House Of Public Discourse: The Religious Right Dreams Of Turning America Into...

The Religious Right Dreams Of Turning America Into A Christian Nation.

Claire Conner

This does NOT mean keeping “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” in our money. Turning America into a Christian nation is a sinister, dangerous effort to make America into a theocracy governed by strict biblical law.
The religious right has been building a base of support for this concept of theocracy since the 1970s when Francis Schaeffer activated the evangelical right to take up the cause of Christianizing the United States. Day after day, some right-wing politician claims direct, personal communication with God. Today it's Mike Huckabee. .
Huckabee is part of, or at least sympathetic to, the Dominionist movement-a subset of evangelical theology that envisions an America ruled by Christians and governed by biblical law.
Dominionism was founded by and promulgated by Rousas John Rushdoony. This stern, rigid theocrat, who lead the Christian Reconstructionist

Movement, had a close personal friendship with Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society.
Rushdoony said that he admired the John Birch Society but never became a member.
“Welch always saw things in terms of conspiracy,” Rushdoony explained, “and I always see things in terms of sin. ”
In my book, Wrapped in the Flag, I write about Rushdoony. Here’s a snippet from Chapter 16, “Carrying the Cross.”

Rousas John Rushdoony

In his magnum opus, Institutes of Biblical Law,’ published in 1973, Rushdoony described the Old Testament laws that would be the backbone of the new justice system in a Christian America, along with the punishments he envisioned for those who broke them. Criminals would be burned at the stake, hanged and stoned, depending on their sins. The folks facing such punishment included gays, blasphemers, unchaste women, and incorrigible juvenile delinquents. Of course, doctors providing abortions and their patients would also be executed.
John Rushdoony understood that it would take time and hard work to bring his vision for America to fruition. He saw HOME SCHOOLING as the way to “train up a generation of people who know that this is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government.

"It was Rushdoony who first urged Christians to take “dominion over the land as the Bible commanded them to do.”

Ron Paul

Ron Paul, the former Congressman from Texas and a John Birch Society favorite, ripped a page from Rushdoony’s playbook and published his own home school curriculum. To get things rolling, he hired Gary North to write and market the program.
Gary North, the son-in-law of Rushdoony, sounds just like his father-in-law when he talks about schooling. “So let us be blunt about it,” says Gary North. “We must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government.
Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.”
When you read about Ron Paul’s home school curriculum and trace its ideas back to Rushdoony, you’ll understand why Ron Paul is such a dangerous man.
When you hear the term “Dominionists,” know that these are NOT just Christians; these people intend to turn the US into a replay of the Spanish Inquisition, this time run by radical evangelicals.
This fusion of radical right wing politics and radical right wing religion has been fueled by Robert Welch, John Rushdoony, Gary North, and Ron Paul along with a cadre of radical right-wing evangelicals.
I’m terrified by these zealots. They are the most dangerous kind. They believe they are chosen by God to bring America under the boot of the Old Testament.

Claire Conner Spells It Out With A Front Row Seat  in her book ''Wrapped In The Flag.''