Read poster trefoil's link. Scary thinking, totalitarian thinking.
"Of the three most plausible candidates for the Republican nomination, two are deeply associated with a theocratic strain of Christian fundamentalism known as Dominionism. If you want to understand Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry, understanding Dominionism isnât optional.
Put simply, Dominionism means that Christians have a God-given right to rule all earthly institutions."
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"Now, however, we have the most theocratic Republican field in American history, and suddenly, the concept of Dominionism is reaching mainstream audiences. Writing about Bachmann in The New Yorker this month, Ryan Lizza spent several paragraphs explaining how the premise fit into the Minnesota congresswomanâs intellectual and theological development. And a recent Texas Observer cover story on Rick Perry examined his relationship with the New Apostolic Reformation, a Dominionist variant of Pentecostalism that coalesced about a decade ago. â[W]hat makes the New Apostolic Reformation movement so potent is its growing fascination with infiltrating politics and government,â wrote Forrest Wilder. Its members âbelieve Christiansâcertain Christiansâare destined to not just take âdominionâ over government, but stealthily climb to the commanding heights of what they term the âSeven Mountainsâ of society, including the media and the arts and entertainment world.â
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"Dominionism derives from a small fringe sect called Christian Reconstructionism, founded by a Calvinist theologian named R. J. Rushdoony in the 1960s. Christian Reconstructionism openly advocates replacing American law with the strictures of the Old Testament, replete with the death penalty for homosexuality, abortion, and even apostasy."
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"But while Rushdoony was a totalitarian, he was a prolific and influential oneâhe elaborated his theories in a number of books, including the massive, three-volume Institutes of Biblical Law. And his ideas, along with those of his followers, have had an incalculable impact on the milieu that spawned both Bachmann and Perry.
Rushdoony pioneered the Christian homeschooling movement, as well as the revisionist history, ubiquitous on the religious right, that paints the U.S. as a Christian nation founded on biblical principles. He consistently defended Southern slavery and contrasted it with the greater evils of socialism: âThe law here is humane and also unsentimental,â he wrote. âIt recognizes that some people are by nature slaves and will always be so ... Socialism, on the contrary, tries to give the slave all the advantages of his security together with the benefits of freedom, and in the process, destroys both the free and the enslaved.â
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âChristians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christâto have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness,â wrote George Grant, the former executive director of Coral Ridge Ministries, which has since changed its name to Truth in Action Ministries. âBut it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice ... It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time ... World conquest.â
Bachmann is close to Truth in Action Ministries; last year, she appeared in one of its documentaries, Socialism: A Clear and Present Danger. In it, she espoused the idea, common in Reconstructionist circles, that the government has no right to collect taxes in excess of 10 percent, the amount that believers are called to tithe to the church. On her state-senate-campaign website, she recommended a book co-authored by Grant titled Call of Duty: The Sterling Nobility of Robert E. Lee, which, as Lizza reported, depicted the civil war as a battle between the devout Christian South and the Godless North, and lauded slavery as a benevolent institution. âThe unity and companionship that existed between the races in the South prior to the war was the fruit of a common faith,â the book said.
One could go on and on listing the Dominionist influences on Bachmannâs thinking. She often cites Francis Schaeffer, the godfather of the anti-abortion movement, who held seminars on Rushdoonyâs work and helped disseminate his ideas to a larger evangelical audience. John Eidsmoe, an Oral Roberts University professor who, sheâs said, âhad a great influence on me,â is a Christian Reconstructionist. She often praises the Christian nationalist historian David Barton, who is intimately associated with the Christian Reconstructionist movement; an article about slavery on the website of his organization, Wallbuilders, defends the institutionâs biblical basis, with extensive citations of Rushdoony. (âGod's laws concerning slavery provided parameters for treatment of slaves, which were for the benefit of all involved,â it says.)
In elaborating Bachmannâs Dominionist history, though, itâs important to point out that she is not unique. Perry tends to be regarded as marginally more reasonable than Bachmann, but he is as closely associated with Dominionism as she is, though his links are to a different strain of the ideology."
