Obama Invites Christian Dominionist to Easter Prayer Breakfast

Samuel Rodriguez

On April 19, President Obama held his "second annual" Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of The White House.

Receiving a personal invitation was Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, President of The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (www.nhclc.org), also known as The Hispanic National Association of Evangelicals, the nation's largest Christian Hispanic organization.

According to Rodriguez' press release, the President said, "That as busy as we are, as many tasks as pile up, during this season we are reminded that there is something about the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective. Everybody in this room has weighty responsibilities from leading churches and denominations to helping to administer important government programs to shaping our cultures in various ways and I admit that my plate has been full as well. But then comes Holy Week and we are reminded that Jesus took on the sins of this world–past, present and future. And Jesus offered us His unfathomable grace. This magnificent grace, this expansive grace, this amazing grace causes me to reflect, to pray, to ask God for forgiveness for the times that I've not shown grace to others, causes me to praise God for the gift of His son and our Savior and that is why we have this breakfast because in the middle of critical national debates, in the middle of our busy lives we must always make sure that we are keeping things in perspective. I'm honored that you have all come here this Holy Week to join me in a spirit of prayer and I pray that this time here in prayer would strengthen us both individually as believers and as Americans."

The Hip, Multiethnic Dominionist.

Rodriguez is the "hip" version of Christian dominionism — a term loosely referring to the collection of apostles, prophets, Reconstructionists and so forth who believe that the world should be dominated by Christians. Rodriguez is a charismatic speaker, appealing to a multiethnic, politically independent audience.

Rodriguez is vice president of The Oak Initiative, a group of Christian dominionists who advocate the Seven Mountains mandate which would obliterate separation of church and state. In the dominionist view, Christians must take over seven cultural spheres, including government, business, education, arts and entertainment, family, religion, and media in order to create a Christian kingdom so that Christ can return and rule.

In introducing The Oak Initiative in 2010, Rodriguez declared,

"We need a new holiness movement, not legalism, but holiness. This Oak Initiative will resonate with a Kingdom movement that embraces cultural reformation and not just cultural engagement.  We desire to offer a counter-culture narrative where biblical truth confronts moral relativism on every single platform."

Seven Mountains Strategy.

The Oak Initiative's stated strategies include:

• The basic strategy of The Oak Initiative is to be a grassroots movement to find and help develop principled and effective Christian leaders who can mobilize and organize a cohesive force of activated Christians.

• These will be called to work on every level where government is found, from the most local to state and national levels.

• Believing our strategy will only be effective to the degree that we have leaders and active members who are the most informed and best trained possible, a basic purpose of The Oak Initiative will be the development and dissemination of resources for the purpose of constantly increasing knowledge and upgrading skills to be effective citizens.

• Action plans of The Oak Initiative may include everything from community service, promoting commerce, disaster response, as well as the evaluation, proposing, and when necessary, the challenging of government legislation and/or actions that are deemed immoral or hurtful.

• The Oak Institute is being developed to raise up effective leaders for all of the dominant areas of influence in the culture, including: government, business, education, arts and entertainment, family services, media, and the church. [Emphasis added - 7 Mountains]

• The Oak Initiative will help mobilize for and work with other organizations that share our common goals and values.

The Oak Initiative and Obama.

At the Oak Initiative conference last week, Allen Keyes was one of the speakers, saying that President Obama should be impeached for his actions concerning Libya.

The Oak Initiative, Where the 'Traditional' Christian Right Teams Up With Dominionists.

As Right Wing Watch reports, leaders of the Christian right have been merging with the apostolic prophetic leaders of the Oak Initiative. They are planning on creating "the 300" to make sure that Judeo-Christian principles are part of the government.

D. Beeksma

One of the growing crowd of American "nones" herself, Deborah is a prolific writer who finds religion, spirituality and the impact of belief (and non-belief) on culture inspiring, fascinating and at times, disturbing. She hosts the God Discussion show and handles the site's technical work. Her education and background is in business, ecommerce and law.

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