"Most people hear them talk about a 'Christian nation' and think, 'Well, that sounds like a good, moral thing,' says the Rev. Mel White, who ghostwrote Jerry Falwell's autobiography before breaking with the evangelical movement. "What they don't know -- what even most conservative Christians who voted for Bush don't know -- is that 'Christian nation' means something else entirely to these Dominionist leaders. This movement is no more about following the example of Christ than Bush's Clean Water Act is about clean water."
The godfather of the Dominionists is D. James Kennedy, the most influential evangelical you've never heard of. A former Arthur Murray dance instructor, he launched his Florida ministry in 1959, when most evangelicals still followed Billy Graham's gospel of nonpartisan soul-saving. Kennedy built Coral Ridge Ministries into a $37-million-a-year empire, with a TV-and-radio audience of 3 million, by preaching that it was time to save America -- not soul by soul but election by election. After helping found the Moral Majority in 1979, Kennedy became a five-star general in the Christian army. Bush sought his blessing before running for president -- and continues to consult top Dominionists on matters of federal policy.
"Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost," Kennedy says. "As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors -- in short, over every aspect and institution of human society."
Does the bold quote mean that they will kill people to get there? Ruin reputations? Trample over the rights of people who don't agree? What does that mean? Are they on a "crusade" against infidels like me? Even though I am a Christian? Does that term mean the same thing to them? Or since I don't believe a literal Bible am I not really a Christian?
Problem is that they then turn the Bible into a book of science and history, at the same time they undermine the actual study of science and history. I can certainly speak to the issue of history, and the David Barton/D. James Kennedy school is ahistorical and anti-scholarship. That means they start with the conclusion in mind and simply cherry pick the evidence they want (kind of like a Bush administration finding support for war in Iraq!). It isn't scholarship and it isn't history. It is propaganda.
At Reclaiming America, most of the conference is taken up by grassroots training sessions that supply ministers, retirees and devout churchgoers with "The Facts of Stem-Cell Research" or "Practical Steps to Impact Your Community with America's Historical Judeo-Christian Heritage." "We're going to turn you into an army of one," Gary Cass, executive director of Reclaiming America, promises activists at one workshop held in Evangalism Explosion Hall. The Dominionists also attend speeches by supporters like Rep. Katherine Harris of Florida, who urges them to "win back America for God." In their spare time, conference-goers buy books about a God-devised health program called the Maker's Diet or meet with a financial adviser who offers a "biblically sound investment plan."
Funny aside here. This strikes me as consumer driven as the rest of America and the American church. "Join the dominionist agenda, and make more money than you can dream of--you know, just like Jesus said."
To implement their sweeping agenda, the Dominionists are working to remake the federal courts in God's image. In their view, the Founding Fathers never intended to erect a barrier between politics and religion. "The First Amendment does not say there should be a separation of church and state," declares Alan Sears, president and CEO of the Alliance Defense Fund, a team of 750 attorneys trained by the Dominionists to fight abortion and gay marriage. Sears argues that the constitutional guarantee against state-sponsored religion is actually designed to "shield" the church from federal interference -- allowing Christians to take their rightful place at the head of the government. "We have a right, indeed an obligation, to govern," says David Limbaugh, brother of Rush and author of Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity. Nothing gets the Dominionists to their feet faster than ringing condemnations of judicial tyranny. "Activist judges have systematically deconstructed the Constitution," roars Rick Scarborough, author of Mixing Church and State. "A God-free society is their goal!"
I don't actually know any liberals who want to remove God from our society--hell, many of the liberals I know are Christian--but if God is like these people, I am open to the idea. :)
Activist judges, of course, are precisely what the Dominionists want. Their model is Roy Moore, the former Alabama chief justice who installed a 5,300-pound granite memorial to the Ten Commandments, complete with an open Bible carved in its top, in the state judicial building. At Reclaiming America, Roy's Rock sits out front, fresh off a tour of twenty-one states, perched on the flag-festooned flatbed of a diesel truck, a potent symbol of the "faith-based" justice the Dominionists are bent on imposing. Activists at the conference pose for photographs beside the rock and have circulated a petition urging President Bush to appoint Moore -- who once penned an opinion calling for the state to execute "practicing homosexuals" -- to the U.S. Supreme Court.
You all have read my thoughts on Moore. In another life, this guy was killing heretics or putting people on trains. The same people who pilloried Clinton (rightfully so) for lying about his sexual misdeeds now seem to have completely forgotten the phrase "rule of law." That only applies to liberals, I guess.
--snip--
To pack the courts with fundamentalists like Moore, Dominionist leaders are planning a massive media blitz. They're also pressuring Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist -- an ally who's courting support for his presidential bid -- to halt the long-standing use of filibusters to hold up judicial nominations. An anti-filibuster petition circulating at the conference blasts Democrats for their "outrageous stonewalling of appointments" -- even though Congress has approved more nominees of Bush than of any president since Jimmy Carter.
This actually makes me think these guys are beatable. They really don't understand politics. If you change the rules, you change them for the other guy too. I don't recall any such calls from these people when Senate Republicans were stonewalling on Clinton nominees. Well, guess what? At some point, this worm will turn and the rule changes you pushed for will allow a liberal (and it will happen sometime) to appoint people like me to the court. Does that scare you?
--snip--[took out some Richard Land blathering about John Lennon.]
The Dominionists are also stepping up efforts to turn public schools into forums for evangelism. In a landmark case, the Alliance Defense Fund is suing a California school district that threatened to dismiss a born-again teacher who was evangelizing fifth-graders. In the conference's opening ceremony, the Dominionists recite an oath they dream of hearing in every classroom: "I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior for whose kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe."
This just pisses me off. Talk about not understanding American history. If this ever happens, I will be immigrating to someplace with brains. This is about as Christ-like as a lynch mob.
Cass urges conference-goers to stack school boards with Dominionists. "The most humble Christian is more qualified for office than the best-educated pagan," says Cass, an anti-abortion activist who led a takeover of his school district's board in San Diego. "We built quite a little grass-roots machine out there. Now it's my burden to multiply that success all across America."
Are you fucking kidding me? I guess that explains their support for Bush. His proclaimed faith overpowers any concerns about his intelligence. I think it was Martin Luther King Jr., who suggested that he would rather have a smart athiest in office than a dumb Christian. Of course, these people think King was a commie, so quoting that is probably a fool's errand.
Cass points to the Rev. Gary Beeler, a Baptist minister from Tennessee who got permission for thousands of students to skip class and attend weeklong events that he calls "old-time revivals, with preaching and singing and soul-saving and the whole nine yards." Now, with support from Kennedy, Beeler is selling his house and buying a mobile home to spread his crusade nationwide. "It's not exactly what I planned to do with my retirement," he says. "But it's what God told me to do."
Wow, and with jerks like this, you wonder why I shudder every time someone says "God told me to....."
Cass also presents another small-town activist, Kevin McCoy, with a Salt and Light Award for leading a successful campaign to shut down an anti-bullying program in West Virginia schools. McCoy, a soft-spoken, prematurely gray postal worker, fought to end the program because it taught tolerance for gay people -- and thus, in his view, constituted a "thinly disguised effort to promote the homosexual agenda." "What America needs," Cass tells the faithful, "is more Kevin McCoys."
Right. Whatever you do, support the bullies. Christ seemed to reach out to the people who were bullied and abused by those in power. That is the problem with the overwhelming image I get from these people who flock to the D. James Kennedy stuff--no Christ. No love for people. No mercy. They are on a crusade to destroy non-Christians or liberal Christians like me, and the language they use suggests that violence could be an option. Whatever happened about reaching out to the poor and the sick? To those who are persecuted? This theology sucks.
--snip--blah blah
The one-two punch of militant activists and big money has helped make the Dominionists a force in Washington, where a growing number of congressmen owe their elections to the machine. Kennedy has also created the Center for Christian Statesmanship, which trains elected officials to "more effectively share their faith in the public arena." Speaking to the group, House Majority Whip Tom DeLay -- a winner of Kennedy's Distinguished Christian Statesman Award -- called Bush's faith-based initiatives "a great opportunity to bring God back into the public institutions of our country."
See? Being a complete amoral asshole is somehow equivalent to being a Christian Statesman? Pass. I prefer the Christianity of Jimmy Carter, thank you very much.
--snip--[jerk congressman who wants to make it legal for churches to be politically overt and still be tax exempt. I still say, take care of what you pray for, jerk ass]
"You cannot have a strong nation that does not follow God," Jones preaches, working up to a climactic, passionate plea for a biblical republic. "God, please -- God, please -- God, please -- save America!"
Hey! On that last part we agree. I hope God will save America too, but from people like D. James Kennedy.
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