theocracy
Definition (house-style)
Theocracy — from Greek theos (God) and kratein (to rule) — is the governing principle whereby God exercises supreme authority directly over a community, without the mediation of human conscience or democratic decision-making. In the ecclesiology of apokatastasis.wiki, theocracy is the positive counterpart to humanism and democracy as church models: the church as a community of people under God’s direct rule through His law and His Spirit.
Stephen Jones and George Warnock both emphasize that the absence of theocracy is the deepest cause of ecclesiastical decline and power-appropriation. Where human conscience or democratic mandate grounds church authority rather than God’s direct authority, the church reproduces the anarchy of the period of the Judges.
Author variants
Stephen Jones
Jones develops his theocratic ecclesiological model in Secrets of Time through the theme “no king in Israel” (Judg. 17:6; 21:25). The structural problem of Israel was that the people were supposed to be a theocracy, but in practice rarely were:
“They were supposed to be a theocracy, wherein God ruled them directly; but in fact, they seldom did the Will of God.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 13]
Jones reads the book of Judges as a warning to every community that would ground church authority in human conscience rather than in God’s law:
“Essentially, the book stands as a warning to humanists, who believe that man has the right and duty to legislate his own moral codes by the power of human reasoning which they call ‘conscience.’ The book shows us that one’s conscience was not given to legislate, but rather to interpret and apply the law of God to one’s everyday life.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 13]
Israel’s historical captivity in Assyria discloses for Jones the theocratic norm — the absence of theocracy results in judgment:
“The theme of ‘no king in Israel’ was thus prophesied upon the House of Israel during their years of captivity to Assyria, as part of their judgment for their humanistic views.”
[Jones, Secrets of Time, ch. 13; cf. Hos. 3:4]
Ecclesiologically, this implies that any church government grounded in human conscience rather than in God’s law reproduces the same anarchy depicted in the book of Judges.
George Warnock
Warnock formulates his theocratic church model in From Tent to Temple (b5) as a direct counterposition to democracy. His starting point is God’s sovereign appointment:
“God has never authorized a democratic order for His people in any age, and certainly not for His Church.”
[Warnock, From Tent to Temple, ch. 3]
Warnock argues that church government is a gift of the Spirit — comparable to miracles and healing — not a human administrative technique:
“‘Government’ is as clearly a gift and ministration of the Spirit, as are miracles, healings, tongues, prophecies, and so forth (1Cor. 12:28). And God will yet displace this democratic system that we have in the Church, as well as in the world.”
[Warnock, From Tent to Temple, ch. 3]
As a typological illustration of the theocratic principle, Warnock uses the twenty-four priestly princes of Solomon’s temple (cf. 1Chr. 24), corresponding to the twenty-four elders of Rev. 4:4. They were appointed by God, not elected by the people — functioning as both kings and priests (Rev. 5:10).