Challenge: Evangelical-Dominated One World Government

In the One World Government thread, I used the example of American evangelicals pushing Bush to cut federal funding to embryonic stem-cell research as a reason to be wary of a one-world government, where those with inconvenient ideas had nowhere to run.

That got me thinking...

So, with a POD no earlier than 1940, have a world government run by evangelical Christians. It need not be right-wing evangelicals--there are left-wing evangelicals as well, such as Tony Campolo. Campolo, for example, pointed out that although there are several Bible verses condemning homosexual behavior, there are a buttload more condemning the abuse of the poor.

Before you think this scenario ASB, there is a lot of Christian evangelism in "The Global South" and there's a book called The Next Christendom that suggests this is where Christianity will be strong in the future as Europe and North America secularize.
 

Hendryk

Banned
There's a compelling reason why a hypothetical world government couldn't be based on religion: the people who are not members of said religion would likely object.

Either all religions are treated equally or the entire project is stillborn.
 
Er, no. Trying to convert Asia will be very difficult at best. We have plenty of denominations in Europe who will object. And then there is the fact that religious governments are not very effective.

So without an earlier POD, ASB.
 
There's a compelling reason why a hypothetical world government couldn't be based on religion: the people who are not members of said religion would likely object.

Either all religions are treated equally or the entire project is stillborn.

I never said it would be a persecutory, theocratic entity.

Heck, if it's left-wing evangelicals, it could come through the existing structure of the UN and with enough other ideological stuff to get non-Christian allies.

Plus, didn't you say that American evangelicals have more in common with Muslims than Europeans in terms of social attitudes?

(The US under Bush voting with Iran and Saudi Arabia on certain issues, for example.)

Perhaps they could be allies. :)
 

Hendryk

Banned
I never said it would be a persecutory, theocratic entity.
Neither did I. Even the garden-variety kind would be objected to. There is no way a sectarian polity can ever govern a religiously diverse society (not in a manner befitting a liberal democracy anyway), unless it defangs its own sectarian affiliation to the point where it becomes purely ceremonial, such as those European countries with established churches.

Heck, if it's left-wing evangelicals, it could come through the existing structure of the UN and with enough other ideological stuff to get non-Christian allies.
For the most part, left-wing evangelicals know better than to pull this kind of stunt. They prefer to actually work at ground level rather than court the powers that be like their conservative brethren so openly do.

Plus, didn't you say that American evangelicals have more in common with Muslims than Europeans in terms of social attitudes?

(The US under Bush voting with Iran and Saudi Arabia on certain issues, for example.)

Perhaps they could be allies. :)
Note that this kind of alliance can only take place behind the scenes, so as not to get in the way of publicly condemning the heathens/infidels.

In short, this wouldn't work.
 
Neither did I. Even the garden-variety kind would be objected to. There is no way a sectarian polity can ever govern a religiously diverse society (not in a manner befitting a liberal democracy anyway), unless it defangs its own sectarian affiliation to the point where it becomes purely ceremonial, such as those European countries with established churches.

It could be ceremonial.

In the Seafort novels by David Feintuch, the "established church" of Earth is a reunified Catholic-Protestant church, but it (for the most part*) is something "respectable" people do.

(*There are references to the Pentecostals being annihilated "while most people applauded" at some point in the past and some of the later books depict someone getting burned at the stake--but the Pentecostals were in the past and one could argue the stake-burner was a renegade, as I think MrP did.)
 
For the most part, left-wing evangelicals know better than to pull this kind of stunt. They prefer to actually work at ground level rather than court the powers that be like their conservative brethren so openly do.

It could be a grassroots thing that grows upward. :)
 
unless there was a combination of nuclear war and biological plague i don't see it happening.
 

Hendryk

Banned
It could be a grassroots thing that grows upward. :)
To get there, the first of several requirements is that a solid majority of the world's population would have to become evangelical, and I don't see it happening, especially not with a POD after 1940. Of course, the second requirement would be that anyone cares enough about a world government to actually set one up, and I don't see that happening either. We'll be lucky if there's a world government in place by the 22nd century, and even I think that the odds are against it.

You are yourself evidence of the fact that an evangelical Christian is just as likely to be nationalistically-inclined as a non-evangelical, or a non-Christian for that matter. Which is strange when you consider that transnationalism is at the very core of the Christian message, but there you have it.
 
You are yourself evidence of the fact that an evangelical Christian is just as likely to be nationalistically-inclined as a non-evangelical, or a non-Christian for that matter. Which is strange when you consider that transnationalism is at the very core of the Christian message, but there you have it.

There's downplaying racial/cultural differences--"no Jew or Greek, free or slave, male or female"--and then there's supporting a one world government.

A does not necessarily equal B.
 

Hendryk

Banned
There's downplaying racial/cultural differences--"no Jew or Greek, free or slave, male or female"--and then there's supporting a one world government.

A does not necessarily equal B.
So explain to me again how this evangelical world government of yours would come into being then?
 
So explain to me again how this evangelical world government of yours would come into being then?

I have no earthly idea. It is a challenge, after all.

The Seafort Saga involved a lot of world-wrecking conflicts, including a nuke war at one point, that led to everyone willingly accepting a global UN with some measures that don't work well with a free society (a state church, a mandatory life sentence for "unauthorized weapons) as an alternative to anarchy and endless war.

Perhaps something like that, with a dynamic evangelical SecGen from, say, Brazil or South Africa? He could be such a Great Man that he inspires many others.
 
Not...Fucking...Possible!
Even ASBs would have trouble getting that done.
- Catholics and Orthodox would sooner start a crusade against evangelicals.
- Too many different flavors of evangelicalism and protestantism to get along.
- All secular people would get a heart attack at the very idea. (rightly so)
- Christianity is AT MOST 1/3 of the world, secular Christians included
 
Not...Fucking...Possible!
Even ASBs would have trouble getting that done.
- Catholics and Orthodox would sooner start a crusade against evangelicals.
- Too many different flavors of evangelicalism and protestantism to get along.
- All secular people would get a heart attack at the very idea. (rightly so)
- Christianity is AT MOST 1/3 of the world, secular Christians included

Most Catholics I know aren't about to go launch a Crusade.
 
Most Catholics I know aren't about to go launch a Crusade.
Because they are secular catholics and would fall in the "getting a heart attack at the very idea" camp.
And indeed a crusade is very unlikely, but less so than an evangelical world government...
Also, I suspect that most evangelicals would be just as enthusiastic about an evangelical world government as Catholics would be about the Pope being the temporal ruler of the whole of Urbi et Orbi.
 
A World Government that oppresses homosexuals and tells women to get back in the kitchen? Oh, joy. :rolleyes:
 
So, with a POD no earlier than 1940, have a world government run by evangelical Christians. It need not be right-wing evangelicals--there are left-wing evangelicals as well, such as Tony Campolo. Campolo, for example, pointed out that although there are several Bible verses condemning homosexual behavior, there are a buttload more condemning the abuse of the poor.

Before you think this scenario ASB, there is a lot of Christian evangelism in "The Global South" and there's a book called The Next Christendom that suggests this is where Christianity will be strong in the future as Europe and North America secularize.

Left evangelicals aren't that numerous though.

If you want evangelicals in the south, in Brazil they already outnumber Catholics in church attendance, though really that's more of a sign of how nominal Catholicism is in the country. Perhaps a Brazil-dominating-the-world POD by 2100.

If you want a POD before then, it'd have to be much before 1900. Perhaps the Know Nothing movement successfully bars Catholic immigration leading to a fundamentalist dominated US that in turn dominates the world.
 
A World Government that oppresses homosexuals and tells women to get back in the kitchen? Oh, joy. :rolleyes:

Not all evangelicals are like that. The so-called "complementarians," the ones who REALLY want women back in the kitchen, complain all the time about how the rest of Christendom has allegedly been seduced by the culture on this matter (unlike them).
 
Left evangelicals aren't that numerous though.

At present, although I heard one of the trends among younger evangelicals is a greater focus on poverty, the environment, etc. as opposed to fixating on homosexuals.

The Religious Right making itself look bad through things like Haggard, spouting conspiracy theories about Obama, etc. could lead to many jumping ship for the Religious Left.
 
It's already happened. Christianity was the government, it spread world-wide and became the pre-dominant world religion per Daniel 2:44.

It has since been replaced by Rev 20's Gog and Magog anti-Christian society.
 
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