Democracy vs Theocracy

Our nation is characterized by a diversity of religious beliefs and practices as well as by many who profess no religion at all.  We are religiously pluralistic and have been since our beginning.  Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants, Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Atheists have lived here since colonial days.  Before we showed up, Native Americans had their own unique religious beliefs.  Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Latter Day Saints, Christian Scientists, Pentecostalism, Unitarianism, and Scientology emerged in the last century here in the US.  Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, and other world religions are also present in our American society.  Protestantism, historically dominant, is no longer the religious majority in our nation. 

Any citizen, of any religion, or with none at all, should be extremely grateful for the opportunity to live in this country where democracy (“government of the people, by the people, for the people”) exists and where freedom of religion and equality, and certain unalienable human rights can be exercised.  Imagine what it would be like if we were a Theocracy?  A theocracy is a government wherein we would be bound to accept the decisions made by religious leaders, perhaps Methodist, or Baptist, or Jewish, or Orthodox, or Hindu, or Buddhist.  We would be subjected to whatever those religious leaders decided were God’s rules.  (A close encounter with theocracy can be seen in the Supreme Court ruling concerning “Hobby Lobby”).  

Democracy, by its very definition, accepts all forms of diversity, including religious diversity (a government of the people, by the people, for the people—all the people, religious and non-religious).  In a democracy my religious point of view counts, but so does the view of another’s religious persuasion.  My view cannot curtail the other’s expression, nor can my view deny the other’s equal rights as a citizen. Whenever one religion attempts to decide what God’s rules are for all other persons we are moving toward a theocracy and away from a democracy.  I much prefer a democracy.