Comment on Mefi about the Xian Dominonist thing.


I am a canadian, and I am in a liberal theological college, but I've been thinking about this for a while. I don't think there is one movement, but I think there should be things said:

a) That there is a large number of different political movements that could be considered Dominonist--and they rarely talk to each other. Rushdooney, of course and the Pentacostals, but also Mormons and some people who might not be protestant at all. And it ranges from a kind of manifest destiny to a very explicit seeking to violently overthrow the government. We should be careful of not putting everyone in the same pot.
b) I think that for a bunch of reasons, mainline protestant denominations have been drying out, and I think that mainline protestant denominations are a moderating force. Reagan's soft Presbyterianism was a far far way away from Rushdooney's more unaffilated Calvinism; and Bush's Methodism had much more moderation than some of his inner circle--but also remember his inner circle included atheists (Rove, Cheney). There is no atheists in Perry's inner circle--and Bachman does not have the moderation of mainstream denomination--She was part of the Wisconsin synod, which is the crazier ends of Lutheranism (Pope as Anti-Christ, etc) but her withdrawl from the synod is a major story, and one that has been under reported.
c) I think that secular reporters on the coast don't know how to read Religion and tend to be dismissive of it.
d) I think that the moving towards Africa (and I have a lot of evangelical friends who have spent time in Tanzanina, Malawai, Ghana, Botswana, Uganda, and Nigeria) for example, and fueling the dangerous rhetoric about sexuality there is a set of Christian actions that combine colonialism with evangelicalism. I think that by using Africa as a testing ground, that they are working on how to bring that kind of work home, and that really scares me.
e) Cornelius van Til, the Dutch Calvinist, who was the first person to connect these thoughts together, ended up with some pretty difficult political positions. Van Til claims that there can be no neutral ground between the believer and the non believer, that there can be no place for conversation, for discussion--this seem to be an anathema to the democratic project.
f) This idea against neutrality suggests that via home schooling and other institutional building up, there is an attempt to pull certain kinds of American Christian's away from America--or to pull American citizens towards Christianity. There is a long tradition of dropping out, from the state, in Christendom, but that tradition is often tempered by a strong belief in hospitality. I am okay with the dropping out, but I think that the forcing towards, is a violation of Christian hospitality.
g) I don't like Calvin.
h) Rushdooney's holocaust denial is something that should pretty much disqualify him as a historian, which he claims to be. It is not outside the realm of Christan exceptionalism, and the connection between Zionism and antisemitism by his followers has a distasteful history.
i) as someone on the left, who is also spends time with a wide variety of Christians, and who is Christian himself, we have to be careful not to hang before trial, but there is a strong matter of concern here.

Bachman and Perry scare me, in ways that Wright doesn't--because I think Wright is working against privilege, and Bachman/Perry are working towards it.