Dominionism for Dummies

If you've been hearing the term Dominionism and keep wondering, "Well, what is that, anyway?" this post is for you (if you already know, you can correct me in the comments).

The conservative world of Christianity is not one homogenous blob, but a continuum. Along that continuum you can find folks who believe that a public official's moral and values matter and folks who believe that Christians make better leaders that non-Christians. But way out beyond them, you'll find the Dominionists, who believe that Christians (their kind of Real True Christians) should rule the country.

Watch for references to the Seven Mountains. These "mountains" are religion, family, education, government, media, arts & entertainment, and business, and Dominionists believe that their brand of Christian should rule all of them. The Seven Mountain Mandate showed up in the 1970s; here's the origin story from Elle Hardy in The Outline 

The Seven Mountain Mandate came into being in 1975, when God allegedly delivered a concurrent message to missionary movement leader Loren Cunningham, Campus Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright, and televangelist Francis Schaeffer to invade the “seven spheres.” The largely dormant idea was resurrected in 2000, when Cunningham met with “strategist, futurist and compelling communicator” Lance Wallnau, and told him about the vision of 25 years earlier. The “prophetic” Wallnau, a 63-year-old business consultant based in Dallas, with a “Doctorate in Ministry with a specialization in Marketplace” from Phoenix University of Theology immediately saw the idea’s potential and began promoting seminars and training courses on the theory as a “template for warfare” for the new century. Its real surge in popularity began in 2013, when Wallnau co-authored the movement’s call to arms, Invading Babylon: The 7 Mountain Mandate, with Pastor Bill Johnson from the prominent California megachurch Bethel Church.

I added some links and emphasis there. Lance Wallnau is one of the names to watch for.

These are not your father's evangelicals. Back in the days of the Moral Majority, it was enough to try to bring people to Christ or thwart abortions or pray away some gays. Dominionists want to remake the country in their image.

Dominionists and Christian Nationalists are not exactly the same thing, but the Christian Nationalists serve an important function in the Dominionist argument. Fake historians like the beloved David Barton make the argument that the framers absolutely intended to set up a theocratic Christian nation, and that Godless secularists have derailed their God-given intentions. The United States, they argue, was set up specifically to have Christians take dominion over.

There's a subtler version of this as well. When, for instance, christianists argue that secularism is not an absence of religion, but a form of religion itself, which serves as a way of quietly resetting the argument to say, "Look, the country is already a theocracy. All that's left to argue is which God should be in charge."

New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) is another term to look for. These are Dominionists as well, led by guys like Dutch Sheets and Jim Garlow, who are well-connected in the political world to a multitude of figures, including new House Speaker Mike Johnson. Jenifer Cohn has covered all of this at great length; here's her quick background on NAR:

The NAR was named and organized by the late C. Peter Wagner, who wrote in 2007 that the seven mountains had “become a permanent fixture in my personal teaching on taking dominion,” adding that “our theological bedrock is what has been known as Dominion Theology.” He explained that, “Dominion has to do with control. Dominion has to do with rulership. Dominion has to do with authority and subduing. And it relates to society. In other words, what the values are in Heaven need to be made manifest here on earth. Dominion means being the head and not the tail. Dominion means ruling as kings … So we are kings for dominion.”

If this all seems very non-democratic, well, yeah. As Katherine Stewart points out in her book The Power Worshippers, the idea is that "legitimate government rests not on the consent of the governed but adherence to the doctrines of a specific religious, ethnic, and cultural heritage."

That authoritarian bent is why Domionionism can get along so well with Donald Trump. He may not be very Christian, but he is certainly amenable to sweeping away all the Others that Dominionists see as an obstacle to taking their rightful dominion over the nation. And Dominionists like Paula White, the Trump "spiritual advisor," stay close. 

Dominionism has been on the fringes so long that it has become adept at sliding by under the surface of other movements. Cohn has just laid out the ties of Moms For Liberty to the movement. The move to commandeer school boards often has a Dominionist flavor. 

This is a deep and twisty rabbit hole, and it prompts one to repeatedly ask, "They can't really be serious about this, can they?" Watch enough video and you realize they are. Realize too that these are not crazy-pants mouth-frothing obviously-out-there folks. The man in this mountain-buying couple is a guy I graduated from high school, as regular a guy as you'll ever meet. Good Rotarian. Nice person. 

It should go without saying that not all of us of the Christian faith want to take dominion over every aspect of the country. There are plenty of conservative Christians who don't dream of "taking back" all seven mountains and turning this into a nation where all are required to bow before God.

But Dominionists are out there. They are not interested in democracy or compromise (you don't make deals with Satan and his demons), and in the most extreme cases, they are willing to do whatever it takes to get power.

If you'd like to know more, read Stewart's book (written in 2019, and about to become the basis of a documentary by Rob Reiner). A new book by Tim Alberta, The Kingdon, the Power and the Glory, is also useful.

On the dead bird app, follow @KiraResistance, @jennycohn1, and @mentack, at least for starters. 

These folks absolutely want to replace the current public education system with one focused on their particular concept of God and faith; whether that system is private or public is immaterial. Either way they'd like it financed by taxpayers. When they talk about religious freedom, what they mean is the freedom for their conception of religion to dominate the system to the exclusion of all others (aka "the wrong ones"). Their goals are incompatible with a democratic pluralistic society, and with God’s help, and to His glory, and for their own power, they intend to come out on top.