13 February 2022

Dominionism and the School Board Strategy

https://religiondispatches.org/baby-we-were-born-for-war-to-dominionist-christian-group-no-election-is-too-small-and-colorado-is-just-the-beginning/

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.