The Absurd Theology Behind Dominionism

Part 4 of Dominionism: The Damnable Heresy of the Last Days

The “Seven Mountains Mandate” is yet another “wind of doctrine” blowing at gale force at the end of the age, falsely justifying Christian Nationalism.

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
² And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
³ And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: [relentlessly grift you] whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not…
⁹ The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
¹⁰ But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities [public officials, experts, people of stature].
¹¹ Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.
¹² But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
¹³ And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
¹⁴ Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
¹⁵ Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam [cursing the righteous] the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness [betrayal];
¹⁶ But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.
¹⁷ These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
¹⁸ For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh [Gal5:19-21], through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped [Christians] from them who live in error .
¹⁹ While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
²⁰ For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. [Mt 6:23]
²¹ For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
²² But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

–II Peter 2:1-22

³ Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once [lit. “once and for all”] delivered unto the saints.
⁴ For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
⁵ I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not…
⁸ Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion[government], and speak evil of dignities [its officials].
⁹ Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
¹⁰ But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
¹¹ Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain [killed their brother—Mt 24:10], and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward [false and vain prophecies], and perished in the gainsaying of Core [rebellion against legitimate authority]
¹² These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds [fads]; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead [you can’t be twice dead without being spiritually alive at least once], plucked up by the roots;
¹³ Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars [utterly lost and confused], to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever [Hell eternal]…
¹⁶ These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words [hot air BS], having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage [i.e., they like being around powerful people].

Jude 3-17

Second Peter and Jude have always been epistles of some controversy. If I’m not mistaken, they were not fully canonized within the Empire’s churches until the early 200s, and most think they were writing against the prevailing doctrinal threat of the time, the Gnostic heresy. Yet as I have explained elsewhere, when a writer was writing something by inspiration they sometimes were doing so unwittingly on two levels, a contemporary fulfillment and a future one.
 
Thus do I consider these two chapters to be a perfect description of latter day Dominionists, whose ideology Peter refers to in that first verse as a “damnable heresy.” In fact, Dominionism serves an over-arching eschatology built upon a loose collection of other damnable heresies, that, aggregated together, create the phenomenon Paul calls the “strong delusion” of the last days (II Thess 2:3,11). These are the false teachings of false teachers (II Pet 2:1) that the people have “heaped together, having itching ears” (II Tim 4:3), in the last days.
 
I haven’t heard of any standardized definition of Dominionism, and a lot of people “into” it would resent you calling them dominionists. Bad optics, you know, but this is nothing new either. Dishonesty and deceit (“guile”) have apparently become part of the “new and improved” way to “provide things honest in the sight of all men” (Rom 12:17). Ever since the fundamentalist Catholic Paul Weyrich conspired to use Protestants for his medieval political ambitions, Evangelicals have become captive to socially-regressive, right-wing “logic” when it comes to promoting their highly-unpopular policies.
 
These zealots seem to get their cues from the tactics of the real Deep State, the one coined by Peter Scott Dale in reference to dark corners of the CIA and other covert government circles, that routinely skirt US law with impunity. Traditionally, these have been the stronghold of conservative lawlessness (Kennedy assassination,[i] the October Surprise, Iran-Contra, torture, etc.), so it should not surprise us that Steve Bannon would repurpose the term to refer to the “administrative state”—that part of our government that actually looks after the “General Welfare” of the American people as stated in the first sentence of the US Constitution. Distracting you, redirecting you, redefining things are all tactics of wicked people who “lie in wait to deceive” (Eph 4:14).
 
The vast majority of these people are civil servants, hired for expertise and skills that go beyond sticking their heads up the butt of an overgrown child-brat. They take an oath to the Constitution to carry out statutory law for the health, safety and protection of the American public. Bannon’s cynical move, typical of the deviousness of MAGA leaders, only serves to keep the public confused while redirecting them away from an embarrassing conservative history.
 
After that, King Donald adopted the term eagerly since those bureaucrats kept refusing to carry out his illegal orders, not to mention his own appointees. These are the same “bureaucracies” these devious hypocrites intend to weaponize (after having endlessly and falsely smeared Democrats for doing that very thing) include the FBI and the Department of Justice, to jail or assassinate anyone with impunity (Jn 16:2).
 
This is a fascinating dynamic. Donald Trump who couldn’t care less about policy—it all overwhelms his ADD-afflicted brain and distracts from his preoccupation with his self-love—is being used by these “Christians” with their Handmaiden Tale visions of glory.
 
Project 2025 was crafted specifically to accommodate his dictatorial instincts, but with a plan that is self-serving to their own interests. He’s whining now that they’re embarrassing him (they are), but all he really cares about, like Netanyahu in Israel, is staying out of jail. The picture of these people riding the back of the Antichrist, using him as he uses them, is just too perfect by God.

The Problem With “Pan-Millennialism”

 “Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ-to have dominion in the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.

But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are after. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish…World conquest.”

-George Grant, The Changing of the Guard[ii]

Uh, no He hasn’t. None of these claims about an obligation, a mandate, a commission, etc., are true. Why?

I would define Dominionism as a politicized form of the Christian religion based on the false mandate that the Church is called to dominate all major institutions of a culture, beginning with the government itself. It stands in sharp contrast to the actual mandate of the Great Commission to simply preach the Gospel, teach and make disciples, and act as model citizens wherever you are planted (I Pet 2:12-17, e.g.), until the King comes back. (And no, I’m not talking about Elvis in case some MAGA Christians were wondering.)
 
That’s it. If that means you are allowed to vote and participate somewhere, you are to do so in a way that is socially responsible. If you run for office, it means you rule on behalf of all your constituents, not just some favored economic or religious cronies, or some agenda violating the conscience of those who don’t agree with you. You know, as in like, liberty versus tyranny?
 
The reason Christians are falling for this increasingly radical and toxic agenda is because they’ve have a schizophrenia when it comes to the important, unfulfilled doctrine of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, Christians sense that we are at the end of the age for a lot of reasons, and that the appearance of Christ will be in the context of a short period of Great Tribulation culminating in the Battle of Armageddon, just as He warned it would (Mt 24:29,30 e.g.).
 
On the other, perhaps to keep the peace among the far-flung factions of Evangelicalism, they take what I call the default mode regarding the future—that the world is just going to go on and on forever with no end in sight. This used to be loosely associated with Post-Millennialism—the idea that through human progress, the Church will lead the world into a millennial “Golden Age,” at the end of which Christ will return.
 
I call this vague hope the “Focus On The Family” approach. They want to “rebuild America” by “rebuilding the family,” and talk all the time about our children’s generation and our childrens’ children, etc. It’s a very understandable position to take. After all, how can you “engage the culture” without giving the world some hope that doesn’t sound like a Marvel comic fantasy to them? The idea of a brief time of hell on earth followed by relief from a dramatic appearance by Jesus Christ is a hard sell.
 
It’s in this kind of ill-defined situation that MAGA Christian nationalism thrives. They can play on people’s apocalyptic instincts while slanderously jamming “liberals” into the role of a villain they simply aren’t fulfilling, while providing a political agenda to counter that assumed liberal conspiracy that people like Donald Trump demagogue so well.
 
I can also guarantee you that MAGA fanaticism and triumphalism—the whole dominion over the seven mountains of culture—will go on steroids if and when World War III opens up the Great Tribulation period, and the Rapture doesn’t take place (which it won’t). Christians are not going to stick with the apocalyptic theory if the guy riding in on the white horse at that point is Donald Trump. Instead, Christian America will be completely “transformed” into a right-wing MAGA-licious fanaticism that will make current-day problems in this country look like paradise.

Only Sound Doctrine Will Save You (I Tim 4:16)

As I said at the top, Dominionism serves as something of an eschatological umbrella built upon a number of other “damnable heresies,” with Dominionism itself being one of them. What makes the Dominionism of today so especially damnable is that it’s making its decrepit reappearance after the world has experienced so much benefit from the modern post-Enlightenment age. Project 2025 is just a taste of what will become a progressive dinner of madness once we deploy Weyrich’s regressive, neo-feudalistic agenda.
 
So what are these false doctrines being promoted by end-times false teachers as Peter warned about above? It’s a cup that containeth much.

Origins

Throughout this series we’ve been considering the dilemma the Church/State paradox has been for Christ’s New Covenant community, ever since He first gave that famous response about rendering to God and Caesar (Mk 1:17). To briefly re-cap, to redeem the world, God conceived of a Plan starting with making a covenant with a nation, a nation He in fact had to create from scratch (Gen 12:2). Under that Old Testament, Gentiles who wanted to be a part of God’s covenant people had to become proselytes, invited members, immigrants if you will, into the nation of Israel.

What we had in the New Covenant was basically the Messiah, Jesus Christ, taking by His unique authority, that covenant with a nation and offering it to the whole world on a personal, faith basis (Gal 3:28). This is what the Gospel is, the taking of the covenant with Israel and offering it to “whomsoever will” from every kindred, tribe, tongue and nation of mankind (Rev 7:9).

This created a kind of global “nation,” but one without borders, or a literal government, or an army, or any of the other normal markers of an earthly, political nation. Instead, this one would be an invisible, “spiritual nation” (I Pet 2:9), a “kingdom of priests” to be specific (Rev 1:6; 5:10, etc), whose “parish is the [whole] world” as John Wesley put it. And it would remain invisible, “in the heart” (Luke 17:21; Jn 18:36), until the King returns and establishes a literal, political kingdom over all the earth (Rev 11:15; Dan 7:14; Rev 20:4b).
 
And this is the problem with any scheme that doesn’t recognize or honor the difference between the current “Kingdom in the heart” and the “Kingdom yet to come” once the King returns. Or the difference between the real Church in the Spirit and the imperfect Church in the earth. Or the line between Church and State. Or always trying to make the Church “the new Israel,” a role the Founding Fathers specifically went out of their way to avoid.[iii] Whether you call it all “Kingdom Now,” Dominionism, triumphalism, theonomy or whatever; no matter how sincere the motives may be, it always involves a fundamental misunderstanding of these differences between the Old and New Covenants.
 
It shouldn’t surprise us for instance, that the Roman Catholic church eventually developed the idea of “Catholic Integralism” (of which Weyrich’s vague notions were but one example). Since Rome positioned itself as the uniter of the vast and burgeoning archipelago of church communities throughout the world, it was up to the Catholic Church, the supposedly one and only true Church, to find a way to “integrate” Heaven and earth. They were so “Kingdom Now” that Augustine developed Amillennialism as the idea that the Millennial reign of Christ is the Church age, a reign from Heaven through His one catholic (universal) Church on the earth. Sheesh, some “Millennial Age” the last 1600 years have been!
 
But Rome wasn’t the only instance. From its beginning, the United States has been seen by many religious groups here as “the New Israel,” or at least the exceptional, indispensable nation with a messianic duty to bring this new paradigm of liberty, democracy, or “rule of law and not of kings” to the world. While the promotion of democracy around the world is the good side of US foreign policy, to elevate it to a national messianic duty is confounding and corrupting to both Church and State, as this latest Christian Nationalism movement illustrates. At the very least, it distracts the Church from its true mission to bring the Gospel to the ends of the earth, revives the specter of the “Crusader” image in the eyes of other religions, and burdens the US down with race and replacement wars when we could be a mini-United Nations before the world.
 
Watching the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, I was struck by the fact that the United States has truly become that “mini-United Nations” now. The sight of all those people enjoying one another and celebrating the “family of man,” looked to me a whole lot more like what the Kingdom of God should be[iv] compared to this Pharisaical, “baptized in lemon juice” MAGA crowd.  The fact that God warns us that the US could become at the end a mixture of nations that does not cleave together but unravels, should concern us (Dan 2:43; Jer 51:9).

Dominionism

The reason MAGA Christianity is so unforgiveable and so unforgiveably stupid is that they know better than all the reactionary, regressive ideas they keep toying with. They, like all of us who have now lived under two and a half centuries of the modern world, fashioned by the wisdom of the Founding Fathers’ doctrine of promoting the free exercise of religion without endorsing any of it, know that this has worked marvelously well.
 
For generations these same right-wing super patriots bragged to the world about their freedom of worship here in the good ol’ US of A. Now this politicized Christianity fever, whether traceable back to C. Peter Wagner’s effort to unite the Body through a pyramidical apostolic theory, or the Seven Mountains of Culture fad, Catholic Integralism, Rushdoony’s theonomy—whatever direction these much-polluted “streams” came from—all such schemes always end up becoming divisive and destructive.
 
But the “logic” all begins with the term “dominion” of course, found right in the first chapter of the Bible:

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
-Gen 1:26,28
 
The obvious idea here is that Adam and Eve both[v] were to be caretakers over the lesser creatures God had made. It couldn’t refer to dominion over one’s fellow man because there simply weren’t any other humans on the earth at the time.
 
The way to put that in modern terms is the concept behind “conservationism,” or being good stewards over nature. Other than that, the term dominion is used 54 more times in the Bible (KJV), mostly in reference to very conditional promises God made to Israel, His then-covenant nation, or the habit of brutal conquerors of the ancient world pillaging other countries. Neither is a model for His global New Israel, the Church, nor Christian nationalism, nor Word of Faith rabble-rousing sermons promising, “you’ll be the head and not the tail.” Should we be surprised that a flimflam artist like Trump would come along applying that siren song to political promises?
 
Beyond that, the concept behind dominion is one of the most problematic found in the universe, namely, how is domination or power to be wielded by someone in a position of authority? God’s way is gently, through servant leadership, making decisions for the good of the people, or as king David put it, “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God” (II Sam 23:3).
 
Satan’s way is for the self-interest of, first himself, exalting himself over the other angels and even God Himself (Isa 14:13,14), then those who follow his example thereafter. When someone wants to “lord it over” (II Cor 1:24) the congregation or a nation, when they are obsessed with gaining power by any means, one has a right to question their motives.
 
Rulership is a calling, and there’s always first a process of humiliation, testings and lessons in proportion to the honor and responsibility that follows. People like Trump and his “I alone can fix it” attitude, either want to lord it over others, get into power to loot the nation,[vi] or are vain fools, blind to their own ambitions.[vii]
 
This is so much one of the most foundational principles in the Bible, that the early Church considered the principle of self-exaltation to be the essence of Satan’s kingdom. It illustrates the willful blindness of Evangelicals who have kidded themselves that Donald Trump is some kind of highly-flawed but Cyrus-like figure who was sent to release the Church out of Babylonian Captivity! In the United States of America, “the greatest and freest nation that ever was!” Spare me! Even worse are some who see him as a messiah-like figure being persecuted by the Antichrist/New World Order, which apparently is everywhere.[viii]
 
Republicans have fooled the Church for a long time now that God has to do His work with the Devil’s tactics. Cynicism, dirty tricks and deception are what most define their “ways,” whether it’s been the dirty tricks of Roger Stone, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, the denigration of all standards and ethics by Trump, or the deceit and fanaticism of Weyrich and now Kevin Roberts and Russ Vought:

 Nowhere in the Great Commission have we been called to exert Dominion over other people, much less trick them into it, nor to conquer seven mountains of culture, etc. All this adversarial spirit began when Paul Weyrich set the Evangelicals on a course of becoming good Republicans. If they wanted to save America politically that badly, they could have joined both parties, become a moderating influence on the extremists in both, and promoted the democracy in the process, without which there is no modern, free world.

Word of Faith Doctrines

The false system of Bible interpretation known as the Word of Faith teachings that took the Charismatic world by storm in the 1980s also did incalculable damage to the understanding of the Bible’s message, and have played a major role in setting the tone of Dominionist fanaticism. Its focus was to change a believer’s circumstances, not to transform his character. And while I don’t mean to wade too deeply into the weeds of this mentality, I still think the power of its deceit needs a deeper look.
 
As I put it in a 2018 article, “Are Charismatics Becoming A Crazed Cult?”:
 
“One of the most central concepts in Word of Faith thinking is naturally, that of “faith.” In the Bible, faith like everything else is a quality of relationship with God—being led by the Spirit, trusting Him for final outcomes and the like. This was way too passive for these people who redefined it as a metaphysical power or force you can impose upon the world around you through your words, never doubting “the Word” (i.e., their perverse theology).
 
Another was the idea of the authority of the believer, that Jesus Christ had now nullified Satan’s supposed legal monopoly over the earth, thus restoring “dominion” for the believer, a “revelation” that even the Apostle Paul, would you believe, somehow missed.
 
Coupling these two ideas together, you had the crude beginnings of Dominionist logic, that if the Body of Christ would just embrace this “new revelation,” every “stronghold” of the enemy would have to fall and literally nothing would be impossible to them. I assumed this would include the conquest of the whole earth, although back then, the idea that this crew would one day join up with Moral Majority types, Catholics, and all those they never tired of referring to as “the religious,” was a bit hard to visualize.[ix]
 
In other words, this is a metaphysical concept of faith as a force impacting reality, activated by your “speaking your own realms into existence,”[x] and “never doubting it.” Given that Kenneth Hagin built his teachings on E.W. Kenyon who borrowed them from “New Thought,” we shouldn’t be surprised.
 
This of course led to the logical conclusion that all Christians are “little gods,” playing right into the lie of Satan in the Garden (Gen 3:5), a ridiculous claim, but helpfully reinforced by another bonkers concept of WOF theology—the authority of the believer.[xi]

It’s important to understand that we are not talking here about the typical understanding of the authority of the believer, such as praying to the Father in Jesus Name, that kind of thing. I’m talking here about a kind of authority over the earth that Jesus supposedly legally obtained once He died on the cross.
 
There are so many errors built upon errors in this “new revelation,” that even the Apostle Paul it is claimed, didn’t understand this in his time, would you believe!? In truth, we could spend all day unpacking the details, but all I want to do here is give the basics.
 
It is all based on the fairy tale that when Adam and Eve sinned, they somehow lost legal control over the earth to Satan, who retained this advantage until Christ, the Second Adam incarnated, passed every one of the Devil’s temptations (Mt 4), and stayed faithful unto death with His work on the cross, where He got the final victory (Col 2:15).
 
According to this scheme, after Adam’s fall, Satan legally inherited literal political control over the earth, and erected a vast demonic hierarchy over it. This is their idea of what it means when it says Satan is “the god of this world” (II Cor 4:4), a figurative statement by Paul of demonic influence over men, not some sort of global squatter so powerful as to be able to shut God out. God has never lost dominion over this earth (Psa 24:1; Dan 4:17,25,32,34,35, e.g.). Satan is allowed to run around at will to test men, but he’s always on a Divine leash (Job 2:5-7).
 
Likewise, when Satan tempted Jesus and offered him all the kingdoms of this world if He would but bow down to him (Lu 4:5-8), Jesus knew Satan didn’t have that authority. He knew Satan’s a liar (Jn 8:44), and that the earth’s kingdoms are controlled by the human authorities who run them. Some of them like Pharoah or Nebuchadnezzar were formidable, yet were easily brought low by the power of God (Ex 14:30; Dan 4:33), way before Jesus died on the cross.
 
This is why in “spiritual warfare,” “spiritual mapping,” and “worship warfare” circles like IHOP-KC, there is so much emphasis on fighting these supposed satanic hierarchies over a city and the like. It’s a form of Gnosticism, a kind of overly-spiritualized interpretation of meager Scriptural revelations about the spiritual world. When Paul wrote about casting down strongholds, he meant strongholds of the mind, wrong ideas held by non-believers and supposed believers like, you know, Dominionists and all their many “streams.”
 
Just consider that passage by Paul:
 
⁴ (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
⁵ Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
-II Cor 10:4,5
 
Here Paul is plainly saying the Church’s weapons are not carnal (physical) ones, something Christianized militia types ought to keep in mind. Moreover, these “strong holds” are in the mind. “Imaginations” is a word that literally meanings “reasonings”—logic, rationales, thinking, excuses—that are not in accord with “the Word,” meaning, the Word of God properly interpreted and applied. Although Paul said he came not to the Corinthians preaching the wisdom of this world, but in the power of the Spirit (I Cor 2:5; 4:20), he also spent much of his time reasoning the wisdom of God with people (Acts 17:17, e.g.).
 
Just think of the conceit of these people! For centuries, revivals came down upon the Church by the grace and sovereign choice of God, often after prayer and repentance, but not always. They never wasted their time yelling at the Devil and “wrestling” with demons. Like the Muslims, the “jihad” was inside their own souls. Now this generation claims a new revelation of the believer’s authority, strutting around on stage, declaring their god-like powers, bringing down…well, a fair shew in the flesh (Gal 6:12); some entertainment for the night, but hardly a display of Divine miracles.
 
Word of Faith’s perverse interpretation of the Bible’s message had a dual effect upon the politicized Christianity trend. On the one hand, if faith is a force that you can create or manipulate reality through, then collectively it is possible that the Church could agree to get together and just “believe hard enough,” and literally nothing would be impossible to us.
 
On the other, it promoted the idea that for all these centuries, neither the Church nor Paul understood this “new revelation” that Christ had won back legal control over the earth from Satan. Thus, the Church’s faith thus far had been too passive, too timid. It’s almost as if we were now obligated by this new understanding to take a more aggressive attitude towards those in our way.
 
But it’s a gnostic-like, pretentious, pseudo-spiritual dogma, simply a bad interpretation of the Bible and the volatile, problematic subject of wielding power throughout history. Yet today, especially in Charismatic churches, bold, bombastic “declarations” over the earth, rabble-rousing denunciations of “the wicked,” over-wrought promises about being the head and not the tail are par for the course. Its spirit is wrong, its logic is wrong. It is in short, a tower of confusion to a watching world and just adds to the “strong delusion” of the last days (II Thess 2:11).

Notes:

[i] Kennedy was a Democrat, yet political chameleons like Donald Trump shamelessly allowed himself to be identified with his dead son, as if he gave a hoot about getting to the bottom of that true Deep State hit. https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/23/us/qanon-trump-kennedy-protzman-cult-invs/index.html
[ii] Fort Worth, TX: Dominion Press; 1987, pp. 50-51. https://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/the_changing_of_the_guard.pdf
[iii] Contrary to the bleating of people like David Barton and other Christian Nationalists who insist the Founding Fathers were misunderstood, the fact was they spent two weeks specifically debating whether to make Christianity or any faction thereof the official religion of the United States. Instead, they deliberately moved to make the federal government a secular state while encouraging the moral utility of (proper) religious instruction.
[iv] Minus all those weird sexual obsessions and pagan religions et.al. of course. But you “engage the culture” where it’s at, not sit there and curse the darkness as you see it. I could wish to see the level of love found at that convention in today’s politicized churches. Why go to the ends of the earth with the Gospel when God’s brought it to our door?
[v] When God said “Let us make man in the earth,” He meant both of them. “Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created” (Gen 5:2).
[vi] That’s why Trump had a bust of Andrew Jackson on his desk, because it was Jackson who pioneered the “spoils system” of bringing in your own cronies and “sacking the city” for your collective gain. Jackson’s system was eventually outlawed by Congress, then brought slowly back again starting with the Reagan era.
[vii] In Trump’s case, it’s all of the above and more.
[viii] Like Voltaire said, If they can get you to believe absurdities, they can get you to commit atrocities. All such vain reasoning comes under the category of what talk show host Stephanie Miller calls, “Really Bad Analogies.”
[ix] https://donclasenseriousguy.com/are-evangelicals-becoming-a-crazed-cult/
[x] You’ll note that Donald Trump simply applied this principle to politics, explaining why he seemingly will not accept even the most indisputable facts if they contradict what he wants to “speak into existence.”
[xi] This idea of Adam losing legal control over the earth may not have originated with Word of Faith circles, but in my own experience, they seem to have done the most to popularize it.