Belief in God is Undemocratic

If you believe in God, you don’t believe in democratic principles. Have you ever thought of that? No? It’s true. A belief in God is philosophically at odds with a belief in democracy and democratic ideals. In fact, it helps to explain why, over the vast sweep of human civilization, democracy has been such a rare form of government. True story.

Democracy just doesn’t happen that often in human history. By contrast, most of human history has seen government in the form of monarchy. Kings and queens and emperors fill the world history pages because they are the government humans prefer, far above any other. Certainly, far above democracy. Belief in an all-powerful God, or, at least, a Supreme Deity, goes hand in hand with this preference for one person rule. And, when monarchies fell out of favor, dictatorships took their place. The one Supreme Ruler model continued, only in a slightly different form.

A look at Christianity supports this view that one person rule, either monarchic or dictatorial is the way to go for most people. After all, what is God if not a benevolent dictator? God doesn’t follow democratic principles. He’s immune to democratic concerns. It’s his way or the highway. There is no appeal from God’s decisions and there are no checks and balances on his power. He is Supreme. God rules all just the same way a king, an emperor or a dictator would. Like a king or a dictator though, God can’t do it alone. Which is odd, really, when you think of God being all powerful. I mean, if you’re all powerful, why would you need any help at all? Seriously. If you’re all powerful, you have no need for servants. You can do it all by yourself. Servants are extraneous. But, in the most familiar Christian models God has his underlings, his king’s court or dictator’s inner posse, if you will, there to help him do his bidding. He has angels, all created to serve him, like some celestial Nazi SS. They protect God and fight for him (though, who or what they protect him from is never really explained). They’re God’s Knights of the Round Table, his Roman Praetorian Guard his Iraqi Republican Guard all rolled into one with wings. God’s angels, are superior to humans, like a good aristocracy or ruling class should be. They exist to do God’s bidding (though, again, this seems redundant since God can do everything himself) and they are uber loyal. Well, most of them. Except for those who aren’t. But even fallen angels like Lucifer are superior to humans and part of the aristocracy/ruling class, just, you know, in an opposing camp ideology-wise.

Of course, what is a king without a prince? And, in Christianity, God has his prince in the form of Jesus Christ, his son viz a viz Mary. What’s interesting about Christianity is that it’s a religion built around the worship of an ultimately impotent sidekick. That’s all Jesus is, really, and yet many Christians worship him as “Lord”. Jesus has no power save the power God allows him, just as the prince has no power save the power allotted him by the king. Jesus isn’t God, he couldn’t be for his sacrifice on the cross to be meaningful. Only by being human could he die on the cross and sacrifice himself for all us other humans and since he’s not God, he can’t really be “the Lord” either because he’s not number one. He’s a perpetual number 2. An eternal vice president without any hope of getting the top job. That’s not so say that the prince can’t rule the kingdom. A king may let his son call the shots. God could let Jesus rule his heavenly kingdom while he went fishing, let’s say. But even in this scenario the real power is the king’s, or God’s, not his son’s.

I don’t know of any Christians who have a problem with doing what God says. Not a single one. God says you do something, well, “God’s will be done.” Even if what he says to do makes no sense, well, “God works in mysterious ways”. Christians are cool with being bossed around by a Heavenly king who tells them what to do, how to do it and so on without so much as a debate with his subjects. Ever notice that? God never asks anyone for their opinion. Ever. He never asks for advice. From anybody. This was, according to some traditions, Lucifer’s big beef. God was too, well, godlike. Of course, God never has to have debates or ask for advice because God is all-knowing, and completely good. But like any good king or dictator, God has a dark side. He claims to be at war with Evil, in the form of Lucifer, aka Satan, but it’s a fake war, a war that is staged to keep his subjects in line and loyal to him. It’s the sort of war kings and dictators have fought since time began, a war meant to unite the kingdom or the tribe or the country against the dangers of the “other”. God doesn’t really need a war, in fact, the war God is fighting is all style over substance. He’s God. He made Lucifer and all his fallen angel cohorts and can snuff them out at any moment with his thumb. It’s a war in name only, this war between Heaven and Hell, it’s a war that Lucifer is incapable of winning because he is, by definition, inferior to God, so, in fighting this war, it’s all absurd theater. In fact, one can argue that Lucifer knows he doesn’t stand a chance but he fights the war anyway, the same way Sisyphus pushes the rock up the hill anyway, knowing full well that the rock will fall back down to the base of the hill every time, all the same.

Belief in God, as outlined above, is all centered around the belief in one all powerful ruler who’s never wrong. It also is a belief in natural inequality. While democracies may preach the virtues of people being equal, underneath it all, no one really believe in that. God has created an unequal universe. There’s him, sitting at the top. His son, just below him. Then there are his angels, both the Warriors of Light, on his side and the fallen ones who hang in darkness, all of whom are naturally superior to man.

But even within mankind, God has created an unequal order. There are saints and mystics and holy men all over the place, humans endowed with a more direct line to God than the rest of us. The Pope, is a great example. So too,ayatollahs in Shi’a Islam. The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is another example of this as well. Men who have a direct line to God. Who talk to God. Who feel his presence. In fact, when the Reformation happened, its initial goal was to make Christianity more democratic, to take it away from the hierarchical structures that the Catholic Church had created. That hasn’t happened. Protestant churches, by and large, revolve around a minster, a pastor, the one Big Man in Church, or, BMIC, who is the glue to the congregation. Even if it’s not directly stated, it’s implied that the pastor, the minister, the head preacher is not equal to the others in his flock by virtue of his position. He is better connected to God, better learned in Scripture, touched by the hand of Divine Authority in some way that separates him from everyone else. No equality here.

In a country with strong Christian tendencies it’s no surprise that we Americans follow this anti-democratic line of thinking within our own democracy. Take the US Senate, for instance. The Us Senate is now and has been throughout its history an elite institution. Joe Blow, the Garbage Man has no chance of being a senator. None. Nil. Senators are almost without exception all millionaires. There’s no real equality here. There’s people seeing a natural order where the rich and powerful have a right to rule, just as Christians see a natural right to rule as being implicit in God’s situation. Hey, the dude made the universe, seems fair he should be the one to call the shots, no? Families like the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Clintons, all wind up forming a natural aristocracy, supported by a ruling class awash in wealth and power. The rules are made for everyone else but them and most people grudgingly accept this as the state of things as they should be. Average people can’t’ run for office, only wealthy people can.

Most Americans favor a strong presidency and the most popular American presidents were the strongest, most forceful ones: Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, Reagan… We don’t really believe in equality because we believe the rich lead better lives than the poor, we believe that being rich and famous makes a person’s life more important, more meaningful. We create a structured order to our society that’s not too dissimilar to the order that is in Heaven. A strong father figure (the President) at the top and everyone else down below. Congress and the government play the role of angels, along with the wealthy ruling class, all serving the president. There is no real equality in life and, just like the theatrical War in Heaven between Lucifer and God, there is a bit of theater in the way we pretend to have a democracy. It’s a theater that’s consistent with what humans believe in and want from life, however. People want a strong Supreme Ruler. They don’t want equality. They don’t want democracy. They want firm solid rule. They want a king/dictator God and a king/dictator president. That’s how we are. That’s just how it goes.