James Still

We've seen a taste of Bush's morality-based foreign policy at work. Most of us political junkies have long-puzzled over why Bush would take us so strangely and with so little cause into a preventative war with Iraq. And now many more eyebrows are going up since, with the shooting war barely finished, Bush has followed Rumsfeld in provoking Syria.

Forget realpolitik and the sort of foreign policy that has guided U.S. foreign policy for the last sixty years or more. This administration only makes sense when we realize that theology -- not realpolitik -- is at the heart of it. That's why Bob Woodward could say in his recent book: "Most presidents have high hopes. Some have grandiose visions of what they will achieve, and he was firmly in that camp.... The president was casting his mission and that of the country in the grand vision of God's Master Plan."

A friend just told me that the latest issue of Harper's has an article on Bush and his "end times" eschatological views of the world. I can't wait to read it. One of the scariest people to have influence over Bush is not Wolfowitz or Cheney but Tony Evans, the fundamentalist theologian who founded Promise Keepers. Evans' assistant pastor, Martin Hawkins, is on record saying that Evans helped Bush to see events as they unfold as the workings of God who is preparing for the apocalypse of the NT Book of Revelation. And Bush has taken that worldview to heart.

Aside from the fact that they count Congressmen and Senators as members, or that they have annual budgets in the hundreds of millions, the scariest thing about the secretive and influential "Family" in D.C., Ahmansen and the DI, as well as Evans and the PK is that these people are all Dominionists. They believe that it is their duty to seize secular power from the state and return it to God. Everything centers on that goal. That's why Bush and Ashcroft work so hard to break down the barriers of church and state.

The thing you have to realize about fundamentalists and eschatology is that there are two kinds of them: those who believe that the Second Coming of Christ will happen "in a flash" and they will be lifted to heaven instantly, leaving us poor sinners behind and beginning a seven year period in which the Antichrist rules the world. These are the folks who have the bumper sticker that says "in case of rapture this car will be driverless." Then there are the second kind, the dominionists, who have quickly grown in power in the last 20 years. They believe that the Second Coming cannot occur unless and until they gain control of secular power over the whole world (with the U.S. and Israel leading the way). Only when they have prepared the way can Jesus return to accept his throne from them.

These are the scary people and this is the theology to which Bush subscribes. They are not a minority of cranks but very influential people in high places. Getting rid of Saddam, (i.e., chemical weapons) was not the real goal for these folks. Bush is not trying to liberate the Middle East for the stated secular purposes of liberty and freedom nor is he trying to make the homeland safe. That's just spin for the folks watching at home. The real goal is to take Iraq away from Satan and give it to God. (If the devil is truly in the details, then I think Old Pitch will reveal himself during the post-war occupation but that's for another day.) And that explains why Bush would so easily cast normal diplomatic language aside and publicly chastise Syria, accusing them of possessing WMD, which should probably be read as the start of laying the groundwork for further action against them when the time is right. Why should he be cautious? God is guiding his hand and it will work out just fine.

The difference between Reagan and Bush is that while the former paid lip service to the fundies because he knew they were his constituents, the latter is one of them, being guided by dominion theology in everything he does as President. We don't have a rational man in the White House. We have a superstitious fanatic who is convinced that he has been chosen by God to do great things in the world. I just hope we survive his term.

Popemon

Everything you ever wanted to know about dominion theology - and more!

Download some of the books. Scary stuff.

I have been tracking the dominion theology movement for a long time now, but I haven't dug very deep into Bush's ties to them.

I actually bought a copy of Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law just to see where these lunatics are coming from. It's right up there with Mein Kampf. Nausea-inducing.

Do you have any links to info about Bush's ties to Tony Evans? I would like to examine this a little more. How about a source for the Martin Hawkins quote?

Evans is a certified nutjob - and a member of the Coalition On Revival, a dominion theology/reconstructionism front group.

Unbeliever

Here is a post I submitted over at the Skeptic Friends Network. I don't think it's exactly rigorous, but it gets the point across. I hope you find it interesting; it seems to fit the topic of this thread.

James Still

See the Jan 2003 issue of CounterPunch, reprinted online at http://www.counterpunch.org/hill01042003.html for the Hawkins reference.

As for Bush's ties to Evans, he first mentions it on the campaign trail during a March 6-7 stop at Houston's Second Baptist Church in which he said: "Faith changes lives. I know, because it has changed mine. I grew up in the church, but I didn't always walk the walk." Terry Mattingly wrote in an article for gospelcom.net:

"Bush then described a backslider vs. the preacher showdown he had in the mid-1980s with evangelist Billy Graham. Bush said their talks inspired him to 'recommit my life to Jesus Christ' and to end what he has previously confessed was a rowdy era in his private life. Bush's testimony also included nods to Promise Keeper orator Tony Evans, Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson and other prominent evangelicals."

Bush also reveals Evans' influence upon him in a speech he gave about faith-based initiatives, which you can find on the White House web site at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...030210-1.html. Bush says in the speech:

"I first heard an interesting reminder of that fact from Tony Evans. He doesn't remember, but I do. We were in Greenville, Texas. He tells a story about the guy who owns the house and there's a crack running up the wall in the house. So he hires the best painter he can find, and the guy covers the crack and everything is fine. Until the crack reappears.

And so he hires another painter and he covers the crack. And Tony Evans reminded me and the audience, he said, you don't fix the crack on the wall until you first fix the foundation."

I suppose we could say that invading Iraq (and probably Syria by the time this is posted) is "fixing the foundation" while diplomacy is merely painting over the cracks.

Pope, have you considered sharing your knowledge of dominion theology by writing a feature article for the Secular Web?