In fact, some of the literal demonisation of communism--and social welfare programs as a form of "communism lite"--date back from before World War II, among groups like "The Fellowship" (still in existence; it and the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship, two of the most "deep in" groups promoting dominionism, also have the longest recorded histories of any dominionist groups).  Labour movements, Roosevelt's "New Deal", women's sufferage, and other social welfare programs of the 1920's-1930's were regularly condemned as "Bolshevist plots" by the radio-preachers of the era.  

In another scary parallel, some of both the radio-preacher groups and the very early dominionist movements--like William Branham's early promotions of dominion theology, as well as some documented material re the Fellowship--had links to racist groups, including not only the Klan but also, more notoriously, literal Nazi sympathiser groups (who were also anti-labour, anti-women's-lib, and anti-communist).  There were actually a few radio preachers who ended up being investigated as "aiding the enemy" during World War II as a result--including one of the more notorious radio preachers and red-baiters, "Father" Coughlin.  In fact, some of Coughlin's speeches about the League of Nations being a "Bolshevist" institution almost exactly mirror claims made by dominionists about the UN and EU being controlled by communists.  Coughlin wasn't alone in mixing the "Red Conspiracy" with older stories of "Jewish conspiracies"--other pamphlets from the era indicate it was relatively common.  (The problems with radio-preaching became so bad that by 1944 the four major networks of the time banded together to set regulations that heavily restricted radio-preacher demagoguery; in direct response, and an early example on how dominionists regroup, the radio-preachers founded the National Religious Broadcasters as a lobbying group to force their way back in.)

In a move almost exactly paralleling dominionist tactics today, Herbert Hoover--widely acknowledged as the worst President the US has had, at least until the time of George W. Bush--was largely elected based on radio preachers smearing his opponent's Catholicism and pointing out Herbert Hoover was against socialism and was for continuing Prohibition.  Herbert Hoover's policies during the Depression were an unmitigated disaster--the "Hooverville" tent cities set up by the "Bonus Army" (unemployed World War I veterans who were homeless and still awaiting awards money promised them) is an eerie parallel on how the Gulf War veterans are getting the shaft now.  

(Interestingly, as early as  the 1920's Hoover had investigated if there was any way to regulate religious radio--in part because of the radio antics of Aimee Semple McPherson (noted below).  He found no way to legally do so at the time; it was in part because of proto-dominionist broadcasters crowding out non-religious broadcasters (in a parallel of what is happening today with noncommercial frequencies) that the Communications Act of 1934 was passed to allow penalties for things like interference--McPherson and others were refusing to do things like remain on their station's authorised frequency, McPherson in particular stating she would broadcast "at whatever frequency and power the Lord told her to use.")

Also, one of the groups that has consistently been associated with both telepreaching and dominionism since its very beginnings--the Assemblies of God and its descendent denominations including International Foursquare and the multitude of "independent" neopentecostal churches--was also anti-Communist from its very beginnings.  No less than Aimee Semple McPherson (who was an Assemblies radio-preacher who later founded International Foursquare as a "radio church" after the Assemblies threatened to revoke her preaching credentials because her husband divorced her for abandonment, one of the first two radio-preachers period (the other being the "fundamentalist Baptist" Billy Holiday) and being the first telepreacher to be involved in a major scandal (involving her faking her own kidnapping)) was notably anti-communist.  (McPherson is also noted in my own essay on the history of dominion theology as setting some of the fundamental base.)  Reagan actually noted her as an influence in anticommunist speech,  and in fact Aimee Semple McPherson is  one of the earliest documented persons to have demonised a promoter of socialist and social works programs as a "closet Communist":

Religious Right broadcasters long ago learned an important lesson: Repeat almost anything often enough and many people will believe you -- even if it leads them to act against their own interests. Starting with radio evangelism in the 1930s, media-evangelists have perfected the use of each new technology to influence elections and legislation, hammering home reactionary theology with the clear aim of gaining political power.

Aimee Semple McPherson pioneered the approach in the 1930s on a powerful Los Angeles' radio station. Broadcasting from her "temple," McPherson styled herself a modern-day Joan of Arc in a titanic struggle against communism. Her crusade reached the boiling point in 1934 during the insurgent Democratic gubernatorial campaign of Upton Sinclair. The socialist author had pledged to "end poverty in California," but the evangelist, in an alliance with Republican leaders, Hollywood propagandists and political consultants, redefined the race in apocalyptic terms.

"Someone has cast in the poison herb," she bellowed on the Sunday before Election Day, "and if we eat thereof we shall all perish and the glory of our nation as it has stood through the years shall perish with us." At first the front runner in an era of mass unemployment and hard times, Sinclair had become the target of the nation's first "media campaign," and ultimately lost by 200,000 votes. McPherson had seized on growing fears of revolution, convincing her flock -- many of them poor -- that the real enemy was satanic communism and its Democratic messenger.

On the non-radio-preacher end of things, at least one party that tried to split the SBC in the 1920's (because he felt the eastern branches of the church were too "liberal") was also vociferously anticommunist, also having tied "socialism" to communism.

by dogemperor on Mon May 22, 2006 at 09:00:09 PM EST