At its core,

[CoccoBill]

If a church and religious scripture are used for policy and governance, how is that not a government?

[wufwugy]

If a church and religious scripture are used for policy and governance, how is that not a government?

That would be. The idea is that if people have internal moral constraints it doesn't need to be set as policy on the societal level. Somebody has to do the policing. In a postmodern society, the policing must be external and set by government. In a society where people believe sufficiently enough that their wrongdoing is judged by God, maybe there is more internal policing of morality and thus less need for government. At the very least, I think that idea is at the core of humankind's discovery/rationale regarding liberty and limited government, whether or not it's actually true/functional.