Dominionism

Dominionism is a term used to describe various sets of theological/political ideologies held among a subset of persons identified with the Christian Right in the United States of America. While there are a variety of schools of thought, each maintains that it is a duty of Christians to obtain influence or control government and initiate change in keeping with what are held as Biblical principles and laws. Within the religious right, there are at least three major belief systems:

• Religious conservatism, which intersects with social conservatism and traditional conservatism, accepts that it operates within a pluralistic society; lobbies for legislation and judicial action as guided by their beliefs, understanding that these are their positions, beliefs with any special authority within the system. People with these beliefs alone are not considered dominionists. Religious conservatism, of course, exists in other societies.
• Christian Nationalism or "soft dominionist" believe in American exceptionalism, which is not always religious, and hold that the exceptional nature of the United States is purely as a result of a certain Biblical view. They regard liberalism, humanism, feminism, and homosexuality are undermining the society. They also lobby, but are convinced their position is the only correct one. They try to block appointments of judges and other officials who do not agree with their "litmus test" positions. Still, they recognize the need to gain consent of the governed.
• Christian Theocracy or "hard dominionists" believe that authority must be held only by Christians, usually Christian men. They reject non-Abrahamic religions, non-Christian Abrahamic religions such as Judaism and Islam, and often other Christian denominations as having any right to govern. Some further identify:
  • Christian Reconstructionism, a theonomic movement that seeks to replace the secular governance model of the U.S. Constitution, creating a political and judicial system based on Old Testament Law, or Mosaic Law.

Again remembering they operate within a framework of American exceptionalism, their key Biblical support tends to be Genesis 1:26, which, in the King James Version, reads

And God 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.