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I have openly ripped off the title of this post from Gilles Kepel, head of the post-graduate program on the Arab and Muslim worlds at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, who published an excellent essay on the rise of Islamism called, “The Trail of Political Islam.”
What brings this to mind in relation to Christianity is Glenn Reynold’s entry this morning about Tennessee Senator Bill Frist (the Senate majority leader) inviting one David Barton “to lead interested senators and their families around the Capitol this evening,” according to The Washington Post. Observes Glenn,
Barton, I believe, is a Christian Reconstructionist — I don’t know if he’s as extreme as, say, Gary North — but I think it’s a mistake for Frist to get too close to him.
UPDATE: More on Barton, here.
I’ll not repeat here what the links about North and Barton say about them except to draw a necessary distinction between Christian evangelicalism, Christian reconstructionism (aka, “dominionism”) and Christian theonomy - sorry for the vocabulary lesson, but to understand present-day political Christianity you need to have it.
– Evangelicalism is a theology that holds the greatest imperative for a Christian is to lead others to confess personal faith in Jesus Christ as risen Lord and savior. Its primary fealty is to Christ personally rather to his ethical propositions or moral examples. Evangelicalism insists that human sins have been fully and eternally remitted by the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection by the power of God. Hence, all persons who “believe in their hearts that Jesus was raised from the dead and confess with their mouths that Jesus is Lord will be saved,” to slightly paraphrase Saint Paul’s teaching in Romans 10.
Although some Christian denominations in America are more inclined toward evangelicalism than others, evangelicals are found in most all denominations from Roman Catholicism to Assemblies of God - even United Methodists! Historically, evangelicalism has not been very political because evangelicals focused on one’s eternal destiny rather than temporal circumstances. Evangelism (hence the name) is the supremely overriding priority. This is not to say that evangelical groups or individuals have never acted in the political realm, it is that saving of souls and leading others to conversion have always been the main task, not the reforming of temporal politics.
– Christian dominionism is the idea that human institutions of every stripe should be brought under the umbrella of Christian teaching and practice. Some dominionists have not necessarily included the political organs of a country, state of local government under the umbrella, believing that the civil organs of society, if managed and membered by Christians, would inevitably lead to political processes and results that mostly reflected Christian virtue, even if not perfectly. Other dominionists - of whom Barton seems one - insist that every social, civil and government body must be brought under the control of Christians without exception.
Hence, dominionists see their primary role not in saving souls but in saving society’s operating organs at every level. I probably am belaboring the obvious that not just any kind of Christianity is suitable for dominion over society; you’ll have a hard time finding a dominionist among the United Methodist Church, for example (my denomination) or finding a dominionist who would include the UMC or its Wesleyan tradition as valid foundations for proper Christian dominion.
– Theonomy is a very strict form of dominionism that hold that the Mosaic, Deuteronomic and Levitical codes of the first five books of the Jewish Scriptures are ideal models for the civil code of the United States, suitably modified for 21st-century circumstances in their mode of application but not their imperatives of application.
Now, back to political Islam for a moment. About 80 years ago there arose in the Arab countries an Islamic revivalist movement that has come to be called Islamism, which Kepel called “political Islam.” Islamism was originally a reform movement calling secularized Arab governments and societies to return to the basics of pure Islam - as the reformers defined it. Islamism began in Egypt in the early 1920s. It was and still is fundamentally religious in nature. It was not originally violent but became violent fairly soon; Islamists believed that they were obligated to strike those who defied Islam as Islamists perceived it. For many decades afterward, and still significantly today, the focus of Islamists was Arab governments. Islamism’s goal was the institution of strict Islamic law, sharia, in Muslim countries and the rooting out of all non-Muslim influences in the ordering of societies.
Not all Islamists are terrorists by a long shot, but all Islamists (by definition) share a common goal whether they condone or use violence: the total control of society according to the dictates of Quran and the practices of Mohammedan Islam in its early decades.
Note well that I am not implying a moral equivalence between Islamism and Christian dominionism or theonomy. The latter are not violent and do not seek the overthrow of what they claim is the ungodly or apostate American government; they seek instead to use established American political processes to gain control through elections, political activism and (as Glenn’s cite points out) ejection of office holders they perceive as especially egregious. Islamism, OTOH, readily uses violence to try to topple un-Islamic regimes and holds that to do so is actually a form of righteous worship of the deity, a point of view no Christian dominionist I know of takes.
However, dominionists share elements of a certain kind of religious world view with Islamists. Alike they believe that the present ordering of society and civil government is corrupt, ungodly and contrary to the will of God as revealed in their respective scriptures, and that the duty of the true faithful is to bring society and government into conformance with the divine will.
Islamism and Christian dominionism also are absolutist in nature; only the form of their “resistance” differs. They operate from the basis of apprehending divine, revealed truth that cannot be rationally denied or righteously opposed. In this mindset, they each fall into what Charles Kimball, Wake Forest University religion professor and internationally-known expert on Islam and the intersection of religion and politics, describes in his book, When Religion Becomes Evil. Kimball suggests are the five major warning signs that a religion is being used for corrupt reasons, and offers steps to overcoming them. The warning signs are:
1. claims of absolute truth;
2. blind obedience;
3. establishing the “ideal” time, especially with Armageddon scenarios;
4. when the end justifies any means;
5. declaring holy war.
Of these five signs, Islamism scores on all and Christian dominionism on numbers one and three (absent Armageddon). Dominionist are hardly “blindly obedient” even to figures like Barton or North. Nor, as I said, have they declared holy war against their own government even though they see their campaign as a divine imperative. As dominionists score positive on only two of the five signs, and the second only weakly, dominionism isn’t evil. I do think it is badly mistaken in its understanding of Christian practice and should it achieve, well, dominion, would almost certainly be oppressive. ReligiousTolerance.org says,
They intend to achieve this by using the freedom of religion in the US to train a generation of children in private Christian religious schools. Later, their graduates will be charged with the responsibility of creating a new Bible-based political, religious and social order. One of the first tasks of this order will be to eliminate religious choice and freedom. Their eventual goal is to achieve the “Kingdom of God” in which much of the world is converted to Christianity. They feel that the power of God’s word will bring about this conversion. No armed force or insurrection will be needed; in fact, they believe that there will be little opposition to their plan. People will willingly accept it. All that needs to be done is to properly explain it to them.
All religious organizations, congregations etc. other than strictly Fundamentalist Christianity would be suppressed. Nonconforming Evangelical, main line and liberal Christian religious institutions would no longer be allowed to hold services, organize, proselytize, etc. Society would revert to the laws and punishments of the Hebrew Scriptures. Any person who advocated or practiced other religious beliefs outside of their home would be tried for idolatry and executed.
Their means to achieve their objective might be termed “peaceful infiltration,” and it is a critical distinction from Islamism that must be kept in mind. However, the religious oppression postulated once dominion is established is indeed violent and should be recognized as such. “Nonconforming” Christians would live under a form of Christian-based dhimmitude not much different from that imposed by Mohammed upon all Christians and Jews in Muslim lands.
Dominionist absolutism is clearly unacceptable, especially since I am no fundamentalist and would thus be a future target of dominionism’s ideology. As I pointed out near the end of this post,
Absolutism in any field can be frightening, and never more so than religious absolutism. There is a critical difference between Christian absolutism and Christian certainty. Absolutism claims that an assertion is absolutely true. Absolute truth leaves no room for doubt or dissent; you disagree at peril of suffering at the hands of true believers.
Religious absolutists have been found in every tradition, even Buddhism has experienced the same kind of violent adherents that Islam now suffers from, and so has Christianity.
But Christian certainty is different. Christian certainty makes room for doubt or dissent, if for no other reason than we have Thomas’ example in John 20.
The Christian call is not to claim an absolute truth. To say one knows an absolute truth is an astonishingly arrogant claim. It says much more about what one thinks about oneself than what one knows about truth. Can any of us really claim, “I and I alone know what is true. The rest of you are in darkness”? Surely not!
Phil Snyder commented at that post,
C.S. Lewis called this “Christianity and …” where Christ is a means to an end and not the end himself. For example, “I am a Christian because Christianity provides the best framework for the pro-life (or pro-abortion) movement.” You can substitute the environmental movement, racial/social justice, peace, freedom, conservative, liberal or any other idea. The problem is that we use God as a means to an end and not an end in Himself.
I would agree that the social and political reality of America today is that it is far from the Kingdom of God, but like the Hebrew prophets I maintain we should put no trust in princes anyway. Even the best government, peopled by the best men and women possible, is fallen.
Related thoughts here.
Update: I think another difference between Islamism (and Islam generally) and Christian dominionism is what undergirds the rationale for the religious domination of society. As Prof. Mark Gould points out,
Islam contrasts Dar al-Islam, lands ruled by shari’ah [Islamic law], and Dar al-harb, the “abode of warfare,” lands ruled by non-Muslims. “‘Warfare’ refers,” Denny writes, “both to the presumed quality of such places from the perspective of Muslims (namely, that they lack the security and order of the Shari’a and are therefore lands where everyone is at war with everyone else) and to the necessity for jihad — ‘exertion’ in spreading the true faith, an activity that may include armed conflict. It is one thing to force conversion, which the Koran forbids; but it is another to conquer territory in the name of God and — from the Muslim vantage point — for the welfare of people who stand to benefit from imposition of the holy law.”
The blanketing of Islamic law upon all of a society is held to be a positive good for its inhabitants, even those who do not become Muslim but choose instead to live in dhimmitude, a right accorded by Mohammed only to Christians and Jews; all other religions’ adherents must convert to Islam or accept exile or even suffer death.
If anything, Christian dominionism seems to me to be more corrupt because Muslims at least think that even non-Muslims will benefit from living in an Islamic society; the rule of Islam is established so that all persons may prosper, especially Muslims but not only them. Dominionism, though, seems not to care a whit whether anyone prospers but its own adherents: dominionists seek domination not for my good but for their own.
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April 12th, 2005 at 3:33 pm
A pox on both of them. Any crackpot. e.g. Mohammed, can claim to have had a “revelation” which specifies “this is the final word, disregard all others”, and set out to conquor the world. It’s all Kool-Aid.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:25 pm
Sorry, but I’m not buying this extended discussion into Glenn Reynolds’ original point about “judge bashing.” There are PLENTY of reasons to bash judges these days which have NOTHING to do with Christian dominionism. Do you think that Justice Scalia wants to establish Christian teaching and practice, or is it more likely that he’d just be satisfied with getting his fellow justices to stop reading their idiotic policy preferences into the Constitution? That’s why I think that this discussion is just an extended smear against Christians, which Glenn Reynolds has been harping over since he’s pissed that the libetarian-conservative “marriage” isn’t going his way.
You should know better, Mr. Sensing, than to fall for that trick.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
What Christians fail to get is that the Jews do not practice strict adherence to the Deuteronomic and Levitical codes of law because in addition to the written law there is the oral law.
This law has been subsequently codified in the Talmud, the Mishna, and other documents.
You know perhaps it is time to get back to the old time religion.
If it was good enough for Jesus it is good enough for me.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:41 pm
Isn’t there a middle ground, a sort of ’soft’ dominionism where institutions are not strictly brought under
the umbrella of any Christian practive but are nevertheless heavily influenced by Christian teaching and
traditions?
On a broader note, is there no room for Christian tradition, history, and thought in the institutions of a nation that is
overwhelmingly Christian? Playing the devil’s advocate, by these definitions weren’t large stretches of American
history “dominionism”? Were abolitionists who argued against slavery based on Christian teaching some form of dominionists?
Per your allusion to Kepel, if many non-violent Islamists play some roles, major and minor, in many societies
including our own, isn’t there some role for Political Christianity in America and Europe?
Or is ‘Political Christianity’ to be a bogeyman used to scare nice moderates into supporting an ever more
aggressive secularism?
April 12th, 2005 at 4:44 pm
“Or is ‘Political Christianity’ to be a bogeyman used to scare nice moderates into supporting an ever more
aggressive secularism?”
Yes. And aggressive libertine libetarianism as well.
April 12th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
I think the reason that so many Christians get “the law” wrong is that they are not intimate with Jewish culture.
Of course Jesus being a Jew was immersed in that culture.
I do not think the New Testament can be properly understood without a thourough grounding in the evolution of Jewish culture and law.
For instance the notion of Satan was borrowed from the culture of Babalon during the Babylonian exile.
Now this means of course that Judaism was an evolving religion. Something Jesus would have known. Thus he represents a marker of that evolution. That evolution did not “take” among a significant segment of his target audience so his followers became a Jewish sect. Until they went after a bigger audience that needed the message way more than the Jews needed it.
Still such evolution would have been understood by Jesus.
The evolution of Christianity follows a similarly Jewish pattern. Thus it is in harmony with Judaism as a system and the founder of the Christian religion.
As Jesus showed us with the adulterous woman: the law as given is not absolute. It can be modified as our moral sense evolves.
As I said in the last post. Christians do not study Jewish history (pre AD) near enough.
The post Temple rabinate is also instructive. Those guys figured out how to have a religion without a country. Something that has never been common in history.
In effect Christianity has become a religion without a country.
As it benefitted the Jews so it has benefitted Christianity. Especially in countries like the USA where religious practice is unfettered.
April 12th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
I think the “dominionists” would be better off going the “evangelical” route. If you manage to convert enough people, and the people act the way you like voluntarily and happily, you get what you want anyway. Controlling the government will only corrupt Christianity, as it has done in the past. Furthermore, Christianity that needs to be enforced is a facade; true Christianity has to be heart-felt.
BTW, what do you think of religioustolerance.org’s web site? I went there years ago and noted a fairly obvious left-wing bias, some of it embarrassingly bad. Have they cleaned up their act?
April 12th, 2005 at 8:26 pm
“…dominionists see their primary role not in saving souls but in saving society’s operating organs at every level. …you’ll have a hard time finding a dominionist among the United Methodist Church, for example (my denomination)…”
Au contraire, throughout my lifetime the United Methodist Church has been full of folks eager to impose their political will on society in the name of their view of God, and tolerant only of those who agree with them. Fortunately, not all United Methodists are like that, but those who are certainly are plentiful at Annual Conference sessions.
April 12th, 2005 at 8:35 pm
Thanks, Reverend, for a sound summary of this issue.
I think “soft Dominionism” is an oxymoron - like “soft tyranny,” it’s no Dominionism at all. The essence of Dominionism is that a particular version of “Christian order” is imposed by the force of government. A situation where Christian ideas compete (successfully or not, it makes no difference) in the marketplace of ideas is not acceptable to a Dominionist.
Conflating opposition with Dominonism with opposition to Christian influence in American culture and politics is simply a mistake. “Political Christianity” per se is not the same issue. American history, or it’s future, are incomprensible without understanding Christianity’s influence, but the particular politics of those who wrap their cause in the mantle of Christ must be examined critically. Not all who call His name are really His servant.
Christ never enforced his teaching with the sword, and it’s difficult to see how that teaching can be reconciled with the jackboot Dominionist ideology implies. He was pretty explicit that His kingdom was not yet of this world.
April 12th, 2005 at 9:11 pm
There are many Christians who ascribe to a more simplistic view, that each person personally has the capacity to understand the bible as God’s Word, to adhere to it, and to be saved through faithful obedience. To my knowledge, they are neither Dominionists nor Evangelicals (indeed, they have probably never even heard such words before); they are simply Christians. Good is good, and evil is evli; seeking distinctions among various forms of evil seems a waste of time to those of us who believe confidently that God rules in the kingdoms and affairs of men, now and forever. Everything else is just spinning your wheels….
April 12th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
When I read this post, my reaction was - well this is certainly a creative way
to scare the children. Dominionism and Dominionists - who are these people
and where do they meet to plot their evil take over of our government and
society? The sincere Christians I know, both evangelicals and a some fund-
amentalists just want to have a decent society where they can live in peace
and with out fear for their children’s safety. They see that driving God out
of the public life of this country is symbolic of the deteriorating moral
fabric of our society where life has lost it’s value in many aspects and
where the slippery slope to nilhism looms before us. Consider the reputed
hopelessnes of the typical European person. Nilhism = hopelessness and death.
Faith in something outside of oneself = hope and vitality.
April 13th, 2005 at 12:59 am
all right, any support these wackos have is obviously too much _ but how much do they have, really? sydney carton thinks this is a deliberate scare campaign; i think it’s more like cognitive dissonance by people who still can’t see that all the bad guys aren’t on the right. i call it the british-at-singapore theory: big guns trained out to sea while the japanese attack by land. (i know, that’s oversimplified, but it gets the point across.) i’m old enough to remember when liberals like me (yes, i still call myself one, though i prefer the label diane ravitch evidently prefers for herself: ‘liberal traditionalist’) got all het up about the menace of the john birch society while the new left was fermenting under our noses. could be happening again.
April 13th, 2005 at 8:33 am
Man in the Middle has an interesting point, if I take it correctly, that those who subscribe to “dominionism” and the social gospel both seem intent on a top-down imposition of their own particular brand of “gospel.” Whether it behooves Frist to be seen as close to someone really depends on how the media choose to portray that person-and it’s hard to imagine a positive portrayal of a dominionist.
With respect to the quote from ReligiousTolerance.org, it evinces an odd understanding of the congregational nature of “Fundamentalist Christianity”: who would give the orders to suppress all other perspectives? The Pope of Fundamentalism? ;^) As a description of dominionism, I suppose it’s fine, but to worry about it too much seems unwarranted. That’s not to say that dominionists should just be ignored of course.
I’ve always viewed Fundamentalism (as distinguished from “evangelicalism”) as it’s existed in my lifetime as similar to pacifism: often egregiously erroneous, but it can also serve as a useful corrective to other “enthusiams.”
April 13th, 2005 at 9:10 am
I’ve spent my 52 years in Southern Baptist churches. Can’t remember meeting anyone, hearing any sermons, or reading any denominational literature, with a “dominist” viewpoint. Even the strongest “Moral Majority” supporters back in the 80’s had little interest in gaining political power over non-believers’ lives. I believe that the greatest interest in political issues is where the culture is perceived as harming the innocent (i.e., abortion) or directly impinging upon Christian families and singles trying to live Godly lives (pornography in public places, encouragement of extramarital sex, no-fault divorce, drug and alcohol promotion).
OTOH, I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard “People’s hearts have to change to improve society-and only God can do that through Jesus Christ-one person at a time.” So we Baptists and other evangelical Christians open Crisis Pregnancy Centers, feed and clothe the down-and-out in thousands of inner-city missions, and offer Marriage Renewal, Divorce Recovery, Alanon, AA, Healing Your Memories, Addiction Recovery, and thousands of other programs to minister to those suffering from the after-effects of our libertine society. We offer these services out of love, and we do hope that those who participate (both Christians and non-believers) will open their hearts to Him who is Healer, Husband, Father, and Comforter to all who will take shelter “under the wings of the Almighty.”
April 13th, 2005 at 9:42 am
“Isn’t there a middle ground, a sort of ’soft’ dominionism where institutions are not strictly brought
under the umbrella of any Christian practive but are nevertheless heavily influenced by Christian
teaching and traditions?”
Sure. It’s called the US Constitution. The Constitution is is a synthesis of Roman Republic structures and 18th century experience of religious wars in Europe (especially England).
“Or is ‘Political Christianity’ to be a bogeyman used to scare nice moderates into supporting an ever more aggressive secularism?”
It’s real. I’ve seen candidates here in Texas that were dominionists in their rhetoric. Some have been elected. And, to be sure, there are leftist candidates that are as extreme in the other direction. Both kinds are used as examples to whip up fear and donations.
April 13th, 2005 at 9:55 am
AnnH,
There is no drug/alcohol problem in America.
People take pain relievers to relieve pain. Hard to believe I know.
What we have in america is a pain problem - drugs/alcohol are the symptoms not the cause.
Addiction or Self Medication?
April 13th, 2005 at 12:03 pm
Interest in people, not in governments
I have been reading a lot of stuff from all over the map lately about Christian reconstructionists or Christian dominionists, and when you put that side-by-side with Jeff’s thinking about Christian worldview (to wit, when somebody accuses somebody els…
April 13th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Can anyone provide links to read more about dominionism? Particularly the original sources, dominionists in their own words?
Just to be clear: Are we talking about people who want to “bring institutions under the Christian umbrella” through non-democratic menas, by force? Or are we talking about people who would use democratic methods to influence institutions, laws, etc? If it’s the former then aren’t these people revolutionaires in religious clothing? If it’s the later then what’s the big deal? They are just another interest group.
April 13th, 2005 at 2:56 pm
I’ve developed a lot of distrust in the term “evangelical” in any political context. The right and left are using the term opportunistically. First, groups on the right claim support from evangelicals to draw on the group’s size. But polls of evangelicals tend to show that the group is as diverse in its views as it is large. On the left, they like to attribute dominionist views on all evangelicals to help scare up money and generally complain that something has gone terribly wrong in the country.
I wish political pollsters, pundits, et al., would just refer to churchgoers (people who claim to attend church regularly); its more objective, except for the part where people lie, but at least they are lying about something objective.
Patrick
April 14th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
A New Cult?
The hot topic on local talk radio in Nashville lately has been a church called Remnant Fellowship, and whether it is trying to take over the government of the suburban city of Brentwood by importing members and temporarily housing them…
August 30th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
This is a real problem in America that has picked up steam after 9/11. What scares me is that most people don’t see the wrongness of an overly religious society. America’s constition was set up so that this society did not become some theocracy. Now people want to believe that God watches over our nation with special interest. These are the same people(generally speaking) who cut me off when driving and then say that I need to have god in my life when I flip them off. And they smile oddly as they drive on.
November 25th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
You can’t have claims of absolute truth like “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” and respect dissent? Jesus was willing, after he verbally confronted them, to let people make a mistake even though he knew they were wrong.
Jesus made absolute truth claims, and granted freedom. I suppose I shall try to follow his example.