My previous post barely touched the surface of the problems with the intersection of Palin, Dominionism and Witchcraft. At this point, however, Palin's connection to the good Bishop Thomas Muthee is relatively old news.

Moving beyond the obvious bald Palin/Muthee facts leads to the question of using prayer to affect politics. The particular worldview of Dominionism is an intensely righteous and judgmental one. There is no problem with clearly defining battle lines for their "spiritual warfare." There is also little separation between personal spiritual and secular political goals since the widespread institution of Biblical law in secular government is a central tenet.

At core, Dominionism is a profoundly anti-democratic philosophy, rejecting pluralism for a rigid and strictly homogeneous society, kept that way through intimidation and severe punishments. People who didn't conform in such a society would be harshly reformed or eliminated.

Now, Bishop Muthee's Word of Faith Church website has a number of interesting phrases. Some of this may be attributed to poor English skills but I'm struck by this one: "Our Vision: Touching lives for total community transformation thereby taking cities and nations."

"...taking cities and nations," presumably for Christ in this instance, has this conquering tone of overpowering the non-believers, converting where possible and destroying or driving out when necessary. Also of interest is what seems to be a kind of motto for Word of Faith Church: "'we preach christ crucified' 1cor. 1:23." [sic capitalization] The full passage reads: "But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;" (King James version, here for different translation versions/comparisons.)

This is borne out in the story of Bishop Muthee driving the "witch" Mama (or Mamma) Jane out of the Kiambu, Kenya. According to sources, this was where Bishop Muthee founded his first Kenyan church. Note also that almost twenty years after those events, witch hunting and killing continues to happen in Kenya.

Muthee's website claims he has 400 churches currently. By the way, I can't find a source for Muthee's "Bishop" title since no source I've found tells if it was conferred to him by some organized hierarchy or organization. I suspect he granted it to himself.

I have to note that the details of the story of Mama Jane seem to come entirely from Muthee or his supporters. The earliest independent news story on the events is the 1999 Christian Science Monitor story. Most information on the events surrounding Mama Jane seems to come from a DVD called Transformations rather than investigative reporting.

Once again I've run out of time for this story and I admit what I've written in this post is rather disjointed. There were several other points I was going to include but I think I'll just briefly list links to connected stories I found.

"Why are intercessors sometimes referred to as armor bearers? Please explain the role that they fulfill in this capacity."

Palin's Churches and the Third Wave

Praying Down God's Power

Christian Fundamentalism Permeates the Republican Party: Sarah Palin’s links to the Christian Right

The Republicans' Subliminal Ticket: Will American Voters Be Hoodwinked?

Labels: Christian Reconstructionism, Christians, Dominionism, Presidential race 2008, republicans, Sarah Palin

While I find the story of Sarah Palin's blessing by Thomas Muthee a less-than-compelling reason to condemn her or her beliefs, it does bring to the fore certain lines of Evangelical thinking. (For background on the Palin/Muthee brouhaha, see "Targeting cities with 'spiritual mapping,' prayer", "Palin under fire over African pastor friend who waged witch-hunt against woman he believed caused car crashes" and "Palin linked electoral success to prayer of Kenyan witchhunter" for a small selection of news stories.)

The whole "spiritual warfare" concept seems a dangerous philosophical practice. No matter how much the "spiritual" aspects are emphasized, couching it as "warfare" leads to a general perception of a life-or-death struggle. In that context, justification of the most horrible tactics becomes easy. If you are part of a war between Good and Evil and you consider yourself on the side of Good, what won't you do to vanquish all opposition? And what keeps you from lumping all those that oppose you into the Evil category?

There's a saying (the source escapes me at the moment) that what people do in the name of evil pales beside the atrocities people are willing do in the name of good, God or country. I don't mean this to damn all efforts to fight injustice but to point out the pitfalls of such extreme dichotomies of view, allowing no areas of grey and diversity of opinion. Believing only in absolutes is a poor match with a pluralistic democracy like the USA.

On a wider level, we can see this playing out in US politics. Rank and file political partisans are encouraged to demonize the opposition, to use flagrant insult and taunts in place of political discussion of positions and options. Classical debating styles are viewed as too intellectual, too boring, too forgiving of differences.

I had much more to say on this subject but time has run short tonight. I may return to it later.

Labels: debate, Dominionism, intolerance, Palin, politics, Presidential race 2008

While researching Dominionism/Christian Reconstructionism for my last post, I came across this tidbit:

However, in some areas the application of theonomy could increase the authority of the civil government; prominent advocates of Christian Reconstructionism have written that according to their understanding, God's law approves of the death penalty not only for murder, but also for propagators of idolatry[3][4][5], active homosexuals[6], adulterers, practitioners of witchcraft, and blasphemers[7], and perhaps even recalcitrant youths[8] (see the List of capital crimes in the bible).

And that List of capital crimes in the Bible article came up with this:

According to the Torah (or Mosaic Law), these are the offenses which may merit the death penalty in a Jewish major court of 23 judges.

1. Murder, applies to Noachides as well (Genesis 9:6, Exodus 21:12-14, Leviticus 24:17-23, Numbers 35:9-34)
2. Striking a parent (Exodus 21:15)
3. Cursing a parent (Exodus 21:17, Leviticus 20:9)
4. The "degenerate son" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
5. Kidnapping (Exodus 21:16, Deuteronomy 24:7)
6. Negligent homicide, specifically by ox-goring (Exodus 21:28-32)
7. Sorcery and Augury (Exodus 22:18, Leviticus 20:27)
8. Bestiality (Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 20:15-16)
9. Sacrificing to gods other than God alone (Exodus 22:20, Leviticus 27:29)
10. Sabbath breaking (Exodus 31:12-17, 35:2, Numbers 15:32-36)
11. Sacrificing to Molech, probably Human sacrifice (Leviticus 20:1-5)
12. Adultery (Leviticus 20:10)
13. Incest (Leviticus 20:11-12)
14. Male homosexual sexual relations (Leviticus 20:13, Leviticus 18:22, see also Leviticus 18)
15. Marrying your wife's mother (Leviticus 20:14)
16. Prostitution by the daughter of a priest (Leviticus 21:9)
17. Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:10-16)
18. Worshipping Baal Peor (Numbers 25:1-9)
19. False prophecy (Deuteronomy 13:1-10, 17:2-7, 18:20-22)
20. Contempt of court (Deuteronomy 17:8-13)
21. False witness to a capital crime (Deuteronomy 19:15-21)
22. Unchastity among those engaged to marry (Deuteronomy 22:13-29)

I just love Wikipedia.

Labels: Christian Reconstructionism, Dominionism, intolerance, religion, Wikipedia