Tuesday, September 06, 2011

The Political Faith of Rick Perry

Perry, Mitt Romney (as a Mormon), and to a greater extent Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin, possess a political doctrine called Dominionism.
We are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government ... our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors - in short, over every aspect and institution of human society. ~ televangelist. D. James Kennedy
The term comes from the divine instruction in the Bible and narrows its focus from all of mankind to just Christians. They see it as their duty to take over governments and impose a strict Christian orthodoxy on all public and private matters. Dominionists never honestly and openly state their goals, as anyone who has seen the effects of a fundamentalist takeover of a school board can testify. But their goals can be expressed in a few simple concepts.

Christian Nationalism
The Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation. ~ John McCain
Central to Dominionist philosophy is the notion that the United States is a Christian nation in the same way that Iran is an Islamic Republic. They believe that the Constitution, first and foremost, must be interpreted as a Christian document. By their reading, the First Amendment's freedom of religion applies only to Christian sects. The Constitution Restoration Act would prevent courts from reviewing any government action taken in "acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law, liberty, or government."

Christian Imperialism
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. ~ Anne Coulter
Wherever the US military has gone in recent years it has brought Christian imperialism with it. In Iraq and Afghanistan the military has aggressively proselytizing Protestant Christianity. Both wars have been made infinitely more difficult by the ham-handed preaching of the United States. 

This Is War
Christians, are under constant attack by radical secularists, homosexual activists, federal judges, non-believers and pagans.
To hear Dominionists talk you'd think things are worse now than when Nero was Roman emperor. By playing the victim, they justify attacks on gays, liberals, and non-Christians as simply self-defense. Their goal is to defeat all these enemies and exercise "godly dominion" over everything. Exactly how far Dominionists will go to wage their war again the ungodly we will not know until after they gain power.
Homosexuals in concentration camps wore pink triangles.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

If this is an example of "godly" dominion, it is a further reason why I want nothing to do with their "god" and why I find it impossible to believe that their "god" exists in the first place". It is only an example of people wanting to have power and influence and to control others' behaviors (but not their own). It is no different from imperialist nations for thousands of years and it is a classic example of machiavellianism, using deceit to manipulate people for personal gain. The one thing it is not is "divine".

Unknown said...

Thanks for this one.

The thing is, dominionism as it has developed on the Christian Right has less to do with the original vision put forth in the Book of Genesis and a lot more to do with theocracy.

It reminds me of Islam as it is practiced in some theocratic nations of the Middle East.

I read of a situation in Iran where the government had dictated that toilets must face north/south, so that the naughty parts of a human body would not face Mecca...
It's this kind of mentality that assumes that EVERY choice in life can be made through consultation with one book written centuries ago - and the Christian domonionists seem to have some strange bedfellows on that one.