One City at a Time

Imagine a situation where you and your friends want to remake the world. You lust after remaking the world in your image or more correctly in the image of your God.

You are convinced that you are right, that you have devine guidance... why or why is it that religious extremists always believe that everyone else is wrong yet they are perfectly correct? Where is that much vaunted compassion? But times are tough for these zealots as there are many people opposed to your truth... so instead of trying to change policies, practices, and society through targeting national government you turn local.

Perhaps, think local, act global is the mantra for these folks. I am not talking about his imperial Bushness and the follies of his administation, I am not talking about "extremists" in Iraq but members of the religions nut whack here in the good ol' U.S. of A..

Strategizing a Christian Coup d'Etat

A group of believers wants to establish Scriptures-based government one city and county at a time.

August 28, 2005

GREENVILLE, S.C. - It began, as many road trips do, with a stop at Wal-Mart to buy a portable DVD player.

But Mario DiMartino was planning more than a weekend getaway. He, his wife and three children were embarking on a pilgrimage to South Carolina.

"I want to migrate and claim the gold of the Lord," said the 38-year-old oil company executive from Pennsylvania. "I want to replicate the statutes and the mores and the scriptures that the God of the Old Testament espoused to the world."

DiMartino, who drove here recently to look for a new home, is a member of Christian Exodus, a movement of politically active believers who hope to establish a government based upon Christian principles.

At a time when evangelicals are exerting influence on the national political stage - having helped secure President Bush's reelection - Christian Exodus believes that people of faith have failed to assert their moral agenda: Abortion is legal. School prayer is banned. There are limits on public displays of the Ten Commandments. Gays and lesbians can marry in Massachusetts.

Christian Exodus activists plan to take control of sheriff's offices, city councils and school boards. Eventually, they say, they will control South Carolina. They will pass godly legislation, defying Supreme Court rulings on the separation of church and state.

"We're going to force a constitutional crisis," said Cory Burnell, 29, an investment advisor who founded the group in November 2003.

"If necessary," he said, "we will secede from the union."