The common ground on which they walk...

There is a fundamental ground on which Christianists, Rushdoony's Seven-Mountain Dominionists, and their co-religionists walk, and it is best described by evangelical proseletyzer Greg Stier in his ham-handed article, How to share the gospel with an atheist (gotta love the stock photo he used):

Assume that, down deep inside, they do believe in God. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who genuinely rejects the existence of God. Sure, I’ve met many who have claimed God’s existence to be a lie, but I’m convinced that, down deep inside, they really do believe there’s a God.

This is a party line. Everyone knows in their heart of hearts that God is real; those who say otherwise are simply lying about their daily experience of God for selfish and harmful reasons.

Here's another version of Stier's claim:

God is the ground of our being, the relationship between creature and Creator is such that, by sheer grace, separation is not possible. God does not know how to be absent. The fact that most of us experience throughout most of our lives a sense of separation is the great illusion that we are caught up in; it is the human condition.

The only problem with this quote is that it was quoted by Richard Beck, who Fred Clark was praising just the other day, and has been applauded for its love and grace by Andrew Sullivan. The original quote was by Martin Laird, and while I don't know Laird, the other three are men whom I admire for their understanding that not everyone is going down the same road they are, and those that aren't going down that road aren't of necessity heading in the exact opposite direction. (Indeed, Beck's a universalist; without exception, he believes we all end up in the Christian Heaven someday.)

I know what they were trying to say, these men, in passing around this quote, but it seems to have gone wooshing by them all that Laird's take is just a kinder, gentler version of Rushdoony's hard line that all must confess their knowledge of God or be executed. They don't mean that, but it remains an ember of their faith that others can fan into flames of intolerance, hatred, and rage.