Martin Marty on "Resisting Theocracy"

Martin Marty, America's premier church historian, has published an essay entitled "Resisting 'Theocracy.'"  In it he gives very brief reviews of Rabbi James Rudin's Baptizing America and Kevin Phillips' American Theocracy.

Marty thinks the word "theocracy" invokes an extreme and "often demonic" aura of "the other."  Yet he notes that some of those so labeled "might savor and favor" the designation.

It's hard to discern whether Marty is either agreeing or disagreeing with Rudin and Phillips.  Here's a quote from Marty's essay:

Advice to myself, after reading Phillips's counsel: 1) Don't assign to people a label and a position they don't exactly hold; 2) Don't lump all people called "conservative" or "born again" into the mix of the theocracy-minded; 3) Don't label anyone "theocrat" who does not bear most of the marks of the theocrat; 4) Thus remember that, for people of faith on left or right, to try to influence foreign or domestic policy is not by itself a mark of theocracy--not by any means; 5) Do urge fellow citizens to be Madisonian (Federalist Papers X and LI), to work for the republic, against favor or privilege or establishment for particular religions (e.g., "Christianity" or "the biblical worldview"); 6) If you must blame, blame fairly, including the Republicans-not-on-the-right or Democrats-wherever-they-are for leaving a moral vacuum that exploiters can invade and exploit; 7) Make the point that theocracies have always corrupted communities of faith that favor them, noting that such polities are bad for religion; 8) Read and profit from Rudin and especially Phillips as they make their cases; 9) Be ready to link up with others, to see if at this late date the republic can be invigorated and survive; 10) Arrange with people you can trust to help you live with new strategies and old hopes, as you try to find a means of sleeping peacefully after you've read this unsettling script--and then awaken, for thought and action.

The only thing that Marty's essay makes clear is that the word "theocracy," makes him uncomfortable.

A lot of people have begun using the word "Dominionism" to describe the theology that undergirds the modern thrust toward theocracy in America.  I don't think it carries the connotations that make people like Martin Marty ill-at-ease.