Taking Dominion in a Christian Nation

Naomi Haynes

doi:10.1163/15700747-bja10036

Abstract

Abstract This article traces some of the North American theological influences on contemporary Christian nationalism in Zambia. Beginning with an overview of key tenets of Christian Reconstruction and the New Apostolic Reformation, I show how these movements have influenced the writing of some key players in Zambia’s Christian nationalist project. I also demonstrate how these authors have modified the Western ideas that have shaped their thought. This analysis responds to calls in the anthropology of Christianity for better documentation of the various forms Christian nationalism takes around the world, perhaps especially outside the West. It also challenges easy arguments about the influence of Western Christian activists on Christian politics in Africa by foregrounding the agency of local writers and theologians, even as they engage with theological ideas that originated in the West.

Highlights

These days, one does not have to look far to find critiques blaming Christian activism in Africa on Western religious influences
This article traces some of the North American theological influences on contemporary Christian nationalism in Zambia
African realities.”[1]. While there is no disputing the clear links between Western, North American, conservative Christianity and these sorts of political developments in Africa, we should be skeptical of arguments that suggest that foreign ideas have been taken up whole cloth without being transformed to reflect local concerns.[2]

Summary

Some Theological Roots of Contemporary Zambian Christian

The first Western movement that concerns us is Christian Reconstruction. The undisputed father of Christian Reconstruction was Rousas John Rushdoony,[17] an Armenian-American conservative Calvinist born in 1916 and brought up in Fresno County, California by Presbyterian parents. Haynes ers).[33] This emphasis on a divinely ranked set of church offices, which carries echoes of Christian Reconstructionism’s model of sphere sovereignty, gives the nar a strong division of labor It informs the arrangements among individual congregations and ministries associated with nar, which often include the religious equivalent of noncompetition agreements, with leaders committing not to impinge on one another’s spiritual territory.[34] As Wagner described it, “Apostles are not in competition with each other, they are in cahoots.”[35]. The Seven Mountains model of the nar emphasizes the roles of both key institutions and elite actors, putting more stock in the top-down efforts of a select few to trickle down into society more generally Despite these differences, both movements have made it their mission to effect cultural and social transformation beyond the four walls of the church, which is why both nar and Christian Reconstruction figure in discussions of so-called “dominionist” theology. The tension between these models of cultural change has informed Christian social engagement in Zambia,[43] as we will see, this is not the only way in which ideas taken from Christian Reconstruction and nar have shaped the thought of those guiding Zambia’s Christian nationalist project

Making Zambia a Christian Nation

North American Political Theology in a Zambian Key