Late January 2020 | Phoenix Arizona
Last week it rained on and off in Phoenix for several days. The rain moved east to Four Peaks and turned to snow.
Both pictures were taken not long after sunrise.
Where else do you see palm trees and snow in the same scene?
Apparently, the Full Moon was yesterday. I couldn’t take a picture because it was heavily overcast. We’ve had rain on and off for a week. (It’s expected to rain this afternoon.) This first picture was taken about 25 minutes before sunrise, which was at 7:25 AM Mountain Standard Time. The second one was from about a half hour earlier. I took these pictures with a point-and-shoot camera with no tripod, as usual.
If you read or hear that America is a Christian country, then you’ve come up against Dominionism. White fundamentalists believe that their denominations and Jesus — their idea of him — rule supreme in the United States. The rest of us are to be tolerated, but we don’t count. The law of the land should be according to their version of the Bible.
‘Dominion’ is rooted in a mistranslation of a verse in Genesis. Adam is given dominion over creation, over all animals, birds, and fish and everything that creepeth on the land.
Here’s how the Bible reads in the Authorized Version of the Bible, the King James Version:
And G-d said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’ (Genesis 1:26)
Then:
… and G-d said unto them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.’ (Genesis 1:28)
I emphasized the words ‘creepeth’ and ‘moveth’ because it’s the same verb in the original Hebrew. But, somehow the second ‘creepeth’ was rendered as ‘moveth’ in the Christian translation into English.
The difference is that according to the mistranslation, Adam was to have dominion over Eve — she moves after all — and over all his descendants.
Then Jesus lived years later — about 2,000 years ago — and he absolved his believers through his gruesome death. Jesus’s congregation — down to today — are the new Adam who is to have dominion over everything that “moveth.”
So according to dominionists, the United States is supposed to be ruled by white fundamentalist Christians — the true Adam — according to the laws of their version of the Bible. And this is all because the United States is a Christian country.
What happened to all the other Christians in America? Their Christianity is not genuine. It doesn’t accord the Bible — their version of the Bible — it’s due. These other Christians have modern translations. They take liberty with the authorized text, the text that English-speaking Christians have used for four hundred years. These other people, who you and I would call Christians and call themselves such, follow deviations from Biblical law as dominionists see it.
For liberal Christians, abortions on demand are sanctioned. They recognize gay marriage. They’re comfortable with feminism where women strive for equality. But according to fundamentalists, wives are supposed to obey their husbands — dominion. Liberal schools teach evolution of species not intelligent design.
Dominionists believe that there’s a war in America against Christianity. Legislators have made laws that don’t favor their brand of fundamentalist Christianity. The courts don’t rule in their favor. There’s even a war against Christmas, the dominionists say.
They subscribe to a new take on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, what is commonly called “freedom of religion.” Dominionists take the amendment to mean freedom for their version of religion. According to their view, American law should not contradict Biblical law — their version of the Bible, of course.
Donald Trump has been a dream come true for dominionists. An evangelical advisory council that included dominionists had the ear of the ex-president. They were the only religionists who were welcome in the White House. Trump appointed three sympathetic justices to the Supreme Court. The Republican Senate remade the face of the federal judiciary by appointing sympathetic judges.
Key positions in Trump’s cabinet were filled with dominionists although they were Catholics. The attorney general and the secretary of state were known to be Catholic dominionists for instance.
As far as the Founders of the United States are concerned, dominionists have a different take on their lives than mainstream Americans do. It’s true that most of the founders were pious Christians — at least as far as their public lives were concerned. Nevertheless, they were determined that no denomination of Christianity was favored. There has never been a constitutionally accepted religious test for citizenship as there had been in Europe. At the same time, the federal government was not to interfere in religious practice or to mandate church attendance either.
American manifest destiny goes along with dominionism. Christians traveled to America, some think, to transform the continent into a Christian nation regardless of who was already living here. America’s destiny was to cut itself off from the English old order. The United States is a beacon of light for a new world order. A prominent and influential dominionist used the phrase “new world order” long before the establishment of the United Nations, long before the idea that there could be a European Union.
How to establish a Christian new world order? By burning down liberal democracy. By burning away American decadence — secular humanism — and raking away the ashes for rebirth of a Christian nation as it was supposed to be. From there, exporting Americanism around the world. This is the double meaning of “America First”: first of all in the United States, then everywhere else next.
I’ve studied Dominionism for awhile. I’m the closest you will find to an expert. I’m not against Christianity. I’m against political Christianity. Let them take their values and vote accordingly, which they did. But, they must realize that a majority of Americans disagree. After all, a majority of voters recently rejected the Republican Party, the home of dominionists.
By all means let dominionists take their values into the marketplace of ideas. Let them get used to the fact that there are few buyers. Let them get over it.
Today, Tuesday, January 19, 2021, is the last chance to visit the Trump administration’s official web site, WhiteHouse.gov.
When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are inaugurated, they will post their own information about their new administration at this address.
I don’t know what happens to the Trump web site. Is it archived somewhere? Last I looked, I didn’t find an archived copy of the web sites of previous presidents.
Duration of rally: 4 hours and 50 minutes
Duration of President’s speech: 1 hour and 12 minutes
Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump called for his loyalists to rally in Washington, D.C., on the day that Congress was to certify the Electoral Vote count, January 6, 2021. He delivered his remarks in the early afternoon, some time before the insurrection at the Capitol.
The crowd largely insisted that the November 3rd election was stolen from Trump, as he would elaborate during his speech: “It was rigged.” They were demanding “Stop the steal” — that the results be overturned in Trump’s favor.
Trump whipped up the enthusiasm of the crowd which led to a mob storming the U.S. Capitol. Trump made veiled suggestions that he approved of violence in his cause to overturn the election results.
“You’ll never take back our country with weakness,” Trump said. “You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated.
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically, make your voices heard today.” [delivered at 3 hours and 46 minutes into the video]
The crowd seemingly heard “take back our country,” “show strength,” and “be strong” as the President’s message. Many did not hear “peacefully.”
The rally was sponsored by Women for America First, co-founded and chaired by Amy Kremer. The organization is funded by dark money, as reported by CNBC.*
The attendees gathered on The Ellipse. The stage faced the Washington Monument, with the White House visible to the audience behind the stage.
The full video of the rally can be seen on C-SPAN. On this C-SPAN page, you can see a transcript of the President’s remarks taken from closed captioning.
Campaign 2020
President Trump spoke at a rally in Washington, D.C., held to protest the results of the Electoral College, which Congress was set to count later that day. “We will never give up. We will never concede,” he declared. President Trump repeated his unsubstantiated claims of fraud in both the November election and the Georgia U.S. Senate runoff election held the previous night. He railed against Republicans he deemed insufficiently supportive of his efforts to overturn the results and promised to “primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight.” The president also continued to publicly pressure his vice president, Mike Pence, to reject electoral votes in states that he lost. As the speech was concluding, Vice President Pence issued a statement saying he lacked the constitutional authority to dismiss the votes when the Congress met later that day.
Outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump enters the stage around 3 hours and 29 minutes into the video. He starts to speak at about 3 hours and 31 minutes. The speech ends with Trump leaving the stage at 4 hours and 43 minutes.
See some short excerpts from Trump’s speech in The Washington Post: “Trump issued a call to arms. Then he urged his followers ‘to remember this day forever!’” Retrieved January 7, 2021.
▫ dark money – Brian Schwartz. “Pro-Trump dark money groups organized the rally that led to deadly Capitol Hill riot.” CNBC. January 9, 2021. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
New Year’s Day began at midnight, but nothing in nature was noticeable as the day changed from December 31st to January 1st. It’s a social convention.
In contrast, dawn and sunrise are observable. So, I took pictures as the first day of the new year dawned.
May good fortune for the world dawn with the new year.
Happy New Year.
May we celebrate with many cups of hot tea with sugar!
Hot Tea with Sugar 