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the covert campaign against liberal chuches and the social justice tradition
[above: click on image for YouTube video trailer]"Renewal or Ruin": New Video Documentary By Steve D. Martin Spotlights Secretive Rightwing Effort To Destroy Mainstream Protestant Churches
Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, by Frederick Clarkson
Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort
by Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons
sample chapter
God's Profits: Faith, Fraud and the Republican Crusade For Values Voters
By Sarah Posner
Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History
By Chris Rodda
Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
: by Michelle Goldberg
With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House.
by Esther Kaplan
Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement
Tanya Erzen
Attack on The United Churches of Christ
Attack on The United Methodist Church
"The Christian Right, Dominionism, and Theocracy", by Chip Berlet
"Taking Over The Republican Party", a four part series by Joan Bokaer
The Woman in A Mink CoatWhile We Were sleepingAngels On a PinheadUnder Cover of Night
The Indian River Incident : What You Can Do
link > The "Stop the ACLU Coalition" Shaming Project
How you can help stop "Stop The ACLU" just by sending a few emails
The Shaming Projectdoes the violence of "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" bother you ? If so, what can you do ? Well, to begin with you can email Jonathan Hutson's stories to people you know. That will help to bring more public scrutiny of the game. Public shaming really works ! Just click on the "email" icon and link at the top or bottom of the story and you'll be taken to a form that will allow you email the first story, The Purpose Driven Life Takers or the latest installment without leaving this site. Thanks.
Property Rights: A Dominionist Issue (7th in a series) |
| Wed Oct 04, 2006 at 07:22:32 AM EST |  print story | |
 
Libertarians and land developers have found populist fodder in a contentious Supreme Court decision from last year that favors eminent domain over private property. Property rights are also a dominionist issue. From The Texas Republican Party Platform, a blueprint for dominionist policies in government:
"We reaffirm an individual's right to own and use property without government interference." P. 10 #16 |
| topic: All Topics |
"We believe that groundwater is an absolute, vested ownership right of the landowner." P. 10 #6
"We believe that the state should neither make nor enforce any law that abridges or denies the inalienable constitutional rights of the citizens of Texas with regards to minerals, water, or property rights." P. 10 #7
"We oppose conservation easements on our national resources administered by organizations unaccountable to taxpayers and voters." P.10 #9 (This suggests that land trusts would become unconstitutional under a dominionist-influenced court)
"We oppose the Endangered Species Act." P. 10 #17 (The Endangered Species Act has been used to stop development in some areas.)
Biblical Rational for Property Rights
America's Providential History, a textbook that teaches millions of children in Christian schools and the Christian homeschool movement how to view reality through the lens of a Biblical Worldview, explains the biblical rational for property rights.
Let every person be in subjection to the government authorities: ... For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior but for evil...it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil. (Romans 13:1,3,4)(Supreme Court Justice Scalia agrees with Paul and even cites the same quote for an article he wrote called God's Justice and Ours.)
America's Providential History interprets Paul's statement as an affirmation of property rights:
The purpose of government therefore is to protect the life, liberty AND PROPERTY by punishing evil doers and encouraging the righteous. (p. 20)
Scripture defines God as the source of private property ..
Ecclesiastes 5:19 states, "For every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them..." Also in 1Chronicles 29:12, Both riches and honor come from Thee." (p. 188)
God has created everything, including us, and given us the right to possess property... (p. 272)
Developers and dominionists alike have lost sight of other basic rights such as the right to protect the environment and conserve open space. They have lost sight of the notion of land use for the common good.
I've devoted many years to teaching about the principles of ecological cities. I started EcoVillage at Ithaca, a thriving environmental community of sixty households where I now reside. I also co-convened the Third International EcoCity Conference in Senegal, West Africa. Yet the future of the Green Cities movement and its enormous implications for the environment could be thwarted by a Roberts Supreme Court if that court embraces a dominionist philosophy of property rights.
America's Providential History teaches the goodness of a "government acting on the Biblical principles:"
The internal change of heart that Christ brings produces Christian character and self-government which is necessary for an economy to be prosperous. (p. 194)
This belief in a future where, eventually, perhaps over thousands of years, there will be a societal change of heart that Christ brings, is very optimistic. I applaud those who carry such a vision in their hearts.
The problem is that that vision becomes a nightmare when it is used for political power. Consider the issue of property rights. If all property owners were good, honest people who believed in the stewardship of the earth, there might not be a problem.
But real estate magnates such as Howie Rich of New York who was highlighted on PBS Now for bankrolling property rights campaigns in several Western states this election cycle have the most to gain. They support politicians who campaign on hot-button social issues such as abortion or gay rights, and those same politicians gave the developers the absolute right to plunder and pollute our natural resources.
Previous articles in the series on Dominionism and The Role of The Federal Government
Dominionism and The Constitution in Exile Movement
House Bill Would Eliminate Most Regulatory Functions Of Federal Government
Paul Weyrich: The Man Who Framed the Republican Party (How he succeeded in getting a huge constituency to vote against their economic interests)
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