Rep. Lauren Boebert said humanity is in its 'last days' and Christians should 'rise up,'.

Rep. Lauren Boebert said humanity is in its 'last days' and Christians should 'rise up,' invoking Christian nationalist imagery that's linked to violence

Kelsey Vlamis

Sep 18, 2022, 7:06 AM

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., addresses attendees during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, Saturday, July 23, 2022, in Tampa, Fla. Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press

• Boebert echoed Christian nationalist talking points and invoked the end times in a speech last week.
• She said it's time for Christians to "rise up" and "influence this nation as we were called to do."
• Christian nationalism experts say such rhetoric has been linked to violence.

A recent speech by Rep. Lauren Boebert — during which she invoked the end times and said it's time for Christians to "rise up" — demonstrated how Christian nationalist ideals, including some associated with violence, have made it to the halls of Congress.

"It's time for us to position ourselves and rise up and take our place in Christ and influence this nation as we were called to do," the Colorado Republican told the crowd at a Christian conference held by the Truth and Liberty Coalition in Woodland Park, Colorado, on September 9.

"We need God back at the center of our country," she added.

Boebert heavily quoted scripture in her speech. She framed the formation of the US as divinely inspired and described the founding fathers as men of faith who were motivated by God — contentions that have been challenged by historians.

"We know that we are in the last of the last days," Boebert later said, referencing the belief held by some evangelical Christians that Jesus will return after a period of tribulation, or great suffering, and save believers. "But it's not a time to complain about it. It's not a time to get upset about it. It's a time to know that you were called to be a part of these last days. You get to have a role in ushering in the second coming of Jesus."

Boebert's comments expressing an intrinsic tie between the US and Christianity aren't new: In June she said she was "tired of this separation of church and state junk" and that "the church is supposed to direct the government." But by invoking the end times, Boebert is tapping into a side of Christian nationalism that has been associated with violence.

Although a spokesperson for Boebert told The Denver Post she does not identify as a Christian nationalist, her comments align with the tenants of Christian nationalism, an ideology and cultural framework that says Christianity should have a privileged position in American society.

"We found in our book that among Americans that embrace Christian nationalism, we see increasingly this embrace of a premillennialist interpretation of the end times, where there will be a tribulation but Christ will take away the faithful," Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at IUPUI and co-author of "Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States," told Insider.

Whitehead said Boebert was taking a specific and relatively new interpretation of the end times and melding it with the idea that Christians are supposed to have an influential role in public life. He said her view wasn't necessarily about saving the nation, but about Christians countering the forces of evil while they still can and remaining faithful up until the end.

"Citing the end times really does feel like a call to action and a rallying cry in some sense," Whitehead said, adding: "A lot of that end times imagery is associated with violence and rapture and descending into chaos societally."

Experts on religion and politics told The Denver Post that Boebert's remarks could be interpreted as a call for violence, particularly in relation to the midterm elections.

"Now the apocalypse is because if we don't get our people in, it's an apocalypse," Anthea Butler, chair of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Religious Studies, told the outlet.

Though Boebert's comments aren't new among proponents of Christian nationalism, such rhetoric has rarely, if ever, been deployed by a member of Congress.

Christian nationalism has also inspired acts of violence in the past. A report published in February by a group of faith leaders, historians, and religious scholars — including Whitehead — argued the concept was on display at the Capitol on January 6 and helped justify the insurrection. Christian nationalist ideals were also espoused by the suspects in the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the 2019 New Zealand mosque shootings.

"Any time that our political rhetoric moves in an area where we are raising the stakes — where it is ultimate good vs. ultimate evil," Whitehead said, "that's when political violence becomes much more likely."

Boebert's office did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

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DOMINIONISM RISING: A THEOCRATIC MOVEMENT HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

By Frederick Clarkson, on August 18, 2016





Click here to download the article as a PDF.

This article appears in the Summer 2016 edition of The Public Eye magazine.

In June 2016, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) held a private meeting with conservative movement leaders to plot his political future. Attendees afterwards cast him in the role of Ronald Reagan, who’d lost the 1976 Republican presidential nomination to Gerald Ford but led a conservative comeback in 1980 that made Jimmy Carter a one-term president. The thinking was that Cruz did well enough in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries before losing to celebrity billionaire Donald Trump that he could plan to run again in 2020 or 2024. “He was with kindred spirits,” said Brent Bozell, the conservative activist who hosted the meeting, “and I would say most people in that room see him as the leader of the conservative movement.”1

The rise of Ted Cruz is a singular event in American political history. The son of a Cuban refugee and evangelical pastor, Cruz was raised in the kind of evangelicalism-with-a-theocratic-bent that has come to epitomize a significant and growing trend in American public life. That is, dominionism: a dynamic ideology that arose from the swirls and eddies of American evangelicalism to animate the Christian Right, and become a defining feature of modern politics and culture.

Dominionism is the theocratic idea that regardless of theological camp, means, or timetable, God has called conservative Christians to exercise dominion over society by taking control of political and cultural institutions. The term describes a broad tendency across a wide swath of American Christianity. People who embrace this idea are referred to as dominionists. Although Chip Berlet, then of Political Research Associates, and I defined and popularized the term for many in the 1990s2, in fact it had (along with the term dominion theology) been in use by both evangelical proponents and critics for many years.3


Dominionism Defined (click to expand)
Dominionism is the theocratic idea that regardless of theological view, means, or timetable, Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.



Analyst Chip Berlet and I have suggested that there is a dominionist spectrum running from soft to hard as a way of making some broad distinctions among dominionists without getting mired in theological minutiae.106 But we also agree that:
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.107

Of course, Christian nationalism takes a distinct form in the United States, but dominionism in all of its variants has a vision for all nations.

In many ways, Ted Cruz personifies the story of dominionism: how it became the ideological engine of the Christian Right, and how it illuminates the changes underway in American politics, culture and religion that have helped shape recent history.

Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael, who served as his son’s principal campaign surrogate during his senate and presidential campaigns, has been a profound and colorful influence. The elder Cruz was a member of the Texas board of the Religious Roundtable,4 a leading Christian Right organization of the late 1970s.5 “Our conversation around the dinner table centered around politics—as to why we had to get rid of this leftist progressive called Jimmy Carter,” Rafael Cruz told an interviewer. “Ted got a dose of conservative politics from a biblical worldview for a whole year when he was nine years old.”6 That was the year the Religious Roundtable hosted the historic National Affairs Briefing conference in Dallas. It was held in tandem with the 1980 Republican National Convention, and attended by some 17,000 conservative Christians. It was there that Ronald Reagan famously declared: “I know you can’t endorse me, but I endorse you and what you are doing.”7

Some see Ted Cruz as not only following in the footsteps of Reagan, but fulfilling a religious destiny. “Talk to me about your son and his rise. This must be a thing of God. It’s meteoric,” David Brody, chief political correspondent for the Christian Broadcasting Network, asked Rafael Cruz in an interview in 2013, during Ted’s first year as senator8.Evangelical historian John Fea explained why Cruz might be viewed this way. During a sermon at the New Beginnings church in Bedford, Texas, in 2012, Rafael had described his son’s Senate campaign as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy that “God would anoint Christian ‘kings’ to preside over an ‘end-time transfer of wealth’ from the wicked to the righteous.”

N.C. lawmakers lift ban on Sunday hunting

Monday, July 6, 2015

Social Issues




“Sunday is for rest — rest not just for man but also animals,” Christian Action League head Mark Creech said of compromise legislation to allow firearm hunting on Sunday but not during the morning worship hour.


By Bob Allen

Baptists in North Carolina opposed to ending the state’s ban on Sunday hunting got some accommodation in a compromise measure passed by the legislature that prohibits hunting with a firearm between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. on Sundays, hours when most rural congregations gather for Bible study and worship.

Mark Creech

Mark Creech, head of the Christian Action League — an interdenominational public policy organization representing conservative Christian groups including the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina — called the final version of the bill sent to the governor June 30 a “partial victory for us.”


“The Christian Action League appreciates the sensitivity and respect shown by lawmakers in adding this provision,” said Creech, who broke with fellow conservatives in the National Rifle Association to oppose lifting North Carolina’s century-and-a-half ban on Sunday hunting. “Moreover, without such a provision, I am concerned other Sunday laws already on the books that show deference to the churches could be jeopardized.”

Creech, a former Southern Baptist pastor, said many people today view any effort to defend a special observance of the Lord’s Day as old-fashioned, puritanical and impractical in today’s complex economy.

“But the fact is, if we have no concern for setting aside one day a week for special worship and focus on the things of God, we’re not likely to honor the Lord the other six days of the week,” Creech wrote in a commentary. “If we are concerned about using all the days properly, we should also be concerned about using the Lord’s Day right.”
Despite arguments to the contrary, Creech submitted that “if we are to reconnect with our spiritual moorings, if our nation is to once again be restored to its former glory, if we are truly to maintain our heritage, it will involve a return to honoring and keeping the Lord’s Day.”

Creech said Sunday rest is intended “not just for man” but for animals as well.

“Man and nature run on a seven-day clock,” he said. “One day is essential for rewinding. Sunday is for worship — a time to be still and listen for the voice God — a time to break away from our focus on the temporal and give ourselves to those things eternal — a time to concentrate on character building — a time to make certain we are adequately concerned for God’s business and not just our own.”

“This legislation by no means outlaws the Lord’s Day or destroys it, but it does add an additional distraction by law that simply allows it to go by default,” Creech said. “Human experience has shown us the importance of the Lord’s Day. We do not live by bread alone, neither are we the sum total of our amusements and indulgences. We live by a right relationship to God and in obedience to his commands.”

The Baptist Faith and Message describes the Lord’s Day as “a Christian institution for regular observance.”

“It commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead and should include exercises of worship and spiritual devotion, both public and private,” the official confessional statement of the Southern Baptist Convention says in Article 8. “Activities on the Lord's Day should be commensurate with the Christian's conscience under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.”
While most attention to revisions to the Baptist Faith in Message in 2000 focused on narrowing parameters regarding the role of women in the church and home, the reworded article on the Lord’s Day softened language used in 1925 and 1963 versions saying Sunday should be characterized “by refraining from worldly amusements, and resting from secular employments, work of necessity and mercy only being excepted.”

Previous story:

Sunday hunting proposal divides churches, gun lobby in North Carolina

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The Trinity Foundation - Ecclesiastical Megalomania

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Ecclesiastical Megalomania. A taped lecture by David Chilton. The Foundation for Christian Reconstruction, 1992. The cassette tape is available from Chalcedon, Post Office Box 168, Vallecito, California 95251.


In the March Trinity Review 1994 describing how Scott Hahn was the pastor of a Reconstructionist church in Virginia, I commented that someone should write a book about Theonomist/Reconstructionist churches.  The book would be quite illuminating, for it would show how the ideas of Reconstructionism have played themselves out in practice. No one, to my knowledge, has written or is writing such a book, but David Chilton, a popular Reconstructionist author who was a member of the Tyler church for years, has given us a brief description of life in the most famous Reconstructionist church, the one in Tyler, Texas. That church was co-pastored by Ray Sutton--who is now [1994] president of the Philadelphia Seminary, formerly Reformed Episcopal Seminary--and James B. Jordan, who continues to write for Gary North and is now [1994] speaking at events sponsored by R. C. Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries. Of course, Gary North himself was a prominent member of the Tyler church. Chilton left the Tyler church some years ago, but unfortunately he did not entirely leave the Tyler theology. Nevertheless, his account of the events in the Tyler church should be of interest to all. It appears to be quite accurate, for several people have independently corroborated his account. It is impossible to give a full report on Chilton’s talk here, but I have tried to hit the highlights.

Chilton begins his talk by recounting his personal experience in the Jesus Movement in California. He found the same abuse of ecclesiastical authority in that movement as in the Reconstructionist Tyler church.



The Jesus Movement

”In 1970, I was running a coffee house ministry--we had kids on drugs coming in...and we would have rock concerts there and I would preach at them.... There was a young woman who showed up at Calvary Chapel named Sandy. Lovely blonde--she was reputed to be a prophetess--she would float in and prophesy and then she would sing a little bit, play a guitar, and then she would float back out. We were all in awe of her.

”And one evening, very unexpectedly, she showed up at my coffee house, which was some...30 miles away from Calvary Chapel...and came in and we all made way for her, and she came up to the stage, announced that she had some prophecies..., and then she sang and exhorted us with a few things and floated back out. We were all very impressed. A real prophetess of God had been in our midst.Ö

”Well, one night she came in and delivered a prophecy and then she took me aside. I had never spoken to her directly; I was too much in awe--we all were. She was really somebody important. Everybody told us she was important and all the important people in the Jesus Movement gave great deference to her, and so we didn’t really know what to say. So nobody ever talked to her. She just came in, made prophecies, and went out. She came up to me, and she needed to talk to me personally. She took me aside and informed me that God had told her that she and I were to be married....

”Here’s this woman I don’t even know and she tells me that we’re going to get married. And so she looked at me expectantly and so I said, but I don’t love you. And she looked at me with infinite prophetic sadness in her eyes and she said ‘Oh, David, I’m so disappointed. Surely you know by now that you walk by faith, and not by feelings.’ There was no answer to that one. So we walked back into the coffee house a few minutes later and announced our engagement.

”I was miserable and the longer this relationship went on, the more miserable I got. I found that she was very strange in a lot of ways.... I still didn’t know her very well and hardly had conversations with her but she was now...my matriarch or something. But I kept putting this off and so discovering strange things about her. The thing is nothing she said was ever tested. She said it and it was Word and we all submitted to it. And I began to feel that there was something wrong with this but I didn’t know how to oppose it exactly. She was a little bit miffed at me that I was moving too slow on this. She kept wanting to set a date for the wedding and I kept postponing it. And so finally she said, ‘David, we’re going to have to really get this together immediately or just call the whole thing off.’

”I said, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking the same thing. Let’s call the whole thing off.’ And that was the end of that, I thought....

”There were these, what we called Christian Houses. They were Christian communes presided over by an elder--a patriarch, who was maybe all of nineteen years old, who didn’t have a job. Everybody else went out and worked and then they came in and brought [their pay] to him and he sat there meditating all day and telling everybody to move to Oregon and things like that. And so for months afterward, elders of Christian Houses were coming to me and telling me that I had disobeyed God in a very serious way--that I had rejected the Word of God because this woman, Sandy, was the walking Word of God. She was infallible. What she said was the Word of God and we could not question it. She eventually pulled it on a couple of other guys and one of them fell for it and they got married....

”And this really is the whole issue of what became known in charismatic circles and Jesus People circles as the Shepherding Movement. One of the prime theologians behind this is Watchmen Nee, and you can find these kinds of things in his writings where there’s this real heavy top-down authority. Every move you make, every personal decision you make, certainly anything as important as moving from one place to another or anything like that, or getting married, there has to be a decision that comes down from the leadership. You aren’t allowed to make decisions on your own.

”Coming into the Reformed faith for me was a great liberty and a release.... I found to my great delight that one of the most liberating verses in the Bible is 1 John 3:4: ‘Sin is the transgression of the law.’ That may sound like bondage to some people, but it’s not. It’s the most liberating verse in the Bible or just about. Sin is the transgression of the law--that means sin isn’t the transgression of anything else. It’s only the transgression of the law.... But apart from that we aren’t to make legislation for one another. And so I thought that coming into Reconstructionism and being surrounded by fellow Reconstructionists, we would all see things that way. Well, it didn’t quite turn out that way....”


Reconstructionism in Tyler

After relating more stories about the Jesus Movement, all designed to emphasize the hippies’ desire for collective control and their antipathy for individual decision-making, Chilton reports the rise of a “heretic in the making”--a quick study who read Cornelius Van Til and Rousas Rushdoony and began making wild inferences from their views--in the church he attended in California. Chilton next turns to his experience at the Tyler church:

”There was a widow in the church...a little bit eccentric. She had quite a bit of money. She had it in gold and silver and precious stones and things like that. And she didn’t trust banks.... She had read enough newsletters about banks so she didn’t want anything to do with banks. So instead the elders of the church took her money or took her valuables for safekeeping. They stored her money or her valuables--her wealth--so that she would not have to trust it to one of those unregenerate banks out there. And somehow that money just disappeared.... She began to suspect things were going on and she asked for it back from the elders, and they resisted giving it back but eventually they gave her some--they just apologized and said that it was gone.... And this was in the tens of thousands of dollars. This is everything that the woman had.... They eventually gave her a few rusty tools and things they scraped together and that was all they gave her.... No one was ever held accountable for this....

”There was one deacon’s wife--a very sweet woman who was caught up in this and consumed with guilt over what had happened. And I don’t get this from hearsay. I myself witnessed her in tears uncontrollably confessing to this widow what had happened. Very upset. Very overcome. And the widow kept telling her, you know, it’s not your fault, I know it’s not your fault, it’s okay. The deacon’s wife couldn’t stop crying. She was overcome with guilt. Eventually her marriage fell apart. A couple of years ago she committed suicide. This corruption that was going on was covered up.

”Paul says to Timothy that the elders that sin are to be rebuked before all (1 Timothy 5:20). But the elders of this church had a different doctrine.... The elders (one of the ministers of this church in particular) told parents not ever to make the mistake of confessing wrong to their children.... Don’t say I’m sorry because that immediately lowers you in the estimation of your children. They won’t have respect for you anymore....”

But the problems in the Tyler church were not simply conversion of funds and bad advice from the elders. The elders adopted, taught, and enforced a view of the church that has no support in Scripture.



Reconstructionist Ecclesiolatry

”This [notion of not admitting error to children] feeds into a doctrine that they developed there that became known as ‘Father God, Mother Church....’ [Where have we heard this before?-Robbins] The way it works is this: God is your Father; the Church is your Mother. How do you deal with things at home?... You do not allow your children to play off one parent against another.

”Father God, Mother Church. If Mother Church comes down with a decision to her children that is wrong, it is against what God’s law says, God will back up Mother Church.

”Now this sent...shock waves through the church...and people immediately came up with the obvious objection: What if...the church commands you to, say, sacrifice your children on an altar or something...? How far does this go? Does God always back up Mother Church?

”And they said, oh, of course not. Obviously if the church ordered you as a member to sacrifice your children on an altar, that’s not Mother Church anymore. Mother Church at that point has clearly become a harlot. And God will not back up the decisions of a harlot....

”That means, though, that if the church is wrong, if you say that the church is wrong enough for me to disobey, you’re calling the church a harlot.... If Father God will back up Mother Church unless she is a harlot, [and] if you say that Mother Church is wrong on an issue, it had better be an important enough issue because what you have just done...is that you’ve called Mom a harlot. Now if you call my Mom a harlot, you’ll get into trouble. And that’s what happened in Texas....

”One of the things that was going on with this in the [Tyler] church was that we found that the elders of this church were very class conscious.... This church was not primarily built up from the community. That’s how local churches usually are developed. The Gospel takes root in a society and the church is built up from the local constituency. But that’s not what went on in this church. People moved to come to this church. This was a Reconstructionist haven and so they moved to come there. People at great cost to themselves--people gave up good jobs to get lesser paying jobs and so on. And the church had a fair number of rather poor people in the church. The pastor of that church to other people outside the church said that one of the problems that he had to deal with in his church was that there’s so many ‘white trash’ in the church....

”The sermons became increasingly mystical.... I would sit in church Sunday after Sunday and think, I have read Rushdoony, I’ve read Van Til.... You know, I may not be genius level but I’ve got an intellect. And I’m sitting here, I’m rather well-read, probably more well-read than most members of the congregation, and I can’t make head or tail of what this man is saying. I have no idea what he is talking about in the pulpit. And if I can’t figure this out, how are these other people doing?

”Well, one way the other people were coping with it was that they assumed that this has to be really hot stuff. ‘This is profound because I can’t understand it. I’m sitting here in awe and wonder at all these things that are being said from the pulpit, I don’t understand it, but it must be true and it must be very important. And this is life-changing, culture-transforming stuff. I’m right here on the Inner Circle.’ Nobody knew what he [the pastor] was talking about. Bizarre, I mean bizarre interpretations were coming forth from the pulpit....

”The congregation was given to understand that everything that was being said from the pulpit, that here we are at the central point of the Reconstruction of this country, of indeed the world, and the things that are coming forth from this pulpit you won’t hear anywhere else.... As one Reconstructionist writer put it, ‘I want to save Western Civilization at cost plus ten percent, plus postage and handling....’ “


The White-Wall Tire Sermon

”There was this mysticism coming out of the pulpit. Nobody really understood what was going on. But sometimes it would not get mystical at all. There was one memorable sermon put forth by a deacon--he was really the deacon of the church: there were other deacons, but this was the hammer--and he announced at the beginning and gave a little exposition that the job of the deacon is only to do what the elders tell him to do. He has no discretion outside of what the elders tell him to do. Every word that comes out of his mouth, every action that he performs is in complete subservience to the elders.

”At that point, he launched into a talk about how the rest of us are to submit to the elders. We were given to understand, naturally, that everything that he said, he was saying on the direct authority of the elders of the church because he had just said he can’t say anything, he can’t do anything, apart from their direct command. So everything he said was coming from the elders but it was coming through him. And this was playing it safe.... Prime ministers and presidents do this sort of thing all the time.... That kind of game is played. Well, it was played at this church as well. And so when people objected to this, the elders were able to say that they hadn’t really meant any of this and that they weren’t really apprised of what was going on when, in fact, it was exactly the opposite.

”But the statement was made that we are to submit to every whim of the church leadership. Even to disagree in our thoughts is an excommunicable offense.... So we have to discipline our thoughts and bring them into line with what the elders said.... And the deacon gave a very concrete, you might say rubber meets the road example. He talked about white-wall tires. And he said if you have white-wall tires and an officer of the church comes over to your house and commands you to change them to black-walls, you are required to do so, and any disobedience to that command is rebellion against authority, rebellion against God himself. And you can be excommunicated for that....

”I went up to the deacon afterward and gingerly asked him some questions. I pointed to a man in the congregation who was a policeman....

”I said, ‘If that policeman comes over to my house and tells me to get white-wall tires, I will tell him, with all due respect, to jump in the lake, because he doesn’t have the authority to do that. He is exceeding his authority. And if I tell him to get lost, I’m not rebelling against authority, he is rebelling against authority, against his rightful authority. He is exceeding the law by coming over to me and telling me to do something that he has no right to tell me to do. So he’s the rebel. I’m not the rebel if he is telling me to do something that he doesn’t have the right to.’

”So I said, ‘Does church authority--can you--is it possible for you to exceed your authority? Where’s the line? I want to know at what point in my home I can draw a line and say you can’t cross that. You cross that line and we get into a little dust up here. So where’s the line?’

”And he didn’t answer that. He said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you, you know, if you disagree with the decision of the elders--they tell you to get white-wall tires and you disagree with that, you’re at liberty to go around to other people in the church and find out if they disagree. And if you have enough people that disagree, you can kick out the elder.’

”I said, ‘Well, I’ve got two problems with that. Number one, does everything have to be that extreme? Can’t we negotiate? Is it a choice of complete submitting, letting this iron boot step on my face forever, or I overthrow the authority? Can we negotiate here? Can we talk?’

”And he didn’t say anything about that. He just smiled.

”So I said, ‘Okay, my second problem with that is that while I’m disagreeing, and while I’m going around the church canvassing the church to find out who agrees with me and disagrees with the eldership, I am committing innumerable excommunicable offenses. Every time I think a thought against what the elders have said, I can be excommunicated for that. And certainly going around stirring up trouble, saying let’s kick these guys out, I can be excommunicated for that, right?’

”And he just smiled again. And I went all cold inside....

”I would wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, terrified that I was going to be excommunicated for what I was thinking....

”At that point there was this real uneasy relationship between me and them. I was not on the staff of the church at all but I was, after all, David Chilton. And I wasn’t the most famous member of the church, but people did come to the church to find David Chilton, and I was one of the advertising gimmicks of that church. And here I am going through these intense, gut wrenching struggles over the issue of whether I’m going to be excommunicated simply because of disagreeing over a subject like white-wall tires.”


1984

”But it got worse. There were people who disagreed with school policy.... it had to do with fund raising. We were going to let children go out into the neighborhood and collect money.... Well, there were some people in the church and school who didn’t like that. They said, I tell you what, you come to me and you ask me. If the school needs money, tell me how much you want me to give and I’ll write you a check. But don’t ask me to send my children around to the neighborhood collecting donations from heathens to build up this school....

”Now they did not start a revolution.... They stayed out of it. They didn’t send their children around the neighborhood and on the appointed day, they did not show up. Now I was one of the ones that showed up. I didn’t like it. I didn’t feel comfortable about it, but we went along with it....

”The result of that was they [those who disagreed] began being brought in and interrogated by the elders of the church--interrogating husbands and wives separately, and refusing to allow these proceedings to be tape recorded.... Sometime before this I’d gone out to a bookstore and bought two books that I had read in high school and now was beginning to see the importance of. George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984....

”By 1985 I was sending out resumes very discreetly and quietly, begging and pleading with anybody to accept me anywhere. I was willing to do anything. Just get me out of here. There was a real climate of fear.... A family in our church who had moved about 20 miles away-our church was very much into liturgy...--these people moved away and there was an Episcopal Church nearby.... They decided that they would like to go there to church. So they applied for a transfer and got it.... You can’t imagine the shock waves that went through the church at that point. I had people coming up to me...saying, I didn’t know you could get out.

”At this point there was something over 60 families in the church. And that one family moved out. And when people discovered that you could move out, people did so.... When that began to happen, that original couple was denounced from the pulpit in the most extreme terms, that they had left the faith, they weren’t Christian anymore, and going to Hell....

”Perhaps the leading American Theonomist, if I can distinguish that from Reconstruction, but the leading, the most important, the most erudite American Theonomist was very strongly critical of the church there [in Tyler] and yet in his [California] church he routinely excommunicated people for disagreeing with him, excommunicated people for leaving, excommunicated people for transferring to another church in the same denomination. Think about that. You’re in a church and you transfer to another church in the same denomination and the pastor excommunicates you for that.... There were members of our church there who, in escaping from this [Reconstructionist] church, fled to the relative freedom of the Roman Catholic Church. Think about that....”

There is far more in Chilton’s tape than I can review here. If you are at all interested in tracing out the ramifications of Reconstructionism, this would be a good tape to purchase. Chilton is still enthralled by many Reconstructionist ideas, but he has given us a glimpse into the ecclesiastical megalomania of the most famous Reconstructionist church in the world.


May 1994

Editor’s note: After this speech, David Chilton subsequently suffered a heart attack from which he initially recovered and eventually died. One wonders if the terror and desperation he felt in the Tyler Church contributed to his health problems. After his heart attack, Chilton and his lecture were viciously attacked by Gary North, the chief financier of the Tyler Church, both publicly and privately. This editor was threatened in writing with “destruction” by North for publicizing Chilton’s speech. Several former members of the Tyler Church contacted the editor after we published this Review, saying that Chilton had not told the half of it. They were still frightened of the leaders of the Tyler Church years after they had left.

The Trinity Foundation hereby grants permission to all readers to download, print, and distribute on paper or electronically any of its Reviews, provided that each reprint bear our copyright notice, current addresses, and telephone numbers, and provided that all such reproductions are distributed to the public without charge. The Reviews may not be sold or issued in book form, CD-ROM form, or microfiche. - See more at: http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=184#sthash.rpg4UODY.2MxNnaCE.dpuf

The Trinity Foundation hereby grants permission to all readers to download, print, and distribute on paper or electronically any of its Reviews, provided that each reprint bear our copyright notice, current addresses, and telephone numbers, and provided that all such reproductions are distributed to the public without charge. The Reviews may not be sold or issued in book form, CD-ROM form, or microfiche.

 Copyright © 1998-2011 The Trinity Foundation Post Office 68, Unicoi, Tennessee 37692 Phone: 423.743.0199 Fax: 423.743.2005

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Copyright © 1998-2011 The Trinity Foundation
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Posted at 10:16 AM ET, 08/12/2011

Faith up for debate

By Jacques Berlinerblau

Republican presidential candidates (L-R) former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, businessman Herman Cain, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) take the stage for a debate in the Stephens Auditorium at Iowa State University August 11, 2011 in Ames, Iowa (Chip Somodevilla - GETTY IMAGES)

The eight candidates at Thursday night’s GOP debate were willing to get into one another’s grills or, failing that, into the grills of the four journalists who subjected them to fair, hard-hitting and well organized questions (this was some of the best moderator work I can recall in a recent presidential debate).

Oddly, things were much more lively before and after the dirge-like “social issues” segment. Those issues were relegated to a brief 10-minute interlude. For whatever reasons, the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room as the candidates were put through their paces on gay marriage, abortion, and Islam. Here are some bleary-eyed observations.

Disaffected Democrats and Independents--Is Jon Huntsman Your Man?: A very solid performance by the former governor of Utah. True, he raised his hand in lock step with his seven colleagues agreeing to not accept a budget deal in which spending cuts would outweigh tax revenues by 10-1 (10 to 1!).
Republican presidential candidates former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, left, and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty are pictured during the Iowa GOP/Fox News Debate at the CY Stephens Auditorium in Ames, Iowa, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2011. (Charlie Neibergall - AP)

Yet on other issues he “pivoted to the general” as observers like to say about candidates who think beyond the primaries and the base.

Huntsman came out, unambiguously, in favor of civil unions. He called attention to China and his unique strengths in dealing with that country. He looked like an exasperated adult--sort of a Red State mirror image of Barack Obama.

Huntsman appeared ready to zing Rick Perry: “We all need prayers and I hope he offers them for everyone on this stage.” But that’s as far as he went.

Rick Santorum is Much More Appealing When NOT Addressing Social Issues: The former senator from Pennsylvania had a good night of it, mostly because he was not rehearsing his anger about being perceived as an “ultra” conservative.

“Iran is not Iceland, Ron” he rightly noted, delivering the remarks that signal the official end of Ron Paul’s presidential dreams (see below).

Santorum was even expressing concerns about the status of gay people under the Iranian Mullahcracy! But then he got back to those social issues. A nation that permits abortion in the case of rape, he pointed out, was a nation that victimized the unborn child twice. The victimization of that other rape victim, the woman, was left unaddressed by Santorum.

Herman Cain Should Simply Stop Making Comments about Religion: If only because he constantly claims he is misquoted or misunderstood. His unfortunate remarks about Muslim loyalty and mosques are well known. Tonight Cain had to walk back ambiguous comments he recently made about Mormonism not really being something that folks in the South might know much about, if you know what he means.

(Michele Bachmann debates Thursday night./Getty))Michele Bachmann: Hermeneut Extraordinaire!: When reminded that she once approvingly cited the scriptures about being submissive to her husband (”Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord,” Ephesians 5:22) the moderator asked her if she would do the same as president of the United States.

This deliciously snarky, but very relevant question--after all, it is Bachmann who draws attention to her faith on the campaign trail--was met with a lusty chorus of boos.

But Bachmann was ready, trans-valuing “submit” to mean “respect.” It may not have satisfied fundamentalists, but it was an effective response--a little hermeneutical jujitsu. Crisis averted.

Newt Gingrich: A Lesson in Journalistic Ethics: Back in 2008 a word cloud depicting a GOP presidential debate would have had a gargantuan REAGAN at is center. No longer. Only Newt invoked the Great Communicator and then, cuz he felt like it, he roughed up Chris Wallace.

True journalists, charged the former speaker of the house, don’t focus on minutiae. True journalists, Gingrich insinuated, do let Republicans demonstrate how different they are from Barack Obama.

Mitt Romney: On Top For Now?: Romney is the frontrunner and understandably so. He can unite fiscal conservatives and those social conservatives who don’t harbor irrational prejudices toward Mormons. He has a foot in both of the GOP’s roiling streams.

Tonight he spent a good deal of time discussing his experience as a business man placating the money wing of the GOP. For the sake of the social conservatives he reiterated his preference for a federal marriage amendment (“ I believe the issue of marriage should be decided at the federal level. . .people move from state to state”).

Rick Perry’s forthcoming entrance into the race is Romney’s next big challenge. Like Mike Huckabee back in 2008. Perry will demonstrate a unique ability to pick off Romney-friendly evangelicals. This is the biggest threat to Romney’s presidential bid and his handlers better be ready.

Ron Paul: It Was Fun While It Lasted: Even liberals will have a hard time nodding their heads in approval to Paul’s extended defense of Iran’s right to develop nuclear weapons. Why Ron? Why?

Years from now Paul will be seen as a mock-up, a precursor to a younger less idiosyncratic Libertarian candidate who stands a chance of winning his or her party’s nomination.

Winners: Fox News and The Washington Examiner. This debate was well run and informative. The questions were tough and the pace brisk. As for the candidates: Huntsman looked like an adult. Bachmann was on message. Santorum performed capably. Newt Gingrich smartly noted that even the Reagan (1980) and McCain (2008) campaigns were once seen as total disasters. So by those standards, he’s right on track!

Losers: TPaw needs to rethink and retool. His scrum with Michele Bachmann did little for him and some consultant needs to figure out why he consistently fails to connect. Ron Paul is done.

Barack Obama should not be too worried about remarks to the effect that he is clueless, ineffectual and incapable of leading. After all, these are Republicans. He should be concerned that some Democrats are making precisely the same allegations.

By Jacques Berlinerblau | 10:16 AM ET, 08/12/2011

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What is Dominionism? Palin, the Christian Right, & Theocracy

by cberlet
Fri Sep 05, 2008 at 06:13:19 AM PDT

Sarah Palin is a "Dominionist" with an apocalytic End Times theological viewpoint that sees the war in Iraq as part of God's plan. More on the End Times in the next post. Let's talk about Christian Right Dominionism and tendencies toward authoritarian theocratic governance.

With a number of bloggers calling Sarah Palin a "Dominionist," it is a good idea to clear up some obvious errors in the use of terminology.

Neither Sarah Palin nor her Protestant church affiliated with the Assemblies of God should be described as practicing a form of "Dominion Theology" or "Christian Reconstructionism." That is just plain wrong.

It is fair to suggest that Palin displays the tendency called "Dominionism" in some of her public statements.

As one of the authors who popularized the term "Dominionism" (along with Sara Diamond, and Fred Clarkson), I feel some obligation to clear up this confusion, which stems from some very sloppy research posted on a number of websites where the terms "Dominionism," "Dominion Theology," and "Christian Reconstructionism" are used improperly and interchangeably.

"Christian Reconstructionism" is a form of "Dominion Theology" that influenced a tendency toward "Dominionism" in the Christian Right and certain evangelical churches such as The Assemblies of God. But, lumping of these theologies together is neither accurate, nor fair.

How did this confusion get started?

In a September 1994 plenary speech to the Christian Coalition national convention, Rev. D. James Kennedy said that "true Christian citizenship" involves an active engagement in society to "take dominion over all things as vice-regents of God." Kennedy's remarks were reported in February 1995 by sociologist and journalist Sara Diamond, who wrote that Kennedy had "echoed the Reconstructionist line."

More than anyone else, it was Sara Diamond who popularized the term "dominionism," using it to describe a growing political tendency in the Christian Right. It is a useful term that has, unfortunately, been used in a variety of ways that are neither accurate nor useful. Diamond was careful to discuss how the small Christian Reconstructionist theological movement had helped introduce "dominionism" as a concept into the larger and more diverse social/political movements called the Christian Right.

Dominionism is therefore a tendency among Protestant Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists that encourages them to not only be active political participants in civic society, but also seek to dominate the political process as part of a mandate from God.

This highly politicized concept of dominionism is based on the Bible's text in Genesis 1:26:

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (King James Version).

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'" (New International Version).

The vast majority of Christians read this text and conclude that God has appointed them stewards and caretakers of Earth. As Sara Diamond explains, however, some Christian read the text and believe, "that Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns." That, in a nutshell, is the idea of "dominionism."

Just because some critics of the Christian Right have stretched the term dominionism past its breaking point does not mean we should abandon the term. And while it is true that few participants in the Christian Right Culture War want a theocracy as proposed by the Christian Reconstructionists, many of their battlefield Earth commanders are leading them in that direction. A number of these leaders have been influenced by Christian Reconstructionism, which is a variant of theocracy called "theonomy."

William Martin is the author of the 1996 tome With God on Our Side, a companion volume to the PBS series. Martin is a sociologist and professor of religion at Rice University, and he has been critical of the way some critics of the Christian Right have tossed around the terms "dominionism" and "theocracy." Martin has offered some careful writing on the subject. According to Martin:

"It is difficult to assess the influence of Reconstructionist thought with any accuracy. Because it is so genuinely radical, most leaders of the Religious Right are careful to distance themselves from it. At the same time, it clearly holds some appeal for many of them. One undoubtedly spoke for others when he confessed, 'Though we hide their books under the bed, we read them just the same.' "

According to Martin, "several key leaders have acknowledged an intellectual debt to the theonomists. Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy have endorsed Reconstructionist books."

Before he died in 2001, the founder of Christian Reconstuctionism, R. J. Rushdoony, appeared several times on Christian Right televangelist programs such as Pat Robertson's 700 Club and the program hosted by D. James Kennedy, writes Martin.

"Pat Robertson makes frequent use of 'dominion' language" says Martin, "his book, The Secret Kingdom, has often been cited for its theonomy elements; and pluralists were made uncomfortable when, during his presidential campaign, he said he 'would only bring Christians and Jews into the government,' as well as when he later wrote, 'There will never be world peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.' "

Martin also points out that "Jay Grimstead, who leads the Coalition on Revival, which brings Reconstructionists together with more mainstream evangelicals, has said, 'I don't call myself [a Reconstructionist],' but 'A lot of us are coming to realize that the Bible is God's standard of morality . . . in all points of history . . . and for all societies, Christian and non-Christian alike. . . . It so happens that Rushdoony, Bahnsen, and North understood that sooner.' He added, 'There are a lot of us floating around in Christian leadership James Kennedy is one of them-who don't go all the way with the theonomy thing, but who want to rebuild America based on the Bible.'"

So let's choose our language carefully, but let's recognize that terms such as "dominionism" and "theocracy," when used cautiously and carefully, are appropriate when describing anti-democratic tendencies in the Christian Right.

"Dominionism" as a Term or Description

The term "dominionism" is used different ways by different people. When new terms are developed, that is to be expected. If we are to use words and phrases to discuss ideas, however, it pays to be on the same page concerning how we define those terms. This is especially true in public debates.

In her 1989 book Spiritual Warfare, sociologist Sara Diamond discussed how dominionism as an ideological tendency in the Christian Right had been significantly influenced by Christian Reconstructionism. Over the past 20 years the leading proponents of Christian Reconstructionism and dominion theology have included Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, Gary North, Greg Bahnsen, David Chilton, Gary DeMar, and Andrew Sandlin.

Diamond explained 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." (italics in the original).

In a series of articles and book chapters Diamond expanded on her thesis. She called Reconstructionism "the most intellectually grounded, though esoteric, brand of dominion theology," and observed that "promoters of Reconstructionism see their role as ideological entrepreneurs committed to a long-term struggle."

So Christian Reconstructionism was the most influential form of dominion theology, and it influenced both the theological concepts and political activism of white Protestant conservative evangelicals mobilized by the Christian Right.

But very few evangelicals have even heard of dominion theology, and fewer still embrace Christian Reconstructionism. How do we explain this, especially since our critics are quick to point it out?
The answer lies in teasing apart the terminology and how it is used.

Christian Reconstructionism is a form of theocratic dominion theology. Its leaders challenged evangelicals across a wide swath of theological beliefs to engage in a more muscular and activist form of political participation. The core theme of dominion theology is that the Bible mandates Christians to take over and "occupy" secular institutions.

A number of Christian Right leaders read what the Christian Reconstructionists were writing, and they adopted the idea of taking dominion over the secular institutions of the United States as the "central unifying ideology" of their social movement. They decided to gain political power through the Republican Party.

This does not mean most Christian Right leaders became Christian Reconstructionists. It does mean they were influenced by dominion theology. But they were influenced in a number of different ways, and some promote the theocratic aspects more militantly than others.

It helps to see the terms dominionism, dominion theology, and Christian Reconstructionism as distinct and not interchangeable. While all Christian Reconstructionists are dominionists, not all dominionists are Christian Reconstructionists.

A nested subset chart looks like this:
---Triumphalism
---------Dominionism
---------------------Dominion Theology or Theocracy
----------------------------------Theonomy
----------------------------------------------Christian Reconstructionism

The specific meanings are different in important ways, although the terms have been used in a variety of conflicting ways in popular articles, especially on the Internet.

In its generic sense, dominionism is a very broad political tendency within the Christian Right. It ranges from soft to hard versions in terms of its theocratic impulse.

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. Purists want litmus tests for issues of abortion, tolerance of gays and lesbians, and prayer in schools. Their vision has elements of theocracy, but they stop short of calling for supplanting the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Hard Dominionists believe all of this, but they want the United States to be a Christian theocracy. For them the Constitution and Bill of Rights are merely addendums to Old Testament Biblical law. They claim that Christian men with specific theological beliefs are ordained by God to run society. Christians and others who do not accept their theological beliefs would be second-class citizens. This sector includes Christian Reconstructionists, but it has a growing number of adherents in the leadership of the Christian Right.

It makes more sense to reserve the term "dominion theology" to describe specific theological currents, while using the term "dominionism" in a generic sense to discuss a tendency toward aggressive political activism by Christians who claim they are mandated by God to take over society. Even then, we need to locate the subject of our criticisms on a scale that ranges from soft to hard versions of dominionism.

Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst, Political Research Associates

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Theocracy is derived from the two Greek words Qeo/j(Theos) meaning "God" and kra/tein (cratein) meaning "to rule." The Reverend Rod Parsley, a champion of theocracy, or what he calls a "christocracy," told his congregation at the World Harvest Church, located just outside Columbus, Ohio, "Theocracy means God is in control, and you are not." more

The theocratic right seeks to establish dominion, or control over society in the name of God. The late D. James Kennedy, former pastor of Coral Ridge Ministries, called on his followers to exercise "godly dominion ... over every aspect ... of human society." At a "Reclaiming America for Christ" conference in February, 2005, Kennedy said:

"Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."

Twenty-five years ago, dominionists targeted the Republican Party as the vehicle through which they could advance their agenda. At the same time, a small group of Republican strategists targeted fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches to expand the base of the Republican Party. This web site is not about traditional Republicans or conservative Christians. It is about the manipulation of people of a certain faith for political power. It is about the rise of dominionists in the U.S. federal government.

Today's hard right seeks total dominion. It's packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself. more

According to acclaimed journalist and television host Bill Moyers,

"True, people of faith have always tried to bring their interpretation of the Bible to bear on American laws and morals ... it's the American way, encouraged and protected by the First Amendment. But what is unique today is that the radical religious right has succeeded in taking over one of America's great political parties. The country is not yet a theocracy but the Republican Party is, and they are driving American politics, using God as a a battering ram on almost every issue: crime and punishment, foreign policy, health care, taxation, energy, regulation, social services and so on." more

(To read the rest of the Home Page that was on this site before the 2006 midterm elections, click here.)

Back from the Brink
Before the midterm elections of 2006, dominionists controlled both houses of the U.S. Congress, the White House and four out of nine seats on the U.S. Supreme Court. They were one seat away from holding a solid majority on the Supreme Court. As of January 1, 2007, dominionists will not control the leadership of either house of Congress, and the President will no longer be able to so easily appoint dominionists to the federal courts.

Five of the Republican Senators who were unseated on November 7 received whopping scores of 100% from the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family Voter Scorecards. Those Senators are: Conrad Burns (R-MT), George Allen (R-VA), Rick Santorum (R-PA), James Talent (R-MO), and Mike DeWine (R-OH). Rick Santorum was the number three ranking Republican in the party. Santorum and Allen both had Presidential ambitions. (FRC and FOF are the most politically influential of dominionist organizations.) For more discussion of the elections go to Talk To Action.

Where do we go from here?

Dominionists were very close to controlling all three branches of the federal government from which they could impose their narrow interpretation of scripture on the rest of society. People so close to full political power are not going to go away. The American people need to maintain vigilance and understand the history of how dominionists came to political power. And we need to embrace democracy with a passion -- for it was voter apathy that allowed leaders like Pat Robertson to get so many dominionists elected to Congress in the first place.

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The Return of Christian Terrorism

By Mark Juergensmeyer April 8, 2010

Jesus at war. Image courtesy flickr user smohundro

Threats of right-wing violence have doubled in the past year. What is behind the latest upsurge in the movement to create a Christian theocratic state?





Last week when Scott Roeder, the murderer of Wichita Kansas abortion clinic provider Dr. George Tiller, had his day in court, he spent much of his rambling self-defense quoting the words of another abortion clinic assassin, Reverend Paul Hill. In the 1990s my own research had brought me into conversation with others in the inner circle in which Hill and Roeder were at that time involved. So it was a chilling experience for me to realize that this awful mood of American Christian terrorism—culminating in the catastrophic attack on the Oklahoma City Federal Builiding—has now returned.

Christian terrorism has returned to America with a vengeance. And it is not just Roeder. Last week, when members of the Hutaree militia in Michigan and Ohio recently were arrested with plans to kill a random policeman and then plant Improvised Explosive Devices in the area where the funeral would be held to kill hundreds more, this was a terrorist plot of the sort that would impress Shi’ite militia and al Qaeda activists in Iraq. The Southern Poverty Law Center, founded by Morris Dees, which has closely watched the rise of right-wing extremism in this country for many decades, declares that threats and incidents of right-wing violence have risen 200% in this past year—unfortunately coinciding with the tenure of the first African-American president in US history. When Chip Berlet, one of this country’s best monitors of right-wing extremism, warned in a perceptive essay last week on RD that the hostile right-wing political climate in this country has created the groundwork for a demonic new form of violence and terrorism, I fear that he is correct.

Christian Warrior, Sacred Battle

Though these new forms of violence are undoubtedly political and probably racist, they also have a religious dimension. And this brings me back to what I know about Rev. Paul Hill, the assassin who the similarly misguided assassin, Scott Roeder, quoted at length in that Wichita court room last week. In 1994, Hill, a Presbyterian pastor at the extreme fringe of the anti-abortion activist movement, came armed to a clinic in Pensacola, Florida. He aimed at Dr. John Britton, who was entering the clinic along with his bodyguard, James Barrett. The shots killed both men and wounded Barrett’s wife, Joan. Hill immediately put down his weapon and was arrested; presenting an image of someone who knew that he would be arrested, convicted, and executed by the State of Florida for his actions, which he was in 2003. This would make Hill something of a Christian suicide attacker.

What is interesting about Hill and his supporters is not just his political views, but also his religious ones. As I reported in my book, Terror in the Mind of God, and in an essay for RD several months ago, Hill framed his actions as those of a Christian warrior engaged in sacred battle. “My eyes were opened to the enormous impact” such an event would have, he wrote, adding that “the effect would be incalculable.” Hill said that he opened his Bible and found sustenance in Psalms 91: “You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day.” Hill interpreted this as an affirmation that his act was biblically approved.

One of the supporters that Paul Hill had written these words to was Rev. Michael Bray, a Lutheran pastor in Bowie, Maryland, who had served prison time for his conviction of fire-bombing abortion-related clinics on the Eastern seaboard. Bray published a newsletter and then a Web site for his Christian anti-abortion movement, and published a book theologically justifying violence against abortion service providers, A Time to Kill. He is also alleged to be the author of the Army of God manual that provides details on how to conduct terrorist acts against abortion-related clinics.

Recently Bray has publicly defended Paul Roeder, the Wichita assassin, saying that he acted with “righteousness and mercy.” Several years earlier, another member of Bray’s network of associates, Rachelle (“Shelly”) Shannon, a housewife from rural Oregon, had also attacked Dr. George Tiller as he drove away from his clinic in Wichita. She was arrested for attempted murder.

When I interviewed Bray on several occasions in the 1990s, he provided a theological defense of this kind of violence from two different Christian perspectives. In the remainder of this essay, I’ll summarize from Terror in the Mind of God some of my observations about these theological strands behind their terrorism in the 1990s—and which, amazingly, are surfacing again today.

Theological Illogic

The more traditional Christian justification that Bray used for his violence was just-war theory. He was fond of quoting two of my own heroes, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebuhr, in what I regard as perverse ways. Bray thought that their justification of military action against the Nazis (and an attempted assassination plot on Hitler’s life Bonhoeffer was involved in) was an appropriate parallel to his terrorism against the US government’s sanctioning of legal abortions. It seemed highly unlikely to me that Bray’s positions would have been accepted by these or any other theologian within mainstream Protestant thought. Bonhoeffer and Niebuhr, like most modern theologians, supported the principle of the separation of church and state, and were wary of what Niebuhr called “moralism”—the intrusion of religious or other ideological values into the political calculations of statecraft. Moreover, Bray did not rely on mainstream theologians for his most earnest theological justification.

The more significant Christian position that Bray and Hill advanced is related to the End-Time theology of the Rapture as thought to be envisaged by the New Testament book of Revelation. These are ideas related, in turn, to Dominion Theology, the position that Christianity must reassert the dominion of God over all things, including secular politics and society. This point of view, articulated by such right-wing Protestant spokespersons as Rev. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, have been part of the ideology of the Christian Right since at least the 1980s and 1990s.

At its hardest edge, the movement requires the creation of a kind of Christian politics to set the stage for America’s acceptance of the second coming of Christ. In this context, it is significant today that in some parts of the United States, over one-third of the opponents of the policies of President Barack Obama believe he is the Antichrist as characterized in the End-Times Rapture scenario.

The Christian anti-abortion movement is permeated with ideas from Dominion Theology. Randall Terry (founder of the militant anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue and a writer for the Dominion magazine Crosswinds) signed the magazine’s “Manifesto for the Christian Church,” which asserted that America should “function as a Christian nation.” The Manifesto said that America should therefore oppose “social moral evils” of secular society such as “abortion on demand, fornication, homosexuality, sexual entertainment, state usurpation of parental rights and God-given liberties, statist-collectivist theft from citizens through devaluation of their money and redistribution of their wealth, and evolutionism taught as a monopoly viewpoint in the public schools.”

At the extreme right wing of Dominion Theology is a relatively obscure theological movement that Mike Bray found particularly appealing: Reconstruction Theology, whose exponents long to create a Christian theocratic state. Bray had studied their writings extensively and possessed a shelf of books written by Reconstruction authors. The convicted anti-abortion killer Paul Hill cited Reconstruction theologians in his own writings and once studied with a founder of the movement, Greg Bahnsen, at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi.

Leaders of the Reconstruction movement trace their ideas, which they sometimes called “theonomy,” to Cornelius Van Til, a twentieth-century Presbyterian professor of theology at Princeton Seminary who took seriously the sixteenth-century ideas of the Reformation theologian John Calvin regarding the necessity for presupposing the authority of God in all worldly matters. Followers of Van Til (including his former students Bahnsen and Rousas John Rushdoony, and Rushdoony’s son-in-law, Gary North) adopted this “presuppositionalism” as a doctrine, with all its implications for the role of religion in political life.

Recapturing Institutions for Jesus

Reconstruction writers regard the history of Protestant politics since the early years of the Reformation as having taken a bad turn, and they are especially unhappy with the Enlightenment formulation of church-state separation. They feel it necessary to “reconstruct” Christian society by turning to the Bible as the basis for a nation’s law and social order. To propagate these views, the Reconstructionists established the Institute for Christian Economics in Tyler, Texas, and the Chalcedon Foundation in Vallecito, California. They have published a journal and a steady stream of books and booklets on the theological justification for interjecting Christian ideas into economic, legal, and political life.

According to the most prolific Reconstruction writer, Gary North, it is “the moral obligation of Christians to recapture every institution for Jesus Christ." He feels this to be especially so in the United States, where secular law as construed by the Supreme Court and defended by liberal politicians is moving in what Rushdoony and others regard as a decidedly un-Christian direction; particularly in matters regarding abortion and homosexuality. What the Reconstructionists ultimately want, however, is more than the rejection of secularism. Like other theologians who utilize the biblical concept of “dominion,” they reason that Christians, as the new chosen people of God, are destined to dominate the world.

The Reconstructionists possess a “postmillennial” view of history. That is, they believe that Christ will return to earth only after the thousand years of religious rule that characterizes the Christian idea of the millennium, and therefore Christians have an obligation to provide the political and social conditions that will make Christ’s return possible. “Premillennialists,” on the other hand, hold the view that the thousand years of Christendom will come only after Christ returns, an event that will occur in a cataclysmic moment of world history. Therefore they tend to be much less active politically.

Rev. Paul Hill, Rev. Michael Bray, and other Reconstructionists—along with Dominion theologians such as the American politician and television host Pat Robertson and many other right-wing Christian activists today—are postmillenialists. Hence they believe that a Christian kingdom must be established on Earth before Christ’s return. They take seriously the idea of a Christian society and a form of religious politics that will make biblical code the law of the United States.

These activists are quite serious about bringing Christian politics into power. Bray said that it is possible, under the right conditions, for a Christian revolution to sweep across the United States and bring in its wake Constitutional changes that would allow for biblical law to be the basis of social legislation. Failing that, Bray envisaged a new federalism that would allow individual states to experiment with religious politics on their own. When I asked Bray what state might be ready for such an experiment, he hesitated and then suggested Louisiana and Mississippi, or, he added, “maybe one of the Dakotas.”

Not all Reconstruction thinkers have endorsed the use of violence, especially the kind that Bray and Hill have justified. As Reconstruction author Gary North admitted, “there is a division in the theonomic camp” over violence, especially with regard to anti-abortion activities. Some months before Paul Hill killed Dr. Britton and his escort, Hill (apparently hoping for Gary North’s approval in advance) sent a letter to North along with a draft of an essay he had written justifying the possibility of such killings in part on theonomic grounds. North ultimately responded, but only after the murders had been committed.

North regretted that he was too late to deter Hill from his “terrible direction” and chastised Hill in an open letter, published as a booklet, denouncing Hill’s views as “vigilante theology.” According to North, biblical law provides exceptions to the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex 20:13), but in terms similar to just-war doctrine: when one is authorized to do so by “a covenantal agent” in wartime, to defend one’s household, to execute a convicted criminal, to avenge the death of one’s kin, to save an entire nation, or to stop moral transgressors from bringing bloodguilt on an entire community.

Hill, joined by Bray, responded to North’s letter. They argued that many of those conditions applied to the abortion situation in the United States. Writing from his prison cell in Starke, Florida, Paul Hill said that the biblical commandment against murder also “requires using the means necessary to defend against murder—including lethal force.” He went on to say that he regarded “the cutting edge of Satan’s current attack” to be “the abortionist’s knife,” and therefore his actions had ultimate theological significance.

Bray, in his book, A Time to Kill, spoke to North’s concern about the authorization of violence by a legitimate authority or “a covenental agent,” as North put it. Bray raised the possibility of a “righteous rebellion.” Just as liberation theologians justify the use of unauthorized force for the sake of their vision of a moral order, Bray saw the legitimacy of using violence not only to resist what he regarded as murder—abortion—but also to help bring about the Christian political order envisioned by the radical dominion theology thinkers. In Bray’s mind, a little violence was a small price to pay for the possibility of fulfilling God’s law and establishing His kingdom on earth.

For most of the rest of us, even a little violence is a price too high to pay for these fantastic visions of Christian politics and for America’s recent return to Christian terrorism.

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Source: http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religionandtheology/2432/the_return_of_christian_terrorism________/?page=entire
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Contributor: J. Trainor, thanks.
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