I'm no fan of what is commonly known as the Religious Right. Going from biblical teaching to public policy is incredibly tricky business. But let's get our facts straight, shall we?
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Is Michele Bachmann a Dominionist? Nope. Next Question?
Left-wing critics aren't terribly well-informed about evangelicalism. I have plenty of objections to Bachmann. But this response by Doug Groothuis is right on target.
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22 comments:
Thanks, Victor. I was curious what you thought of this kind of line.
"I'm no fan of what is commonly known as the Religious Right. Going from biblical teaching to public policy is incredibly tricky business."
ROFLMAO
"But let's get our facts straight, shall we?"
Thanks for that note of sanity (and honesty)
Vic, intended to contact you via email or something, but I couldn't find an address so this comment'll have to do- I apologise in that it has nothing to do with this particular blog post of yours.
Just wondering what you think of this blog post- http://lesswrong.com/lw/4zs/philosophy_a_diseased_discipline/
Also wondering if you've heard of the Less Wrong Community and if so what do you in general think of their whole get-up??
Thanks for your time!
Oh, Luke.
"But let's get our facts straight, shall we?"
Yes let's. And the fact is that Michelle Bachmann has said she was greatly influenced by Rushdoony and Francis Schaeffer and they both advocated for a theocratic conception of the US.
I spoke to Schaeffer specifically about about a passage in his book when he was undergoing treatment for cancer at the Mayo Clinic. In that passage Schaeffer claims that non-believers should not be part of the "common wealth" of his idealized Christian Nation. His response to me was that non-believers should not be persecuted but neither should they be permitted to vote or hold office or otherwise participate in government. That's for Christians ONLY. (And by Christian he meant evangelical.)
Several persons who frequent this blog may now have a predicament:
*) on the one hand, either:
1) Brenda is a direct liar, *knowing* that what she has asserted is false (along with being intellectually dishonest); or,
2) Brenda is an indirect liar, satisfied to repeat, without verifying, claims she has valid reason to suspect are untrue – which is, of course, just the sort of thing an intellectually dishonest person would do;
*) on the other hand, if one of these persons were to state the above truth about Brenda, all sorts of other persons might begin to suspect their shrieking when I point out similar facts about other persons is just so much performance art.
What to do, what to do?
Prediction: not post anything in the thread, and thus imply having never seen Brenda’s false and libelous assertions
"Brenda’s false and libelous assertions"
I can understand doubting the truth of what I say but libelous? I don't see that.
I worked at the Mayo Clinic when Francis Schaeffer was there being treated for the cancer that eventually took his life. While he was getting treated he lived across the street from St. Mary's hosp and he held discussions in his home.
I and a friend of mine engaged him on a number of topics. We were both (and still are in my case) huge nerds and were more interested in his rejection of modern science like evolution but his political extremism also caught my attention at the time.
I don't recall the exact quote in his book that I brought up. It was in "How Then Shall We Live" I think, maybe a different one but if I had the book I could find it.
The point is that in one of his books he makes a statement that suggests non Christians have no place in his conception of a Christian Nation because they don't share the same common beliefs. So I asked him directly about that because in my mind that would invalidate his other anti-science beliefs.
One of his anti-science beliefs was his rejection of quantum mechanics and his claim that classical Newtonian mechanics was superior. The Pioneer probe was at the time on it's way to Jupiter and in the news so my friend calculated that with QM we could know it's location to within 1 meter and we felt that was sufficient to counter Schaeffer's claims. We we a little naive about how immune creationists can be to argument.
Still there is no doubt about Rushdoony and his advocacy of a violent take over of the US and installation of a Christian theocracy. Schaeffer is to be commended for rejecting that but it is of little comfort since he did advocate for what I would call a Christian Caliphate where non Christians, and he did include liberal denominations in that category, would enjoy the glorious and beneficent reign of the one True Christians. Who are the only ones capable of properly running a state and the only source of "true freedom".
Yes let's. And the fact is that Michelle Bachmann has said she was greatly influenced by Rushdoony and Francis Schaeffer and they both advocated for a theocratic conception of the US.
So, you then have evidence of some kind that Bachmann has outlined a policy of Christian Reconstructionism to be pursued when and if she is elected? If not, then this is crap.
Dominionism is the new birtherism.
Matt said...
"you then have evidence of some kind that Bachmann has outlined a policy of Christian Reconstructionism"
You're carrying water for Michele Bachmann now? Really? We know her very well here in Minnesota and I can assure you she is on the extreme end of Christianity. She doesn't pander to religious kooks like many in the GOP. She actually believes it.
Michele Bachmann has said that she was influenced by Francis Schaffer and R. J. Rushdoony. Rushdoony in particular has advocated the violent overthrow of the US and the establishment of a Christian theocracy. He wrote about it in his book "The Second American Revolution". Bachmann has also said that she became a tax attorney for the IRS because she wanted to infiltrate the enemy and learn their ways.
I think that those statements combined with her calls for the investigation of sitting senators and congressmen on charges of un-American activities merits close scrutiny.
Michele Bachmann is a kool-aid drinker.
---
As an aside. My experience with Francis Schaeffer is probably why I argue against political extremism coming from both the religious and the New Atheists. ANY belief that thinks they and they aloone posses the One Truth is dangerous. (and yes, the New Atheism is a belief, maybe even a personality cult.)
I am unappologetic in my oppostion to extremism of any political, religious or secular kind.
I carry no water for Bachmann, whom I know little about and care even less. I do know, however, that if she had outlined, say, on her campaign website a proposed policy of Christian Reconstructionism that the chattering class would be talking of nothing else until she were exiled to the moon. I take their silence to mean she has done nothing of the sort, making the dominionism thing just a crackpot conspiracy theory.
As for influence, who cares? Our current president was influenced by Jeremiah Wright, far more directly than Bachmann by Schaeffer, and yet he is not an America-hating black nationalist. How to explain this? Perhaps influence does not entail imitation after all? In reality, millions of people have probably been influenced by Schaeffer--he was pretty popular in his day--and yet no one is clamoring for a return of OT law save inside the fevered imaginations of coastal liberals. It all looks like yet more guilt-by-association to me.
Matt: "Dominionism is the new birtherism."
Actually, that's not true, on two counts:
1) 'birtherism' has a valid point;
2) 'Dominionism' is a good 30 years old.
Ilíon said...
'birtherism' has a valid point
No it doesn't. The idea that Obama is a secret Kenyan and part of a decades long conspiracy to defraud the presidency of the US is flat out insane.
Brenda,
You have already demonstratyed that you are a fool. That is not a statement about your intelligence, it is a statement about your honesty; specifically, your lack thereof.
"The idea that Obama is a secret Kenyan and part of a decades long conspiracy to defraud the presidency of the US ..."
You are dishonest, so *if course* you will misrepresent "birtherism".
Birtherism had a point back in 2008, and somewhat of one prior to the long-form release, but that it is still going today is rather sad.
Silly, siily, man! There has been no release of any form. Why don't you try to contact the appropriate office in the government of the State of Hawaii and request a state-certified copy of a simple little document in which every citizen of the US has an immediate interest, a document that has supposedlt (and finally!) been made public? What will be the response, do you think? Will you be given a certified copy? Or will you be told that that document is private, and of no concern to you?
Moreover, even had the document been finally (!) made public, why was it not made public *before* the election?
The truth is this: neither you nor I, nor Mr Reppert, nor even Brenda-the-fool, nor any other citizen, have any valid reason to believe that alleged-President Obama is a natural born citizen.
Have you ever heard of President Chester Arthur? Do you know that the very same credible question was raised when he was vice-president -- "Does this man meet the Constitutional requirement of being a 'natural born citizen', such that he is qualified to occupy the office of US President"?
Can you grasp that the question had nothing to do with where Arthur was born -- he was born in New York, and no one said otherwise -- but had to do with the citizenship status of his father at the time of his birth?
But then, in those days, people still at least gave lip-service to observing at least the forms of the Constitution.
>No it doesn't. The idea that Obama is a secret Kenyan and part of a decades long conspiracy to defraud the presidency of the US is flat out insane.
Yes 100% correct but so is the belief Michelle Bachman is a Theonomist or Christian Reconstructionist. Not only is Christian Reconstructionism a minority view but thanks to Hal Linsey it is a vilified view among Dispensationalist Christians. In he "Road To Holocaust" accuses Theonomists of fostering a theology that is anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. Now I don't endorce his thesis but note he & similar forces drove Theonomy from the mainstream.
I doubt Bachman who is very pro-Israel would endorse Theonomy.
Besides birtherism is based on guilt by association & so it seems is left-wing paranoia about Bachmen on Theonomy.
I say a pox on both your houses. Birthers and Bachman is a Theonomist are kissing cousins.
Have you ever heard of President Chester Arthur? Do you know that the very same credible question was raised when he was vice-president -- "Does this man meet the Constitutional requirement of being a 'natural born citizen', such that he is qualified to occupy the office of US President"?
Have you heard of the Fourteenth Amendment, that made every person born in the USA a full citizen, but was passed after Arthur was born?
But then, in those days, people still at least gave lip-service to observing at least the forms of the Constitution.
Unlike the conservatives who treat the Fourth amnedment as tissue paper and the First as preventing the establishment of non-Christian religions and allowing free exercise of Christiantiy only.
One Brow den Einfach: "Have you heard of the Fourteenth Amendment, that made every person born in the USA a full citizen, but was passed after Arthur was born?"
Have you ever heard of relevance? Are you capable of thinking two thoughts ahead – to see that I’m going to mock the irrelevant foolishness and the absurdity of your strange objection to what I said – or are you simply now so sunk into the dishonesty you have willfully chosen that you have made yourself incapable of forming a valid chain of logical inferences? On what valid ground do you bitch that my “handle is inseparable from the phrase "intellectually dishonest"”, when you *are* intellectually dishonest, and without shame of it?
Let’s see:
1) Chester Arthur was born in 1829, in Vermont, and grew up in New York;
2) His father, William Arthur, was born in Ireland – and was thus a subject of the British Crown -- and emigrated to Canada, and thence to the United States;
3) His mother, Malvina Stone, was born in the US, of generations-long American families;
4) While some Democrats tried to claim that Arthur was born in Ireland or in Canada, the issue was (is it is today) his citizenship status at the time of his birth – which question was due to the citizenship status of his father.
"… made every person born in the USA a full citizen, but was passed after Arthur was born?"
What? It applied to everyone (excluding Indians not taxed) but him?
But, the whole point of the 14th – which was, by the way, passed by Arthur’s own Party, the Republicans – was that it was retroactive. What? Were the Republicans too stupid to realize that the 14th, which they wrote and passed, settled the objections of those Democrats?
But, of course not! The issue was not whether Arthur was a “full citizen”, it was whether he was a “natural born” citizen.
One Brow den Unehrlich des Einfaches: "Unlike the conservatives who treat the Fourth amnedment as tissue paper and the First as preventing the establishment of non-Christian religions and allowing free exercise of Christiantiy only."
But, of course, as we know (and have just seen, once again), you are dishonest – you will assert just anything.
============
And you dare to entertain the charming conceit that I shall be discomfited by your gobble-de-gook “refutation” of my version of the AfR?
BenYankYourChain: "Besides birtherism is based on guilt by association ..."
Riiiight!
And yet, you cannot unpack that claim into anything that makes sense.
"I say a pox on both your houses ..."
Of course you do: you don't give a damn about truth (in general), nor about the Constitution.
Even Michelle Obama believes that Our Zero (Who art The Won) was born in Kenya (I've seen another video in which she says much the same thing, but I didn't think to link to it so that I'd not lose the link).
Ilíon said...
Have you ever heard of relevance?
Yes. So much I'm smiling at your inclusion of relevance in the same post you deny it.
Are you capable of thinking two thoughts ahead – to see that I’m going to mock the irrelevant foolishness and the absurdity of your strange objection to what I said
I fully expected you to mock it. I fully expected you to do so in a manner that was inconsistent and ignored the relevant facts. I was right on both counts.
the issue was (is it is today) his citizenship status at the time of his birth – which question was due to the citizenship status of his father.
Because, at the time of Arthur's birth, he may not have been a citizen, since the Fourteenth Amendment has not passed.
What? It applied to everyone (excluding Indians not taxed) but him?
Of course, had he not been born a citizen to begin with, he would have been made a citizen by the 14th. However, if he were made a citizen as an adult, would he be a natrual-born citizen?
Were the Republicans too stupid to realize that the 14th, which they wrote and passed, settled the objections of those Democrats?
Well, someone is certainly being stupid here.
But, of course not! The issue was not whether Arthur was a “full citizen”, it was whether he was a “natural born” citizen.
Because, at the time of Arthur's birth, he may not have been a citizen, since the Fourteenth Amendment has not passed.
Repetition deliberately included.
And you dare to entertain the charming conceit that I shall be discomfited by your gobble-de-gook “refutation” of my version of the AfR?
Not for a moment did I entertain such a conceit. Such discomfiture would be completely out of character for you.
Even Michelle Obama believes that Our Zero (Who art The Won) was born in Kenya ...
My mother was born in in Iowa, but still considered hermother's country of birth to be her home country, even though she never set foot there. A couple of my siblings have trveled there to look up family. This is more evidence of the degree that you will rationalize anything to support what you want to be true. What so we call that? "Intellectual dishonesty"? Or, irony so think you could cut it with a knife?
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