These are times to try people’s hearts.
With this week’s terrible shooting rampage in California, those who have been offering prayers but otherwise discounting the deaths in the so many mass shootings in our country over the past few years finally have something to dig their teeth into. There have been, I understand somewhere in the neighborhood of three hundred and fifty mass shootings in the country since the first of the year. But this was a bit different. In three words. Muslim extremist terrorists.
I think anybody with their head screwed on right has reason to be concerned with Muslim extremists. ISIS is an abomination living out the fetid dreams of al-Qaeda. And before ISIS, of course, the Taliban created a personal hell for women and all who did not believe like them out of Afghanistan. And, of course, there’s that nasty little open secret about where much of the support for those extremists comes from. Wahabi Saudi Arabia. Might make one think about what an ally is.
And, in this country, here within our borders, while there is little doubt we should think about Muslim extremists, I think where our real worries should lie are being misdirected, mostly by ourselves, nothing quite as powerful as willful ignorance, after all, but with a pretty good assist from an ignorant corporate media. There are a lot of reasons we don’t want to see this reality. It means our dominant religion is no less liable to the worst form of extremisms than the great other, Islam. Let me be frank, I don’t think it would take much of a turn for the worse for many Christians to put on a bomb vest. Or, our tastes run a little differently, to bring a couple of fully loaded automatic weapons out on a rampage.
Oh, that’s right. It’s already happened. How many times now?
And, we ignore it. Each time. Isolated incident. Lone gunman. Crazy loner.
But it is vastly worse. There is a cancer in the heart of Christian America vastly more dangerous than any Muslim extremist. It is Dominion Theology. Its largest variation Christian Reconstruction calls for creating a Christian theocracy in America. There is also the New Apostolic Reformation, cleaned up a bit, and subtly popular among various Evangelical and Pentecostal Christian communities.
Chip Berlet of Political Research Associates (cited here from Paul Rosenberg’s “Exposing Religious Fundamentalism in the US) writes “‘Soft’ Dominionists are Christian nationalists. They believe that Biblically defined immorality and sin breed chaos and anarchy. They fear that America’s greatness as God’s chosen land has been undermined by liberal secular humanists, feminists, and homosexuals… Their vision has elements of theocracy, but they stop short of calling for supplanting the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.” While ‘hard’ Dominionists “…want the United States to be a Christian theocracy. For them the Constitution and Bill of Rights are merely addendum to Old Testament Biblical Law.” Daniel Burke writing for the Huffington Post points out “Dominionism is more a school of thought than a social group. Its influence can be seen in textbooks that portray the Founding Fathers as devout evangelicals, in an anti-gay bill in Uganda and in the home-schooling movement…” It is pervasive. It has come to be in the water we drink.
Chris Hedges wrote an essay in 2013, “The Radical Christian Right and the War on Government,” where he harshly presented their views. “Dominionists believe they are engaged in an epic battle against the forces of Satan. They live in a binary world of black and white. They feel they are victims, surrounded by sinister groups bent on their destruction. They have anointed themselves as agents of God who alone know God’s will.
“They sanctify their rage. This rage lies at the center of the ideology. It leaves them sputtering inanities about Barack Obama, his corporate-sponsored health care reform bill, his alleged mandated suicide counseling or ‘death panels’ for seniors under the bill, his supposed secret alliance with radical Muslims, and “creeping socialism.” They see the government bureaucracy as being controlled by ‘secular humanists’ who want to destroy the family and make war against the purity of their belief system. They seek total cultural and political domination.”
These people have been insinuating themselves into the heart of the Republic for a very long time now. The generally respected conservative organ, Christianity Today, called the late Rousas Rushdoony, the father of Christian Reconstruction, and perhaps the singular example of “hard Dominionism” among our “most impressive political theologians.” Francis Schaeffer, while he disavowed any connection to Christian Reconstruction has also, nonetheless, been an important influence in the development of the Dominionist theology as an example of “soft Dominionism.”
Daniel Burke tells us that Evangelical experts find “no evidence of Dominionist thought among conservative Christian elites.” Of course what is an elite is an interesting question. The televangelist and one-time presidential candidate Pat Robertson has from time to time put forth Dominionist positions on his television program. A program that is a staple in far more Evangelical homes I suspect than the writings of any theologian. Similarly the popularity of James Kennedy, another popular Christian in Evangelical circles who espouses many Dominionist positions continues to present these radical views with impunity.
Dominionists seem to be reaching out to the military, particularly the officer corps, seeking recruits to their principals. On the political front today almost no one in public office is willing to say out loud that these people are past dangerous. Instead it is a rare Republican aspirant to national office who hasn’t a kind word for these people. Some openly flirt. For instance former Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin was famously video taped accepting a prayer for her and her candidacy from a notorious Dominionist pastor. And two-time presidential candidate Governor Rick Perry of Texas openly courted Dominionist pastors. Other politicians on the national scene including former Governor Mike Huckabee, seated Governor Scott Walker, former Representative Michelle Bachman, Governor Sam Brownback, all appear to hold Dominionist views.
Perhaps most scarily, current aspirant for the Republican nomination for president, and standing as he does right behind the meteoric Donald Trump, quietly waiting to pick up the pieces when and if the meteor crashes, and genuinely possible presidential candidate for the party, Senator Ted Cruz’s father is a Dominionist pastor. The senator has never distanced himself from this view, in fact today he belongs to Dominionist influenced independent branch of the Baptist family of churches. And his father has on more than one occasion called his son “the anointed one.” More importantly it appears the son believes it.
So, a couple of suggestions. First, Christians need to stop pretending the Dominionists aren’t there, and if they are, they aren’t so dangerous. A little bit too much like those days when everyone denied there was a mafia. And second. There is a popular wave of opinion in this country that muslims need to stand up against their radicals. I think that’s good advice. And goose and gander, I think it seriously past time for Christians to stand up against their radicals. And to call for moderate forms of their ancient and lovely faith.
These are times to try people’s hearts.
How will the scales tip for you?
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