He should move to a theocracy and see how it works. There are plenty to choose from, even if most are Islamic. Theocracies become dictatorships (or at least oligarchies), using government power to suppress anything the rulers don't like.

Of course, Barton figures he'll be one of the rulers...

Texas is a theocracy in a way.

We will give voice to David Barton's ideas, but if I said I wanted to "end" David Barton, I would be the bad guy in this conversation.

We already live in a theorcracy, and have lived in a theocracy since the so called election of George W Bush.

For millennials like myself who were not born into the families of rich elite or local party officials, we have been violently subjected to deprivation of rights, forced into precarity engineered before we were born into a world we did not consent to enter, subjected to an Eternal September 11th where our responses to trauma are forever policed and monetized if we do anything but simp for the money for bread and circuses.

Vatican City is a contemporary christian theocracy but I’m not sure they have housing available for immigrants.

So they actually have absolute authority? Like if they decided they wanted to execute someone for being gay or a heretic could they?

(Not that the contemporary Catholic Church advocates or would do that. I’m asking a legal question.)

I’m really not sure. Wikipedia lists them as a “Unitary theocratic Catholic elective absolute monarchy” and says “ It became independent from Italy in 1929 with the Lateran Treaty, and it is a distinct territory under ‘full ownership, exclusive dominion, and sovereign authority and jurisdiction’ of the Holy See, itself a sovereign entity under international law.”

Several European countries have established churches, and in some of them that established church does have a special role in lobbying, or it gets a seat in parliament, etc. That hasn’t stopped those countries from being regarded as well-functioning democracies. So, a knee-jerk reaction that this is a direct road to theocracy and dictatorship is a bit much.

What is problematic in the US context is that the majority of the population doesn’t so neatly subscribe to a single faith, not even historically. The US has always been a mix of, first, the “mainline” Christian denominations, then since the early 19th century a mess of neo-Protestant sects, and finally every world religion. So, I think would have to underscore that it is this particular environment that trying to establish any religion as advantaged would require some authoritarian steps.

The separate Christian sects aren't separate religions, it would be sufficient to simply declare "Christian" as the American state religion.

Although, if one had to pick, Evangelicals would clearly win, due to their existing political power.