Another Journalist Revels in Ignorance about Dominionism

The first of these is his complaint that left-wing Jewish writers are primarily responsible for critical work about the role of dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism in evangelical Christianity.  Those he names:  Sara Diamond, Michelle Goldberg, Rabbi James Rudin, and Rachel Tabachnick do indeed hail from Jewish backgrounds, but there are many non-Jews, including evangelicals, who have prominently written about these subjects.  I have written extensively about them myself, notably in my 1997 book Eternal Hostility:  The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy.  Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst at Political Research Associates in Somerville, MA has written widely about these things in books and articles.  Although we did not coin the term, he and I  certainly popularized the use of the term dominionism in the early 90s.  But evangelical seminary professors Wayne House and Thomas Ice predated all of our books in this area, in their 1988 book Dominion Theology:  Blessing or Curse?. Steve Clapp wrote an influential feature article in Christianity Today magazine about Christian Reconstructionism in 1987. Bill Moyers did a TV documentary in 1987.  More recently, Rev. Dr. Bruce Prescott a national leader in the moderate Baptist movement published a six-part series (here at Talk to Action) on dominionism based in part on his personal experiences in the right wing takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention; and when the Religious Right, led by a well-known Christian Reconstructionistnamed Steven Hotze, took over the his local Republican Party in Houston in the early 90s.  There are many, many such examples. The fact is that these matters have been prominently written about by journalists and scholars, Christian and non-Christian, evangelical and non-evangelical for decades.  In any case, writing about these things did not begin in 2006 nor has writing in this area been dominated by Jews.

(For a primer on dominionism and Christian Reconstructionism in the context of the current controversy, see Berlet’s essay ”Inside the Christian Right Dominionist Movement That’s Undermining Democracy.”)