Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg, (2006)
To start, I begin with the quote from the conclusion titled Exiles in Jesusland:
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a FREE CIVIL GOVERNMENT. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. –Thomas Jefferson
This is a really excellent book. Well worth buying and reading and rereading because the depth of her discussion and naming names is so complete. Well written so it is easy to follow the arguments she makes and an appreciation for the connections between people and events.
Page 180 at the end of the book, sets out the reason for anxiety:
It’s one thing to have a government that shows contempt for civil liberties; America has survived such men before. It’s quite another to HAVE A MASS MOVEMENT — the largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation — rise up in OPPOSITION to the RIGHTS of its fellow citizens. The Constitution protects minorities, but that protection is not absolute, with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic majority, a tightly organized faction can get around it.
Especially when they are the ones picking and mandating the content of textbooks not based on facts; the teaching of Creationism as if were of equal validity to evolution. Local representatives that deny library funding to prevent people from having a public library to use to educate themselves on issues. The degradation of public schools so that our children now far less know that those just 50 years ago. Imagine any single person alive today who could do what the Apollo astronauts did to get back to earth by using a slide rule and calculus. I do not believe such a person exists. And furthermore, never will if the bible thumpers have their way and seek to continue to homeschool and indoctrinate and maintain ignorance of their children and bitch about property tax dollars supporting “inadequate” public schools while doing their damnedest to keep them underfunded and teachers inadequately compensated and non-union, to make sure not a single American can name the first president of the United States or how to make change without the cash registers telling them what it should be or basic living skills like sewing on a button or cooking.
Whenever I talk about the growing power of the evangelical right with friends and acquaintances, they also ask the same question: What can we do? Usually I reply with a joke: Keep a bag packed and your passport current. I don’t really mean it, but my underlying anxiety is genuine. IT’S ONE THING TO HAVE A GOVERNMENT THAT SHOWS CONTEMPT FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES, America has survived such men before. It’s quite another to have a mass movement — the largest and most powerful mass movement in the nation — RISE UP IN OPPOSITION to the RIGHTS of its fellow CITIZENS. The Constitution protects minorities [as a woman, even a token in the many minorities since we are a majority, I beg to differ] but that protection is not absolute; with a sufficiently sympathetic or apathetic majority, a tightly organized faction can get around it.
For opponents of the right [that is human beings with compassion and respect for others], one of the most alarming things about the current state of our country is that fact that so many Americans FERVENTLY BELIEVE THINGS THAT ARE OBJECTIVELY FALSE — that Iraq was behind September 11, for example, or that Bill Clinton was a more profligate spender than Bush, OR THAT THE WORLD IS ONLY A FEW THOUSANDS YEARS OLD. They wonder how to get through to their fellow citizens, how to find the message or slogan or frame that will make them see the perilous condition America has be reduced to. What’s lacking, though, isn’t the truth — it’s the entire social mechanism by which truth is distinguished from falsehood. Blunting Christian Nationalism requires turning back toward the Enlightenment and rebuilding a culture of rationalism. Unfortunately, multitudes of America no longer find Enlightenment values compelling. A rational politics cannot promise the national restoration so many seem to long for. [not me as a woman!!]
I’m not sure that we shall overcome. Those who don’t want to live in the country the Christian nationalists would create have no choice but to fight, and I have some suggestions about tactics. But I’m scared by what I’ve seen happening in America, and I don’t want to try to inspire at the expense of sincerity. (p. 180-181)
In terms of education, the failure of our schools to educate AND discipline STUDENTS to make sure they actually learn, is a majority tragedy. We used to be great technologists and inventors (the creatives the neoliberalists love to tout). However, an absolute failure to grasp that many subjects are not being taught because they are “hard” or the Bible thumpers won’t let evolution of mankind alongside chimpanzees, for example, even be TAUGHT IN SCHOOL. Without basic grasp of the arts, like painting, people are closed off from a joyous experience as an avocation, a profession in many directions (print, media, architecture, gardens), the list is virtually endless on how studying art can make everyone a better person. As proof, I give you Apple. Part of the reason Apple is able to beat the competition and charge more is because of the breathtaking elegance of design of their products. I get a little frisson of delight when, once I found it, I saw the tiny switch with lime green inside on their mouse (and keyboard) that shows me it is turned on. The on switch requires a bit of looking, so delightfully small, but so elegant to turn on and show that wee bit of lime green. Presumably different colors over time, but still, the actual ATTENTION TO DETAIL and the completely unnecessary cheery bit of color is fun, whimsical, and demonstrably proves that Apple cares about every detail of their products. Good design = $$$$$. Everybody knows the difference. I remember on Rachel Ray’s show one time, they had studio audience members come in, two by two, and the audience guessed which one was the designer VERY EXPENSE outfit and which was a look-alike. Turned out, the audience, most of whom had probably never seen a couture garment in their lives in person, could tell the difference EVERY TIME. People are very visual and they don’t need no stinking architecture degree to appreciate an elegant home design, compared to say, a Trump building. And it isn’t all about the money. It is taste, style, skill, attention to details, creativity, extra effort, and most of all, FUNDAMENTAL TRAINING IN ART by which we can all build various skills. Ditto math. Ditto science. Ditto music. We must all be exposed to the basics before we can build on the knowledge to achieve wisdom and better, breakthroughs that allows us all to see the world differently and improve on it.
If however, RELIGION, is the power in control, it is in their vested interests to KEEP THINGS THE SAME. New breakthroughs in medicine, break up a shaman or a priests power of prayer for people to believe in (and thus get paid for jiggling that cross around with “holy water” blessed by the self same priest who will profit from the useless “cure” he claims to provide). It’s a win win for the church, because NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS, they are never wrong, if the person lives “Praise be to God” if the person dies, they don’t kill the priest, but rather, he mournfully intones, “We cannot know God’s will, but at least a few more bucks in my pocket will make sure they go to heaven instead of hell.
Dogma said the Earth was the middle of the universe. Hubris! Some guy figures out that it is not, the response is never going to be “how cool is that! we must change our Bible” — no the result will be, death or exile or torture and recanting. NOTHING, NO FACT, NO TRUTH, NOTHING must stand in contrast to myth and dogma by self-proclaimed “infallible” men with everything to lose if they were treated with the laughter that formerly was leveled at King’s jesters.
The motivating dream of the movement is the restoration of an imagined Christian nation. With a revisionist history that claims the founders never intended to create a secular country and that separation of church and state is a lie fostered by CONNIVING LEFTISTS, Christian nationalism REJECTS the idea of government neutrality. The movement argues that the absence of religion in public is itself a religion — the MALIGN faith of secular humanism — that must, in the interest of [“] fairness [“] be balanced with EQUAL DEFERENCE TO THE BIBLE. (p, 7)
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO
Issac Asimov has a famous quote that addresses the fallacy of this kind of thinking:
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
I have just discovered that GoodReads has a bunch of quotes on their site. This is a good one,
“The world, we are told, was made especially for man — a presumption not supported by all the facts.”
― John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
Here’s another on beliefs:
“When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story
Here’s a fun one on that most hated aspect of humanity the churches wish to eliminate, sex:
“Yet rather than calling the earliest religions, which embraced such an open acceptance of all human sexuality, ‘fertility cults,’ we might consider the religions of today as strange in that they seem to associate shame and even sin with the very process of conceiving new human life. Perhaps centuries from now scholars and historians will be classifying them as ‘sterility cults.”
― Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman
Sorry, I digress. But that was fun to review. I was actually looking for one that said “your beliefs do not trump my facts” but will stop looking for it or a meme for now. Oh but here is one more fun link I discovered while looking for something else> a list of all the donors to Ted Cruz’s campaign. It came up when I was looking for information on Ryun and Farris (mentioned below, sanctimonious dicks from all the signs.
Would anyone let some crank collective who had sincerely held religious beliefs that determined the sky was NOT BLUE but RED be allowed to have their theory of why this should be so be taught as equally true when EVERYONE CAN SEE THE SKY IS BLUE in the daytime as a general fact. No. Does your driver’s license list your weight based on the objective weight you are, or what you say you weigh? One is factually true, and one is a myth we sincerely want to believe.
For far too long the sheer dominance of the Christian religion has been much too much entitled to special privileges in this country, and now that some people are noticing and are not too pleased about so much Christianity (Evangelical fire and brimstone, my way or the highway, you will obey us because we speak for the true god types principally) infiltrated our government, of laws, our judges, and so so so much more. You cannot have a just, secular, and diverse community if some pigs are more equal that others. Two houses for you, none for you you loser. What, you want food to live? Get a job, asshole. Your mortgage is not my problem. Your disease doesn’t mean I should support single payer healthcare. You had 5 kids, you pay for them. Tough shit no man wants to take responsibility. You should have kept your legs shut. And by God, MY TAX DOLLARS must not go to pay for birth control so you can fuck around and get pregnant with a kid you can’t afford and expect to get government handouts. What, you say, you wanted an abortion but couldn’t afford one? Well, too fucking bad. You should have thought of that before you got raped. MY TAX DOLLARS shouldn’t pay for you getting drunk at a nightclub in a sexy dress and then coming on to some guy who naturally assumed you wanted him to fuck you, with the way you dressed and acted, and daring to drink! No sirree, you can go live in the gutter like the whore you are and take your little bastards with you. Now get off Church property. We will have nothing to do with you here!
These are actually things I have read and heard people say. The Fundamentalists and Prosperity types are the worst. They are the least Christian of any and aren’t even ashamed of their authoritarian, bullshit interpretation of cherry-picked Bible verses that just coincidentally support their extremist views EVEN THOUGH THE WORLD IS ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THAN IT WAS TWO-THOUSAND YEARS AGO.
We know now, for example, why women menstruate and it is not shameful or unclean or necessary to go hang out blood dripping between your legs for a week in a red tent. Why do the Biblical injunctions have so much obsession with sexuality? Especially women, but men too (chop of the foreskin God commanded). No one questions why would a god designing man in his image would simply have skipped that part since he only then required it to be cut off, without anesthesia, or antibiotics. God says, don’t spill your seed — I am guessing ZERO percent of men achieve this saintly level of restraint. Alas, seed spilling is counted when used with a condom, so the Pope refuses to stop the actual horrible dying of living people, and those even in the womb, from the scourge of AIDS. One really loving God, eh?
Mother and child death in childbirth? What an INTELLIGENT DESIGN. Jesus may have died on the cross for your sins, but dammit, the rapture was late so what now? All the sins since then aren’t forgiven? Without adherence to the new doctrines and their AUTHORITIES and a tithe until you starve? Women get to suffer (even die) in childbirth because (a) they fornicated [the horror] to end up pregnant [marital status is no get out of pain free pass], (b) Eve gave Adam the apple, and (c) he is a kind and loving god. Men were designed with a powerful sex drive, proven by pedophilia, rape, and the hot/cold of “hey babe, want to fuck?” and screaming “you cunt, you’re an ugly bitch, I wouldn’t want to fuck you anyway!” classic response EVERY WOMEN EXPERIENCES at least once in her life.
The people who live insides this reality often call it the “Christian Worldview.” The phrase is based on the conviction that TRUE CHRISTIANITY must govern EVERY ASPECT OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIFE., and that all — government, science, history, culture, and relationships — MUST BE understood according to the dictates of SCRIPTURE. There are biblically correct positions on EVERY ISSUE, from gay marriage to income tax rates, and only those with the RIGHT worldview can discern them.
This is Christianity as a total ideology. It’s an ideology adhered to by millions of Americans, some of whom are very powerful. It’s what drives a great many of the fights over religions, science, sex, [art, music, dance, film, TV, books/censorship, dress codes, hair/facial/covered/hidden and on and on], and pluralism that are now dividing communities all over the country. It is a CONSCIOUS REFUTATION of Enlightenment rationalism, and it is an ideology that people like Ryun and Farris want to see GUIDING EVERY DECISION THE GOVERNMENT MAKES.
*&*6675&^$^89000-9&(^%4$%^67&*89(9098&* no no no no no no no no no no (the quotes above are pp. 5-6)
MIKE PENCE (former Governor of Indiana who was not likely to get re-elected, and served in the House tea party faction for a few years, just nominated for The Donald’s Veep) said his loyalties were to God, conservatives, and Republicans IN THAT ORDER. [his emphasis]. Note, he does not even include America in the first three. His family and his church probably comes before America too. Certainly he could care less for citizens who are non-evangelical poor welfare sucking losers too lazy to get a job or keep their legs together. And just to help encourage no sex for women, he signed a law that women are not allowed abortions for fetal defects EVEN WHEN THE FETUS IS NON-VIABLE. And of course the new favorite, requiring all “products” of abortions — or miscarriages — to be treated with Godly expensive reverence and buried or cremated even if the “issue” is the size of a kidney bean and falls in the toilet with a lot of other blood from a miscarriage.
Hence the awesome brilliant woman who invented Periods for Pence, and now have expanded it to include Tampons for Trump. [I will have to see if I can find the funny obscene gif of their first joint logo effort, too too funny. Pity these men are not remotely funny.] Since all the “person at conception” crowd ignore biological science fact that unless the fertilized egg IMPLANTS in the uterus (which it doesn’t always do) then it is flushed out with the next menstrual period. LIKE GOD INTENDED unless you dare to suggest that He made a mistake with this plan. I certainly think there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING INTELLIGENT ABOUT THE DESIGN OF WOMEN’S BODIES!!!! Shoving a 10 pound giant pumpkin out a relatively narrow tube? WTF was he thinking?
And the monthly messy nasty bloody periods? really really bad design. Cats don’t need tampons, nor do dogs, or horses. Not sure about the Great Apes and that branch of the family tree, but I would think it would be dangerous for females to be leaving a blood trail all around for a week. Guess I will have to look monkey menstruation up in Wikipedia. And don’t even get me started on the urinary tract design for women that virtually guarantees constant infections. Not to mention the huge inconvenience of having to sit down or squat with urine invariably running into your shows or skirts or pants. And the too long lines at the ladies rooms because “equality” means equal stalls for men and women bathrooms, rather than equity, that would establish women need more stalls and to truly be able to pee when needed without missing half and hour of a concert in line.
A whole bunch of books have been written I am sure, and posts, and articles, railing against the ridiculous emphasis on clothing for women. Be it entirely covered up with barely lace to peep through or the contempt men have developed for normal sized women wearing yoga pants and wanting to make them illegal. Or the teacher that reported the girl (flat chested) who chose not to wear a bra, home to change because her 15-year-old breasts were distracting him. Or the constant refrain of how boys get distracted by what girls wear, when we know it matters not if covered head to toe or, God forbid, a bra strap is visible under a strappy top. The AUTHORITARIAN THEOCRATS would deny all choice down to the most minute detail of women’s lives if they have half a chance. And I can guarantee you, women would not comply. It just depends on how far they go before the pitchforks come out. We will not go back.
I call this totalistic political ideology Christian Nationalism., and in Kingdom Coming I attempt to show how it is reshaping America. The HOMESCHOOLING movement [how did that ever get allowed!!!] represents Christian nationalism’s vanguard, but it’s also promulgated by countless churches., lobbying groups, politicians, law firms, professional associations, student clubs, and media outlets. These organizations are intricately linked together, creating a movement that is both incredibly disciplined and amorphous. It is a hydra-headed thing, sometimes contradictory but unified enough to be called by a single name.
The United States has always been a pious country, given to bursts of spiritual fervor, but Christian nationalism is qualitatively different from earlier religious revivals. Like America’s past Great Awakenings, the Christian nationalist movement claims that the BIBLE IS ABSOLUTELY AND LITERALLY TRUE. [ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha] But it goes much further, extrapolating a total political program from that truth, and yoking that program to a political party. It is a CONFLATION of SCRIPTURE and POLITICS that sees America’s triumphs as confirmation of the [“] truth [“] of the Christian religion, and America’s struggles as part of a cosmic contest between God and the devil. [ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha] It claims SUPERNATURAL SANCTION for its campaign of national renewal and speaks rapturously about vanquishing the millions of Americans WHO WOULD STAND IN ITS WAY. [!!!!!!!!!!]
There is so much wrong with this belief and behavior that it is genuinely hard to understand how we could go from the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison to blind obedience to absurd church dogma without at least one brain cell screaming “noooooooo” you have it wrong! And now The Donald has declared that as president he will RESTORE FREE [i.e. political] SPEECH to the churches without losing their TAX EXEMPT STATUS.
That’s the EVANGELICALS biggest worry: THEIR UNTAXED multi-billion dollar REVENUE STREAM, including being able to buy land and buildings and not having to pay one dime in property taxes, in addition to no income taxes.
Not the poor. Not the discrimination. Not the religious extremism, the ill-treatment of women, the refusal to believe in scientific proof that counters their mythology and dogma and entire web of money sucking from poor people on the obscene promise of heavenly rewards, or burning it hell for everyone else that does not go to church and pay the piper. THIS MUST BE STOPPED AT ALL COSTS. The “churches” already have run roughshod over diversity, multiculturalism, and religious freedom (no, evangelicals it does not mean you have the freedom to impose your religion on others; we should be a “no proselytizing allowed” country!
. . . the ultimate goal of Christian nationalist leaders ISN’T FAIRNESS. It’s DOMINION. The movement is built on a theology that asserts the Christian right to RULE. That doesn’t mean that nonbelievers will be forced to convert. [I disagree; I think they will. Interfaith marriages with Catholics already are forced to convert to Catholicism and swear to bring up children as Catholics.] They’ll just have to learn their place.
Like all ideologies, Christian nationalism tells a story. It’s a tale about a godly country, blessed for its PIETY, that began to go wrong in the nineteenth century and sank to unimagined lows in the twentieth. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution eroded people’s faith in man’s dignity and GOD’S SUPREMACY. The great universities that once saw Christianity as the root of all knowledge turned away from scripture and toward the secular philosophies of a decadent Europe, which put man at the center of the universe. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal brought socialism to America and began the process by which government, rather than the churches, became the guarantors of social welfare. (p. 7)
First of all, the churches were not doing a very damn good job at caring for the social welfare. There is a reason we all think about the poor in two ways: the DESERVING POOR and the plan old poor, i.e. lazy or corrupted by sin individuals who therefore do not deserve to bread or shelter or life, come to that. Secondly randomly “good deeds” like used clothing drives are not helpful when people need new shoes for their kids to wear to go to school before or after the clothing drive. Not to mention, since they are beggars, they best not dare to be choosy but take what is given them, like it, and say thank you very much. It is probable that the charity of churches mandated listening to a sermon before you got your bowl of soup at the local soup kitchen. Maybe, since all Republicans at least, believe that WAGE LABOR is necessary for OTHER people’s self-esteem. Pure charity without some work requirement (sweep the floors, wash the soup dishes) will lead to a cycle of the worst, most abhorrent state of all: dependency. They give just enough to get someone through a day, but they do nothing to make sure they have a private room to live and store some things, like spare work clothes, as well as a bathroom, and a place to clean their clothes. All necessary for them to get work.
Then there is still transportation. We should not be living in Dickens world in 2016 when a 5-year old boy walked 6 days a week, 10 miles one way, to work at hard labor for 10 or more hours, and then had to walk back home again, no matter the weather, and for pennies. [Fun Fact: This boy grew up to be Prime Minister of England.] This is not realistic or admirable today with the great wealth of the nation, although it is held in a tiny percentage of a handful of people who are not inclined to share one penny more than they have to, by hook or crook. Even if it means their own employees — upon whose backs their profits are made — are not paid a living wage or benefits, and must rely on government to do the right thing.
So basically, all the do-gooders did NOTHING to provide economic security for anyone. They did not use the coffers filled from the collection plates to build shelters for homeless people, or even run soup kitchens anymore. Nope, they appear to be spending the money on their buildings, making them bigger and bigger until we get massive megachurches. All the money is directed to advertising, preachers, administrative staff, and various other inculcating activities.
And their delusion of being good Christians gets tarnished. So they make up for that by zealousness, proselytizing, mind control, and rejection of science and sexuality and free thinking. Every damn disaster that happens is not, say, the result of climate change. No, it is the feminists and their abortions that caused Hurricane Katrina. Or Gay marriage that was simply pissing god off for no damn good reason. Yes, glory, the real bat shit crazies are looking forward to the End Time when they get to be saved while everyone else they’ve ever known who aren’t “saved” will burn in hell (presumably to be enjoyed on a large screen TV in heaven so they can feel so proud of themselves while watching others in torment. My understanding is that heaven would not be the nice high-fiving for god they are expecting to find. Someone told me that Revelations says that when you go to heaven you spend eternity at god’s feet, singing praises to him. Just as stupid as the 72 virgins (presumably female, but who will ever know; also, I don’t recall what the reward for women is. If I were them I would pick a cloud far far away from any men).
This book is copyright 2006. She states that even then, Christian nationalists dominate the Republican Party. I would love to hear what she thinks now, given that we dodged a bullet avoiding a Cruz Theocracy, but are stuck with a volatile ignorant narcissist billionaire who does not give a shit about anyone but himself. And compounding matters, he just signed up the worst possible sidekick for Vice President (as discussed above, Mike Pence) who in fact is not a bit interested in America, but is interested in implementing Christian Sharia law here and remaking the American democracy into the United States of Christ.
Some useful names to know thy enemy: “new ultra-right wing lawmakers like Coburn and DeMint.”
The movement has several antecedents, most obviously the fundamentalist preachers (and Nazi sympathizers) Gerald B. Winrod and Gerald L. K. Smith. Depression-era demagogues who railed against communism, modernism, and big government (and, in Winrod’s case, Darwinism), both peddled a right-wing gospel conflating Christianity and patriotism. Smith was the founder of a group called the Christian Nationalist Crusade, whose magazine, The Cross and the Flag, proclaimed, “Christian character is the basis of all real Americans.”
Today’s Christian nationalism also has roots in the anti-Communist John Birch Society, a conspiracy-minded grassroots group founded in 1958. . . . Tim LaHaye began as Birch organizer[s]. [NB according to Wikipedia LaHaye died TODAY, 25th July 2016]
Yet insofar as Christian nationalism has become a partisan political force, it developed out of the modern religious right born in the late 1970s. That is when a group of right-wing strategists including Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie, and Howare Phillips — all veterans of the BARRY GOLDWATER CAMPAIGN [as was Hillary] –recruited a somewhat obscure Baptist televangelist named JERRY FALWELL to found the Moral Majority. Their idea was to use issues like abortion as a WEDGE to split social traditionalists from the Democratic party, and to harness the energy of the evangelical movement to the GOP.
It worked. Sara Diamond, one of the leading scholars of the American right, wrote in her 1995 book Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States, ” Not only did evangelical Christians contribute significantly to Reagan’s vote totals, but New Right-assisted organizations Christian Voice and the Moral Majority took credit for routing a slate of veteran liberal Senators and Representatives.” Among the most prominent of the vanquished progressives were Senators George McGovern of South Dakota and Frank Church of Idaho. It was the beginning of a massive political realignment in Middle America that Democrats have yet to cope with.
In 1981, a group of right-wing activists including Time LaHaye, an original board member of the Moral Majority, formed the Council for National Policy (CNP), intended as the religious right’s answer to the Council on Foreign Relations.* The organization is the stuff of liberal nightmares — it meets thrice yearly in secret, bringing together powerful evangelical activists, Republican politicians, and wealthy donors to make plans to pull the country right. Over the years, its membership rolls have included James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Michael Farris, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, [see also criminal history] and former Senator Jesse Helms, along with forthright theocrats like R. J. Rushdoony, whom we’ll learn more about in chapter 1. The CNP still exists and remains powerful. George [W.] Bush has refused to release a copy of the speech he gave to the group in 1999, and during his presidency, both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have attended CNP meetings. (pp. 10-12)
* footnote (p. 11): The Council on Foreign Relations sits at the center of many right-wing conspiracy theories. Pat Robertson wrote in the New World Order, “A single thread runs from the White House to the State Department to the Council on Foreign Relations to the Trilateral Commission to secret societies to extreme New Agers. There must be a new world order. It must eliminate National sovereignty. There must be world government, a world police force, world courts, world banking and currency, and a WORLD ELITE in charge of it all.
The founder of the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson is a crucial figure in the development of Christian nationalism. A media titan whose Christian Broadcasting Broadcasting Network airs TV and radio programs in seventy-one languages to almost every country in the world, he has an unthreatening, grandfatherly mien. Yet there’s a fierce totalitarian streak in his writing , which draws liberally on crackpot anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. . . .
Robertson helped put dominionism — the idea that Christians have a God-given right to rule — at the center of the movement to bring evangelicals into politics. Dominionism is derived from a theocratic sect called Christian Reconstructionism, which advocates REPLACING AMERICAN CIVIL LAW with Old Testament biblical law. Most Christian Reconstructionist theology — a very strict Calvinism that mandates the DEATH PENALTY for a long list of moral crimes, including homosexuality and apostasy — has little appeal to outsiders and is controversial even among Christian conservatives. But dominionism, its political theory, has been hugely influential in the broader evangelical movement thanks in part to Robertson. (p.13)
John Calvin was a horrible human being, fond of burning people at the stake, using green wood so it would take longer, “to purify their souls” but I am not sure if thus purified they got to go to heaven or still went to hell for whatever offense was the flavor of the day. I remember reading about when the Church forbade anatomy studies because bodies were “holy” or some such crap (better they should die than be cured even though theoretically god gave us the brains to do so). So the man who ignored this rule and discovered the circulation system and published it, as I recall, was burned at the stake for doing so when he was caught. However, Calvin tried to have all the copies of the books destroyed, his hypocrisy was clear in that in his possessions at his death were two copies of the book. One he had annotated for himself, and another that seems to be the author’s own copy. I will try to figure out which book I read this in, but it was some time back. Ah, thank you Wikipedia, this is the “polymath” that was murdered by Calvin for his religiously incorrect views, Michael Sevretus. I also learned about the infamous “kill them all, God will sort out his own” phrase from another conflict, one in which according to my recall, a truce to protestants by French Queen, was offered but she got scared when a bunch showed up having been guaranteed safe passage, so she had them all killed. When being told they were mixed with Catholics, she declared the phrase. According to Wikipedia though, it was a legate that did the death sentence and it was related to the war to stomp out the Cathars.
It angers and saddens me that whenever I read history, if there is a lot of senseless killing and brutality going on, religion seems to be the root cause. This is especially crazy to me because they differ on such minor details that frenzied killing would not be a normal response. Apostasy, for example. Eh, so someone doesn’t believe. big deal, they’re not stopping you from believing whatever you want.
However, they are more than willing to kill you. Christian, Muslim, it matters not; LACK OF BELIEF in any religious dogma must not be permitted because that means you are not a sheep but have a brain and intend to use it. Truth and doubt would destroy the MAN-MADE tissue of lies used to beat people into submission to the hierarchy. I remember quite a few things I learned from one history of the church I read earlier this year (where I learned celibacy was a dictate that came late to priests because the Church did not want them to have a conflict of interest about leaving money to their family instead of into the Church coffers). For example, the TRINITY has caused much death and dispute between sects. After all, how can a monotheistic god come in three forms. So there was huge controversy about this and no compromise so they each went their own way. In the Muslim world, what I read was that the reason Sunni’s and Shiites kill each other is because there were two prominent followers (maybe one was a brother, another a cousin) of Mohamed and when he died, each wanted to be the top dog, and each justified there place as being Mohamed’s wishes. They were even cousins or something so both in the birthline of Mohamed. But neither would concede, and both claimed to be the one TRUE faith. So the others must die. That always seems to be the answer. The Catholics killed Protestants, and vice versa (but not with the zeal the Catholics showed, especially with the Inquisition). So we have perpetual war in the Middle East because everyone hates everyone else over bullshit details about one thing or another, and most proclaim to be religions of peace. The peace achieved, apparently, is to bow down and obey whatever thug kills his way to the top to win the privilege of telling everyone else how they must live. Religion is extortion, seduction, and control with extreme demands of absurd rules to test your obedience.
If the wretched Christian Nationalists would not be Nationalist, fine, but they are not content with being simply non-Christian Xtians. Nope, they want to put the Christ back into the Nation and they have succeeded in unprecedented numbers and have nearly destroyed our democracy already.
Far more important than Roberson’s embrace of dominionist rhetoric (or Reed’s rejection of it), however, it the way THE CHRISTIAN COALITION PUT IT INTO PRACTICE.
Reconstructionist theory calls for a STEALTH STRATEGY to CHRISTIANIZE POLITICS and culture. In a 1981 article from The Journal of Christian Reconstructionism, Gary North, on of the movement’s key theorists, wrote of the need for activists to penetrate SECULAR institutions to “smooth the transition to Christian political leadership. . . . Christians must begin to organize politically within the PRESENT PARTY STRUCTURE, and they must begin to INFILTRATE the existing INSTITUTIONAL order.” (f. 15 p. 14)
The Christian Coalition specialized in this kind of dispersed political WARFARE. While the Moral Majority had focused on direct mail and large rallies, the Christian Coalition TRAINED ACTIVISTS and CANDIDATES on the local level. They ran in school board races and learned how to become Republican delegates. Crucially, Christian Coalition manuals urged candidates to keep their religious agenda quiet until after they were elected. Supporters would learn who the local Christian Coalition candidates were through voter guides distributed at evangelical churches, but the general public was often in the DARK. “I want to be invisible,” Ralph Reed told the Norfolk Virginia-Pilot in 1991. “I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag. You don’t know until election night.” (p. 14)
I mean, WOW. The democrats are a herd of cats and will not be coerced or silent about their ideals. They are not ashamed to stand up and speak what they believe. They have no need to “paint” their faces and “travel at night” like the corruption of religiosity obviously requires. It reminds me of a sort of opposite world from McCarthyism, where there are truly evil infiltrators however, they are not the commie peril or even the democratic socialists we should worry about. It is the Authoritarian theocrats that are the infiltrators and they are more damaging that the imaginary Red Scare believed commies to be. These people are not just ideologues, they are servants of “GOD” so pure and righteous in their effort to force all of us to bend to their will. And it is THEIR will to make America Christian and no longer a secular nation.
We are barely holding on as it is. The pervasive influence is everywhere, despite Faux “News” annual screaming about “the war on Christmas” and the many many commentaries and politicians who say that the poor Christians are the ones BEING PERSECUTED. What a joke. But they are all too deadly convinced of their truth. Christmas, Easter, and even Thanksgiving are all attributable to their god. Sunday when some stores are closed, is all due to religion. NOT BEING ABLE TO BUY WINE ON A SUNDAY is all due to moral judgment and religion. I am just shocked that the names and planets are still being allowed to be named after the Roman gods. I find that hysterically funny. The “true religion” didn’t exist for centuries, and isn’t “true” to billions of people, but BY GOD they are right and they are going to do their best to rewrite history to make it so. It is ironic, in some ways, that we simultaneously have another monotheism “true religion” that is acting as aggressively, to counter our Christian nation. And we started it, that is another point to consider, and we sure as hell aren’t getting out of the Middle East or Afghanistan — ever — with a Hillary Clinton presidency, and the world will be nuked if The Donald gets elected. [just so hard to conceive that blowhard actually managed it, the power of the media and propaganda cannot be denied; not that the rest of the lot was much better, especially the anti-Christ Ted Cruz].
The Christian Coalition’s grassroots, under-the-radar strategy was hugely effective, so that by 1992 religious activists had more influence in writing the GOP’s platform than the party’s presidential candidate, George H. W. Bush. Nearly half the delegates at the 1992 party convention were EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS, and despite Bush’s objections, they succeeded in getting a plank in the platform calling for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion without exception. (p. 14-15)
AMERICANS ARE UNAWARE THAT ALL POLITICIANS ARE NO LONGER PUBLIC SERVANTS . There is still, post-Nixon Watergate disillusionment (on the heels of his assistance to McCarthy) lack of belief in the government as being for the people. And that is because that is the truth. I am shocked and appalled at how fast time passes and how quickly a single person can change the world, and not for the better. It is still inconceivable to me that post 1968 Ronald Reagan could have been elected. And then Bush the first. I should have moved to Australia then, while I still could. And then total disillusionment with Clinton’s neoliberalism that was as bad if not worse than outright Republicans screwing over the people because of the pretense that they are for the people. And now we have the choice of the liar and cheat or the raging narcissist.
In addition to the theocratic evangelists infiltrating the government, the playing both sides corporartists are pulling strings as well. So in my lifetime, I personally didn’t experience the Great Depression and the World Wars, but my parents did so I knew some first hand stories, and, of course, I read. Pity that more people don’t like or want to read true history. And the Christian Taliban is working hard to make sure true history does not get presented to educate the youth, as well as defining standards that absolutely deny truth, and many are committing child abuse by indoctrinating their children in extremist social, political, and religious dogma.
The Christian Coalition has been in serious decline [gratitude for small mercies] since the late 1990s. Ralph Reed left in 1997 to become a political consultant (and, in 2006, a candidate for lieutenant governor of Georgia). In 1999 the group lost its NONPROFIT status for VIOLATING Federal Election Commission rules on partisan politicking. According to the liberal group People for the American Way, contributions to the Christian Coalition dropped from $26.5 million in 1996 to an estimated $3 million in 2000. Robertson stepped down as president in 2001, saying he wanted to devote more attention to his ministry.
Yet even as the Christian Coalition atrophied, other organizations proliferated and the Christian nationalist movement expanded. Most significantly, James Dobson, the evangelical psychologist at the head of Focus on the Family, grew increasingly visible in partisan politics, Dobson has been active in public life and conservative causes since the 1970s, but until the last decade he was best known for his advice on child rearing and Christian family life, dispensed in best selling books like Dare to Discipline and on widely heard radio programs.
Dobson, alas, is still alive. He took a turn to fight against gay rights.
By 2004, Dobson was so inflamed by the specter of gay marriage and other ostensible threats to the American family that he cast aside his former pretense of partisan neutrality for good. He started a separate organization, Focus on the Family Action, devoted to political combat, and campaigned ardently for Bush’s [W] reelection. (p. 15)
It is beginning to seem that, as well as being identified as a “R” or a “D,” judges and legislators should also be tagged with X for Christian, Xd for Christian Dominionist, Xlb for Christian who literally believes the Bible is true, CR for Christina Reconstructionist, and so on. For candidates that simply want to be left alone to practice their religion (traditionally) and not try to proselytize and dictate what the rest of us must do, they don’t have to be distinguished because they are not truing to abuse their power to eliminate secular government.
To be judged by your peers, and by fair judges, such designations are crucial to true justice. We all know (I hope) that a white boy on the Stanford swimming team was caught raping an unconscious woman but two Belgian men stopped him and held him for the cops. Maybe women judges who have been raped would be better judges of the impact of the crime than one who didn’t want to “ruin the kid’s life for a few minutes of action” as I believe his father protested. Fortunately that judge will not be passing any more lenient free passes for any more rapists since he was removed from doing so by the California bar I think. I sure wouldn’t want to have been raped and find that the judge pronouncing sentencing was this guy. Or a Periods for Pence type legislator even deciding if rape was a “legitimate” crime as another politician said. Get rid of all these old boy Xtian bigots. Their time is long since passed.
George W. Bush has brought Christian nationalism into the government in an unprecedented way. . . .
There’s a variety of old jokes on the righteousness of the reformed sinners being excessively zealous and judgmental about anyone else even mildly, say, drinking while pregnant. And these days, it would possibly get you arrested for child abuse. Teetotalers are another example. And there are few people more judgmental than “reformed” sinners, who often are not particularity reformed.
High-profile appointees like the stridently religious former attorney general John Ashcroft have gotten lots of attention, but in some ways Bush’s obscure appointments are more significant. Veterans of the Christian Nationalist movement occupy positions throughout the federal bureaucracy, making crucial decisions about our national life according to their theology. This is part of the reason for the terrifying chasm between the EVIDENCE OF SCIENCE and HISTORY, and some of the passionately averred declarations of our government.
There is no way to know how much Bush really shares the Christian worldview, although he gives every indication of believing that God personally installed him in the White House. But whatever his beliefs, much of the movement is convinced he’s one of them. . . .
He has given the Christian nationalist movement government authority and ACCESS TO BILLIONS OF TAXPAYERS DOLLARS. The movement, in turn, ensured his reelection, along with a strengthened Republican majority in Congress.
Yet the Christian Nationalists are neither sated nor complacent. Indeed, one of the most striking things about the movement is that, for all its influence, its cries of OPPRESSION have INCREASED during the last few years, and its demands for DOMINION have become more insistent. It has become common for Christian Nationalist leaders and the Republican politicians they support to speak of any attempts to defend church/state separation as part of a “war” on believers. (pp. 15-17)
Part of the problem with the true believers is that fundamentally WE DON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THEM, THEIR BELIEFS, AND THE HORSES THEY RODE IN ON. We just want to be left alone and not have to fight illegal theocratic “moral” (according to them) laws that the infiltrators sneak past in legislation. The don’t like being ridiculed despite being ridiculous.
Evangelical Christian is an epithet precisely because calling someone it pretty much is to express contempt for their obsessive and insistence on everyone believing what they believe. Get over yourselves! Feminist has been used as an epithet for decades and we aren’t trying to force you to become a feminist, just leave us the fuck alone and allow us our legal rights, including fair pay, and non-discrimination.
We don’t agree that some god really gives a shit if we have sex without procreation JUST FOR FUN and you Evangelicals should not, must not, give a shit either. Our sex lives have ZERO impact on you personally. Whereas your efforts to impose your mythological beliefs of misogynistic old goats back before they knew the world was round definitely would negatively impact my life, my freedom, and therefore IS NOT ACCEPTABLE because it does cause me direct, personal harm.
They [Christian nationalists] longed for a Christian community, not as a SUBCULTURE, but as the culture. (p,21)
It is interesting that these types of people , rather than doing something productive to make a difference here on earth, would rather convert people to become only concerned about the End Time and “transcendent certainties” of a Heaven they actually know NOTHING ABOUT. As one of these people what they think it will be like in heaven and you will get all kinds of answers, not the least of which is 72 virgins but no one cares what the 72 virgins think of their bodies being the heavenly reward for brutish men. Or, nice people might be happy to see their parents or children or other family members again. How would they see them? Young? Old? Brain damaged? in pain? What about that nasty uncle that raped you when you were 12, he became a true believer and so now you have every expectation of seeing him in heaven. Unless, like some faiths – or the general public attitude — you won’t have to worry because you are going to hell anyway for being raped. How can these “Christians” be helped to see that THEY ARE A PROBLEM and their focus on sex (or lack) and babies (starving and living in poverty) and not wanting any of their tax money to help even “deserving” poor? It’s right in their religious book!!!!!
As individuals, many of the godly set can be nice people. Like Republicans, they can’t all be evil to their core and want the 99% to live in rat holes with poisoned water, really? Can they? But you would not know it by their actions en masse!
It would be a mistake to conclude from that [nice treatment by individuals], however, that the region’s antipathy toward Jews and Americans is not real and DANGEROUS. IN MY EXPERIENCE, PEOPLE ARE OFTEN KINDER THAN THEIR IDEOLOGIES and always more complicated. Yet individual decency can dissolve when groups are mobilized against DIABOLIZED enemies, especially when they believe they are under attack. (p. 22)
Or, in the case of the Middle East to which she is referring, they are actually under attack.
America is full of good people, but something dark is loose. There’s a free floating anxiety that easily metastasizes in to paranoia and hatred for the same enemies always targeted by AUTHORITARIAN populist movements. . . . Rationality is losing its hold; empirical evidence is discounted as the product of a secular worldview or a SCHEMING LIBERAL ELITE. (p. 22)
I sure would like to meet some scheming liberal elites, because as far as I can tell they don’t exist. Any scheming they have done has certainly been ineffective to promoting a liberal attitude in America. I MEAN PEOPLE, IT IS 2016 AND WE STILL DON’T HAVE SINGLE PAYER HEALTHCARE!!!!!!! We don’t even have equal pay for equal work for women. We are worlds away from free college, cancellation of existing student loan debts, paid family leave, elimination of “contract” employment where you sign away your constitutional rights or you don’t work.
For that matter we are going backwards at a pace that is unsustainable to maintain the few gains we have made. AND THE FUCKING EVANGELICALS AND CONSERVATIVES are responsible.
Thus trusted authorities — preachers[!!!!! prosperity gospel, pedophile priests!!! redefine trust to include this lot, not to mention it is a lightweight gig, and no taxes etc.], politicians[!!!!! WTH has she being drinking writing this?], radio demagogues[OMG people actually believe radio demagogues are trusted authorities, that’s it, our country is dead] — hold enormous sway. ALL TRUTH EXCEPT BIBLICAL TRUTH BECOMES RELATIVE, and biblical truth is entwined with American history and national destiny. DEMOCRACY SUFFOCATES IN THIS ATMOSPHERE, and space opens up for something else to supplant it. In her 1951 masterpiece The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt wrote,
‘Before they seize power and establish a world according to their doctrines, totalitarian movements conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself. . . . The force possessed by totalitarian propaganda — before the movements have the power to drop iron curtains to prevent anyone’s disturbing, by the slightest reality, the gruesome quiet of an entirely imaginary world — lies in its ability to SHUT THE MASSES OFF FROM THE REAL WORLD.’ “
This book was written in 2006. The last 10 years have seen way too much change in favor of the Christian Nationalists, not the least of which was Scalia’s rulings from the SCOTUS. But the rampant unconstitutional laws perpetuated under the guise of “women’s safety” to prevent our right to abortions is scandalous and terrifying. HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS. And laws are calmly spoken about making abortion a death penalty offense for a doctor. Even Trump fell into the logic gap by saying, well if abortion is a crime then women must be punished. Of course, that is in fact a realistic assessment abortion=crime=aborters=criminials, doctors, nurses, hospitals, women, men, all involved should go to jail for MURDER under the compassionate doctrine of evangelicals. Never mind that, like booze, prohibition will never work!!! Abortion treatments have been around for millennia. Not scientific, or safe for the woman, but women are so desperate that they would rather die than carry a fetus to term. And they do die AND DID DIE. By the thousands before abortion was legalized. Criminalizing abortion does not stop abortion, it merely kills women. And the good people who are all so pro-life APPLAUD when that happens because such sluts deserve to die for wanting an abortion. Women who live for other reasons that being forced to give birth are not sufficiently human to deserve a life of her own.
Yet there are totalitarian elements in the Christian nationalist movement, particularly its attacks on decadent internal enemies and its drive to replace society’s apprehension of REALITY with its parallel version. As Christian nationalism gains influence, it is changing our country in troubling ways, and its leaders say they’ve only just begun. (p. 23)
There are still more Christian nationalist out there doing their best to take over the country, even if it has to be state by state.
[John Eidsmoe] “has authored a number of Christian nationalist books including. . . .[one] which argues that Calvinism inspired America’s founding document. [ha ha ha ha ha ha ha] He’s a proponent of a Confederate doctrine called INTERPOSITION, which holds that STATES HAVE THE RIGHT TO REJECT FEDERAL GOVERNMENT MANDATES THAT THEY DEEM UNCONSTITUTIONAL. “Implementation of the doctrine may be peaceable, as by resolution, remonstrance or legislation, or may proceed ultimately to nullification with forcible resistance,” he wrote in a manifesto titled “A Call to Stand with Chief Justice Roy Moore.” (pp. 36-37)
Fun fact: Michele Bachmann likes him, and studied with him at Oral Roberts. She worked for him while he was writing his book “Christianity and the Constitution: the Faith of Our Founding Fathers.” The book mentioned above relating Calvinism to the Constitution. So it is pretty obvious that if Michele got her degree from Oral Roberts [such a weird name], then (a) she’s not very good, and (b) he’s a crazy salad mix as well.
THE RISE OF DOMINIONISM
Roy Moore and Rick Scarborough are Baptists, D. James Kennedy is a fundamentalist Presbyterian, and John Eidsmoe is a Lutheran. Al of them, however, have been shaped by dominion theology, which asserts that, in preparation for the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, godly men have the responsibility to take over every aspect of society. [aka End Time]Dominion theology comes out of Christian Reconstructionism, a fundamentalist creed that was propagated by the late Rousas John R. J.) Rushdoony and his son-in-law, Gary North. . . . He was a prolific writer, churning out dense tomes advocating the ABOLITION OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS and SOCIAL SERVICES and the REPLACEMENT OF CIVIL LAW with BIBLICAL law. White-bearded and wizardly, Rushdoony had the look of an Old Testament patriarch and the HARSH VISION TO MATCH — the called for the DEATH PENALTY for GAY people, BLASPHEMERS, and unchaste WOMEN [not men though! who does he expect them to be unchaste with?] among other sinners. Democracy, he wrote, is a heresy and “the great love of the failures and cowards of life.” (pp. 37-38)
There is a little footnote on this one say that even Jerry Falwell and others, even as committed fundamentalists found Rushdoony’s proposals “scary.” The article she cites says he proposed support for laws “mandating the death penalty for homosexuals and drunkards.”
The Rev. Rushdoony fired off a letter to the editor complaining that the article had got his followers’ views all wrong: They didn’t intend to put drunkards to death.
On the plus side he is dead. On the bad side, he was a vital force behind the Christian homeschool movement. Obviously that is why he want to get rid of public schools because they would provide FACTUAL information that might lead the impressionable children from his mandatory path. It might even teach the children to THINK FOR THEMSELVES and to be able to critically assess the steaming pile of bullshit he wanted to dish out. Like the following:
Reconstructionism is a postmillennial theology, meaning its followers believe Jesus won’t return until after Christians establish a thousand-year reign on earth. While other Christians wait for the messiah, Reconstructionists want to BUILD THE KINGDOM THEMSELVES. Most American evangelicals, on the other hand, are premillienialists. They believe (with some variations) that at the time of Christ’s return, Christians will be gathered up to heaving, missing the tribulations endured by unbelievers. In the past, this belief led to a certain apathy — why worry if the world is about to end and you’ll be safe from the carnage.?
So the issue is that these people are making every effort to overturn American democracy and the secular nature of our government because of some theocratic view similar to the delusion of Hitler to have a Thousand Year Reich controlling the world. They are so delusional and think so much of themselves, it is hard to believe they actually have any concept of the size of the world and the number of seriously NOT GOING TO BE CHRISTIAN under their horrible dogma. You have all of China, all of India, Muslims, Catholics in South America and Central America and Mexico. So they are delusional, wrong, and yet they have become a force in our political life, Johnson Amendment notwithstanding.
And now The Donald has promised to eliminate the barrier between Church and State by revoking the Johnson Amendment that proscribes electioneering by churches or lose their very special tax exempt status. Hard to set up a Reign of Christ for 1,000 years if you have to have oversight with how you may spend your money or how can you take over the government entirely while simultaneously refusing to pay any tax for the government you want to takeover.
Since the 1970s though, in tandem with the rise of the religious right, premillenialism has been POLITICIZED. A crucial figure in this process was the seminal evangelical writer Francis Schaeffer, an American . . . . described modern history as a contest between the Christian worldview and the materialist one saying, “These two world views stand as totals in complete ANTITHESIS to each other in content and also in their natural results — including sociological and government results, and specifically including law.” (p. 38)
It is peculiar to me that given the vast sects and denominations, and religious dogmas all over the world, that Schaeffer sees the world so black and white. Christian (spiritual transcendence) and “materialist” (presumably concern for personal material well-being to be generous, or greedy consumers if not).
“None of this, however, changes the fact that the United States was founded upon a Christian consensus, nor that we today should bring Judeo-Christian principles into play in regard to government.” [Schaeffer] Schaeffer was one of the FIRST EVANGELICAL leaders to get deeply involved in the fight against ABORTION, and he advocated CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE and the possible USE OF FORCE to stop it. “It is time we consciously realize that when any office commands what is CONTRARY TO GOD’S LAW it abrogates its authority,” he wrote.
Tim LaHaye, . . . . married Schaeffer’s theories to a conspiratorial view of history and politics, arguing, “Most people today do not realize what humanism really is and how it is destroying our culture, families, country — and one day, the entire world. Most of the evils in the world today can be traced to humanism which has taken over our government, the UN, education, TV, and most of the other influential things of life.
“We must remove all humanists from public office and REPLACE THEM WITH PRO-MORAL political leaders,” LaHaye wrote. (p. 39)
Here is a clip from the Wiki link above on what the terrible cruel discipline of HUMANISM entails:
Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over acceptance of dogma or superstition. The meaning of the term humanism has fluctuated according to the successive intellectual movements which have identified with it.[1]The term was coined by theologian Friedrich Niethammer at the beginning of the 19th century. Generally, however, humanism refers to a perspective that affirms some notion of human freedom and progress. In modern times, humanist movements are typically aligned with secularism, and today humanism typically refers to a non-theistic life stance centred on human agency and looking to science rather than revelation from a supernatural source to understand the world.[2][3]
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
In 1984, Jay Grimstead, a disciple of Francis Schaeffer, brought important pre- and post-millenialists together to form the Coalition on Revival (COR) in order to lay a blueprint FOR TAKING OVER AMERICAN LIFE. Tim LaHaye was an original member of COR’s steering committee, along with Rushdoony, North, creationist Duane Gish, D. James Kennedy, and the Reverend Donald Wildmon of the influential American Family Association.
Between 1984 and 1986, COR developed SEVENTEEN “worldview” documents, which elucidate the “Christian” position on most aspects of life. Just as political Islam is often called Islamism to differentiate the fascist political doctrine from the faith, the ideology laid out in these papers could be called Christianism. The documents outline a complete political program, with a “BIBLICALLY CORRECT” POSITION ON ISSUES like taxes (God favors a flat rate), public schools (generally frowned upon), and the media and the arts (“We deny that any pornography and other blasphemy are permissible as art or ‘free speech’ “)
Obviously, this means ONLY the approved “biblically correct” positions are to be allowed in their 1,000 reign of Christ. This is no longer amusing!! These men (have to research to see if any women are allowed leadership) have decided they know the will of God and intend to enforce it on an unsuspecting secular nation. They may be kooks but they have money, sheeple, tax exempt status, unlimited funds for all intents and purposes, and the mob mentality to assure that their will be done on earth.
In a 1988 letter to supporters, Grimstead announced the completion of a high school curriculum “using the COR Worldview Documents.” Since then, there’s been a proliferation of schools, books, and seminars devoted to inculcating THE CORRECT CHRISTIAN worldview in students and activists. Charles Colson (convicted fro Nixon crimes but found God in prison) accepts one hundred people annually into his yearlong “worldview training” courses, which include meetings in Washington, D.C., online seminars, “mentoring” and several hours of homework each week. “the program will be heavily weighted towards how to think,” Colson’s Web site says. (p. 40)
Colson is another example of the reformed sinner who switches his illegality of power grabbing to another effort. Gee, fun fact, David Limbaugh is Rush Limbaugh‘s born again brother and speaker at Christian nationalism events. Another Fun Fact, Rush is worth 79 million dollars! Gag. And he didn’t graduate from college; that makes sense. Tom DeLay, another man of god was a featured speaker and had these pearls of wisdom to offer:
“Only Christianity offers a comprehensive worldview that covers all areas of life and THOUGHT, every aspect of creation. ONLY CHRISTIANITY offers a way to live in response to the realities that we find in the world. ONLY CHRISTIANITY.” (p. 40)
Um, no. Christianity does not cover any areas of my life and especially not my thoughts. And don’t get me started on procreation again. Christianity seeks to destroy my reality and replace it with a fantasy of bat shit crazy men. Michele Goldberg, the author, also makes an excellent commentary on the persecution complex the restoration of religious freedom rats genuinely believe to be true (since evidence of reality simply has no room in their fantasy world).
Speaking to outsiders, most Christian nationalists say they’re simply responding to anti-Christian PERSECUTION. They say that SECULARISM is itself a religion, one unfairly imposed on them. They say they’re the victims in the culture wares. But Christian nationalist ideologues don’t want EQUALITY, they want DOMINANCE. (p. 40)
And this desire for dominance is the crux of the matter. MY WORLDVIEW allows them to keep theirs, live as they wish, drive a horse and buggy, or hand money over to obvious scam artists posing as preachers who can talk to god. I think they are seduced or deceived, and victims who have been preyed upon through propaganda, child abuse of Sunday Schools and homeschooling, and the requirement that they MUST believe and think in proscribed ways. Read a book other than the Bible, OH NO! They might learn about sex, or drinking, or questioning the presence of dinosaurs with people on the Ken Ham ark he spent about a billion on, pretending that it is remotely valid or evidence based, or even remotely scientifically or physically possible to have existed.
The author goes on to describe George Grant, “former executive director of D. James Kennedy‘s Coral Ridge Ministries,” who wrote the following:
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.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less.Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the CONQUEST of the LAND — of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and government for the KINGDOM OF CHRIST. (p. 41, f. 19)
Whew. Deep breath, maybe a couple of anti-anxiety pills. HOLY CRAP (pun intended) these guys are as scary or scarier than the Red Menace.
As a multimedia empire, Coral Ridge Ministries is one of the country’s most important popularizers of dominion theology. . . . His [D.J. Kennedy] television show, The Coral Ridge Hour, is the third-most-widely syndicated Christian program in the country. (p. 41)
OMG, there is a National Religious Broadcasters Hall of Fame! [D.J.] Kennedy inducted 2005. That is dreadful. I wonder if there are any FCC rules left to cover this crap. Why should religious zealots get to use the public/government airwaves for their propaganda? [preliminary Google shows was an issue 40 years ago and was decided in favor of free speech vs., in my opinion, propaganda and lies] And hell, they probably don’t even have to pay because they’re privileged in so many ways no matter how persecuted they feel. Using the public airwaves to broadcast ONLY Xtian programs (please Pat Robertson, God’s been waiting too long for you to join him).
Kennedy has a lobbying group, the Center for Reclaiming America, and a D.C. operation, the Center for Christian Statesmanship, which is DEVOTED TO EVANGELIZING PEOPLE ON CAPITOL HILL.
WTF? If religious organizations are not allowed to be involved in politics, how the hell are they allowed a lobbying group??? And did Congress not remember to put the “no soliciting” sign on their door? I’d like to compare responses to the evangelists and say, feminists advocating for evangelizing the need for abortion and see what kind of response each gets. Man, this guy is everywhere. Also founded Alliance Defense Fund, “an important Christian Nationalist legal organization. He also runs a K-12 school, Westminster Academy, with around 1300 students, and Knox Theological Seminary, both in Fort Lauderdale.” You know, the way these guys operate, they make it look like a whole lot of people are doing things and yet when you read a breakdown like that, and the 4 or 5 doing more of the same, it absolutely seems to me like a cabal with a mission, and not a mission from God.
Kennedy’s projects are intended to FOSTER CHRISTIAN RULE OVER THE COUNTRY and, eventually the world. (p. 42)
Of course he cherry picks Genesis and loves the translation that comes out “subdue it” rather than be a steward of the earth. And of course, they got their name from the part about dominion over every living thing on the earth. Sigh. I’ll have to look up the various translations from Greek and Latin and so on to see how many different ways that passage was translated to devolve to dominion instead of caretaking, which is more plausible if you are going to believe any of the myth.
[Kennedy] offers a carefully worked out theory of history and philosophy to justify the POLITICAL GOALS OF dominion.
Other Christian nationalist writers are implicitly OPPOSED to the Enlightenment; Kennedy is EXPLICITLY against it. He’s no fan of the Renaissance, either, due to its taste for pagan Greek philosophers. [Like Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides !!!!???? the scent of Savonarola burning and being burned comes to mind.] Like many dominionists Kennedy’s lodestar is the Calvinist theocracy of sixteenth-century Geneva. (p. 42)
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA but really a deep and despairing well of sorrow for the damage he did,
Anyway, you’ll have to get the book and read more details on the kinds of irrational and unrealistic, and unwanted beliefs the dominionists want to inflict upon the world. Denial of the value of the Enlightenment is the product of a seriously sick mind. Hence, America MUST HAVE BEEN created as a Christian nation, nothing to do with Enlightened brilliant men who could see past dogma and recognize the terrors that religion brings to us all. And that is why they made sure, theoretically, that the madness of religion must not infect our secular democracy — the very thing these people have infiltrated our legislatures to negate.
That belief allows Kennedy to deny the FACT that the Constitution in fact represented a DECISIVE BREAK with the type of theocracy erected by the Puritans, who prescribed the death penalty for witchcraft, blasphemy, sodomy, homosexuality, and adultery, among other crimes. Christian nationalist history lets dominionist present their agenda, which seeks to resurrect some aspects of puritan society, as the restoration of the founders’ principles, rather than a WHOLESALE REJECTION OF THEM. (p. 43)
Under these guidelines, Trump and Newt Gingrich are dead, and Bill Clinton, and pretty much any man with any power ever because none of them can keep their dick in their pants. So actually, between the adulterers and the homosexuals, pretty much we would have a nearly man free society! And since preacher after priest and politician keeps getting busted for pedophilia, porn, homosexual solicitation, and using high priced call girls for some giggles, there would be no politicians left at all, except for a few women. I’m not saying women can’t and don’t commit adultery too (often with very good reasons), but then again, they’d get us on the witchcraft thing, again. Do you want to live under the thumb of a man who believes: God has given believers dominion over all. It’s their duty to seize it.
Eh a little rape, a little mindless slaughter of living creatures, toss a little slavery in, and everything will be as it should be for these self-righteous demon seeds.
She has a chapter and other bits about gay marriages and how that blew the top off so many Xtians. All the effort to deny love that is going to do nothing to harm or impact their lives in any way, and they won’t even bake a cake for the event. Gays can buy cookies, and cakes, but just not a WEDDING cake. How the fuck that can “hurt” sensitive fragile religious feelings, I don’t understand. The money is green for cupcakes and wedding cakes.
But it is becoming a problem something like abortion, in that these religious freaks feel entitled to dictate that we all live according to their rules made up from some ancient parchments that were not dictated by God, but were stories written by all too human men. For example, all the TRAP laws really make it impossible to get abortions for many women. The anti-sodomy law was struck down by the Supreme Court decades ago. And yet, Michigan, with a city of poisoned water, and massive needs in what used to be the pride of the country for building cars, can’t be bothered to fix that; no, in addition to cutting taxes for the rich and the corporations, they managed to find the time to pass an anti-sodomy law. Fuck the Constitution. I guess it is just another example of States Rights and their belief that they don’t have to follow Federal Law, as mentioned above.
Another ha ha ha moment, but I’ll skip the background and just jump in, p. 79:
“Jesus! Jesus! screamed the twenty-six-year-old Joe Robles, pointing to his Bush-Cheney sign. “The man stands for God,” he said of the president. “we want somebody who stands for Jesus. I always vote my Christian morals.” Robles, a student at Ohio State University, told me that Kerry’s daughter was a lesbian. I said I thought that was Dick Cheney’s daughter, but he shook his head no with confidence. [It was Dick Cheney’s daughter]
Robles said that Kerry would make it illegal for preachers to say that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. In California, he informed me gravely, such preaching had been deemed a hate crime, and pastors who indulge in it are fined $25,000, which “goes to lesbians.”
Where had he heard this? From his pastor at World Harvest Church, he said. From Rod Parsley.
It would be an amusing side project to discover just how many of these ludicrous preachers and congregations there are out there. So many nuts to find and follow their mischievous undermining of all I hold dear.
Chapter 3 (p, 80) has a amusing in a deeply depressing way title: Lord of the Laboratory: Intelligent Design and the War on the Enlightenment. I think that what bothers me most about these Xtian zealots — aside from wanting to tell me how to dress, monitor and control my sex life, determine whether or not I can get married, if I can go to school, if I can use birth control, if I can be fired for using birth control, or worse, be unmarried and get pregnant after my boss denied me insurance coverage for contraception — is the refusal to accept scientific facts. Evolution. Get over it. Intelligent design is disproved by the fact that WOMEN CAN’T cut off the dick of a rapist with a few concerted squeezes of her vagina. And the having to pee sitting down, that’s annoying. Oh and menstrual cramps and menstruation generally — totally sucks on so many levels.
So this chapter does an excellent job detailing the textbook wars. And why those bastards win some concessions, I will never understand. Another chapter covers The War on the Courts. And I have to stop writing now because if I were to delve into Chapter 5: AIDS is Not the Enemy: Sin, Redemption, and the Abstinence Industry, I would give myself a stroke. Two words to give you a clue: PURITY BALLS.
Okay, that’s a wrap.