{"id":1689,"date":"2026-05-03T19:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T18:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/?page_id=1689"},"modified":"2026-05-04T21:37:49","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T20:37:49","slug":"conclusion","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/dominion-theology-recovering-our-social-and-political-responsibility\/conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"Conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Dominion Theology\u2014Its History<\/h3>\n

In this book we have traveled from ancient to modern eschatology, through the secularization of Western culture during the nineteenth and twentieth century, and demonstrated that the rise of modern dominion theology could be directly correlated with the situation in time and place of Christian thought. Thus, returning to the questions I posed in the summary in the introduction, I believe we can affirm with reasonable verisimilitude the two statements I wanted to test. Dominion theology has indeed been shown to have emerged from a postmillennial eschatological perspective in a distinctive sociological context with a definite philosophical heritage of presuppositional orthodox Reformed\u00a0theology.<\/p>\n

We can also confirm that it was the cultural crisis and conflicts of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the failing of modernity and the emergence of postmodernity, that were shown to necessitate a new Christian response. It was a repudiation of both the decision to withdraw from culture, to ghettoize in a parochial Christian community, and to openly embrace socialism, as in the social gospel movement. Similarly, the program that was developed in a novel and penetrating fashion by Rushdoony\u00a0expanded into a modern Christian sociological reform\u00a0movement that allowed evangelicals more generally, not just the Reformed\u00a0movement, to emerge from the intellectual marginalization. Pentecostals and charismatics, Word of Faith, Kingdom Now, and non-Western neoevangelicals have all incorporated central elements of dominion theology into their social and political positions.<\/p>\n

<\/a>
\nLastly, we then demonstrated how dominion theology could form the basis for a coherent philosophy of Christian involvement. We argued that such a philosophy in all its key components has already had a long history within the Protestant\u00a0church. We were reasserting the normative position after a period of aberration and apostasy in the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. We built on the work of LloydJones, who gave a compelling exegesis of what was frequently the stumbling block for contemporary Christians to wider political involvement, Rom 13. We discovered a compelling case for a radical, even revolutionary, commitment both as individuals and as congregations to the political reformation of our nations.<\/p>\n

Dominion Theology\u2014Present and Future<\/h3>\n

The answer to my question regarding the status and future of dominion theology is more complex and subjective, but I believe some informed judgments are possible. Firstly, the evidence of the presence of dominion theology in an operational<\/em>, if not doctrinal, form in most growing<\/em> (as opposed to ossified) sections of the Church is established beyond doubt. Dominionism is part of the language toolkit of friend and foe alike. The dominionist arguments have proved persuasive, survived, and thrived through the criticism. It is, again, largely accepted that society needs improvement rather than abandonment by the redeemed, and it cannot be changed or improved without political engagement and representation of the Christian view in the organs of power and at all the different levels of governance, from school, local community, county, state, and parliament. Yet, it must be said that there are clear and substantive differences between the nature of that engagement within Reconstructionism\u00a0with its roots in the Reformed\u00a0communion, the Wagnerian NAR, charismatic Kingdom Now, Word of Faith\u00a0\u201cdominionisms,\u201d and the modern phenomena of Christian nationalism. Let us consider the key characteristics of each identified in the book to help with clarifying my final position.<\/p>\n

In general terms, the Reconstructionist movement provided the clearest and most intellectually coherent philosophical and theological basis for dominionism\u00a0in the work of intellectual figures such as Rushdoony, Bahnsen, DeMar, and North. These are now labeled \u201ctheonomists\u201d because the distinctive feature of this brand of dominionism is the belief that God\u2019s law, not natural law, provides the epistemological\u00a0basis for all knowledge and, <\/a>therefore, all life should be predicated and informed by God\u2019s law as revealed to us in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. Faith necessarily embraces every sphere of culture and every aspect of the individual\u2019s relational and personal life. There is no realm of autonomous human existence. The Bible\u00a0is considered a coherent whole, not dispensationalized into ages where the law is abrogated, but where the law is of continuous significance as a vehicle of sanctification and a guide to ethical conduct.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

There is also a position within the Reformed\u00a0community that moderates this strict position but recognizes the continuity between the \u201cnew\u201d and \u201cold\u201d covenants and the value of the law. These are those who emphasize the Hebrew Scriptures as a resource for principles to be applied in our current situation in time, but who argue against the validity of the civil case law of the Hebrew Scriptures as a basis for current civil law, as would be argued for by strict theonomists. Their epistemology\u00a0tends to be far more situational and postmodern, with an emphasis on the ethical quality of the narrative in the Scriptures rather than seeing the Scriptures as a normative and exemplary source book.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Next, dominionists like Kingdom Now\u00a0or Word of Faith, which have a fundamentalist, Pentecostal, or charismatic heritage, are generally far less epistemologically self-conscious and tend to favor evidentialist apologetics, with its implicit confidence in natural law and reason\u00a0to convince and convict. Where it is theologically informed, it often favors a \u201ccovenant neutral\u201d epistemology, where \u201ccommon grace\u201d means truth is to be found in the redeemed and non-redeemed communities.[3]<\/a> The Bible\u00a0ceases to be a document of continuous revelation applicable in all ages but is to be viewed in a broad, dispensational sense. Ethics are essentially antinomian, emphasis is on the relational aspects of faith,[4]<\/a> and \u201cgrace\u201d is considered to have an antithetical relationship to law, \u201cfree from all external rules, but inwardly<\/a> prompted and enabled by the Spirit of truth.\u201d[5]<\/a> These are also characteristic of the churches on the more mystical wing of the prophetic movement that often have weakly defined postmodern positions in their doctrines.<\/p>\n

Finally, Christian nationalism\u00a0is not really a distinct movement, coming into political parlance in the wake of Christian support for Trump, which I have examined in detail elsewhere.[6]<\/a> It is generally used as a pejorative by opponents and tautologically by its proponents: \u201cI love my nation and I am a Christian, therefore I am a Christian nationalist!\u201d That is, Christian nationalists could be any of the above rather than a distinct category. Where it is becoming intellectually more sophisticated, it is recognizing the dangers to the Western Christian tradition by mass immigration (sanctioned and illegal) from nations with non-Western values. Recent immigrants from Islamic nations are seen to be particularly problematic as they have cultures frequently inimical to the West that deny freedom\u00a0of speech, minority rights, the rights of women, and the separation of church and state. They do not believe assimilation into the host Western nation is desirable or required; it is these positions that are fertile ground for an emerging Christian nationalist movement as a political movement.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n

Thus, in conclusion, I would assert that it is not possible to claim that dominion theology is a single theology any longer but is rather a collection of theologies with an idiomatic similarity and with varying degrees of semantic cross-pollination. It is my personal view that if dominion theology is not to degenerate into what one elder of the faith has described as \u201cmilitant ignorance,\u201d[8]<\/a> it needs to rediscover its philosophical and theological basis in the Reformation\u00a0tradition and have a renewed confidence in God\u2019s law and epistemological self-consciousness. My personal position is <\/a>for a Christian political philosophy\u00a0founded on the first two positions we considered here, the theonomical position but accepting something of the moderation of the second position, where there is the necessary extraction of principles outside of the cultural peculiarities of ancient Israel. In all fairness, most of the theonomists of the first position already grant this concession, but there are some that rigorously insist on the precise Mosaic formulations. Arguments over those details would need to be deferred to other more technical works but should not be an obstacle to advancing the rulership of God on Earth, hastening the return of the Lord, and the rule of the millennium.<\/p>\n

Final Words<\/h3>\n

Thank you for persevering with me on this journey. It has been, in places, a tough climb, but I believe we can now see the Promised Land. Hopefully, you are now also armed, ready for battle in the political and cultural realms\u2014get out there and be loud in whatever sphere of culture you are gifted and called to, unless you are part of clandestine operations! Some work unnoticed in a domain and achieve much more than if they were loud and advertised their presence, which is why we need the Holy Spirit to discern the signs of the times. We must remember to walk by faith and in the faith, not just by what might seem good or reasonable to us.<\/p>\n

The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk\u00a0for being a conservative Christian interested in societal reformation and the aggressive ingress of radical Islam\u00a0into the West should make very clear that our very survival as a civilization depends on us embracing the social, political, spiritual, and wider responsibility for the whole of culture in the expression of our Christian faith. That is why I finished the discussion with the application of dominion theology with the outlining of a philosophy of Christian involvement; it is my belief that the believer who claims to be a prophet but does not vote or support those working to be in business, commerce, education, the arts, public service, or political offices understands nothing substantive about dominion.<\/p>\n\n

[1]<\/a> I expand upon this philosophical position in my Foundations<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Cope, God and Political Justice<\/em>, loc. 4427. Landa establishes the substance of her book on a theonomical basis with a thoroughly philosophically modern premise. I sense a change in emphasis to a more postmodern view as she attempts to demonstrate in later chapters how the apostles \u201cinterpreted\u201d the law for their new situation.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Westminster Theological Seminary has been much criticized by Reconstructionists for moving in this direction, away from a presuppositionalist position. \u201cCommon grace\u201d is a term associated with the Reformed\u00a0movements, but the concept is present in evangelical theology more generally using different terminology.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> God as my \u201cDad,\u201d pastors as \u201cfathers,\u201d pastors\u2019 wives as \u201cmothers,\u201d and together, we are \u201cGod\u2019s family.\u201d<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Coates, Not Under Law<\/em>, 58<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Macneil, \u201cPolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> A case in point is Abdullah Hammoud, the current mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, the epicenter of Islamic culture in the United States. Though he is a second-generation immigrant, he denies the entire concept of a \u201cmelting pot\u201d: Jonny C, \u201cDearborn Mayor Hammoud.\u201d He also labeled a Christian minister as \u201cIslamophobic\u201d that objected to the renaming of a street in honor of Osama Siblani, who has repeatedly expressed public support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Palestinian factions as \u201cfreedom\u00a0fighters\u201d; see Anti-Defamation League, \u201cOsama Siblani.\u201d He publicly stated that he feels no obligation to use English in preference to Arabic and, only after extended opposition, decided to remove Arabic insignia from police uniforms and vehicles (Lepore, \u201cPolice in America\u2019s \u2018Muslim Capital\u2019\u201d).<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Landa Cope, speaking at the \u201cKingdom Solutions\u201d conference hosted by Glasgow Prophetic Center, Sept. 19, 2014. Audio recording is available from GPA.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Christian Involvement<\/a><\/div>\n
Appendix A—Post-Evangelicalism<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conclusion Dominion Theology\u2014Its History In this book we have traveled from ancient to modern eschatology, through the secularization of Western culture during the nineteenth and twentieth century, and demonstrated that the rise of modern dominion theology could be directly correlated with the situation in time and place of Christian thought. Thus, returning to the questions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1624,"parent":1636,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1689","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1689"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1752,"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1689\/revisions\/1752"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1636"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetmacneil.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}