Last week, we noted that C. Peter Wagner was growing the recent attention and criticism his New Apostolic Reformation movement has been receiving and sent out an email trying to downplay all of their talk of taking dominion.

It now seems like this is becoming a pattern as Os Hillman, a leading Seven Mountains advocate and the man behind Reclaim7Mountains.com, is also seeking to downplay all that dominionism talk:

An important understanding and distinction must be stated at this point. Dominion, or perhaps a better word to use is influence, is a result of our love and obedience to God, not a goal to be achieved. It is the fruit of our obedience. Otherwise we begin to use fleshly strategies to exploit and subjugate others to our way of thinking. Jesus never sought to have dominion; rather, He encouraged others to love and obey God. It is better that we avoid the word dominion in our culture today due to the connotation that comes with this word of control and manipulation of others. It also reminds people of a flawed movement in the body of Christ called dominion theology that caused great harm to many. On August 19th during a CNN Situation Room broadcast with Wolf Blitzer, Jack Cafferty attempted to tie Michelle Bachman [sic] and Rick Perry to dominionsim theology. He took their words out of context, yet the very word “dominion” brought out the worst in the secular media for fear that Christians want to rule the world.

Of course, none of this changes the basic facts about dominionism or the agenda, as Hillman’s own website still makes clear that the US is insufficiently Christian because “we have not understood our biblical mandate to have dominion on the earth” and they have failed in their responsibility to institute “preparatory dominion, as in the earth being prepared for the return of the King”:

(1) God’s covenant people taking dominion of the earth has been the main theme of every covenant that God has ever made with mankind.The New Covenant for the church is no different with its expectation of dominion by making disciples of all nations. (2) The Dominion Process is two-fold.First, human beings are blessed by God. Secondly, these blessed human beings are given a mandate to take dominion of the earth for the purpose of blessing it. (3) The first advent of Christ was for the purpose of creating a blessed seed upon the earth – the church.The second coming of Jesus will take place after this blessed seed has completed the Dominion Process upon the earth by making disciples of all nations.

And, of course, they are focused on taking “the Mountain of Government” since it is “the most important of the mountains because it can establish laws and decrees that affect and control every other mountain.” As such, every level of government – from presidents to mayors – must be taken over by “true Apostles” because “we need to fill the entire mountain with children of the Kingdom who know why they are there” in order to establish a “virtual theocracy” and “bring the influence of heaven to bear on whatever political machinery that exists.”

And the key to this endeavor is stealth:

The goal is not just to have Christians in high places, but rather to have Christians who are called to be in high places step into that role. And wearing a “Christian” label on our sleeve isn’t the point. We need to learn to be “as wise as serpents and harmless as doves” and realize that stealth authority and influence are much preferred over overt authority and influence. A low profile diffuses resistance from the opposition. Political righteousness isn’t determined by whether someone calls himself a Christian or not anyway. That’s established by whether the political values they are prepared to defend or establish are actually righteous. A Christian who espouses abortion rights or the validity of gay marriages, for example, is worthless as a “Christian” candidate. If candidates don’t understand righteous politics, they aren’t anointed for this mountain. They may have enough Christianity in them to enter heaven, but they don’t have enough Christianity to bring the rule and reign of God down to earth. This will change as the Elijah Revolution is released upon the nations. Sons and daughters of the King who understand the call to take the seven mountains will rise to the mountaintops … One of the primary roles of future government leaders will be to instruct in righteousness. The more God’s judgments are poured out on earth, the more explicitly will they be able to give that instruction.

I guess one good way to maintain a low profile and diffuse resistance from the opposition would be to try and downplay all the talk about taking dominion. Which is exactly what they are now doing.