[Vision2020] Sarah Palin and the Religious Right

[Art Deco]

Locally, its not about Jesus, but about Douglas Wilson -- an Antichrist figure ever if there was one.  

W.
----- Original Message ----- 
  From: keely emerinemix 
  To: nielsen at uidaho.edu ; vision2020 at moscow.com 
  Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 11:38 AM
  Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Sarah Palin and the Religious Right


  Franky, son of eminent Religious Right paterfamilias Francis Schaeffer, gets his analysis largely right, snarkiness notwithstanding.  Palin is too dumb to be considered a full-fledged Reconstructionist; Wilson and our other local men of chest are not.  Nonetheless, she represents the late-1980s convergence of Pentecostal "dominion" theology as represented by the Word of Faith and prosperity gospels, and Recon "dominion" that often mocks the Pentecostals and their revivalism, emotionalism, and anti-intellectualism, but sought common cause with the better-known charismatic dominionists when it became advantageous.

  However, it's important to understand that Recons (Rushdoony, North, Chilton, Wilson, et al) are post- or, more rarely, a-millennialists.  They don't believe in "getting 'em saved" before the Rapture, they have utter disdain for the dispensationalist theology of the Left Behind series, and they believe in transforming -- "taking dominion" over -- this world as a means of ushering in a literal or metaphorical millennium and a real, physical Second Coming of Christ.  The "dominion" favored by the dispensationalist Pentecostal/charismatic demographic to which Palin belongs (and which is not what makes me describe her as "dumb") was initially an entirely apolitical "dominion" over demons, illness, and individual poverty -- the "prosperity" of the Word of Faith and prosperity gospels -- and was, in fact, critical of societal transformation and political involvement.  The difference is between one of saving souls before the trumpet sounds, with a triumphant goodbye to this world, and another of transforming this world by ushering in a permanent "retaking of dominion" of the world and its institutions in the name of Christ, with little regard, thank Calvin, to the saving of individual souls.  The former has its hope in heaven; the latter, on a transformed world.  

  Ironically, the Christian social reformers at the turn of the previous century that Wilson and other Recons so disdain as "godless haters of the Word" were also post-millennialists.  They believed in transforming society through eliminating poverty, oppression, bigotry and exploitation, and their emphasis was also on evangelism -- the saving of souls -- as a means of such transformation.  Today's post-mils and Recons seem less than gripped by the Biblical imperative to save souls and make disciples and too often focus instead on transforming society by desiring its reimaging as a haven for propertied male heads of households.  Their disregard for late 19th- and early 20th-century social reformers and reform is as pronounced as their disregard for "liberal" social movements today, like racial reconciliation in the Church, that attract other Christians.  

  (Well, I find it all fascinating . . . not everyone does????)

  Keely
  www.keely-prevailingwinds.com




  > To: Vision2020 at moscow.com
  > From: nielsen at uidaho.edu
  > Date: Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:48:31 -0800
  > Subject: [Vision2020] Sarah Palin and the Religious Right
  > 
  > http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24394.htm
  > 
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  > List services made available by First Step Internet, 
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  > mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
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