what will happen when the Christian right takes over…

This is actually pretty scary…but stoppable.  But please don’t think it can’t happen in America.  It already is a work in progress, and it needs to be resisted.

Have you heard of Dominionism?  Or Christian Nationalism?  This is the belief that Christians need to establish a Christian reign on earth before Jesus returns for the second coming.  Dominionists/Christian Nationalists also believe that Christians in general have a God-given right to rule, but more particularly, in preparation for the second coming of Christ, that Christian’s have the responsibility to take over every aspect of political and civil society.  And here is what makes this even scarier:  They believe that this Christian-led society should be governed strictly according to biblical law.

Do you think I’m making this up?

Ever hear of George Grant’s “The Changing of the Guard?”   Grant is executive director of D. James Kennedy’s Coral Ridge Ministries, and he wrote:

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

But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish.

Christian nationalists believe in a revisionist history, which holds that the founders were devout Christians who never intended to create a secular republic; separation of church and state, according to this history, is a fraud perpetrated by God-hating subversives.  The goal of Christian nationalist politics is the restoration of the imagined Christian nation.

Click HERE for an example of this just this month:  Republican Christians in Texas rewrote children’s history books  to reflect a more biblical world view.

Just last month, senators and presidential hopefuls Rand Paul, Rick Perry and Ted Cruz were in Iowa as featured speakers at a closed-door event for conservative pastors organized by David Lane, an anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-Mormon, Christian-nation absolutist who has declared war, not only on secularism and separation of church and state, but also on establishment Republicans who don’t embrace his vision of an America in which the Bible serves as “the principle textbook” for public education and a “Christian culture” has been “re-established.”  Lane describes his project’s goal this way:

to engage the church in a culture war for religious liberty, to restore America to our Judeo-Christian heritage and to re-establish a Christian culture.

Does anyone else find it as frightening as I do that half of the Republican presidential hopefuls are aligned with people like this???

One of the foremost Christian revisionist historians is David Barton, who, in addition to running an organization called Wallbuilders that disseminates Christian nationalist books, tracts and videos, is also the vice-chairman of the Texas Republican Party.  He says that – and this is serious – the Constitution is not merely a religious document–it’s lifted, verbatim from the Bible itself. That’s right. If you haven’t heard this before, it’s because Barton himself is pioneering this cutting-edge theory that experts have somehow missed all these years.  He says:

Now, that’s why the Constitution’s a problem. Look at Article III, Section 1, the treason clause–direct quote out of the Bible. You look at Article II, the quote on the President [having] to be native-born–that is Deuteronomy 17:15, verbatim. I mean, look at how many clauses come out [of the Bible]. That drives the secularists nuts, because the Bible is all over [the Constitution]. Now, we as Christians don’t tend to recognize that. We think it’s a secular document–we’ve bought into their lies. It’s not.

(Just for fun:  Deuteronomy 17:15 actually says “Thou shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother.”)

Oh, and an FYI for you, David:

ver·ba·tim adv (ˌ)vər-ˈbā-təm\

Definition of VERBATIM

: in the exact words : word for word

And one more – Gary Potter of Catholics for Christian Political Action writes:

When the Christian majority finally takes over this county, there will be no non-Christian churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more talk of rights for homosexuals.  After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil, and the state will not permit anybody the right to practice evil.  (emphasis mine.)

By the way, I have over 200 quotes from current Christian right political leaders that tell this story…and it’s temping to include ALL of them in this article.  I’m going to hold back a bit…I want this to be readable, not too long, and not overwhelming.  But go to the end of this article for some of my favorites.  In the meantime, let’s talk for a moment about Sarah Palin.

Did you know that this dominionist outlook heavily influenced Wasilla Assembly of God, Palin’s home church, in a big way?  And if you’ve heard Palin talk for more than five minutes you know that Christian Nationalism is clearly the basis of her political philosophy.  And do you remember that Palin ran for vice president alongside John McCain in 2008?  And do you know that when presidents die or are hospitalized, vice presidents take the reigns?  And are you aware that McCain is dang old (over 80)?  And, although Obama whipped McCain’s ass (Obama received the largest percentage of the popular vote for a Democrat in a half-century), if it wasn’t for team Obama’s “get out the vote” and other aspects of their brilliantly run campaign, we could have had McCain for president?

In 2010 Sarah said on national television:

We are a Christian nation.  I think we should keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant.  They’re quite clear that we should create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 commandments, it’s pretty simple.

And she went on (and continues) to say things like this:

God truly has shed his grace on thee — on this country. He’s blessed us, and we better not blow it, lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers.

For a vivid, well-argued, entertaining (in sort of a sick let’s-slow-down-and-check-out-the-car-wreck kind of way) picture of what could happen here in America, read Frederic Rich’s Christian Nation:  A Novel, a story that reminds us that America’s Christian fundamentalists have been consistently clear about their vision for a “Christian Nation” and dead serious about acquiring the political power to achieve it.  This novel takes us down the terrifyingly credible path toward theocracy, in which people realize too late that the Christian right meant precisely what it said.

I’m not trying to be alarmist…but please don’t think it’s out of the question that the “Christian Taliban” could one day be at the helm here.  Did you know that fourteen years before the first shot was fired in World War ll,
Hitler announced his plan to destroy the parliamentary system in Germany, to attack France and Poland, and to eliminate the Jews?  Why did ordinary Germans voting in 1932 not believe him?

He went ahead and did exactly what he said he was going to do.

And what is it that the Christian Nationalists say they’re going to do, once they’re in power?

I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good… Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called on by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.

–Randall Terry, The News Sentinel

Nobody has the right to worship on this planet any other God than Jehovah. And therefore the state does not have the responsibility to defend anybody’s pseudo-right to worship an idol.

–Rev. Joseph Morecraft, Chalcedon Presbyterian Church, “Biblical Role of Civil Government” speech given at Biblical Worldview Conference.

The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant–baptism and holy communion–must be denied citizenship.

–Beverly LaHaye, Concerned Women of America

This is God’s world, not Satan’s. Christians are the lawful heirs, not non-Christians.

–Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989), p. 102

[W]e need a legal strategy which protects the rights of those of us who hold Christian convictions which will afford us the opportunity to contend once again for the mind of this culture.

–Keith A. Fournier, ACLJ brochure “Religious Cleansing”

Most politically active Christians don’t want equal time with homosexuals, abortionists, animal worshipping pagans, witches, radical feminists and pornographers. We want them silenced and mercifully disciplined according to the word of God.

–Jay Rogers reviewing Ralph Reed’s Politically Incorrect in “Chalcedon Report”

I don’t know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

–President George Bush, August 27, 1988

We are engaged in a social, political, and cultural war. There’s a lot of talk in America about pluralism. But the bottom line is somebody’s values will prevail. And the winner gets the right to teach our children what to believe.

— Gary Bauer, Family Research Council

We’re going to bring back God and the Bible and drive the gods of secular humanism right out of the public schools of America.

–Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan addressing the anti-gay rally in Des Moines

The ‘Owner’s Manual’ for the Constitution is the Bible.

–Tony Nassif, California Christian Coalition and the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools 

One day, I hope in the next ten years, I trust that we will have more Christian day schools than there are public schools. I hope I will live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have any public schools. The churches will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!

–Jerry Falwell, “America Can Be Saved”

Yes, religion and politics do mix. America is a nation based on biblical principles. Christian values dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office.

— Beverly LaHaye, Concerned Women of America

Article by Mike Nash
Click HERE for part 2:  The four things the Christian Right needs before it can take over