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Originally Posted by historybuff
Holy Shit! How did these "insane" wackos ever get elected?!?
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Despite occasionally similar language, nobody could realistically call any of these men (Lincoln, FDR, or JFK) Dominionists.
Here is the Wikipedia article on Dominion Theology:
Dominion Theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Dominion Theology is a grouping of theological systems with the common belief that society should be governed exclusively by the law of God as codified in the Bible, to the exclusion of secular law. The two main streams of Dominion Theology are Christian Reconstructionism and Kingdom Now theology. Though these two differ greatly in their general theological orientation (the first is strongly Reformed and Neo-Calvinistic, the second is Charismatic), they share a postmillenial vision in which the kingdom of God will be established on Earth through political and (in some cases) even military means, preparing the way for or enabling the return of Christ.
All strains of Dominion Theology are small minorities, and are rejected by most mainstream Christians as quite radical. However, Dominion Theology is seen by some as a subset of Dominionism, a term used by some social scientists and journalists to describe a theological form of political ideology, which they claim has broadly influenced the Christian Right in the United States, Canada, and Europe, within Protestant Christian evangelicalism and fundamentalism.
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Since Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Kennedy were all quite strongly secular in their political orientations, despite what may have been sincere personal religious beliefs, clearly they were not Dominionists. Some extremists of the Religious Right are Dominionists, and there are some indications that President Bush may be. If so, he is the first Dominionist president we have ever had, and I must say the results are, perhaps predictably, lamentable.
I'm not prepared at this point to stick that label on Palin. She does belong to a Dominionist Church, but as already pointed out, we can no more assume from that the extent to which she agrees with the pastor's extremist views than we can make the parallel assumption about Obama and Rev. Wright. It does, however, raise questions.
There's no point in making superficial comparisons with language used by previous good leaders to try to claim that Dominionism wouldn't be dangerous if it gained power. The comparisons ARE superficial, and should be dismissed.
As for the "checks and balances" that allegedly might have stopped Bush, there's only one that mattered, and that's the U.S. Congress. Unfortunately, the Democrats in the House suffered an acute case of collapse of the spine in the wake of 9/11 and did not do their job. I have never been so angry with the Democratic Party as a whole, as I was in 2003 when they could have kept us out of Iraq and failed to do so. Does this mean that Bush is not solely to blame for the fiasco? You bet it does. But that does not in turn mean that having a Dominionist in the White House isn't dangerous. In fact, it makes it more dangerous, because sometimes the checks and balances don't work.