In comments on a personal Facebook post on Tuesday, RestoreMN head and Minnesota Legislative Prayer Caucus state director Dale Witherington agreed with a comment that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar "needs to be hung," commenting "I can think of other treasonous persons who can join that parade."
The exchange is in the screenshot above. We've blotted out the names of mutual Facebook friends, as none of these individuals participated in the discussion of the article when we drafted this post.
We're curious how many other Minnesotans the professed Christian believes should be murdered. He's critical of Attorney General Keith Ellison in an earlier comment on the post:
Dale Witherington Natalie Smetak Yes. He is a practicing, supportive member of the Muslim Brotherhood. We have plenty of video of him speaking at and supporting MB events.
Here's the post embedded below (and yes, we hae screenshots)
UPDATE 7/10/2020: Witherington appears to have removed or hidden his Facebook post. This is very similar to the fate of the YouTube of Witherington of his guest appearance, America at a Crossroads - What Will our Future Hold? at the Meeting Tree Place in Rochester on December 10, 2019 in which Witherington made a false claim about public opinion polling in the 2018 Minnesota Attorney General's race. See Is MN Senate GOP caucus voter ID push more about '18 fakelore than '12 amendment failure? for an earlier example of "cancel culture" on the right.
In Tuesday's Minnesota Reformer, Witherington made a cameo appearance in Macklin Caruso's longform piece, Merchants of misinformation target rural Minnesota Speakers travel the state spinning conspiracy stories about Islam, immigrants and now COVID-19.
Caruso doesn't examine Witherington's merchandise or resume, but there's a good compendium in last year's ReWire News article by Frederick Clarkson, A Recent Local Controversy Reveals the Theocratic Heart of ‘Project Blitz’:
Earlier this year, Minnesota state Sen. John Marty was perplexed during a committee hearing. State Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, the Republican chair of the Senate State Government Finance Committee, had proposed a $4 million cut in the budget for the Minnesota Historical Society that might have resulted in significant layoffs around the state. Asked by a Democratic senator why she proposed such a steep cut, Kiffmeyer said it was because of “controversy,” though she refused to say what the controversy consisted of.
Marty, following up on his colleague’s questioning, wondered aloud what it even meant to have “a secret controversy,” when one of Kiffmeyer’s Republican colleagues stepped in to explain that it was about, what he called “revisionist history” at the 200-year-old Historic Fort Snelling. There had been a flap over how the historical site had expanded its educational mission beyond the fort’s military history, to include the Dakota name for the area, Bdote, “with history spanning 10,000 years,” including “Native peoples, trade, soldiers and veterans, enslaved people, immigrants, and the changing landscape.” Some Republican legislators didn’t like it. ...
Witherington wrote that “we are here to encourage prayer, and to defend our religious freedom. The third pillar for the existence of our Caucus is to preserve our Judeo-Christian heritage. Prof. Green’s argument is a direct attack on that pillar. We cannot let that go. We will not be silenced.”
Sen. Marty, who is a Democratic member of the finance committee, thought it was odd and concerning that the [later] letter came from Witherington. “The minister, who is director of their prayer caucus,” he told RD, “is not a member of the legislature, is not a state employee, and should have no control over the state budget for the Historical Society.”
Witherington, who has been a presence in the state capitol for years, calls himself a “chaplain,” though he might be better described as a lobbyist for Dominionism—the theocratic idea that Christians are called by God to exercise dominion over every aspect of society by taking control of political and cultural institutions.
In 2015, he launched a project called RestoreMN, which he says is a mission to influence government as one of seven metaphorical “mountains” that Christians of the right sort are to conquer to achieve dominion. (The others are family, religion, business, media, education, and arts and entertainment.) He told one interviewer in 2016 that RestoreMN is about the “restoration of Biblical values in our nation” and promoting what he calls “Biblical citizenship.” He then claimed that separation of church and state “is not in the Constitution” and that “our nation was founded to be a nation to glorify God and to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.” His mission, he said, is the mountain of government.
He explained that if one is a Christian in government, whether the president or a state legislator, “God has called you to that role”:
“as a pastor or a chaplain at the state capitol, one of my roles is to help our state legislators who follow Christ, remember that God has assigned them the task of being a Christian in government and when they go to make laws that the laws come from principles found in Scripture. Because we want Godly laws. So that’s gonna carry over to all of the seven mountains. That’s discipleship.”
Witherington’s vision of a nation ruled under “Godly laws” notwithstanding, he claims that the Founders did not intend “a theocracy.”
But Dr. Andre Gagne, a tenured professor in the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, who has studied this movement, listened to the Witherington interview and told RD that Witherington follows the pattern of some 7M Dominionists who “present the idea in soft, non-threatening terms, saying it’s just about discipleship and not theocracy.”
“But,” he says, “what discipleship really means to them is about bringing not only one’s life—but one’s nation—under the lordship of Jesus Christ.”
At times, Witherington’s mission sounds more like the leader of an expedition for colonial conquest than a lobbyist seeking to influence legislation. Citing Biblical passages, for example, he declares that God says “we are citizens of Heaven… sent to be Ambassadors to Earth.” He says this “means we have been specifically sent by God to this place to this location to whatever our jobs are… To plant the flag as Ambassadors, carrying the message of the Gospel in the sphere of influence God has placed us in.”
Since 2017, he has, according to his LinkedIn profile, simultaneously waged his RestoreMN project while also serving as the state director of the Minnesota Legislative Prayer Caucus, and as director of community engagement for the Minnesota Family Council, the state political affiliate of the Family Policy Alliance and the Family Research Council.
Since the Minnesota Legislative Prayer Caucus is but one of 32 state prayer caucuses organized by the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation to carry out Project Blitz, it could be that the drama of the Minnesota Historical Society will be the exception. But given the unambiguous intentions of the organizers of Project Blitz, the efforts to replace the facts of history with the ethos of Christian nationalism en route to conservative Christian dominion is much more likely.
Here's a screenshot of the legislators who signed the December 2018 letter to the Minnesota Historical Society discussed in the Rewire News article (Kathy Lohmer, Jim Newberger, Cindy Pugh and Abigail Whelan no longer serve in the Minnesota Legislature).
Perhaps the constituents of those signers still in the legislature can ask them if they agree with their caucus's executive director that a sitting congresswoman and "other treasonous persons who can join that parade" to the gallows. We're also curious if given the hostility to the Dakota language (and presumably its speakers) in the controversy that prompted the letter that perhaps they'd want someone on staff who might be a bit less of a hanging judge for his fellow citizens.
ReWire's article linked to a Jennifer Brooks column, State senators try to slash Minnesota Historical Society's budget over sign at Fort Snelling. Brooks notes:
"The controversy revolves around whether or not the Historical Society is involved in revisionist history," Newman said. "I do not agree with what the Historical Society is engaged in doing. I believe it to be revisionist history."
This is the history of Bdote, where rivers merged and cultures met. Tribes and traders gathered here. Zebulon Pike staked out the site of a future fort. Dred Scott dreamed of freedom. Soldiers served their country here, and some of them died in service to their country. The fort's language school taught Japanese to scores of soldiers during World War II. Sakpedan and Wakan Ozanzan — Little Six and Medicine Bottle — were hanged here. As many as 300 men, women and children died here during the Dakota War, killed by disease and exposure in Fort Snelling's concentration camps.
Telling everyone's story doesn't diminish anyone's story.
What story is Witherington hoping to tell? Minnesota abolished the death penalty in 1911, in part as a reaction to the horrific execution by hanging of William Williams.
What exactly is this guy praying for? Who are the state legislators who are praying with him?
Related posts:
- A few other MN conservative activists signed TIL's Say No to Interfaith Dialogue declaration
- Welcome to Historic Fort Snelling at Bdote, or maybe not under Christian right's Project Blitz
- Wed. morning MN Prayer Caucus bible study in State Office Building might not be for everyone
- Things to do in Rochester MN: Meeting Tree Place repeats anti-Muslim crackpots in 2020
- Is MN Senate GOP caucus voter ID push more about '18 fakelore than '12 amendment failure?
Screenshot: RestoreMN head and Minnesota Legislative Prayer Caucus state director Dale Witherington doesn't just want Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to be executed. We're curious who else is on his list.
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