I might add a co-conspirator.  When you connect the owners of the media to people like the Kochs, and then back to the dominionists...  they may be obeying their marching orders.   (The mainstream media has been demonstrated to be racist, and it is no stretch to extend that to supporting dominionism and the extension of the status quo.)

by ArchaeoBob on Wed Aug 24, 2011 at 04:04:46 PM EST

Below, is an excerpt of the interview:

GROSS: Is this a loss of power for the Christian right because the Tea Party seems to be taking up more of the public space and the public image?

Rev. CIZIK: Well, the Tea Party movement - it may be a loss of power, absolutely. The Tea Party, moreover, is libertarian. That's why a lot of evangelicals on the right don't identify with it. I'm not there. I'm not a libertarian, per se, and so that's one of my problems with the Tea Party movement.

But the religious right may oppose the Tea Party movement to some degree over loss of power, that's true. But we shouldn't be about this because of our interest in simply owning and holding political power.

GROSS: So is there a place where the Christian right and the Tea Party come together? I can't tell how aligned they are. I can't tell how many people in the Tea Party also identify as evangelicals.

Rev. CIZIK: There's a certain adherence to traditional value in the sense that I think most Tea Party movement people say they believe in God and the Constitution and that's a kind of litmus test for them, the Constitution, but I don't see how this marriage occurs. Because, fundamentally, the Tea Party is libertarian, evangelical right or not, and I think ultimately, it won't work, in other words, the merger of evangelical right and the Tea Party movement, because there are these internal contradictions.

GROSS: Such as?

Rev. CIZIK: Well, that you can't have government action to restrict abortion, for example, and be libertarian toward the power and role of government. I mean isn't that an internal contradiction?

GROSS: I see what you're saying.

Rev. CIZIK: And that's why libertarians are common in the Tea Party movement, and why evangelical right leaders are not libertarians.

(The full transcript can be found here: http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=12 8776382)

According to Cizik, the Tea Party had "lost power" to evangelical conservatives.  But if I'm not mistaken, they were hijacked by the Religious Right instead.

by LupusGreywalker on Wed Aug 24, 2011 at 06:19:23 PM EST

OR, you have an agenda."

--Linda


by Raksha on Wed Aug 24, 2011 at 06:51:55 PM EST

What you do not appear to understand is that very few Christians even know that this movement exists. It is not very influential, nor even very well known, within Evangelical circles. When journalists say that leftists are hyping something inconsequential, it is because they know Evangelical Christianity in America and cannot see anyplace in those circles where the Dominionists are even visible, let alone pulling any weight. Sure, they have web sites, but anybody or his mother can put up a web site.

Furthermore, you seem stuck in the conflation between "Dominionism" and "Christian Reconstruction." They are not the same thing; they are not related. If Rousas Rushdoony, the founder of Christian Reconstruction, were told that he was the forerunner of the modern "Dominionism," he might just punch your face (if he were alive; he died in 2001). He would have objected that strongly.

Most notably, the Christian Reconstruction movement was about theocracy. They believed in rewriting the rules of secular government entirely in biblical terms, using the Law of Moses as a template. The modern "Dominionism" does advocate political activism, but recognizes a clear distinction between Christ's heavenly kingdom and terrestrial, secular nations. Their activism falls completely into the realm of legal, ordinary political activism, and claims no goal of creating earthly governments that use an Ancient Near East template. On the contrary, most of the current Dominionists regard the US Constitution as completely compatible with godliness, and are content to live within its bounds. They are no more threatening than ordinary Republicans. (I'm sure you consider that threatening enough, but that's just your bias talking.)

I read your essay on Dominionism. People reading that document should note carefully that every place you connect "Dominionism" with "Christian Reconstruction," you do it by vague implication and against the public statements of Dominionist leaders. Rousas Rushdoony's scholarship regarding Mosaic Law was excellent, and many modern Christians are aware of, and recommend, his books on the subject. Their recommendation does not constitute an endorsement of his political philosophy, which they all explicitly reject.

And by the way -- Christian Reconstruction was several orders of magnitude smaller and less influential than modern Dominionism, which is, itself, relatively small in modern Evangelicalism. They had practically no influence at all.

What the left is doing is attempting to generate fear, and to paste that fear onto well-known conservative politicians, by conflating a relatively innocuous, small movement with a heavy-handed, even smaller theocratic group. Calling it "hype" is accurate. And while I prefer not to engage in name-calling, I cannot help but notice that you ended your piece by calling others "lazy, incompetent, or ignorant." You need to make those accusations in the mirror, sir: it is you who should be embarrassed by your failure to do your homework.

by philWynk on Thu Aug 25, 2011 at 10:07:47 AM EST