(n.) Government of a state by the immediate direction or administration of God; hence, the exercise of political authority by priests as representing the Deity.
(n.) The state thus governed, as the Hebrew commonwealth before it became a kingdom.
Example Sentences:
(1) On the other hand, the expectation that authority will be bestowed by market forces following a miraculous ‘‘transfer of wealth’’ does suggest an alternative route to normal democratic processes: theocracy via plutocracy.
(2) "It doesn't mean we're going to establish a theocracy and force people to obey what they think is God's law."
(3) Or, if you believe the other side, Santa Monica has upheld the values of the founding fathers, rebuffed a plot to impose theocracy and scored a victory for reason.
(4) Given the unusual grandeur of the Buddhist temples and palaces in the settlement, Mes Aynak might once have been a theocracy like Tibet, with the monks exploiting the copper reserves as a source of power and profit, not unlike the Cistercian monks who dominated the pre-industrial economy in many parts of medieval France and England.
(5) In the eyes of Morsi's Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, it was a military coup; to the government's supporters it was a popular overthrow, with a little help from the military, of an administration that had broken its promises on moderation; created widespread discontent; cracked down on dissent, and was dragging Egypt towards a closed-minded theocracy.
(6) Within this apocalyptic tradition, Cohn identified the Flagellants who massacred the Jews of Frankfurt in 1349; the widespread heresy of the Free Spirit; the 16th-century Anabaptist theocracy of Münster (though some have criticised Cohn's account of this extraordinary event as lurid); the Bohemian Hussites; the instigators of the German peasants' war; and the Ranters of the English civil war.
(7) Antediluvian theocracy has had its day, and thinking Talibs know it.
(8) Watching from the front row in late August was Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei , in what was seen as an endorsement from the ruling theocracy that had once tried to stamp out all music as a violation of Islamic values.
(9) The Dalai Lama himself has managed the very difficult transition of Tibetan exile politics from a theocracy towards something very much like a proper democracy.
(10) Our agenda is to preserve and protect the constitution and do everything within the law to prevent them establishing a theocracy over us," said Edwin Kagin, national legal director of American Atheists .
(11) The great thinkers of the Enlightenment proposed that if society was to get beyond theocracy, anarchy or despotism, then it had to be underwritten by such a social contract.
(12) Ahrar al-Sham Formed by hardliners with Muslim Brotherhood links, who aim to establish a Sunni theocracy in Syria, Ahrar al-Sham fought with Nusra when it was still part of al-Qaida, but rejects international jihad itself.
(13) Audiences are surprised because Switzerland is supposedly full of People Like Us: it’s an affluent western European nation, not a sand-blasted theocracy or a dirt-poor African dictatorship.
(14) In recent years a more assertive Iran, run by a Shia Muslim theocracy, has mounted multiple challenges to Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia’s role as guardian and leader of the Islamic world.
(15) Iran is a proud nation of 80 million mostly Muslim people, one of many Asian and African states struggling between theocracy and democracy, tradition and modernity.
(16) For years, detractors have accused the Dalai Lama of scheming to retake Tibet and restore the old feudal theocracy, in spite of his public statements in favour of secular, democratic government.
(17) A year after the elections Iran is still an illiberal theocracy, it is no closer to halting its uranium enrichment program, it still plays king maker in Iraq, and the fate of the Strait of Hormuz still rests on a hair trigger.
(18) The scale of his victory provides a strong platform to challenge hardliners who still hold ultimate control in a Iran’s unwieldy hybrid of theocracy and democracy.
(19) Iranian dissidents, who oppose the theocracy's drive to get the bomb, turned up to protest.
(20) Like any theocracy, this one would select a few passages from the Bible to justify its actions, and it would lean heavily towards the Old Testament, not towards the New.
Theocrat
Definition:
(n.) One who lives under a theocratic form of government; one who in civil affairs conforms to divine law.
Example Sentences:
(1) What goes on in The Handmaid’s Tale [the overthrow of the US government by a theocratic dictatorship that suppresses the rights of women] is actually confined to what used to be the United States.
(2) Proposed explanations included the strain on theocratic rule of Hindu-Buddhist jostling; attacks by Thai armies; and changes brought about by maritime trade.
(3) Congressional hostility toward Iran is rooted in a black-and-white worldview that runs as follows: the United States and Israel are liberal democracies that defend individual rights and human dignity, whereas Iran is a despotic theocratic regime that sponsors terrorism and would do anything within its power to wipe Israel off the map.
(4) Khamenei – whose theocratic authority is backed by the revolutionary guards, intelligence services, the judiciary and religious endowments – retains control of national security issues including Syria and nuclear policy.
(5) Overtly theocratic, Reconstructionism has also been referred to as “a new form of clerical fascist politics” by Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons, who wrote Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort.
(6) 1917-1925 Revolution and civil war lead to an attempt at creating an autonomous theocratic state.
(7) But in fact the protesters who took to the streets in Bradford and other mill towns were themselves the offspring of other far-off theocratic politics in the subcontinent.
(8) Reporters without Borders wrote to the department of immigration warning dissent was not tolerated by Iran’s theocratic regime.
(9) But first, the theocratic leadership will have to rein in hardline elements that oppose any reconciliation.
(10) That put him in the pay of a theocratic dictatorship that denies the Holocaust and believes that both homosexuality and adultery merit stoning.
(11) The deal was first proposed during the summer in a letter from the three European governments, but only recently did the theocratic leadership choose to take up the offer.
(12) The cosy relationship between the British state and the theocratic dictatorship of Saudi Arabia is neither new, nor news.
(13) His fate was linked to the broader, region-wide struggle for power and influence between the Sunni sphere, championed by the House of Saud, on the one hand, and the theocrats of Iran, the most powerful majority Shia state, on the other.
(14) The birth of this first fully fledged Arab democracy could offer a model of hope amid the feverish voices of despair and nihilism, and the backdrop of military dictators, corrupt theocrats and militant anarchists.
(15) Considering Moon's documented history of extreme rightwing theocratic politics, antisemitism, constant rumours of sexual improprieties, his US imprisonment in 1982 for tax evasion, and, for Christians, an offensively blasphemous theology, it is difficult to understand how he was tolerated, even welcomed, by US presidents, politicians, clergymen and academics in America, Japan and Britain.
(16) A year ago they rallied in their millions, a display of people power draped in green that stunned the world, rattled Iran's theocratic leadership and promised to jolt the entire region.
(17) But while both sides' rhetoric could be dismissed as so much hot air, the infantile idea the Iranian nation would welcome US bombers and suddenly rise up as one to overthrow the theocratic regime reflects a more dangerous ignorance.
(18) Mutual hostility remains a reflex even today as Barack Obama has reached out to Iran’s theocratic supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the quest for an agreement over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.
(19) The turnout was huge and for those who still hope that Iran’s hardline theocratic regime can be reformed, it was full of pathos.
(20) The reformist government led by president Mohammad Khatami was not even present for the crucial negotiating sessions, underlying its marginal status in Iran's theocratic system.