During the 19th Century, Protestant Churches throughout the English-speaking world saw an outburst of a new movement called Millenarianism. Based on misreadings of some of the apocalyptic writings in the Bible, some ministers believed that they could predict the date on which Christ would return and establish his Kingdom on Earth. Believers gave away possessions and gathered awaiting the Second Advent; but as that did not happen, the majority returned home sadder but wiser men.
Then, as now, though, facts didn't deter a minority of them and new movements and interpretations grew. The belief of these people changed to the notion of what is called in Theology, Dominionism, or the notion that Christ's Advent is determined by man's actions on Earth. The movement was relegated to the fringes of society throughout most of the 20th Century, but with the coming of mass-media, it saw a resurgence beginning around the 1970s. Media spectacles like the Left Behind series generated considerable revenue and spread the cult's doctrines to mainstream audiences. Movements like Christian Nationalism and Christian Zionism are based in Dominionism as well.
With the breakdown in the family and the decline in both secular and religious education, such doctrines easily became substituted in many minds for actual teachings of the Christian Faith. Church leaders point out that it is certainly beneath the Dignity of God to communicate His ultimate purposes through riddles and enigmas that only an enlightened few are able to decipher. The doctrines of modern Megachurches are really closer to Gnosticism than they are to anything resembling Christianity. The Apocalyptic writings in the Bible were written in symbolic terms to people living during times of persecution for their Faith, and meant to convey the teaching that God would be faithful to His worshippers until the end. That's the message that these passages have for us today; and it is an absurdity to imagine that these are mathematical and dialectical puzzles pertaining to 21st Century America and that God is somehow anxiously waiting for our generation to figure them all out and bring them to fruition through political and foreign policy.
The knaves leading these postmodern movements (for their own sinister purposes) counter that the mainstream churches are in a state of apostasy, and that people should only listen to them because they have the spirit rather than a formal education. That this is Gnostic ought to be obvious; but tying it as they do to politics and economics makes it even more apparent. From an historical standpoint, this doctrine in its entirety is simply a proletarian version of the Divine Right of Kings, and we can hear it echoed everywhere in the effusive and uncritical hymns sung the glory of the Neocons now in control of the US Federal Government. We saw this before to a lesser degree too during the last Bush Administration.
It is noteworthy that the bulk of criticism aimed at Established Churches rarely centers on actual doctrine, but instead is overwhelmingly focused on political policies like climate change, immigration, social spending, etc. In other words, they've largely absorbed the Leftist ideology that "the personal is political" although in their case, spirituality factors into the same axiom. Thus, opposing the Genocide in Palestine or the treatment of immigrants can qualify one not only as a political dissent, but a tool of Satan as well.
It's indisputable that the secular National Government has a duty to safeguard the shared values of traditional religions within its jurisdiction. The Russian Government under President Putin set up a model of just how such an organization could operate under the complexities of a modern Democracy---a model which has been copied by other nations. That, however, is not what the Dominionists have in mind. Their's is an exclusionary cult---and a nihilistic and anti-democratic one at that. We would have supposed that after these cultists' influences on the 2nd Bush Administration had been exposed that we would recognize the dangers of allowing such people near the levers of power again, but apparently not.
Instead, the Dominionists have grown in power and influence to the point where they are taking over entire State Governments and imposing their perverted fantasies upon the helpless populations. Worse still, the Federal Government is now infested with these dangerous cults and some even hold high positions where they can do real damage.
Now more than ever, Christians must hold fast to their fundamental beliefs, because the assault upon us coming from pious frauds is an even greater threat than the ones coming from outright secular atheistic materialists. Rainbow Churchianity is a threat to the faith, it is true; but Pharisaism, is far more insidious, especially when adopted as Public Policy for obviously cynical reasons.
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