Continuing
yesterday's discussion of dominionism, I'll take up the untruths of Marc
Alexander's letter in Monday's Barre Montpelier, Vt., Times-Argus newspaper.
He says (in the indented passages) that dominionist Christians —do
not believe in the separation of church and state, in fact they believe the United
States should be a Christian state
As I said
yesterday, this is not only untrue, in fact separation of church and state is
one of the fundamental facets in our (dominionists') beliefs. We do not, however,
misinterpret it the way most Democratic Party pundits do these days, as though
the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution refers to "separation of state and
God" or "state and religion." It refers only to the establishment of a national
church or religion. As most worldviews throughout history have held, all states
are under the dominion of God and, even if the citizenry has no organized religion
it is necessary for statehood to create a "civil religion." All religions, of
course, compete with one another, so to whatever extent the American state is
under the sway of a civil religion (as many sociologists claim), or secularism,
that religion competes with Christianity or Judaism or any other value system
people choose. The Christian—the dominionist Christian—solution is to have a pluralized
state which allows associations of citizens to work out their citizenship in terms
most amenable to their own beliefs. Since modern democracy is an offspring of
Judeo-Christian principle, there's no basic incompatibility between the two. Christians
have always strived to be the best citizens in their respective states. —By
Christian they mean their version of Christianity, an Old Testament version, crusaders
for Christ
This is rather silly, a basic nonsequitur,
as Christ appears only obliquely in the Old Testament and no one in the Old Testament
era (or no figure in the written Old Testament) considered him- or herself to
be a crusader for Christ. As I said yesterday, I don't follow or pretend to know
enough about Reconstructionist Christianity (a completely different system than
dominionism) but I suspect the writer is confusing the two in this case. Certainly
those who follow the major dominionist teacher in modern times, Abraham Kuyper,
do not believe in theocracy (as in the Old Testament) or believe that the Old
Testament standards for social behavior should be enforced in a pluralistic society
(by stoning-executing adulterers, for example). We believe, rather, that pluralism
is necessary because the New Testament presents and describes a permanent coexistence
of believers and unbelievers in the same world, with no hint that believers are
to force their beliefs on anyone else. Coerced belief is totally incompatible
with Christ's gospel. As John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme
Court put it: "I am persuaded that truth and error (though in different degrees)
will imperceptibly become and remain mixed and blended until they shall be separated
forever by the great and last refining fire."* —They
believe in the Second Coming. Armageddon, and soon
All Christians have always believed in Christ's return (the "Second Coming") and
that there will be a battle after that historical fact with the forces of evil,
called Armageddon. And it's "soon" in an ontological sense (which means, "from
God's perspective"). But we don't live in ontology (we can know only what God
has told us about His perspective, we have no access to actively using it) and
Christians have always had to live as though the present is the gift God has given
us, the talent (to use the New
Testament parable applying to the gift of the present), to make the most we
can of it. This is the whole point of dominionism, the Lordship of Christ. To
bury the talent is definitely unacceptable. So this is a most grievous falsehood
and accusation that has absolutely no basis in truth.
—so why worry about the environment or entitlement programs. And why tolerate
other world religions, or Catholics or most Protestants for that matter
This
also, of course, has no relevance to any dominionist Christian perspective; certainly
to see Christ as Lord of creation is to work for the stewardship of that creation
in the most meaningful way possible. Believing in the dominion of Christ is common
to all serious Christians; the hymnbooks have always been full of "living for
Jesus" songs that emphasize the unending quest for "crowning Him Lord of all."
Not only is there no animosity between such Christians and members of other religions,
to be a Christian is to love all of our neighbors regardless of their beliefs
or other distinctions from ourselves. And of course Catholics, Orthodox, and all
Protestant denominations have dominionists; making Christ "Lord" is not optional
to any follower of Christ who has actually read the New Testament or read the
history of the early church. —The founding
leader is the Rev. D. James Kennedy
With all
due respect to Dr. Kennedy, I am fairly sure he would never make such a claim.
He would probably say that Francis Schaeffer, when he visited his Coral Ridge
Presbyterian Church before his passing, inspired in him a new awareness of the
"dominionist" perspective. And Schaeffer certainly credited Abraham Kuyper as
one of the first to clearly bring this emphasis of the Gospel to the attention
of a broad cross-section of the church a century ago. (And of course Kuyper credited
Calvin, and Calvin credited Augustine, and Augustine credited Paul, and Paul credited
his Tutor, Christ himself.) Next time I'll take up the "truths"
in the letter and show how Alexander and those who share his opinions of Christians
are misinterpreting them. —Webmaster *With
thanks to Rich Dilling for supplying the appropos quotation.
A
complete index of Jon Kennedy's Jonals for 2001 - 2005 |
 Thought
for today It was my generation,
and the generation that preceded me, that forgot. The younger generation is not
primarily to be blamed. Those who are struggling today, those who are far away
and doing that which is completely contrary to the Christian conscience, are not
first to be blamed. It is my generation, and the generation that preceded me,
who turned away. Today we are left, not only with a religion and a church without
meaning, but... with a culture without meaning. Francis
Schaeffer (1912-1984) |
Perspectives
on growing older