Theodemocracy

Theodemocracy is a theocratic political system proposed by Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. According to Smith, a theodemocracy is a fusion of traditional republican democratic principles under the US Constitution with theocratic rule. Smith described it as a system under which God and the people held the power to rule in righteousness. Smith believed that to be the form of government that would rule the world upon the Second Coming of Christ. The polity would constitute the "Kingdom of God," which was foretold by the prophet Daniel in the Old Testament. Theodemocratic principles played a minor role in the forming of the State of Deseret in the American Old West. Early Latter Day Saints were typically Jacksonian Democrats and were highly involved in representative republican political processes. According to the historian Marvin S. Hill, "the Latter-day Saints saw the maelstrom of competing faiths and social institutions in the early 19th century as evidence of social upheaval and found confirmation in the rioting and violence that characterized Jacksonian America." Smith wrote in 1842 that earthly governments "have failed in all their attempts to promote eternal peace and happiness.... [Even the United States] is rent, from center to circumference, with party strife, political intrigues, and sectional interest." Smith believed that only a government led by a deity could banish the destructiveness of unlimited factions and bring order and happiness to the earth. Church Apostle Orson Pratt stated in 1855 that the government of God "is a government of union." Smith believed that a theodemocratic polity would be the literal fulfilment of Christ's prayer in the Gospel of Matthew: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." Further, Smith taught that the Kingdom of God, which he called the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, would hold dominion in the last days over all other kingdoms, as foretold in the Book of Daniel.

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Related concepts (6)

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 - June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith had attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religion he founded continues to the present day, with millions of global adherents and several churches claiming Smith as their founder, the largest being the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).

Christian reconstructionism

Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of Rousas Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Christ in all aspects of life. In keeping with the biblical cultural mandate, reconstructionists advocate for theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continued applicability.

Postmillennialism

In Christian eschatology (end-times theology), postmillennialism, or postmillenarianism, is an interpretation of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation which sees Christ's second coming as occurring after (Latin post-) the "Millennium", a Golden Age in which Christian ethics prosper. The term subsumes several similar views of the end times, and it stands in contrast to premillennialism and, to a lesser extent, amillennialism (see Summary of Christian eschatological differences).