War, Religion, Dubya, and the Promise Keepers

Tue Apr 1 15:01:20 CST 2003

On September 12, Dubya blew a golden opportunity to remove religion from the
conflict. Instead he claimed "God is not neutral!" Oddly enough, that's
probably the one thing that he and Mohammed Atta could probably agree upon.

Bush takes advice from some pretty weird religious-types. Here's an example

<http://www.cephasministry.com/church_and_state_george_bush_and_promise_keep
ers.html> > 

This is a little long, so at the risk of appearing Doug-like, I've excerpted
part of it.
> 
> 
> BUSH AND THE PROMISE KEEPERS: RELIGIOUS RHETORIC
> TURNED INTO POLITICAL RHETORIC
> 
> 
> BUSH IS TRANSFORMED BY THE PROMISE KEEPERS
> 
> 
> 
> The fact is, no matter how one cuts it, Bush's experience with Christianity
> during the mid to late-1980s was at best a shallow and superficial one - not
> the kind of experience that would go very far in establishing himself as
> someone who took his Christianity very seriously. But all that changed when he
> came in contact with Dr. Tony Evans (not to be confused with Don Evans), the
> black pastor of one of Dallas's largest mega-churches, the
> crystal-chandeliered Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, and the Christian
> organization Evans helped to found, the PROMISE KEEPERS.
> 
> Sheehy says that Tony Evans was one of the early "movers and shakers" in the
> PROMISE KEEPERS phenomenon that seemed to appear out of nowhere in the early
> to mid-1990s. What seemed to attract Bush to the PROMISE KEEPERS was its
> implicit political message, a message that he came increasingly to believe
> that - had his father embraced it - he would not have lost the White House to
> Bill Clinton.
> 
> The loss by "Bush the Elder" to the Clintons in the 1992 presidential election
> had infuriated "Bush the Younger," and it had ignited in him a new, burning
> interest in politics. All of this coincided nicely with Bush's new friendship
> with Tony Evans. Essentially, what Bush learned from Tony Evans was a
> completely new approach to politics - a RELIGIOUS approach rather than an
> economic one, an approach that Bush thought could trump the economic message
> that Clinton had used to defeat his father with. Indeed, Dr. Martin Hawkins,
> Tony Evans's assistant pastor, says that what Bush did was to imbibe a "WHOLE
> NEW PHILOSOPHY" about "how the world should be seen from a divine viewpoint" -
> a view that Sheehy alleges was essentially LIFTED STRAIGHT OUT OF THE PAGES OF
> ONE OF TONY EVANS' PROMISE KEEPERS HANDBOOKS.
> 
> While the PROMISE KEEPERS themselves embrace no political doctrine as such,
> Bush and many of his cohorts came to believe that they did embrace a religious
> rhetoric that - if properly stroked and rearranged - could be transformed into
> a powerful political message that would resonate forcefully with a people who
> were growing weary with what many considered to be the "out-or-control"
> liberalism of the last few decades.
> 
> THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE PROMISE KEEPERS
> 
> 
> 
> Most of the leaders of the PROMISE KEEPERS movement embrace a doctrine of "end
> times" (eschatology), known as "dominionism." DOMINIONISM PICTURES THE SEIZURE
> OF EARTHLY (TEMPORAL) POWER BY THE "PEOPLE OF GOD" AS THE ONLY MEANS THROUGH
> WHICH THE WORLD CAN BE RESCUED; ONLY AFTER THE WORLD HAS BEEN THUS "RESCUED"
> CAN CHRIST RETURN TO "RULE AND REIGN." Some dominionists see the seizure of
> the earth as the result of "signs, wonders, and miracles;" others picture it
> as the result of military and political conquest; most see it as a combination
> of both. It is this eschatology that Bush has imbibed; an eschatology through
> which he has gradually (and easily) come to see himself as an agent of God who
> has been called by Him to "restore the earth to God's control" - a "chosen
> vessel," so to speak, to bring in the "Restoration Of All Things." AND MAKE NO
> MISTAKE ABOUT IT - IT IS EXACTLY THIS ESCHATOLOGY THAT MOTIVATES BUSH TODAY.
> People are making a big mistake in underestimating this fact. [More about this
> later.]
> 
> Al Dager, a recognized expert on the dominionist mindset, writes,
> 
> "Some two decades before Pentecostalism found its way into the (mainstream)
> denominations (i.e., the Episcopalians, the Catholic Church, etc.) as the
> 'Charismatic Renewal', it experienced a new surge of experience-oriented
> theology within its own ranks. It was from this neo-Pentecostal experience -
> what came to be called the 'Latter Rain Movement' - that Charismatic
> Dominionism sprang. The more prominent leaders of that movement blended
> Pentecostal fervor with teachings that the church was on the brink of a
> worldwide revival. That revival would result in a victorious church without
> spot or wrinkle ... (which) would inherit the earth and rule over the nations
> with a rod of iron."
> 
> Dominionism can run the gamut from the harsh, rather mean-spirited and very
> militant kind propagated by a R.J. Rushdoony or a Gary North, to the much more
> mild and palatable kind that dominionist aficionados and votaries like C.
> Peter Wagner, the late John Wimber, John White, Dr. Bill Hamon, Harold
> Caballeros, Sue Curran, Rick Joyner, John Paul Jackson, Barbara Wentroble,
> Chuck Pierce, etc. posit. It is this much more mild, "feel-good" form of
> dominionism that the PROMISE KEEPERS embrace and promote.
> 
> Barbara Wentroble, in her book People of Destiny, explains the new cuddly and
> friendly form of dominionism that Bush ran into with the PROMISE KEEPERS.
> Essentially, what these "new dominionists" believe is that the human race was
> created to be God's "representative in the earth." They were to guard and care
> for all of God's creation under His direction - and although many generations
> have failed in this responsibility, God has never changed His mind. That's
> what the church is all about. The church is the means through which God is
> going to re-establish His authority on the earth. God put His power and Spirit
> into the church to change the world and bring it back under authority.
> [Wentroble is somewhat of an anomaly; like Sue Curran, Wentroble is one of the
> most popular "new dominionist" speakers in a very male-dominated world. She is
> considered to be an "apostle-prophet" by many. Her "sphere of operation" is
> bringing churches (i.e., "Latter Rain," "new dominionist-typ!
> e" churches) to small communities throughout the country.]
> 
> Sadly, according to the PROMISE KEEPERS, the church did not continue in the
> power and authority of the early church, and because of a spiritual principle
> at work in the world today - a principle that teaches us that what ever
> happens in the church affects the world - the world has been plunged back into
> darkness. In other words, when light goes out of the church, light goes out of
> the world.

And just for fun:

<http://www.talkingpresidents.com/>

Peace
Joe