Try to imagine a religion blending elements from Mennonites and Dominionists.
Mennonites practice a passive avoidance of secular government. They realize you can’t ever completely get away from it, but given the state has never done the right thing for very long, there’s no sense being entangled when it will surely compromise the commands of God. Dominionists agree the government has been wrong most of the time in human history, but hold a belief they are commanded by God to fix that. Not so much with weapons of human warfare, but a sort of holy presumption: Proceed with what (they believe) God has commanded, and He will support it.
The problem is both are too Westernized. Mennonites just barely so, in that they seem to reject the obvious mysticism of Scripture. Otherwise, I get on well with them. Dominionists are Crusaders in a not-quite-pacifist disguise. They seem to believe once they gain sufficient leverage, a measure of dominance, it’s okay to use force. That’s because it’s “godly force.” I don’t get on very well with them, though I do have to admire certain elements of their planning. Their approach in terms of discipleship is altogether biblical, because Paul most certainly did write about exchanging local customs for a distinctly biblical culture. The problem is Dominionists mindlessly regard Western rationalist Christianity as biblical. Their this-worldly focus is almost blasphemous.
Jesus is not coming back to fix this world for us. I don’t know how He or the Apostles could have made that more clear. Nor did He commission us to do so. He told us the only fixing would be within our souls, and He expected us to demonstrate that fixing in how we live. However, the exercise of His power is not over this world at large, particularly through any human government institutions. Making such government a Dominionist theocracy does not make it any better; it’s still human government. The changes are a matter of how we think and operate as individuals and families. Dominionists at least get the family part right, but Mennonites do, too. Still, when Jesus returns the key is not our governing a fallen world on His behalf, but governing ourselves. The Scripture explicitly warns the world will only get worse until He comes back and removes it all, starting from scratch — a New Heaven and Earth, both.
So Dominionists miss the point largely because they are relentlessly Aristotelian. Aristotle rejected revelation, so his epistemology has no place in reading Scripture. You can’t reach a Christian understanding with a pagan intellectual approach. Aristotle’s logical and rational analytical framework is not universal; it’s not the only one and is definitively hostile to the Bible.
Christ came to conquer in hearts, and pointedly avoided political conquest. He could easily have done it, but going that route was precisely what Satan wanted. See the Temptations in the Wilderness. He bluntly avoided it when He could have had it out there where He fed the 5000. He could easily have made it on His terms, because the crowd was quite willing. The crowd remained willing until He told them it had nothing to do with a focus on this life, but a focus on the Higher Realm of the Spirit. His teaching on the Bread of Life drove the crowds away because it was so very specifically mystical. The crowds rejected mysticism; they wanted the literal bread and circuses. So to have the Dominionists demand a political solution on this fallen plane is a rejection of the Bread of Life.
The Domain of the Spirit is His dominion over human spirits, and human politics are immaterial. Biblical faith is inherently mystical and otherworldly.
