Palin un-American?:
Why Dominionists must be Kept from Power
By Eric Mader, November 8, 2008
Just before the election I was asked the following question
by a Republican-voting correspondant: "You are a Christian yourself, so why is
it you are so virulently against Sarah Palin?"
Well, I've never been a fan of the "Drill, baby, drill!"
gang. I'm a committed
environmentalist and member of the NRDC.
Nor did I like the Alaska Governor's anti-intellectualism and
"small-town values" spiel. But
these were not the main issues driving my virulence. In fact the thing that really troubled me about Palin, and
that made me such a dogged opponent of the McCain ticket, was her obvious
connection to what in theology is called domininism.
Put simply, dominionism is a radically nationalistic
Christian fringe movement that rejects our Constitution. Based on her religious connections, it
is very likely Sarah Palin thinks of the U.S. Constitution as a corrupted
secular document, one that will soon be nullified by a Christian takeover of
America. This is not a nutty
conspiracy theory I'm spouting here, but something that is very well documented
in studies of the Assemblies of God churches, of which Palin was an active
member up until 2002.
Through her church, Palin is connected to what is called the
New Apostolic Reformation movement (or sometimes the Third Wave movement) in
Pentecostalism. Third Wave
faithful believe that soon their members will be called upon to literally take
over the United States. Many Third
Wavers even believe violence will be necessary to accomplish this takeover and
enforce their God-ordained theological rule. To prepare for their holy coup, the movement has a
pseudo-military branch called Joel's Army, presently indoctrinating and
grooming young men (and often teenagers) as shock troops for the day when push
comes to shove.
Third Wave believers insist that the biblical book of
Revelation is a kind of blueprint for geopolitical action. This means that any Third Waver who
might gain political power--the presidency, say--would almost certainly
formulate policy based on a frightening scenario of End Times war and
destruction in which the forces of Good defeat the forces of Evil, most of the
world's people are killed off, and the Elect--i.e. the Third Wavers
themselves--end up in Heaven. For
Third Wavers, the earth and most of the people on it are literally expendable: trash on a cosmic battlefield which is
itself destined to return to nothingness.
This explains a lot of the Christian far-right's thinking
about the environment. Why work to
protect the natural environment when it is all going to be folded up and burned
away at the End? Isn't it better
to begin preparing for the imminent battle with the anti-Christ, who, we are
told, is likely to appear in Iran?
All of this, of course, is extremist, inhuman, historically
daft and hardly Christian. It is
all so thoroughly nutty and farfetched that most people would be inclined not
to worry much about it: no more than they'd worry about a UFO cult. But there are three reasons Americans
should be worried.
First, as I've said, these people believe it is literally their destiny to take over America and remake it
according to what they call "biblical law." Second, their numbers are growing. Third, one of them was almost elected as our vice-president.
During the last couple months of the campaign I kept
wondering about the possibility of a McCain win. I told friends that if he did win, he'd have my
prayers. I'd pray regularly for
his health, pray that his heart was strong, that he didn't choke on a rib or
slip on the stairs. (Yes, I'm a
Christian myself, though one who doesn't get on with the kind of believers
Palin pals with.) My friends
understood the joke. It was simply
unacceptable to imagine a President Palin.
Now the woman's followers are all chanting about 2012. Hopefully her kind of "culture warrior"
will die out as a major force in our politics before we get there. Patriotic Americans, those who really
put "Country First," need to keep an eye on her. To the extent that her connection to the New Apostolic
Reformation is part of her thinking and identity, she is herself
un-American. A true American
respects the Constitution and does not look forward to the day when her church
takes over the country and makes its founding document null and void.
The best online introduction to the Joel's Army movement is
here:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=964
Various researchers have documented Palin's connection to
the movement. One of them has been
regularly posting information at the DailyKos website here:
http://dogemperor.dailykos.com/
At ReligiousTolerance.org, one can read of the general
movement of which the Third Wave is part:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm
Email: inthemargins03@hotmail.com
---------
This page is at http://www.necessaryprose.com/