post-war governance of the Temple Lands

n7axw wrote:Hi Jeff,


You are right that I don't like the church with political power period. Look at my signature line.

But my real issue in the context of this discussion is that we are talking about the COGA. You may well be right that the best that can be done is something like what you guys have described. I, for one, don't want allied troops committed to a long term occupation in a hostile environment.

Maybe we can at least keep the COGA from running everybody elses affairs. That would at least be progress.

Don

I have no issues with a Church having political power. The issue I have is the combination of the power to compel and the moral authority over matter of conscience. The Church can attempt to persuade or even remonstrate to its heart's content. What it cannot have is the legal authority to compel individuals to accept its view.

If the Church were to administer social services as well as moral and philosophical education for people, that's just fine. Church involvement in the police and military powers of the state? Hell, no. The same applies in reverse. The state because it does hold police and military power, stays the hell out of matter of personal conscience and morals.

PeterZ wrote:

n7axw wrote:Hi Jeff,


You are right that I don't like the church with political power period. Look at my signature line.

But my real issue in the context of this discussion is that we are talking about the COGA. You may well be right that the best that can be done is something like what you guys have described. I, for one, don't want allied troops committed to a long term occupation in a hostile environment.

Maybe we can at least keep the COGA from running everybody elses affairs. That would at least be progress.

Don

I have no issues with a Church having political power. The issue I have is the combination of the power to compel and the moral authority over matter of conscience. The Church can attempt to persuade or even remonstrate to its heart's content. What it cannot have is the legal authority to compel individuals to accept its view.

If the Church were to administer social services as well as moral and philosophical education for people, that's just fine. Church involvement in the police and military powers of the state? Hell, no. The same applies in reverse. The state because it does hold police and military power, stays the hell out of matter of personal conscience and morals.

The sense that I was using the term political power has to do with the power to legislate its agenda into law and then to use the power of the state to enforce that agenda. That is what is corrupting. After explaing how I am using the terms, I wholeheartedly agree with your post.

Don

I dropped out of this discussion because it was getting very wide and I have been too busy in RL.

But can I just point out that, IIRC, we know nothing from textev about how the Temple Lands are organised internally. Some Vicar is the head honcho in each biggish area, certainly, but under him? Is it just a flat structure and he is the only authority? Or are there genuine hereditary aristocrats who are his vassals? Maybe some of them are his brothers and uncles and cousins, from the traditional Church families? Given all the serfs and the Vicar's attitudes, I think representative government, however elite those represented might be, sounds less likely.

Randomiser wrote:I dropped out of this discussion because it was getting very wide and I have been too busy in RL.

But can I just point out that, IIRC, we know nothing from textev about how the Temple Lands are organised internally. Some Vicar is the head honcho in each biggish area, certainly, but under him? Is it just a flat structure and he is the only authority? Or are there genuine hereditary aristocrats who are his vassals? Maybe some of them are his brothers and uncles and cousins, from the traditional Church families? Given all the serfs and the Vicar's attitudes, I think representative government, however elite those represented might be, sounds less likely.

The Knights of the Temple Lands are the Vicarate; you get to be a Knight precisely as a Vicar. Who's a vicar or archbishop changes, and the vicarate itself is a central authoritative body. There aren't vicars for particular areas. As such, if the Knights of the Temple Lands are the actual leaders of the Temple Lands (and there's no indication of anyone else to do it), governance of the Temple Lands is in the hands of the Church's central authoritative body essentially collectively. It's a bit like the original treatment of the District of Columbia in the U.S. (at least - it's the only example I know of, but I doubt it's the only example anywhere): a federal territory under the authority of the nation's government directly. The Temple Lands are just vastly larger.

It's possible that there are local nobles at a lower level in the Temple Lands, but they're not identical to the Knights of the Temple Lands. (Although nothing prevents an aristocrat there from also being a Vicar, I suppose.) How many local governments they may have of the sort there, or how much of the Temple Lands are under the authority of a local noble is an open question.

I think people are making a mistake that the Temple Lands will remain a single entity at the end of the war, it's highly likely they'll be broken up in some way and I wouldn't be surprised if Zion became property of the EoC when the dust settles

JeffEngel wrote:The Knights of the Temple Lands are the Vicarate; you get to be a Knight precisely as a Vicar. Who's a vicar or archbishop changes, and the vicarate itself is a central authoritative body.

We don't know that is precisely the case. We don't know that every Vicar is a KoTL or if being elected a Vicar confers a Knighthood and Temple Land demesne or if attaining/inheriting a Knighthood confers a seat in the Vicarate.

We can infer that a "Temple Land" is a small fiefdom/estate with a feudal organization -- senescal, sheriff, Villains, serfs, etc. We can also infer that a Knighthood and Temple Land demesne has a military connotation; probably a military commitment.

We do know from Textev that although they are the same person physically, there is a separation of powers between Vicar and Knight. The knights are the secular rulers of the Temple Lands while the Vicars are the "Guardians of the Faith" world-wide.

ETA:

Off Armageddon Reef
Glossary
wrote:Knights of the Temple Lands —the corporate title of the prelates who govern the Temple Lands. Technically, the Knights of the Temple Lands are secular rulers, who simply happen to also hold high Church office. Under the letter of the Church's law, what they may do as the Knights of the Temple Lands is completely separate from any official action of the Church. This legal fiction has been of considerable value to the Church on more than one occasion.

PeterZ wrote:

I have no issues with a Church having political power. The issue I have is the combination of the power to compel and the moral authority over matter of conscience.

Your post caused me to entertain an Olympics of mental gymnastics. Initially it's because I translate words into other words, and one of the words I translate is the word "politics," which I translate into "make someone do what they don't want or refrain from doing what they want." I've heard for a long time the claim, "I don't like politics." That claim makes no sense so long as politics is undefined, but I worked around that by translating the word "politics." (By the way, I like your phrase "authority to compel" so I'm going to start using that in place of "make someone do what..., etc.") The translation becomes, "I don't like being compelled," which makes so much sense that it's tautological or nearly so.

The gymnastics were triggered because your claim translates to, "I have no problem with the Church having authority to compel so long as it doesn't have authority to compel." Imagine my confusion.

So I looked up, "political power" on the internet and the first entry on Google spoke of the administration of public resources. I can assimilate that. Your phrase meant (under this regime), that "I don't mind the Church having the administration of public resources so long as it doesn't have the power to compel." That makes a lot of sense, given that the Church owns property. How the Church comes by that property, given that it hasn't the power to compel, is an open question, but one that can be glossed over for now.

The state because it does hold police and military power, stays the hell out of matter of personal conscience and morals.

All the translation I'm capable of cannot make sense of that. For example, whether it's acceptable to murder is a moral question. The state cannot proscribe murder without first making the moral choice that murder is unacceptable. Every choice, every law, that the state makes, unless it makes them randomly and arbitrarily, is a moral choice. There absolutely has to be a value, a moral value, backing every prohibition the state makes and every compulsion.

Or I'm making whacky translations again. Can you tell me what that might be?

~Tonto

Tonto Silerheels, thank you for your thought provoking post. We all prefer a set of connotation for the words we use. I gravitate to Merriam-Webster's first full definition of "politics": the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy. Using that definition the church is free to influence governmental policy.

I use state in the second quote you used. Now if one assumes that sovereignty resides in the state, you are right. A sovereign state/government must use some moral code to derive the laws it makes.

My assumption is that sovereignty resides in the individual citizen. Citizens decide what is moral and citizens influence government to make laws consistent with that moral code. The state executes the laws as agents of a sovereign people.

A state must not engage in activity where it influences matters of personal conscience because not all citizens share the same beliefs on those matters. The power to compel then can be applied in favor of one group of ardent believers to the detriment of other sovereign citizens. Whose sovereignty reigns in this conflict? Best not to force the question.

JeffEngel wrote:(That, incidentally, is one obstacle I see for Silkiah joining Siddarmark outright - at least from the name of the place, it does seem to have an aristocracy and while they may be willing to convert to "mere" wealthy landowners, I'd not count on it.)

Which is yet another reason I see Silkiah becoming a proud province of the EoC.

Some of this stuff can get really sticky in a hurry. Churches can and should be a part of the public conversation and are free to advocate persuasively for causes they believe in. The church of which I am a part advocates for bettering the lot of the poor, for example. Other churches are heavily into the pro-life discussion.

Both of these discussions are valid since church members are also citizens who under our polity are free to organize themselves however they see fit to seek to influence their representatives to adopt policies they believe whether through the church or separately.

Now the sticker here is that there are certain fundamental rights that cannot be legislated away and that exist whether a majority agrees with them or not. In the USA these are outlined in the Bill of Rights and in other parts of the constitution dealing with rights of citizens and limitations on governmental power. The courts are responsible for deciding just what these rights are according to the constitution. This body of material tends to be dynamic, sometimes shrinking, sometimes expanding, although the overall trend tends toward expansion of rights, even though this balanced out by a fairly constant expansion of governmental power.

What is tough about this is that from my own point of view, all decisions are ultimately moral decisions lived out under the care of God. I can choose, within limits, to live according to that creed. But since my actions have impact on the people around me, what I am actually free to do is a matter of constant negotiation. For example, I am free to worship, to help the poor, to express my faith in a multitude of ways. I am not free to compel you to worship in my church or to worship at all, to offer human sacrifice to my god, or to practice polygamy--things which are contrary to or even destructive to the social contract which governs how we live in relationship to each other.

What makes this sticky is that nothing is static. The limits are always under negotiation, are always in flux.

This post got away from me. So I am going to stop here and see what the rest of you do with it.

Don