“. . . The ultimate test of leadership is not the polls you take, but the risks you take. In the short run, some risks prove overwhelming. Political courage can be self-defeating. But the greatest defeat of all would be to live without courage, for that would hardly be living at all.”
"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more." ~Dr. Seuss
"He was created of a mother whom he created. He was carried by hands that he formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, he, the Word, without whom all human eloquence is mute." ~ Augustine of Hippo
"Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift." 2 Corinthians 9:15
"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground." (NIV)
"Ralph Reed, the executive director of the conservative public policy group the Christian Coalition (as having) criticized Reconstructionism as "an authoritarian ideology that threatens the most basic civil liberties of a free and democratic society." ....
"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matt. 28:19-20).
"Gary North claims that 'the ideas of the Reconstructionists have penetrated into Protestant circles that for the most part are unaware of the original source of the theological ideas that are beginning to transform them.' North describes the 'three major legs of the Reconstructionist movement [as] the Presbyterian oriented educators, the Baptist school headmasters and pastors, and the charismatic telecommunications system'." 8
"What this means is that hundreds of thousands of Pentecostals and charismatic Christians, as well as many fundamentalist Baptists, have moved out of the apolitical camp. Many have thrown themselves into political work--not merely as voters, but as ideologically driven activists, bringing a reconstructed "Biblical world view" to bear on their area of activism.
This is probably the lasting contribution of Reconstructionism. Whether it is Operation Rescue activists called to anti-abortion work because of Francis Schaeffer's books, or Pentecostals who responded to the politicizing ministry and electoral ambitions of Pat Robertson during the 1970s and 1980s, the politicization of Pentecostalism is one of the major stories of modern American politics.
Indeed, Robertson has been pivotal in this process, mobilizing Pentecostals and charismatics into politics through his books, TV programs, Regent University, the 1988 presidential campaign, and his political organizations--first the Freedom Council in the 1980s and then the Christian Coalition...."
"While attacks on civil liberties can come from any direction, the political and Christian Right use skillful marketing that exploits the public’s desire for quick solutions and capitalizes on today’s hectic information flow. With clever slogans that oversimplify complex public policy issues, the Right routinely scapegoats others in pursuit of their agenda."
"PRA responds with fair and accurate analysis, looking beneath the sound-bites and slogans of the Right, exposing the true goals and agendas of specific leaders, organizations and movements. We then present our analysis in ways that can help the media, advocates and educators understand and challenge the Right." (emphasis mine)
"And this is his commandment. That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment." 1 John 3:23
"Jeanmarie Condon, a senior producer for ABC News said she believes the three-fold role of ABC and the rest of the news media is:
-- “To take seriously the fact that religion is a major mover and motivator for people all around the world and that it needs to be considered carefully in our coverage of almost any story.
-- “Not to treat it like an anthropological study, but to cover it from the inside, to look at what ideas people are debating, what causes conflict within various movements, what people agree on, what’s bothering them, what people are talking about around their Sunday dinner table.
-- “And the third thing is to provoke discussion.”"
"Dominionism...seeks to establish specific political policies based on religious beliefs.
It is most often used to describe POLITICALLY ACTIVE conservative Christians WITH A SPECIFIC AGENDA. The term is rarely used as a self-description; many feel it is a loaded or pejorative term, and USE OF THE TERM IS PRIMARILY LIMITED TO CRITICS OF THE Christian Right." (emphasis mine)
"If politically active Christians who are seeking a specific agenda are "Dominionists" there are plenty of progressive Christian "Dominionists," as well."
"If someone were to ask, could two women senior citizens change the course of the political atmosphere in America today? I would say, “Not a chance.” Yet after I built this web site—after I looked at the “images for a corrupt time,” I began to believe that with your help we can change the course of history.
I’m not saying that my mother and I are special. We’re not. We are a mother daughter team. I’m the daughter—Katherine Yurica—...I’m in my sixties....Now we're* driving a 1993 Subaru I bought in April. Everything works on it! And it's got all wheel drive! It's name is Beeep! She's adjusting to life with us and learning how to counsel me on all important decisions! She'll only use unleaded fuel, and she likes to have her face and windows washed once a day! She'd like you to know that we're just plain ordinary born again Christians!...
I was educated at East Los Angeles College where I was elected the first woman student body president and earned an A.A. degree in English. I received my B.A. in English literature at U.S.C. I also attended the USC School of Law, where I was elected the first woman class president in the U.S. In 1966, I began the study of art in Mexico. I was shaken as an artist as I saw what others did not see: America was in trouble. Specialization was creating an airless vacuum where responsibility could not grow. Viet Nam began with a lie and ended with young and beautiful soldiers coming home in body bags. We learned nothing as a people." (emphasis mine)
"Today, there’s a foul wind in the air. America stinks of open hatred, arrogance, greed and a lust for power. There’s a smug complacency brought about, no doubt by a sense of personal comfort that deludes millions into thinking that because they belong to the “in” group—hellish results will be visited only upon another class of Americans. So they live without protest, watching the Republican party become the instrument of the religious right, letting freedoms be torn away from the cloth—the very fabric of our country, and they say nothing. They will endure any hardship so long as they do not have to take a stand against the violent and corrupt among us. Satisfied with the twists and turns this country has made in the last two years, the fiddlers fiddle, while America burns its resources, its dollars, its credibility, its young men and women, and the very heart of our Constitution.
With your help, we can and will change the winds blowing in this nation. Liberty and freedom belong to all Americans, not just to a selected elite. Rush Limbaugh and his ilk have spread poison all over America. It’s a worse poison than anthrax or nerve gas. Those poisons will only kill our bodies, but the poison of the right wing talk show hosts and the religious right can and does enslave the souls of a free people and destroys all that is good and pure and noble in this land."
"Political groups and individuals that worry about how, and to what extent, dominionism influences the Christian Right include People for the American Way, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Interfaith Alliance, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Joan Bokaer[2] and KATHERINE YURICA[3]" (emphasis mine)
"Sara Diamond warns, however, that while dominionism has influenced the Christian Right, liberals too often use hyperbolic language to describe the activities and goals of the Christian Right.[4]
The term "Dominionism" - with its close affiliation with notions of theocracy - can be used pejoratively to inaccurately describes the philosophical underpinnings of some individuals who identify themselves with the Christian Right. Very few of these see the Christian Right as an eschatological political movement designed to usher in the Kingdom of God; for them, the Christian Right articulates the traditional cultural critiques of paleoconservatives in the context of a worldview informed by orthodox Christian teaching.[citation needed] Moreover, many policies endorsed by the Christian Right contradict Dominionist notions. For example, the avid support of school vouchers by the Christian Right could lead to greater plurality in educational institutions, rather than a monolithic education system shaped by Dominionist ideas.[citation needed]"
"Within a period of twenty to thirty years beginning in the 1970’s, Dominionism spread like wild fire throughout the evangelical, Pentecostal and fundamentalist religious communities in America. It was aided and abetted by television and radio evangelists. More than any other man, Pat Robertson mobilized the millions of politically indifferent and socially despised Pentecostals and fundamentalists in America and turned them into an angry potent army of political conquerors.[46]
But it would be a mistake to limit Dominionism to the Pentecostals and fundamentalists alone: conservative Roman Catholics and Episcopalians have joined and enlarged the swelling numbers.[47] Robertson, like other media preachers, used every form of communication: television, radio, books and audio tapes ...
However, it was the Pentecostals and fundamentalists who made up the core of Robertson’s audience. To a people who were largely uneducated and who often remained ignorant even if they went through college because of their fear of becoming tainted by the “world and worldliness,” Dominionism came as a brilliant light that assuaged their deep sense of inferiority. Pentecostals in particular could take comfort from the notion that no longer would the world think of them as “Holy Rollers” who danced in the “Spirit” and practiced glossolalia. This time, they would be on top—they would be the head and not the tail—and the so-called elite, the educated of the world, would be on the bottom." (emphasis mine)
"If someone were to ask, could two women senior citizens change the course of the political atmosphere in America today? I would say, “Not a chance.” Yet after I built this web site—after I looked at the “images for a corrupt time,” I began to believe that with your help we can change the course of history."
"It appears you are trying to redefine "Dominionism" as anyone who "will hang with Bush no matter what," and that's all speculative, as well. How do we know whether any person (or these you identify as 25%) would hang with Bush "no matter what" unless he does "no matter what?" What is "no matter what?"
At any rate, I asked you a question and though perhaps I could have phrased it better, like, say, "What is your opinion of what constitutes a "Dominionist?" You have given me an answer. I wonder if you are engaging in a kind of reverse (?)McCarthyism?... Wherein any Christian who has a traditionalistic world view is suspected of "Dominionism?"
"Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated."
"Dominionists have gained extensive control of the Republican Party and the apparatus of government throughout the United States; they continue to operate secretly. Their agenda to undermine all government social programs that assist the poor, the sick, and the elderly is ingeniously disguised under false labels that confuse voters....
It is estimated that thirty-five million Americans who call themselves Christian, adhere to Dominionism in the United States, but most of these people appear to be ignorant of the heretical nature of their beliefs and the seditious nature of their political goals. So successfully have the televangelists and churches inculcated the idea of the existence of an outside “enemy,” which is attacking Christianity, that millions of people have perceived themselves rightfully overthrowing an imaginary evil anti-Christian conspiratorial secular society."
"In closing, there is one final thing I know. We Americans are better than what has been done in our name. A majority of us were upset and angry after 9/11 and we lost our minds. We didn't think straight and we never looked at a map. Because we are kept stupid through our pathetic education system and our lazy media, we knew nothing of history." (emphasis mine)
"Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state."
"There is really not much difference between the Muslims that want to convert all of us by the sword, and the crazy Xtian Dominionist Americans who want to convert everyone by the sword."
"Is there a large percentage of the Christian population who you would consider to be "dominionists?""
"What do you consider to be indicative of "Dominionism?" Clearly not all Christians are "Dominionists," so which Christians are? "
"Last I heard the crazies were about 25 % of America."
"The dominionist interpretation sees adherents as heeding a command from God to all humankind to subject the world to the rule of the Word of God. The terminology of dominionism, and the broad concept of the trend described by critics, has been taken from the King James Version of the Bible, Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.Christians typically interpret this verse as meaning that God gave humankind responsibility over the Earth, but anti-Dominionist critics commonly point to this passage as a paradigm that influences Christian attitudes of Western domination over the Earth and everything in it."
I find it interesting that the term is "most often used to describe politically active conservative Christians with a specific agenda." It is not used to describe politically active progressive Christians with a specific agenda. What would be the difference? If politically active Christians who are seeking a specific agenda are "Dominionists" there are plenty of progressive Christian "Dominionists," as well."Dominionism...seeks to establish specific political policies based on religious beliefs.
It is most often used to describe politically active conservative Christians with a specific agenda. The term is rarely used as a self-description; many feel it is a loaded or pejorative term, and use of the term is primarily limited to critics of the Christian Right.
The term emerged in relation to the Christian Right in the mid-1990s, but became more widely known due in large part to the U.S. presidential election, 2004 where the media attributed Republican wins to Evangelical voters in Red states who voted for "moral values".[1] "
"Sara Diamond warns, however, that while dominionism has influenced the Christian Right, liberals too often use hyperbolic language to describe the activities and goals of the Christian Right.[4]
The term "Dominionism" - with its close affiliation with notions of theocracy - can be used pejoratively to inaccurately describes the philosophical underpinnings of some individuals who identify themselves with the Christian Right. Very few of these see the Christian Right as an eschatological political movement designed to usher in the Kingdom of God; for them, the Christian Right articulates the traditional cultural critiques of paleoconservatives in the context of a worldview informed by orthodox Christian teaching.[citation needed] Moreover, many policies endorsed by the Christian Right contradict Dominionist notions. For example, the avid support of school vouchers by the Christian Right could lead to greater plurality in educational institutions, rather than a monolithic education system shaped by Dominionist ideas"
"Do you include the growing population of Progressive Christians among those Dominionists since they are actively trying to link Progressive politics with Christian values?"
"The Progressives in the Church are less well known, I link Mainstream Baptist in the sidebar. I just heard of a minister of a megachurch who lost his congregation because he was interested in things like poverty and peace, rather than abortion and gays."
"Still not convinced that today's Republican "Christians" are in the same league as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in Afghanistan? In a moment you will be able to decide for yourself whether or not James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Donald Wildmon, Jerry Falwell, and other so-called Christian leaders are any less dangerous than the Imams and Ayatollahs preaching and practicing radical versions of Islam."
"Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contrary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform" - Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 - 731"
