paradigm that the only way they can envision a society operating is by taxation and coercive rule, it is not possible for them to think of the Kingdom of God as another kingdom that is set apart entirely from the kingdoms of the world. They are stuck thinking that all they need to do is reform the inherently ungodly systems of human government of the world, when what they really must do is seek another, structurally-different Kingdom altogether that operates on freewill offerings of families gathered under servant-ministers who distribute the charity across a global network of people seeking this alternative society where the Lord alone is our King.

The Lord as our only God

Anarcho-theocracy is simply the result of applying the phrases “Jesus is Lord” or “Christ is King” in their true political sense, which excludes worldly kings, gods, lords, and saviors. It is the refusal to grant Caesar any authority that belongs to Christ alone, and it refuses to let the kingdoms of this world baptize themselves and call it “Christian.” The only rightful government is the decentralized, anarchistic Kingdom of God that is not organized on compulsory offerings like taxation and authoritarian violence like that of the police enforcers of human government, but rather on freewill offerings of a free people gathered together to serve each other under the Lord as our only King. A people who set up human kings, presidents, lawmakers, police, and other politicians are not a people who have made the Lord their King, but precisely a people who substitute false lords and kings for God’s direct and personal rule that does not require human middlemen. The inconsistent application of “Christ is King” that arrives at a completely stupid idea where “Jesus is the king of the United States” clearly does not understand the exclusionary sense in which the Lord is the only legitimate King. Jesus as the “King of Kings” and “Lord of Lords” does not express a hierarchical concept where Jesus is the main King but “lesser magistrates” fulfill some middle role, but rather that no other men are legitimate kings or lords, period.  

It is no coincidence that most self-described “atheists” have been fervent statists, further proving the point that there is no such thing as an atheist and that all men have gods and a religion, though rarely the true and pure one. These “atheist statists” have simply exchanged the true God for false ones, and true religion for the false religion of statism. It is no mystery why communists were also professed atheists who hated God. They were only being consistent here. When men abandon God, it is only natural that they seek false gods or embark upon such grandiose schemes of the socialization of the entire earth under central government. To think of Marxism or any form of socialism or statism as purely unreligious is thus problematic. Socialists have no abandoned religion in their profession of atheism, but have only found new gods and saviors in the State itself. 

Yet this leaves it unexplained why the vast majority of professing “Christians” have fallen for the statist ideology of the world, too. Why is it that people who use political terms like lord, savior, and king as applied to Jesus don’t actually mean it? Why is it that professing Christians say “Christ is King” but then support the kingdoms of the world? The only real answer is that they’re false converts who take the Lord’s name in vain. They are people who share a god with the so-called “atheists” in the State. They are allies on the side of statist-theocracy. One would think the professing Christian would observe that their political theory is fundamentally no different from the non-believer—they both believe that human civil government should exist—and repent. Yet, false dichotomies like a “Christian” versus a “secular” State, or “Republicans” vs.”Democrats,” keep them bound to worldly politics. The only issue then becomes the idea that “Christians cannot vote for a Democrat,” rather than to see that Christians cannot vote at all and must seek God’s Kingdom alone as their politics, which is decidedly anarchist as far as it concerns human rulers. 

Anarcho-theocracy and statist-theocracy 

For men to have treated political theology as if it could ever make room for man-made kingdoms has been a perversion of the highest order, one of the gravest possible considering that Scripture as a whole functions as a civics textbook of anarchist political science that reveals that the heart of man’s sin has always been precisely his political rebellion against God: from Cain’s first city-state (Gen 4:17), to Nimrod’s Babylon (Gen 10:8-10), to Israel’s demand for a human king because they no longer trusted God alone to protect them from their enemies (1 Sam 8), to the Americans today who believe the next president will save them from the “democrats,” the “Chinese,” “immigrants,” “domestic terrorists,” or whoever the boogeyman is this week. The Biblical origins of the State in Genesis alone should rest the case of the modern statist that such systems can be squared by God. The first city (Enoch) we read about was founded by a murderer (Cain) who was explicitly said to have “went out from the presence of the Lord” (Gen 4:16), and the very first empire was founded by a tyrant who likewise set himself against the Lord as a “mighty hunter.”

The popular notion that our only choices are “godly statism” or “godless statism” is utterly fallacious. So is the idea of a “godless anarchism” that imagines a free society can be built apart from the Lord as its King. In truth, there are only two options: Christian anarchism or unchristian statism. There are only non-statist Christians and non-Christian statists: There are no third paths. All human government is anti-God. The only real way to have a society without human rulers is to have the Lord Himself as our King, and any quest for human kings is a rejection of Jesus as one’s King. There is no such thing as “Christian statism,” nor is there a “secular anarchism” or a neutral “secular statism.” There is only submission to the direct rule of Christ (anarcho-theocracy) or submission to the rule of men (statist theocracy). Every statist, whether he calls himself Christian or atheist, has embraced a rival religion to Christianity.

Though “Christian” nationalists imagine that they are on a quest to fulfill the Biblical lesson that “blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12)—one of their favorite prooftexts for the idea that human government can and should be made Christian—they are actually just people who God says “have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7). Though they imagine themselves to be servants of God who are carrying out His work through the halls of political power, they are actually men who will only ever hear “depart from me, I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23).  

The impossibility of a Christian State

Both the “Christians” and “atheists” who pursue their idea of a “Christian State” or a “non-religious” one are both in the pursuit of a mythological creature. There is actually no such thing as a “Christian State” or a “secular state.” Neither of these things exists. There is only the false theocracy of statism, which is its own religion, or the true, anarchist theocracy where God alone is King. The true choices that men have is a godly theocracy, which is anti-statist, or an ungodly theocracy, which is statist. There are no other options. 

Both “Christian” nationalists and self-described “atheists” are equally mistaken. The former imagine they can have a statist system that is somehow not a false theocracy, while the latter believe they can have one that isn’t religious at all. Neither one of these are possibilities in light of the true political spectrum of God’s anarchist order vs. man’s ungodly statist order, where all deviations from anarchism imply an abandonment of God and all deviations from God are characterized by an abandonment of anarchism. Every social order is theocratic; there is no escape from gods and no escape from religion. The real question is who your god and what your religion will be. Will it be the Lord who brings His people out of Egypt, or the Pharaohs of Egypt who keep the people in bondage who worship them? Will it be the Lord and His Kingdom order (which is not of the statist kingdoms of this world), or will it be man and his kingdom orders (the very thing Scripture means by “the world”)?

As we have seen, both “atheism/secularism” and the idea of a “Christian State” are myths. They do not exist. They are false options because they are not options at all. The true dichotomy is between anarcho-theocracy or statist-theocracy. The false dichotomy erected by Christian nationalists and other statists who present human government as either “secular” or “Christian” is pure myth. It is not just a false dichotomy that fails to exhaust the choices actually available to men and deceitfully obscures another option. Even worse, both of its supposed choices are utterly false and non-existent. All human government is ungodly and represents a religion of false gods (men) who exercise authority over other men. Both professing Christians and atheists who support it are allied against anarcho-theocracy—the stateless order where God alone is King—and actually on the same team together as people who share a god in the State. They are even allied in that they both refuse to acknowledge the State has become their new god. 

Statism as rebellion against God

We must be careful not to label the State “theocratic” without being clear that it is a false theocracy. This is a mistaken made even being the  atheist critics of “Christian statism” when they treat the Christian pursuit of state power as if it were a legitimate idea of godly rule, which we are arguing is only found in an anarchistic society. For it is precisely the case that establishing a system of human government is considered by God to be a rejection of His direct rule (1 Samuel 8), regardless of the type of government here (whether a “constitutional republic” or a “democratic socialist” one). If we briefly adopt the popular understanding of “theocracy” as state-enforced religion or simply state rule in general, then statism is the precise opposite of theocracy. It is not a rule by God at all, but a rule by false gods. God declares it a system that stands in open opposition to His Kingship. As far as true theocracy, statism is anti-theocracy (though, for purposes as we have described here, it is fitting to maintain that it is false theocracy).

The statist idea is then the chief expression of man’s rebellion against God. It is the primary way that men oppose the rule by God, which is found on in an anarcho-theocratic society. Though statists like to present anarchism as the philosophy of being right in your own eyes (usually a term with negative connotations in the Bible), it is really the practices of statism—setting up and supporting worldly systems of human lawmaking—that are the epitome of being right in your own eyes and turning away from God to engage in your own man-made legalism. From Cain’s city to Nimrod’s empire and onward, statism has always been the characteristic form of man’s rebellion against God. Anarchism, on the other hand, is the natural order as God intended: where free men who hear the voice of the Lord submit to God’s Law only.

The false theocracy of statism

As much as the idea of a “Christian State” is a contradiction, nevertheless it is the most popular fallacy among professing Christians today. The vast majority of so-called Christians see no contradiction in their statism on one hand and professed allegiance to Christ on the other. They are regularly dumbfounded by Christian Anarchism once they finally encounter this concept because they are so lost in the world of false dichotomies and have never even considered it. Though the idea of a “Christian State” has always been loosely held by false converts without much articulation behind it, in our times there are several different “movements” that take up this false idea directly. There is so-called Dominionism, Reconstructionism, Christian Nationalism, Kingdom Now, New Apostolic Reformation, and 7-Mountain Mandate people, all who have in their plans the seizure of human government.

But these schemes are all just the false theocracy of statism dressed up as “taking dominion for Christ.” The Dominion Mandate and the Great Commission never applied to taking over human government; they applied to building the Kingdom of God outside these institutions entirely and dressing the earth and keeping it. “Discipling the nations” did not mean “take over human government” or “seize the reins of power.” “Thy Kingdom come” did not mean it was going to be legislated into being. “On earth as in heaven” does not mean through the institutions of the world system. 

Seeking God’s Kingdom alone 

Those lost in the false dichotomy of a “neutral” human government that is just awaiting “righteous men” to pick up the sword and take it from the “pagans” do not see that righteous men do not rule over others and that there is no room in the scope of true political theology for another kingdom than the Lord’s. Jesus does not share His kingship with other kings. God is a “jealous god.” As Jesus himself teaches, a man cannot serve two masters. We have One King and One Lawgiver, not gods many. There is only “one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy (James 4:12). “One is your Master, even Christ” (Matt 23:8–10). Those who truly believe that the Lord is their judge, lawgiver, and king (Isa 33:22), must come to anarchist conclusions and reject the pursuit of worldly political kingdoms. No text of Scripture ever calls men to seek any other kingdom but the Lord’s. Moreover, Jesus commands that His followers be servants rather than people who “exercise authority” over others. Godly men do not rule over others and anyone who rules is not a godly man. 

These hypocritical “statist Christians” think that “godly human government,” which we have been arguing is a contradiction this whole time, is just a matter of reforming human civil government rather than seeking another Kingdom altogether. They tell us that to have a “Christian government” that “righteous men” must vote and run for office. They clearly don’t understand things the way Jesus put them, in the same way as His direct disciples failed to as they walked alongside him (Mark 10:35-37). The Kingdom of God advances through the proclamation of the gospel, the discipleship of the nations of people, and the voluntary obedience of individuals and families. It is not furthered through worldly-political methods like bullets and ballots. It does not depend on them whatsoever, and indeed requires that men abandon them and seek their abolition. The advancement of God’s Kingdom looks like voluntary submission to God’s law through gospel proclamation and decentralized obedience. It has nothing to do with making use of human government toward those ends. 

Christians aren’t to seek the reformation of human government into some pretend-Christian institution that has an appearance of righteousness, but to seek God’s Kingdom as a mutually-exclusive Kingdom. All human government is of the devil. Everyone who seeks to engage in the politics of the world is under satanic deception, not the counsel of the Lord. All statists are sinners who are of the devil (1 John 3:8). There are no “righteous” men who seek political power. This is what makes men unrighteous. All statism is an abandonment of the one true theocracy of Lord, which is the case only in an anarchist society that has not set up competing gods who always represent a rival theocratic order.