My two pence on it:

It's probably going to be easier to find fault-lines between "soft dominionists" (aka the people who get suckered in from the claims on "family"), and dominionism, evangelicals and dominionism, etc.

One possible area of split may be in identifying neoconservatives with a largely business oriented slant towards things, and wedging in there.

The major difficulty in this is because dominionists (or, some would say, protodominionists--it depends on whether you count "The Fellowship", the Full Gospel Businessmens' Fellowship International, and other groups with extremely early involvement in dominionism) are in part responsible for and can even be said to have invented much of the neoconservative movement--at least with the pentes involved in dominion theology, the push goes clear back to the 1950's and beforehand (as I've documented here).  (If you take the history of "The Fellowship", it goes even further back, to pre-World War II.)  

One potential wedge issue that I think has been very underutilised, could have a real potential for marginalising the core of the dominionist movement, and which needs to be used more IMHO is the issue of extensive links between dominionist and racist groups.  I've done a partial documentation of this here which is probably woefully inadequate.

by dogemperor on Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 01:50:08 PM EST
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Might take a long time to answer ! But the short answer is this - a large part of the American electorate became disengaged - over the course of several decades - from electoral politics. Simultaneously the Christian was learning about political activism, on how to place its partisans in government.  

As for your second question, well, one good response would be to become politically active ( if you are not already ) - in your local town, your county, your state. That's an educational  process, one which won't happen overnight. But, if we want different values expressed in government, well.... we've got to work for it.

by Bruce Wilson on Tue Jan 31, 2006 at 05:04:56 PM EST
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I think we need to make a distinction between many of the neoconservative foot soldiers, who may be closely tied to AoG and other Dominionist groups, and the intellectual masterminds like Leo Strauss, who are atheists.

Shadia Drury in several books and articles makes it clear that behind the neoconservatism is a group of secretive, Machiavellian and Nietzschean elites who are using religion to "manufacture consent," manipulate a gullible populace, redirect the course of history and thereby enrich and amuse themselves.

by Mainstream Baptist on Wed Feb 01, 2006 at 04:12:51 PM EST
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I'll agree that the Madsen essay was at times...shall we say...tinfoil-hattish :3  There are bits that can be verified though (Sara Diamond's book being a particularly good source, dare I say it, "must reading" for anyone interested in the subject).

One good online book I'd add in to that, too, as well--the book Merchants of Deception.  Whilst it is written by an Amway walkaway (and a good portion of it is Amway-centric) a great deal of what is written in the book--especially as the author got in the higher "levels" at Amway--is possibly one of the best descriptions of the general sorts of coercive tactics used by dominionist groups (and especially those in the neopentecostal dominionist branches)--seeing as no less than three of the four major "uplines" of Amway heavily incorporate "name it and claim it" theology explicitly and even dominion theology proper, and Amway has been used as a tool of "stealth evangelism" and frank recruitment into dominionist churches.

At any rate, though, I'd be extremely interested in your notes on the subject, much less a complete essay.  

by dogemperor on Thu Feb 02, 2006 at 07:31:58 PM EST
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Of note--one of the dominionist churches most frequently associated with Amway is the Assemblies of God (Fred, I'll note to use "Assemblies" if I must abbreviate to avoid confusion with the Army of God--even though, sadly, there are people in the Assemblies who sympathise with the goals of the Army of God; my own family talked about how it was "cool" that Eric Rudolph was able to hide out and even hoped he'd "get" more abortion providers and he wouldn't get caught).  The Assemblies of God is a premillenial dispensationalist church; in fact, the vast majority of televangelists on TV that are promoting "end of the world" theology are in fact Assemblies of God ministers (partly because it is extremely easy to be "ordained"--merely requiring a positive recommendation from an existing pastor, signing of a statement of faith, and paying money, very similar to how Calvary Chapel has affiliated churches).

In fact, if people are curious as to just how much the Assemblies of God promotes what I have referred to in past as "armageddonism" (before I knew what premillenial dispensationalism was), one merely needs to go to the Assemblies of God's official magazine wherein Tim LaHaye (the publisher of the "Left Behind" series) is positively reviewed as a tool for "outreach" and is referenced directly with the denomination's official church doctrines:

The Left Behind series is a fictional account of events after the rapture of the Church. The Assemblies of God Statement of Fundamental Truths calls this event "The Blessed Hope."

"All Christians who have died will one day rise from their graves and will meet the Lord in the air. Christians who have not yet died will be raptured or caught up with them, to be with the Lord. Then Christians of all ages will live with God forever. The scriptural truth of the Lord's soon return is `the blessed hope' (Romans 8:23; 1 Corinthians 15:51,52; 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17; Titus 2:13).

"This doctrine is very important because it provides a primary motivation for witnessing and living a holy life. For the believer, the return of Christ for His redeemed is a blessed hope indeed. The translation or `snatching away' of living Christians, commonly called the Rapture (`to catch up'), will bring an end to suffering, pain, hardship and difficulty. We as Christians will then be with the Lord forever. Though the body is not alive between death and resurrection, the soul does not sleep but is consciously alive in the presence of the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).

"For the sinner, however, the Rapture is anything but a blessed hope. To be left behind will involve indescribable suffering as God judges a rebellious and disobedient world. God desires that all mankind should ask forgiveness and be restored to fellowship with himself. He places this burden for the lost and their waiting eternal punishment on the hearts of those who already know His love and salvation. It is for this reason that a primary mission of the church is evangelizing the world, seeking to save as many as possible from the judgment to come."

-- Reprinted from Our 16 Doctrines, with permission from the Assemblies of God Office of Public Relations.

(Yes, they explicitly believe they're going to get raptured up and have a laugh at the rest of humanity's expense as humanity suffers and is destroyed.)

Lest someone think this was recent, the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International was pushing this as early as the 50's, and the Assemblies of God itself documents nicely how notes how Assemblies-associated songwriters were writing "Jesus Rock" songs about the Tribulation as early as the 60's.  

If you want to think of something just as scary--one of the older "political" dominionist groups, Concerned Women for America, is headed up by Tim LaHaye's wife (again, this is per official magazines from the Assemblies of God).

Tim LaHaye has also worked actively with both  the head of the Assemblies of God itself as well as with the Full Gospel Businessmen's Fellowship International, per this article, and has been seen frequently at events held by Assemblies of God churches.  A critical article on premillenial dispensationalism, "Beam Me Up Theology", also notes the links.

(This is a particular area of dominionism I am quite unfortunately an expert in, being a survivor of one of these churches.  Still have nightmares about nuclear wars sometimes :()

by dogemperor on Thu Feb 02, 2006 at 07:40:36 PM EST
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There is a lot of stuff out there, and it can be difficult to evaluate. Additionally, it can be difficult to find out about good materials.  I'm glad you and PRA have taken the time to put together such useful bibliographies.

by Frederick Clarkson on Fri Feb 03, 2006 at 02:41:24 AM EST
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