And
they shall be given Dominion over us all...
(June 29, 2005)
Since
the reelection of George W. Bush in November, the rhetoric on the
Christian right has grown triumphal and proud; rumors of spiritual war
are abroad in the heartland, and fervent whispers of revolution echo
among the pews and folding chairs of the nation's megachurches.
The author, Chris Hedges, attended a recent
annual convention of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB)
Association in Anaheim, California, which brought together 1,600
Christian radio and television broadcasters with a declared audience of
up to 141 million listeners and viewers. What Hedges saw prominently on
display at this convention was the Dominionist Christian movement. Dominionists share the belief that America
is destined to become a Christian nation, ruled by Christian men acting
under the direction of God. As Hedges describes it:
... leaves little doubt that the
convention is meant to serve as a
rallying cry for a new and particularly militant movement in Christian
politics, one that is sometimes mistaken for another outbreak of mere
revivalism. In fact, this movement is a curious hybrid of
fundamentalists,
Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, conservative Catholics, Charismatics,
and
other evangelicals, all of whom are at war doctrinally but who
nonetheless
share a belief that America
is destined to become a Christian nation, led by Christian men who are
in turn
directed by God. For someone like me, who grew up in the church and was
keenly
aware of the rigid lines imposed by warring sects and denominations,
the new
alliances are startling. I notice uniformed officers from the Salvation
Army at
the convention, something that would have been unthinkable in the past.
Lately,
the leaders of the movement have even begun to reach out to the
Mormons.
What the disparate sects of this
movement, known as Dominionism, share is an
obsession with political power. A decades-long refusal to engage in
politics at
all following the Scopes trial has been replaced by a call for
Christian
“dominion” over the nation and, eventually, over the earth itself.
Dominionists
preach that Jesus has called them to build the kingdom
of God in the here and now,
whereas
previously it was thought that we would have to wait for it. America
becomes, in this militant biblicism, an agent of God, and all political
and
intellectual opponents of America’s
Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. Under
Christian
dominion, America
will no longer be a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the Ten
Commandments form the basis of our legal system, Creationism and
“Christian
values” form the basis of our educational system, and the media and the
government proclaim the Good News to one and all. Aside from its
proselytizing
mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of
property
rights and “homeland” security. Some Dominionists (not all of whom
accept the label, at least not publicly)
would further require all citizens to pay “tithes” to church
organizations
empowered by the government to run our social-welfare agencies, and a
number of
influential figures advocate the death penalty for a host of “moral
crimes,”
including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy, and witchcraft. The only
legitimate
voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced.
Clearly, love,
tolerance and democratic values have no place in the Dominionists' view
of the new America they are striving to bring about. The traditional
moral associations attached to the term "Christian," which adherents to
the faith have always claimed for it, have evaporated into a
never-never land,
like the mythology they are based on. This should not be surprising. As
an institution, religion has usually been intolerant and aggressive,
since its primary drive is to convert the non-believer, and if that is
not possible, to suppress him. If it is said that misery loves company,
it is also true that faith craves corroboration, and what better way to
get it
than to persuade or compel others to think as you do. It is also said
that power corrupts, and the Dominionists are already showing the
corruption that would become institutionalized if they were to
gain power. Their minds are as totalitarian as any of the "atheist"
states of the 20th century (such as Stalinist communism) that
religionists so love to condemn as evil in their godlessness. It is
true, of course, that such evil did not enjoy the advantage of divine
sanction. The Dominionists, on the other hand, have Jesus standing
behind them, righteous weapons at the ready. In the convention's
opening session, Hedges describes the speech of an Illinois evangelist
and broadcaster, James MacDonald:
MacDonald quotes liberally from the
Book of Revelation, the only place in
the New Testament where Jesus (arguably) endorses violence and calls
for
vengeance against nonbelievers. It is, along with the apocalyptic
visions of St. Paul, the
movement’s go-to text. Rarely mentioned
these days is the Jesus of the four Gospels, the Jesus who speaks of
the poor
and the marginalized, who taught followers to turn the other cheek and
love
their enemies, the Jesus who rejected the mantle of secular power.
“His eyes are like a flame of fire,”
MacDonald tells us. “Out of his mouth
goes a sharp sword, and with it he can strike the nations. He treads
the wine
press of the fierceness and wrath of the Almighty God, and on his robe
and on
his thigh a name is written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus
commands
all men everywhere to come to the knowledge of Him.”
He reminds us, quoting theologian Peter
Berger, that “ages of faith are not
marked by dialogue but by proclamation” and that “there is power in the
unapologetic proclamation of truth. There is power in it. This is a
kingdom of
power.” When he says the word “power,” he draws it out for emphasis. He
tells
the crowd to shun the “persuasive words of human wisdom.” Truth, he
says, does
“not rest in the wisdom of men but the power of God.” Then, in a
lisping,
limp-wristed imitation of liberals, he mocks, to laughter and applause,
those
who want to “share” and be sensitive to the needs of others.
The Book of Revelation has always been
a great inspiration to
those who view the world as a vast theater of warfare between good and
evil—their good and others' evil. It is hard to
regard this New Testament
horror as anything other than a paroxysm of hate created by a mind
bordering on the psychotic (as I have described Revelation elsewhere),
with its Jesus and his various heavenly manifestations adopting much
the same character. With God himself behaving in such a fashion, free
reign is given to follow in his footsteps and conduct oneself
accordingly in the great struggle to impose good over evil; and to
anticipate—even encourage—the apocalyptic mayhem that is going to
attend this ultimate imposition. The desire to create a Christian
nation imposing its will on the world is simply a prelude. In the
mythology of modern Dominionists, the world is not going to settle down
to a peaceful—if repressive—society living a Christ-like life and
attending to the constant worship of God. Rather, it will make possible
the arrival of the End-time, and that's going to be anything but
peaceful. Until the world is transformed by God into a divine Kingdom,
there will always be enemies (the main nutrient of the fundamentalist
diet), and in this final period of the earth, they will be apocalyptic
ones.
For now, however, the great enemy is "secular
humanism" which wants to destroy the values and faith of
"Bible-believing Christians."
“Deep in the nation’s capital,” a
baritone voice booms as the camera pans
across the Washington
mall, “America’s
culture was hijacked by a secular movement determined to redefine
society from
religious freedom to the right to life. These radicals were doing their
best to
destroy two centuries of traditional values, and no one seemed to be
able to
stop them—until now.
“Will Congress undo 200 years of
tradition?” the video asks ominously. “Not
on our watch.”
The mood of the convention is set. All
Christians, everywhere, are under
attack. Perkins, dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, climbs the
stairs onto
the stage. He promises to halt “the cultural decline” and to end
“misguided”
judicial decisions. Before long, Frank Wright, the new president of
NRB, takes
the stage. Wright, who has white hair and a cold demeanor, lauds the
recent
transformation in Washington
and
says that 130 members of the House of Representatives are now
“born-again.” He
tells a story about a late-night private tour of the Capitol in which
he and a
group of other pastors stopped and prayed over Hillary Clinton’s Senate
floor
desk. The crowd roars its approval.
“Today, the calls for diversity and
multiculturalism are nothing more than
thinly veiled attacks on anyone willing, desirous, or compelled to
proclaim
Christian truths,” he says. “Today, calls for tolerance are often a
subterfuge,
because they will tolerate just about anything except Christian truth.
Today,
we live in a time when the message entrusted to you is more important
than ever
before to reach a world desperate to know Christ...”
When you
are driven, as the religious psyche always seems to be, to proselytize
and impose your vision of the truth, when you are convinced that the
world needs and craves that truth, you become a force that is
single-minded, tenacious and utterly impervious to reason. Nothing, as
history and modern experience both have demonstrated, is so dangerous.
When it is accompanied by a paranoia that sees resistance to this
danger—the unwillingness by others to embrace
something they regard as
simple lunacy—as an "attack" directly on oneself, all the
ingredients
are present for a major social upheaval.
Dominionist leaders recognize the threat
that tolerance presents to their campaign of righteousness:
Wright promises the audience that as
the new president of NRB he will fight
to block the passage of hate-crime legislation, something many
Christian
broadcasters fear might be used to halt their attacks on gays and
lesbians.
“For the first time in history,
representatives and senators may pass
hate-crime legislation,” he says, “which is one step to oppose what you
do as
against the law.
“If we had to give equal time to every
opposing viewpoint, there would be no
time to proclaim the truth that we have been commanded to proclaim,” he
says.
“We will fight the Fairness Doctrine, tooth and nail. It could be the
end of
Christian broadcasting as we know it if we do not.”
Atheists and secular humanists are often
asked why they work so hard to oppose fundamentalist religion, why they
can't just leave it alone and let it co-exist in a pluralistic society.
Why be confrontational? Live and let live. Well, the obvious answer is
that the "other side" refuses to do the same. They are bent on
destroying democracy, gutting human rights and freedom of speech,
imposing their convictions on everyone, and if more rational people
don't take a stand,
they might just get away with it. They have created demented lives for
themselves and—even more tragically—for their children, and they seek to drag
the rest of us into their asylum. At the very least, their struggle to
do so promises to rake an entire nation—and beyond—over the coals.
It is not just the secular humanists who are the
enemy. Fellow Christians who do not agree with their agenda are also
dismissed:
The traditional evangelicals, those who
come out of Billy Graham’s mold, are
not necessarily comfortable with the direction taken by the
Dominionists, who
now control most of America’s major evangelical organizations, from the
NRB to
the Southern Baptist Convention, and may already claim dominion over
the
Christian media outlets. But Christians who challenge Dominionists,
even if
they are fundamentalist or conservative or born-again, tend to be
ruthlessly
thrust aside.
There are
those, even at the Anaheim convention, who disagree with the excesses
of the Dominionists. Hedges tells of one evangelical preacher
associated with Billy Graham whose "focus is on personal salvation, not
the achievement of political power....He bristles at the coarseness of
calls for absolute power by Christian leaders and at the
anti-intellectualism that characterizes the new movement....The use of
abortion and gay marriage as rallying points worries him." This
preacher claims that "the great thing Billy Graham did was to bring
intellectualism back to fundamentalism." This may seem like an
oxymoron, and is not something I would agree with, but I suppose all
things are relative. Compared to Billy Graham, the rabidly
anti-intellectual,
anti-tolerance, anti-human rights, anti-democratic trend in American
evangelical fundamentalism is an aggressive and spreading cancer intent
on destruction, and
neither moderate nor radical antibiotics seem able to arrest the
epidemic.
The repercussions of the disease are not being
felt only in the United States, nor are the symptoms entirely
related to domestic policy. At a breakfast in the convention
ballroom, Hedges recounts the unfolding of a bizarre scenario:
On the platform is a huge picture of
the Dome of the Rock, the spot in
Jerusalem where the third Temple will be rebuilt to herald, at least
according
to the Christians in the room, the second coming of Christ. Some
400,000
Christian tourists visit Israel
each year, and, what with the precipitous decline in Israel’s
tourism industry in recent years, these people have become a valued
source of
revenue.
The strange alliance in this case is
premised upon the Dominionist belief
that Israel
must rule the biblical land in order for Christ to return, though when
he does,
all Jews who do not convert to Christianity supposedly will be
incinerated as
the believers are lifted into heaven; all this is courteously left
unmentioned
at the breakfast. The featured speakers include Avraham Hirschsohn, who
is the
new Israeli minister of tourism, and Michael Medved, a cultural
conservative
and a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host. Medved is also one of
the
most prominent Jewish defenders of Mel Gibson’s biopic The Passion
of the
Christ.
Hirschsohn praises the audience for
standing “with us for the last four
years when nobody else would. Thank you.” He then announces, to
grateful
applause, that the tourism ministry plans to build a “Pilgrim
Center” near Galilee.
“A more Christian America is good for the
Jews,” Medved says. “This is
obvious. Take a look at this support for Israel.
A more Christian America is good for America,
something Jewish people need to be more cognizant about and
acknowledge. A more
Jewish community is good for the Christians, not just because of the
existence
of allies but because a more Jewish community is less seduced by
secularism.”
....The Christian writer Kay Arthur, who
can barely contain her tears when
speaking of Israel,
professes that although she loves America,
if she had to choose between America
and Israel,
“I
would stand with Israel,
stand with Israel
as a daughter of the King of Kings, stand according to the word of
God.” She
goes on to quote at length from Revelation, speaking of Jesus seated on
a
throne floating about Jerusalem as believers are raptured up toward him
in the
sky.
One can
hardly blame the Israelis for taking "allies" where they can find them,
but I doubt that they are taken in by this evangelical friendship. To
what extent is U.S. policy toward Israel being influenced by the
Armageddon oriented expectations of the religious right? Is such a
basis a sane one to be governing foreign policy, even in part? There
can be no doubt that George W. Bush and many of those who surround him
share in some measure in these apocalyptic fantasies. In light of the
now-obvious fudging of the justification prior to going into Iraq, can
we rule out that such fantasies may have played a role in the White
House's decision? When the man with his finger on the nuclear button
also believes that God himself is due to rain fire on the earth, might
there be a chance that he will confuse the two in his mind? In fact, it
is unclear how the Bush avowed aim of establishing a democrat future
for the Middle East can be compatible with his own fundamentalist
expectations, let alone the aims of Dominionists, who are anything but
champions of democracy. These are things that should give us all
nightmares.
Toward the end of his article, Hedges
highlights an appearance at the convention by James Dobson, the founder
and chairman of Focus on the Family:
Dobson is perhaps the most powerful
figure in the Dominionist movement. He
was instrumental three years ago in purging the moderate chairman of
the NRB
from his post and speaks frequently with the White House. He was a
crucial
player in getting out the Christian vote for George W. Bush. Dobson
says he was
born again at the age of three during a church service conducted by his
father,
a Nazarene minister. He attended Pasadena
College and received a Ph.D.
in
child development from the University
of Southern California.
While
teaching at USC, he wrote his book Dare to Discipline, which
encourages
parents to spank their children with “sufficient magnitude to cause the
child
to cry genuinely.” (The book has sold more than 3.5 million copies
since its
release in 1970.) Dobson now works out of an eighty-one-acre campus in Colorado
Springs that has its own zip code. He employs
1,300
people, sends out 4 million pieces of mail each month, and is heard on
radio
broadcasts in ninety-nine countries. His estimated listening audience
is more
than 200 million worldwide; in the United
States
alone, he appears on 100 television stations each day. He calls for a
constitutional amendment to permit prayer in the public schools. He
sponsors a
group called “Love Won Out,” which holds monthly conferences around the
country
for those “suffering” from same-sex attraction. He likens the
proponents of gay
marriage to the Nazis, has backed political candidates who called for
the
execution of abortion providers, defines embryonic stem-cell research
as
“state-funded cannibalism,” and urges Christian parents to pull their
children
out of public-school systems. He has issued warnings to the Bush
Administration
that his extremist agenda must begin to be implemented in Washington
and by the federal courts if the Republican Party wants his continued
support.
Dobson apparently believes that he is without sin.
Is it really
possible that rationally-challenged people like James Dobson
could gain power? Is the American intellectual fabric that
fragile, does the Constitution sit so uneasily on its hallowed
pedestal, could blasé liberals find it so incredible, that when
their backs are turned the unthinkable happens? Recent history contains
more than one example of that very thing happening to a nation, to
catastrophic effect; and like one of those recent examples, it is
democracy that will put them there—to be immediately set aside. When
one considers that such people are already ensconced in the
administration, are a sizeable presence in Congress, are threatening to
tip the Supreme Court their way, and that a majority of the American
populace leans toward fundamentalist views of the world, a new
horizon may be closer than we think.
Hedges' conclusion is chilling:
I can’t help but recall the words of my
ethics professor at Harvard Divinity
School,
Dr. James Luther Adams, who told us that when we were his age, and he
was then
close to eighty, we would all be fighting the “Christian fascists.”
He gave us that warning twenty-five years
ago, when Pat Robertson and other
prominent evangelists began speaking of a new political religion that
would
direct its efforts at taking control of all major American
institutions,
including mainstream denominations and the government, so as to
transform the
United States into a global Christian empire. At the time, it was hard
to take
such fantastic rhetoric seriously. But fascism, Adams
warned, would not return wearing swastikas and brown shirts. Its
ideological
inheritors would cloak themselves in the language of the Bible; they
would come
carrying crosses and chanting the Pledge of Allegiance.
Adams had watched
American intellectuals and
industrialists flirt with fascism in the 1930s. Mussolini’s
“Corporatism,”
which created an unchecked industrial and business aristocracy, had
appealed to
many at the time as an effective counterweight to the New Deal. In
1934, Fortune
magazine lavished praise on the Italian dictator for his defanging of
labor
unions and his empowerment of industrialists at the expense of workers.
Then as
now, Adams said, too many liberals failed to
understand
the power and allure of evil, and when the radical Christians came,
these
people would undoubtedly play by the old, polite rules of democracy
long after
those in power had begun to dismantle the democratic state. Adams
had watched German academics fall silent or conform. He knew how
desperately
people want to believe the comfortable lies told by totalitarian
movements, how
easily those lies lull moderates into passivity.
Adams told us to
watch closely the Christian right’s
persecution of homosexuals and lesbians. Hitler, he reminded us,
promised to
restore moral values not long after he took power in 1933, then imposed
a ban
on all homosexual and lesbian organizations and publications. Then came
raids
on the places where homosexuals gathered, culminating on May 6, 1933, with the
ransacking of the
Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin.
Twelve thousand volumes from the institute’s library were tossed into a
public
bonfire. Homosexuals and lesbians, Adams said,
would be
the first “deviants” singled out by the Christian right. We would be
the next.
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