The Book of Amos: How Christian Dominionism Colonized a Jewish Covenant Text for Political Conquest

The Book of Amos—עָמוֹס (Amos), literally "burden-bearer" or "one who carries weight"—stands as one of the most grotesquely misappropriated texts in the Hebrew Bible by Christian Dominionist movements. This eighth-century BCE prophetic work, addressed specifically to the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (approximately 760-750 BCE), has been systematically stripped of its בְּרִית (berit, covenant) context and transformed into a fucking manifesto for Christian nationalist political conquest. The Seven Mountain Mandate—that repugnant theology claiming Christians must "conquer" seven spheres of cultural influence—has particularly brutalized Amos, ripping agricultural metaphors from their original soil-based, covenant-renewal context and replanting them in the toxic ground of theocratic imperialism.

What makes this theological colonization especially egregious is how it obliterates the text's original audience, purpose, and דָּת (dat, law/religious framework). Amos wasn't writing to fucking Christians. He wasn't establishing universal spiritual principles for Gentile political movements. He was a Judean shepherd-prophet from Tekoa delivering תּוֹכֵחָה (tokhehah, rebuke/reproof) to covenant-breaking Israelites—his own kinsmen who had violated specific מִצְוֹת (mitzvot, commandments) within an established covenantal relationship with יהוה (YHWH). To appropriate this text for Christian Dominionist theology is to commit intellectual violence of the highest order.

Christian Dominionism's first and most fundamental distortion of Amos involves the complete obliteration of the text's בְּרִית יִשְׂרָאֵל (berit Yisrael, covenant of Israel) framework. Consider what the text actually fucking says:

The verb יָדַעְתִּי (yada'ti, "I have known") here isn't casual acquaintance—it denotes the intimate covenantal relationship established at Sinai, the בְּרִית סִינַי (berit Sinai). The Midrash Rabbah on this passage explicitly connects this "knowing" to the election of Israel at Sinai and the subsequent covenant obligations. This is not a universal statement about God's relationship with all humanity. It's a specific indictment of Israel's unique covenant responsibilities.

Yet Christian Dominionism performs an obscene hermeneutical maneuver here, one that would make any honest biblical scholar vomit:

This is theological colonization at its most naked and most vicious. The Talmud (Berakhot 7a) discusses this passage specifically in terms of Israel's unique obligations under Torah, noting that greater privilege brings greater accountability—מִדָּה כְּנֶגֶד מִדָּה (midah keneged midah, measure for measure). Christian Dominionism inverts this entirely, transforming covenant accountability into Christian entitlement.

Amos 7:7-9 contains one of the most viciously misappropriated images in Dominionist circles:

The Hebrew אֲנָךְ (anak) refers to a builder's plumb line—a weighted cord used to ensure vertical alignment in construction. This was a common agricultural and construction tool in ancient Israel, used to measure whether walls were structurally sound. The metaphor is devastatingly simple in its original context: YHWH is measuring Israel against the standard of תּוֹרָה (Torah, the Teaching/Law) to determine whether the nation's structure—its social justice system, its covenant fidelity—remains plumb or has become dangerously tilted.

The Targum Jonathan on this passage interprets the אֲנָךְ as representing the דִּין (din, judgment/justice) that YHWH applies to measure Israel's adherence to covenant stipulations. The Steinsaltz Talmud notes parallels between this imagery and the מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat, justice/law) requirements scattered throughout Deuteronomy 16:18-20.

Now observe the grotesque distortion Christian Dominionism performs:

This is exegetical violence. The plumbline wasn't about Christians conquering fucking Hollywood. It was about whether Israel's treatment of the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the stranger aligned with covenant stipulations found in passages like Deuteronomy 24:17-22. Christian Dominionism has transformed an internal covenant audit into an external conquest mandate—colonizing Jewish prophetic literature to justify Christian cultural imperialism.

Perhaps no single verse from Amos has been more thoroughly gutted and repurposed than the famous justice passage:

The Hebrew מִשְׁפָּט (mishpat) and צְדָקָה (tzedakah) are covenant-specific terms with precise halakhic content. Mishpat refers to the legal justice system outlined in Torah—the actual courts, the actual treatment of cases involving the poor and powerless, the actual economic regulations regarding debt forgiveness and land tenure. Tzedakah encompasses both righteousness and the concrete acts of justice/charity mandated by Torah, including the שְׁמִטָּה (shemitah, sabbatical year) provisions, the leaving of field corners for the poor (פֵּאָה, pe'ah), and the triennial tithe for the vulnerable (מַעֲשֵׂר עָנִי, ma'aser ani).

The agricultural metaphor here is fucking crucial: כַּמַּיִם (kamayim, "like waters") and כְּנַחַל אֵיתָן (kenachal eitan, "like an ever-flowing stream") reference the irrigation systems essential to Israelite agriculture. In the Jezreel Valley and hill country where most Israelites lived, water management determined survival. Justice and righteousness, Amos declares, should flow as reliably and life-givingly as irrigation channels that ensure crops don't wither.

The Mishnah (Peah 1:1) explicitly connects these terms to concrete obligations: "These are the precepts whose fruits a person enjoys in this world but whose principal remains for him in the world to come: honoring one's father and mother, acts of loving-kindness, early attendance at the house of study morning and evening, hospitality to guests, visiting the sick, providing for a bride, escorting the dead, absorption in prayer, and bringing peace between man and his fellow—and the study of Torah is equivalent to them all."

Now witness Christian Dominionism's obscene maneuver:

The Talmud (Sukkah 49b) discusses how tzedakah is greater than sacrifices precisely because it benefits the living poor, not just God's altar. Christian Dominionism has inverted this entirely, transforming a prophetic demand for economic redistribution into a conquest theology that typically serves the interests of wealthy Christian political donors seeking to maintain their power through religious legitimation.

The conclusion of Amos contains the passage most brutally weaponized by Christian Dominionism:

The term סֻכַּת דָּוִיד (sukkat David, "booth/tabernacle of David") refers to the Davidic dynasty, here portrayed as a collapsed temporary shelter—a סֻכָּה (sukkah), the fragile booth constructed during the agricultural festival of Sukkot. This is post-exilic restoration language promising the reestablishment of Davidic kingship after the destruction wrought by Assyria and later Babylon. The reference to possessing שְׁאֵרִית אֱדוֹם (she'erit Edom, "the remnant of Edom") and הַגּוֹיִם (hagoyim, "the nations") speaks to restored Israelite sovereignty over territories that had been lost.

The Targum Jonathan interprets this passage in terms of מְשִׁיחַ בֶּן־דָּוִד (Mashiach ben-David, the Davidic Messiah) who will restore Israel's kingdom and reestablish proper worship in Jerusalem. This is explicitly a Jewish restoration prophecy about Jewish national renewal under a Jewish king in the Jewish homeland.

Christian Dominionism commits breathtaking theological violence here:

The Midrash Rabbah on this passage connects it explicitly to the ingathering of exiles (קִבּוּץ גָּלֻיּוֹת, kibbutz galuyot) and the restoration of Torah observance in the land. This is covenantal, particularist, Jewish restoration theology. Christian Dominionism has colonized this Jewish hope and repurposed it for an imperial Christian conquest agenda that would have horrified Amos.

Amos 3:7 has become a foundational text for Christian Dominionist "prophetic" movements:

The term סוֹד (sod, "secret/counsel") refers to the divine council—the concept in ancient Israelite theology that YHWH deliberates in a heavenly assembly before executing judgment or deliverance. The נְבִיאִים (nevi'im, "prophets") were those granted access to this council, receiving דְּבַר־יְהוָה (devar-YHWH, "the word of YHWH") to deliver to Israel.

This prophetic revelation was covenant-specific. The Talmud (Megillah 14a) lists forty-eight male and seven female prophets who prophesied to Israel, all operating within the framework of Torah and covenant renewal. Their prophecies called Israel back to תְּשׁוּבָה (teshuvah, repentance/return) and covenant fidelity.

Christian Dominionism brutalizes this passage by:

The apocryphal Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus 49:10) includes Amos among the twelve prophets whose bones "may send forth new life from where they lie," connecting prophetic authority to Torah fidelity and Jewish national restoration—not to Christian political movements.

Throughout Amos, agricultural imagery grounds the prophetic message in the soil of ancient Israelite agrarian life. These metaphors are viscerally concrete, tied to the אֲדָמָה (adamah, "soil/ground") that Israel was given under covenant:

Amos 9:13-15 promises:

This describes agricultural abundance so extreme that harvest bleeds into planting season—the קָצִיר (katzir, harvest) so bountiful that threshing continues while new plowing begins. This is restoration of שָׁלוֹם (shalom, wholeness/peace) to the land itself, the reversal of covenant curses (Leviticus 26:14-39) where the land had become unproductive due to Israel's covenant violations.

The Halakhah concerning agricultural laws—the שְׁמִטָּה (sabbatical year), the יוֹבֵל (yovel, Jubilee year), the regulations about כִּלְאַיִם (kilayim, mixed species), and the laws of תְּרוּמוֹת וּמַעַשְׂרוֹת (terumot u'ma'asrot, tithes and offerings)—all ground covenant relationship in actual agricultural practice. These aren't fucking metaphors for "spiritual harvest." They're concrete regulations about actual land use, actual seeds, actual produce.

Christian Dominionism commits violence against these agricultural realities by:

The Christian Dominionist weaponization of Amos represents theological colonization in its purest, most grotesque form. This movement has:

The Book of Amos thunders with prophetic rage against the exploitation of the vulnerable, the perversion of justice, and the hollow religiosity that masks covenant violation. To appropriate this text for Christian Dominionist political conquest is to perpetrate precisely the kind of oppressive violence Amos condemned. Christian nationalism has taken a prophetic text condemning the powerful who "trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth" (Amos 2:7) and transformed it into an imperial ideology serving the powerful who seek to dominate every sphere of culture.

This is supersessionist hermeneutics at its most vicious: colonizing Jewish texts, erasing Jewish context, weaponizing Jewish covenant language for Christian political purposes, and then claiming divine sanction for the whole obscene enterprise. The Book of Amos deserved better than to become a weapon in the Christian Dominionist arsenal. Jewish covenant theology deserved better than to be colonized and repurposed for Christian nationalist conquest. And anyone seeking actual justice—the kind that rolls down like waters and flows like an ever-flowing stream—deserves a hermeneutic that doesn't brutalize texts in service of power.

References

JPS Hebrew-English TANAKH, Jewish Publication Society

Steinsaltz, Adin. The Talmud: The Steinsaltz Edition. New York: Random House, 1989-.

Charles, R.H., ed. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913.

Robinson, James M., ed. The Nag Hammadi Library in English. 4th ed. Leiden: Brill, 1996.

Marshall, Alfred. The Interlinear Greek-English New Testament. 4th ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012.

Kelly, J.N.D. Early Christian Doctrines. 5th ed. London: A&C Black, 1977.