Shocking Article on Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism

[grannyfranny100]

Chris Hedges has written an insightful article about a strongly emerging political force: Dominionism or Christian Reconstructionism. If one was reared as a mainstream Christian, the article presents a chilling perspective on a subset of Christianity that seeks to create a theocratic state. "It fuses with the Christian religion the iconography and language of American imperialism and nationalism, along with the cruelest aspects of corporate capitalism." http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_radical_christian_right_and_the_war_on_government_20131006. This is an important and shocking article if one is a spiritual seeker as are most people on this forum.

Given Chris Hedges' mix of journalism and academic credentials in Divinity, he has a unique perspective on the clash between religion and politics in the U.S. The following is his bio:

"Chris Hedges is a fellow at The Nation Institute and spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for the Christian Science Monitor, NPR, the Dallas Morning News, and the New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

Hedges was part of the team of reporters at the New York Times awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. He also received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in 2002. Hedges, who writes a weekly column on Truthdig, was honored by the Los Angeles Press Club as the Online Journalist of the Year in 2009, and won the Best Online Column Award in 2010 for his Truthdig essay, "One Day We'll All Be Terrorists."

Hedges has taught at Columbia University, New York University, and Princeton University. He currently teaches inmates at a correctional facility in New Jersey.

Hedges began his career reporting the war in El Salvador. Following six years in Latin America, he took time off to study Arabic and then went to Jerusalem and later Cairo. He spent seven years in the Middle East, most of them as the bureau chief there for the New York Times. He left the Middle East in 1995 for Sarajevo to cover the war in Bosnia and later reported the war in Kosovo. Afterward, he joined the Times's investigative team and was based in Paris to cover al-Qaeda. He left the Times after being issued a formal reprimand for denouncing the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq.

He has written numerous books, including Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt (Nation Books, 2012), The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress (Nation Books, 2013), Death of the Liberal Class (Nation Books, 2010), Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (Nation Books, 2009), and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2008). His book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.

Hedges holds a BA in English literature from Colgate University and a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, California. In addition to writing a weekly original column for Truthdig, he has written for Harper's magazine, the New Statesman, the New York Review of Books, The Nation, Adbusters, Granta, Foreign Affairs, and other publications."

[panopticon]

Thank you Grannyfranny100 for this article.

It is hard for many who don't live in the US to understand the way in which the right-wing conservative Christian groups have moved into a position of power there. I certainly don't.

In Australia they'd be largely laughed at as nutters. That's simply the truth.

Hedges article reminded me of Adam Curtis' 2012 article: 'Who Would God Vote For? (www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/who_would_god_vote_for)'

Then there's Curtis' documentary series 'The Power of Nightmares (archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares-Episode1BabyItsColdOutside)' which has been posted and talked about on Avalon before.

Just as an aside, did you know that in Australia you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who has even heard of Ayn Rand? I hadn't until a few years ago.
Shocks a lot of US citizens cause they've been bought up on her books so I'm told.

It truly is a terrifying thought that the so-called "policeman of the world" could head towards being a theocracy.

Truly terrifying.
-- Pan

[Shannow]

I received a little book in the mail the other day after sending a handful of stamps and a self addressed envelope, and the little book describes how certain subsets of the Catholic Church are willing to do almost anything to get back to a system where the masses are ignorant (services in Latin as an example), and even supportive of the Monarchy if that's what it takes to keep control of the minds of the peasants...bit chilling with a bloke who's sometimes referred to as "the Mad Monk" in charge of the country, when it's his order that are fingered...

Having spent a year living with Opus Dei, quite happily doing their thing in one of our prestigious educational institutions, been a target of the local old boys handshake network...Aussies are pretty ignorant in general about how shallowly deep you have to scratch the surface to find some festering sores.

[grannyfranny100]

Thank you for your responses blokes! The year the Opera House opened in Sydney, I was in in your country and Figi. It was our honeymoon trip (he worked for the airlines so free airfare) and we spent most of the visit at the Great Barrier Reef. Aussies were extremely open, gregarious people, much more the beer drinkers than we were. Back then, U.S. people in the north drank scotch and southerners drank bourbon. Nowadays everyone drinks beer but aren't necessarily as friendly as Aussies!

I thought Hedges gave me some insight about the appeal of Christian Reconstructionism. They are targeting poor white people who can't find jobs paying enough to live the comfortable lives on their TVs.

When you "scratch the surface," I suspect this touches their painful feelings that they are what black slaves were during segregation. Not a fun thought whatever one's race is. The Democrats no longer champion unions and their efforts to build the middle class so they don't offer any hope. Meanwhile the Republicans use the religious ruse as a pressure valve to keep the disadvantaged underclass under their thumbs.

Republican Tea Party Senator Cruz's father is a pastor of such a church. These Republicans now write legislation that keep the underclass where they are financially while they press the middle class down with them.

[Snowflower]

Google "dominionism" for some truly terrifying articles about US politics. The movement is pervasive thru the congress and white house.

[grannyfranny100]

Snowflower, you are right a search does turn up lots of articles and most are rather scary. Thank you.

I still remember a story in the press about Bush and cronies laughing. They had some fundamentalist leader in the Oval office - not a large price to pay for all the votes the church leader represented. When he left, they all broke up in laughter.

T'is a shame how gullible some fringe Christians can be- like Jews digging their own mass graves before being gassed to death by the Nazis. Sadly, the few churches or tent revivals I attended out of curiosity were run by pastors who came from impoverished, underclass backgrounds. Their options were to be drug dealers or pastors. Their training did not seem on par with the pastors at mainstream churches.

In Europe, religious fundamentalism is rare. Perhaps because the governments do provide more services that give people a leg up while our government is taking them away. And perhaps because the Europeans are better educated. For example many educational abroad programs (in my day) required U.S. students to be outstanding juniors before taking first year university classes abroad. And those European kids who were not truly university inclined were offered great training programs in fields that the government knew would have many opportunities in the coming decades. Electing that training did not seem to be a mark of distain.

Over here, we just spin some "go to college" propaganda and kids become college loan debt slaves even when they drop out and have no skills for decent paying jobs. The Republicans are on to something with courting the church leaders who cultivate the disenfranchised.

[panopticon]

Yeah, this is a lot more detailed than I was anticipating heading on for 2 in the morning...

All modern societies, and most ancient ones, have a strata that aims to collect money, control and power.
Collectively they are usually referred to as the elite.

Hedges talks of one group of power brokers, a faction if you will, who use the power of a shared belief to gain support to promote themselves and their agenda. While I don't doubt that some of them believe their own rhetoric, I think that the power of the idea is what appeals to many.

Usually it's power that gets people to act. Either working with that power or against it. In this case however it's an idea that gets people to follow and that's a lot more dangerous. Power can shift and be exposed but an idea entails belief in it and it takes real work to change the mind of a true believer. Once you have though, they are your greatest advocate. I've seen that change. It is fierce and it is defiant. Maybe they just replace the belief for something with a belief against it but that's a philosophical question best left for another time.

I've seen people who hated unions stand on a picket line and scream at the boss they protected a month previously. I've seen them go on to be exceptional advocates and fight for their co-workers rights. I've seen fundamentalist Christians shift from their faith because of personal experiences. I've helped lots of people see through their "black and white" view of the world and I know the danger of an idea and the power it holds.

That is what these people are tapping into and it can be a double edged blade.

It has been shown that it only takes a committed minority to sway the concensus of a group (Xie et al. 2001: Social consensus through the influence of committed minorities (http://arxiv.org/abs/1102.3931)). Strange as it may seem that minority quickly becomes the majority once it hits the 10% mark. That is the danger of the religious right in the US. If they get to that 10% across the nation then there is a real prospect that it will become a theocracy (if not in name then in action).

In the same way however, if they are shown to be charlatans/snake oil salesman, then the tide will turn and that committed minority will grow against them. It doesn't take much for that to happen either. How long before we see these up-right good Christian folks shagging their kid's nanny or doing something unsavoury that goes against their "congregations" morals? It's money, control and power that many of these people want and religion is just a means to an end (that goes for their preachers to).

Of course it's the corporate machinations of capitalist power brokers that influences who does what and when they do it. This was clearly illustrated by Vitali et al. in their 2011 research paper: 'The Network of Global Corporate Control (www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0025995)'. In this paper Vitali et al. showed that there is a core group of corporate entities that are central to the global economy. This is the group that finance who gets where and who does what.

This group wants certain things that benefit their money, control and power (MCP). They exert their influence (ie MCP) so as to promote their agenda. We only need to look at the revolving door policies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)) to see how personnel is moved around in such a way as to be beneficial to these groups. They also operate on other layer and levels in such a way as to benefit themselves.

So I reckon that the potential danger of a theocracy developing in the US is limited unless the financiers see it being to their advantage.

I doubt this will happen as it is more profitable to have people believe they are free and making their own decisions.

Any way I best get some shut eye.