Dominion Theology and Public Policy

Transcript Dominion Theology and Public Policy

Kevin Harris: You're on the Reasonable Faith podcast with Dr. William Lane Craig. I'm Kevin Harris. Bill, in the news there are accusations that some of the candidates for president embrace a theology, embrace a fundamentalist movement, that's rather fringe that is called dominionism, and I want to discuss basically what that is and how we handle this when we hear this in the press, that a certain person or a certain leader or candidate embraces dominionism. And also – I'll show my hand right now – dominion theology is not accurate biblically, but is embraced by many. And many of our listeners may have even embraced some forms of it unknowingly simply because it has filtered down to them. So let's talk about dominionism, first, and how this may have infected us.

Dr. Craig: Alright. As I understand this theological viewpoint – I think, Kevin, it's a very tiny minority of people, frankly, that don't represent at all the evangelical community – but the idea is that Christians are supposed to take over all of the institutions of government and basically establish a Christian state that would be committed to the biblical worldview and would be, in a sense, like an Islamic state where there isn't a separation between church and state, but rather Christians control the government.

Kevin Harris: Kind of like Sharia law, then?

Dr. Craig: Yes, yeah, exactly. Except it would be Christian rather than Muslim.

Kevin Harris: We can trace these movements back. We can trace this particular dominion theology back to a few people. But what then is our task here if not to take over and to run all the institutions so that we would have that Christian influence. Obviously a person who is a follower of Christ can run for president; there's a civic duty there. But there seems to be a misunderstanding of what it means to be salt and light in this society, and then taking over and forming a theocracy, a modern day theocracy.

Dr. Craig: Well, it seems to me that as victims of religious persecution Christians are champions of religious toleration. That is to say we recognize that people cannot be compelled to make affirmations that go against there sincerely held beliefs, and that therefore we believe in a pluralistic society, religiously. We are committed to the toleration of other points of view. Now, once upon a time this was because the Christian view was the persecuted minority view and so one wanted toleration so that one could practice freely one's own religious beliefs as a Christian. Now that, in Western society, Christianity is the largest form of religion it would mean that as Christians we want to give others the right to exercise their religious freedom, too, and freedom of conscience to believe what they want, and the freedom to have religious exercise so long as it doesn't infringe on the liberty of others. And so we want to give to Hindus and Muslims and Jews and atheists and agnostics and humanists the right to practice their religions as they see fit and to hold their religious beliefs as they see fit. So I see Christians as champions of religious toleration and opposed to having any kind of state-mandated religion. So, fortunately this is enshrined in our Bill of Rights in this country, that Congress shall not make any law that will abridge the free exercise of religion or that will establish any sort of religion in this country. And so I think that we Christians ought to stand very, very strongly behind the Bill of Rights in this regard.

Kevin Harris: Another branch of dominionism is Christian reconstructionism, and you'll hear that from time to time as well, and that's the same thing. That seems to be a little more theocratic, a theocracy. So what would be the problems – that's everybody's fear: that a religious group is going to set up a theocracy. What would be the problem?

Dr. Craig: Yeah, I think that's just nonsense. This is paranoia that's exploited by people, frankly, on the political left to say that people on the right want to establish a theocracy and have a Christian nation. It's really fear-mongering and slander as far as I'm concerned. [1] This is a tiny minority group that doesn't represent mainstream evangelical thought at all. So the dangers of it are those that I just delineated; namely, it would lead to religious intolerance.

Kevin Harris: Sure. And who would be in charge of the theocracy? I mean, I don't want to lead it. [laughter]

Dr. Craig: Nor I.

Kevin Harris: And there are certain people who are very prominent whom I wouldn't want to lead it, either. Who other than Jesus himself could establish that Kingdom? Aside from any kind of politics you will hear these accusations and are hearing them now against Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry. And so this is in the press and what happens, Bill, is that a reporter may trace their associations with a person and that person's associated with this person, and that person is associated with this organization, and they tend to paint the person based upon various organizations that they may have somehow been affiliated with or knew. Now, in one sense I guess that might give you a legitimate picture of a person, but in another sense it's nonsense.

Dr. Craig: Oh, I think it's, as I've called it, religious McCarthyism. These attacks on these candidates because they have endorsed authors, for example, like Francis Schaeffer and Nancy Pearcey, and then accusing Nancy Pearcey and Schaeffer of having links with dominion theology, and therefore these candidates are stealth candidates that want to establish theocracy, is just silliness. And it's the way McCarthy tried to brand people as Pinkos and Communist sympathizers because they had ties with other people who were connected somehow with the Communist party. So I think it's just scurrilous what some of these critics of these candidates are doing to smear them.

Kevin Harris: And religious questions are very popular for reporters to ask right now. And that's been growing and growing; you're going to see it more than ever at this point. Now, a lot of times the candidates will say, look, that's a separate issue than what I would do here in public policy. And so they field these questions well, some that I've heard. But if a person of faith, if a Christian, wanted to run for president and ran for the presidency, Bill, he or she is not necessarily wanting to establish a theocracy, but certainly to be an influence. I mean, what are the parameters there when it comes to public policy and your faith?

Dr. Craig: I don't think you should vote for a candidate based on his religious beliefs. The fact is that a person can be an evangelical Christian and have lousy public policy. On the other hand a person may be a secular person and have great public policy. So it seems to me that a person's religious beliefs are not really a very important factor. I guess the only exception I would make would be insofar as that person's being elected to the presidency might give legitimacy to religious beliefs that you regard as really aberrant. And in that case you wouldn't want to dignify that movement by having a person of this sort hold such a prestigious office. But basically, I think, we need to elect candidates based on their policies and not on their private religious beliefs. Now, having said that, policies will include ethical positions. I definitely think that we need to use ethical issues and appeal to ethical considerations in selecting a candidate to vote for. And those ethical views may flow out of a person's religious beliefs as a consequence, but nevertheless it is the ethical position and the public policy results of that position that we're voting on, and not the religious beliefs that perhaps gave rise to those ethical principles.

Kevin Harris: And you're not naming names, but I will. Romney – I couldn't vote for him because I believe that Mormon theology is so aberrant.

Dr. Craig: Yeah, someone said to me “How would you like it if the Mormon missionaries showed up at your front doorstep and said, “How would you like to learn about the beliefs of our president?” And you think, oh my goodness, there they're exploiting his prestige to promote particular church views. [2]

Kevin Harris: Yeah, and it almost overrides – if I were to look at all of Romney's policies and go, “Boy, I can just really get on with these” – and I'm not saying that at all – but I'm saying in the case that even if I could really resonate with his policies I would still have trouble giving that kind of an impact to a religious movement that I consider so unscriptural. And I would like to think that I could kind of divide the two, but Scriptural imperative and sound doctrine and biblical worldview are so important to me that it's just a real big factor. This can become problematic when you just vote some guy in just because he tweaks the religious right and knows the language, and then he's got terrible policies. But “you've got to vote for him because he's a Christian.” And that's exploited too.

Dr. Craig: Oh, yes. And that, I think, is just completely inappropriate. When I think of electing public officials, again, I'm going to come back to this: I think we elect them because of the policies that they hold, and not because of their religious views, except in extreme cases. It seems to me that what we want to adopt is people who will promulgate ethical policies that are consistent with what is right and wrong, rather than policies that are evil, and policies that are good for the nation, good for our country, and just leave the religious bit to the side. Otherwise you can have a person who is an evangelical Christian but is a terrible leader and holds to terrible policies and would really harm this nation even though he may be a sincere and devout Christian. Being a good Christian is no guarantee that one is going to be a good president or good leader and it is no substitute for having sound policies.

Kevin Harris: In summation, then, Bill, as we conclude today, if a person came up to you and said, “Dr. Craig, you Christians want to take over the world, you want to set up a theocracy, and you want to run everything that would infringe upon my freedom. That's what Christians want to do, that's what they did in the Crusades, that's what they did in the church when they were persecuting, and all that mess.” Your reply in a nutshell?

Dr. Craig: My reply in a nutshell would be that that's absolute nonsense. I am a champion of the Bill of Rights and of religious toleration in this country, and will take my stand to fight for your right to promulgate your belief even if I disagree wholeheartedly with it. [3]