I’ve been grappling with a difficult question: how do we live, think, and create in this neofascist age? The parallels to early 1930s Germany are hard to ignore. Then, as now, religion, big business, and politics have merged into a powerful and dangerous alliance.
What we’re witnessing today is a modern incarnation of the Constantinian Church—a term that dates back to 313 CE, when Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan and Christianity became the religion of empire. From that point on, the church was no longer a countercultural movement following the teachings of Jesus; it became a mechanism of state power. It no longer gave to Caesar what was Caesar’s—it became Caesar.
What we face now is not a pure theocracy or oligarchy, but something worse: a Theoarchy (or is Oligotheocracy a better word?)—a fusion of religious authority with capitalist power, where billionaires who bear no resemblance to the Jesus of the Gospels leverage religion as a tool of control. This system doesn’t demand faith—it demands allegiance.
To make this structure work, theoarchy turns religion into an identity marker—a weaponized badge used to rally the masses against a common enemy. Yesterday, it was Jews for Hitler. Today, it’s “the woke” for Trump. But in both cases, devotion is shallow. Most devotees haven’t read the sacred texts they claim to follow. They belong not to a confessing church grounded in humility, love, and sacrifice but to a Constantine Church rooted in nationalism and loyalty. In a matter of weeks, Trump and his allies have consolidated power around the ultra-wealthy and their religious enablers. History has not been kind to such alliances.
Artists, in particular, should be wary. Our task is to observe, question, and create—not to repeat slogans or serve ideology. When we trade dispassionate observation for party lines, we stop being artists. We become propagandists.
True art begins in uncertainty. If we start with a message and seek only to affirm it, we’re not creating—we’re campaigning. Propaganda, whether from the right or the left, rarely changes hearts. It only digs deeper into existing trenches. And the deeper we dig, the more polarized we become. What thrives in this environment? Theoarchy.
Today, the arts are weakened—stripped of influence and starved of resources. We lack what theoarchs possess: religious institutions, media networks, and billionaires. We cannot win that game. But we can do something they cannot: we can step back, observe honestly, and offer creative answers. Not doctrines. Not dogmas. But work that invites reflection rather than reaction. If we are to resist this moment, artists must stop preaching—and start seeing again.
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