It’s a provocative piece that seemingly draws (at least from my sheltered Canadian vantage point) unlikely conclusions. What interested me however, was the exposition of Christian Reconstructionism, or Dominionism. A movement that I’d thought dead, a movement that was very much championed (less some of its more outrageous aspects) in a Baptist Church in rural Alberta, where I used to attend.
Reconstructionism, a neo-Calvinist, theonomist (the state is under God and is therefore commanded to enforce God’s Law, Old and New Testament) ideology is a contagious bit of storying for the zealous. Particularly if they are also among the throngs of dispossessed workers, angry libertarians, Tea Party types and so on.
Curiously, or not, Rushdooney and Gary North are still reverberating through people like American presidential candidates Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, (Who credits Francis Schaeffer’s, How Shall we then Live, for her entering politics.)
Here then, as well, is a recent interview with ex-evangelical Frank Schaeffer on Democracy Now.
I appreciate the articulateness, knowledge and insight that both Hedges and Schaeffer offer. The subject and concerns they bring up leave me fearful for the future.
Thanks Deb, …felt the same. Still, these are voices to pay attention to, even if they’re alarming.
Wow – I had wondered what had happened to Frankie, as he was known in the 80’s. I found his father’s writings helpful in analyzing culture, especially his critique of the enlightenment and modernism. I think Frank Jr.’s critique is against a covenantal theology that expresses itself in the dominionism that he describes. I wonder if he might be helped by a dose of pacifist anabaptist theology?