Are the Dominionists fascist?

[Dermezel]

Dominionism (also called subjectionism[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism#cite_note-0)) the tendency among some conservative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Christianity) politically-active (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics) Christians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity), especially in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States), to seek influence or control over secular civil government through political action—aiming either at a nation governed by Christians, or a nation governed by a conservative Christian understanding of biblical law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_in_Christianity). The use and application of this terminology is a matter of controversy.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism



The Despoiling of America
How George W. Bush became the head of the new
American Dominionist Church/State
by Katherine Yurica

Most Americans have been aware that religious right
Republicans have become extremely active politically
in the last twenty years. But because we're Americans
and we're mostly tolerant of other people's religious
beliefs, their rise to power hasn't really troubled us.
We should be troubled. There is now overwhelming
evidence that conservative Christians set out to
takeover the government of the United States and impose
their culture and values upon all Americans. This
article is not a theory--it is factual and historic.
The proof is in this essay. Dont miss this one. (http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/TheDespoilingOfAmerica.htm)http://www.yuricareport.com/Dominionism/DirectoryRiseOfDominionismInAmerica.html





Dominionism and Dominion Theology are not denominations or faith groups. Rather, they are interrelated beliefs which are followed by members of a wide range of Christian denominations.
In his article on dominionism (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2005/11/28/172929/14), researcher and author Chip Berlet credits sociologist Sara Diamond with popularizing the term dominionism as "a growing political tendency in the Christian Right." Diamond defined dominionism in 1995 as:
Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns--and there is no consensus on when that might be. "Dominionism," Berlet writes, "is .. a tendency among Protestant Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists that encourages them to not only be active political participants in civic society, but also seek to dominate the political process as part of a mandate from God.
"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." (King James Version).
"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.'" (New International Version).
The vast majority of Christians read this text and conclude that God has appointed them stewards and caretakers of Earth. As Sara Diamond explains, however, some Christian read the text and believe, "that Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns--and there is no consensus on when that might be." That, in a nutshell, is the idea of "dominionism."
The Christian Right, Dominionism and Theocracy (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2005/12/5/10810/4239) - Part II by Chip Berlet, December 5, 2005:
In her 1989 book Spiritual Warfare , sociologist Sara Diamond discussed how dominionism as an ideological tendency in the Christian Right had been significantly influenced by Christian Reconstructionism. Over the past 20 years the leading proponents of Christian Reconstructionism and dominion theology have included Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, Gary North, Greg Bahnsen, David Chilton, Gary DeMar, and Andrew Sandlin.
Diamond explained that "the primary importance of the [Christian Reconstructionist] ideology is its role as a catalyst for what is loosely called 'dominion theology.'" According to Diamond, "Largely through the impact of Rushdoony's and North's writings, the concept that Christians are Biblically mandated to 'occupy' all secular institutions has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right." (italics in the original).
In a series of articles and book chapters Diamond expanded on her thesis. She called Reconstructionism "the most intellectually grounded, though esoteric, brand of dominion theology," and observed that "promoters of Reconstructionism see their role as ideological entrepreneurs committed to a long-term struggle."
So Christian Reconstructionism was the most influential form of dominion theology, and it influenced both the theological concepts and political activism of white Protestant conservative evangelicals mobilized by the Christian Right.
But very few evangelicals have even heard of dominion theology, and fewer still embrace Christian Reconstructionism. How do we explain this, especially since our critics are quick to point it out? more (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2005/12/5/10810/4239)



http://www.theocracywatch.org/dominionism.htm


I would argue that this group, especially coupled with corporatism and Neo-Conservative allies is definitely fascist, or may as well be treated as fascist for all practical purposes.


This group is willing to eschew what little democracy exists even under capitalism, it is paramilitary as is evident by their militia groups, such as the Christian Coalition:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/christian-coalition



Reed boasted of their early success with a few choice comments that helped make him famous. "[S]tealth was a big factor in San Diego's success," he said. "But that's just good strategy. It's like guerrilla warfare. If you reveal your location, all it does is allow your opponent to improve his artillery bearings. It's better to move quietly, with stealth, under cover of night." Continuing, "I want to be invisible. I do guerrilla warfare. I paint my face and travel at night. You don't know it's over until you're in a body bag. You don't know until election night."Also I would argue religion has played a major role in the rise of fascism:

See:
The Great Scandal: Christianity's Role in the Rise of the Nazis (http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/paul_23_4.html)



“You know what happens when atheists take over—remember Nazi Germany?” Many Christians point to Nazism, alongside Stalinism, to illustrate the perils of atheism in power.1 At the other extreme, some authors paint the Vatican as Hitler’s eager ally. Meanwhile, the Nazis are generally portrayed as using terror to bend a modern civilization to their agenda; yet we recognize that Hitler was initially popular. Amid these contradictions, where is the truth?

.....


Christian Foundations

Early Christian sects promoted loyalty to authoritarian rulers so long they were not intolerably anti-Christian or, worse, atheistic. Christian anti-Semitism sprang from one of the church’s first efforts to forge an accommodation with power. Reinterpreting the Gospels to shift blame for the Crucifixion from the Romans to the Jews (the “Christ killer” story) courted favor with Rome, an early example of Christian complicity for political purposes. Added energy came from Christians’ anger over most Jews’ refusal to convert.3

Christian anti-Semitism was only intermittently violent, but when violence occurred it was devastating. The first outright extermination of Jews occurred in 414 c.e. It would have innumerable successors, the worst nearly genocidal in scope. At standard rates of population growth, Diaspora Jewry should now number in the hundreds of millions. That there are only an estimated 13 million Jews in the world4 is largely the result of Christian violence and forced conversion.5

Anti-Semitic practices pioneered by Catholics included the forced wearing of yellow identification, ghettoization, confiscation of Jews’ property, and bans on intermarriage with Christians. European Protestantism bore the fierce impress of Martin Luther, whose 1543 tract On the Jews and Their Lies was a principal inspiration for Mein Kampf.6 In addition to his anti-Semitism, Luther was also a fervent authoritarian. Against the Robbing and Murdering Peasants, his vituperative commentary on a contemporary rebellion, contributed to the deaths of perhaps 100,000 Christians and helped to lay the groundwork for an increasingly severe Germo-Christian autocracy.7

With the Enlightenment, deistic and secular thinkers seeded Western culture with Greco-Roman notions of democracy and free expression. The feudal aristocracies and the churches counterattacked, couching their reactionary defense of privilege in self-consciously biblical language. This controversy would shape centuries of European history. As late as 1870, the Roman Catholic Church reaffirmed a reactionary program at the first Vatican Council. Convened by the ultraconservative Pope Pius IX (reigned 1846–1878), Vatican I stridently condemned modernism, democracy, capitalism, usury, and Marxism.8

Anti-Semitism was also part of the mix; well into the twentieth century, mainstream Catholic publications set an intolerant tone that later Nazi propaganda would imitate. Anti-Semitism remained conspicuous in mainstream Catholic literature even after Pope Pius XI (reigned 1922–1939) officially condemned it.
Protestantism, too, was largely hostile toward modernism and democracy during this period (with a few exceptions in northern Europe). Because Jews were seen as materialists who promoted and benefited from Enlightenment modernism, most Protestant denominations remained anti-Semitic.

With the nineteenth century came a European movement that viewed Judaism as a racial curse. Attracting both Protestant and Catholic dissidents within Germanic populations, Aryan Christianity differed from traditional Christianity in denying both that Christ was a Jew and that Christianity had grown out of Judaism.9 Adherents viewed Christ as a divine Aryan warrior who brought the sword to cleanse the earth of Jews.10 Aryans were held to be the only true humans, specially created by God through Adam and Eve; all other peoples were soulless subhumans, descended from apes or created by Satan with no hope of salvation.11 Most non-Aryans were considered suitable for subservient roles including slavery, but not the Jews. Spiritless yet clever and devious, Jews were seen as a satanic disease to be quarantined or eliminated.

During the same years neopagan and occult movements gained adherents and incubated their own form of Aryanism. Unlike Aryan Christians, neopagan Aryans acknowledged that Christ was a Jew—and for that reason rejected Christianity. They believed themselves descended from demigods whose divinity had degraded through centuries of interbreeding with lesser races. The Norse gods and even the Atlantis myth sometimes decorated Aryan mythology.

Attempting to deny that Nazi anti-Semitism had a Christian component, Christian apologists exaggerate the influence of Aryan neopaganism. Actually, neopaganism never had a large following.

German Aryanism, whether Christian or pagan, became known as “Volkism.” Volkism prophesied the emergence of a great God-chosen Aryan who would lead the people (Volk) to their grand destiny through the conquest of Lebensraum (living space). A common motto was “God and Volk.” Disregarding obvious theological contradictions, growing numbers of German nationalists managed to work Aryanism into their Protestant or Catholic confessions, much as contemporary adherents of Voudoun or Santería blend the occult with their Christian beliefs. Darwinian theory sometimes entered Volkism as a belief in the divinely intended survival of the fittest peoples. Democracy had no place, but Nietzschean philosophy had some influence—a point Christian apologists make much of. Yet Nietzsche’s influence was modest, as Volkists found his skepticism toward religion unacceptable.12

Though traceable to the ancient world, atheism first emerged as a major social movement in the mid-1800s.13 It would be associated with both pro- and antidemocratic worldviews. Strongly influenced by science, atheists tended to view all humans as descended in common from apes. There was no inherent anti-Semitic tradition. Some atheists accepted then-popular pseudoscientific racist views that the races exhibited varying levels of intellect due to differing genetic heritages. Some went further, embracing various forms of eugenics as a means of improving the human condition. But neither of these positions was uniquely or characteristically atheistic. “Scientific” racism is actually better understood as a tool by which Christians could perpetuate their own cultural prejudices—it was no accident that the races deemed inferior by Western Christian societies and “science” were the same!
When we seek precursors of Nazi anti-Semitism and authoritarianism, it is among European Christians, not among the atheists, that we must search.

Following World War I, the religious situation in Europe was complex. Scientific findings about the age of the Earth, Darwin’s theory of evolution, and biblical criticism had fueled the first major expansion of nontheism at Christianity’s expense among ordinary Europeans. The churches’ support for the catastrophic Great War further fueled public disaffection, as did (in Germany) the flight of the Kaiser, in whom both Protestant and Catholic clergy had vested heavily.14 But religion was not everywhere in retreat: postwar Germany experienced a Christian spiritual renaissance outside the traditional churches.15 Religious freedom was unprecedented, but the established churches enjoyed widespread state support and controlled their own education systems. They were far more influential than today.
Roughly two-thirds of Germans were Protestant, almost all of the rest Catholic. The pagan minority claimed at most 5 percent. Explicit nontheism was limited to an intellectual elite and to committed socialists. Just 1.5 percent of Germans identified themselves as unbelievers in a 1939 census, which means either that very few Nazis and National Socialist German Worker’s Party supporters were atheists, or that atheists feared to identify themselves to the pro-theistic regime.

Most religious Germans detested the impiety, secularism, and hedonistic decadence that they associated with such modernist ideas as democracy and free speech. If they feared democracy, they were terrified by Communism, to the point of being willing to accept extreme countermethods.

Thus it was a largely Christian, deeply racist, often antidemocratic, and in many respects dangerously primitive Western culture into which Nazism would arise. It was a theistic powder keg ready to explode.

[Dermezel]

Destroying Democracy: a Political-Religious Collaboration

As detailed by historian Ian Kershaw, Hitler made no secret of his intent to destroy democracy. Yet he came to power largely legally; in no sense was he a tyrant imposed upon the German people.
The Nazi takeover climaxed a lengthy, ironic rejection of democracy at the hands of a majority of German voters. By the early 1930s, ordinary Germans had lost patience with democracy; growing numbers hoped an authoritarian strongman would restore order and prosperity and return Germany to great-power status. Roughly two-thirds of German Christians repeatedly voted for candidates who promised to overthrow democracy. Authoritarianism was all but inevitable; at issue was merely who the new strongman would be.

What made democracy so fragile? Historian Klaus Scholder explains that Germany lacked a deep democratic tradition, and would have had difficulty in forming one because German society was so thoroughly divided into opposing Protestant and Catholic blocs. This division created a climate of competition, fear and prejudice between the confessions, which burdened all German domestic and foreign policies with an ideological element of incalculable weight and extent. This climate erected an almost insurmountable barrier to the formation of broad democratic center. And it favored the rise of Hitler, since ultimately both churches courted his favor—each fearing that the other would complete the Reformation or the Counter-Reformation through Hitler.24

Carefully plotting his strategy, Hitler purged some of the Volkish Nazi radicals most belligerent toward the traditional Christian churches. In this way he lessened the risk of ecclesiastical opposition. At the same time, he knew that the presence of both Catholics and Protestants among the Nazi leadership would ease churchmen’s fears that the Party might engage in sectarianism.

Though it had many Catholic leaders (including Hitler), the Nazi Party relied heavily on Protestant support. Protestants had given the Party its principal backing during the years leading up to 1933 at a level disproportionate to their national majority.25 Evangelical youth was especially pro-Nazi. It has been estimated that as many as 90 percent of Protestant university theologians supported the Party. Indeed, the participation of so many respected Protestants gave a early, comforting air of legitimacy to the often-thuggish Party. So did the frequent sight of Sturmabteilung (S.A.) units marching in uniform to church.

As German life between the wars grew more desperate, some Protestant pastors explicitly defended Nazi murders of “traitors to the Volk” from the pulpit. Antifascist Protestants found themselves marginalized. The once-unlikely topic of Volkist-Protestant compatibility became the leading theological subject of the day.26 This is less surprising when we consider that Volkism and German Protestantism were both strongly nationalistic; Lutheranism in particular had German roots.

This mirage of harmony enticed Hitler into a naïve attempt to unite the German Protestant churches into a single Volkish body under Nazi control. Launched shortly after the Nazis came to power, this project failed immediately. The evangelical sects proved as unwilling as ever to get along with one another, though much of their clergy eventually Nazified.

Catholicism and the Nazi Takeover

Ironically—but, as we shall see, for obvious reasons—Chancellor Hitler had greater initial success reaching accommodation with Roman Catholic leaders than with the Protestants. The irony lay in the fact that the Catholic Zentrum (Center) Party had been principally responsible for denying majorities to the Nazis in early elections. Although Teutonic in outlook, German Catholics had close emotional ties to Rome. As a group they were somewhat less nationalistic than most Protestants. Catholics were correspondingly more likely than Protestants to view Hitler (incorrectly) as godless, or as a neo-heathen anti-Christian. Catholic clergy consistently denounced Nazism, though they often undercut themselves by preaching traditional anti-Semitism at the same time.

Even so, and despite Catholicism’s minority status, it would be German Catholics and the Roman Catholic Church that whose actions would at last put total power within the Nazis’ reach.

Though it was not without antimodernists, the Catholic Zentrum party had antagonized the Vatican during the 1920s by forming governing coalitions with the secularized, moderate Left-oriented Social Democrats. This changed in 1928, when the priest Ludwig Kaas became the first cleric to head the party. To the dismay of some Catholics, Kaas and other Catholic politicians participated both actively and passively in destroying democratic rule, and in particular the Zentrum.

The devoutly Catholic chancellor Franz von Papen, not a fascist but stoutly right-wing, engineered the key electoral victory that brought Hitler to power. Disastrously Papen dissolved the Reichstag in 1932, then formed a Zentrum-Nazi coalition in violation of all previous principles. It was Papen who in 1933 made Hitler chancellor, Papen stepping down to the vice chancellorship.

The common claim that Papen acted in the hope that the Nazis could be controlled and ultimately discredited may be true, partly true, or false; but without Papen’s reckless aid, Hitler would not have become Germany’s leader.

The church congratulated Hitler on his assumption of power. German bishops released a statement that wiped out past criticism of Nazism by proclaiming the new regime acceptable, then followed doctrine by ordering the laity to be loyal to this regime just as they had commanded loyalty to previous regimes. Since Catholics had been instrumental in bringing Hitler to power and served in his cabinet, the bishops had little choice but to collaborate.

German Catholics were stunned by the magnitude and suddenness of this realignment. The rigidly conformist church had flipped from ordering its flock to oppose the Nazis to commanding cooperation. A minority among German Catholics was appalled and disheartened. But most “received the statement with relief—indeed with rejoicing—because it finally also cleared the way into the Third Reich for Catholic Christians” alongside millions of Protestants, who joined in exulting that the dream of a Nazi-Catholic-Protestant nationalist alliance had been achieved.27 The Catholic vote for the Nazis increased in the last multi-party elections after Hitler assumed control, doubling in some areas, inspiring a mass Catholic exodus from the Zentrum to the fascists. After the Reichstag fire, the Zentrum voted en masse to support the infamous Enabling Act, which would give the Hitler-Papen cabinet executive and legislative authority independent of the German Parliament. Zentrum’s bloc vote cemented the two-thirds majority needed to pass the Act.

Why did the church direct its party to provide the critical swing vote? It had its agenda, as we shall see below.

Deal Making with the Devil

Even after the Enabling Act, Hitler’s position remained tenuous. The Nazis needed to deepen majority popular support and cement relations with a skeptical German military. Hitler needed to ally all Aryans under the swastika while he undermined and demoralized regime opponents. What would solidify Hitler’s position? A foreign policy coup: the Concordat of 1933 between Nazi Germany and the Vatican.

The national and international legitimacy Hitler would gain through this treaty was incalculable. Failure to secure it after intense and openly promoted effort could have been a crushing humiliation. Hitler put exceptional effort into the project. He courted the Holy See, emphasizing his own Christianity, simultaneously striving to intimidate the Vatican with demonstrations of his swelling power.

Catholic apologists describe the Concordat of 1933 as a necessary move by a church desperate to protect itself against a violent regime which forced the accord upon it—passing over the contradiction at the heart of this argument. Actually, having failed in repeated attempts to negotiate the ardently desired concordat with a skeptical Weimar democracy, Kaas, Papen, the future Pius XII (who reigned 1939–1958), the sitting Pius XI, and other leading Catholics saw their chance to get what they had been seeking from an agreeable member of the church—that is, Hitler—at an historical moment when he and fascism in general were regarded as a natural ally by many Catholic leaders.28 Negotiations were initiated by both sides, modeled on the mutually advantageous 1929 concordat between Mussolini and the Vatican.

Now Zentrum’s pivotal role in assuring passage of the Enabling Act can be seen in context. It was part of the tacit Nazi-Vatican deal for a future concordat.29 The Enabling Act vote hollowed Zentrum, leaving little more than a shell. Thus, a clergy far more interested in church power than democratic politics could take control on both sides of the negotiating table. In a flagrant conflict of interest, the devout Papen helped to represent the German state. Concordat negotiations were largely held in Rome, so that Kaas could leave his vanishing party yet more rudderless. Papen, Kaas, and the future Pius XII worked overtime to finalize a treaty that would, among other things, put an end to the Zentrum. In negotiating away the party he led, Kaas eliminated the last political entity that might have opposed the new Führer.30 Nor did the Vatican protect Germany’s Catholic party. Contrary to the contention of some, evidence indicates that the Vatican was pleased to negotiate away all traces of the Zentrum, for which it had no more use save as a bargaining chip. In this the Holy See treated Zentrum no differently than it had the Italian Catholic party, which it negotiated away in the Concordat with Mussolini.

Hitler sought to eliminate Catholic opposition in favor of obligatory loyalty to his regime. For its part, the church was obsessed with its educational privileges,31 and especially with securing fresh sources of income. It would willingly sacrifice political power to protect them. As both sides worked in haste to produce a treaty that would normally have required years to complete, Hitler took masterful advantage of Vatican overeagerness. Filled with “certainty that Rome neither could nor would turn back, [Hitler] was now able to steer the negotiations almost as he wanted. The records prove he exploited the situation to the full.”32 Indeed, Hitler was so confident that he had the Church in his lap that he went ahead and promulgated his notorious sterilization decree before the Concordat’s final signing. Hitler’s project for involuntary sterilization of minorities and the mentally ill was an direct affront to Catholic teaching. But as Hitler surmised, not even this provocation could deflect the Holy See in its rush toward the Concordat. Because ordinary Catholics largely supported the Nazis, the party even felt free to use violence against the remaining politically active Catholics, frequently disrupting their rallies.

Signed on July 20, 1933, the Concordat was a fait accompli, the negotiations having been conducted largely in secret. Most German bishops gave their loyal, though impotent, approval to the pact that would strip away their power. A few bishops objected, criticizing the Nazi regime’s lack of morality (but never its lack of democracy).

The Concordat was a classic political kickback scheme. The church supported the new dictatorship by endorsing the end of democracy and free speech. In addition it bound its bishops to Hitler’s Reich by means of a loyalty oath. In exchange the church received enormous tax income and protection for church privileges. Religious instruction and prayer in school were reinstated. Criticism of the church was forbidden. Of course, nothing in the Concordat protected the rights of non-Catholics.

If Catholic officials were disappointed with the Concordat’s terms, they did not show it, sending messages of congratulation to the dictator. In Rome, a celebratory mass followed the treaty’s signing by Papen and the future Pius XII amid great pomp and circumstance. In Germany, the church and the Berlin government held a joint service of thanksgiving that featured a mix of Catholic, Reich, and swastika banners and flags. The musical program mixed hymns with a rousing performance of the repugnant Nazi anthem “Horst Wessel”—which was set, by the way, to the traditional hymn “How Great Thou Art.” All of this was projected by loudspeaker to the enthusiastic crowd outside; as most German Catholics welcomed the Concordat, the thanksgiving service drew far more than Berlin’s cathedral could hold.
Scholder comments that “anyone who saw things from the Roman perspective could come to the conclusion that . . . the treaty was . . . an indescribable success for Catholicism. Even a year before, the Holy See had only been able to dream of the concessions which the concordat contained. . . . On the Catholic side the concordat was accordingly described as ‘something very great,’ indeed as nothing short of a ‘masterpiece.’”33 Catholic response was so exuberant that Hitler felt it necessary to defend himself to Protestant clerics and Nazi radicals who viewed this sudden amity with Rome as a betrayal.

The practical results of the collaboration were clear enough. Most Catholics “soon adjusted to the dictatorship”34; indeed they flocked to the Party. Post-Concordat voting patterns suggest that Catholics, on average, even outdid Protestants in supporting the regime, further undermining any efforts by the clergy to challenge Nazi policies. In any case much of the Catholic clergy was Nazifying. Even the idiosyncratic S.S. welcomed Catholics, who would ultimately compose a quarter of its membership.

The Concordat’s disastrous consequences cannot be exaggerated. It bound all devout German Catholics to the state—the clergy through an oath and income, the laity through the authority of the church. If at any time the regime chose not to honor the agreement, Catholics had no open legal right to oppose it or its policies. Opponents of Nazism, Catholic and non-Catholic, were further discouraged and marginalized because the church had shown such want of moral fiber and consistency.

Apologists have insisted that the church had no choice but to accept the Concordat for the modest protections it provided. But those provisions were never needed. Major Protestant denominations suffered no more than Catholicism, though the Protestant churches lacked protective agreements and had snubbed Hitler’s early attempt to unite them. Apologists make much of Vatican “resistance” to Nazism, but the net effect of Vatican policy toward Hitler was collaborative.

Indeed, the 1933 Concordat stands as one of the most unethical, corrupt, duplicitous, and dangerous agreements ever forged between two authoritarian powers. Perhaps the Catholic strategy was to outlast the Nazi’s frankly popular tyranny rather than try to bring it down. But the Catholic Church made no attempt to revoke the Concordat and its loyalty clause during the Nazi regime. Indeed, the 1933 Concordat is the only diplomatic accord negotiated with the Nazi regime that remains in force anywhere in the world.

Germany’s Protestant sects were too decentralized to be coopted by a single document. To this extent Protestants who disputed Nazi policies could be said to enjoy a more favorable position than Catholics. But opposition was rare among Protestants too. Hitler cynically courted the major denominations even as they cynically courted him. Most smaller traditional Christian sects did little better. For example, Germany’s Mormons and Seventh-Day Adventists bent over backwards to accommodate National Socialism.35

Christian Comfort with the Rising Regime

Catholics and Protestants at first embraced the new German order. Germany was regaining international prestige, the economy improving thanks to growing overseas support.36 Industrialists like Henry Ford invested heavily in the new Reich. German Christians also looked to the Nazis for a revival of “Christian” values to help counter the rise of nontheism. Most welcomed the Nazis’ elimination of chronic public strife by terrorizing, imprisoning, and killing the fast-shrinking German Left. The leftists had long been despised by traditionalists, who composed four fifths of the population. The state purged a far higher proportion of atheists than traditional Christians. In newspapers and newsreels the Nazis proudly publicized their new concentration camps. Reports sanitized the camps’ true nature, but no one could mistake that they were part of a new police state—to which most German followers of Jesus raised no objection. The very high rate of “legal” executions reported in the press also met with mass indifference or positive approval.

Far from being hapless victims, the great bulk of German Christians joined, eagerly supported, collaborated with, or accommodated to a greater or lesser degree, the new tyranny.

Hitler: the Popular Oppressor

Apologists for Christian conduct during the Nazi era imagine that the regime suppressed dissent ruthlessly, no matter whom—or how many—it needed to slaughter to achieve its ends. Hitler’s regime is portrayed as Stalinesque in its response to dissent. This simplistic view reveals a failure to understand the complicated actuality of a popular terror state. The keyword is popular: Hitler was Europe’s most popular leader, and his goal was universal Aryan support. The Party obsessively tracked public opinion, something never seen in the USSR.37 Before the war, foreign tourism was encouraged; Hitler knew most Germans would speak well of the Reich to visitors, in sharp contrast to the USSR, whose leaders prudently feared interaction between foreigners and a citizenry of dubious loyalty. During most of the Reich, any unprovoked attempt to liberate Germany would have met fierce majority resistance.

Though there were assassination attempts, the top Nazis had little to fear from ordinary Germans.38 Hitler’s personal security was shockingly lax; Goering regularly drove his open convertible around Berlin.

If the apologists were right, we should expect the Gestapo to have been a massive organization, relentlessly searching out and crushing widespread dissent. Analysis of surviving Gestapo records reveals that in fact it was surprisingly small.39 Germany’s Christian population being largely satisfied, there was little resistance to suppress. Most cases the Gestapo handled were initiated by ordinary citizens looking to settle petty disputes and had no ideological content.

The Führer had been successful in buying off his Aryans with false egalitarian prosperity, stolen Jewish wealth, and his refusal to put Deutschland on a full war footing until well into the war. During the early war years civilians were under much tighter control in submarine-blockaded England than in Germany. Since nearly all Aryans were Protestant and Catholic, Hitler had to keep both sects reasonably happy, and he did. After all, the main focus of Nationalist Socialism was to make the divinely favored Aryan Volk, both Protestant and Catholic, thrive in order to transform the German population into a unified machine of domination over the lesser peoples. Contrary to Catholic apologists, the nominally Catholic Hitler had not the slightest desire to slaughter masses of the very Aryan people to whom he belonged, and whom he wanted to elevate to supreme power. Leaving aside the fact that doing so would have been ideological and racial suicide, the record makes clear that Hitler’s intention was to reform and standardize Aryans’ political, social, and ultimately their religious beliefs, not to purge them or to kill off groups of Aryans. Doing that would have grossly violated Nazi doctrine, undermined the myth of Aryan solidarity, grievously weakened the state, and risked religious civil war. Disloyalty of the Catholic third of the population would have been disastrous to a modest-sized nation trying to expand its resources in preparation for epic wars of conquest; it was this fact, not the Concordat, that would be the main constraint on Nazi actions. For that reason, apologist claims that thousands or millions of Catholics and Protestants would have joined the Jews had they protested Nazis policies are false. The proof is found in the historical record.http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/ChristianRight_AmerFascism.html



The Christian Right and the Rise of American Fascism


Dr. James Luther Adams, my ethics professor at Harvard Divinity School , told us that when we were his age, he was then close to 80, we would all be fighting the "Christian fascists."

The warning, given to me 25 years ago, came at the moment Pat Robertson and other radio and televangelists began speaking about a new political religion that would direct its efforts at taking control of all institutions, including mainstream denominations and the government. Its stated goal was to use the United States to create a global, Christian empire. It was hard, at the time, to take such fantastic rhetoric seriously, especially given the buffoonish quality of those who expounded it. But Adams warned us against the blindness caused by intellectual snobbery. The Nazis, he said, were not going to return with swastikas and brown shirts. Their ideological inheritors had found a mask for fascism in the pages of the Bible.

He was not a man to use the word fascist lightly. He was in Germany in 1935 and 1936 and worked with the underground anti-Nazi church, known as The Confessing Church, led by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Adams was eventually detained and interrogated by the Gestapo, who suggested he might want to consider returning to the United States . It was a suggestion he followed. He left on a night train with framed portraits of Adolph Hitler placed over the contents inside his suitcase to hide the rolls of home movie film he took of the so-called German Christian Church, which was pro-Nazi, and the few individuals who defied them, including the theologians Karl Barth and Albert Schweitzer. The ruse worked when the border police lifted the top of the suitcases, saw the portraits of the Fuhrer and closed them up again. I watched hours of the grainy black and white films as he narrated in his apartment in Cambridge .

He saw in the Christian Right, long before we did, disturbing similarities with the German Christian Church and the Nazi Party, similarities that he said would, in the event of prolonged social instability or a national crisis, see American fascists, under the guise of religion, rise to dismantle the open society. He despaired of liberals, who he said, as in Nazi Germany, mouthed silly platitudes about dialogue and inclusiveness that made them ineffectual and impotent. Liberals, he said, did not understand the power and allure of evil nor the cold reality of how the world worked. The current hand wringing by Democrats in the wake of the election, with many asking how they can reach out to a movement whose leaders brand them "demonic" and "satanic," would not have surprised Adams . Like Bonhoeffer, he did not believe that those who would fight effectively in coming times of turmoil, a fight that for him was an integral part of the Biblical message, would come from the church or the liberal, secular elite.

His critique of the prominent research universities, along with the media, was no less withering. These institutions, self-absorbed, compromised by their close relationship with government and corporations, given enough of the pie to be complacent, were unwilling to deal with the fundamental moral questions and inequities of the age. They had no stomach for a battle that might cost them their prestige and comfort. He told me that if the Nazis took over America "60 percent of the Harvard faculty would begin their lectures with the Nazi salute." This too was not an abstraction. He had watched academics at the University of Heidelberg , including the philosopher Martin Heidegger, raise their arms stiffly to students before class.

Two decades later, even in the face of the growing reach of the Christian Right, his prediction seems apocalyptic. And yet the powerbrokers in the Christian Right have moved from the fringes of society to the floor of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Christian fundamentalists now hold a majority of seats in 36 percent of all Republican Party state committees, or 18 of 50 states, along with large minorities in 81 percent of the rest of the states. Forty-five Senators and 186 members of the House of Representatives earned between an 80 to100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian Right advocacy groups - The Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, and Family Resource Council. Tom Coburn, the new senator from Oklahoma , has included in his campaign to end abortion a call to impose the death penalty on doctors that carry out abortions once the ban goes into place. Another new senator, John Thune, believes in Creationism. Jim DeMint, the new senator elected from South Carolina , wants to ban single mothers from teaching in schools. The Election Day exit polls found that 22 percent of voters identified themselves as evangelical Christians and Bush won 77 percent of their vote. The polls found that a plurality of voters said that the most important issue in the campaign had been "moral values."

It is important to recognize and deal with fascism quickly, before it takes total power.

[chegitz guevara]

Technically, no, they are not fascists. Fascism is a mass movement of the enraged middle classes which is supported and funded by the top layers of the capitalist class. They have the potential, but it's not very probable they will ever amount to much.

The real fascist threat in the U.S. is the Tea Bagger movement.

[Dermezel]

Technically, no, they are not fascists. Fascism is a mass movement of the enraged middle classes which is supported and funded by the top layers of the capitalist class.

You obviously don't listen to talk radio. Trust me, there are plenty of enraged Christians in the middle class.

Also, try explaining the technicalities to the fascists after they outlaw all leftist movements. I'm sure they will be all ears.

I'd love to see that, as you are hauled to jail "But you aren't technically fascist!"

[RadioRaheem84]

Perhaps I can Help:

RJ Rushdooney, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North are presuppositionalist Christians in that they presuppose the Bible is true before the facts, i.e. they embrace circular reasoning because they believe everyone does. There fore not only do they take the Bible literally but believe its the only book that can help create a stable government.

I used to deal with these people when I was attending Church in conservative Texas. Half of them believe that the law of Israel doesn't apply anymore so Christians shouldn't concern themselves with government, so they're more like Christian anarchists while the other half that subscribe to Dominionism believe they should influence or help reform government to be more Christian. This is the majority camp and they're active in groups like Focus on the Family and such.

But there is a smaller group that adheres directly to what Rushdooney wanted and that is a total Christian theocracy. And I am not just talking about a nice Christian wonderland, I am talking about bringing with it the full brunt of Israeli law; with the slaves (oh excuse me, indentured servants :rolleyes:) , the stonings and the rituals. Yes, they are proponents of creating a Christian Taliban.

Gary North is a messed up crackpot. He is an extreme MARKET-FUNDAMENTALIST, he thinks that the mildest reform in capitalist economics is of the devil and equates to godless socialism. Since his background is in economics he believes that right- libertarian economics is not only Biblical but necessary for a Christian nation to flourish and that Keynesianism, Socialism, etc. came from the bowls of Satan!

These people rarely influence maninstream Christians and are hardly known amongst young Christians but they're very influential to old, extremely traditional Calvinist men in the United States. Whether they take the reformist approach like most mainstream Dominionists or the theocratic approach like Rushdooney, it's all meant to turn this nation into one that fits a certain sect of Christians.

BUT yes they're real and out there.

[Dermezel]

Perhaps I can Help:

RJ Rushdooney, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North are presuppositionalist Christians in that they presuppose the Bible is true before the facts, i.e. they embrace circular reasoning because they believe everyone does. There fore not only do they take the Bible literally but believe its the only book that can help create a stable government.

I used to deal with these people when I was attending Church in conservative Texas. Half of them believe that the law of Israel doesn't apply anymore so Christians shouldn't concern themselves with government, so they're more like Christian anarchists while the other half that subscribe to Dominionism believe they should influence or help reform government to be more Christian. This is the majority camp and they're active in groups like Focus on the Family and such.

But there is a smaller group that adheres directly to what Rushdooney wanted and that is a total Christian theocracy. And I am not just talking about a nice Christian wonderland, I am talking about bringing with it the full brunt of Israeli law; with the slaves (oh excuse me, indentured servants :rolleyes:) , the stonings and the rituals. Yes, they are proponents of creating a Christian Taliban.

Gary North is a messed up crackpot. He is an extreme MARKET-FUNDAMENTALIST, he thinks that the mildest reform in capitalist economics is of the devil and equates to godless socialism. Since his background is in economics he believes that right- libertarian economics is not only Biblical but necessary for a Christian nation to flourish and that Keynesianism, Socialism, etc. came from the bowls of Satan!

These people rarely influence maninstream Christians and are hardly known amongst young Christians but they're very influential to old, extremely traditional Calvinist men in the United States. Whether they take the reformist approach like most mainstream Dominionist or the theocratic approach like Rushdooney, it's all meant to turn this nation into one that fits a certain sect of Christians.

Yeah man, it's scary stuff. It's petty bourgeoisie/middle class, it's usually mixed with racism, it's paramilitary, anti-leftist, anti-democratic, corporatist and makes for an effective mass tool by which the capitalist can politically confront the socialists.

I mean, who do leftists think the bourgeoisie are going to turn to if capitalism is really threatened? Are they going to turn to Stormfront? No. They are going to turn to the Christian Right.

[chegitz guevara]

You obviously don't listen to talk radio. Trust me, there are plenty of enraged Christians in the middle class.

Also, try explaining the technicalities to the fascists after they outlaw all leftist movements. I'm sure they will be all ears.

I'd love to see that, as you are hauled to jail "But you aren't technically fascist!"

But the vast majority of them aren't Dominionists, which was your question. Don't change the goal posts.

As for being hauled to jail, there are all sorts of reactionaries, all of whom are willing to engage in violent repression. That doesn't make them fascist, nor does it make them not dangerous. Please, do not make the mistake of accusing me of naïveté. I've physically fought with these people in the streets. I know exactly how dangerous they are.

Still, I'm rather surprised you'd like to see right-wing oppression of a fellow leftist.

[RadioRaheem84]

But the vast majority of them aren't Dominionists, which was your question. Don't change the goal posts.

The vast majority have been majorly influenced by Domininism. The leaders of reform movements are mostly Dominionists but their supporters are unaware of this or don't care because the word has no meaning to them. To them, this is a Christian nation and the laws should reflect that.

The Christian Right is still a major player in this fight and they're probably the most ardent of fighters. Just because Bush is gone and used them as a voting bloc doesn't mean they're not down and out. They compose a heavy segment of the Tea Baggers.

There are a few Christian Reconstructionalists, slightly more Dominionists, most of which are in leadership positions of Chrisian Right organizations (heavily funded by the GOP and petit-business interests), but the majority of the Christian Right is vastly under the influence of these two groups.

[Dermezel]

Spiritual Warfare

"We are not coming up against just human beings to beat them in elections. We're going to be coming up against spiritual warfare." (Pat Robertson (http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre3.html) at a 1994 Christian Coalition national strategy conference)

"By mobilizing eager volunteers down to the precinct (and local church) level and handing out 33 million voter guides -- often in church pews -- prior to last November's election, the Coalition is credited with providing the winning margin for perhaps half the Republicans' 52-seat gain in the House of Representatives and a sizable portion of their nine-seat pickup in the Senate." (Time (http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,982929,00.html), May 15, 1995)

1991-1993: Religious Right Takes "Working Control" of the Republican Party -- Precinct by Precinct, State by State

Journalists attended Christian Coalition and Republican Party events in the early nineties documenting the tactics of the newly formed organization. Reports appeared in newspapers around the country detailing the take over of local Republican Party committees, and efforts by moderate Republicans to form competing entities. Following are some of those articles.

"WITH GOD AS THEIR CO-PILOT" by Joe Conason (http://www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over_copilot.htm), Playboy, March, 1993
The rich Republicans of San Antonio's Bexar County consider themselves very conservative. And they are. But the politics of this new crowd gave them a bad scare. Not long after the Christian rightists staged their coup, the president of the Alamo City Republican Women's club just gave up and quit.
"The so-called Christian activists have finally gained control," she explained in her resignation letter, "and the Grand Old Party is more religious cult than political organization.

Next came the Pennsylvania primary ... the shock came the next day, when the votes for obscure Republican state committee positions were tallied. From nowhere, conservative Christians had grabbed dozens of seats. The militant newcomers are now close to controlling the Republican Party in Pennsylvania, too.

In June, in the San Diego County towns of Lemon Grove and El Cajon, a slate of "pro-family" Christian right activists financed by a group of conservative businessmen swept the Republican primary for all of the open council seats, along with a slew of state assembly seats. On the same day, several hundred miles to the north in Santa Clara Country, another slate of "biblically oriented" candidates--committed to the death penalty for such sins as homosexuality and abortion--captured 14 of 20 seats on the Republican county central committee. The GOP apparatus in the nation's most populous state is within a few votes of being absolutely controlled by the Christian right.

Across the nation, in primary after primary, stunned Republican leaders echoed the lament of one longtime party activist in Texas, a personal friend of Barbara Bush, who suddenly found herself ousted by the fundamentalists. "They organized and we didn't," she said. "I didn't think it was going to be this bad.
"The Fifteen Percent Solution: How the Christian Right Is Building From Below To Take Over From Above" by Greg Goldin was originally published in the Nation (http://www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over_fifteen_percent.htm) in 1993. Quoting moderate Republicans from Goldin's article:
What the Christian right spends a lot of time doing," says Marc Wolin, a moderate Republican who ran unsuccessfully for Congress from San Francisco last year, "is going after obscure party posts. They try to control the party apparatus in each county. We have a lot to fear from these people. They want to set up a theocracy in America.According to Craig Berkman, former chairman of the Republican Party in Oregon:
They have acquired a very detailed and accurate understanding of how political parties are organized. Parties are very susceptible to being taken over by ideologues because lower party offices have no appeal to the vast majority of our citizenry. Many precincts are represented by no one. If you decide all of a sudden because it's your Christian duty to become a precinct representative, you only need a few votes to get elected.

Increasingly, they have the key say-so on who will be a delegate at the national convention, and who will write the party platform and nominate the presidential candidate. In a state like Oregon, with 600,000 registered Republicans, it is possible for 2000 or 3000 people to control the state party apparatus. If they are outvoted by one or two votes, parliamentary manipulations begin, and after two or three hours of discussion about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, the more reasonable people with other things to do leave, and in the wee hours of the morning, things are decided. That's how they achieve their objectives.
"The Christian Coalition: On The Road To VICTORY? A Special Report From Inside The Pat Robertson Political Machine," by Journalist Frederick Clarkson, Church and State (http://www.theocracywatch.org/road_to_victory_1991.htm), January, 1992.
When I slipped into the national leadership meeting of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, I thought I knew what to expect. I'd written many stories about the Religious Right. But I was unprepared for what I saw, heard and felt inside Robertson's Virginia Beach, Va., headquarters for two days in November during the "Road to Victory" Conference and Strategy Briefing.
The GOP's Religious War, Joan Lowy of Scripps-Howard News Service (http://www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over_joan_lowey.htm):
Until last spring, Jo Martin was a relatively non*political Houston housewife. Today she's on the front lines of a religious war that has fractured the Republican Party. Martin, a 52-year-old mother of three, and her husband David, a stockbroker, are lifelong Republicans but hadn't been active in party politics for many years until they happened to attend a local GOP meeting last spring.

They were appalled by what they found. The party apparatus had been taken over by religious activists intent on bringing "biblical principles" to government: outlawing abortion, ostracizing homosexuals and teaching creationism in public schools, among other things. "We honest to goodness felt like we had fallen through a time warp into a Nazi brown-shirt meeting," Martin said.
Inside the Covert Coalition, Church and State (http://www.theocracywatch.org/clarkson_inside.html), Frederick Clarkson, November, 1992.

The Great Right Hope by Frederick Clarkson (http://www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over_great_right_hope.htm) documents how Dr. Steven Hotze out-shouted the GOP Chair to take over the leadership of the Harris County (home to Houston) political apparatus:
The wildest dreams of the Far Right in America may actually be within their reach - control of the Republican Party.
The Great Right Hope talks about Dr. Stephen Hotze. In 1990, Dr. Bruce Prescott received a video from Dr. Hotze:
In February 1990 I received an unsolicited video in the mail. The video came from a Dr. Stephen Hotze and was entitled "Restoring America: How You Can Impact Civil Government." Filmed at a church in my neighborhood, I recognized the actors as the pastor and congregants of an Independent Fundamental Baptist church (the Jerry Falwell kind). The video was a guide on how to 1) take over a Republican Party precinct meeting, 2) elect "Christian" delegates to the GOP District meeting, and 3) put planks supporting the theocratic agenda of Christian Reconstructionism into the party platform. more (http://www.talk2action.org/story/2005/11/23/85532/138)
San Jose Mercury New (http://www.theocracywatch.org/san_jose.html)s, 1992, Two articles -- one before the election, one after:
A group dedicated to making the Bible the law of the land has quietly positioned itself to take over the Republican Party's power structure in Santa Clara County.

The 17 Christian right candidates for the Republican Central Committee appear on a mailer put out by a Tehama County group called Citizens for Liberty. The flier says the candidates advocate "traditional family values, more jobs, lower taxes, welfare reform and choice in education."

But at least some have a more sweeping agenda ... Some see takeover plans. More liberal Republicans say the Central Committee campaign is part of a widespread "stealth" effort to take over America by starting with little-noticed local races. They cite elections in San Diego County two years ago, when 60 of 90 Christian right candidates for low-level offices won election, largely by campaigning through conservative churches.

"Clearly the strategy is to control the central committees and then use the central committees to give credibility to their candidates," said Luis Buhler...
A fundraising letter ... includes "a call for the death penalty for abortion, adultery and unrepentant homosexuality."
Many of these links come from The Activists Handbook, by Frederick Clarkson and Skipp Porteous of the (no longer active) Institute for First Amendment Studies. Articles from the Handbook have been scanned for this site because they are not otherwise available on the web. These articles document the activities of the Christian Coalition from 1991-1993 as they began to take "working control" of the Republican Party.

To read about the covert tactics of the Christian Reconstruction movement, click here (http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v08n1/chrisre4.html). What happened between 1964 and 1994?

A group of Republican strategists who had worked on Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign were worried. Goldwater had been soundly defeated, and the strategists feared that the base of the Republican Party -- primarily southern segregationists and the very wealthy -- was too narrow. So they set out to expand the base calling themselves the New Right. Goldwater was not part of the New Right.

One member of the New Right, Republican Strategist Paul Weyrich (http://www.theocracywatch.org/yurica_weyrich_manual.htm), founded the Heritage Foundation in 1973 -- a think tank to promote the ideas of the New Right. Weyrich also founded ALEC, The American Legislative Exchange Council in 1973 to coordinate the work of Religious Right state legislators. ALEC initially positioned itself as a counterweight to liberal foundations and think tanks, focusing on social issues like abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, but became a magnet for corporate lobbyists.
ALEC gives business a direct hand in writing bills that are considered in state assemblies nationwide. Funded primarily by large corporations, industry groups, and conservative foundations -- including R.J. Reynolds, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute -- the group takes a chain-restaurant approach to public policy, supplying precooked McBills to state lawmakers. Since most legislators are in session only part of the year and often have no staff to do independent research, they're quick to swallow what ALEC serves up. In 2000, according to the council, members introduced more than 3,100 bills based on its models, passing 450 into law. Ghostwriting the Law, (http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2002/09/ma_95_01.html) Karen Olson, Mother Jones, Sept.Oct. 2002
In 1979 Weyrich coined the term "Moral Majority." Their goal was to politicize members of fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches - a constituency that had been basically apolitical.

Not all members of fundamentalist, Pentecostal and charismatic churches support the Religious Right, but those were the groups targeted by the New Right. And some members of churches outside of those mentioned support the Religious Right, while many other Christian leaders strongly oppose them.

1980 -- A Watershed Year

Paul Weyrich, speaking in Dallas in 1980, captured the spirit of this new movement. He said,
"We are talking about Christianizing America. We are talking about simply spreading the gospel in a political context."
Jerry Falwell, (http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/televangelists/jerry-falwell/) who became the leader of the Moral Majority said: "get them saved, get them Baptized, and get them registered." (These two quotes can be heard on the video produced by People for the American Way called Life And Liberty for All Who Believe (http://www.theocracywatch.org/audio-video.htm).)

Thousands of fundamentalist preachers participated in political training seminars that year, and by June, more than two million voters had been registered Republican. Their goal was to register 5 million by November. In the 1980 elections, the newly politicized Religious Right succeeded in unseating five of the most liberal Democrat incumbents in the U.S. Senate, and provided the margin that helped Ronald Reagan defeat Jimmy Carter. The year 1980 was the year that a sleeping giant was awakened, and the political landscape of the United States was dramatically altered.

Many other organizations formed in the eighties. The Reverend Timothy LaHaye (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5601&abbr=cs_&security=1001&news_iv_ctrl=1072) founded the American Coalition for Traditional Values -- a network of 110,000 churches committed to getting Christian candidates elected to office.

In 1980 LaHaye was present at the birth of the Moral Majority and agreed to serve on the organization's first board of directors under the tutelage of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, with whom he remains close today.



A year later, LaHaye was co-founder and first president of the Council for National Policy (CNP), a secretive umbrella group of far right leaders who meet regularly to plot strategy designed to advance a theocratic agenda.
"No one individual has played a more central organizing role in the religious right than Tim LaHaye," says Larry Eskridge of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, calling him "the most influential American evangelical of the last twenty-five years." (Rolling Stone, January 28, 2004.)

In 1979 Beverly and Tim LaHaye founded Concerned Women for American (CWA) claiming a membership of 600,000. With prayer and action meetings, the women were, and still are a formidable lobbying force. CWA was successful in defeating the Equal Rights Amendment, and their lawyers won an important textbook case in 1987 to combat Secular Humanism in the schools. That case was later overturned by the higher courts.

James Dobson, host of the radio show Focus on the Family, founded the Family Research Council (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6316&abbr=pr&security=1002&news_iv_ctrl=1469) in 1983 to act as the political lobbying arm of his radio show. Because an estimated four million listeners tune into his radio show daily, the Family Research Council has remained a formidable lobbying organization.

And the highly secretive Council for National Policy (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6949&abbr=cs_) was founded in 1981 to conduct three-times-a-year strategy sessions. The CNP was and still is an umbrella organization of right-wing leaders who gather regularly to plot strategy, share ideas and fund causes and candidates to advance the theocratic agenda. more (http://www.theocracywatch.org/bush_cnp_times_aug28.htm)

A Short-Lived Sigh of Relief

In 1988 Pat Robertson (http://www.theocracywatch.org/pat_robertson.htm) ran for President in the Republican Primaries and lost to George Bush Sr. In 1989 the Moral Majority disbanded. A lot of people concerned about the Religious Right breathed a deep sigh of relief. But there was one strange event that should have been a warning sign.
Pat Robertson beat Vice President George Bush Sr. in the Iowa Republican caucuses. How did Pat Robertson beat the Vice President in that state? Members of his campaign worked precinct by precinct to take over the party leadership at the local level until, eventually, they controlled the state party apparatus.

In March, 1986, I (Joan Bokaer) was on a speaking tour in Iowa and received a copy of the following memo Robertson had distributed to the Iowa Republican County Caucus:

"How to Participate in a Political Party
Rule the world for God.
Give the impression that you are there to work for the party, not push an ideology.
Hide your strength.
Don't flaunt your Christianity.
Christians need to take leadership positions. Party officers control political parties and so it is very important that mature Christians have a majority of leadership positions whenever possible, God willing."
As can be seen from the documentation on this page, one of their tactics was to tie up the meetings for hours until people left. Then they appointed themselves leaders and made key decisions. Once they took over the local leadership throughout the State of Iowa, they could control the state party apparatus. After their success in the Iowa '88 primary, they used the same tactic in several other states -- precinct by precinct.

Republican State Party Platforms began to get pretty interesting in 1992. The Republican Party of Washington State in 1992 outlawed witchcraft and yoga classes.

The Decade of Pat Robertson

In 1990, Pat Robertson laid out his key organizing principle in his book The Millennium:
"With the apathy that exists today, a well organized minority can influence the selection of candidates to an astonishing degree."
Robertson said to the Denver Post in 1992,
"We want...as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians..."
Robertson hired Ralph Reed as the Christian Coalition's (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6136&abbr=pr&news_iv_ctrl=1509) political mastermind. To get their candidates elected Reed and Robertson taught them to use stealth: avoid publicity, stay out of debates, and work below the radar screen. Don't call attention to yourself. And then Christian Coalition campaigned on their behalf exclusively in fundamentalist, Pentecostal and Charismatic churches.

While candidates avoided the limelight, Christian Coalition Family Values Voter Guides were distributed to participating churches. Church telephone directories were used for "get-out-the-vote" telephone banks.

1994: A Watershed Year

By election time in 1994 Christian Coalition had distributed 40 million copies of the "Family Values Voter's Guide" in more than 100,000 churches nationwide. 1994 was the year Republicans took control of Congress for the first time in 40 years. It was also the year that Republicans made a huge gain in State Legislatures.

The purpose of focusing on state legislative races was to enable Republicans to gerrymander (http://www.theocracywatch.org/redistricitng.htm) Congressional Districts. To be sure, both parties have used the practice of gerrymandering to their advantage, but, in recent years, Republicans have elevated this practice to new heights.

Up until 1994, Democrats held strong majorities in both houses of most State Legislatures. In 1992 Democrats had majorities in both bodies of twenty-five legislatures, Republicans eight. In 1994, Democrats had majorities in eighteen, Republicans, nineteen. By 2003, Democrats had sixteen, Republicans, twenty-one.

http://www.theocracywatch.org/ralph_reed_small.jpg (http://www.theocracywatch.org/ralph_reed.jpg)

Time Magazine, in May, 1995, called Ralph Reed "The Right Hand of God" and credited the Christian Coalition with giving the Republicans their victories. Out of forty-five new members in the U.S. House of Representatives and nine in the U.S. Senate in 1994, roughly half were Christian Coalition candidates.

---1996, 45 million voter guides were sent out.

---In 2000, 75 million voter guides were sent out to support George Bush.

---In 2002 - 24 million.

---In 2002 the Religious Right backed candidates won 18 new House seats, and 11 Senate and Gubernatorial elections. Ralph Reed resigned from Christian Coalition in 1997, it lost its tax exempt status in 1999, and Robertson resigned in 2001.

The organization appears to have lost much of its momentum, but it changed the course of American politics. The candidates it has supported now reside in the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, the courts, state boards of education and more. And most of the Republican leadership of the U.S. Congress consistently receive 100% scores from Christian Coalition. Thirty-eight out of fifty-two Republicans in the U.S. Senate received 100% scorecards from Family Research Council in 2003 and forty-one out of fifty-one Senators received 100% scorecards from Christian Coalition in 2004.

To see Senate scorecards produced by the League of Conservation Voters, a consortium of environmental organizations, compared to the scorecards produced by three organizations that promote the theocratic right -- the Christian Coalition, the Family Research Council, and the Eagle Forum -- click here (http://www.theocracywatch.org/cc_senate_2004.xls). (These tables were provided by Glenn Scherer, (http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2004/10/27/scherer-christian/) October, 2004.)http://www.theocracywatch.org/taking_over.htm

[Dermezel]

Their own movement places the numbers at approximately 30-35% of the population and growing. They go on to proudly claim that the leadership in their movement – who are the only ones truly in “the know” – consist of about 3-5% of THAT population, but they aim to emulate the “jihadists” and grow that to 10% where they will cause a “tipping point” and create a Christian State. Okey-dokey!
The population of the United States currently stands at 304 million people. So when we do the math – they claim a following of any where between 91 – 106 million. Our numbers are far more conservative and have placed their Sheeple numbers between 50 – 80 million. Either way, this is a substantial number of people who subscribe to this “faith”!

“There aren’t that many of them” will echo in my head for the rest of the afternoon while I mow my lawn and wonder what can I do differently? What can WE do differently? It is not enough to reach one person at a time…
http://www.theopalinism.com/blog/tag/political-dominionism/


Or to put it more succinctly:

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q289/Dermezel/bush_daily_mirror_dumb_people.jpg

[RadioRaheem84]

OK, man they're big but they're not going to take over the government and outlaw us. At most they would form a coalition with a right wing government, that's it. No where, since the advent of Fascism, has a theocratic government taken over a Western state, including Latin America. There was always a co-operation with the fascist regime but never a full dominion of Christians taking over the State. Not going to happen. Stop worrying.

[chegitz guevara]

I wouldn't trust the Dominionists for information as to their own support. Everything I've read puts them at a paltry 12%.

Now, Dispensationalism is quite large, but they are dangerous in a very different way. They are looking forward to the apocalypse, and willing to bring it about. They do constitute about 30% to 35% of American Christians.

[RadioRaheem84]

The thing I hate about these Christian Dominionists is how dangerously stupid they are. They have literally no real foundation of history, economics, politics, or even geography for that matter yet they're so cock sure of themselves! They so much believe that their culture is the right one and that everyone else is just stupid and backwards.

I just finished that little video in the link you posted, Dermezel, and I was infuriated. The guy talks like he believes he has some authority when in reality the guy lacks even a basic understanding of nearly everything! Yet, he thinks that him and his cohorts should lead the nation?

How the hell did nearly more than a quarter of the population in this country become mentally unstable if they attend Churches like this? The religious extremism is seriously scary in this country as it is in the Middle East.

[Dermezel]

OK, man they're big but they're not going to take over the government and outlaw us.

They did take over the government. What do you think Bush-Cheney was? They will outlaw you. They even started arresting Democrats (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/The_Permanent_Republican_Majority_1125.html) towards the end of the Bush era.



Governor Don Siegelman was a popular Democratic politician in a largely Republican state and was the only person in Alabama history to hold all of the state's highest posts. He served as Attorney General, Secretary of State, Lieutenant Governor and finally as Governor from 1999 to 2003.


On Election Day in November 2002, when the polls had closed and the votes were being counted, it seemed increasingly apparent that Governor Siegelman had been victorious in his re-election bid against Republican challenger Bob Riley. But then -- just as in the infamous Florida election of 2000 -- something strange happened in the tallying of the votes.





Riley's electoral victory rested on a razor-thin margin of 3,120 votes. According to official reports, Baldwin County conducted a recount sometime in the middle of the night on Nov. 6, when the only county officers and election supervisors present were Republicans. It was during this second recount that the shift in votes from Siegelman to Riley appeared. Although various computer “glitches” and technical anomalies occurred across the state, it is widely acknowledged that the Baldwin County recount is what decisively delivered needed votes to the Riley camp.


State and county Democrats quickly requested another Baldwin County recount with Democratic observers present, as well as a state-wide recount. But before the Baldwin County Democratic Party canvassing board could act, Alabama’s Republican Attorney General William Pryor had the ballots sealed.





The case dragged on until June 2006, shortly after Siegelman was defeated in the Democratic primary. A few weeks later, he was acquitted of 25 of the 32 counts against him, but he was ultimately convicted on the other seven, after the jury had deadlocked twice and been sent back to deliberate by Judge Fuller. During the trial itself there were many irregularities (http://www.wsfa.com/global/story.asp?s=6778034&ClientType=Printable), including strong indications of jury tampering involving two jurors.



When it finally came time for sentencing, Judge Fuller imposed a sentence of seven years, four months and would not allow Siegelman to remain free while his case was under appeal. Within hours of his sentencing, Siegelman had been taken to a federal penitentiary in Atlanta.


In the days immediately following Siegelman's imprisonment, another set of strange occurrences further underscored the serious ethical and legal questions surrounding this case. First his lawyer's office was broken into (http://www.dailyreportonline.com/Editorial/News/new_singleEdit.asp?individual_SQL=7%2F3%2F2007%401 5096_Public_.htm), although the thieves took nothing of value and only appeared to have been looking for files. Then, ten days later, Siegelman was sent on an extended odyssey to prisons in Michigan, New York, Oklahoma and finally Louisiana -- during which time his attorneys were led to believe that he had been moved to Texas.


http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/The_Permanent_Republican_Majority_1125.html


Trust me, if they are willing to arrest the Democrats, they are more then willing to arrest you.

[RadioRaheem84]

Now, Dispensationalism is quite large, but they are dangerous in a very different way. They are looking forward to the apocalypse, and willing to bring it about. They do constitute about 30% to 35% of American Christians.

It's as though every Southerner knows the little catch all phrases to describe the Christian population! We have to deal with a lot of crap sometimes, comrade. :)

But yes, I forgot about this segment which is quite fanatical in their support of Israel and adamant about waging wars against Muslim majority nations and Communists. They listen to nuts like Hal Lindsey and the really fat guy with the glasses, I forgot his name, always harping on the protection of Israel and how we must be on the right side of the Apocalypse.

I am so embarrassed of this country sometimes and how we look to other developed nations.

[RadioRaheem84]

OK, Dermezel, take a deep breath. That was plain political corruption. Its been happening for quite some time but yes its scary to see the ease in which they're doing it again this time around and burying the stories in the back pages of the mainstream press.

But that won't happen without a fight as not even Christians would be OK with political corruption on that level. They're fight is with us because of our ideology and that is what they wish to outlaw, there would be no need to frame us.

Besides, these Christians aren't in the vast majority. That is why they attach themselves to the GOP to get anything through.

[Dermezel]

I wouldn't trust the Dominionists for information as to their own support. Everything I've read puts them at a paltry 12%.

Now, Dispensationalism is quite large, but they are dangerous in a very different way. They are looking forward to the apocalypse, and willing to bring it about. They do constitute about 30% to 35% of American Christians.

Yeah like the previous poster noted, "Dominionism" and "Dispensationalism" is a pretty fine line. Politically they are one and the same.

Every politician who receives the support of the Dominionists is likely to receive the support of the "Dispensationalists". When it comes down to voting who do you think they will vote for? You think the Evangelicals and Born-Agains and Christian coalitions are voting Democrat?

No, the Democrats are "too leftist" and "Stalinist" for them. The ACLU just defends "perverts" and the Constitution is just something that gets in the way of Christians running "their own country".

Trust me these guys are lock-in-step united. When Bush's approval ratings sank down to the 25% point, who do you think that 25% was?


And those politicians are just the powerful tip of the iceberg. A 2002 Time/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the Book of Revelation are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks.http://www.grist.org/article/scherer-christian/


Those 50 million believers make up only a subset of the estimated 100 million born-again evangelicals in the United States, who are by no means uniformly right-wing anti-environmentalists. In fact, the political stances of evangelicals on the environment and other issues range widely; the Evangelical Environmental Network, for example, has melded its biblical interpretation with good environmental science to justify and promote stewardship of the earth. But the political and cultural impact of the extreme Christian right is difficult to overestimate.They don't need the majority to hold power any more then the Nazis did. They simply need a size able enough group which is militant and wholly united in thought and action.

And trust me, they may have botched the first attempt at a Permanent Republican Majority, but the torch is still lit, and if they get into power they will outlaw you if they can. Do you really think they care one whit about arresting an actual leftist when they go after "liberals" so viciously?

[Dermezel]

OK, Dermezel, take a deep breath. That was plain political corruption.

No, it was not just plain "political corruption".

The Iraq War was not "plain political corruption". It was a war the likes of which this country has not seen since Vietnam. Since Vietnam we have had bad wars, but something on the scale of Iraq we have not seen for almost forty years.

The actual arrest of political opponents, the election stealing, the implementation of Homeland Security, basically the complete elimination of fourth amendment rights, and complete destruction of 30 years of environmental legislation (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1205-02.htm) are not business as usual in Washington.

I'm not saying Washington is ever the beacon of progress or clean government, but a political administration does not cut down 30 years of environmental protection every year. You do not see Democrats arresting Republican candidates during a recount. You do not see the Democrats holding these insane TEAParties.

Look, we know the Dominionists have hijacked the Republican Party. Even the Republicans know they have taken over the Republican Party. (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Video_50_year_study_says_conservatives_0711.html)

This isn't your typical right-wing movement. This is a new form of fascism (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0eL-WaD__g).

Trust me, when the TEAParty followers go to Church on Sunday, or watch Fox News they are going to be told to vote Republican, and they are going to listen. Or as one Pastor put it in 2004:

"I can't say for sure, because it is up to God to decide. But this upcoming election is really important in history. So I can't say for certain, but I will note this- if you vote for John Kerry, you might go to hell."

[chegitz guevara]

Dominionists = want to set up Christian theocratic monarchy, may also be dispensationalists

Dispensationalists = death cult, want to destroy the world, literally, most aren't dominionists

[RadioRaheem84]

What I want to know is how do they justify being Christians and singing battle hymns at tea bagger meetings? I saw one youtube clip where christian tea baggers split from the secular movement to form a Christian one and at their first meeting they spoke of the 'peace' of knowing Christ and loving thy neighbor, yet five minutes later sung the battle hymn of the republic and other pro-military tunes.

[Dermezel]

What I want to know is how do they justify being Christians and singing battle hymns at tea bagger meetings? I saw one youtube clip where christian tea baggers split from the secular movement to form a Christian one and at their first meeting they spoke of the 'peace' of knowing Christ and loving thy neighbor, yet five minutes later sung the battle hymn of the republic and other pro-military tunes.

You are talking about people who think you deserve to be tortured forever over your belief system. For every time Jesus mentions heaven, he mentions hell eight times. What do you think the selling point of Christianity really was in the Middle Ages? Sure heaven sounds nice, but a scary hell is so much more effective at inducing conformity.

Also you have to keep in mind the only thing demanded in Protestant Christianity is that you accept Jesus and save people's souls. Whatever happens to the body is beyond irrelevant compared to this. If you got someone to accept Jesus, and then you shoot him dead and take his wallet you have done infinitely more good then if you gave him anything of actual value.

With that in mind, consider the fact that as living standards improve people become far less religious: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/paul07/paul07_index.html


The practical implications are equally breath taking. Every time a nation becomes truly advanced in terms of democratic, egalitarian education and prosperity it loses the faith. It's guaranteed. That is why perceptive theists are justifiably scared. In practical terms their only practical hope is for nations to continue to suffer from socio-economic disparity, poverty and maleducation. That strategy is, of course, neither credible nor desirable. And that is why the secular community should be more encouraged.

As the article notes there are a mountain of statistics that prove this. And while I do not believe most pastors realize this consciously, I believe some part of them subconsciously realizes the link between poverty and religiosity from experience. They have preached to people before, and they know that the most desperate and ignorant are the most easily converted.

So it's easy to see the logic- harm the body to save the soul.

Again this may not be explicitly believed, but the underlying causal reality must be known at some level. Why do you think Christians run so many charities? Why do you think many Christian charities work like this?

There are two sets of people in the homeless shelter. Group 1, who listens to the sermon and says "Amen" gets the beds. Group 2, who refuses to, sleeps on the floor.

Case 2- Another charity. Before each meal there is a prayer. Those who join in the prayer get to eat, those who do not go hungry.

Those are two actual charities I have looked into, but the examples of this are more common then you may think. Christians do not run charities to be nice, they do it to save your soul because that is the primary mission.

So long as society remains capitalist, and there are few if any social programs, the Christians have a veritable monopoly on charity. That's a lot of poor souls who are more easily pressured to convert. Likewise, the work-spend-poverty cycle whereby people live by paycheck to paycheck is pretty damn scary. It also takes up time, time that could otherwise be used to pursue say a philosophical or scientific education, hence the denunciation of "idle hands." Just keep everyone poor, everyone miserable and everyone ignorant and you will see pews full with the pious come every Sunday morning. And what Pastor does not want to see that? To quote George Elliot


Given, a man with moderate intellect, a moral standard not higher than the average, some rhetorical affluence and great glibness of speech, what is the career in which, without the aid of birth or money, he may most easily attain power and reputation in English society? Where is that Goshen of mediocrity in which a smattering of science and learning will pass for profound instruction, where platitudes will be accepted as wisdom, bigoted narrowness as holy zeal, unctuous egoism as God-given piety ? Let such a man become an evangelical preacher; he will then find it possible to reconcile small ability with great ambition, superficial knowledge with the prestige of erudition, a middling morale with a high reputation for sanctity.

[Robocommie]

You are talking about people who think you deserve to be tortured forever over your belief system. For every time Jesus mentions heaven, he mentions hell eight times. What do you think the selling point of Christianity really was in the Middle Ages? Sure heaven sounds nice, but a scary hell is so much more effective at inducing conformity.

That's not accurate. The beliefs of the afterlife for most pre-Christian peoples weren't terribly more pleasant than the classic view of Hell. No, the major selling point for Christianity in the early middle ages was the concept of salvation and redemption of sins.

The glorification of the military seen in conservative Christianity is a political issue, not a theological one. They are bringing their pro-military attitudes into their religion to justify it retroactively, they are not driven to support the military by their religion.

[Dimentio]

I wouldn't call them fascist. Rather, they are religious fundamentalists (who often are trying to recruit the same base which often become fascist).

[heiss93]

I think the Teabagger movement which ranks social issues last in importance and has libertarian influences is a far more dangerous proto-fascist movement.

[Dermezel]

The glorification of the military seen in conservative Christianity is a political issue, not a theological one. They are bringing their pro-military attitudes into their religion to justify it retroactively, they are not driven to support the military by their religion.

The attitudes are linked in general. Find me a fundamentalist Christian and I will bet you a thousand bucks he supports the Iraq War. Doing this I will easily win 9 out of 10 votes.

And the logic for it is simple- cultural influence. As Ann Coulter said "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Again, harm the body and save the soul. And no, before Christianity most conceptions of the afterlife did not include eternal torture. Not over something like a belief system. Even Zoroastrianism only "burned" the soul for three days for the purpose of "purifying" it before bringing it to heaven. This is where the idea of hell evolved from BTW.

[Dermezel]

I wouldn't call them fascist. Rather, they are religious fundamentalists (who often are trying to recruit the same base which often become fascist).

Again what's the difference? To me it seems cosmetic. No real fascist movement now at days is going to call itself fascist.

[Dimentio]

Fundamentalist christianity in America has a very special history which has much to do with the udnerlying conflict between the states and the federal government, as well as the struggle between liberal protestants and conservative protestants during the 19th century. The beginning of christian fundamentalism in the USA was the Scopes trial.

In Europe, modernism was a traumatic event which led to apocalyptic fantasies about the final war (something which was realised in 1914), while in the USA, the reaction against modernism was dressed more in religious clothes.

The strength of christianity in America is partially also because of the lack of a state church. In Europe, the church(es) was a political powerhouse, which could be more easily targeted because their power was that much more obvious.

[RadioRaheem84]

As Ann Coulter said "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

She was trying to be ironic by stating that the US had already accomplished the first two and might as well have done the third. Her humor is dark, sick, and utterly vile. Do not fall into her trap by taking her too seriously. She wants that.

[Dermezel]

Fundamentalist christianity in America has a very special history which has much to do with the udnerlying conflict between the states and the federal government, as well as the struggle between liberal protestants and conservative protestants during the 19th century. The beginning of christian fundamentalism in the USA was the Scopes trial.

In Europe, modernism was a traumatic event which led to apocalyptic fantasies about the final war (something which was realised in 1914), while in the USA, the reaction against modernism was dressed more in religious clothes.

The strength of christianity in America is partially also because of the lack of a state church. In Europe, the church(es) was a political powerhouse, which could be more easily targeted because their power was that much more obvious.

It is also the product of our geography and colonial history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_culture_of_honor


Culture of Honor” is a term generally used to describe the American southern culture and is related to the use of violence for the purpose of maintaining a reputation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reputation). This quality is viewed to be important for a man in any region where gaining resources and keeping them depends on the community’s belief that the man can protect those resources against predators. Toughness is a strong value in such a culture because of its effect on the deterrence of such predators from one’s possessions. In order to maintain this sort of reputation in the community, one must always be on guard and respond to any insult or threat with violence or present a warning of violence. According to Hayes in Re-examining the Subculture of Violence in the South, “the term 'honor' as defined here has more to do with the willingness to use violence when it is expected than the more traditional definition of bravery or moral character.”[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_culture_of_honor#endnote_Hayes) It is a common belief that the cause of high violence rates in the Southern United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_United_States) is due to this cultural qualityMuch of this is also seen in the Mid-West. Honor culture evolves in the absence of social institutions that democratize a society. Examples of this are schools and courts. Without such institutions ignorance prevails.

Much of the US was without social institutions during our colonial history. Canada and Australia however had social institutions often moving ahead of colonists. Hence why they are more secular and leftist.

This is coupled by capitalism, which reinforces religiosity by intensifying the problems of inequality and misery.

To defeat this problem you need a two-pronged attack on honor culture and the capitalist system in parallel since either will reinforce the other. The Fundamentalist will aid the corporatist, and vice versa.

Above all you must try to keep them out of power, because like has been noted they are basically fascist with respect to their willingness to resort to militarism and police state tactics against progressive movements. A popular front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_front) is thus needed with a united front (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_front) at its core.

[chegitz guevara]

Again what's the difference? To me it seems cosmetic. No real fascist movement now at days is going to call itself fascist.

We determine what a fascist group is, not by what it calls itself, nor even by the ideas it espouses. Whether or not a group is fascist is determined by the class elements involved and the role it plays.

While there is certainly a major element of crossover between Dominionism and fascism, they fact that they are both dangerous reactionary movements is no more relevant to understanding and combating them than understanding that both lions and tigers will kill and eat you if they get the chance.

[Dermezel]

We determine what a fascist group is, not by what it calls itself, nor even by the ideas it espouses. Whether or not a group is fascist is determined by the class elements involved and the role it plays.

While there is certainly a major element of crossover between Dominionism and fascism, they fact that they are both dangerous reactionary movements is no more relevant to understanding and combating them than understanding that both lions and tigers will kill and eat you if they get the chance.

Again, is there any evidence that the Dominionists lack a petty bourgeoisie element?

Likewise, are they not fascist in intent and effect? If they got power, they would outlaw leftist groups. That's fascist enough.

[chegitz guevara]

Liberals outlawed leftist groups. Does that make them fascists? The purpose of fascism is not to smash the left. Its to smash threats to profitability.

The Dominionists could play a fascist role, but they don't at the moment. The ruling sectors of capital would turn to them only as a last, desperate resort. Right now, they are getting what they want through the Tea Party, which is fascist.

[Dermezel]

Liberals outlawed leftist groups. Does that make them fascists? The purpose of fascism is not to smash the left. Its to smash threats to profitability.

Well, if they outlawed all leftist groups like the Dominionists want to do, it would. If they stole elections, and began arresting Republicans, and were affiliated with weird fundamentalist religious movements, yeah I'd consider them fascist.

Especially if they started invading countries like Iran, or started declaring themselves fourth branch of government, etc.

We all know that if anything the liberals are more spineless then fascist. Face facts, even when they had a super-majority they did not have the balls to push through health care reform.

Look, it is not one thing that makes a group fascist. I don't know why you believe that. It is a myriad of factors that produces a convergence of evidence (http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/american/skeptic-magazine/skeptic-8.html).

[chegitz guevara]

Perhaps it's because I'm a Marxist, an historical materialist, that I think superficial factors are irrelevant to determining whether or not a movement is fascist.

Read this pamphlet (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm)

Read this except of the best book about fascism every written (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/guerin/1938/10/fascism.htm) (then look it up at the library and read the whole thing)

[Dermezel]

Perhaps it's because I'm a Marxist, an historical materialist, that I think superficial factors are irrelevant to determining whether or not a movement is fascist.

Read this pamphlet (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm)

Read this except of the best book about fascism every written (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/guerin/1938/10/fascism.htm) (then look it up at the library and read the whole thing)

Yeah, Marxism isn't about looking at two articles and ignoring all other evidence. Marxism is supposed to be scientific, and only allowing certain "kinds" of evidence is a rather unscientific attitude.

I've read Trostky's pamphlet and agree with a lot of it, but his definition is too narrow. He defines it as a petty bourgeoisie movement that occurs at a certain stage which is paramilitary and seeks to suppress the left. I call it overly narrow because he tries to argue that only something that literally, in every way, looks like Mussolini's fascism is fascism. He doesn't seem to realize that he is making very broad generalizations from some very scarce examples. He does say this directly, but it is very much implied.

Secondly, even according to Trotsky's general standards the Christian right fits into the fascist category. It is a mass movement, it has a heavy middle class element, it has a paramilitary element, and it seeks to suppress the working class and leftists in general.

The second essay you linked to has some serious flaws.

First it accuses the Nazi regime of being super-centralized, this is false. See Albert Speer's Inside the Third Reich where he notes as a member of Hitler's inner circle and from his position of Minister of Armaments that the view of the Nazi system as heavily centralized in politics or economics was very much an illusion. Many times Hitler could not enforce his orders on a city if the Mayor too strongly protested, and on occasion had trouble with rogue clergy men. It was nowhere near as centralized as the Soviet Union. I think people believe this because the German military was very organized and has traditionally had a very strong chain of command. In fact, I think it was the Germans (Austrians/Prussians) who first developed the chain of command network we most commonly see in militaries today. (France developed the first nation-state army, but Germany developed the first operational chain of command network. )

Secondly, it doesn't say directly but implies the Nazis had heavy police state repression. As has been noted, this was only true towards the end of the war. In general, Great Britain under blockade had more police state repression.

Third, the article has a grand total of 3 footnotes. 3. I know this may sound superficial to you but that looks very scarce from an empirical basis. Generally I find this to be a bad omen for any article in general, and it hardly compares to the underlying research of the articles I presented.

Fourth, the article sounds almost pro-capitalist in its weird "anti-bureaucracy" myths.


A few supplementary explanations are necessary here. The fact is undeniable that the industrialists who subsidized and put fascism in power are not entirely satisfied with their own creation. In the first place the regime is terribly expensive. The maintenance of the excessive bureaucracy of the state, the party and the numerous semi-governmental bodies costs unheard-of sums and adds to the financial difficulties of the government.I don't see how this holds true. In general increased bureaucracy tends to increase efficiency (See Dr. James W. Loewen's "Lies my Teacher Told Me" where he notes the problem with bureaucracy has to do with politics, not efficiency. In fact it is because they are so efficient that they are so dangerous. )

Maybe, to be fair he is saying that's how the capitalists perceive it. But even then I doubt that would be the case seeing as the means of production remained pretty damn privatized.

Likewise almost all regulations imposed on big business benefited the bourgeoisie and only negatively effected labor rights. To my knowledge, all Big Business were quite content under the Nazis. I think some liberal bourgeoisie had moralistic misgivings, others may have felt the war/holocaust was risky (as was the case with IBM's then CEO who felt that the trade with Germany should be questioned, literally because of the risk, not for any moral reason) but in general it was profitable.

Again, you can't expect the fascists now at days to be openly declarative of their fascism. They will try to disguise it by any means. And to try and define fascism by one clean and neat set of one or two features is pointless, no social scientist really works that way because social phenomenon are more complex then that.

You need a convergence of evidence on this matter. And the convergence of evidence is more indicative of fascism with respect to the Christian Right, then can safely be ignored.

We already know if they can outlaw you, they WILL outlaw you. That should be it from a practical standpoint. We also know they are aiming for absolute power. That is also important to consider from a practical standpoint.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

I believe there is reason enough to call them fascists... and to shoot them at the spot.

[Wakizashi the Bolshevik]

And what's most funny is the fact that the bible itself also clearly states the following, when Jesus spoke to Pilatus: "My kingdom IS NOT OF THIS WORLD. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would fight".
Also, in another part there is clearly stated that beyond the christian people themselves are the things "which are Caesar's".

Wonderful when you can hit the mindless fascist "Christian"-right morons with their own weapon...:laugh:

[Robocommie]

The attitudes are linked in general. Find me a fundamentalist Christian and I will bet you a thousand bucks he supports the Iraq War. Doing this I will easily win 9 out of 10 votes.

And the logic for it is simple- cultural influence. As Ann Coulter said "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

I think you're oversimplifying things tremendously, but to the extent that fundies and conservative Christians are pro-military, it's their politics that drive their beliefs, not the other way around. There are plenty of conservative, fundamentalist Christians who reject war, and there's plenty who don't.

Not every single conservative Christian believes in converting people by the sword, that's ridiculous.


And no, before Christianity most conceptions of the afterlife did not include eternal torture. Not over something like a belief system. Even Zoroastrianism only "burned" the soul for three days for the purpose of "purifying" it before bringing it to heaven. This is where the idea of hell evolved from BTW.That's again inaccurate. You can't say the concept of Hell simply evolved from Zoroastrianism, that's oversimplifying things. For one thing, Zoroastrianism was predominantly centered in Persia, and the earliest Christian writers and theologians were Hellenized Jews, not Persian. Being Hellenized, they would have taken just as much cultural influence from Greeks as from the Persians, and probably moreso - in fact, one of the most influential texts of the Hebrew Bible in the time immediately proceeding Christ and the writing of the Gospels was the Septuagint, written in Koine Greek, not Aramaic. In the Septuagint, the traditional term for the resting place of the dead, Sheol, is rendered in Greek, as Hades. I hasten to point out that Hades, the Greek underworld, was a rather unpleasant place where the vast majority of the dead wandered in a cold and gloomy existence of sadness, wailing and bemoaning their wraithly existence. And in early Christian theology, it is this Greek word, Hades, that comes to refer to the abode of the dead. The Greek influence is clear.

And I would also like to point out that the word Hell itself is an English word which comes to us from Norse legend, from Hel, the land of misery and cold where the inglorious dead, those who did not make it to Walhalla, go. You were talking of the "main selling point of Christianity in the Middle Ages" and well, the groups of people who were being converted to Christianity in the Middle Ages was in fact the Germanic tribes. Most of the converts to Christianity found the idea of personal salvation attractive, and that's why they converted.

[Dermezel]

I think you're oversimplifying things tremendously, but to the extent that fundies and conservative Christians are pro-military, it's their politics that drive their beliefs, not the other way around. There are plenty of conservative, fundamentalist Christians who reject war, and there's plenty who don't.

Not every single conservative Christian believes in converting people by the sword, that's ridiculous.

I'm not saying they have to believe that, I'm saying it makes sense within the context of their belief system.

Also you are not aware of the fact that Abrahamic cultures tend to be militant in general due to being the products of Desert civilizations: http://discovermagazine.com/2005/aug/desert-people



Attempts to link culture with climate and ecology have an old history (Herodotus did it long before Montesquieu), but with the rise of anthropology as a discipline, the effort became scientific. Early efforts were often howlers of dead-white-male racism; every study seemed to generate irrefutable scientific proof that northern European ecosystems produced superior cultures, more advanced morals, technologies, and intellects, and better schnitzel. Much of contemporary social anthropology represents a traumatized retreat from the sins of those intellectual fathers. One solution was to resolutely avoid cultural comparisons, thereby ushering in an era wherein an anthropologist could spend an entire career documenting the puberty rite of one clan of farmers in northeastern Cameroon.

But some anthropologists remained generalists, studying cross-cultural patterns while cautiously treading around ideological bias, and many continued to explore how ecology affects culture. One such pioneer was John Whiting of Harvard, who in 1964 produced a paper entitled “Effects of Climate on Certain Cultural Practices.” Comparing data from non-Westernized societies from around the planet, he noted that husbands and wives from cultures in the colder parts of this planet are more likely to sleep together at night than are spouses in the tropics. He also found that cultures in habitats that produce protein-poor diets have the longest restrictions on postpartum sex. Whiting hypothesized that to counterbalance the lack of protein, infants required a longer period of nursing, which placed a premium on well-spaced births.


Other anthropologists explored the ecological roots of violence. In 1982 Melvin Ember of Yale found that certain ecosystems are so stable and benign that families remain intact throughout the year, farming their plot of land or hunting and gathering in the surrounding rich forest. In less forgiving settings, family units often split up for long periods, dividing their herds into smaller groups during dry seasons, for instance, with family members scattered with subflocks on distant pockets of grazing land. In such situations, warrior classes—as one sees among the pastoralist cowherding Masai of East Africa—are more common. There are advantages to having a communal standing army in case enemies appear when many of the men are away finding grass for the cattle.


In the 1960s, Textor pursued a radically different approach to cross-cultural research. He collated information on some 400 different cultures from around the world and classified them according to nearly 500 traits. What sort of legal system did each culture have? How did its people make a living? Did they believe in an afterlife? Did they weave or know about metallurgy? When at play, did they prefer games of chance or of strategy? Then he fed all these variables about all these cultures into some gigantic paleo-computer, cross-correlated everything, and laid out the significant findings. The result, his monumental A Cross-Cultural Summary, offers table after table indicating, among other things, which cultural differences are statistically likely to be linked to ecological differences. While not the sort of book you toss in your knapsack for beach reading, there is something irresistible about thousands of pages of correlations. Where else could you discover that societies that don’t work with leather very well are disproportionately likely to have games of skill? How do you explain that one?


From these various anthropological approaches, a basic dichotomy has emerged between two types of societies from very different ecosystems: societies born in rain forests and those that thrive in deserts. Think of Mbuti pygmies versus Middle Eastern bedouin, or Amazonian Indians versus nomads of the Gobi. There turn out to be consistent and permeating differences between the two. Obvious exceptions exist, some quite dramatic. Nonetheless, the correlates are unnerving.


Begin with religious beliefs. A striking proportion of rain forest dwellers are polytheistic, worshipping an array of spirits and gods. Polytheism is prevalent among tribes in the Amazon basin (the Sherenti, Mundurucu, and Tapirape) and in the rain forests of Africa (the Ndorobo), New Guinea (the Keraki and Ulawans), and Southeast Asia (the Iban of Borneo and the Mnong Gar and Lolo of Vietnam). But desert dwellers—the bedouin of Arabia, the Berbers of the western Sahara, the !Kung of the Kalahari Desert, the Nuer and Turkana of the Kenyan/Sudanese desert—are usually monotheistic. Of course, despite allegiances to a single deity, other supernatural beings may be involved, like angels and djinns and Satan. But the hierarchy is notable, with minor deities subservient to the Omnipotent One.


This division makes ecological sense. Deserts teach large, singular lessons, like how tough, spare, and withholding the environment is; the world is reduced to simple, desiccated, furnace-blasted basics. Then picture rain forest people amid an abundance of edible plants and medicinal herbs, able to identify more species of ants on a single tree than one would find in all the British Isles. Letting a thousand deities bloom in this sort of setting must seem natural. Moreover, those rain forest dwellers that are monotheistic are much less likely to believe that their god sticks his or her nose into other people’s business by controlling the weather, prompting illness, or the like. In contrast, the desert seems to breed fatalism, a belief in an interventionist god with its own capricious plans.


Another major difference was brought to light by Melvin Ember. Desert societies, with their far-flung members tending goats and camels, are classic spawning grounds for warrior classes and the accessories of militarism: military trophies as stepping stones to societal status, death in battle as a guarantee of a glorious afterlife, slavery. And these cultures are more likely to be stratified, with centralized authority. A cosmology in which an omnipotent god dominates a host of minor deities finds a natural parallel in a rigid earthly hierarchy.


Textor’s work highlights other differences between desert and rain forest societies. Purchasing or indenturing wives is far less prevalent among rain forest peoples. And in rain forest cultures, related women tend to form the core of a community for a lifetime, rather than being shipped off to serve the expediency of marriage making. In desert cultures, women typically have the difficult tasks of building shelters and wandering in search of water and firewood, while the men contemplate the majesty of their herds and envision their next raid. Among rain forest cultures, it’s the men who are more likely to do the heavy lifting. Rain forest cultures also are less likely to harbor beliefs about the inferiority of women; you won’t be likely to find rain forest men giving thanks in prayer that they were not created female,That's why you don't typically see Pagans calling for the take over of Iraq like you see the Christians.



That's again inaccurate. You can't say the concept of Hell simply evolved from Zoroastrianism, that's oversimplifying things. For one thing, Zoroastrianism was predominantly centered in Persia, and the earliest Christian writers and theologians were Hellenized Jews,

The Jews had been recently freed by the Persians from the Babylonians and allowed to migrate back to their Holy Land. They were extremely grateful. And it is around this time we see Monotheism, the concept of Heaven, the concept of Hell, the idea of Satan as an enemy (as opposed to anti-human servant) of God, the Christ myth (which mirrors that of Mithra almost exactly), the idea of Angels vs demons, an afterlife, etc.

None of this was present in Judaism before but it was all present in the Zoroastrian religion. In fact Zoroastrianism was rather unique in many of these respects compared to surrounding pagan religions (note Zoroastrianism wasn't technically monotheist, but henotheist, meaning they believed there was 2 gods- one absolutely good, another absolutely evil, both of which would one day meet for a Final Battle, after which the bad souls would be cleansed in hell for 3 days. )

[Dermezel]

Sheol, is rendered in Greek, as Hades. I hasten to point out that Hades, the Greek underworld, was a rather unpleasant place where the vast majority of the dead wandered in a cold and gloomy existence of sadness, wailing and bemoaning their wraithly existence. An

Actually Hades had both good and bad areas. http://www.thanasis.com/undrmapr.jpg

[Dimentio]

The dominionists seem to be quite marginal today, while the Tea Party movement is growing in influence by the day.

[Dermezel]

The dominionists seem to be quite marginal today, while the Tea Party movement is growing in influence by the day.

It's not an either/or. Many of the TEA Party members are fundamentalists. And marginal?



Estimate of Political Strength

The best way to estimate the strength of the theocratic right is to go to their organizations and see how they rate our legislators. To view how Christian Coalition rates the U.S. Congress, click here (http://www.cc.org/2004scorecard.pdf); the Eagle Forum, click here (http://www.eagleforum.org/Scoreboard/108-1/index.html). To view the scorecards of the most powerful organization of the theocratic right, the Family Research Council, click here (http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=MAR_CONTACT_LEG).
The magazine Campaigns and Elections (http://www.theocracywatch.org/campaigns_elections_study.htm) has published two studies http://www.theocracywatch.org/mapusa94-00.gif evaluating the relative strength of the Religious Right in state Republican Parties. The studies were directed by John C. Green, professor of political science and director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at The University of Akron.



The color-coded maps to the right demonstrate a shift from the year 1994 (top) to the year 2000 (bottom). Red is strong, green moderate, and yellow weak. The study's conclusion:



"In 2000, Christian conservatives were perceived to hold a strong position in 18 state Republican parties, the same number as in the 1994. The moderate category had 26 states, exactly twice the 1994 number. And the weak category declined to seven cases, down from 20 six years prior. Clearly, the biggest change was the increase in the moderate category, but there was considerable movement in all categories."



This link provides the chart (http://www.theocracywatch.org/state_charts.htm) by states produced by the above study.
The Houses of Worship Political Speech Protection Act, (http://www.theocracywatch.org/govern.htm#Houses) a bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 107th Congress, was intended to bypass campaign finance reform and allow houses of worship to collect money for political campaigns. It was drafted with help the American Center for Law and Justice (http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=7649), a law school founded by Pat Robertson. These contributions would have been both anonymous and tax exempt. This bill was lobbied for intensively by virtually all the key organizations of the theocratic right, and opposed by a strong coalition of mainline religious groups. It was defeated in the House of Representatives on October 3, 2002, thereby denying unrestricted campaign contributions to be made through the collection plate.



Because most groups except the theocratic Right opposed the bill, it was a good measure of their numbers in the House in 2002. Roughly 43% of those who voted supported the bill (178 for, 239 against). Candidates backed by the theocratic Right won 18 new seats in the House of Representatives in 2002. The bill was re-introduced in January, 2003. It is in the House Ways and Means Committee with 160 sponsors.


From Church and State (http://au.convio.net/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=6341&abbr=cs_&JServSessionIda008=pq0v6hemc1.app12d&security=1001&news_iv_ctrl=1544), February, 2004:

The North Carolina congressman has been successful at garnering more support for the new bill, which like its predecessor was written with the help of ACLJ (http://www.theocracywatch.org/biblical_law2.htm#ACLJ) attorneys. The measure, which is pending in the House Committee on Ways and Means, has more than 160 cosponsors, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). Legislative staff at Americans United for Separation of Church and State, as well as other public interest groups, believe the bill is gaining momentum and that its chances for being approved by the House are greater each day.
The Hostettler bill, passed by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 23, 2004, indicates the strength of the religious right. While media attention focused on the two-ton granite monument of the Ten Commandments (http://www.theocracywatch.org/biblical_law2.htm) placed in the lobby of the Alabama Supreme Court by its Chief Justice Roy Moore (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5464&abbr=cs_&security=1001&news_iv_ctrl=1082), little, if any attention was focused on a House measure that passed by a vote of 260 - 161. The Hostettler bill blocks the federal government from spending any tax funds to enforce the 11th U.S. circuit Court of Appeals order to have the monument removed. During floor debate, the author of the bill insisted that Congress has the power to curb the courts. This bill is an assault on an independent judiciary.


From Church and State (http://www.au.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5070&abbr=pr&security=1002&news_iv_ctrl=1287) on the Hostettler bill:

One Alabama newspaper blasted the amendment. Calling the move "outrageous and wholly unconstitutional," The Tuscaloosa News editorialized July 30, "While the amendment can and certainly should be stripped from the bill in the Senate, Hostettler's move shows that the same kind of blatant disregard of the law that Moore is trading in back here in Alabama is also current in Washington. That his ploy is not likely to stand does not make it any less outrageous."
http://www.theocracywatch.org/introduction2.htm#Estimate

As for numbers there are between 50-80 million hard core followers. With respect to votes, they effectively control the Republican party, them, Neo-Conservatives and corporations.