Dominionism concerns are not overblown

I hadn't heard of Lisa Miller's "Be not afraid of evangelicals" in the Washington Post before Religion Dispatches ran a response to it by Peter Montgomery.

Montgomery's piece is a good, thoughtful response that emphasizes the false equivalencies that Miller draws. I only have a couple of points to add.

Miller wrote:

This isn’t a defense of the religious beliefs of Bachmann or Perry, whatever they are. It’s a plea, given the acrimonious tone of our political discourse, for a certain amount of dispassionate care in the coverage of religion.

On the basis of that passage, and that passage alone, I'll assume Miller was well-intentioned. And she made a valid point:

Certain journalists use “dominionist” the way some folks on Fox News use the word “sharia.” Its strangeness scares people. Without history or context, the word creates a siege mentality in which “we” need to guard against “them.”

Yes, there's a certain risk of polarization in making the same kind of irresponsible attacks on dominionism as Fox News has on Sharia law. However, Miller should have scratched a little deeper. There's a huge difference between the risk from dominionism and the risk from Sharia law: at least two Republican presidential candidates can count on support from dominionist religious leaders. One of them is the Republican front-runner, Perry.

Do you see a mainstream candidate for any public office in the U.S. who can count on any Sharia-advocating clergy?

I'll contest another of Miller's contentions:

Evangelicals generally do not want to take over the world.

You can argue on a narrow basis that evangelicalism isn't about seeking political power, and you can quote the bit about rendering unto Caesar that which is due unto Caesar. However, evangelical Christianity is all about conversion. If you will excuse the geekiness of the analogy, evangelicals' mission is akin to what Star Trek's Borg seek: to assimilate all arond them.

From where I sit as a non-believer, evangelicals' mission can't help but to be a grab for power because for them, religion is not allowed to remain a private matter. Your soul is their business. That, alas, leads to overzealous concern for whether the state is sufficiently protective of your soul, and protective in only the right ways. The Defense of Marriage Act and its numerous state-level counterparts are only the most public manifestations of evangelicals' coercive powers (or do you think there are any but religious-based objections to gay marriage?).

Miller had a good point to make, but she overplayed her hand.