Tag: dominionism

The Daily Beast examines Ron Paul’s Reconstructionist roots

Last week, I reported that Ron Paul hired Mike Heath (is he still AFTAH board chair?), and that Ron Paul touted an endorsement from an Omaha pastor who wants to implement Mosaic law, complete with executions for gays, adulterers and delinquent children.

Today, the Daily Beast’s Michelle Goldberg examines the topic and notes that many evangelicals who are coming Paul’s way today in Iowa lean toward the Reconstructionist side of the evangelical world.  The other interesting aspect of her article is the brief examination of the difference between dispensational and covenant theologies. The covenant folks believe that the Church is a replacement of sorts for Israel and that the Church will bring back the Kingdom of God on Earth. Dispensationalists believe that God will keep his promises to Israel and will remove the Church from the Earth during the “rapture” thus setting the stage for the coming Kingdom of God.

Often dispensationalists think political action is pointless since the world is coming to a bad end. Covenant adherents, among which are Reconstructionists, think that political takeover is necessary. One can see how the New Apostolic Reformation can work with the Christian Reconstructionists. However, as I pointed out last week, they part company over political ends. Reconstructionists favor a decentralized central government which would allow them to set up enclaves where Christian law dominates. New Apostolic Reformationists (e.g., Lou Engle, Peter Wagner, Cindy Jacobs) want the law at the Federal level to reflect Christian teaching in order to offset the judgment of God on the nation.

Does it seem odd and perhaps disconcerting that one must understand the nuances of Christian eschatology in order to understand what is happening in the GOP race for the nomination? Some reporters, like Goldberg, Pema Levy and Benjy Sarlin at TPM are getting it. I know Sarah Posner with Religion Dispatches is in Iowa today and she gets it. The gentlemen over at Right Wing Watch get it.

Do evangelical writers get it? Gentle reader, please enlighten me if I have missed it, but I cannot recall an evangelical writer or news source examining end times theology (and all it involves) as an influence on political theory.

Related:

Top Ten Posts – 2011

To reflect on 2011, I have listed here the ten most popular posts in terms of visits this year. Two of the posts were written in prior years but were visited frequently this year. In addition to being popular, I think they are representative of the stories and issues which I wrote about this year.

1. The Trail of Tears remembered

2. Uganda update: Anti-Homosexuality Bill on tomorrow’s agenda

3. Committee chair says Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill may not be considered

4. What would dominionists do with gays?

5. A major study of child abuse and homosexuality revisited (2009)

6. NARTH is not primarily composed of mental health professionals

7. Only the gay die young: Examining the claims of shorter life expectancy for homosexuals (2007)

8. The evangelical blackout of research on sexual orientation

9. William Penn founded the Quakers and other tall tales from David Barton

10. Was the Jefferson Bible an evangelism tool?

David Barton again defends Glenn Beck as a Christian

David Barton is feeling the criticism from Worldview Weekend founder Brannon Howse. Today, Barton responded to some of those criticisms as he framed them.
Howse is particularly concerned that David Barton’s partnership with Glenn Beck leads Christians to believe that Beck is a Christian or that Mormonism is just a form of Christianity.
Barton’s approach was to call Beck a Christian because Beck says that Jesus is his savior and redeemer  and point to Beck’s deeds to validate his faith. You can read essentially what Barton claimed on the air here on his Facebook page.
This post is mostly news with little analysis but I will say that Mormon and Christian theology about Christ is different and Mormons speak very similar words as do Christians when it comes to Christ. It appears that Barton is not aware of this or does not want to explore this in any depth. He seems to have no problem with Mormonism’s use of the Book of Mormon as Scripture and assumes that because Mormons also use the Bible, they are speaking the same confession.
A bit more of an aside: Given the way Barton treats history, I am not surprised that he treats theology in a similar manner.
Barton doesn’t “care what the label is” he is trying to influence policy which makes it fine. In the SevenMountain teaching of taking dominion over the mountains of culture, personal redemption is less important than societal salvation. Even if Beck is a Mormon, it is appropriate for Christians to recommend him and promote him because he is helping the Christians take over the cultural mountains.
Near the end of the program, Barton addresses the charges of dominionism. He dismisses dominionism, the New Apostolic Reformation, and reconstructionism as terms he doesn’t know.
Barton and Green revealed that Howse’s criticisms are having an impact in that Barton’s supporters are calling and writing about them.
Generally, I don’t like to make a big deal out of religious differences when it comes to how you treat people and how we all need to get along despite our differences. Here, however, Barton is again calling on people to obscure obvious distinctions as if they are not real. He does it in history and he is also doing it over these theological differences.

Is South Korea an Example of Dominionism in Action?

Che Ahn is a one of the leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation. Ahn is Chancellor of the Wagner Leadership Institute and co-founder, with Lou Engle, of The Call. He was an endorser of GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry’s prayer meeting in Houston last month. He also believes the President of South Korea Lee Myung-bak illustrates how government apostles can fulfill their dominionist duties. Ahn says President Myung-bak is “an apostle on the government mountain.” Watch this clip at Bruce Wilson’s You Tube page:

Among other things in this clip, Che Ahn said, “Once we do get to the top, we can make decrees and declarations that shift and influence that whole mountain.” Ahn also referred to South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak as an apostle on the government mountain. While mayor of Seoul, Myung-bak offered the city to Jesus Christ, angering the countries Buddhist community. The tensions continued when Myung-bak became president, leading to a rare public protest from Buddhists.
In this clip, Ahn referred to the unhappiness of the Buddhists, but dismissed this, saying, “When you get to the top, you can start doing some radical things for the Lord.”
One of the radical things you can do is bring other apostles into the top:

With 11 million believers, Buddhism is Korea’s largest religion, but Buddhists have accounted for only 7.7 percent of Lee’s Cabinet appointments, 12.5 percent of his appointments to senior presidential secretary, and 4.8 percent of his other Blue House secretaries. Meanwhile, in the view of Buddhists, members of Lee’s Somang Church look like they have taken up all the important positions in government.

Not long into his term, President Myung-bak sent a video supporting a large Christian youth meeting. During that meeting, a prayer leader prayed that the Buddhist temples would crumble. Understandably, this upset the Buddhists and Myung-bak offered an olive branch to the Buddhists later.
These tensions continue in Korea and sound extremely similar to tensions here at home when one religion seeks political dominance.
In this country, GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry conducts a rally calling on his God to save the nation and religious minorities became uncomfortable. A prominent spokesperson for the organizer of the rally has publicly declared that no more mosques should be built. New Apostolic Reformation leaders get behind this event in a big way. Other organizers have various nasty things to say about religious and political opponents.
I think anyone with their eyes open can see what New Apostolic Reformationists hope happens with the 2012 election. As mega-Apostle C. Peter Wagner suggests, they want to gain the “necessary influence” to eatablish dominion. They want an apostle at the top of the government mountain, because when “you get to the top, you can start doing some radical things for the Lord.”

David Barton: Evil spirits make Congress "think really goofy"

I knew it was someone’s fault.
Read the whole thing at Right Wing Watch, but for now listen to historical document collector David Barton tell Kenneth Copeland about why Congressional Democrats “think really goofy.”

Partial transcript:

And I can tell this in the U.S. Capitol. When I walk from the House side to the Senate side, I cross the middle line of the Capitol, I can feel a different principality because they have jurisdictions over different things. And there are principalities that sit over different government entities that cause them to think really goofy and you can’t get prayers through, they get delayed twenty-one days because the principalities are up there fighting in the Heavenlies.
Because we’re not fighting flesh and blood. And if you don’t understand this is a spiritual battle, and if you don’t understand there are really big principalities and powers sitting over places of power, whether it be banking, or education. There’s principalities that sit over schools to keep those kids from getting knowledge, there’s principalities that sit over financial institutions. They sit over households. That’s why you have principalities in powers, that gradation, you have the corporals, and you have the sergeants, and you have the lieutenants, the captains and the generals, and the generals have a bigger principality and those little corporals may have control over the house but it’s a spiritual battle.
It’s a spiritual battle and we’ll never win until we understand that.

I’ll bet those Generals that used to sit over the House were ticked when the Republicans won back control from the Democrats. Probably some of those Generals lost rank or got reassigned to sit over some low performing school or somebody’s residence.
The 21 day disabled prayer list is a new one on me.
Seems pretty clear, if it was in doubt, that Barton is not a Christian Reconstructionist but right in the thick of the New Apostolic Reformation.