Obama’s New Theocracy

David Theroux has two excellent blog posts at The Beacon that I want to commend to you. In the first, David tracks and documents how an bizarre religious fervor has developed around Obama and how “faith-based” federal funding is growing.

Obama’s New Theocracy | The Beacon

The depiction of Barack Obama as the new, secular, American messiah began with his full approval during his presidential campaign and led directly to the spectacle of his coronation/inauguration. In what can only be described as a delusional, self-righteous pronouncement of himself as the new messiah (”the chosen one”), Obama has stated that: “We are the ones we‘ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” [emphasis added]

The second includes a well-known quote from Lewis about “theocracy”:

C.S. Lewis on the Evil and Corruption of Theocracy

I fully embrace the maxim (which . . . borrows from a Christian) that “all power corrupts.” I would go further. The loftier the pretensions of the power, the more meddlesome, inhuman, and oppressive it will be. Theocracy is the worst of all possible governments. All political power is at best a necessary evil: but it is least evil when its sanctions are most modest and commonplace, when it claims no more than to be useful or convenient and sets itself strictly limited objectives. Anything transcendental or spiritual, or even anything very strongly ethical, in its pretensions is dangerous and encourages it to meddle with our private lives. Let the shoemaker stick to his last. Thus the Renaissance doctrine of Divine Right is for me a corruption of monarchy; Rousseau’s General Will, of democracy; racial mysticisms, of nationality. And Theocracy, I admit and even insist, is the worst corruption of all.

—From The World’s Last Night: And Other Essays, by C.S. Lewis

Now, be sure to distinguish the difference between “theocracy” as Lewis expounds and the direct rule of God, as in the time of biblical Israel. Of course, Yahweh is the Great King of the Universe and ultimately we Christians believe that God rules all. Lewis, however, is talking about “faith-based statism,” which is an awful, terrible system.

David Theroux is the founder and president of the Independent Institute.