Below are the 5 most recent journal entries recorded in Anti-Dominionism's LiveJournal:

Thursday, October 9th, 2008
3:57 pm	Posted with little commentary... http://community.livejournal.com/dominionism/34078.html ...but the recommendation that you read all the links, and definitely watch the video. "There is a tipping point, at which, at which time, because of the sin of the land, the people then have to be displaced.... God is preparing a people to displace the ones whose sin is rising so that then they tip over and the church goes in - one is removed and the church moves in and takes the territory. Now, that does not mean that the people are removed, because God removes them from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light. They are given an opportunity to change allegiances." You can see that they take pleasure in the idea that they have blinded an enemy, "killed" Mother Theresa, caused cancer in a woman after burning down her house and blowing up her car, and ultimately driving her away. And if you still think these people aren't out to do you harm, or that people who are sounding the alarm against Dominionism are just "paranoid"--yeah, tell me that again. We need to keep this woman out of office at any cost--and if you don't think so, then you're not paying attention. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 3rd, 2008
12:37 am	Welcome to Gilead, Governor Palin http://community.livejournal.com/dominionism/33997.html From Truthout Tuesday 30 September 2008 by: Cynthia Boaz If you've ever read Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel, "The Handmaid's Tale," you will recall the key role that was played by the women assigned to be the "Aunts." The story revolves around a futuristic American society in which fundamentalist Christians install a gender-based caste system where each woman is assigned a specific societal function. It is a commentary on the dangerous erasing of the line between church and state in the contemporary United States. The merging of religion and government is carried out by a group of older, white male "commanders" whose propaganda demands that citizens be constantly terrorized into submission and obedience. The resulting regime is Atwood's vision of the worst-case scenario: an American police-state theocracy where every woman's identity is reduced to her sexual attributes, and each is assigned to a category based on her physical qualifications. Subtle references to racist philosophy are mixed into the literalist religious rhetoric. The attractive young women of reproductive age are the "handmaids"; the attractive but infertile middle-age women are the "wives"; the dark-skinned women of any age are domestic servants, and so on. All women are forbidden from reading or writing. The country is renamed the Republic of Gilead, a reference to the biblical homeland of the patriarchs. And the Aunts - who are middle-aged white women of some previous prestige and education - are especially sinister characters. The primary job of the Aunts is to keep the handmaids (the childbearers) subservient. They go about this by convincing the handmaids that they are powerless and can only contribute to society when they fulfill their God-given responsibility to serve the commanders. The Aunts' job, put simply, is to exploit other women by keeping them submissive and telling them that it's for the good of all (and even more insidiously, that in obeying, the handmaids "empower" themselves.) What makes the Aunts so remarkable is their collective failure to realize that they are simply being used by the commanders to keep other women in line, and their willingness - glee, even - at doing so is simultaneously sad and terrifying. So what compels the Aunts to become traitors to both their sex and their country? First, they believe that their contribution to the repressive social order is righteous, and second, they've found that under this rigid system of social control, they have the illusion of a tiny bit of power. Does any of this sound familiar? It should. Governor and Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin is the Gileadian "Aunt" manifested. Her sudden emergence onto the American political scene, accompanied by a burst of enthusiasm on the part of many American women, is a surreal example of life imitating art. Much of Palin's rhetoric, tactics and personal philosophy seem to be taken directly from the Auntie training manual. By accepting the position on the GOP ticket despite her astonishing lack of qualifications, Palin signaled that she was prepared to be used - on the basis of her sex alone - in exchange for the promise of status and power. Refer to Palin's RNC convention speech, which was mostly a fawning homage to McCain's patriotism and leadership, sprinkled with condescending references to Obama as "our opponent." Although the lines were delivered with Palin's own folksy vernacular and over-enunciation, it was not Palin, but McCain - or more accurately, the GOP elders at whose feet he finds himself on election eve - who wrote the speech and whose voice echoed through the hall that night in St. Paul. Women who find themselves drawn to Palin because they think she epitomizes the classic "woman who has it all" might want to take a closer look. Sarah Palin was picked for the ticket solely because of - not despite - the fact that she is female. By keeping her sequestered from the media, McCain has confirmed he does not have faith in an unscripted Palin's ability to represent the campaign to the world. By going along with it, Palin is telling us that she's perfectly fine with being controlled by her male superiors. And by portraying herself as the candidate of the empowered woman (while simultaneously promoting policy that is openly hostile to the interests of working and middle-class American women), she reveals the sad truth about how little progress we've actually made. Lest we think that Senator McCain is hesitant to keep pushing this stereotype in the face of abysmal performances by Palin in news interviews, the most recent reports reveal that his campaign intends to hype the expected wedding between Palin's pregnant daughter and her boyfriend, the date of which is apparently being set just prior to the November election - with McCain and Palin sitting in the front row. Is it possible that Sarah Palin is just blissfully un-self-aware, or is it that she so eager for any illusion of power that she'll allow herself to be marketed no matter what the cost to the dignity of all women? If Palin were truly an empowered woman, she would have refused to allow herself and her daughter to be used in this manner - to assist a party whose rhetoric and imagery promote the ideal woman as deferential to established norms rather than acting as an independent - or critical - thinker. If her selection was intended to signal to American women that empowerment is possible, why is Palin being kept under lock and key? Clearly, this is not an individual whose intelligence or perspective McCain respects, or else he would permit her to speak for herself. To continue pretending that Palin's selection was anything other than an attempt to manipulate the voting public on the basis of a straitjacketed view of sexual roles is a dangerous lie that no American of any gender can afford to abide. Cynthia Boaz is assistant professor of political science at Sonoma State University. On a more mundane level, read The Palin Payoff: How Sarah Brings in the Christian Cash (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
7:52 pm	33 Pastors Flout Tax Law With Political Sermons http://community.livejournal.com/dominionism/33691.html From WaPo By Peter Slevin Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, September 29, 2008 CROWN POINT, Ind., Sept. 28 -- Defying a federal law that prohibits U.S. clergy from endorsing political candidates from the pulpit, an evangelical Christian minister told his congregation Sunday that voting for Sen. Barack Obama would be evidence of "severe moral schizophrenia." The Rev. Ron Johnson Jr. told worshipers that the Democratic presidential nominee's positions on abortion and gay partnerships exist "in direct opposition to God's truth as He has revealed it in the Scriptures." Johnson showed slides contrasting the candidates' views but stopped short of endorsing Obama's Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain. Johnson and 32 other pastors across the country set out Sunday to break the rules, hoping to generate a legal battle that will prompt federal courts to throw out a 54-year-old ban on political endorsements by tax-exempt houses of worship. The ministers contend they have a constitutional right to advise their worshipers how to vote. As Johnson put it during a break between sermons, "The point that the IRS says you can't do it, I'm saying you're wrong." The campaign, organized by the Alliance Defense Fund, a socially conservative legal consortium based in Arizona, has gotten the attention of the Internal Revenue Service. The agency, alerted by opponents, pledged to "monitor the situation and take action as appropriate." Each campaign season brings allegations that a member of the clergy has crossed a line set out in a 1954 amendment to the tax code that says nonprofit, tax-exempt entities may not "participate in, or intervene in . . . any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office." This time, the church action is concerted. Yet while the ministers say the rules stifle religious expression, their opponents contend that the tax laws are essential to protect the separation of church and state. They say political speech should not be supported by a tax break for the churches or the worshipers who are contributing to a political cause. In an open letter Saturday, a United Church of Christ minister, the Rev. Eric Williams, warned that many members of the clergy are "exchanging their historic religious authority for a fleeting promise of political power," to the detriment of their churches. "The role of the church -- of congregation, synagogue, temple and mosque -- and of its religious leaders is to stand apart from government, to prophetically speak truth to power," Williams wrote, "and to encourage a national dialogue that transcends the divisiveness of electoral politics and preserves for every citizen our 'first liberty.' " In the modern red-brick Living Stones Church in Crown Point, a town of 28,000 residents 50 miles southeast of Chicago, Johnson explained why he thinks a minister should dispense political advice. He then laid out his view of the positions of Obama and McCain on abortion and same-sex marriage, which he called two issues "that transcend all others." "We want people when you prick them, they bleed the word of God," Johnson said. Johnson said ministers have a responsibility to guide their flocks in worldly matters, including politics, calling the dichotomy between the secular and the sacred a myth: "The issue is not 'Are we legislating morality?' This issue is 'Whose morality are we legislating?' " Asked why he felt the need to discuss the candidates by name and to be explicit in rejecting Obama and his pro-choice views, Johnson said he must connect the dots because he is not sure that all members of his congregation can do so on their own. The congregation greeted Johnson's reasoning and his criticism of Obama with applause. "When things of the world don't line up with Scripture," said Ed Kraus, 61, who executes reverse mortgages for a living, "he has a right to say they don't." Ruth Stiener went a step further. "He has a duty," she said. "Heaven forbid that that is ever taken away from our pastors." Robert Tuttle, law professor at George Washington University, is skeptical that the Alliance Defense Fund project will result in a new judicial interpretation of the 1954 law. "The only way this gets into a court is if the IRS, number one, decides to enforce and the enforcement mechanism they choose actually causes an injury to a church," said Tuttle, who studies the intersection of law and religion. "That's not something that happens often in campaign activity." More than 180 members of the clergy have signed a pledge from the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington-based group that seeks to separate faith and politics, agreeing not to endorse a candidate on behalf of their house of worship. "I have no objections to clergy taking off their robes and walking out the door of their church, synagogue or mosque and immersing themselves in political campaigns," said Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, chairman of the Interfaith Alliance board. "But a sanctuary should not be a place of political agitation on behalf of a candidate. On behalf of issues, yes. Of candidates, no." Moline added: "Endorsing a candidate from the pulpit is saying, 'This is what our God says should be the government of the country.' I think that is a nightmare scenario for a country that introduced the Bill of Rights to humanity." As for Johnson's criticism of Obama, the Illinois Democrat supports the right to choose abortion. He opposes same-sex marriage but supports civil unions for gay couples. "Senator Obama is a committed Christian and a man of deep faith," said Joshua DuBois, Obama's national religious affairs director. "And the notion that there is only one way to address issues like abortion, or that people of faith cannot support full civil rights for all Americans, is absurd." Staff writer Jacqueline L. Salmon in Washington contributed to this report. (Comment on this)
Monday, September 29th, 2008
11:04 pm	The Palin Presidency - Official Movie Trailer (2 minutes) http://community.livejournal.com/dominionism/33340.html Cross Posting is your Civic Duty [Source] (Comment on this)
Friday, September 26th, 2008
5:42 am	Left Justified: CIA is taking over the churches http://community.livejournal.com/dominionism/33273.html From The Rock River Times September 24, 2008 By Stanley Campbell I didn’t think much when I met one of the evangelical pastors from an Assembly of God church, and he told me he was a former CIA agent. I wondered how he came by his faith. I thought he might have had to reconcile himself with what he had done for the United States government now that he was a pastor for the Lord. But then I met another, and then another. There seems to be a plethora of pastors who once worked as intelligence officers for the world’s largest spying corporation. Now, I’m not a paranoid person, and I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, but the thought of ex-CIA agents taking over fundamentalist congregations seems too weird. Because I remember when pastors were liberal and anti-war. I remember hearing of Catholic CIA agents who blew the whistle on atrocities committed in Vietnam and Central America. In fact, some of the best-known heroes of the left came from a religious background, entered the CIA and were appalled at what they were ordered to do. Case in point: Daniel Ellsberg. Once a seminary student, then an officer in Vietnam, and finally working for the nation’s highest intelligence organization, he was ordered to compile all the records of our war in Vietnam into a readable history. Ellsberg got them published by The New York Times, instead of keeping them secret. Otherwise known as the Pentagon Papers, these records showed how America deceived its own citizens and fostered a war in that far Southeast Asian country, of which we are still feeling the effects today. President Richard Nixon, to try to discredit Daniel Ellsberg, set up the “plumbers” spies who ransacked Ellsberg’s psychiatrist office. Tricky Dick then used these same plumbers to tap the Democratic Headquarters in the Watergate office buildings. Other former CIA agents, like Phillip Agee and John Stockwell, told their stories of intrigue and American meddling in the affairs of other countries. All had a religious background and a penchant for telling the truth at inconvenient times. And in the ’80s, it seemed Protestant churches led the forefront of the peace movement. Maybe liberals got religion when Ronald Reagan was elected President, but they opened the church doors to Central and South American refugees fleeing American imperialism. Latin American “liberals” were being called Communists and were getting killed left and far left. Those that made it to our borders were given sanctuary in some of the churches of the United States. The FBI hounded most of these pastors and lay people. But it was a time of religious fortitude. The congregations, most of them, stood strong against federal intrigue. And they were proven correct: from Chile to Chiapas, the long arm of the CIA reached into innocent people’s lives. This may have triggered the CIA encouraging their members to find religion. I’m not saying it’s a program set up by the government. But if I were to write a novel, I would use the premise of evangelical churches getting lots of support from the United States government’s right wing. It was about the 1990s when the growth of these churches reached corporate levels, and television enhanced the conservative Christian political activists. Many of the mega congregations have a conservative bent to their politics, and I would like to know how many of those pastors got their degree from Arlington, Va. There is talk that in the End Times, an Anti-Christ will show up preaching peace but planning wars. There is little that is more anti-Christ than the Central Intelligence Agency. And some of these churches believe God hates homosexuals and wants us to go to war and kill Muslims. They have little regard for immigrants, and some profess Jesus never asked us to help the poor. If that isn’t “anti-Christ,” I don’t know what is. But it all could be an overworked imagination. Stanley Campbell is executive director of Rockford Urban Ministries and spokesman for Rockford Peace & Justice. (Comment on this)