Ron Paul and Christian Dominionism

Any person or group that would like to be more influential in the lives of others can be drawn to the small-government position. This is a good reason to be suspicious of anyone who, like Grover Norquist, wants to "make government small enough to drag into the bathroom and drown in the bathtub." A government with a monopoly on force is tough to compete against, and a government fully under the control of its people is tough to bend to your agenda.

I think this is one of the reasons Ron Paul is supported by so many fringe groups -- racists, secessionists, money kooks (Google "competing currencies") and people like Phil Kayser. Kayser is the pastor of the Dominion Covenant Church of Nebraska and the "president" of BiblicalBlueprints.org, which says things like:

To many, the future of America seems grim. Corrupt politicians, depraved entertainment providers, and determined homosexual activists are working hard to undermine the social fabric of our nation. Christians are under attack from every direction.
However, God is raising up an undercurrent of dedicated Christians who are challenging the philosophical, intellectual, and political enemies of Christ who have hijacked our culture.

Kayser is a leading voice in the Christian Dominionist movement, which TheocracyWatch defines as:

Dominionism is therefore a tendency among Protestant Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists that encourages them to not only be active political participants in civic society, but also seek to dominate the political process as part of a mandate from God.
This highly politicized concept of dominionism is based on the Bible's text in Genesis 1:26:
"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (King James Version).
"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'" (New International Version).
The vast majority of Christians read this text and conclude that God has appointed them stewards and caretakers of Earth. As Sara Diamond explains, however, some Christian read the text and believe, "that Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns." That, in a nutshell, is the idea of "dominionism."
Just because some critics of the Christian Right have stretched the term dominionism past its breaking point does not mean we should abandon the term. And while it is true that few participants in the Christian Right Culture War want a theocracy as proposed by the Christian Reconstructionists, many of their battlefield Earth commanders are leading them in that direction. A number of these leaders have been influenced by Christian Reconstructionism, which is a variant of theocracy called "theonomy."

In other words, this is the realization of what was once popularly understood as a mere leftist slight: the idea of a Christian "American Taliban."

The movement even has a political party -- the Constitution Party, one of the largest outside of the Big Two, says "(t)he goal of the Constitution Party is to restore American jurisprudence to its Biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries. ... The U.S. Constitution established a Republic rooted in Biblical law, administered by representatives who are Constitutionally elected by the citizens."


Kayser and other Dominionists (and an offshoot movement, Reconstructionism) has recommended returning to Old Testament laws that would have adulterers and gay people put to death by stoning, for example.

Of course, this all flies in the face of what most people understand the libertarian movement, in which Paul is so revered, to be about. Why do these reactionaries so heartily endorse a man who ostensibly is about maximum personal liberty? -- something most people would not associate with executing gays or adulterers?

Because they understand the nature of power better than Paul does, and better than most libertarians do. People like Kayser recognize that a weak government is less able to hold Dominionism at bay. People like Don Black, the founder of Stormfront and a big Paul supporter, recognize that a weak government wouldn't be able to hold White Supremacism in check the way a strong government can.

In school classrooms across the world, there are bullies waiting for the teacher to leave the room or at least turn away. Dominionists, racists, secessionists, money kooks and other such bullies -- a category which also includes powerful corporations -- back Paul because Paul wants to push the teacher out of the classroom and lock the door, giving "freedom" to the bullies and subjecting the rest of us to their tyranny.

Further reading at the Daily Beast