By Paul C, January 1, 2019
Daily Kos -- A chilling op-ed in today’s
NY Times by author Katherine Stewart, who has extensively studied and written
about the Christian right, says that the far right have been pushing a meme for
several years now that Donald Trump, conman and egomaniac, has been sent by God
to be “a vessel for the purposes of the faithful” in the role of King of the
United States of America.
Unbeknownst to people with even a
tenuous grip on reality, prior to the midterms a thousand theaters showed “The
Trump Prophecy,” a film about a firefighter who, in a blinding orgiastic
epiphany, picks up a Bible and turns to Isaiah 45, “which describes the
anointment of King Cyrus by God.” Get it, Isaiah “45” — Trump “45”? What more
proof do you need, right?
Stewart goes on, saying that evangelical
author and speaker Lance Wallnau has said:
I believe the 45th president is meant to be an
Isaiah 45 Cyrus [who will] restore … us from cultural collapse.
And in this telling it is not at all
paradoxical that Trump is a non-believer intent on wrecking our democracy and
government. Apparently the story of Cyrus is of a nonbeliever who becomes the
first emperor of Babylon (“Babble-on” — it’s all starting to come together now,
isn’t it?) and frees the Jews.
Stewart provides numerous quotations
from across the spectrum of the religious right leadership pushing this meme
that God sent Trump to be King, including Tony Perkins of the Family Research
Council and Ralph Drollinger who leads weekly bible study groups at the White
House attended by Mike Pence and members of the Cabinet.
In her article Stewart confirms our
worst suspicions about what Trump’s core followers see in him:
This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew.
The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and
patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a
direct attack on democracy itself.
And, according to Stewart, Trump has
been egging them on, goading their preachers for becoming too “soft” — as he
openly muses about becoming “President for life”.
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Dominion Theology
Dominion theology (also known as
dominionism) is a group of Christian political ideologies that seek to
institute a nation governed by Christians based on their personal
understandings of biblical law. Extents of rule and ways of achieving governing
authority are varied. For example, dominion theology can include theonomy, but
does not necessarily involve advocating Mosaic law as the basis of government.
The label is applied primarily toward groups of Christians in the United
States.
Prominent adherents of these ideologies
are otherwise theologically diverse, including Calvinist Christian
reconstructionism, Roman Catholic Integralism, Charismatic/Pentecostal Kingdom
Now theology, New Apostolic Reformation, and others. Most of the contemporary
movements labeled dominion theology arose in the 1970s from religious movements
asserting aspects of Christian nationalism.
Some have applied the term dominionist
more broadly to the whole Christian right. This usage is controversial. There
are concerns from members of these communities that this is a label being used
to marginalize Christians from public discourse. Others argue this allegation
can be difficult to sympathize with considering the political power already
held by these groups and on account of the often verbally blatant intention of
these groups to influence the political, social, financial, and cultural
spectrums of society for a specific religion, often at the expense of other
marginalized groups.
Dominionism and the Christian Right
In the late 1980s sociologist Sara
Diamond began writing about the intersection of dominion theology with the
political activists of the Christian right. Diamond argued that "the
primary importance of the [Christian reconstructionist] ideology is its role as
a catalyst for what is loosely called 'dominion theology'". According to
Diamond, "Largely through the impact of Rushdoony's and North's writings,
the concept that Christians are Biblically mandated to 'occupy' all secular
institutions has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian
Right" (emphasis in original) in the United States.
While acknowledging the small number of
actual adherents, authors such as Diamond and Frederick Clarkson have argued
that postmillennial Christian reconstructionism played a major role in pushing
the primarily premillennial Christian right to adopt a more aggressive
dominionist stance.
Misztal and Shupe concur that
"Reconstructionists have many more sympathizers who fall somewhere within
the dominionist framework, but who are not card-carrying members".
According to Diamond, "Reconstructionism is the most intellectually
grounded, though esoteric, brand of dominion theology".
Journalist Frederick Clarkson defined
dominionism as a movement that, while including dominion theology and
reconstructionism as subsets, is much broader in scope, extending to much of
the Christian right in the United States.
In his 1992 study of dominion theology
and its influence on the Christian right, Bruce Barron writes,
In the context of American evangelical efforts to
penetrate and transform public life, the distinguishing mark of a dominionist
is a commitment to defining and carrying out an approach to building society
that is self-consciously defined as exclusively Christian, and dependent
specifically on the work of Christians, rather than based on a broader
consensus.
In 1995, Diamond called the influence of
dominion theology "prevalent on the Christian Right".
Journalist Chip Berlet added in 1998
that, although they represent different theological and political ideas,
dominionists assert a Christian duty to take "control of a sinful secular
society".
In 2005, Clarkson enumerated the
following characteristics shared by all forms of dominionism:
Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in
that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a
Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American
democracy.
Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as
they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other
versions of Christianity.
Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as
they believe that the Ten Commandments, or "biblical law," should be
the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen
as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.
Essayist Katherine Yurica began using
the term dominionism in her articles in 2004, beginning with "The
Despoiling of America" (February 11, 2004), Authors who also use the term
dominionism in the broader sense include journalist Chris Hedges, Marion Maddox, James Rudin, Michelle Goldberg,
Kevin Phillips, Sam Harris, Ryan Lizza, Frank Schaeffer, and the group
TheocracyWatch. Some authors have applied the term to a broader spectrum of
people than have Diamond, Clarkson, and Berlet.
Sarah Posner in Salon argues that there
are various "iterations of dominionism that call on Christians to enter
... government, law, media and so forth ... so that they are controlled by
Christians". According to Posner, "Christian right figures promoted
dominionism ... and the GOP courted ... religious leaders for the votes of
their followers". She added: "If people really understood
dominionism, they’d worry about it between election cycles."
Michelle Goldberg notes that George
Grant wrote in his 1987 book The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for
Political Action:
Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a
commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ—to have
dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and
godliness. ... But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. ... Christian
politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land—of men, families,
institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ.
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