The baleful influence of Norman Vincent Peale and Paula White on the thinking of the president of the United States is in evidence almost everyday

The Strait of Hormuz is open.

Iran is in submission.

He calleth those things which be not as though they were, as if he were God.

 

Paula White and Beni Johnson: The dominionist lunatics behind Trump and the January 6 Capitol fiasco

Peggy Wehmeyer in The Dallas Morning News:

If evangelical Christians are called to live in truth, why do so many believe political conspiracies? :

In the middle of the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, I received a text message from a close friend in Colorado who’s been skeptical of my evangelical faith for years. He wanted me to see the picture on his TV screen: a giant Jesus 2020 flag waving beside protesters storming the nation’s capital. “I guess Jesus supports this mob!” he wrote. “Good to know.” Moments later, my daughter, alarmed, texted me a Facebook post from a friend calling on everyone to repent, for Jesus has come to the rescue. ...

When Trump became president, a rapidly growing faith movement began stirring political uprising in the evangelical church.

Largely unnoticed by any of the media, and rooted in charismatic and Pentecostal traditions, this informal network of mega churches counts its members in the tens of millions, many of them in their 20 and 30s.

Unlike other evangelicals, they believe their leaders are modern-day apostles and prophets who get their orders directly from God. Their mission is to usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth now, by, as they put it, “taking dominion” over politics, business and culture.

Trump caught on to the size and power of the movement quickly. When he lost the election in November, his spiritual adviser, Florida-based prophet Paula White, called for a “bold spiritual army” to restore him to power.

From California to Colorado to Texas, networks of apostolic prophets insisted that Trump won the election and was chosen by God to restore Christian values to America. Disagree with the prophets, according to this thinking, and you’re opposing God. If I didn’t know better, I’d ask them: If God is speaking through you and tells a lie, which one of you is the huckster?

One of the most influential churches in this movement is the Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., where spiritual leaders Bill and Beni Johnson oversee an 11,000-member ministry compound, including the popular Bethel Music label and the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Thousands of students enroll at schools like this to learn how to miraculously heal the sick, prophesy, and cast out demons.

Following the attack on the Capitol, Beni Johnson tweeted, “Pick up your sword and stand. Where’s your faith friends, is it in what God said or in a man? Find those seasoned prophets who are still standing and saying God has this!” Twitter quickly suspended Johnson’s account.

Naive American charismatics fantasize about taking over the Seven Mountains while China plans to dominate everything by 2025

"Plans like Made in China 2025 and their implementation are putting the two economies on a path of separation rather than integration in critical commercial areas."

-- The normally somnolent US Chamber of Commerce, here

Researchers report on "INC, Christianity": Bethel Redding type utopians preaching dominionism

From the report here:

The influence of INC Christianity can be seen in the millions of hits on many of their web-based media sites, large turnouts at stadium rallies and conferences, and millions of dollars in media sales. In our interviews with leaders, we found that Bethel, an INC ministry based in Redding, California, for example, in 2013 had an income of US$8.4 million in media sales (music, books, DVDs, web-based content) and $7 million in tuition to their Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. ... [I]ts proponents have a fundamentally different view of the relationship between the Christian faith and society than most Christian groups throughout American history. ...

Most INC Christian groups we studied seek to bring heaven or God’s intended perfect society to Earth by placing “kingdom-minded people” in powerful positions at the top of all sectors of society.

INC leaders have labeled them the “seven mountains of culture.” These include business, government, media, arts and entertainment, education, family and religion. In this form of “trickle-down Christianity,” they believe if Christians rise to the top of all seven “mountains,” society will be completely transformed.

WaPo never misses an opportunity, finds a black Christian dominionist to blame recent violence on "ineffective Christians" (aka whitey)

From Tony Evans, featured here, who takes "blame America first" to the next level:

These recent spates of violence – like all our worldly problems — have happened because Christians have failed to advance God’s kingdom, to spread the faith and to do so in a loving, unified way. ...  Our troubles can also be traced directly to ineffective Christians. One of the real tragedies today is that the Church as a whole has not furthered God’s light, equity, love and principles in our land in order to be a positive influence and impact for good in the midst of darkness, fear and hate.

Paul mocked wealth-obsessed dominionists like Bill Johnson of Bethel Redding

"We were born to rule--rule over creation, over darkness--to plunder hell and establish the rule of Jesus wherever we go by preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. ... [C]reation has been infected by darkness, namely, disease, sickness, afflicting spirits, poverty, natural disasters, demonic influence, etc. Our rule ... is focused on exposing and undoing the works of the devil. ...

"Jesus destroyed the power of sin, sickness, and poverty through His redemptive work on the cross. In Adam and Eve's commission to subdue the earth, they were without sickness, poverty, and sin. Now that we are restored to His original purpose, should we expect anything less?"

-- Bill Johnson, When Heaven Invades Earth (2013), pp. 33f.

What do you have that God hasn't given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?

You think you already have everything you need. You think you are already rich. You have begun to reign in God's kingdom without us!

I wish you really were reigning already, for then we would be reigning with you. Instead, I sometimes think God has put us apostles on display, like prisoners of war at the end of a victor's parade, condemned to die. We have become a spectacle to the entire world—to people and angels alike.

Our dedication to Christ makes us look like fools, but you claim to be so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are so powerful! You are honored, but we are ridiculed. Even now we go hungry and thirsty, and we don't have enough clothes to keep warm. We are often beaten and have no home. We work wearily with our own hands to earn our living. We bless those who curse us. We are patient with those who abuse us. We appeal gently when evil things are said about us. Yet we are treated like the world's garbage, like everybody's trash—right up to the present moment.

-- 1 Corinthians 4:7ff.

Christianity Today article defends Ted Cruz against charge of dominionism

Here, attempting to distance Ted Cruz' personal beliefs from those of his clearly dominionist followers.

Kelleigh Nelson of Rocky Top Freedom Campaign explains how Ted Cruz' dominionist theology is like Islam

From her conclusion here:

The doctrine of Dominionism is heretical according to God’s Word. Like Islam, they want a theocracy, based on their form of theonomy, with stoning still in practice. Surely we all know folks who have led lives that were unchristian, only to later come to realize the error of their ways. Repentance and salvation can come any time up to your very last breath, and it is faith alone that saves. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9 We are all sinners, just saved by grace. ... With Dominionist theology, there is no grace, and the opportunity to change would be cut short with their punishment. When Ted Cruz said as a teenager that he wanted to rule the world, people found it humorous and the silly statements of youth. But, his form of aberrant doctrine truly believes he should rule the world.

Ted Cruz is a Christian ideologue who wants to immanentize the eschaton through what might as well be Sharia Law

From John Fea, here:

According to his father and Huch, Ted Cruz is anointed by God to help Christians in their effort to “go to the marketplace and occupy the land … and take dominion” over it.  This “end-time transfer of wealth” will relieve Christians of all financial woes, allowing true believers to ascend to a position of political and cultural power in which they can build a Christian civilization. When this Christian nation is in place (or back in place), Jesus will return.

... Cruz’s approach to politics is inseparable from this theology. His goal is to lead a Christian occupation of the culture and then wait for the Second Coming of Christ.