Candidates, Dominionists, & NAR

I don't usually get into much politics on this blog, but I feel I must offer at least one post about the relationship of the right wing Christian groups known as Dominionists, including the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Why now? In the past few days, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, reportedly preparing to announce his candidacy for the Republican Presidential nomination, held a "prayer rally" which featured a number of people affiliated with the NAR, a group which fancies itself the second group of Apostles of Jesus, whose aim it is to combine their brand of Christianity with government and just about every other part of American society. Some of their distasteful, to put it mildly, beliefs include:

-- The Statue of Liberty is a demonic idol

--Oprah is the forerunner of the "harlot" movement (a notion related to the emergence of the antichrist)

--the Emperor of Japan has sex with the Sun Goddess who is a demon and this caused the Japanese stock market to crash, as well as the earthquake in Japan.

Rachel Maddow, who has been one of the few mainstream media persons reporting on this, in earlier coverage referred to the Sun Goddess mainly as "a demon" or "demons." But tonight she finally identified her as the "Sun Goddess" (Amaterasu, a Goddess central to the Japanese Shinto religion).

Closely related philosophically to the NAR views are those of a group of Christian Dominionists who identify the Democratic Party as "the party of Jezebel," and they don't mean it as a compliment. They are planning "take back" Washington DC from the Goddess Columbia in a late October event called DC40; they want to rename the U.S. capital the "District of Christ" and are mightily offended by the statue of Columbia (aka Freedom) who stands atop the U.S. Capitol dome.

What do all these (pick one or more: scary, twisted, nutty) beliefs have in common? In addition to being a step towards taking over the political platform and erasing the separtion of Church and State in the US, they are all grossly misogynist. Notice that all the sources of "evil" are either goddesses or powerful women. The one male character in these scenarios, the Emperor of Japan, they present as simply a deluded fellow, lured and/or underattack by a female demon who was once (or is at the same time?) a Goddess, in a way that is to me reminiscent of the story of Adam being led to evil by Eve. This demonization of Goddesses and women perceived as powerful (Oprah and Jezebel, a queen) by extension demonizes women in general.

Hecate and Literata have been providing good coverage of the DC40 aspect of this. And Jason Pitzl-Waters on The Wild Hunt has been providing ongoing coverage of the Dominionist movement and NAR. I suggest you visit these blogs for more information.