http://www.theocracywatch.org

It is Dominion We Are After

Author and educator George Grant was Executive Director of Coral Ridge Ministries for many years. He explains in The Changing of the Guard, Biblical Principles for Political Action:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.

But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.

It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.

It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.

It is dominion we are after.

World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. (pp. 50-51)

How did this happen?

Voter apathy is the key to the phenomenal ascent of the theocratic right in the U.S. government.

With the apathy that exists today, a small, well-organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree.

Pat Robertson wrote those words in The Millennium, 1990, and it has been a key organizing principle of the theocratic right ever since.

Pat Robertson tells us who makes up that "well-organized minority." It includes only Christians who share his point of view. As he said on his television program, the 700 Club: "You say you're supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists, and this and that and the other thing. Nonsense! I don't have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist." (Pat Robertson, the Most Dangerous Man in America?, p. 149.)

"The apathy of other Americans can become a blessing and advantage to Christians," wrote Mark Beliles and Stephen McDowell in 1989, in America's Providential History, a popular textbook for Christian schools and the Christian homeschool movement.

If just 10% of all Christians in America today woke up and realized how easy it is, got involved consistently for the long haul, it would not take long to reform America completely. (p.266)

For the authors, the term "Christian" refers uniquely to people who share their "Christian" nation worldview. The word "reform" is key. It means reforming the United States so that it becomes a "Christian" nation.

Where do we go from here?

The most important issue of the moment, and the least recognized, is the Senate filibuster. The only leverage that Senate Democrats and moderate Republicans have left is the filibuster. If the Republican leadership removes the filibuster then the theocratic right will have a carte blanche to appoint Scalia clones to the Supreme Court. If two or three Scalia clones are added to the court, the theocratic right will control all three branches of the U.S. government. If the Senate Republicans employ what they call "the nuclear option," then it's time to take to the streets following the example in Ukraine!

How to Beat the Christian Right, Part I, by Frederick Clarkson, DailyKos, March 20, 2005:

The answer to the power of the Christian Right is electoral power of our own. No excuses. Many of us have tended to abandon this cornerstone of citizenship in favor of other things.  It is time to get our priorities strait. Less talk, more action. Less entertainment, more citizen involvement. Less TV and sports. More electoral politics. Do we want the theocrats to win?  More electoral politics.

If we believe that democracy is a good thing, we need to learn to get very good at it. We need to be better at it than those who would destroy it.

While a record number of people voted in the 2004 elections, there are still 100 million eligible voters who didn't vote. The theocratic right began to seriously mobilize politically in the United States twenty-five years ago, and it is being noticed only now! We need to educate the American public about the political goals of the theocratic right.

The political momentum of the 2004 election needs to be sustained. The theocratic right has historically targeted midterm elections because voter turnout is much smaller than in Presidential elections. Those who favor Democracy and a pluralistic society need to be passionate about saving our Constitution, and they need to be involved in politics. Legislators representing the theocratic right can be replaced in the 2006 elections, but it will take hard, sustained work, and lots of passion.

And traditional Republicans need to wake up. George Bush was re-elected because he hid behind moderates. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, spoke at the Republican Convention about how the Republican Party is tolerant and inclusive. His speech demonstrates that this country values tolerance and diversity.

But the theocratic right is not a movement of tolerance. In the words of the Christian Coalition field director, Bill Thomson, the "leftist" foes should be destroyed:

You're going to run over them. Get around them, run over the top of them, destroy them - whatever you need to do so that God's word is the word that is being practiced in Congress, town halls and state legislatures. That's your job.

Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor of New Jersey who favors environmental protections, stepped down as director of the Environmental Protection Agency, an agency that has become, under the Bush administration, an advocate for polluters. Strangely, after she left the EPA in frustration, she then went on to lead the Bush re-election campaign in New Jersey. As long as the theocratic right can hide behind moderates, it will be easier for them to remain in power.

Senator Arlen Specter, (R-PA) is considered a moderate even though he received an 80% scorecard from Christian Coalition. This high scorecard from the theocratic right was not enough to protect him from the RINO hunters, a group dedicated to purging the Republican Party of moderates. They tried to defeat him in a difficult primary campaign.

Specter, a pro-choice Republican, has supported Bush's anti-choice judicial nominees 100% of the time. In order to become Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Specter has promised that he will continue to support all of the President's nominations. It is time to educate moderate Republicans about the forces driving their Party.

And we need to stop using terms such as "Christian," "conservative" and most of all "moral," and start calling it what it is: theocracy.