Debunking an NAR dominionist argument that we are of this world...no we are not.

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Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. -- 1Peter 2:11-12 (ESV)

https://americanvision.org/21530/the-this-world-is-not-your-home-fallacy-by-gary-demar/

The NAR dominionist will go to extreme lengths to assuage themselves that their idol worship of this world and this country is somehow biblical, when it clearly is not. The usual refrain is about how the founding fathers were all evangelicals who secretly entered into a covenant relationship with God. Then, ignoring the glaring sins of this country they pretend everything was Shangri-La for two centuries until the godless liberals in this country somehow convinced everyone to break this imaginary covenant. They spend the days now chasing a mythical "revival"; hoping beyond hope that if the goats in this country just started behaving better than maybe God would spare His coming wrath.

Spoiler alert -- He won't.

In one of my recent online discussions someone was defending the NAR concept of the seven mountains false worldview. He asked what my worldview was and I explained that it was biblical. That we are not of this world and it is passing away. To that he responded with the above article. I had never heard of "American Vision" but given the name and the fact that it claims be a Christian resource, it is obviously NAR dominionist. Under their statement of faith came this little gem:

"We believe that God has given to mankind the duty to exercise dominion over His creation so that in all things God is honored and glorified. From the beginning, God created man to worship and serve Him. As a result of God's justifying grace, we are called as believers to live a separated life unto God according to God's Word. We have been called to make disciples of all the nations of the earth by preaching and teaching all things He has commanded us. It is the duty of believers to apply God's Word to every area of life, and to bring all things under the Crown Rights of Jesus Christ seeking the transformation of our culture." -- American Vision

Dominionists often misunderstand the concept of "exercising dominion." As believers we are to apply the word to every area of OUR life, not to smack unbelievers upside the head until they conform. Christianity is not a forced choice. You present the Gospel and let the chips fall where they may. If the Crusades taught us anything it is that you cannot force Christ upon anyone. The real problem here is the seven mountains nonsense about bringing all things under Him seeking transformation of our culture. This is of course mandated NOWHERE in scripture. It resides in the wickedly deceitful hearts of those who idolize this country. We are not called to transform a fallen culture but rather to save people out from it. When Jesus walked the earth His disciples desperately wanted Him to transform their oppressive culture but His kingdom was not of this earth. His deliverance was so far above the petty politics of His day or our day. His deliverance was from sin and the bondage of Satan. So let us reason together once more through the above linked article and peer into the mind of someone who worships America over the God they claim to serve.

"I saw the following posted on Facebook. A number of Christians responded with "Amen": This world is not your home. God is your father. Heaven is your home. You're going there. Be hopeful." -- John Piper Too many Christians are caught between "This World Is Not My Home" (false) and "This Is My Father's World" (true), and it's destroying the impact the church could be having on this world. Richard V. Pierard comments: In the nineteenth century . . . German Lutherans made a strong bifurcation [separation] between the realm of public and private concerns". Religion was the domain of the inner personal life, while the institutional and external, the public, so to speak, belonged to the worldly power. Redemption was exclusively the province of the church, while the law, determinative for external conduct of human affairs, was solely the province of the state. Religion was a private matter that concerned itself with the personal and moral development of the individual. The external order--nature, scientific knowledge, statecraft--operated on the basis of its own internal logic and discernable laws." -- Gary DeMar

Despite what things Piper gets wrong these days, this statement is correct. The bible expressly says that our citizenship is in heaven. God does not offer dual citizenship beloved. This world is not our home. Read the key verses today! We are supposed to be sojourners and exiles in this world! An exile by definition is not in their own land! A sojourner is merely passing through. There is no getting around these texts! Quoting other dominionists does not make his argument any more factual or biblical. He then offers some opposing quotes but I am not here to litigate what other humans had to say on the matter. The only thing of import is what God has said. We pick up Demar's arguments here:

"This world is the Christian's home. We were born here. God wants us here. We live here. Our homes are here. We work here. We've been a part of God's created order since Adam and Eve. To claim otherwise is to deny the Bible and all common sense. While our ultimate citizenship is in heaven (Phil. 3:20), it didn't stop Paul from appealing to his earthly citizenship, including his Roman citizenship (Acts 21:39; 22:25-29). God saved us in the here and now. We are to live in terms of this world created by God and declared by Him to be "very good" (Gen. 1:31), which has not been declared otherwise because of sin (1 Tim. 4:3-5)." -- Gary DeMar

The opening statements here while correct do not exist in a vacuum. We may reside here but that does not make this our home. That is a logical fallacy. While we clearly live here we all know this is but temporary. While it is true that we descend from Adam and Eve, they lived in paradise with God. That was the intent until the fall. DeMar seems fond of making declarative statements without any biblical offering of support. I see why because when he does venture into scripture he only makes a fool of himself. Yes Paul did appeal his citizenship on earth at the end of Acts chapter 21 but only so he could preach the Gospel to those who wanted to kill him in Acts 22! Then as they were to flog him, he asked them if that they were doing was legal, which it was not. He used his earthly citizenship to proclaim eternal matters of the kingdom, not to influence culture one iota.

"What about this passage? For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come (Heb. 13:14). The physical city of Jerusalem was still standing. There is a better city, a permanent city that we've already come to, "the heavenly city" (Heb. 12:22-24). The world is our inheritance in the here and now (Matt. 5:5). There is no longer any need for a physical city, a stone temple, and daily animal sacrifices. Our sacrifice "is praise to God" (13:15) of redemption accomplished. This does not mean that we do not have a more permanent home in the future when we die. "To live is Christ; to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21). Until then, we are to live in this God-owned world as His stewards. Until our earthly tent is torn down, we are to live out our salvation in this world (2 Cor. 5:1)." -- Gary DeMar

Matthew 5:5 says the meek shall inherit the earth. the better translation is "the land" as this was a common refrain of blessing for the Jewish people dating back to inheriting the Promised Land. Either way, inheriting is by definition a future occurrence not as DeMar fancies -- in the here and now. That is straight up dominionism. To believe that God wants us to conquer the earth. He wants no such thing. The great thing about debunking NAR adherents is they understand scripture so poorly they cannot see when the verses they cite hurt their cause. 2Corinthians 5:1 testifies to the temporary nature of our existence here on earth, It assures us that if, not until, our earthly tent is torn down that we have a permanent one awaiting us where we actually live -- in heaven. We are stewards of the Gospel, not some carnal property here in America. DeMar now launches into a bunny trail meant to distract. This one is about the humanistic public education system and he decries those that would not seek to infiltrate culture while sending their kids to public schools for indoctrination. To this point I agree. Christians would be far better served homeschooling if possible but again this has ZERO to do with this conversation.

'Theodore Roszak used an apt phrase to describe much of modern-day Christianity: "Socially irrelevant, even if privately engaging." It wasn't always this way: The Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, comes out of the background of a Hebrew mindset. The basic idea behind the Hebrew mindset is that God and accompanying spiritual principles permeate all of life here on earth". I believe one of the causes of [cultural disengagement is a Greek mindset], which tells us Christians should be concerned about saving souls and going to heaven rather than paying much attention to material things like transforming our societies. [James Davidson] Hunter, to the contrary says, "Most Christians in history have interpreted the creation mandate in Genesis as a mandate to change the world."' -- Gary DeMar

Half-way through I am getting the shtick here from DeMar. He is filling this article with footnote references that support his view. More than half the scripture references he uses are not germane to the discussion at hand and are presented only to lend a sense of piety to the discussion. When the scripture actually does touch on the subject matter it actually disproves his point. Now, there may be some truth to the fact that Hebrew mindsets were all-permeating regarding their lives within the theocracy they existed in. Conversely, the Christian should also have the things of God permeate all facets of their individual lives. The problem DeMar is facing is that Hebrew culture did not demand an influence in society surrounding them. Outside of going to war, God never instructs the Hebrews to try and make the heathen secular surroundings more Jewish. There is no mandate from Jewish history for the church to conquer or even influence culture. There just isn't. With any due respect to Mr. Hunter, most Christians have not interpreted the Genesis creation mandate as a mandate to change the world. Jesus sure didn't. His disciples sure didn't. only in the heart of a dominionist.

The remainder of Demar's arguments can be read at the link. They offer no further biblical commentary on the issue at hand. I do not wish to chase DeMar down any more rabbit holes of eschatology as he seems to be arguing that many Christians choose to not influence society merely because we know the end is always impending. He misses the point as usual. The NAR dominionist believes that it is the job of Christians to engage in behavior modification. To influence entertainment for example to exclude the gratuitous violence and sex that has become much of the modern entertainment business. To influence education so that unsaved masses recite prayers that can not get them saved. To influence politics and government to eliminate ungodly laws and make sure all Wal-Mart greeters say Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays. What they fail to see is that behavior modification saves no one. Even if you stop all unsaved people from engaging in what you deem as decidedly unchristian and baby Jesus is back in the public manger display, you still accomplished absolutely nothing. All of those people remain unsaved. Reciting "under God"; which was not added to the Pledge of Allegiance until the 1950s, saves no one. Even if you convinced Hollywood that only the Kendrick Bothers and Roma Downey should be allowed to make movies, you still saved no one (not to mention their theology is way off anyway).

There is only one thing that has the power of God unto the salvation of man and that is the Gospel. The Gospel does not seek to transform culture. It is entirely indifferent to culture, as was Jesus. The church is the shining city on a hill because of the Gospel. Not because of some jacked-up moral code that we have gleaned is best for America. Our job is not to convict. Our job is not to give the increase. Those are the jobs of God. The problem is that over the past few decades the church has strived hard to become like the world. Through the purpose driven, seeker friendly theories of growth that eschew the Gospel for relevance we have created a church that cannot be differentiated from the world. This apostate church enjoys great privilege, honor and wealth within the machine they have cultivated. It is easy to see why they worship this world and this country. So coming back to the discussion that started all of this, a true biblical worldview is that this world is passing away. We are not of this world, despite whatever people like Gary DeMar want to sell you. You cannot escape the key verses nor even the life Christ led while on earth. Do not fall for the NAR dominionism that so corrupts the church today. This world is not our home. If it were, by default we would be going to hell. Get back to the Gospel while we still have time.

Reverend Anthony Wade -- February 25, 2020

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.