The Seven Mountains Mandate and dominionism

You are reading the brief version. Switch the depth control to Complete for the full treatment.

In 1975, Loren Cunningham, founder of the missionary agency Youth With A Mission, said that God had shown him a list of seven areas that shape a society - family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, government, and business - and that Christians should go into each of them for Christ. He said that Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, had received a similar list at almost the same time. For decades this was an idea about Christian influence and vocation in every part of life.

In the 2000s later promoters, many associated with the New Apostolic Reformation, recast it as the Seven Mountains Mandate: the Church is called not merely to serve in these "mountains" but to take dominion over them, placing godly leaders at the top of each, so that society is transformed before Christ returns. C. Peter Wagner endorsed it in Dominion! (2008). In American politics it has been linked to prophetic claims about elections and leaders.

It is one of several movements loosely called dominionism:

• Christian Reconstructionism, a Reformed movement founded by R.J. Rushdoony (1916-2001), taught that the civil laws of the Old Testament, including many of its death penalties, should govern modern nations, and that the gospel will gradually conquer the world before Christ returns.
• "Kingdom Now" theology of the 1980s, associated with Earl Paulk (1927-2009) of Atlanta, taught that the Church must establish God's kingdom on earth before Christ can return. Paulk's ministry ended in sexual scandal, and in 2008 he pleaded guilty to perjury.

Christians are called to serve God in every vocation, and to be salt and light in society; the four traditions teach that as firmly as anyone. But Christ said, "My kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). The Augsburg Confession condemns the teaching that "the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world" before the resurrection, and warns that "the power of the Church and the civil power must not be confounded". The Catholic Catechism rejects every attempt "to realise within history that messianic hope which can only be realised beyond history".

Verdict: vocation in every sphere is Christian; a mandate for the Church to take dominion over society before Christ's return is not.

What is believed

A Seven Mountains teacher would put it like this:

• At creation God gave humanity dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:28). Christ came to restore what was lost, and commissioned His Church to "disciple the nations" (Matthew 28:19) - not only individuals but whole societies.
• Every culture is shaped by seven "mountains" or spheres: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, government, and business.
• At present these mountains are largely controlled by ungodly forces and the demonic principalities behind them.
• God is raising up apostles, prophets and Christians in every sphere to ascend these mountains and take dominion over them, so that "the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains" (Isaiah 2:2).
• When the Church has done so, nations will be transformed, and Christ will return to a Church that has prepared the way.

Where it came from

Cunningham and Bright, 1975

Loren Cunningham (1935-2023), an Assemblies of God minister, founded Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in 1960; it became one of the largest missionary organisations in the world. He wrote that in August 1975, while on a family holiday in Colorado, God gave him a list of the "mind-molders" of society, and that the next day he met Bill Bright (1921-2003), founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, who handed him a similar list. Cunningham also said that the Christian writer Francis Schaeffer (1912-1984) had spoken of the same areas at about the same time.^†

For Cunningham and Bright the lists were about influence and mission: training Christians to serve faithfully and to bring the gospel into every area of life.

The "mountains"

In the 2000s, several charismatic teachers associated with the New Apostolic Reformation, all living and not named here, began to speak of the seven spheres as "mountains" that the Church must take. C. Peter Wagner endorsed and promoted the idea in Dominion! How Kingdom Action Can Change the World (2008), describing the Church's task as gaining dominion over every sphere of society so that God's kingdom would be manifest before Christ's return. Books, conferences and television programmes spread the language widely in charismatic Christianity.

In American politics, Seven Mountains language became associated with "apostles" and "prophets" who supported particular candidates as God's chosen instruments for taking the "government mountain", sometimes comparing them to the Persian king Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1).^†

Christian Reconstructionism

A different movement, from a different tradition, pursued similar goals. Rousas John Rushdoony (1916-2001), an Armenian-American Presbyterian minister, argued in The Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) that the civil laws of the Old Testament remain binding on all nations - a position his followers called theonomy ("God's law"). Rushdoony and his associates, including Greg Bahnsen (1948-1995) and Gary North (1942-2022), held that the civil penalties of the Mosaic law, including death for crimes such as adultery, homosexual acts, blasphemy and apostasy, should in principle be enforced. They were postmillennialists: the gospel would gradually triumph, and Christian civilisation would cover the earth before Christ's return.^†

Reconstructionism remained small, but it influenced the American Christian homeschooling and religious-right movements in the 1970s and 80s. Most Reformed churches rejected theonomy.

Kingdom Now

In the 1980s some charismatic teachers taught "Kingdom Now" theology: the Church must take dominion and establish God's kingdom on earth, and Christ cannot or will not return until it has. The best-known was Earl Paulk (1927-2009), bishop of the Chapel Hill Harvester Church in Atlanta, whose teaching drew on the Latter Rain's "manifest sons".

Paulk's ministry ended in scandal. From the 1990s women from his church accused him of sexual misconduct. In October 2007 the man raised as his nephew, who had succeeded him as pastor, announced that a paternity test had shown Earl Paulk to be his father. In January 2008 Paulk pleaded guilty to perjury - lying under oath in a deposition about his sexual relationships - and was sentenced to ten years' probation and a $1,000 fine. He died of cancer in 2009.

What the historic Church taught

On vocation. The four traditions all teach that Christians are called to serve God in every calling - as parents, teachers, artists, rulers, workers. Luther's doctrine of vocation, the Catholic teaching on the lay apostolate, the Orthodox vision of the world sanctified, and the Anglican tradition of Christian public service all affirm it. The cultural mandate of Genesis 1:28 is real. Christians should be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16).

On the two powers. The Church has always distinguished the spiritual and temporal powers. Pope Gelasius I wrote in 494: "There are two powers... by which this world is chiefly ruled: the sacred authority of the priesthood and the royal power." Augustine's City of God distinguishes the heavenly city, on pilgrimage in this world, from the earthly city, and warns against identifying any earthly order with the kingdom of God. Christ commanded: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21).

On the kingdom before the end. The creeds confess that Christ "shall come again with glory to judge the quick and the dead: whose kingdom shall have no end". The kingdom's fullness comes with Him, not before Him through the Church's conquest of society. Christ warned that before the end there would be tribulation and apostasy (Matthew 24), not a Christianised world.

On Old Testament civil law. The Church has always distinguished the moral law, which binds all, from the ceremonial and civil laws given to Israel as a nation, which were fulfilled in Christ (see Thomas Aquinas, Summa I-II, qq. 99-104; Thirty-Nine Articles VII).

The verdict

The Seven Mountains idea began as an encouragement to Christian vocation, and in that form it is unobjectionable. What it became - a mandate for apostles and prophets to lead the Church in taking dominion over government, media, education and every other sphere, as the condition of Christ's return - is something the historic Church has always rejected.

It confuses the Church's spiritual mission with temporal power. It makes the kingdom something the Church achieves rather than something Christ brings. It attaches prophetic authority to political projects, so that political defeat becomes a crisis of faith. And it tends to treat fellow citizens who do not share it as enemies occupying a mountain, rather than neighbours to be loved and served.

Christian Reconstructionism makes the same mistake in a more consistent and more alarming form: the coercive enforcement of Israel's civil penalties by a modern state. The Reformation churches, which it claims as its heritage, rejected this from the beginning.

How the four traditionsthe Catholic Churchthe Orthodox Churchthe Lutheran Churchthe Anglican Communion responded

Key personalities

Answering a modern Christian

"Christians should take the seven mountains of culture." Christians should serve God faithfully in every sphere of life - as parents, teachers, journalists, artists, politicians and business people - and the four traditions teach that as strongly as anyone. The question is whether the Church is called to serve in those spheres or to rule them. Christ refused political power when it was offered, said His kingdom is not of this world, and told His disciples that among them the greatest would be the servant.

"Jesus can't return until the Church has taken dominion." The creeds confess that He will come in glory to judge the living and the dead - when the Father wills, not when the Church has completed a programme. Christ described the time before His coming as one of tribulation and falling away, not of Christian triumph. The Lutheran Confessions condemn the idea that "the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world" before the resurrection, and the Catholic Catechism warns that this hope is fulfilled only beyond history.

"God has anointed this leader for the government mountain." Christians may support any lawful candidate they think best, and pray for all in authority (1 Timothy 2:1-2). But the Church has no authority to declare a politician God's anointed, and prophets who did so in recent elections were publicly wrong. When faith is tied to a political cause, political defeat becomes a crisis of faith, and fellow Christians who vote differently become enemies.