Dobson's World: "Christianism"

David Neiwert posted on 05/16/06 about The 'Christianist' coinage at his Orcunus blog. Neiwert is one of the best-informed writers today about the American far right, including the various incarnations of Christian extremism so common in that corner of the political spectrum.

As his title suggests, he's discussing the label "Christianism" as an alternative to using simply "Christian" for the Christian Right. But it's not a linguistic discussion. He's talking about the various considerations that go into trying to accurately characterize the distinctive nature of authoritarian, rightwing Christianity.

He prefers the term "Dominionist". Dominionism is a particular Christian theory that calls for the rule of Christians and of laws based on a fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Bible without any limits imposed by separation of Church and State.

He refers to a new book by Michelle Goldberg, Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism (2006), which was published a few days ago and which sounds promising. Salon ran an excerpt on 05/12/06.

As far as terminology, I don't like "Christianist" because it's hard to say. It just doesn't roll off the tongue very easily - an important consideration when you're making up new words. I make a point of using "Christian Right" as opposed to "Religious Right", because the American movement we're talking about is almost exclusively Christian. It's also largely Protestant, but the Catholic reactionary element is also important. "Dominionist" or "Christian Dominonist" also works for me.

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