I am not a Christian, but I don't think that the Christian Dominionists are either -- in fact I think that they're opposed to pretty much everything that
Jesus of Nazareth taught about how we should behave.
"Christian Reconstructionism calls for a system that is both radically decentralized, with most government functions devolved to the county level, and socially totalitarian (this strikes me as an odd phrase; and Google, too, apparently. I suppose it is meant to say that social standards/"morality" will, in contrast with the government functions just mentioned, be centralized/centrally dictated and not be left to local preferrence.) It calls for the death penalty for homosexuals, abortion doctors and women guilty of "unchastity before marriage," among other moral crimes. To be fair, Phillips told me that 'just because a crime is capital doesn't mean you must impose the death penalty. It means it's an option.' Public humiliation, he said, could sometimes be used instead.
"On December 24, 2001, Pat Robertson resigned his position as President of the Christian Coalition. ...
Robertson’s act was symbolic, but it carried a secret and solemn revelation to the faithful. It was the signal that the Bush administration was a government under God that was led by an anointed President who would be the first regent in a dynasty of regents awaiting the return of Jesus to earth. The President would now be the minister through whom God would execute His will in the nation. George W. Bush accepted his scepter and his sword with humility, grace and a sense of exultation. ...
This article is the documented story of how a political religious movement called Dominionism gained control of the Republican Party, then took over Congress, then took over the White House, and now is sealing the conversion of America to a theocracy by taking over the American Judiciary. It’s the story of why and how 'the wrath of God Almighty' will be unleashed against the middle class, against the poor, and against the elderly and sick of this nation by George W. Bush and his army of Republican Dominionist “rulers.”
As Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court explained a few months later, the Bible teaches and Christians believe '… that government …derives its moral authority from God. Government is the "minister of God" with powers to "revenge", to "execute wrath", including even wrath by the sword…'
Dominionism is a natural if unintended extension of Social Darwinism and is frequently called “Christian Reconstructionism.” Its doctrines are shocking to ordinary Christian believers and to most Americans. Journalist Frederick Clarkson, who has written extensively on the subject, warned in 1994 that Dominionism 'seeks to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of "Biblical Law".' He described the ulterior motive of Dominionism is to eliminate '…labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools.' Clarkson then describes the creation of new classes of citizens:
'Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment [to] blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality.'
Born in Christian Reconstructionism, which was founded by the late R. J. Rushdoony, the framers of the new cult included Rushdoony, his son-in-law Gary North, Pat Robertson, Herb Titus, the former Dean of Robertson’s Regent University School of Public Policy (formerly CBN University), Charles Colson, Robertson’s political strategist, Tim LaHaye, Gary Bauer, the late Francis Schaeffer, and Paul Crouch, the founder of TBN, the world’s largest television network, plus a virtual army of likeminded television and radio evangelists and news talk show hosts.
.... Machiavellianism, Communism, Secular Humanism and Neo-Conservatism Inspired a New Militant and Evil Anti-Christian Religion
... Dominionists introduced a perversion to Calvinism -- the same one James Hogg utilizes in his The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner -- its technical name is “supralapsarianism.” It means essentially that the man called from before the foundation of the world to be one of the elect of God’s people, can do no wrong. ...
How comforting the Calvinistic idea of a “justified sinner” is when one is utilizing Machiavellian techniques to gain political control of a state. It’s more than comforting; it is a required doctrine for “Christians” who believe they must use evil to bring about good. It justifies lying, murder, fraud and all other criminal acts without the fuss of having to deal with guilt feelings or to feel remorse for the lives lost through executions, military actions, or assassinations.
Leo Strauss was born in 1899 and died in 1973. ... He is most famous for resuscitating Machiavelli and introducing his principles as the guiding philosophy of the neo-conservative movement. ... More than any other man, Strauss breathed upon conservatism, inspiring it to rise from its atrophied condition and its natural dislike of change and to embrace an unbounded new political ideology that rides on the back of a revolutionary steed, hailing even radical change; hence the name Neo-Conservatives.
Significantly, Dominionism is a form of Social Darwinism.[48] It inherently includes the religious belief that wealth-power is a sign of God’s election. That is, out of the masses of people and the multitude of nations, wealth, in and of itself, is thought to indicate God’s approval on men and nations whereas poverty and sickness reflect God’s disapproval.
(It was not until I read this article that I realized that this is a fundamental tenet of Dominionists.
Worldly wealth and power are signs of God's favor -- to attempt to limit or decrease one's wealth and power is to disrespect God.
On the contrary, God's elect on Earth are called upon to increase their wealth and power.
It is not sufficient for a man to be a millionaire, or for a country to have sovereignty within its borders -- a man must strive to increase his wealth as much as possible, and a Dominionist government's behavior toward its neighbors must be "invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity".
Furthermore, any attempt to decrease a person's or a country's wealth and power -- to take from the rich to give to the poor, to reduce military spending and power -- is a direct attack on God.)
If “Secular Humanists are the greatest threat to Christianity the world has ever known,” as theologian Francis Schaeffer claimed, then who are the Humanists? According to Dominionists, humanists are the folks who allow or encourage licentious behavior in America. They are the undisciplined revelers.
Put all the enemies of the Dominionists together, boil them down to liquid and bake them into the one single most highly derided and contaminated individual known to man, and you will have before you an image of the quintessential “liberal” -- one of those folks who wants to give liberally to the poor and needy -- who desires the welfare and happiness of all Americans -- who insists on safety regulations for your protection and who desires the preservation of your values -- those damnable people are the folks that must be reduced to powerlessness -- or worse: extinction.
What would a “reconstructed” America look like under the Dominionists? K.L. Gentry, a Dominionist himself, suggests the following “elements of a theonomic approach to civic order,” which I strongly suggest should be compared to the Texas GOP platform of 2002, which reveals that we are not just talking about imaginary ideas but some things are already proposed on Republican agendas.[60] Dominionism’s concept of government according to Gentry is as follows:
“1. It obligates government to maintain just monetary policies ... [thus prohibiting] fiat money, fractional reserve banking, and deficit spending.
“2. It provides a moral basis for elective government officials. ...
“3. It forbids undue, abusive taxation of the rich. ...
“4. It calls for the abolishing of the prison system and establishing a system of just restitution. *...
“5. A theonomic approach also forbids the release, pardoning, and paroling of murderers by requiring their execution. ...
“6. It forbids industrial pollution that destroys the value of property. ...
“7. It punishes malicious, frivolous malpractice suits. ...
“8. It forbids abortion rights. ... Abortion is not only a sin, but a crime, and, indeed, a capital crime.”[61]* Gary North describes the ‘just restitution’ system of the bible, which happens to reinstitute slavery,
like this:
“At the other end of the curve, the poor man who steals is eventually caught and sold into bondage under a successful person. His victim receives payment; he receives training; his buyer receives a stream of labor services. If the servant is successful and buys his way out of bondage, he re-enters society as a disciplined man, and presumably a self-disciplined man. He begins to accumulate wealth.”
"Do You Know These People?
They are the seven highest ranking Republican Senators in the U.S. Senate.
Every one of them received a scorecard of 100% from Christian Coalition.
That means they voted with Christian Coalition 100% of the time. They all received scores of 0 to 8% from the League of Conservation Voters -- a consortium of environmental groups.
How were people representing such an extreme ideological point of view elected to the top positions in the Republican Party? The leaders of the Republican Party were chosen by their colleagues who share their values."
"Probably most church-goers have never read the Bible from cover to cover as they would a Harry Potter book. We contend that a person reading through the Bible is warranted in believing that the State is evil."
" (Gary) DeMar's vision for America, and his widening influence in the Christian Right in Georgia, and nationally, is disturbing. DeMar is a leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement, which believes that the U.S. should be governed by a harsh theocracy and impose what they call "Biblical law."Emphasis and some of the links are mine -- ed.
I happen to have written a great deal about DeMar and his fellow theocrats in my book Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy (Or here at amazon.com). Here is a sample: 'Gary DeMar in his book Ruler of the Nations wrote that "The law that requires the death penalty for homosexual acts effectually drives the perversion of homosexuality underground, back into the closet...". The longterm goal, he adds, 'should also be the execution of abortionists and the parents who hire them. If we say that abortion is murder, then we must call for the death penalty". ' ...
Here is the good news. The answer (to the problem of "beating the Christian Right") lies in what the theocrats themselves are doing to gain power. Electoral politics. Yup. Electoral politics. ...
It is time to get our priorities straight. Less talk, more action. Less entertainment, more citizen involvement. Less TV and sports. More electoral politics. Do we want the theocrats to win? More electoral politics."
"... (Gary) DeMar, a relentlessly logical (if you accept his assumptions) speaker, excitedly describes a new order, one in which God's trusted servants reign supreme over the three governments. It's a society in which only the faithful are citizens, democracy is a distasteful memory, and the state's primary purpose is assisting in the conquest of the Planet Earth for Christ. ...
Most churchgoers have never heard of Christian Reconstruction or theonomy. Believers would be hard-pressed to define "dominion theology," "covenant theology," "pre-millennial," "post-millennial" or, for the wishy-washy, the neither pre nor post "a-millennial."
Nor would most Americans reflexively embrace a "theology" that denounced all government social programs, public schools, environmental protections -- a religion that promoted mass executions for sins as minor as swearing at parents, decried democracy as heretical, relegated women to subservience, or that endorsed segregation and even the return of slavery to the United States. ...
As Jerry Falwell -- not technically a Reconstructionist because of theological nuances, but a preacher who generally follows the movement's tactical plan for creating a Christian government -- proclaimed earlier this year, 'God is pro-war'. ...
Stanley wrote last year, 'God favors war for divine reasons and sometimes uses it to accomplish His will'. That, of course, is balm to the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration. ...
Unions would be illegal, as would any government role in workplace safety. Employers could discriminate for any and all reasons. Minimum wage, unemployment benefits, Social Security, welfare -- all history. Adios environmental protection laws, as well as regulation on who can call themselves a physician or lawyer.
Public schools are anathema. One of the great successes of Reconstruction has been promoting home-schooling programs. ...
The arena that generates the most attention -- and shock -- is dominion theology's radical plans to make capital punishment part of America's daily routine. ...
While gay marriage is now a hot button, Reconstruction would reopen old racial conflicts about who should be allowed at the altar. Rushdoony wrote in his Institutes that 'The burden of [biblical] law is thus against inter-religious, inter-racial and inter-cultural marriage'.
Strong elements of anti-Semitism also are found in Reconstruction writings. North tells us that it is his movement's 'stated goal ... to preach the Gospel of salvation in Christ to the Jews, until not a trace of the traditional practices of Judaism remains'. "
"When I slipped into the national leadership meeting of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, I thought I knew what to expect. ...Wow! That Ralph Reed talks just like Jesus, doesn't he?
'We don't have to worry about convincing a majority of Americans to agree with us', declared Guy Rodgers, the Coalition's national field director. 'Most of them are staying home and watching "Falcon Crest."'
'Even in a high turn-out presidential election year', Rodgers explained, 'only 15 percent of the eligible voters determine the outcome. Of all eligible adults, only about 60 percent are actually registered. Only half of those cast ballots. So', he continued, 'only 30 percent of the eligible voters actually vote. Therefore, only 15 percent of the eligible voters determine the outcome.'
'In low turn-out elections', he concluded, 'city council, state legislature, county commissions-the percentage of the eligible voters who determines who wins can be as low as 6 or 7 percent.'
The Coalition's imaginative executive director, Ralph Reed, describes the group's voter mobilization program as if it were a covert military operation: 'I want to be invisible', he told one reporter. 'I do guerilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night'. "
"... I am not making this up. It happened recently at a Washington conclave held by something called the Judeo-Christian Council for Constitutional Restoration. If not household names, many in attendance were familiar controversialists, representing right-wing groups like the Family Research Council, the American Conservative Union, etc. Catholic anti-feminist Phyllis Schlafly spoke, along with unsuccessful GOP Senate nominee Alan Keyes and Alabama’s Judge Roy" Ten Commandments" Moore. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay ... addressed the group on TV. But the real headline-maker was Edwin Vieira, allegedly an expert in constitutional law.
Vieira attacked the theological right’s latest whipping boy, Ronald Reagan-appointed Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. True, Kennedy supplied the swing vote in Bush vs. Gore, the 5-4 decision that gave the 2000 election to George W. Bush. But he also wrote recent majority opinions invalidating Texas’s anti-sodomy law and forbidding the execution of juveniles.
In so doing, Vieira insisted, Kennedy upheld 'Marxist, Leninist, satanic principles drawn from foreign law.'
And the solution? If not impeachment, Vieira said that his "bottom-line" solution for renegade judges was Stalin’s: 'He had a slogan, and it worked very well for him, whenever he ran into difficulty: "No man, no problem".' ...
The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank supplied the full Stalin quote, which is quite famous: 'Death solves all problems: No man, no problem'. He speculated that Vieira couldn’t possibly be urging the killing of Supreme Court justices. But he put the remark in the context of recent threats by DeLay, who said that 'the time will come for the men responsible for [Terri Schiavo’s death] to answer for their behavior', and Texas Sen. John Cornyn, RTexas, who mused that unpopular judicial decisions could lead people to 'engage in violence'. ...
Assuming Vieira’s not actively delusional, however, what would be the point of invoking one of the 20 th century’s great monsters if not to sanction violence? The avowed goal of this outfit is "Christian Reconstructionism," the notion that the U.S. government derives its ultimate authority not from "the consent of the governed," as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, but from the Bible as interpreted by Puritan divines. ...
It’s time to remind these jokers that regardless of how "devout" they claim to be, this is the United States of America and the rest of us are not obliged to pretend that their political opinions are sanctioned by God, nor even that they are sane."