Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
Let me add my complete agreement to Jon Rowe's post at Positive Liberty about the threat of Christian dominionism, or theocracy. He cites two views, those who say any mention of dominionism is pointless because the threat is virtually non-existent and those who say that there is a serious threat of the US becoming a theocracy.
On the one hand there is the view of ordinary religious conservatives like Clayton Cramer who argue all warnings of such are paranoia:"If all the "dominionist Christians" in the United States got together and organized a coup d'etat, there wouldn't be enough of them to take over Horseshoe Bend. I'm pretty sure that I've never met one. The only place that I have ever seen a "dominionist Christian" is being interviewed on some Bill Moyers documentary.
Then there are folks like Bill Moyers and Michelle Goldberg who argue that, if we don't keep our guard up, we are on the verge of a Dominionist theocracy.
Like Jon, I take a moderate approach on this question, finding the truth somewhere in between those two extremes. He writes:
My opinion is that more Dominionists exist than for what Cramer et al. give credit. They do have strong influence in religious right and Republican circles; yet, that's all they are, one of many competing political interests, who are often disappointed by conservative Republicans generally, and GW Bush in particular....In short, they exist; those who are wary of the Christian Nationalist agenda are right to stay concerned. Yet, let's not overestimate their threat. In politics, they are not exactly on the winning side of most of the issues about which they are concerned. And the future prospects for Dominionism seem presently, at best, dim.
Let me just add one thing, which I'm sure Jon will agree with as well. While I certainly don't think that the US is on the verge of any sort of theocratic takeover, I think it's still important to expose and fight against those groups and individuals who do advocate theocratic policies, especially those who are in a position of real influence. I think this is important precisely because I do not believe that most Christians, even those who are politically and theologically conservative, support that agenda or would accept the formation of a genuinely theocratic society. That makes it important to expose those who do as a means of breaking up those coalitions with more moderate religious voices that help lend credibility to the radical theocrats.
Comments
Just to through some actual numbers into the discussion, the Yurika Report calculated that there are 35 million Dominionists in the US. Many do not call themselves Dominionists, the count is by those that follow their tenets.
Many who are not Dominionists could be found spouting *some* of their rhetoric, too. Think of how the fundies introduced the "marriage is a special, magical word" meme into the discussion of gay rights.
Posted by: Graculus | August 21, 2007 9:14 AM
...I think it's still important to expose and fight against those groups and individuals who do advocate theocratic policies...
Damn straight. While the Dominionists may be few, their voices are still far too loud to be ignored - and some of their less-radical talking points find their way into the minds of less-radical voters. Exposing their entire agenda for what it is helps to discredit them - and may open the eyes of someone listening to them to where those first small steps might be leading them.
Posted by: BobApril | August 21, 2007 9:24 AM
"On the verge of a theocratic state" is probably the wrong way of characterizing the threat. The Christian Right usually hasn't been working towards massive revolution or sweeping change. Instead, they started out as a grassroots movement influencing local city councils and school boards, and have grown from there.
I too don't think that most Christians would want an explicit theocracy. However, it seems that many of them follow leaders without realizing what that leader's true agenda is. So in a way, they indirectly support a form of theocracy--the gradual theocratization of the country starting at the bottom (say, pressuring schools to become more explicitly religious) and then moving upwards.
I don't fear a Christian revolution. What I fear is that the separation of church and state will be very slowly, almost imperceptibly eroded away. Over time, this could develop into a kind of ersatz theocracy without people seeing the big picture of what's going on. A lot of Christians are unwittingly supporting this process.
Posted by: Wes | August 21, 2007 9:26 AM
You don't need to get all hysterical and cry that the KKK is about to take over America to see the importance and validity of opposing racism whenever it appears in law and/or practice. I agree with Ed and Jon: there's no need to claim the sky is falling, but Christian Supremacists do exist and need to be opposed whenever they try and put their intolerant practices into public policy.
Posted by: Mark Nutter | August 21, 2007 9:55 AM
Unwittingly is the wrong word. I believe they enthusiastically support the process. They just don't understand the implications of what they support.
The other issue is that a lot of people think that we already are a de facto-theocracy. That's why they get bent out of shape about people removing the words "Under God" from the pledge or when a Hindu prayer opens congress... and why they've been all up in arms since the removal of prayer from school. This is where the "Christians Under Attack" meme comes from.
There's this white bread bible belt image of what America used to be (which is mostly false.) And a bunch of insecure and ignorant people are scared to death that it's being taken away from them.
Posted by: BenA | August 21, 2007 9:56 AM
I seem to recall that D. James Kennedy of Florida's Coral Ridge Ministries is a Dominionist, and that he was also listed a while back as someone who is almost as influential in Christian circles as James Dobson and Pat Robertson.
Posted by: Paul Sunstone | August 21, 2007 10:36 AM
You'd think that common sense would stop them, because Theocracy is just so unappealing.. but then look at the countries that have fallen around the world..
Posted by: Rich | August 21, 2007 10:49 AM
It's a perspective thing...
From over here in good ol' "secular" Blighty, you look pretty darned close to theocracy by our standards (and technically, we are a theocracy). Just how much gets spent on abstinence-only "education", or "faith-based" programs again? I mean, from my perspective, whatever notional church-state separation there may be, you sure do have a lot of God-botherers in government. And nobody else, as far as I can tell. So while it may not be an authentic, full-blown, state religion theocracy, it certainly looks like a de-facto theocracy to me. Sure, it's not monolithic - but then, they never really are.
Posted by: Dunc | August 21, 2007 11:08 AM
In the updated material in the paperback edition of Goldberg's Rise of Christian Nationalism she makes a point to say that she doesn't believe we're on the verge of being taken over by Dominionists so much as she sees a more subtle and slow process where by they increase their influence over America.
Chris Hedges is more alarmist than Goldberg (much more so, in my opinion), but he still adds the qualification that he doesn't believe that a Christian fascism could take root unless some kind of national catastrophe occurs.
Posted by: Hume's Ghost | August 21, 2007 11:10 AM
What a lot of Americans seem to want is a "Theocracy Lite." No, of course we don't stone gays to death, but the law shouldn't treat them as normal either. Nobody should be compelled to be a Christian, but in a democracy "majority rules," and thus America should be seen as the majority's home: you don't walk into someone else's house and tell them they can't pray at meals or put pictures of Jesus on their walls. That's not a "theocracy" like the Taliban, nobody is getting their head chopped off for apostasy. Apostates only have to be polite guests, and grateful that Christians are so hospitable.
Added to this sense of encroachment into their "personal" space is the rather smug assumption that God's existence and the Bible's truth are only "matters of faith" in the same way that trusting the president is a "matter of faith." The president clearly exists: God clearly exists. That the president does things is universally acknowledged: that the Bible truthfully recorded what happened is likewise universally acknowledged -- in the heart, if not through the lips. So the only "faith" involved is whether you choose to follow God, or whether you choose to not trust God, and refuse to follow Him.
The faith isn't in God's existence, it's in God's reliability. And of course, that is no contest. Which is why they don't see why our country shouldn't rely on "our" God.
Posted by: Sastra | August 21, 2007 11:23 AM
Graculus wrote:
Yurica is exactly the sort of alarmist source that this post is partially intended for.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 21, 2007 12:17 PM
Dunc:
The difference is that, whereas you guys have the Anglican church established and have been supporting it through your taxes for centuries, the vast majority of the things you describe have only really been big over here for maybe 4 or 5 years. If you look at the Clinton years and even before that back to the first Bush and even Reagan, things were more sensible.
I would just wish that the people of this nation would grow up. I sometimes think that the real support for abstinence only programs comes not from any religious conviction, but from a conviction that sex is an "icky" topic that people shouldn't be comfortable talking about. Heck, its not like anyone who lives to the age of 12 hasn't already learned something about these issues from his peers; its high time we stopped being shocked by it and got back to getting some real education out there before we get an AIDS resurgence(not that the media silence on the subject means we have fantastically low rates or anything).
Posted by: Julian | August 21, 2007 1:16 PM
I think that the threat they pose is not of a fullblown theocracy, but of whittling away at the separation of church and state. This is a slow attack from both ends and in many places more liberal churches have taken the bait as well. One of the little discussed problems that, for a short time even hit my church, is political action alerts in church. My pastor put a kabosh on it, before I even had a chance to talk to him about it, but other members of the interfaith alliance I am a part of had more of a challenge, making their respective churches aware of the problems with this, including a few more liberally minded ones.
On the other end, you of course have the most egregious, the executive office of faith based initiatives. Down to the grass-roots campaigns to amend state constitutions to combat marriage equality or any approximation thereof. Not to mention the never ending fight to keep faith out of public schools, especially the science classrooms.
I don't fear full blown theocracy on it's face, but a daresay that the chipping away at the separation of church and state is no less than an attempt to send us in that direction. Genuine theocrats might be a marginal fringe group, no question in my mind. However, they do have an agenda and they have done a damn fine job perpetuating it. They use moderate, non-theocratic Christians to move it forward. Every little bit of dogma, they manage to codify into law, supports their end-game. Unfortunately, far too few theists understand that every bit of "success" they have in this arena, not only leads us towards dominionist goals, it also sullies and denigrates the faith as well.
Posted by: DuWayne | August 21, 2007 1:46 PM
If Dominionism ever prevails it will be incrementally and its supporters have already made some progress along that road with the blithe support of Bush. Most Americans wouldn't stand for Dominionism, if it ever appeared in full flower. But most Americans are worried about other things, like making ends meet, staying healthy, keeping a job, and raising the kids.
The dynamics of Dominionism may be a bit like those that apply to abortion. For decades polls have consistently shown that something like 65% to 75% of adult Americans believe abortion should be legal in many circumstances (the devil lies in defining those circumstances), safe and rare (to use the Clinton construct). Yet, in some states, such as South Dakota, and at times nationally, as in the recent SCOTUS decision to ban intact dilation and extraction (in which the Kennedy's decision made it abundantly clear that neither he nor the others in the majority had any idea what an intact D & E was or why it was ever used), we have come dangerously close to making abortion all but illegal and dangerous to boot. Why? Because for most Americans the issue is well down the their list of primary concerns. Only when they're slapped up side the head, as in the South Dakota legislature's attempt to ban abortion, do they get out and speak their mind. In the meantime a vocal and strident minority will work day and night to impose their beliefs on the rest of us with significant support from several SCOTUS members.
The same situation applies to Dominionism. All too many Americans support one or another of its precepts without understanding the implications of the whole. That's why its so terribly important that groups like the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and others need to remain vigilant and move when Constitutional standards are threatened. In the meantime we should worry about Dominionism in that both Scalia and Thomas may actually support most of their goals with the jury still out on Roberts and Alito.
Posted by: Keanus | August 21, 2007 2:08 PM
I have to interject that most of the issues that people are worried about here were standard operating procedure in the 1950s. The fact is, we have made extraordinary progress during my lifetime in separating church and state. Anybody else remember Jimmy Carter encouraging Federal employees who were "living in sin" to get married? That was 1977.
The only way we are going back is if we have a dictatorship. And since there aren't 35 million Dominionists, that isn't going to happen.
Posted by: kehrsam | August 21, 2007 2:58 PM
I would argue that in the long term, the result of the whittling away of seperation is theocracy, especially in a nation as strongly puritan as the US. That there won't be a blatent, coup-style takeover is something with which I agree, but I think that we'd get there via a slower road. 'More reasonable, main stream Christians' do tend to support faith-based pollitical views, even though they might not approve of violent imposition of those views. Problem is, with every little bit of whittling, precedent is set for more whittling. The beast feeds itself.
Posted by: Chuck C | August 21, 2007 3:09 PM
Chuck -
That was a much more concise, to the point way of making the point that I was shooting for.
kehrsam -
That is absolutely true, but we have made a lot of progress since then, that is being attacked, in large part because of that progress, a backlash if you will. The thing is, that this nibbling away that we're seeing is nothing less than attempting to draw us back even further than the fifty's. As neanderthal as we were fifty years ago, I think there is this assumption that the church had more power than it actually did. It was not the dominionist utopia that many would have us believe. The difference then, was more the result of a larger underlying religious/Christian belief of the population as a whole, that simply no longer exists today, than it was a lack of separation.
To put it more simply, society as a whole, is far less religious now, than it was fifty years ago. In theory, this should reflect in government far more than it does. We have made huge leaps in that direction, in the last thirty years but have regressed from that progress, quite disproportionately in the last decade.
Posted by: DuWayne | August 21, 2007 4:08 PM
Quote from mick arran at that alarmist source: Talk To Action.
Posted by: nal | August 21, 2007 4:09 PM
nal-
Unfortunately, we even have a few alarmists at Talk2Action, which I write for. And I've written there about the need to distinguish between ordinary conservative Christians and those who want a genuine theocracy, with nothing but support from the ones there that matter.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 21, 2007 4:24 PM
I'm sure there's a fair number of people who'd like to see a theocracy; these folks have been very useful to the GOP, because they can deliver votes or letters en masse, and they share the GOP's enimity to the Bill Of Rights. However, they're not going to get a theocracy, they're going to get the same fascism as everybody else, albeit a fascism that's happy to cooperate with their churches.
Posted by: David Harmon | August 21, 2007 5:50 PM
Alarmist or not, this number represents more than eleven percent of the U.S. population. Granted, the circumstances are not the same, but the Bolsheviks took over Russia with only about three percent of the population of Russia at the time (1917).
Posted by: slavdude | August 21, 2007 6:22 PM
Let me explain, as I did in an essay a few months ago, why I don't think it's reasonable to paint everyone who isn't for a strict separation of church and state as a theocrat. As I've written many times, there were basically two views among the founding fathers about this issue, which have long been labeled accommodationism and strict separation. Jefferson and Madison argued for what Madison called "non-cognizance," meaning that they believed that the government should just say nothing at all about religious matters, leaving all expressions about the truth or falsity of religion up to each individual. Washington, Adams and others viewed the establishment clause in much narrower terms, taking the position that the government should never take a coercive position - that is, should never under any circumstances force someone to follow someone else's religious beliefs, or force them to support another person's religion financially - but that they could make statements of support for religion in general. While neither of them was anything like an orthodox Christian (Adams in particularly quite explicitly rejected almost every facet of orthodox Christianity), they both routinely issued declarations for days of prayer, fasting and thanksgiving. They were very careful to phrase them in very general terms, never in explicitly doctrinal terms, and neither of them would ever have allowed such declarations to be mandatory, but they also both believed that government giving such tacit but non-coercive support to a general civic religion was important for maintaining virtue in society.
Now, I think they were wrong. I strongly prefer the Jefferson/Madison position and I think it is particularly more appropriate and important today in the much more diverse nation we inhabit. But I cannot call what they supported theocracy because it isn't. So I don't think we should make the mistake of labeling anyone who supports, say, Ten Commandments monuments in courthouses or "under God" in the pledge of allegiance as a theocrat or a dominionist. To me, this is no different than the other side in such debates labeling anyone who opposes those things an atheist or an anti-Christian; both are drastic oversimplifications and overgeneralizations that don't really add anything but vitriol to an already fierce and overly emotional dispute. So it's best, I think, to define theocracy in a more narrow and specific manner rather than throwing it around too casually.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 21, 2007 7:05 PM
Ed -
I agree that it's a mistake to cast aspersions of dominionism too widely, but it's also a mistake not to recognize that genuine theocrats use every inroad they can get. Even though most fundamentalists aren't actually theocrats, the theocrats use them to break down the wall of separation, bit by bit. Every time legislation, based in religious dogma is passed, it chips away another piece. Too, every time a church officially takes a firm political position, the same thing is happening.
Posted by: DuWayne | August 21, 2007 7:50 PM
I certainly agree that we need to fight against their agenda; after all, I do so on a daily basis here. But let's also not pretend that we're losing this battle and up against some kind of behemoth. The fact is that every attempt to tear down that wall is an attempt to regain something they had for a long time and lost. The inexorable flow of history is clearly on our side here. The Washington/Adams view dominated the first 150 years of this nation's history and our view has dominated since then. When it comes to legislation that enshrines religious dogma, like sodomy laws, again we've got all the momentum. One by one such laws have fallen, from laws against the use of birth control to laws against interracial marriage to laws against sodomy, and they aren't going to come back any time soon. And those victories have changed the society as well, sometimes in dramatic fashion. 40 years ago, Griswold and Loving were enormously controversial rulings; today, you could hardly scare up someone who opposes them and if you put them to a vote the cause of freedom would win by a huge margin. So rather than viewing their agenda as attempts to tear down a wall, perhaps we should view it instead as attempts to scrounge up every old toy that's been taken away from them. I don't think we should ignore the threat by any means; I think we should fight it tooth and nail, as I have always done and will continue to do. But we don't need to make wildly unrealistic statements or use unjustified rhetoric to do that either. We don't need to make them into the boogie man in order to engage the fight.
Yes, sometimes building up an enemy as bigger and scarier than they really are is good for motivating people to join the battle. On the other hand, it's also sometimes a good idea to let the troops know that we're winning the right to improve morale. And it is undeniable that America is a far more free nation today because we've fought these battles for the last half century. The other side cannot force kids to pray to gods they don't believe in anymore, they can't force them to read a Bible they don't believe in anymore, they can't ban the teaching of evolution anymore, or throw gays in prison, or tell people that they can't control their own sex lives. We haven't won every battle, but we've won most of them, and we are far more free as a result. Where once they had the power to throw people in prison for blasphemy, now they are reduced to fighting to put up a nativity scene without putting candy canes and snowmen around it to water it down. And in another 20 or 30 years, we will have won the gay rights battles for good, just as we won previous battles for civil rights for women and blacks. I'm all for fighting the battles we have and I'll continue to do so on this blog every day, but he wind is clearly at our backs and I see no reason to pretend otherwise.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 21, 2007 8:37 PM
Sorry, I'm really not trying to engage a huge bogeyman, hiding in the closet, though I realize that it sounds like that. And I would agree that we are winning the war.
However, I don't think that my rhetoric is entirely overblown either. I think that what we are seeing now, is a last ditch effort to do as much damage as possible, before the old guard entirely dies off. And it's had it's victories. Several states have passed anti-marriage amendments to their constitutions. The supreme court has been stacked to the best of their abilities. Time will tell how that works out, but recent rulings leave a lot to be desired.
I do think it's important to recognize and appreciate the victories we've had. There is certainly no doubt that we have moved a long way in the last two hundred plus years. Certainly, you are the last person that I would accuse of not doing enough or fighting hard enough. I guess my point is, that we also need to recognize how much damage that dying ideologies can inflict, before they are entirely vanquished.
I also think that I tend to be rather less accommodationist, than you are. This is something I find rather ironic and amusing. I daresay this would not have been the case twenty years ago.
Posted by: DuWayne | August 21, 2007 9:04 PM
I'd say that 35 million willing to believe and regurgitate Dominionist talking points is not an unreasonable figure. Most people doing so may have not been exposed to the truly nasty stuff at the bottom of it, and it still sounds "reasonable", for fundy definitions of "reasonable".
140 million or so Americans are YECs. I don't think Yurica's numbers are that far off if you include those who are unwittingly following their talking points. They may not be "pure" Dominionists, but they will support them, at least until the mask comes off.
Posted by: Graculus | August 22, 2007 12:08 AM
First of all, from an historical point of view, for the first 100 years or so of our Republic's history, we were much more of a "theocracy" than we are now, especially as it concerned individual states. So let's not overdramatize the problem.
I'm much more concerned with the ideological aspects of this agenda than I am with any religious content it may have. Saying as someone does above that "genuine theocrats use every inroad they can get" misses the point. We should realize that it is ideologues who do this, regardless of where they draw their ideological narrative from.
Posted by: Poly | August 22, 2007 7:46 PM
Poly wrote:
That is a very salient point.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | August 22, 2007 7:52 PM