Dominionism- What are its goals, and how does it seek to achieve them?

This is basically a summary of what this project and website are all about. Sorry this is kind of long, but since there are a lot of new readers here as of late I wanted to post this. It's nothing new to longtime visitors, but I've tried to piece together and encapsulate several of the main themes I've written about. Anything that's brought up here has already been written about in more detail in other posts.

I'm critiquing Dominionism and for my other responses and interactions to make sense, you have to know where I'm coming from. There are others out there arguing along lines that are similar, but I'm approaching this a specific way that I've not found anywhere else. So while some of what I'm saying might be familiar to both friend and foe, there are ideas I'm bringing out that will be new to some readers. Not constrained by Reformed Confessionalism and/or Reformed denominational commitments, I'm also able to speak a little more directly to what I think some of the problems are.



As a follow on, a sort of Part 2, I will respond to the critique of this website by DT Maurina. He is offering a broad critique of my ideas, so I provides a unique and excellent opportunity to interact. I already posted his text at the end of the GreenBaggins discussion post. D.V., I'll re-post the text with my comments in the very near future.

A Kingdom discussion at GreenBaggins

Here's a rather extensive record of a good series of exchanges over at Green Baggins. No one changed anyone's mind, but it's yet another good example of the issues at stake and how someone like me pursues them vs. those who hold to what we would call the Christian Right. These interactions/comment threads seem to generate interest and some of you seem to find them helpful. This one has a different tone than the exchange last night on this site.

The conversation was good, a little depressing from my standpoint....but I'm pleased it stayed pretty civil. I'm afraid in the end my theology was pegged as Anabaptist....which if you've read anything here, you'll know that while I have some sympathy with them, there's much of their theology that I don't share. I'm not a Baptist to start with.

The Anabaptists picked up a vital part of the proto-Protestant mantle, but in reaction to the new Constantinianism birthed by the Protestant Reformation, they went too far in some of their theological constructs. Verduin talks about how some of this played out in The Reformers And Their Stepchildren. The whole baptism issue for the Anabaptists was really more about baptism being tied in with state citizenship vs. a theology that allowed children to be part of the Church. The latter they were not totally opposed to from the onset. But over time they moved toward a more hard line Credo-Baptist position....believer's baptism only. Children were in no way part of the visible manifestation of the Body.---That's my interpretation of how things developed. Modern day Anabaptists may differ. Verduin himself seemed to agree with what I'm saying. He seemed to lament the rift that took place in Zurich. The issue wasn't really about Baptism....it was Zwingli's refusal to set aside the Sacralist-Constantinian legacy of the Middle Ages.
The original post can be found here.

One of the commentors posted a critique of me and my website. It's down at the bottom. I'll post that separately at a later time. For those of you who care to wade through it all...enjoy and I hope you'll find some benefit in this conversation.

Holbrooke and Yugoslavia

Anyone that was interested in the Holbrooke piece might find this interesting. It's a republication from 2008, and here's the link over at LewRockwell.

The text follows.

A prime example of Kingdom confusion

Revelation 13.5

Just unbelievable........

This has been floating around some other good sites, but in case you missed it, here's former Constitution Party candidate and 'pastor' Chuck Baldwin on America.

Something of a Diatribe on Tombs, Monuments, Traditions and Authority

Over the past several days I have foolishly perhaps engaged in a little cyber-nudging... something I no longer do. I think things are rapidly degenerating in the Bible-believing Church, and though there's something of a remnant of thinking and discerning people. They are few. With the raging culture wars I like to see every once in a while how tightly people are wound. It's pretty bad out there.

I've visited a few websites and raised a point or two regarding Christmas and the larger principles in play. I have several observations, which stem from these principles.

They will be familiar to the frequent readers of this weblog.

Authority
Where do we go to derive Biblical truth? Christianity is not a get out of jail free card. It's not just about getting our sins forgiven, it's about being reconciled to God, our Creator, our Redeemer. Packer had it right...it's about Knowing God.

To know Him, we communicate, there's a relationship. He speaks to us...how? And we communicate with Him...how?

A note regarding 3 timely pieces

The Nativities, Nestorianism and Redemptive History post was meant to be a companion piece to:

Christmas 2010


which can also be found below. I think some of you may have missed it. Also, right below it, you can find Arthur Pink's Xmas....a very worthwhile read.

If I have time, I hope to squeeze in one more.

Nativities, Nestorianism, and Redemptive-History

or Biblical Christology in the New Covenant and the traps and pitfalls of Idolatry

The Christmas Wars of the Evangelicals are fought on several fronts, one being the conflict over whether or not to shop at stores that say, "Happy Holidays," vs. "Merry Christmas."

Another of course surrounds the public schools and whether or not Christmas programmes can include hymns or be reduced to secular carols.

And just as important to them, there is the battle for the nativity scene.

No Nation Under God

Here's an excellent post from a website I often visit called: Creed Code Cult

The text is below, while the link can be found here.

If you're interested, visit the site and read the comment exchange. Sometimes that can be as interesting as the article itself.

The site promotes Two Kingdom Theology very akin to what is presented here. Though I do have some difference when it comes to Theology, Method, perhaps History, and most certainly Polity...overall the site is very worthwhile. I recommend it. The articles and discussions are always provocative...in a good and productive way.

Pilger: Why Are Wars Not Being Reported Honestly

Excellent. Pilger at his best.

An interesting note. Rageh Omaar is referenced as a reporter for the BBC. Omaar's reporting has always impressed me. He left the BBC to work for an organization that he thought had from more integrity....Al Jazeera English.

Liberal media? Pilger doesn't think so either. Our media is for the most part Patriotic media....and thus more or less a propaganda tool for the state.

Here's the link, with the text below.

Holbrooke's Mirror

Here's a transcript from a short piece that aired the other day on NPR regarding the death of Richard Holbrooke, diplomat extraordinaire. The coverage was nothing remarkable...but you'll pardon me if I find it all to be rather stunning.

Is Kerby Anderson a Christian?

Five days a week our local Constantinian radio station blesses us with the wisdom of Kerby Anderson. Here's a commentary from back in November that I saved. I wanted to comment on it and my words are interspersed in this transcript.


You can find the original here.

A timely follow-up to Days in the Cult

Here's an article by Mark Crovelli.


This guy sums it perfectly. This dovetails nicely with the point I was trying to make in the Cult piece.

It upsets people, but when they say, "Aren't you thankful they're over there defending our freedom?" I reply, "I'm thankful for the freedom I still have IN SPITE OF what they're doing over there."

Increasingly I feel like we're living out Gibbon's Decline and Fall....

I guess it's no surprise the Christians want a new Constantine to remedy the ills of Empire.

Here's the article and the link:

Days in the Cult

I keep chuckling over the comment left on the Speaking of Treason post. That Lee Greenwood song (God  Bless the USA) for me evokes a particular memory...

I remember when I joined this particular group and they took away all my clothes and possessions. They shaved my head, and by shouting threats they tried to break me of all my previous habits and ideas. They deprive you of sleep and try to drive you insane by making you spend hours engaged in meaningless tasks. Everything you do is wrong, and never do you receive a kind word.

Regarding not the day......

We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons. Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas. First, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be sung in Latin or in English. Secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior; and consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of divine authority. Superstition has fixed most positively the day of our Savior's birth, although there is no possibility of discovering when it occurred. ... It was not till the middle of the third century that any part of the Church celebrated the nativity of our Lord; and it was not till very long after the Western Church had set the example, that the Eastern adopted it. ... Probably the fact is that the "holy" days were arranged to fit in with the heathen festivals. We venture to assert, that if there be any day in the year, of which we may be pretty sure that it was not the day on which the Savior was born, it is the 25th of December. ... Regarding not the day, let us, nevertheless, give God thanks for the gift of His dear Son.


Charles Spurgeon
24 December 1871

Christmas 2010: Constantine is the reason for the season

Dashing through the snow….a Yuletide ramble.


Yes, I had to write about another holiday I don't keep….

Xmas

XMAS


by A. W. Pink

"Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen… for the CUSTOMS of the people are vain." (Jer. 10:1-3)

Speaking of treason....

I had to laugh today. Lieberman was on Fox news and the 'reporter' was calling for Assange to be tried for treason.

Poor dear. She didn't seem to realize that as a citizen of Australia, he certainly could not be charged with treason. Espionage? Perhaps.

Of course Lieberman wants certain sectors of the American media to be brought up on charges for publishing the leaked data.

Funny they didn't seem to feel that way when the media helped the Bush administration deceive the country into the Iraq War, and the folks at FOX sure didn't feel that way when Cheney, Armitage, and Libby committed treason by exposing a CIA agent and probably were responsible for the death of several of her assets.

And yet Fox and Lieberman are both championed by so-called Christians in the United States. For people that proclaim to worship the Truth....they seem to have very little interest in it.

Rejecting the Western media paradigm

Paul Craig Roberts as always has a few interesting comments. What I appreciate about him, even when I sometimes disagree with him is the way he takes an issue and looks at it an entirely different way than it is presented in our media. He apparently would agree with me, NPR is hardly some liberal crusading news organization. Actually it's completely pro-American and demonstrates this time and time again. It's better than many of the other American news outlets, but still operates within the American paradigm. Hardly objective, but in no way anti-establishment.

In the Christian community we're supposed to loathe and hate Iran and this all goes back of course to the revolution in 1979. Iran's rulers are evil men, but that doesn't make the rulers in Washington the good guys either. It's a shame Iran is so hostile to Christianity, but I've pointed out repeatedly that we're seeing a repeat of what happened in the 4th century.

Crusade against Mexico

Fred Reed critiques the latest statements from Rick Perry, the Evangelical, John Hagee supporting, governor of Texas.

Perry in all sincerity, wants to invade Mexico.

Somehow we're to believe they're the pro-life party. And, I'm guessing Perry doesn't realize the Mexican government at least up until the most recent elections has basically been an American lapdog for the better part of a century. We all learn about the Monroe Doctrine in school, but no one seems to follow through on its core principles and realize this doctrine has been the story of the Western Hemisphere for more than a century now.

Thanksgiving Day 2010

Take it or leave it. Either way, we're free from the bondage of keeping days.....

Some thoughts on the fourth Thursday in November.....

Ignoring the Echo

Here's a link of interest. This is thoughtful article tying in the rise of the Right in both Europe and America to events in the not so distant past.

The Two Age Structure and Chiliasm

For those who like to listen to podcasts....

Below you will find a link to a recent and worthwhile episode over at Christ the Center. The topic is Amillennialism and the guest is Kim Riddlebarger. He's pretty well known as one of the most vocal proponents of that system in Reformed circles. He's also a co-host on the radio programme known as The Whitehorse Inn. Michael Horton is the other well-known figure often linked with Riddlebarger.

Answering Questions #7- The Criteria of Criticism

Since I've probably upset and irritated more than a few as of late, I thought it a good time to answer the following email......

Why are you so critical of the United States?

Shame not honour

This was posted by L. Vance at the LewRockwell Blog. Interesting quote. Sometimes that's what it takes to open someone's eyes. Thankfully I wasn't flying missions over Iraq, but during my time in the American Forces I certainly was not free of blood-guilt. I was part of the machine and just two steps aways from the guys pushing the buttons and dropping the bombs. It was an eye-opener and when I realized what we were doing and what it was really all about, just like this fellow...it made me sick.

I tossed my uniforms and medals long ago. I am not proud to be a veteran and am ashamed to have worn the uniform, but Christ forgives and in the end...I cannot tell you how many valuable lessons I learned during that time. They weren't the lessons the American Military was trying to teach me, quite the opposite, but I learned much.

And participating in the Church in that context, I experienced many eye-openers. I began to see many things as I watched not only America being merged with the Church, but in the context you find the American Military merged with the Church. Peter and Paul would have been amazed at some of the things I saw!

A few thoughts on Veteran's Day

I'm not setting out to deliberately offend people, but a few thoughts.

First, can you even imagine the early Church placing Roman standards in their places of meeting and having veterans of the Roman legions stand up and be recognized? Wear their uniforms to church? Can you imagine the early Church celebrating Trajan's conquest of Dacia? Why would Christians have celebrated Nero's war with Parthia over Armenia? What about Claudius' final subjugation of Britain? Would they viewed these things as necessary and praiseworthy?

It all seems rather silly when placed in that light does it not?

American Evangelicalism- Corrupted and Manipulated

SB 1070, the Arizona Immigration Law on NPR's Talk of the Nation...

This was an interesting radio programme that aired a couple of days ago on NPR. They covered this awhile back, but delved into a bit more extensively in this episode. 

Update and a couple of questions.....

Sorry there haven't been many posts as of late. Life has overtaken me. There's been some family issues, work, and other things that have kept me from making the progress that I would like.

I have several pieces in the works. I'm writing a multi-part series dealing with Wisdom. I have a half finished piece on Islam which I also want to wrap up. In addition to several smaller pieces, I'm planning a posting dealing with the Mark of the Beast and finally I hope to finish the year with a series of posts on re-thinking our concept of Church.

God willing in the next couple of days the Wisdom series will start to appear, followed by the rest.

I'm pleased overall with the ground that's been covered since June when I started this. I had intended to write more regarding Church History, but other things have come up. I hope to turn back to more of the Middle Ages in the new year.

I started the blog along those lines and spent quite a bit of time focusing on some philosophical and doctrinal issues I thought important. Those posts have not proved to be very popular. The Why and How series covers a wide range of territory, but those also have not proved too popular. Not as interesting I guess.

No surprise, it seems like the posts that everyone wants to read pertain to current events and some of the very powerful contemporary forces at work in the Church. That's fine. I'm happy to write about those things as well and it ties in with the overall picture I'm trying to paint and the ideas I'm trying to stir up.

I want to look at the past, tie some of it in with the present, and then also discuss some of the doctrinal issues floating about that I think are often hindered by historical issues.

I had hoped to generate a little more discussion, but I realize the topics and way I write about them doesn't always prove conducive to that. I have received a fair amount of email correspondence, which is also an encouragement. I understand not everyone wants to post on the blog itself. I've removed all the restrictions for posting comments, so anyone can have at it. If you do post anonymously, maybe make up a nickname or something just so the different anonymous commenters can be differentiated.

Many of you know this, but a little tip for those who don't. Since sometimes any of the websites can lock up when you try to post, before I click the submit button, I always 'right click' the text and choose 'select all' and then 'copy.'

That way if it gets stuck, I can either come back and re-paste it, or dump it in an email document to be retrieved later.

Also, if you want to print any of these pieces out, just highlight it by dragging the mouse, and hit Control-C or right click and select 'copy' and then Control-V or right click and 'paste' it into a word processing document. That way you can print it without all the other stuff on the screen and you can change the font size if you wish.

I know there are some spelling errors here and there. I edit before I post, but it's usually at high speed, so I do make some mistakes. I'm also planning in the 2011 to stop for awhile and go back and clean up some of the pieces I've written. Not re-write them, just try and fix some of the spelling mistakes and things.

I hope the format is agreeable. The narrow center column with spaces between paragraphs has been appreciated by some. It seems to make it a little easier to read. I would imagine all the 'stuff' in the side columns might confuse some people at first. Any suggestions? I was thinking of eliminating the side essay on the right as well as the text at the top and combining it all in a 'click here to get started' page or something like that.

Finally, if any international readers, (and I'm pleased that there are more than a few,) would like to chime in, I'm very curious.....in your opinion, how influential is American Evangelicalism within your local Evangelical congregations? Or to put it another way, how great is the influence of the American Church? Are Christians looking to it for guidance in terms of teachers and method, or are some disdainful of it, perhaps for some of the reasons I've written about here?

If you don't want to answer here, then please email me at protoprotestant@gmail.com

And for American readers....do you think a growing number of people within Evangelicalism (or on the fringes) are starting to question the whole Christian America concept/American Constantinianism?

It seems to me that it's worse than ever, but at the same time, there's a small but growing number of people who are starting to question it all and looking elsewhere for ideas. Perhaps that would include some who regularly read this site?

Thanks and God willing, in the near future there will be some new posts.

Pilgrims in Babylon

Yesterday I was listening to the local Constantinian radio station and I grew quickly bored with the repeated urges and then commands to go out and vote today. And of course what they mean is vote Republican, because it is the only party that will even remotely push the Christian America agenda.

All Sacralist's Eve

A discussion regarding Halloween.

Answering Questions #6- Power

Answering Questions#6 -The nature of Power and how it presents itself to the world

In light of all the discussion regarding media and information, I thought it a good time to answer a question posed to me.
So why as a Christian do I turn to pagan journalists and commentators like Margolis, Paul Craig Roberts, and Al Jazeera? Shouldn't we look to FOX where so many of the reporters are Christian or at least have Christian sympathies?

NPR follow-up....

Just some follow-up on the NPR controversy.

Mars, Bringer of War and his children

Since we've been talking about power and its effects and the dangers it poses for the followers of Christ, I thought I would take second a comment on yet another news item.

The NPR Incident: Censorship or Journalistic Responsibility?

First I apologize to the international readers. Several of the recent posts, including this one, have concerned items almost exclusively within the American sphere.

By the way, with regard to the last post...for those who don't know, Kavkaz is the Russian name for the Caucasus.

I just wanted to comment briefly in regard to all the fuss concerning NPR's (National Public Radio) firing of Juan Williams. Williams for several years also appeared regularly on Rupert Murdoch's FOX news as a commentator.

However on NPR his job was that of an analyst, and that's where the rub is. NPR is pretty open and strict regarding their standards of journalism. NPR reporters are not allowed to be politically active, nor are they allowed to opine in a public forum.

Kavkaz Crisis

Since we find Chechnya once again in the news, I thought I would post this Margolis piece from April.

While Chechnya has nothing to do with Proto-protestantism, it ties into a larger discussion regarding history, media, truthfulness, and Sacralism.

Constantinian Power Ethics

or

Lies in the cause of Constantinianism


Sharron Angle has been running numerous political ads which can only be described as dishonest and dirty.

Besides her really bizarre and almost unintelligible statements, she continually makes comments that can only be described as racist. Though this heresy is openly rearing its head in Theonomic circles at present, it has long been a latent tendency among the white Evangelical community. It needs to be condemned. Evangelicals have recently revised history and suddenly made Martin Luther King into some kind of hero they identify with. It's very strange, because only twenty years ago he was denounced by white Evangelicals. I was taught to despise him, but now we have people like Colson who not only praise him, they try to 'claim' him as one of their own!?!