Texas Observer: The Fringe Theology That Could End Religious Freedom
The idea that the United States is destined to play some kind of prophetic role in the end times, or eschatology of right wing Evangelicals has been around almost as long as the United States has existed. Much of the conquest and subjugation of native American populations was done with justification using distorted Christian theology, including the idea that white Europeans, because of their "faithfulness" in establishing a Christian nation on the North American continent, were blessed by God with prosperity, and were "chosen" to dominate the land and get rich off of its resources. Decimating the native population was justified because they weren't white, they were mere "savages," did not believe in the one true God and had the land but had done nothing with it.
This kind of thinking runs contrary to our democracy's values and ideals, which came from our founding fathers, some via the influences of the various branches of Christianity that existed in their time, which bore little resemblance to today's Evangelicals and Pentecostal/Charismatics, but most of which were embedded into the culture by the Enlightenment.
Read Ellis Orozco's piece that I linked above, and the piece from the Texas Observer which is one of the remaining honest media outlets, and that will give you a full understanding of the philosophical and cultural background of what we are dealing with in American politics today. I won't repeat any of that, it's excellent and explains much of what we see happening on the political extreme right. They are cultural interpretations of specific parts of the Bible that fail to take into consideration one of the primary interpretive standards of Christian theology, the fact that the words of Jesus are the interpretive standard for all of the rest of the Bible, and of the whole of Christianity.
The Dangers of Dominion Theology
These pseudo-Christian perspectives of eschatology are dangerous because they lead those who believe and follow their tenets to think of themselves as being "chosen people" with a destiny to change the world and make it over on "God's terms." They believe in an eschatology--an end-times view--in which they are chosen to set the stage for the return of Jesus to the earth and that "taking back" political, cultural and social institutions and claiming them for God must occur before Jesus will return (see the "Seven Mountains" and "Kingdom Now" movements among dominion theology).
There was a time when it was not possible for a Catholic to get elected President of the United States because the predominance of Protestants in the electorate believed a Catholic would be more loyal to the pope than to the constitution. But now there are conservative Evangelical Christians who are more loyal to a reconstructed republic under while, male Christian dominance than to the individual rights extended equally to all, at least theoretically, under the constitution. Every branch of dominion theology among Fundamentalist Christians, Evangelicals, Pentecostals and Charismatics, has the intention of turning the government of the United States into an autocracy ruled only by Christians who share their doctrine and theology and their so-called "worldview."
But dominion theology, embedded into right wing politics, is also a danger to the Christian church itself. It is completely contradictory to the gospel of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament. Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world," and on more than one occasion, dispelled what had become a common belief among the Jews of his day that the Messiah would be an earthly king like David, who would free the Jewish people from Roman rule. Even as events led to his crucifixion, Jesus deliberately walked away from the use of political influence and power. Both of the leading Apostles of the early church, Peter and Paul, acknowledge that God hasn't seceded any territory anywhere in the world to Satan, and is, in fact, the spiritual authority behind all governments, including the Roman Empire that was dominating them at the time.
Our government has already been infiltrated by politicians who hold to the reconstructionist views of dominion theology, as well as the Seven Mountains and Kingdom Now perspectives. They don't put those views up there as part of their campaign. But in their alliance with the Republican party, a lot of what we have seen over the past thirty years, such as deliberate government gridlock, gerrymandering, the "Citizens United" court decision, the rollback of the voting rights act, are the result of their presence. The Texas Observer points to those in the state government there who are well known reconstructionists and dominionists.
This is Pseudo-Christianity, but what do we do with it?
And what I do I will also continue to do , in order to deny an opportunity to those who want an opportunity to be recognized as our equals in what they boast about. For such boasters are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of light. And no wonder! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is not strange if his ministers also disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness. Their end will match their deeds.--The Apostle Paul Second letter to the Corinthian church, 11:10-15
In the middle of his eschatological narrative to his disciples, just before he was crucified, Jesus makes this statement, recorded by Matthew:
For false prophets and false messiahs will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.
The period of time that Jesus is specifically referencing here took place during the period immediately after his crucifixion. He begins the narrative by telling his disciples that the Temple buildings they are admiring will be brought down, not one stone left on another, and that this event will occur while at least some of those to whom he was speaking would still be alive. Shortly after, the Jewish population in and around Jerusalem rebelled against Roman rule, instituted a provisional government that collapsed in short order and brought down the wrath of the emperor, who send Titus, a future emperor, at the head of an army which beseiged Jerusalem, breached the walls and destroyed the Temple in a bloodbath also predicted, and matched to an apocalyptic timeline laid out by Daniel and included in the Old Testament canon. He calls this event, "the abomination of desolation," because of the desecration of the Temple's inner courts and Holy of Holies.
That is the event which Jesus refers to as the "End of the Age," not the "end times of world history" which he never addresses. But the narrative is also a prophetic description of multiple times when the Christian church has been deceived and led into apostasy by false prophets, those who hijack its influence and language for political purposes and who have imprisoned it as an institution of the state, something Jesus never intended for it when he established it and declared "My kingdom is not of this world."
So dominion theology is contrary to the Bible, pushed by false prophets and promotes a false messianic view of eschatology. It contradicts the Bible according to its historical and spiritual context, using Jesus' words as the standard for interpretation. It incorporates futurist eschatology which Jesus himself actually eliminates from consideration a few paragraphs beyond his statement about false prophets, proclaiming the end of the old covenant and its replacement with the new. It is clear, from what he says in Matthew 24:30-35 that he never intended, then or at any other time in the course of history, to set up his church as a political state.
We Are Traveling Down the Road to a Reconstructed Republic
In a graduate school class in 1981, we were assigned to read a book called The Reconstruction of the Republic, by Harold O. J. Brown. I read it, and in the discussion that followed, in a class on "Social Studies Instructional Methods for High School Civics" at a large state university was focused on the impossibility of achieving the author's thesis. The professor warned us that not only was the plan laid out not impossible, but that there were signs of it happening, "journalists" promoting it and it was infiltrating churches, pointing to several well-known televangelists among the Charismatic movement, and to Jerry Falwell. No one at the time envisioned what might happen when its path crossed someone like Trump, with two sets of extremists willing to compromise and make deals to get their way.
America's founding fathers, in separating all religious practice including Christianity, from its representative democracy, actually set the Christian church free to be exactly what Jesus intended it to be. Now false apostles and prophets are putting on a veneer of Christianity with the intention of using it for their own purposes and for their own benefit. The alliance between the Christian right and right wing Republican politics, which is the domain of the prosperous and exists to expand their prosperity, will eventually unravel and fall apart. But not before this aberration of the Christian faith is used to its fullest extend to destroy a democratic government that is the only major obstacle to complete domination by the richest of the rich.
Regardless of the social issues incorporated into that agenda and platform to lure Christian voters, the outcome of an election that puts that mixture of reconstructionist, "kingdom now" dominion theology and the wealthy oligarchy closer to control is far, far worse in the mind of this Christian voter than the outcome of an election in which a group of progressive politicians favor abortion rights, LGBTQ rights and minority rights that are still not equal with the white, Christian majority in this country. White Christians are still the most privileged, least persecuted and oppressed Americans. The advance of the rights of ethnic and social minorities has not affected their rights or their status one bit.
But, we are already a long way down the road toward a reconstructed republic. Democrats have just a few months--do you get that??--a few months to get themselves together to stop this and reverse the trend.
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