From Chris Hedges Soldiers of the Christ II:
MacDonald leaves little doubt that the convention is meant to serve as a rallying cry for a new and particularly militant movement in Christian politics, one that is sometimes mistaken for another outbreak of mere revivalism. In fact, this movement is a curious hybrid of fundamentalists, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, conservative Catholics, Charismatics, and other evangelicals, all of whom are at war doctrinally but who nonetheless share a belief that America is destined to become a Christian nation, led by Christian men who are in turn directed by God. For someone like me, who grew up in the church and was keenly aware of the rigid lines imposed by warring sects and denominations, the new alliances are startling. I notice uniformed officers from the Salvation Army at the convention, something that would have been unthinkable in the past. Lately, the leaders of the movement have even begun to reach out to the Mormons.
What the disparate sects of this movement, known as Dominionism, share is an obsession with political power. A decades-long refusal to engage in politics at all following the Scopes trial has been replaced by a call for Christian “dominion” over the nation and, eventually, over the earth itself. Dominionists preach that Jesus has called them to build the kingdom of God in the here and now, whereas previously it was thought that we would have to wait for it. America becomes, in this militant biblicism, an agent of God, and all political and intellectual opponents of America’s Christian leaders are viewed, quite simply, as agents of Satan. Under Christian dominion, America will no longer be a sinful and fallen nation but one in which the Ten Commandments form the basis of our legal system, Creationism and “Christian values” form the basis of our educational system, and the media and the government proclaim the Good News to one and all. Aside from its proselytizing mandate, the federal government will be reduced to the protection of property rights and “homeland” security. Some Dominionists (not all of whom accept the label, at least not publicly) would further require all citizens to pay “tithes” to church organizations empowered by the government to run our social-welfare agencies, and a number of influential figures advocate the death penalty for a host of “moral crimes,” including apostasy, blasphemy, sodomy, and witchcraft. The only legitimate voices in this state will be Christian. All others will be silenced.
The traditional evangelicals, those who come out of Billy Graham’s mold, are not necessarily comfortable with the direction taken by the Dominionists, who now control most of America’s major evangelical organizations, from the NRB to the Southern Baptist Convention, and may already claim dominion over the Christian media outlets. But Christians who challenge Dominionists, even if they are fundamentalist or conservative or born-again, tend to be ruthlessly thrust aside.
Now is it just me or are we seeing more and more of us on the left trying to convey this same message? William Fisher writes about it; Doris Colmes writes about it; Mark Drolette writes about it; and on and on and so far forth. Why? Because it is palpable and perceptible and realizable in whatever form we can make manifest in the world around us. There are a great many things to fear in this world, but neo-feudal christo-fascism controlled by the Lords of Capital will be the most significant threat to the well being of planet earth since the three great extinctions and last super asteroid. A constituency of faithful believers rallied through their common religious calling, will destroy the earth to save themselves for their god. What they will never realize is that they won't destroy the earth. They will simply destroy the mass of humanity and most of the earth's infrastructure as well as themselves, in order that a few extremely powerful and wealthy individuals can live on this planet without worrying about competition for the resources necessary to satisfy their maximum pleasures. Can anyone of the faithful really believe that Dobson or Haggard or Bush or DeLay will welcome them into their private highly guarded super-protected well stocked enclave when the chaos ensues? No, they will lock themselves away in their sealed bunkers and let it all play out counting on the billions of deaths to restock the less than productive soils and provide nutrients and resources for the microbes of decay to cleanse the refuse of the planet. Then they will exit their burbclaves and venture forth into a their brave new world.
