CHAPTER FOUR

POLITICAL SYSTEM OF CALVINIST THEOCRACY

Th eocratic Polity

As indicated, the political system of Calvinist, like any, theocracy is by assumption a theocratic polity, including a church-state. At this junc- ture, Calvinist theocracy is considered both a partial political and a total societal system, a polity and society alike. In the narrow sense it is a political system in itself, a theocratic polity or government, in par- ticular an overt, formal and/or covert, substantive variation of a state- church. For example, Weber refers to Calvinistic theocracies cum legally established and substantively dominant “state churches” in Europe and America. Th ese theocracies include that of Holland in the form of the “only true” Reformed Church, of England through the “Parliament of Saints” or “Divines”, and notably the “theocracy of New England” by means of the established Calvinist Congregational Church during the 17th–19th century (Baldwin 2006; Bremer 1995). In general, the above is a conventional conception of theocracy, Calvinist or other, in the strict political sense, by analogy to aristocracy, oligarchy, bureaucracy, plutocracy, technocracy, democracy, autocracy, and related concepts. In a holistic sociological sense, as conceived in the present work, Calvinist theocracy constitutes a total social system or society, incorporating its intertwined theocratic economic, political, civic, and cultural systems, including a state-church, as its integral ele- ments or subsystems. In terms of Calvinism, specifi cally Puritanism, it is the theocratic design and reality of a “godly” society or community, including, but not limited to, “godly politics” (Zaret 1989) as its integral part. A historical exemplar is the “Puritan dream of the godly commu- nity” (German 1995) in America, a dream originally fulfi lled in New England and subsequently expanded or perpetuated (“dream on”) in the “Bible Belt” and beyond. In holistic sociological terms, the political system of Calvinist theoc- racy thus understood is defi ned by equivalent theocratic and to that extent anti-liberal and non-democratic attributes and outcomes, as are its other entwined partial systems, the economy, civil society, and 194 chapter four

culture. Hence, the type of polity inherent to Calvinist and other theoc- racy as a social system or society is an anti-liberal and non-democratic, or authoritarian and even totalitarian, qua theocratic state or govern- ment, yielding the antithesis of liberal-secular democracy. Th is renders an anti-liberal and non-democratic polity, or the inverse of liberal- secular democracy, in the form of a theocratic or theocentric (Wall 1998) government the political dimension of America’s Calvinist- as-Puritan “destiny”. In this sense, what Weber’s contemporary Ross, in reference to Puritanism, denotes as the “antidote” (rather poison) of liberal- secular democracy turns out to be America’s Calvinist political “destiny.” Th is is what Ross implies by stating that America is a “lineal descendent” of Puritanism, and thereby liberal-secular democracy pro- duces “its own antidote” in the form of the latter, in spite or because of that the two “have worked together”. Th e Calvinist polity in America, at least in Puritan ruled New England in the past and the evangelical “Bible Belt” in prospect, has been or is likely to be anti-liberal, non-democratic, thus the “antidote” of liberal-secular democracy, precisely because of the inner logic of Calvinism. Calvinism originated, functioned, and remained as the par- adigmatic species of extreme political anti-liberalism and consequent ly (other things equal) totalitarianism (Dahrendorf 1979), fulfi lling thr ough Puritanism in Anglo-Saxon societies the same “sociological function” that fascism did in Germany (Adorno 2001; Fromm 1941; McLaughlin 1996). Calvinism was and remains via neo-Calvinist evan- gelicalism in America, what Weber implies as “strict” anti-liberalism and hence totalitarianism, revealing its “iron” anti-liberal and “totalis- tic” (Eisenstadt 1965) consistency, including theocratic “totalitarian monism” (Dahrendorf 1959) or absolutism (Habermas 2001). In essence, Calvinism, in particular Puritanism, was strict and con- sistent anti-liberalism and totalitarianism on the account of its estab- lishment and defense of a despotic or tyrannical political and social system on “higher” Divine grounds. In short, a Calvinist-Puritan polity and society was anti-liberal and totalitarian because it was “Divinely ordained” despotism or tyranny in the form of theocratic “godly” poli- tics and community. Th us, Weber suggests that Calvinism’s “ecclesiasti- cal regimentation”, in particular that by “Calvinistic state churches” in Europe and America, was “excessively despotic” in political as well as religious and social terms to the point of almost amounting to an “inquisition.” For example, Calvin stipulated that, so to speak, “thou shall” suff er in complete submission “even tyranny” on the grounds of