This is a problematic article to be sure but nevertheless it
should be read. The School Board Strategy is proving effecting and it's
expanding – and it's likely that it's already affecting your church or soon
will be. The author is sounding the alarm and we should be alarmed – but for
reasons different than those of the Religion Dispatches reporter.
We can agree with the opposition to current gender ideology.
It's sick and immoral but so is the entirety of the US system and given that
this is the public school and Christians have no business being there, the
energy being poured into this is misguided.
And make no mistake this isn't really about the schools.
That's simply the marketing technique being utilised by the political actors
driving this campaign.
For the members of the Evangelical public who become involved,
their motives are something of a mixed bag. It's both amusing and frustrating
to hear the clarion call by Evangelicals to save women's sports – a clear sign
of just how much society has changed and with it the Evangelical movement.
Title IX was decried by Christians in the 1970's and frankly most decent
Christian families weren't overly excited about their daughters being engaged
in sports – running around like brutes, often poorly and immodestly clad,
sweating, yelling, competing – a scenario an older generation decried as not
worthy of or in keeping with Christian femininity and womanhood. The older
generation was right and an examination of New Testament womanhood reveals a
set of values at complete odds with Evangelical norms and the whole culture of
women's sports – not that men's sports are much better.
And so consequently it must be stated and kept in mind that
the Evangelicals campaigning for control of the public school system are laden
with errors in thought and ideology which are almost as destructive for the
Church and New Testament piety as the forces they oppose.
Purging the public school of trans-gender Sodomite filth will
not make the education or the institutions Christian – nor will getting pagans
to pray, or reading the Bible as
literature, or even hanging the Decalogue on the classroom wall. These are
mostly misguided notions rooted in misunderstandings of the Christian's relation
to culture and just what America and its culture actually are and represent.
This School Board Strategy in the Evangelical world
represents Dominionism functioning at the grass roots level and in pragmatic
terms. It is an echo of the larger Right-wing project meant to motivate the
masses and get people involved in the culture wars and politics. The
Dominionist ideology continues to proliferate in the Evangelical world and
given its syncretic nature it dovetails nicely with many elements of Right-wing
ideology.
It's amazing to me, but I will still turn on the radio and
hear Christian teachers decry the prevalence of 'gnostic retreatism' in the
pulpits and the failure of Christians to become engaged in the transformation
of culture. Where are these churches? I wish I could find them. I would love to
find a place where Dominionism is categorically denied and exposed as the
heresy it is.
I find some preachers unwilling to touch on contentious
issues because they don't want to lose numbers. That's not gnostic retreatism,
that's a business decision, a case of negligence, cowardice, and corruption. In
their cases they believe in the ideology but are unwilling to assert these
points as they know there are numbers in the congregation who will be offended
– not due to principle but to plain old worldliness. And if you happen to
operate in a smaller town, such offenses can become devastating and ruin your
congregation for a generation – I've seen it happen.
In other cases the lack of political and cultural engagement
has nothing to do with convictions or adherence to New Testament pilgrim
ethics. It's simply the fact that many suburban middle class Evangelicals are
distracted by worldly cares and the pursuit of mammon and all the
lifestyle-elements and choices that surround that ethos. Consequently when it
comes to church these people are more inclined to be entertained and receive
therapeutic encouragement. They're not interested in any kind of hardship or
cross-bearing even if it's of a misguided and heretical nature (as in the
Dominionist crusade), and they're certainly not interested in the spirituality,
ethics, and imperatives of actual New Testament Christianity – not if it costs
them something or would demand too much of them or of their time.
There's necessarily a spectrum to this discussion but in
every case the failure to embrace the Dominionist project with fervor is not
due to gnostic retreatism or really any oppositional principle at all. It
pretty much boils down to something much simpler – worldliness.
To counter this, the School Board Strategy has been
engineered by Right-wing figures and is associated with Steven Bannon and
others. It's clever to be sure. They struggle to get people engaged and they've
figured out that if you can get people involved at the most basic and local
level, and it concerns their children – and everyone cares about their children
in some capacity, then these same people are likely to become energised.
Touching upon a wider world of ideas, and the functioning of society and its
institutions, they start thinking in bigger terms and paying attention to the
upper tiers of local and state politics. And they're on their way to becoming
active and fully engaged in the grand political project. Next thing you know
they'll start attending rallies.
It's very clever and as said, I can think of several
'ministries' and projects led by Evangelicals who are motivated by the same
ideas and have the same goals. The only difference is they try to put a more
specifically Christian spin on what they're doing than what would be seen with
someone like Bannon. And yet there's no real conflict and these Christians can
(in the political realm) move seamlessly between the two realms. It's a
testimony to how compromised their Christian thinking is and how Dominionism
leads to an effective erasing of the boundaries between Christian and worldly
thought.
In addition to embracing an unbiblical ideology and the
ethics that go with it, this Dominionist project is a case of more distraction,
more time and energy invested by Christians into what? They're trying to save
what is essentially the Babylonian school system – and always will be.
And rather than really challenge Christians to re-think their
lives, finances, goals, and definitions of success, to engage in mortification,
and to live in a counter-cultural fashion, this campaign represents an acquiescence
to worldliness in the church. You can be worldly as long as your energy is
channeled into the cause. Piety is effectively redefined.
It is a scandal that so many Christians still keep their kids
in public school system and in other cases work for that ungodly and anti-Christian
system. Christians do this because they've bought into the world's thinking
about education, and psychology, and have embraced the world's values about
lifestyle and success.
But aside from acquiescence and compromise rooted in trying
to keep numbers up and the money flowing in, Dominionism seeks to capture and
transform all spheres of society. If there is a public school it must be
sacralised and made into a Christian institution. If this is impossible, in
order to forge the monolithic and monistic society that is the Dominionist
ideal, then such an institution has to be eradicated. There are some
Dominionists who have come to this position and yet the real numbers are found
in the compromise crowd.
New Testament Kingdom ethics declares with Paul - what have I to do with those who are outside
– God will Judge them. As Christ said, let the dead bury their dead. There's
an implied social pluralism there that Dominionism rejects. If it's erased, the
Church is not victorious, rather it has been redefined in order to accommodate
the world. This is the story of Christendom, the foolish false kingdom that
Dominionism seeks to reconstitute.
Let the lost build their Babels and pursue their false
kingdoms. We testify against them by our worship, words, and our lives but we
don't engage them politically or seek to capture their thrones and sanctify
them – as if such a thing were possible. Our antithesis is a rejection of their
order and its values. We are non-conformists and yet we do nothing that can
make them speak evil of us unless it is rooted in our refusal to bow to their
idols. We pay taxes and obey the laws but we won't worship their gods, embrace
their thinking, nor will we help them in their project or take up the sword in
their causes.
Dominionism promotes confusion and ethical chaos and destroys
this testimony. This is on full display in the misguided Right-wing project to
seize control of the public school system.