Christian Dominionism

Dominionsim, as far as I can tell, seems to be the new popular attack on Christianity.  The critics of Christianity use Genesis 1:28 to claim that Christians believe that all political positions should be filled with Christians.  They call these Christians, who include all conservative Christians, and especially conservative Christian politicians, Dominionists.  These Christians want to control politics and make it illegal to have fun and force everyone else to live according to their cold restrictive principals.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:28, ESV)

My English teacher would kill me for that citation, but fortunately the English teachers haven't taken over politics and made it illegal to stray from MLA guidelines.  Watch out, though, you have to be careful to make sure that politicians don't haven't been associating too much with the English teachers.  I heard that Obama talked to one of his english teachers outside of class.  Can't risk voting for him.  After all, our freedom of speech is at stake.

In a sense, the Dominionism conspiracy theory is no more reputable than this little parody.  Most of the time the media is reduced to using the most absurd and minute association with people who may have Dominionist leanings to convict politicians of Dominionsm.  Lets just say that Obama's former pastor does not strike me as a savory character and that didn't stop many people from voting for him and leave it at that.

Of course, this isn't the only reason that this charge is absurd.  As befits a theory currently being circulated by the main-stream media, it is absurd on many levels.  First of all, the passage mentioned only commands that man (people) in general have dominion over nature.  It doesn't command that Christians have dominion over politics, it doesn't even say anything specifically about Christians or politics, and the list of things to be dominated can hardly be skewed even by the most unscrupulous of characters to include political dominance.  (By the way, it logically follows from these premises that the media contains some of “the most unscrupulous of characters".  Just saying.)  Of course, besides the fact that their scriptural basis is absurd, I personally hadn't even heard of such a belief anywhere in the modern Church until I heard liberals talking about what powerful movement it was.  I feel so left out.  It appears that all the other Christians in the US have suddenly started to want to impose a Christian version of sharia law and I didn't know anything about it!  (By the way, why aren't the liberals equally opposed to sharia law?)  Basically, have I not heard of any Christian who thinks this way and can't think of how there could be any Biblical basis for such a view.  The Bible commands Christians to respect the authority of the government and says nothing about using government to legally enforce moral behavior.

Now, of course, I have to point out one last thing.  Can you think of anyone who doesn't want to elect politicians who they agree with.  Don't the liberals want to elect politicians who will force smart, hard-working, and lucky people to give up huge portions of their income to enrich the the lazy, the unintelligent, and the unfortunate?  Why is it any worse for Christians to want to elect people who will fight against what they think is evil.  I can understand why the Liberals wouldn't want a taste of their own medicine, but it seems that they're downright paranoid about it, considering that the only things I can think of that conservative Christians really want out of this election is a decreased deficit (which I suppose is equally unsavory to liberals).  Although Christians certainly want to reform the culture, the ones I am aware of all want to do so by changing individuals lives, not by forcing people to live according to Christian principles.  (Of course, I'd prefer if it remained illegal to murder me or steal my possessions, but right to life and property is also in the constitution, so it'll be pretty hard for the Liberals to argue that those should be legal, even if they don't believe in transcendent moral grounds for them.)