It’s directed at Republicans. And it’s not who you might suspect:
A day after the Democratic sweep of the midterm elections, Woodbury County Republican Chairman Steve Salem had harsh words for his own party, lambasting the influence of the conservative Christian right wing.
Salem said he coined a new phase: “You’ve heard of IslamaFascists — I think we now have Christian fascists. What is the definition of a fascist? Not only do they want to beat you, but they want to destroy you in the process.”
Salem said “if things keep going the way things are going locally and statewide, it is going to be more and more difficult for Republicans to recruit candidates. We have elements of the party who are moral absolutists, who take the approach that if you don’t take my position every step of the way, not only will I not support you, but I will destroy you.”
Now before we all get our schadenfreude on about Republicans eating their own, let’s consider something far more important: Mr. Salem is right. They are fascists …
(cont.)
The extreme conservative Christians which have infiltrated the GOP at all levels, local, state and national, are fascists. It’s not just the charge of wild eyed lefties or embittered Republican moderates (and I have no idea if Mr. Salem is a moderate). It’s the simple unadulterated truth.
Far right fundamentalist Christians proclaim an ideology that is as ugly and eliminationist as any other fascist movement in history. They believe America is, and always has been, a Christian nation and should be governed under Biblical law, not the Constitution. They have made explicit threats against liberals, atheists, Muslims and minorities at one time or another. Their use of eliminationist rhetoric is well known. They advocate for making homosexuality a capital offense punishable by immediate execution. And it has been their lone wolf followers who have used violence to murder abortion providers and commit other terrorist acts on American soil.
Their goal is Dominion. And they are very, very serious about it:
“The Christian goal for the world,” Recon theologian David Chilton has explained, is “the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics.” Scripturally based law would be enforced by the state with a stern rod in these republics. And not just any scriptural law, either, but a hardline-originalist version of Old Testament law–the point at which even most fundamentalists agree things start to get “scary.” American evangelicals have tended to hold that the bloodthirsty pre-Talmudic Mosaic code, with its quick resort to capital punishment, its flogging and stoning and countenancing of slavery, was mostly if not entirely superseded by the milder precepts of the New Testament (the “dispensationalist” view, as it’s called). Not so, say the Reconstructionists. They reckon only a relative few dietary and ritualistic observances were overthrown.
So when Exodus 21:15-17 prescribes that cursing or striking a parent is to be punished by execution, that’s fine with Gary North. “When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime,” he writes. “The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death.” Likewise with blasphemy, dealt with summarily in Leviticus 24:16: “And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him.”
So I salute Steve Salem for speaking the truth too many Republicans have been afraid to speak about the faction that has taken over their party. Maybe more Republicans will step forward to denounce the radical and authoritarian visions of the far right wing of their party. The time for them to tolerate this extremism in their midst out of fear or because it won them elections should be over.
Also posted in orange.
Did anyone take a look at the reader response to the article linked in your first paragraph? What a range of beliefs are held, pro and con!
Mark Crispin Miller identifies the threat of extremist dominionism in his books and speeches. Home-schooling is growing exponentially in this country, and it provides the perfect avenue for the spread of dominionism. I’m sure home-schooling will continue to attract families of this persuasion, and perhaps more colleges, similar to Patrick Henry in Virginia, will be established. (See http://www.phc.edu if interested.)
Thanks for bringing this serious matter to the fore.
Home-schooling is growing exponentially in this country, and it provides the perfect avenue for the spread of dominionism.
In Lancaster County PA in the last year, we have had 2 mass killings both done by men/boys who were homeschooled. These homeschoolers tend to be from strict christian evangelical homes, as you suggest!
Homeschoolers tend to be isolated from others, who may disagree with them, during their formative years, so it may well be that they do not learn how to “get along” with others and how to channel anger in a socially acceptable manner. I did a little searching recently about other religious fanatic homeschooled who might have run into trouble. Eric Rudolph was a strict evangelical and was homeschooled. Tim Mcveigh was not homeschooled, but much of his anger was a reaction to Wacho and to Ruby Ridge, which were both christian evangelical fiascoes.
I cannot say for sure that homeschooling leads to more such incidents than not because I have no formal studies, but I would be interested in seeing such studies if they exist, or maybe some social reseach institution should consider doing such a study!
I am no proponent of homeschooling, but you cannot link homeschooling to violently aberrant behaviors such as the murders you list. You are neglecting to consider the opposite side of the argument. Look at all the horrible murders that were committed by Public school graduates. Look at all the homeschoolers and public school students who are well-adjusted. As a very wise stat master has said many, many times, “Correlation is not causality.”
Here is excerpt from a Department of Education Report on Non-Public Schools
Roughly 330,000 children are being homeschooled for “religious or moral” instruction. I don’t know what percentage of these students are from Dominionist families, but I do know that it would not be all of them. Even today, some home schooling is done by Lefties who don’t want their kids “indoctrinated” by Public Schools.
Yes I know, and that is why I wrote my last paragraph.
Still from an empirical view IN MY AREA, we have had two mass, bizarre killing sprees in this one moderately sized, conservative county, and both have been done by former evangelical homeschoolers (the Ludwig killings and the Amish school killings). One has to wonder about this?
I do believe more study is needed on how well or poorly these homeschoolers seem to adjust and cope once they are finally letout of their protective cacoons!!
I’m not surprised that the responses in the Sioux City Journal are mixed pro and con. I lived in Iowa for six years and generally admire Iowans. They are a good example of financial and social conservatives who have a live and let live attitude. Of course I am generalizing here, the population of Iowa has all flavors of political opinion. I’m talking about “mainstream” Iowans. I was upset to see the Religious Right take over the Iowa GOP, but their hold on the party has weakened.
I have a hard time calling people who want to impose Old Testament values on our society Christians. It seems that Christ is missing from the Old Testament.
There’s something wrong with these people. They seem to think you should run your life by the teachings of the Old Testament, but it’s OK to eat shrimp, it’s OK to shave off your beard, and it’s OK to do other things you don’t want to do but the Old Testament tells you you have to. (Oh, and pi equals three.)
These are generally the same people who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unchanging Word Straight From God, which if you know the history of the Bible is, shall we say, highly doubtful. But if you believe that, don’t you pretty much have to go with the whole enchilada rather than throwing out the things you don’t like?
And it still ignores the reality that Jesus’ teachings were very simple:
I swear, these people aren’t Christians. I had better stop, though, before I get all wound up and they have to increase my meds again.
I grew up under the “rule” of these kinds of so called “Christians” and it has taken me most of a lifetime to recover from it. So I saw the signs VERY early on of the rise in power these facists were accumulating and have been frightened to the core by it. ANY sign, no matter how small, that those in power are waking up to it now, is like a lifegiving breath of frsh air to me.
Denouncing the Dominionist elements of the Religious Right is an important step for the Republicans to take. Because the Domininist movement is theocratic, it is naturally drawn to politics. (A good start on finding out about Dominionism .) It is up to the non-theocratic majority of the GOP to wash their hands of this absolutist thinking. But is important to recognize that the Dominionist movement is a small group and does not include most Evangelicals and Fundamentalist. We should be careful before we tar all conservative Christians with the same brush. The quotes about the religious Right that you include do not apply to the vast majority of Evangelicals or Fundamentalists. Let’s avoid using straw men to start fires and can burn out off control.
I think “Absolutist” is a better term for the extreme Religious Right than “Fascist”. Absolutism is a problem for a democracy whoever asserts possession of “the Truth.”
Historical Note:
This kind of religious absolutism is not new in America. Much of the energy behind the New England settlements came from the religious turmoil in England which surrounded the English Civil War. As the political tide turned against the Puritans, with the Restoration of a Catholic monarchy, many Puritans divines, such as, John Cotton, Roger Williams and Thomas Hooker, brought their congregations to settle in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Wikipedia entry for Massachusetts Bay Colony
From the earliest colonial days, there have been objectors to theocratic power, Anne Hutchison, for example. Eventually, political power was secularized in various constitutions, often because other denominations wanted religious freedom. Protestantism is by nature and practice schismatic and not monolithic. The Dominionist opponents are as likely to come from the Right as from the Left.
Yes, I’d prefer labels like “absolutist” and “theocratic” to “fascist”. That F-word has been muddled and devalued by the left, and now by the right (“Islamofascist”). Different and more specific terms will, I expect, work better.
That said, evaluating movements with reference to the fascist model can be enlightening. But evaluation and analysis aren’t the same as political labeling.
Showing the common elements of a movement and several other noxious examples would also work well, not as a label, but as a way to illustrate what a label means. Pointing out that Dominionists share their absolutist, eliminationist ideology with “Stalinism, Fascism, and Islamism” has a nice balance — reflecting not left or right politics, but defense of democracy and a free society.
Using several examples sidesteps the response that the present example is, after all, different in this or that detail of history or belief. It focuses attention on underlying similarities in a way that “X is Y” does not.
I agree that what is needed is analysis, not labels. The current administration attached the”Fascist” label to its Islamic enemies in an effort to draw on the emotional pull of the “Good War” against the Fascist Nazis. It is a rhetorical label, aimed at an emotional response, not a meaningful one.
Fascism label is not a meaningless charge if one looks at what fascism actually is. It is not suprising that the fascists themselves accuse others of their own crimes — it is actually a typical fascist tactic that the Greman fascists used. It is vital to monitor and expose fascist tendencies if we are to prevent their ascendency. The extreme right is, by definition, fascist. They have not taken over (and have in fact been dealt a blow) but they are a powerful force.
If the results of the election are to make a real difference in moving away from the fascism of Military Commissions, the Patriot Act, and “War Without End,” it will be because we turn up the heat on the dems, not because we are complacent with a shallow victory.