Theocratic notions of sovereignty are not simply something within archaic Islam that stands over against our Western modernity. John Milbank argues, per Carl Schmitt, that theocratic notions are specifically modern in their positivity and formality.
In 1277, the archbishops of Paris and Canterbury issued certain edicts that essentially abandoned the "shared mystical outlook" arising from Hellenism and allegorical readings of sacred texts. Literalism rose to prominence as a form of power. The fourteenth century imported the assumption that only God's will makes things true, thus politicizing the divine as an arm of state policy.
To quote John Milbank, "the Islamic alliance of the absolute will of Caliph linked to the will of Allah, and with the right to fight holy wars, was taken over by Christian thought."
Milbank reveals how the Astroturf Christian Right in America has plagiarized for itself a divine mission rooted in misreading:
There is now a terrible symbiosis arising between Zionism and the American Protestant and un-Christian literalistic reading of the Old Testament in the Puritan tradition, which equates Anglo-Saxondom with Israel. Both ascribe to an idolatrously non typological and non eschatological reading of Go'd "free election of Israel," as if really and truly God's oneness meant that he arbitrarily prefers one lot of people to another (as opposed to working providentially for a time through one people's advanced insight-- as Maimonedes rightly understood Jewish election); and as if he really and truly appoints them, not just for a period, but for all time, one piece of land to the exclusion of others.
This was nowhere more obvious than during the Astroturf's enamored pursuit of the Iraq war-- a muddle that continues to plague US policy and budget priorities. God's sanction of America's holy mission enabled the US to institutionalize terror at all levels of the military apparatus, thus erasing moral distinctions between the terrorists and their opponents. It is fair to say, in the aftermath of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, that we are all terrorists now.
Milbank again:
... the trouble is not "totalitarianism" pure and simple, but the emptiness of the secular as such, and its consequent disguised sacralization of violence.
I am reminded of a passage from Jorge Luis Borges' essay, "The Superstitious Ethics of the Reader":
Today, what line of poetry would dare allude to the phoenix or make itself the promenade of a centaur? None; but no poetry, however modern, is unhappy to be a nest of angels and to shine brightly with them. I always imagine them at nightfall, in the dusk of a slum or a vacant lot, in that long, quiet moment when things are gradually left alone, with their backs to the sunset, and when colors are like memories or premonitions of other colors. We must not be too prodigal with our angels; they are the last divinites we harbor, and they might fly away.
In the world of dead angels, only demons conspire to keep our attention.
[Addendum]
For those studying the rise in "Radical Orthodoxy", John Milbank's writings are an excellent starting point. He was an early opponent of the Iraq war and makes a case for fundamentalism as a modern illness that arose from secular politics and the de-mystification of everyday life. Although I don't agree with all of John's points, I think his position represents an increasingly popular reaction to the tension between secularism and deification. More grist for your mill:
"Orthodox paradox: An Interview with John Milbank" (The Immanent Frame)
"What liberal intellectuals get wrong about transgenderism" by John Milbank (Catholic Herald)
"The impossibility of gay marriage and the threat of bio political control" by John Milbank (ABC)
"The myth of the secular: Part 6" (Ideas with Paul Kennedy)
