Hat in the ring, as if there was any doubt.

[Part 1|Part 2|Part 3|Epilogue]

I've posted pretty extensively on dark_christian and here on the subject of the frightening convergence between dominion theology, political ambition, intolerance, eliminationist rationalization of violence, and the authoritarian symbiosis between leaders and followers in the theocracy movement, but a blogswarm is as good a time as any to step back and try to sum up the big picture.

There is a movement hard at work in this country, mostly out of sight but occasionally visible and vocal, which wears the clothing and cultural trappings of Christianity but is really nothing of the sort, "Christian" by convenience, both because the appearance of being affiliated with Christianity gives the movement the veneer of respectability and because the inevitable backlash against the movement's heretical nature falls more onto the genuine Christians than onto those actually in the movement. It is more carny-theatrical cult of personality than a religion, and whatever its followers believe, its leaders believe first and foremost in power and influence, and the more the better. And they have their sights set on nothing less than making the United States a country ruled by religious fanatics, where "sin" is the same thing as "crime", where public prayer is an oath of fealty more than it is a genuine religious expression, and where rational discourse is a thing of the past and even science and history are taught from the perspective that the Bible is the highest truth, and where being caught "out" as a homosexual or adulterer or any one of a half dozen other things could result in death by stoning at the hands of angry mobs.

Sound a bit extreme? It did to me when I first heard how far down the rabbit hole really goes with regard to this movement. I was surprised to find out that the movement itself has almost always been mostly underground in this country, to the extent that an entire shadow economy and parallel culture exists just to support it. It's essentially an invisible shadow-nation, occupying the same space as our country but having little if anything to do with it except in the purely physical sense of occupying geographical area. And it has been around almost continuously since the late 1890's and the early years of the 1900's, beginning with the Holiness movement, and periodically jockeying for control of the government of the United States beginning with the "temperance" movement and Prohibition, the authoritarian and church-symbiotic culture of the 1950's and early 1960's, the Vietnam War as modern Crusade, Christian Reconstructionism, the resurgence of fundamentalist power in the 1980's with Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim Bakker, among others, and the latest surge which put George W. Bush in the White House, with many of the same players from the 80's behind the scenes but with new faces like Ted Haggard, Joel Osteen, James Dobson, Michael and Debi Pearl (also mentioned here, sorry, no Wikipedia article as of yet) .. the list goes on.

That history would seem to cover a series of unrelated events, but the truly staggering thing is that they're all connected under the surface. At least four times, possibly more, this movement has surged out of the trenches and engaged the secular culture of this country head-on, being defeated for the most part, but retreating back underground each time and building its strength and confidence back up, learning from past mistakes, polishing up its strategy, and coming back for another round. The repeal of prohibition, the public outrage and protest over the Vietnam War, the Democratic victories in '92 and '06, were all stinging setbacks for this movement, but each time it has come back stronger and smarter, with more sophisticated strategy and better tactics for neutralizing its opposition. Each wave comes a little farther up the shore, and takes a little longer to fall back into the sea. The movement has been at this game for a little over 100 years, and it doesn't ever give up. It won't give up until there is not only no separation between church and state, but the church *is* the state. Their church. Run by their rules.

There is disturbing evidence that in the cities, where most people sympathetic to this article probably live, the campaign is at its least aggressive. The Supreme Court ruling on the invocation at a football game in Santa Fe, Texas several years ago shone a rather disturbing light on the way in which dominionist influence permeates some small towns, more in the sense of the intolerant town culture surrounding the case (which was covered in a surprisingly objective article in Texas Monthly which described the efforts by parents to root out and harass and intimidate the then-unnamed plaintiffs in the civil rights suit against the high school and school district, which only stopped when the judge trying the case threatened the parents with contempt charges if they kept it up) than the actual facts of the case itself. The remarkable thing about Santa Fe is not the obvious influence of dominionist authority on its entire culture on just about every level, but the fact that this even came to light at all .. I'm convinced that for every Santa Fe there are a thousand other small towns where the same culture thrives, but nobody outside ever hears about it.

And make no mistake about it, the public schools are one of the most important battlegrounds in this culture war, from creationism dressed up as "intelligent design" and geocentric astronomy taught in science class, to Fall/Flood doctrine and young-earth theory taught in history class, to mandatory sectarian prayer in every class, the movement wants to replace every trace of secular knowledge with their own knowledge system that puts them firmly in charge. There is a sophisticated four-pronged strategy in play with regard to the public schools:

• Destroy: De-fund the public school institution by diverting funding to private (mostly dominionist-run) church schools using voucher programs


• Discredit: Turn public opinion against public schools as secular enemies of a "godly" people, by organized campaigns of slander, libel, and harassment


• Subvert: Attack the public school system from within by taking over its administration and faculty from the classroom level to the school board itself, and use the public schools themselves for indoctrination either overtly or through "voluntary participation" ruses, etc.


• Supplant: Take the place of the public school system by providing a complete parallel-economy alternative in the dominionist system, from homeschooling to K-12 and higher education instituitions run entirely by dominionist churches

And it's already working, if the cases of Monica Goodling, Rachel Paulose, and many other key players in the Bush-era Justice Department and the recent attorney dismissal scandal, in which Goodling, a Messiah College and Regent University graduate, apparently served as the administration's loyalty-enforcer involved in partisan firings of federal prosecutors and/or judges who didn't rule the way the administration wanted. Given the rather shaky accreditation of most of these parallel-economy institutions, it's disturbing enough that she was selected over probably thousands of other (far more qualified!) applicants for the position, but what's even more disturbing is that there will be more like her as the kids who started with ACE and Abeka homeschooling or church K12 schools in the 70's and 80's graduate from places like Regent with law degrees full of conservative zeal. There are very dark and unsettling precedents for that sort of educational system, very dark and unsettling indeed (sorry, no English version available).

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