Seven Mountains

Let's admit some truthiness up front.  There's nothing new in either Hillary Clinton's or Bernie Sanders' ideologies.  Bernie, of course, feels a bit more radical, but many of his ideas hearken back to the Keynsianism of Roosevelt.  Neither suggests anything approaching an idea that would set aside the constitution, with the possible exception of the Citizen's United supreme court decision.  One hundred years from now, scholars will look back on that, I suspect (or hope) in much the same way that they look back on Plessey v. Ferguson.  I won't go off on Citizen's United, but it is so clearly a decision giving an outsize voice to outsize money.  One shouldn't be surprised then by headlines reading "the new gilded age: close to half of all super PAC money comes from 50 donors."  Nor should one be surprised to learn, given the political attitudes of wealth, that 36 of the 50 support conservative candidates.  Right now, a lot of money is being spent to stop Trump,.  Trump's ego demands that he play to the crowd, and in doing so, he's a loose cannon, a loaded loose cannon,
in part because his rhetoric taps into the protectionist, America first attitudes among the displaced white males that attend his rallies.  This, among others things, is disturbing to those who want MORE, not less latitude in choosing the labor they exploit and where they can park the spoils of that exploitation.  The world is their dominion, not just Mississippi.


Better to go with Cruz, who at the moment, at least, embodies the unholy alliance between big money and evangelical conservatism.  One suspects, however, that this alliance is headed toward a divorce, or at least one can hope that it's headed toward a divorce.  The disputations throughout the south around LGBT rights shows the fault line of what may become "irreconcilable differences."  A multi-national corporate entity, to one degree or another, must ultimately be secular.  They must avoid offense across a broader mix of constituencies than most politicians, and so again one shouldn't be surprised to hear that they do not share, for the most part, the overt attitudes of evangelical conservatism.   It helps, of course, that the willful ignorance that helps sustain anti-Darwinism in the schools, also helps sustain those who would have us willfully ignore all the evidence supporting human-induced climate change, but even that has its fault line. Still, one needs well-educated scientists and engineers to find and develop the fossil fuels that are in turn inducing the climate change, and even if they are cynical or greedy enough to press ahead with the development of fossil fuels, it's still unlikely that those same well-educated scientists share the fundamentalist religious attitudes of their evangelical brethren in the conservative party.

Here's the 50K question.  Which parent will someone like Cruz choose if it does come to divorce?  A recent Huffington post blogger, Yasmina Blackburn, asked "where was Ted Cruz radicalized?"  According to Blackburn, in the home.  Cruz' father, Rafael Cruz, can be seen preaching Seven Mountain Dominionism, "whereby Christians are meant to take dominion over seven cultural elements: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government."  In the minds of the seven mountain folks, "take dominion" means just that, "take dominion."  In one such video that can be easily found by searching "Rafael Cruz Preaches Seven Mountain Dominionism," he tells us "the church should have an influence on arts and entertainment, on media, on sports, on education, on business, upon government."  He also tells us that, hearkening to the great conservative hero Reagan, that "morning is coming to America, and if we, as the people of god, stand firm and push back against this onslaught against christianity, against righteousness, we will take this country back."    

To "take back" is not a simple matter of influencing opinion, but something quite different.  He is advocating, in the words of Lance Wallnau, that they fulfill the "apostolic assignment."  That is, "they are to take over spheres and administer them for the glory of god."  You don't need to listen long to Lance Wallnau, or for that matter Rafael Cruz, to get a sense of the imminent danger.   You have Wallnau, for example, saying, to an appreciative audience, that "everywhere we fail to go, a vacuum is created and witchcraft fills it."  Really, he said "witchcraft."  As he is fond of saying, think about it -- witchcraft.  He goes on to say, the "anointing is upon you to command, and the command is on you for the assignment, and the assignment god has is for you to deal with the darkness, and it was for this reason the son of god was made manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil."

I have to admit, I find such language more than a little frightening, and I'm sure that others might find it equally frightening, but it is the belief system behind "take back America."  It is the belief system that drives much of the Cruz family religious thinking, and it is clear enough that, if sincere, Cruz has little desire to be president of a secular nation.  He wants to be anointed president of a christian nation where one can set about "destroying the works of the devil."  I'll leave it to you to imagine what those "works" might be, but if you give him the sorts of power that a Rafael Cruz or a Lance Wallnau would give him, they would command, in the name of god, in ways that mirror the sorts of muslim domination desired by an islamic state, or al-quaeda.  Although it is held up as a bogey man, and it may differ in slight particulars, there is no FUNDAMENTAL difference between biblical law, and sharia law -- and don't kid yourself, it's extraordinarily unlikely that you -- you personally -- would be anywhere near the command center.

In short, if elected, we can only hope the donald is right, that he's "lying Ted," that he's just another cynical politician in the pockets of big business, because if his religious convictions are half as sincere as his father's, then imagine a reset button that takes us back to the 17th century and "witch trials."  We'll all be living in an episode of Salem ....