Free Faith Fellowship
is theistic accepting a Christian approach to theology, ethics and liturgy but open to diverse understandings of God and relating to him. The ministry holds Hebrew and Christian scriptures sacred but seeks inspiration in the so-called lost or Gnostic gospels as well. The common saints such as St Francis Assisi, Thomas Aquinas and Teresa of Avila are revered but so are the “saints” such as Martin Luther King Jr, Mohandas Gandhi.
Readings
A. One Person's Free Faith
B. The Need For Evangelical Liberal Religion
C. Understanding The Christian Right
One Person's Free Faith
An agnostic friend of mine once opined that in his acquaintance he knew no one who believed in God. I surprised him by countering that he knew me, and that I believed in God. I presume I appear to others as a rational creature, a skeptic of metaphysical claims, an opponent of fundamentalism of all sorts, and yet I am a philosophical Theist.
I believe in God.
Why? Why not?
The idea of God makes sense to me.
I am influenced by the teleological argument. Design does suggest a designer.
It is certainly possible that design may have been brought about as a consequence of random sequencing events. It is possible but doesn’t seem probable. Entropy is universal yet Life itself is anti-entropic. Whatever prompted the blending of amino acids with an energy source so as to produce that first spark, and then nudged that spark into a cellular construction, and then into yet further complexity, that is what I conceive of as God.
Could this be some thing else? Cosmic consciousness? Primal life force? Ground of being? Perhaps. But “God” fits.
This is my primary rationale for Theism.
Does my Theism lead to a personal God or to a God with a personality? Maybe. I don’t know.
My supporting rationale is this: All men and women believe in “gods” of their own choosing. The most advanced atheist worships at the altar of something. It may be money, social approval, sex, booze, material possessions, intellect or a thousand other things. The objects of worship might not be called “god” but they are worshipped nevertheless.
It thus makes sense to me to acknowledge that we have such beliefs, and to elevate that which we worship from a thing of little consequence to something above and beyond, something that can be held as the Most High, some thing greater than any little god.
This is not to say that I do not fall at times and worship the idols of the day. If as Whitehead said, a person’s religion is to be found in what they do when they are alone, then I am a devotee of book-worship. My temple is a library. Yet I think it would be best to place my faith in a God not bound by the covers of a book.
Am I a Christian?
Yes and no.
If being a Christian were a crime there probably is not enough evidence to convict me although there would be enough to sustain probable cause for an arrest. I am culturally Christian as I was born and raised in a Christian culture.
If not raised in the West, I could have been culturally a Confucian, a Buddhist, a Bramo Samaj Hindu, a Renewal Jew, a Bahai or a Sufi.
Liturgically, I am an Anglo-Catholic. This does not suggest a theology but an esthetic sense that appreciates High Church forms. For the secular, think of it as performance art.
Theologically, I am an old-style Unitarian or Liberal Quaker, who with Thomas Paine, believes in at most one God.
Ethically, I am a Humanist. I intend to do good to my fellow creatures not in compliance with Divine command but because I share a common “creature-ness” and thus empathize. I strive for good because I wish to experience good, I refrain from evil because I feel the pain that evil can cause.
I do not believe in Revelation as a source of knowledge. Knowledge is empirically derived and rationally constructed. Therefore, I know that I cannot know that there is a God. it is faith, it is trust, it is not science.
I understand the Agnostic who asserts they do not know. I understand the Theist who believes. I do not understand the Atheist who cannot know anymore than Agnostics or Theists yet have a faith that there is no God.
Did God pre-exist the Universe? I don’t know. Perhaps God was born with the Big Bang. It may be that God came to consciousness through the collaborative sentience of humanity. Maybe God would die if all sentiment life were to cease. When it comes to God, I only know that I know so little.
This then is my religion, I choose to take a leap of faith, I choose to trust in God. I bear no ill will to those who cannot believe or who cannot trust. I really don’t mind. I don’t think God does either. I think that She is really quite tolerant.
I think that the difference between Theists and Non-Theists is like the difference between those who love poetry and those committed solely to prose. It may be our natures or it may be a sign of Grace.
Winston Churchill, asked as to whether he believed in the legend of King Arthur and Camelot, said, “It is true, most true, very, very true. But if it is not then it ought to be”.
God is true, most true, very, very true but if not then perhaps God shall be made True by faith.
A. T. Cameron
(c) 2005
The Need For
Evangelical Liberal Religion
Guest Sermon Unity Unitarian Church
St Paul Minnesota 1978
Five years ago a book appeared answering the question, “Why Conservative Churches Are Growing”. In it Dean Kelley charted the rapid growth of conservative Protestant churches. Churches that have rejected reason for spirit, tolerance for strictness and ecumenism for exclusivity have achieved phenomenal growth in membership and financial support.
Mr. Kelley asserts that humans are meaning-seeking beings. And he finds that the conservative churches are succeeding by meeting that need for meaning.
Apparently liberal churches have lost themselves in social action projects, building funds, business investments and recreational activities. The conservatives meanwhile have provided “meaning” for many.
I have had some personal experience in support of this contention.
I have been a Unitarian for about seven years. And for another four years before that I acknowledged myself to be a religious liberal without church affiliation.
My childhood experience was evangelical and moderately Pentecostal.
I remember an early church service in a Full Gospel Church in south Minneapolis. As a child I had little understanding of the service but was impressed by the Spirit shared there. Time and again I would find that spiritual sense in conservative and pentecostal services. I have witnessed the exchange of Peace at many churches, the clasping of hands of those sitting near you in the pews but I have never experienced the sense of love that appears to be natural to conservative services.
In contrast, my first experience at a Unitarian service (not Unity Unitarian) was less welcoming. I found the speaker intellectually stimulating but there was no sense of spirit, nor anything remotely resembling love. After the service, I attended the coffee hour and stood by myself for 20-30 minutes. No one greeted me nor involved me in their conversations.
Religious liberalism, and particularly Unitarianism, prides itself on being a non-proselytizing faith. Perhaps we have lost something in this commitment to leave others undisturbed
Thomas Jefferson believed that Unitarianism would become the dominant faith in the
I don’t advocate licensing Elmer Gantrys to propagate liberalism, but I do think that the conservatives are gaining because they try, and we don’t.
I am not seeking a Unitarian conversion to fundamentalism. I am troubled by the content of the evangelical message. I worry that it is unhealthy intellectually and emotionally.
A cousin of mine, a bright girl, straight-A’s in high school, told me that she had no intent to go to college or to otherwise prepare for a career. The Lord was coming and there was no future for which to prepare. This is a terrible waste of a life and of a mind. Too many have succumbed to this fantasy.
Evangelicals have an unhealthy preference to leave it to Jesus. An evangelical Christian society would be hobbled by this psychological dependency. It will be difficult enough as it is to cope with the problems facing humanity but to give up trying would be a sin!
The evangelical faith is too often used by those who wish to maintain their power in society. I recall during the American war in
I do not treasure dependency and submission as virtues.
The evangelical condemns pride as the original sin, the religious liberal, along with Harvey Cox, may find the original sin to be that of intellectual laziness. Adam and Eve let a snake do the thinking for them.
Religious liberalism has no crutches, no props, no simple answers. It bis not an easy faith.
Since it is not an easy faith, I cannot agree with Dean Kelley who finds conservative churches successful because they are strict and liberals are weak and soft.
The greatest demand a faith can make is to require individuals to think for themselves. Evangelicals and fundamentalists don’t do that. We do.
So why are they succeeding?
I do not believe that “they” have found IT. Nor have we lost anything.
We have let the battle go by default.
We have been unwilling, and perhaps too polite, to challenge the doctrine, theology and practices of the religious right. We have become so tolerant that we have failed to enter into the debate. We should argue with them. We should contest them for each and every soul.
Our religion has for too long been private. We need to bring it public.
People who worship small mean gods become small mean people. Our God is larger than theirs, more understanding and more loving.
I urge religious liberals to begin evangelizing.
Let the Unitarians become the Jesuits of the liberal church: Let us act as the shock-troops for free faith, for generosity, for the “good news” that men and women can think for themselves.
Our God welcomes those who have the courage and spirit to confront the Universe and shape it according to hearts’ desire without fear and trembling before a jealous god.
Understanding the Christian Right
Reflecting upon the prevalence of Christian Right thinking in the contemporary culture and within the dominant political clique in Washington, it occurs to me that we may not all be using the same terminology. It is perhaps understandable that those of a secular orientation generally find Apocalyptists, Dominionists, Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, and Millennialists to all be a bit odd and accordingly class them together. This is given greater emphasis by a Media that holds very little understanding of religion.
Christian Politics
There is a Christian Right and it supports, or uses, or is used by the political class currently in power. We can watch a Ken Copeland, a Bob Tilton or a Benny Hinn on television practice healing and consider them a part of the Christian Right. We read of the political escapades of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell and link them to the Christian Right. We learn of the crusades of Billy Graham or the Promise Keepers and place them with the Christian Right.
Christian supporters of
One of the notable elements of Conservative writing about liberals and the Left is their intent to confound activists and thinkers of disparate backgrounds and with contrary objectives as all part of a single comprehensive left-wing conspiracy. John Dewey and Walter Lippmann were both socialists and therefore conspiring together. Yet anyone with any familiarity with the work of these men will find they disagreed vehemently and quite publicly. The Progressive Party of 1948 was infiltrated by Communists; therefore, “progressivism” is a code word for Communism.
Bill and Hilary Clinton were active in the McGovern campaign of 1972, and this proves that they are neo-Marxist exemplars of counterculture (no kidding, this was advanced by former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich). Silly, yes, but let us not make the same mistake when analyzing the Right
Although the media routinely tells us how powerful the Christian Right is within the White House, it is notable that the only Evangelical with a policy job during the first term, the head of the faith-based initiatives office quit after 18 months. The policymakers are selected from pragmatic politicians and neoconservative thinkers not the Christian Right; it is interesting to note that the Svengali of the administration, Karl Rove, has no record of religious interests or commitments. Neither does his closest friend, Grover Norquist, who is best known for making allusions to Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist revolutionary doctrine.
The record of the Bush regime is more one of illusions manufactured for the benefit of an Evangelical audience than the delivery of the good in policy-production or programmatic output. Bush declaims as to the sanctity of marriage and the need for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions before the election and drops the matter soon thereafter. A family’s agony is prolonged to “give life the benefit of the doubt”, gather some headlines and then dropped with the dowsing of the klieg lights.
Even the faith-based initiative so promoted during the first campaign is more like old-fashioned vote buying than any innovation in public funding. The
The administration made a bold gesture in appealing to Christian Zionists by assigning several of them as consultants to the embassy in
Billions are allocated for Iraqi reconstruction with appropriate pay-offs to Sunni, Shiite, Kurdish and Turkoman interests. The Iraqi Christian community received nothing from its co-religionist in the White House. In fact, all faith communities were allowed to retain their own militias in the aftermath of the invasion except that of the Chaldeans, Iraqi Christians. It was the only militia disarmed by
I do believe that “Christianism” like its counterpart, Islamism is on the rise and I see evidence that the Busheviks make appeal for its support. I just don’t see any evidence that the movement or its ideas have achieved the power that its adherents desire, or that secularists fear
Who Are “They”?
The most common mistake made when thinking about Evangelical Christians and related communities is to consider them all as part and parcel of one whole. They are most definitely not. They do not share the same ideas nor necessarily the same approach to politics.
It is remarkable but the secular Media and the smallest sectarian Bible Fundamentalist Church share one common assumption and that is that “they”, the particular church or ministry, and it matters not which sect, they are the exemplars of Christianity. A televangelist will pontificate upon one or another issue of public affairs, and the Media will report it as a representation of the “Christian” perspective.
Two thousand years of history and 2 billion adherents worldwide, and “Christianity” is represented by some con man with a dime store diploma? Why? Because he says so, and because the Media is so ignorant that they repeat it as, well, as gospel.
If there is only one thing to be learned from this essay it is this: Most Christians are not Protestant, most Protestants are not Evangelical, most Evangelicals are not Fundamentalist, and most Fundamentalists are not in agreement on anything. Furthermore, among the Christians who are outside of the mainline Protestant denominations, there is considerable discord as to the basics of the faith.
I offer this basic guideline:
Evangelicals
First, a common misunderstanding, as any student of the Reformation knows, the churches separating from
An “evangelist” is one who spreads the gospel. An “evangelical” is an adherent of Evangelical Christianity.
Evangelicals are Protestant Christians who may or may not be members of a mainline church but who do share these common beliefs:
1) A belief in having a personal relationship with God as Jesus Christ;
2) A belief that this relationship has “saved” the believer in some way from sin and damnation;
3) A belief that the “good news” or gospel of this salvation should be spread to others by personal and collective evangelism; and,
4) A belief that the Bible, and especially the New Testament, is to be used as a guide to living and understanding God’s will.
Evangelicals tended to vote for Bush against Kerry, but had supported
Furthermore, one of every ten white Evangelicals may be considered “progressives”, and another 2 of five are not only politically inert but also antagonistic to the very idea of a Christian politics. They are Pietist in orientation and commit themselves to a faithful and moral life but regard politics in general as demeaning. A Pietist will vote and will likely vote for the candidate he or she believes to be moral. But Pietistic Evangelicals consider themselves a part of another, better world and are loath to tie themselves to a this-worldly political cause.
Revivalism
Revivalism is not a belief-system but a tool of evangelism. Evangelicals commonly believe in the need to evangelize and some of them use the tool of the “revival” to do so. A revival will constitute a series of meetings held in churches, tents, fields or parking lots during which an evangelist will proclaim the “good news” by the Word, testimony and hymn-singing. “Preaching the Word” is citation of Biblical words and phrases for persuasive effect. “Testimony” is the offering of personal histories by previous converts. Charismatics, to be discussed below, will add such features as healings, glossalia and/or uncontrollable collective laughter and body seizures to the repertoire.
The climax of the evening will involve a “coming to Jesus” during which time sinners and backsliders will come forward to the front of the church or tent, confess his sins and declare a willingness to walk in the Light of a new life.
It was, and still is to a degree, a custom in many small towns, for the men of a town to look forward to a revival so that they could get “liquored-up” on Saturday night, and be brought back to the Light on Sunday. The wives were thus denied the opportunity to complain since God had duly forgiven the men-folk.
Revivalism is declining and being replaced by televangelism.
Fundamentalism
Although Fundamentalists will represent themselves as a continuation of the First Century Christian Church, they originate in the early 20th century. Troubled by the excesses of the roaring Twenties, jazz music, bathtub gin, automotive mobility, urbanization, sexual immorality, the teaching of evolution and the Biblical criticism in mainline seminaries, a group of businessmen funded the publication of a series of books on “Fundamentals” of the faith.
These Fundamentals, which were to be believed, set Fundamentalists apart from the mainline churches:
1) The Bible is to be accepted literally, or at least, inerrantly. There was nothing to analyze or interpret about Scripture, it was what it was, and said what it said; and,
2) accordingly, such doctrines as the Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Virgin Birth, Salvation by Atonement and Miracles MUST be believed understood symbolically.
Fundamentalists are moral absolutists. There is no grey, there is only black and white. Doubt is an indication that a very real entity, the Devil, who holding the doubter back. The modern world of radio, films, speakeasies, dancing, free love and free thought is all the work of the Devil and must be rejected.
While today’s Fundamentalism is derived from that publication in the 1920s, varieties of fundamentalism have been common throughout history fueling the English Civil War, the Puritan-Pilgrim exodus and the Great Awakening prior to the American Revolution. Significantly, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism, among other faiths, have their own fundamentalists.
Although we will discuss “end-times” below under Millennialism, it is important to note that the Fundamentalists were not originally Pre-Millennialist, anticipating the second coming of the Christ. They were Post-Millennialist. The early Fundamentalists generally believed that Christ had already returned and that they had the responsibility for sprucing up Christ’s Kingdom here on Earth. This is not to say that they did not await Armageddon, they did, but held that the Millennium was in the here and now, and that God’s Elect had the responsibility to use political power to make a better world.
Interestingly, fundamentalism was soon linked with business interests. Fundamentalist preachers urged their flocks to avoid liquor, opposed labor unions and to work a full 12-hour day without complaint. Furthermore, fundamentalists were anti-semitic, pro-white supremacy and actively anti-communist.
It is significant that while a majority of fundamentalist preachers supported themselves with the free will offerings and entrepreneurial revivalism, a goodly number were subsidized by business interests as a preventive for labor unrest. It is therefore to be understood that fundamentalists, but not Evangelicals, were to be found at the core of the Old Christian Right of Gerald L K Smith and Gerard Winrod. And, later, in its renaissance with Billy James Hargis and Carl McIntire, forerunners of Falwell, Reed and Robertson.
Holiness
The casual observer may find it peculiar that a discussion of Christian Evangelicalism will reference “Holiness” or the “Holiness movement”. This term has little political significance but describes a movement within Protestant Christianity in general, and the Anglican Church in particular, to promote leading a holy and highly devout life.
Without too much elaboration, where Luther contended that the believer was justified by his faith, Wesley and others sought to add a process of sanctification by which a believer, once justified, demonstrated his faith. Holiness infused the
The movement for Holiness thus imparted a sense of moral and spiritual dedication leading to personal Bible study, daily devotional exercises, and a sinless life: no liquor, no dancing, no jazz music, no sex.
Although I am sure they would disagree with me but I think that the Holiness proponents sought to make the Christian world into one huge monastery. Its relevance for our discussion is the fact that the commitment to Holiness is substantial among the Pentecostalists and Charismatic and, as a consequence, these groups tend to an apolitical Pietism.
Pentecostalism
The term refers to the day of Pentecost as recounted in the New Testament’s Book of Acts. On this day, the apostles gathered after the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus, were inexplicably “filled with the Holy Spirit and started to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability to speak” (Acts 2:4).
Although enthusiasm has always been a characteristic of one or another sect or cult within the Christian Church, the turn of the 20th century found a renewal of this spirit-filled approach to religion. There were several revivals in
Heavily influenced by the Black churches in which spiritistic behavior had not been fully repressed by the desire for eccelesiastical respectability, the turn of the century revivals conveyed a reawakened spirit to integrated and white congregations.
As Pentecostalism developed the initial glossalia and dancing became supplemented in some congregations with snake handling, and in most with spiritual healing and collective weeping. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, uncontrolled laughter was common in Pentecostal congregations and revivals.
The Pentecostal churches were quite distinct from their Fundamentalist neighbors. Beliefs, or intellectual affirmations of Biblical verities, were quite important to fundamentalists. “How do we know? Cause the Bible tells us so.” Pentecostalism had little concern with what one thought but stressed how one evidenced the Spirit.
Fundamentalists operated segregated congregations in the South and the North. Pentecostalists shocked many by being integrated. Only the social pressure of legal segregation separated black and white Pentecostalist in the 1940s and 1950s.
Pentecostalism was not open to an over-emphasis on the Second Coming since they were more inclined to be feeling the present coming of the Spirit.
Although early Fundamentalists shunned the concept of the educated clergy, their focus on Biblical understanding as well as Calvinist infiltration, led to the development of theological seminaries. Pentecostalists have never developed an educated clergy and will hand out preaching authorizations to anyone possessed of the Spirit and gearing the call.
The leading Pentecostal preachers, Ken Copeland, Ken Hagin, Kathyrn Kuhlman, Robert Tilton, Jimmy Swaggert and Benny Hill have learned their trade as an apprentice to an older preacher and not as students of theology.
From a political perspective, Pentecostalists tend to be of a lower income stratum and far more distrustful of employers, capitalists, creditors and the vested interests than Fundamentalists. Never tied to a male-only clergy, there are a goodly number of women engaged in Pentecostal ministry and people as young as 12 have been respected as ministers of the gospel.
Leading Pentecostal preachers are regularly denounced by Fundamentalist and Evangelical theologians as heretics and worse.
Interestingly, although Evangelical churches are growing, the pace of Pentecostal conversions outstrips even the most active Evangelical ministry. There are more Pentecostal conversions among Hispanics in the
Sometimes one sees the word “Charismatic” used to describe these religious phenomena. It is also accurate but the connotation is usually understood to distinguish between
Whatever may be said, Pentecostalism could never be an ally of Fundamentalism in a joint political endeavor.
Millennialism
Millennialism, also known as Millenarianism, is the anticipation that Christ will bring His Kingdom to Earth for a 1000-year reign.
Sometimes confused with Adventism. Adventism is the anticipation that Christ will return, millennialism is an attribute of that return and involves the proclamation of Christ’s Kingdom.
The “Left Behind” series of novels has given one form of Millennialism a wide audience, Pre-Millennialism. It has been so commercially successful, along with its precursors and pastiches, that many secular people believe that it is a primary feature of Evangelical Christianity. It is not.
Pre-Millennialists believe that we are in an age before the coming of Christ. Once He returns, He will inaugurate a new era and the
This is different from the Post-Millennialist who believes that we are living in the Millennium now and that true believers have the duty to impose the rule of God’s Law or Theonomy.
The Fundamentalists used to be predominantly Post-Millennialist but are now probably more inclined to Pre-Millennialism.
The movement for Christian Reconstruction evolving from Calvinism is thoroughly Post-Millennialist.
Most Evangelicals are A-Millennialist and hold that there is no Millennium with which to be concerned. This doesn’t lessen their interest in the Second Coming (Adventism) but it liberates them from the odd twists and turns given to Scriptures by those scholars and popularizers who seek to coax a Pre-millennialism from their Bibles.
A particular form of Pre-Millennialism is Dispensationalism and it is within this school of thought that we find the very odd notion of a “Rapture”. Of these concepts as well as Tribulationalism and Preterism, see below.
Dispensationalism
Dispensationalism is one variant of Pre-Millennialism deserving special attention. In originated in 1830 when a 15 year old girl, Margaret McDonald, of
The notion of two pending returns has no Biblical support and was never taught by the Church Fathers. The vision was modified by a former Anglican minister who had founded his own sect, the Plymouth Brethren, John Darby. Darby added to the idea of having two returns, the further teaching that there were seven eras, or dispensations, reflective of man’s relationship to God: Adam’s, Noah’s, Abraham’s, Moses’, Christ’s, the Church’s and the Millennium.
Darby further taught that when Christ returned secretly there would be a Rapture or a disappearance of all true Christians on Earth who would rise to meet their King in the Heavens. Then, and only after spiriting the true believers, Christ would scourge the earth with an era of Tribulation for seven years.
Again, it is worth noting that there is no precedent for this teaching in the bible or in any writing of a Church Father, any pronouncement of a Church Council, or any vision of a mystic until 1830.
Another one of Darby’s innovations was his approach to
Darby’s amendments would probably not have received such attention except for the fortuitous conversion of a conman by the name of Cyrus I. Scofield. Scofield was a character worthy of his own novel, an embezzler, a forger, who after his conversion, abandoned his wife and children. Scofield took the Darby framework, and recognizing that there was no Biblical basis for what he believed to be prophecy, inserted it into a revision of the Bible to be published as Scofield’s Bible.
Scofield’s commentary, interspersed within the biblical text itself, was read by millions of Americans in the belief that they were reading the proper, indeed the “official” interpretation of Scriptures.
Upon the Balfour Declaration and the establishment of a British mandate over
Preterism
A small but vocal contingent of Evangelicals hold to Preterism asserting that all Biblical prophecy has already been fulfilled. In a Preterist understanding, Biblical prophecy was never intended to forecast the future but to be fulfilled within the Biblical era ending with the fall of
Christian Zionism
Impelled by Dispensationalist publications, a number of Fundamentalists have adopted some form of Christian Zionism since 1948. They see the restoration of
A willingness to sacrifice Arab Christians to fulfill prophecy renders Christian Zionism especially relevant to
A small vocal and violent element within the Fundamentalist community is that of the Christian Identity movement. Christian Identity developed from the earlier British Israelism movement. British Israelites held that the promises of God made to
Calvinism
John Calvin, one of the leading lights of the Reformation along with Martin Luther, made a unique contribution to Protestant theology by the contention that God has selected his chosen at the beginning of time. Since God is God and all knowing, he could hardly do otherwise and therefore predestined some for Heaven and others for Hell.
Calvinism, the doctrine of Presbyterian and Reformed churches, has dissipated in its mainline hosts. It is still somewhat influential within small schismatic Presbyterian congregations and among several Baptist sects.
Dominion Theology
Calvin taught that God’s elect had a special obligation to be stewards of the Earth and regents for the King to Come.
A reformed theologian, Cornelius Van Til, extended this into an extreme Calvinism encompassing a Post-Millennialist concept of the Kingdom. The idea that Christians not only should dominate but are compelled by God’s Law (Theonomy) to assert dominion over nonbelievers is called Dominion Theology and the movement proceeding therefrom is Christian Reconstructionism.
Rousas J. Rushdooney, a student of Van Til’s, prepared a political ideology founded on Dominion Theology, a politics condoning the suppression of women, the imposition of slavery, the imprisonment of debtors, and the liquidation of the sexually deviant.
Dominionists are far less well known then the Dispensationalists or Pre-Millennialists who get a much better press but are far more active in pan-Christian political movements like the Christian Coalition. Notably, Pat Robertson, who exhibits elements of Pre-Millennialism and Pentecostalism, has promulgated a personal evangelism closely linked to Dominionism.
Dominionists are trained to infiltrate evangelical organizations in a manner similar to that of the Communists assigned to build a popular front with liberals. Lying in pursuit of God’s Law is permissible in Dominionist ethics.
Hal Lindsey, noted Pre-Millennialist, and author of works precursor to Tim LaHaye’s popular set of novels, has written a well-reasoned polemic warning fellow Evangelicals of the dangers posed by the Dominionists who he characterizes as the equivalent of crypto-Nazis.
Unlike the Pre-Millennialists, the Dominionists possess the intellectual tools necessary to effect the change they desire. And as such they are the greater danger to liberal democracy.
The expectation of end-times has reached popular culture. A prime time mini-series entitled “Revelations” is being broadcast as I write. The most popular novels of the past decade have been a series extrapolating a Dispensationalist Apocalypse. It is certainly predictable that many would conclude that apocalypticism is a uniquely Christian phenomenom. It is not.
Mircea Eliade wrote that apocalypticism is common in cultures where the people experience hoeplessness and a loss of status, wealth and security. The apocalypse allows for an escape.
Jewish apocalypticism was common following the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. Key apocalypses such as those found in the Books of Enoch were a major influence on Christianity in the first and second centuries when, as it should be known, Christianity was a Jewish sect.
There is today a secular apocalypticism too. There are events pending of such consequence as to minimize every preceding challenge to the human species: climate change, oil peak, soil exhaustion, groundwater depletion, overpopulation, resource wars, mass extinctions, plagues, death of the oceans among a few. Unlike a supernatural apocalypse, a secular apocalypse will not rely on the mercy of a just Creator, and depends upon the use of our collective wisdom and a human will to act.
Apocalypticism has generally been a progressive force in history. As Samuel Johnson quipped, the prospect of one’s pending execution tends to heighten awareness. So too, the prospect of the Apocalypse, supernatural or secular, may heighten our awareness and willingness to act.
Christianism and American Democracy
Those who wish to maintain the American republic as a secular democracy need to be well informed about the doctrines advanced as a justification for a Christian transcendence of the separation of church and state. <