Reply #6: I recommend you research the Theocracy Watch website (long post)

[Hekate]

Additionally, Google for Dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism. Doing so will lead you to primary sources, i.e. what these folks say about themselves, rather than what others say about them.

When I did that two years ago I damn near had a heart attack. I have near-100% religious-respect credentials, and these folks scared the crap out of me. What I had thought were ideas on the lunatic fringe (see, I told you I'm not 100% in the respect department) turned out to be quite influential and well-funded by at least one billionaire.

Home schooling, as it happens, is a pet project, and providing textbooks that reinforce a certain worldview (that's their business) and that reinvent US history (now, that becomes everybody's business) are key to ensuring that "an army of Christian soldiers will be ready to arise" when they are given the call. Naturally, key to promoting home-schooling is the constant denigration of public schools: the inadequate education they offer, their dreadful immorality, those non-Christian kids and teachers that your kids are forced to associate with, sex education, and needless to say, the money we keep pouring into the school system. Of course, home schooling also depends on Mom staying at home where she belongs, and naturally money should be diverted from the public school budget to support that.

There's more, believe me. Current US laws are sinful and ungodly, and we must revert to Biblical laws in all things. Their theology kind of plays fast and loose with the Old Testament in my opinion, and seems to completely leave out the Sermon on the Mount, but rest assured, witches and homosexuals WILL be put to death when the godly ones come into power.

But wait, there's more! In doing God's will (and they are SO sure they know what that is) we are bringing closer the time of the Rapture. Of course, you say. But you're missing the part where first there will be a thousand years of pure misery on this Earth -- Hell on Earth, one might say -- and I think this is where all the ungodly ones will be either converted or offed by the godly ones. Ecological disaster, global warming, a nuclear winter -- not to worry; any and all of that only hasten the day.

Israel's ancient boundaries MUST be restored, and of course it doesn't matter a bit if this ignites a conflagration in the entire Middle East, because it is all part of God's plan, and Jesus won't come back until it happens. Ditto the restoration of the Temple in Jerusalem, never mind that Muslims currently occupy that spot.

I could go on, but it's better if you go read this for yourself. Just a few more comments before I stagger off to bed:

George W. Bush was vetted by Christian Reconstructionists when he decided to run for president. (Google for it.) He went to a secret council (that is, people know it took place, but the doors were closed and no transcripts or outsiders were allowed), explained his personal theology, and apparently received a literal blessing as well as promises of help. Those photos of Bush with a halo? That RNC speech in New York this summer, the one where the podium had a cross worked into the wood like it was a pulpit? That's all for real. He -- and these particular backers--truly believe God put him in office, and they've convinced a whole lot of Evangelicals of it too. That's the explanation for his becoming president after losing the popular vote in 2000. So when Bush talks about "a mandate," he's not talking about the mandate of the people, he's talking about a mandate from God. Thus when George W. Bush says things like "crusade" I listen, and so should all of us. His foreign policy is driven as much by a dangerous theology as by neocon dreams of empire.

Key notions from this movement have entered the mainstream, particularly among Evangelicals--most of whom probably have no idea what the whole package entails. An entire series of End Times books have been written and are selling like hotcakes, further mainstreaming key ideas. (One lonely book has been written from the other point of view: The Handmaid's Tale. The author did her research.)

As a last exercise, start Googling members of the Bush administration and their allies in the Congress, i.e. "Tom DeLay + Christian Reconstructionism."

My whole life I have been very much a live and let live kind of person -- the essence of being Liberal, right? But these folks preach poisonously intolerant attitudes (and eventual behavior) toward everything I believe in, toward people I know and love, and toward me. They are un-American in the truest sense of the word, and they are dangerous. If they were not so influential, I wouldn't care, but they are influential.

I subscribe to two online journals that I recommend for keeping a balanced perspective on Christianity and other religions in America today. One is Sojourner Online (they also have a magazine you can subscribe to) which was founded by an Evangelical minister who is pretty disturbed by the Bushites, and the other is the Interfaith Coalition. Both groups promote church-state separation and freedom of religious belief and practice, and they are a welcome antidote to the current trends. I remind myself of Christians like Jimmy Carter, Bill Moyers, Bishop Desmond Tutu, and their spiritural kin in this country and elsewhere, people with genuinely good hearts and actions....

Be well.

Hekate