Dominionism Part 2

Dominionism What is it? – Part 2

7. An ESCHATOLOGY for an endtime revival

• Jesus can’t return until the church does its job right here on earth. Or Jesus will return by “incarnating” in us. “The God Within.”
• The Church will usher in the “kingdom of God,” with all things progressively getting better and better, eventually restoring paradise and/or bringing heaven down to earth.
• “7. The Lord’s Prayer stating that “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” was meant to be prayed by us with the hope that this condition would happen on earth BEFORE Christ’s second coming wherever and whenever the Christians of any geography decided to band together to help make it happen.” (Grimstead letter)
• The belief that we are in a 2nd apostolic age, where God will begin to speak new things to self-anointed, self-appointed apostles and prophets who are claimed to be equivalent to the First Century ones:
• “2001 marks, is the year that marks the second apostolic age, which means for years the government of the church had not been in place since about, you know, the first century or so…. [T]the foundation of the church according to Ephesians 2:20 is apostles and prophets, Jesus being the chief cornerstone. It doesn’t mean there weren’t apostles and prophets, it means the body of Christ hadn’t recognized them and released them for the office that they had so that they’d function as apostles and prophets in the foundation of the church. But we now have that, I believe we’ve reached our critical mass in the year 2001. (C. Peter Wagner, “Arise Prophetic Conference,” 2004)
• Speaking of the Holy Spirit as a force, an emanation, something that can be manipulated or invoked, imparted by human activities, etc., especially through manifestations of “signs and wonders.”
• Ignoring the Holy Spirit’s attributes, and his biblically defined personhood in the Trinity.
• Note: modern Dominionists are of every possible eschatological persuasion. The defining criteria for Dominionism is no longer postmillennialism. The issue is not necessarily WHEN they see Jesus as coming, but rather that the church needs to REDEEM the culture or take over governments NOW. Nevertheless, Postmillennialism is still the prevailing ideology.

“The earlier Christians all looked forward to the future rule of Christ upon this earth; but when the CHURCH and the STATE interlocked arms, the Church began spiritualizing the millennial passages and understanding that the reign of Christ would be realized THROUGH CHRISTIAN CIVIL LEADERS….

“It was the rise of Premillennial thought, largely through the Baptists, that helped to overthrow Postmillennial (and Amillennial to a lesser degree) thinking that all governments of this world should be COERCED to embrace the Christian faith. With the spread of their doctrines through the world, religious liberty was again given its proper Christian understanding and the Church was SEPARATED from the affairs of the STATE.” (Paul Shirk, Come Out From Among Them My People)

8. Perfection/Unity

• The teaching that the Church is evolving into little gods, a “new breed,” or an “elect seed” for a transformed endtime “Joel’s Army.”
• The belief that this generation has a unique DNA or extraordinary special gifting from God.
• Or, worse, the idea that man can create a “new man” either mystically and/or through a better DNA. The idea that man can be perfected to pre-Fall conditions.
• The belief that it is harmless to associate with any heretic, even if they are caught in flagrant acts of immorality, illegal behavior, or openly teach heretical doctrines (Todd Bentley, e.g.).
• The idea that you are impervious to leaven, that it cannot adversely affect you, that you can be around it without any bad consequences to your faith.
• An insistence on unity at all costs, especially ecumenical unity among Christians, but also including extreme unity with other faiths.
• Looking for “elect Seeds” to raise up the kingdom government.

“For they are the best of all the generations that have ever been upon the face of the earth. And best of all generations are those elected seeds that will glorify Christ in the last days….

“They will move into things of the supernatural that no one has ever moved in before….

They’ll move in the power that Christ did. Every sign and wonder that’s ever been will be many times in the last days. They themselves will be that generation that’s raised up to put death itself underneath their feet and to glorify Christ in every way. … the Lord Jesus is worthy to be lifted up by a Church that has reached the full maturity of the God-man!” (p. 146, Vengeance Is Ours, quoting Bob Jones, Visions and Revelations, 1988, audio tape with Mike Bickle.)

9. Spiritual Formation and/or Structural Realignment

• Teaching a “5 fold ministry” that emphasizes modern-day apostles and prophets as heads of a hierarchical, pyramidal, downline, Amway-style marketing, shepherding model.
• Aligning structurally, and being “externally-focused” to be “missional” and “redeem the culture.”
• Inner spiritual formation to get oneself in position for the “paradigm shift” in the church.
• An inordinate emphasis on Dominion by “ruling” and “subduing” the earth and its people.

10. Networking and Collaborative Models

• The church networking and forming common ground with business, secular and governmental agencies, organizations, institutions, etc. in order to further the “kingdom of God” on earth.
• The church merging its interests and identity with those of Corporate business organizations and Government.
• Building the 7 Mountains (or the neo-Kuyperian “spheres”)—cultural centers that must be overtaken and ruled by head apostles in the church.
• The idea of RECONCILIATION rather than repentance – forging common ground with any group that appears to further kingdom goals, building an international community on earth.

11. “Do whatever it takes” (Rick Warren)

• Extreme pragmatism. Evident lack of compassion and mercy, particularly for the weaker, elderly, infirm, infants or children. (“Without natural affection.” Romans 1:31; 2 Tim. 3:3)
• The philosophy that the ends justify the means.
• Viewing people as “human capital” assigned with an economic value. Talking about “spiritual capital.”
• Cultlike rigidity and excessive harshness, controlling behaviors, severe restrictions, retributions, penalties and reprisals.
• A preoccupation with aggressive rhetoric and military metaphors that could easily evolve into outright force, coercion or brutality.
• “All truth is God’s truth,” and therefore anything can be justified as “new truth” and used in kingdom pursuits.
• The idea that anyone on kingdom business is above the law, morally or legally. Flagrant or cocky lawlessness. Rebellion.
• Partnering with anyone and anything, no matter how ecumenical or immoral, if it seems to further kingdom goals.
• Not abstaining from “all appearance of evil” (1 Thess. 5:2)
• Preoccupation with militarism, including the merger of civil military goals with spiritual warfare.

12. ELITISM

• The idea that we are evolving into higher-order Christians with special higher powers.
• The idea that we are coming to newer and better understandings of God’s Word and are progressively growing more spiritual as a result.
• Teaching that Christians can attain a higher consciousness, develop higher powers, achieve immortalization, and even conquer death.
• The Hollywood style of idolizing media personalities and popular leadership.
• The belief that leaders are divine, spiritual masters, or have a divine destiny and purpose to guide the kingdom on earth.
• The idolatrous view that some leaders are more elite than others, and thus worthy of absolute obedience and/or awe or reverence.
• The heresy that Christians cannot access God without going through a mediatrix, a specially empowered leader. The elimination of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.

13. PROPHETS – SIGNS and WONDERS

• The belief that New Testament prophets operate just like O.T. prophets, and that new prophets are arising for the last days who are specially gifted to put the church in order.
• Strange and bizarre manifestations in praise and worship. Unholy and irreverent spiritual occurrences and phenomena.
• The belief in secret knowledge (GNOSIS), that God is giving new instructions to the church today, new “Rhema” words, even new Scripture.
• The use of decrees, impartations, invocations and paranormal phenomena for kingdom pursuits.
• Using signs and wonders to desensitize people to be more accepting of new teachings and doctrines.

14. TECHNOLOGY

• The justification and use of real warfare and/or weapons, including science and technology, as an ally in kingdom-building.
• A call for an end-time Joel’s Army that is spiritual, but also may be physical.
• Techno-man – reinventing, healing or perfecting human beings, and creating a “new man” by psychic or scientific methods. Perfecting the race.
• Lack of ethics. Any technology must be “okay” if it helps to build the kingdom on earth.

A definition of a technocrat can be found in an occult encyclopedia:

“One who leads or rules by virtue of special or technical knowledge. Hypothetically, a master of the ideal control-system of planetary management, someone who proposes to enforce technological supremacy. One who masters by technical skill and elite knowledge, especially when used to manipulate nature, rather than co-create with it through devout imitation, in the manner of the alchemists.”
(The Seekers Handbook, p. 383)

15. MYSTICISM and NEOPAGANISM

• The use of altered states of consciousness to reach higher spiritual levels for the purpose of achieving human deification or perfection.
• The use of contemplation and meditation. hypnotic music, drumming, dance, pagan rituals and rites.
• Guided imagery, visualization, active imagination, and other occult practices that connect with or invoke the divine.
• Prayer marches, chantings and scripted prayers, fasting, mass prayer rallies, prayer circles, and prayer warfare methods which 1) introduce new kingdom doctrines, and 2) create altered states of consciousness.
• The suggestion that there will be a collective moment of attaining “God’s dream” for humanity.
• Numerology – assigning occult and spiritual significance to numbers or number sequences.
• The belief that sexuality – either by denying it or practicing it in aberrant ways – will produce a heightened spirituality or closeness to God. An improper emphasis on “passion.”
• The practice of pagan SEXUAL RITES to unite human with the divine, including using the “temple prostitute” as a mediatrix.

16. GEOMANCY

• The idea that there are sacred places on earth, holier than other spots, that can be accessed and manipulated for spiritual purposes.
• Prayer walks, labyrinths, and other meditative techniques that are located in sacred spaces.
• The idea that there are spiritual powers and principalities over an area, and that they can be warred against. (There are no New Testament examples of the apostles using this method, but rather they preached the Word of God.)
• Marching and claiming the land in order to gain ground for the “kingdom” on earth.
• The idea that certain spaces, architecture, geometrical figures, ratios or alignments have sacred significance. This includes circles, stadiums, and other structures or “alignments.”
• The idea that there are “territorial apostles” over regions and “spheres” (“mountains”) with kingdom assignments to take Dominion:

“These apostles in the workplace are the ones that are going to come into the picture and with them we’ll be open these gates…. Because it takes a government to overthrow a government.

“Gate number one…, the gate of social transformation, the gate of social transformation. Now we’ve tried a lot of these things, like I’ve just mentioned… marches for Jesus, prayer walking, identification, repentance… You know how long we’ve been doing this? We’ve been doing this since 1990, since John Dawson’s book, Taking our Cities for God, first came out, this has gotten on our agenda, in 1990, fourteen years, we’ve been working on city transformation. And I’m not talking about the mediocre leadership of the body of Christ, I’m talking about our best leadership has been into this. And you know, we haven’t gotten a single city in America transformed in America yet…. And the missing link in this whole thing is recognizing and mobilizing and affirming and commissioning workplace apostles. Because what we need is territorial apostles for this, and most territorial apostles will be workplace apostles, even though some nuclear church leaders, apostles, will be territorial apostles. (C. Peter Wagner, “Arise Prophetic Conference,” 2004)

17. COVENANTS, oaths, manifestos, declarations, decrees, pledges, etc.

• Extra-biblical agreements, usually enforced by coercion or guilt, often based on O.T. Law.
• A psychosocial contract that serves as a formal “joining up” process in which one aligns their life’s purpose to an organization’s purpose.
• A rite of initiation.
• The heretical belief that failure to “work for political and social reform to establish dominion over the world system is to break covenant with God.” (Dager, p. 205)
• The faulty idea that if someone is “not politically active in working to establish Christ’s lordship over the whole earth [he] is guilty of breaking God’s covenant.” (Dager, p. 206)
• The heresy that the “reign of Christ” will only be “realized through Christian civil leaders,” thus embracing the “concept of a CHURCH STATE” – as explained by a critic of Dominionism below:

“A premillennial understanding of prophecy is a major tenet that supports a SEPARATION of CHURCH and STATE as well as RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. [But if] Christ is ruling now, in fulfillment of the millenial prophecies, through civil powers, then [the Dominionists believe] they have every right to institute Christian laws, for they themselves are under the rule of Christ, and verily ARE the rule of Christ. It is THIS understanding that undergirded Reformed thinking of the necessity for having National Covenants and binding religious oaths in order to COMPEL men to accept the true faith, so that the civil rule of Christ might be advanced. (Paul Shirk, Come Out From Among Them My People)

• The idea that the Adamic Covenant, before the Fall, will be restored by obedience to O.T. law:

Many dominionists actually… assert that they will restore Paradise—that obedience to biblical law (ethics) can restore man to the pre-fall Adamic state. This is known as “progressive sanctification.” As man is sanctified through obedience to biblical law he will become immortal, the earth will be transformed: food will be plentiful, wild animals will become tame, diseases will no longer take their toll, and all nature will be in harmony. (Dager, p. 208)

18. SYNERGY

• “Collective Consciousness” – the idea that there is a “fusion” when enough diverse spiritual energy collects together.
• A form of “harmonic convergence” – the idea that by combining spiritual forces, God will be more likely to listen to prayer, or that only by praying en masse will He agree to shift things on earth. De-emphasis of private prayer closets.
• Critical Mass – the psycho-social method of marketing in which once a new product or idea is embraced by enough people, it will shift the paradigm so that everyone buys in.
• The idea that the Church is a key catalytic force in global transformation (spiritually, politically, commercially, governmentally, etc.)
• Co-evolution, co-creation – the collaboration by humanity in the ongoing process of the evolution of creation, readying the planet for a coming “Christ.”
• Synchronicity – the Jungian idea that seemingly unrelated coincidental events have a deeper mystical
• connection to bring about the kingdom

19. EXTREME AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

• The belief that America is a totally Christian nation under covenant with God like O.T. Israel.
• The belief that restoring America to its status as a “Christian nation” will make society better.
• The belief that by changing external civil laws that peoples’ hearts and lives will somehow be changed.
• A shift in emphasis to changing politicians, laws, ethics, institutions, and culture rather than PREACHING the Gospel to lost sinners.
• Christian activism is substituted for being “salt and light” by preaching the Gospel of Salvation.
• “Standing in the gap” becomes political action.
• Shades of revolution or civil disobedience.
• A serious and fundamental lack of understanding about the biblical role of Church and State in the New Testament era.
• Disallowing the freedom of conscience

20. ENDTIME HARVEST

• Heaven, and a heavenly inheritance for the faithful in Jesus Christ, is ignored or mocked. The focus shifts to a kingdom “inheritance” on earth, which changes prophecies about endtimes.
• Belief in an utopian-sounding “endtime harvest” that is accompanied by an army of spiritual and/or physical warriors who enforce “God’s” totalitarian-sounding kingdom on earth.
• Prophets and apostles purging the earth of resistance, eradicating “cancer” cells in the body, enacting death penalties for non-compliance to “kingdom” laws, and ruling with a rod of iron.
• The belief that Armaggedon, the Great Tribulation and Judgment Daycan be bypassed, avoided, or explained away by allegory or myth.
• The terribly erroneous belief that the sword in the New Testament is a literal, physical sword, instead of the two-edged sword that is the Word of God.
• The frightfully mistaken belief that the Church is responsible to enact endtime judgment and crush all of the enemies of Christ.