LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY 1400scale)

There's been some discussion here lately, particularly between me, Eiredrake, and Lihan regarding the future goals of the RR, and the potential future implications that more and more of us seem to be coming to understand, but something occured to me when I was discussing with Catvincent the phsychological motivations of authoritarian dominionists.

In an older post I stated this:

After a century and a half of false alarms, missed deadlines, and general apocalyptic disappointment, I think that the majority of them were finally forced to accept that they couldn't predict the timing of the Biblical End, no matter how much they may have wanted to (even Jesus said that "no man knows the day or the hour", including him). I suspect the psychological tendency was too strong to completely supress though, and it remanifested itself in a new theological paradigm; the idea that God may be deliberately delaying the End Times because True Believers (TM) had became too passive, and weren't doing enough.

It wouldn't be much of a leap to go from that to "we're mandated by Jesus to become proactive, fulfill prophecy, and usher in the End Times ourselves to set the stage for His Second Coming", I think.

A belief like that would also serve quite well to psychologically cloak any feelings of impatience with the manifestation of God's will and maintain an outward appearance of piety, and it would definately serve the ego.

And this:

I suspect more and more that they believe that all of the items on their agenda (restricting gay rights, stem cell research, non-abstinence-only family planning, moderate-to-liberal Christian and non-Christian belief systems, and ultimately merging church and state) are benchmarks that they've convinced themselves will, if they succeed in meeting each one, be successful steps in hastening the End Times and/or ensuring that when the Time comes, they'll be Raptured as a reward for their efforts.

An agnostic coworker of mine called them "Rapture Points" this morning, and I have to admit the term is catchy.

Then I thought about it, and realized the inverse could be true as well.

For example, if you'd been convinced that America had been destined to be an evangelical Christian nation, and that it was stolen out from under you by liberals, secularists, feminists, etc., you'd be pissed, sure. But what if you became convinced that you and others like you had been given a Sacred duty to keep the country morally clean, and had let it slide into degeneracy through complacency?

Some of the posts I'd exchanged revealed something I'd not known before; that many fundamentalists have a deep-seated fear of being Left Behind; they don't neccesarily feel secure in their salvation, even if they project the outward appearance of it. A letter-writer to Joe Bageant indicated that when she was a member of a dominionist church, no matter how much she prayed and fasted, and how pious and moral she tried to be, she never felt "saved" enough; Lihan has confirmed this feeling, along with one or two others.

This could go a long way towards explaining why they're getting so damn shrill, why they're pushing at so many things all the time, and why they hate the "other side" so much.

They feel emboldened, sure, but I also think they're afraid.

Not that secularism, gay rights, stem cell research, legal abortion, evolution, or anything else will eventually overshadow them; although that might be a factor; I doubt they're really worried about that.

I suspect they're scared that because they believe the End is so close (whether as a result of their actions or not), America's "sinful" nature may be putting THEIR chances of being Raptured in jeopardy; that their vengeful, zero-tolerance OT God will judge THEM guilty by association.

I think they hate us because they're afraid WE'RE going to get THEM Left Behind.

"For lack of a vote, a Kingdom was lost." (paraphrasing, obviously)

Thoughts?