From a netfriend 11 June 2005:

Dominion theology totalitarian scheme Earlier this week Pat Robertson’s legal mouthpiece Jay Sekulow explained the animus behind Christian conservatives’ political antics. According to Sekulow, Christians have a “cultural mandate” to control society. This mandate supposedly dates back to the Book of Genesis when God issued the command to take dominion over the earth; hence the name dominion theology. It was obvious that Sekulow wasn’t too versed on the details of this idiotic doctrine (he admitted he’s no theologian) so I’ll fill in gaps.

Another responded:

I first encountered the term “cultural mandate” when I was editing an *education* study guide at a University.

It took me about a day of hunting in the reference section of the library to discover what it meant. It wasn’t in any of the obvious places (like _The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church_), yet the author of the study guide rather arrogantly assumed that everyone would know this arcane piece of sectarian theological jargon.

But from what I managed to discover then, this Sekulow fellow has misinterpreted the “cultural mandate”, which is that man (male and female, lest anyone get the wrong idea) was put in charge of the non-human creation, to care for it. In other words, the cultural mandate is to administer things, not to govern people.

And it is also a mandate to administer things responsibly — to care for the earth, not to rape it, exploit it and wear it out in the interest of short term profit.

Seems like this Sekulow has mistaken his mandate, and wants to be responsible *for* God, and not *to* him.