Christian Reconstructionism (was Re: Question for Group Re: (U.S.) Founding Fathers and Religion

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Feb 22, 2004, 3:28:45 PM2/22/04

PART I

forl...@aol.complex (Lord Calvert) wrote:

>:|>> Bush II: Methodist (former Episcopalian) but with strong ties to Christian
>:|>> Reconstructionism.
>:|>
>:|>Christian Reconstructionism? Sounds like post modernism or
>:|>deconstructionism.
>:|
>:|Christian Reconstructionism is considered a political movement but it is as
>:|much a religious movement as it is a political one. It is grounded in the
>:|belief that American politics and American law is wholly Christian in origin
>:|and the government, in order to get back to the purity of God, has to dispense
>:|with the Constitution (or claim that it backs their totalitarian beliefs) and
>:|revert back to a system based on Mosaic law. Deliberate falsification of
>:|history to support their agenda is their most often used tactic...something one
>:|of their leaders (David Barton) does with great aplomb.
>:|
>:|The two most prominent Christian Reconstructionist organizations are the
>:|Chalcedon Foundation (created by the so-called "founder" of Reconstructionism,
>:|RJ Rushdoony) and the much older National Reform Association. Both are very
>:|frightening groups. Terrorist groups like Operation Rescue also abide by the
>:|principles of Christian Reconstructionism.
>:|
>:|www.chalcedon.edu
>:|www.nationalreform.org
>:|

FOR ANY WHO WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE:
=================================================
http://www.hopeint.org/off/9705b.htm
Religious Persecution in America?

The National Reform Association was founded in Xenia, Ohio, in 1863 by
eleven Protestant denominations. Their purpose was to nullify the First
Amendment, which guarantees the separation between church and state. Dr.
David McAllister said, "Those who oppose this work now will discover, when
the religious amendment is made to the Constitution, that if they do not
see fit to fall in line with the majority, they must abide by the
consequences, or seek some more congenial clime." Dr. David McAllister, at
the National Reform Convention at Lakeside, Ohio, August, 1887.

It would seem evident that Dr. McAllister saw himself as upholding the
truth while others of differing convictions were in the wrong. He would, no
doubt, champion the cause of toleration if he were in the minority.
However, it is quite evident that if he were in the majority, the minority
would suffer.

The question for us today is, Have we learned from the distant past, and
the not-too-distant past? Present-day evangelical Gary North wrote, "We
must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for
Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that
there is no religious neutrality. . . . Then they will get busy in
constructing a Bible-based socially political, and religious order, which
finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God." Goldstein, One
Nation Under God, 41.

Columnist Cal Thomas wrote, "If we will not be constrained from within by
the power of God, we must be constrained from without by the power of the
State, acting as God's agent." Harper's Magazine, March 1995, 30.

******************************************************************
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=gary+amos,+Rushdoony,+reconstructionist&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=%25K4j5.131%24x74.5005%40nntp.msen.com&rnum=3
http://makeashorterlink.com/?X25C64E47

In 1990, COR created a political program and action arm called the National
Coordinating Council (NCC), which advocates abolition of the PUBLIC SCHOOLS
the IRS and the Federal Reserve System by the year 2000, and seeks to
Christianize all aspects of life from the arts and sciences to banking and
the news media. (See "Kingdom Strategy," page 11.) The NCC hopes to
accomplish its agenda in part by setting up a "kingdom" counter-culture of
sorts, including a "Christian" court system. (In the meantime, NCC leaders
propose an "aggressive fierce Christian version of the ACLU" to fight for
its views in regular courts.)

The NCC plans call for a grass-roots effort to elect their kind of
Christians to county boards of supervisors and sheriff's offices, and
disturbingly, once in power, to establish county militias. COR chief
Grimstead says the militias are needed because the federal government can't
be trusted to defend the U.S. against an invasion from a future "Communist
Mexico." This implies, of course, not Minutemen on the Lexington Green, but
fully equipped local "Christian" armies.

The COR program is being taken to 50 North American cities over the next
five years. The method is to hold invitation-only "Merge Ministry Seminars"
geared toward the development of "councils of pastors." According to
internal documents obtained by Church and State, COR/NCC teams are coming
to
San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Little Rock, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas/Fort
Worth, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, B.C. in 1991.

"Our present war with the forces of darkness," wrote Grimstead recently,
"will not be won in any city or county until the Christian leaders thee
deliberately form a coalition of 'spiritual generals' who will work
together
as a single unit." Failing to create "such a unified D-Day approach," he
continued, "is to ensure our defeat." He has invited COR members to move to
the San Francisco Bay area this year [1991] to create a model "D- Day
effect" - and plans a national invasion of the Bay area Oct 11-20.
Grimstead's views of an ecumenism of the right may spring from his own
pilgrimage through differing religious groups. The 57 year old activist
started out in the Presbyterian tradition, but moved to an
ultra-conservative off-shoot of the main denomination. An area director of
the evangelical youth ministry Young Life for 1957 to 1877, he left that
movement to form the now-defunct Council on Biblical Inerrancy. Grimstead
is
currently affiliated with a San Jose, Calif., congregation of the
Pentecostal Holiness Church, a charismatic denomination.

Grimstead believes Christian Right sympathizers can put aside theological
differences to work toward common political and societal goals. At a
COR-sponsored "Solemn Assembly" at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
in 1986, he told one reporter, "We think we can influence every sector of
American in the next 10 years so it will be almost unrecognizable. Not just
this Coalition on Revival, but fundamentalist, evangelical, charismatic and
Catholic Christians whose foundation is the Bible and the Lordship of
Christ. We're going to bring America back to its biblical foundations.
"We're standing on a commitment to getting God's will done on earth as it
is
in heaven," he observed. "We think no Christian can argue with that,
because
it is part of the prayer the Lord taught us to pray. Anybody who can go for
that is with us."

Early on, Grimstead seemed to be having some success. The COR Steering
Committee, featured on the group's letterhead, includes a cross-section of
conservative Christian activists. In addition to the prominent evangelicals
mentioned earlier, names on the list include Robert Simonds of Citizens for
Excellence in Education, Reagan administration official Carolyn Sundseth,
"creation-science" advocate Duane Gish, anti-abortion leader Peter Gemma,
"pro-family" activist Connaught Marshner, HOME - SCHOOLING attorney Michael
Farris, Intercessors for America chairman John D. Beckett, Dennis Peacocke
and Bob Mumford of the controversial "Shepherding/Discipleship" movement,
and Edith and Franky Schaeffer, wife and son respectively of the late
evangelical guru Francis Schaeffer.

But Grimstead's radicalism seems to be threatening the group's unity. In
addition to the goals already mentioned, his recent NCC "ministry merge"
document also called for all "leadership Christians" to practice fasting
and
learn how to cast out demons. Local church groups, he said, must form a
Christian voting bloc and be linked together into a "single, area-wide,
mobilizable, spiritual army."

In addition to evangelizing all junior and senior HIGH SCHOOLS , NCC goals
include taking control of all SCHOOL BOARDS, with a view toward replacing
PUBLIC SCHOOLS with PRIVATE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS by the year 2000.
Grimstead's ideas have led to some schisms with COR. Defectors include
Religious Right activist and Biblical Scorecard publisher David Balsiger,
Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for America, GARY AMOS of REGENT
UNIVERSITY, and Robert Dugan of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Among other's who seem to be scuttling away from the taint of Rushdoony's
views and the emerging militance of COR/NCC is Don Wildmon, who actually
sued an official of the National Endowment for the Arts for slander after
she inaccurately attributed Rushdoony's views on capital punishment and
democracy to Wildmon and his American Family Association. (Rushdoony
himself
is a long accepted leader in conservative circles, having served on the
Board of Governors of the elite Council for National Policy, and on the
advisory board of the Conservative Caucus and Conservative Digest.) Gary
Amos now claims that the COR/NCC agenda exists only on paper and blames it
on Grimstead. NAE's Dugan says COR has gotten too Reconstructionist for
him.

In his own defense, Grimstead told Christianity Today that the COR/NCC
program is a fair representation of the views of Pat Robertson and D.James
Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries. Top Kennedy aides George Grant and
Charles Wolf are listed as two of the NCC's 45 activists.
The ties to Robertson are also clear. Joe Kickasola, a professor at
Robertson's Regent University (formerly CBN University), was a principal
author and with Gary Amos, defender of the 25 Articles at last year's
Theological Summit. Regent U. Board Chair (and COR Steering Committee
member) Dee Jepson is another link that shows the influence of FOR and
Reconstructionist thought.

According to Robertson, Jepson was the main advocate of the name change
from
CBN to Regent University. Robertson explains that the meaning of the new
name states the mission of the school. He says a "regent" is one who
governs
in the absence of a sovereign." And Regent U. trains students to rule until
Jesus, the absent sovereign, returns.

"One day, if we read the Bible correctly," he predicts, "we will rule and
reign along with our sovereign, Jesus Christ. So this is a kingdom
institution to teach people how they may enter into the privilege that they
have as God's representatives here on the face of the earth." regent U. has
700 graduate students in education, communications, religion and law - with
plans for 3,000 (possibly 12,000 through "extension programs").
The Christian Right is clearly building for the future, and COR is playing
a
pivotal role by building the theological and political alliances for the
1990s and beyond.

Fred Clarkson, a Washington D.C. freelance writer, reports extensively
about
the Religious Right. This story is an expanded version of a piece that
appeared in the Nov/Dec issue of Mother Jones magazine.

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Feb 22, 2004, 3:29:08 PM2/22/04

PART II

=======================================================================
RECONSTRUCTIONISTS AND THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT

Rushdoony has appeared "a number of times" on Pat Robertson's 700
Club, according to Christianity Today and The Wall Street Journal (CBN
acknowledges two appearances); North has also appeared on the program. Both
have been repeat guests on televangelist and religious right organizer D.
.James Kennedy's television broadcasts, and Kennedy has called their
biblical commentaries "essential" works.
Rushdoony addressed a 1983 Free Congress Foundation conference on
criminal justice reform; the conference's program described Rushdoony as a
"prominent Christian writer." In 1986, Free Congress PAC gave one of its
two largest donations to the unsuccessful U.S. Congressional campaign of
Joseph Morecraft, a Rushdoony follower who has stated, "The only hope for
the United States is the total Christianization of the country at all
levels...."
In the fall of 1986, the Traditional Values Coalition and Citizens
for Excellence in Education advertised "Rutherford Institute Seminars" in
which Rushdoony was a featured speaker -- along with Rutherford Institute
founder John Whitehead. Rushdoony was described in the advertisement as a
"theologian...who presents scriptural framework for building orderly
structures in society [sic]."
Whitehead, one of the country's leading conservative evangelical
attorneys, has called Rushdoony one of the two major influences on his
thought. Rushdoony wrote the introduction for Whitehead's The Separation
Illusion, and the reconstructionist patriarch is the most frequently cited
author in the bibliography for Whitehead's The Second American Revolution
-- a favored text among evangelical activists (The Institutes for Biblical
Law is among the works cited).
Rushdoony reportedly helped Whitehead found the Rutherford
Institute, and has been a director of the Institute and a participant in
its speakers bureau. Herbert Titus, the founding dean of Pat Robertson's
Regent University Law School, has said that the school has used Rushdoony's
and North's works as course texts. Regent public policy professor Joseph
Kickasola has written for a Rushdoony publication. Kickasola and Regent
adjunct professor Cary Amos were teamed with Rushdoonyites David Chilton
and Peter Leithart, among others, in a three-day theological debate -- the
"National Dialogue on the Kingdom of Cod" -- at a 1990 Coalition on Revival
conference.
Robertson has said, "I don't agree with reconstructionism,''
although in addition to hiring professors with reconstructionist beliefs or
ties he hosted activist and author George Grant as a speaker at the first
Christian Coalition conference in 1991. Grant had been the keynote speaker
at an annual reconstructionist conference, and had written a
reconstructionist text edited by Gary North.
Grant's work was part of a series of four reconstructionist tracts
edited by North that Jerry Falwell has described as "a tool Christians
need" for the difficulties "that confront society," according to
Christianity Today.
(Source of Information: The religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance &
Pluralism in America, A publication of the Anti-Defamation League. (1994)
pp 111)

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Feb 22, 2004, 3:29:43 PM2/22/04

PART III

Thy Kingdom Come: Christian Reconstructionism

The Religious Right is not a monolithic movement. Like the mythical
Hydra, the Religious Right is multi-headed. While the various groups that
make up the Religious Right may agree on many key issues, they fall out
over others, especially issues of theology and its relationship to the
political order.
Some groups, like the Christian Legal Society and the National
Association of Evangelicals, while theologically conservative and generally
accommodationist on church-state issues, are not unequivocally opposed to
the concept of separation of church and state. Some of
their supporters may agree that church-state separation is a good idea but
argue that the concept has been taken too far in the modern age.
Other Religious Right organizations, such as Pat Robertson's
Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, and Jerry Falwell's now
defunct Moral Majority, are more vociferous in their attacks on Jefferson's
wall of separation, brazenly proclaiming that they see no need for
separation of church and state. They often attempt to portray separation as
a myth or tie it to Communism or some other distasteful philosophy.

Extreme Anti-Separationsim
At its most extreme, the Religious Right encompasses a loose
conglomeration of organizations that forthrightly call for scrapping the
First Amendment and reordering government along the lines of the Bible's
Old Testament. This movement is known variously as Christian
Reconstructionism, theonomy, or dominion theology.
Christian Reconstructionism is premised on the idea that people
must submit totally to God in all areas of their lives, including the
governments they form. At first thought, this may not sound so threatening
to many believers. Many religious people in America believe in submitting
to God's will. The problem with Reconstructionists is that they believe
only they have the correct and proper interpretation of "God's will." And
their interpretation is quite extreme. In a country where an estimated
2,000 separate religious denominations strive to live together in peace,
the
problem inherent in the Reconstructionist approach is obvious.
Adding to the difficulty, Reconstructionists believe that the Old
Testament contains a blueprint for a model society. Accordingly, they would
have the government enforce Old Testament dictates through law. They have
no use for democracy as we understand the concept today. They are quick to
label those who do not agree with them "apostates," "blasphemers," or even
"tools of Satan." The society they burn to create would severely restrict
the religious freedom of most Americans.
The Reconstructionists' insistence on doctrinal purity has
fractured the movement more than once. Despite the infighting, elements of
the movement continue to surface in many American churches of various
denominations, especially those with a rigid fundamentalist or Pentecostal
bent.
Because Reconstructionist ideas are so unusual, there is little
threat that the philosophy's adherents will ever have their way in the
United States. The primary threat of their ideas stems from the steady and
increasing influence they have on conservative Christianity. Some church
leaders, while not buying into the entire Reconstructionist package, have
adopted portions of the ideology, particularly the movement's opposition to
separation of church and state. As a result, more and more conservative
church leaders are turning away from the idea that separation protects
religious liberty and toward adopting some variation of the notion that the
state should enforce religious dictates by law. This is a tragic
development. Separation of church and state will not survive unless it is
supported by the religious community.
Even with the newfound support, Reconstructionists have a long way
to go before achieving any of their public policy goals. Still, the
movement has come a long way in just under thirty-five years and should be
watched.

RJ.Rushdoony
The best known proponent of Reconstructionism in the United States
is Rousas John Rushdoony, a writer and theologian who heads a
California-based Reconstructionist think tank called the Chalcedon
Foundation. In 1959 Rushdoony published the first Reconstructionist tome,
titled By What Standard?: An Analysis of the Philosophy of Comelius Van
Til. Van Til, a Dutch theologian, is considered the movement's godfather.
Going back even further, Reconstructionists trace their ideas to
John Calvin (see chapter 2), the French theologian who called for
governments to purge "idolatrous practices" from the lands and advocated
church-state union. As noted earlier, Calvin's Geneva was a harsh theocracy
that suppressed religious liberty. Nevertheless, Geneva under Calvin
remains the Reconstructionists' model society.

The Reconstnrctionist Agenda
What do Reconstructionists believe? A complete analysis of the
movement is not possible in a few pages. Entire books have been written
analyzing the philosophy. A survey of the movement's views, however, shows
that a reconstructed society would bear little resemblance to the
religiously neutral, pluralistic American society of today.
The first thing to understand about Reconstructionists is that they
consider "pluralism" a dirty word. By their thinking, anyone espousing
theological error--that is, anyone who fails to agree with them totally on
religious matters--has no claim to religious freedom and may have
his or her actions curtailed by the government. Religious toleration, a
system whereby various faiths contend for members and public voice in an
open dialogue, is anathema to the Reconstructionists because it affords
people an opportunity to be exposed to theological error.
As Rushdoony put it, "In the name of toleration, the believer is
asked to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist,
the pervert, the criminal, and adherents of other religions as though no
differences existed."(1)
Virginia-based Reconstructionist Byron Snapp was even harsher in
his analysis of the dangers of religious toleration and pluralism. Writing
in a 1987 issue of The Counsel of Chalcedon, a Reconstructionist journal,
Snapp observed, "The Christian must realize that pluralism is a myth. God
and His law must rule all nations.... At no point in Scripture do we read
that God teaches, supports or condones pluralism. To support pluralism is
to recognize all religions as equal. Such a recognition denies God glory
that belongs uniquely to Him. Clearly our founding fathers had no intention
of supporting pluralism for they saw that the Bible tolerates no such
view."(2)
From this starting point, Reconstructionists go on to formulate a
reordered society that would strip away most forms of government, leaving
citizens accountable to local church authorities. Taxes would be replaced
with mandatory tithing, and social services would be provided by church
groups. Security and police services would be provided by local militias.
Reconstructionists advocate the death penalty for a variety of
offenses, and some observers have noted that the scope of punishable
offenses is so great that if a reconstructed society is ever implemented in
the United States, few will be left to live in it!
Reconstructionists go beyond advocating the death penalty for
criminal acts such as murder and rape and would apply it to a variety of
"offensive" acts, some of which are religious in nature. A partial list of
offenses meriting the death penalty under Reconstructionism include:
striking or cursing a parent, adultery, incest, bestiality, homosexuality,
"unchastity," witchcraft, incorrigible delinquency, blasphemy, propagation
of"false doctrines," and sacrificing to false gods."
Commenting on this list, Rushdoony observed, "To the humanistic
mind these penalties seem severe and unnecessary. In actuality, the
penalties, together with the Biblical faith which motivated them, worked to
reduce crime. Thus, when New England passed laws requiring the
death penalty for incorrigible delinquents and for children who struck
their parents, no executions were necessary: the law kept the children in
line."(3)

Gary North
Rushdoony's unusual views won him an early disciple in Gary North,
an economist. North later married Rushdoony's daughter, but the two men had
a falling out over an obscure theological point some years ago and are
reportedly estranged today. Rushdoony, if asked, does not acknowledge North
and other theonomists outside his sphere of influence as real
Reconstructionists.
North is a prolific writer whose bespectacled appearance hides an
aggressive theocratic personality. In his books and newsletters he blasts
popular culture and lambastes those who do not espouse his version of
Christianity.
Based in Tyler, Texas, where he runs something called the Institute
for Christian Economics, North also has little use for democracy and once
wrote, "The modern world has been threatened by the rise of mass democracy,
the politics of one man, one vote.(4)
When it comes to implementing the death penalty for various
religious "crimes," North's preferred method is stoning. To North, stoning
has a nice biblical ring to it. North has researched the issue extensively
and once listed five reasons why stoning is the method of choice for
executing today's idolater: stones are plentiful and available at no cost;
no single blow can be traced to one person, thus reducing feelings of
guilt; stoning displays the collective responsibility for crime prevention;
executions should be public events; and stoning is symbolic of God's
crushing the head of Satan as prophesied in Genesis 3:5.(5)

Reconstructionist Connections
Scholars H. Wayne House and Thomas D. Zee examined
Reconstructionism in an interesting book published in 1989 called Dominion
Theology: Blessing or Curse? (Not surprisingly, the two side with "curse.")
House, a theology professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and Ice, a
Baptist minister who once followed Reconstructionist teachings, make
a good case that the movement is gaining influence in ultra-conservative
fundamentalist Christian churches.
House and Ice say Reconstructionists are becoming more and more
willing to put aside doctrinal differences and work with other conservative
religious groups. They hope to draw into their network ultra-Calvinist
strains of Presbyterianism, Baptists, and assorted charismatic Christians.
Some of these groups, hearing only part of the Reconstructionist
message, are falling for it. Oddly enough, the new alliance includes some
charismatics, Christians who believe in a "spirit-filled" theology often
marked by speaking in tongues, faith healing, and loud, spontaneous
worship services. Naturally, Reconstructionists don't tell the charismatics
that under their system such forms of worship would be considered unlawful
and might warrant the death penalty.
Rushdoony himself blasted charismatics in a 1982 book titled Law
and Society. Wrote Rushdoony, "The mindless, meaningless babble of such
worship is common to paganism, ancient and modern, where it is often
associated with spiritistic possession. It is in any form alien to the
Biblical faith. It is a form of the 'abominations' condemned by Biblical
law. It is not found with any faithful and consistent affirmation of the
sovereignty of God and a full trust in the atoning blood of Christ."(6)
Strong words. But when Rushdoony was asked by Church (Pr State
magazine in 1988 to explain how he expects to build bridges to charismatics
after writing so harsh a denunciation, his response was rather lame: "I am
not [charismatics'] judge. The Lord Jesus Christ is. Too many Christians
feel they have been called to sit in judgment of everyone."(7) This from a
man who advocates the death penalty for those propagating "false
doctrines"!
The real answer is that the Reconstructionists don't intend to tell
charismatics what they think of their worship. They are only interested in
whatever support they can cull and hope charismatic leaders won't bother
to do the research necessary to uncover statements like
Rushdoony's.

The Coalition on Revival
More alarming than Rushdoony's musings or North's weird economic
theories based on free market capitalism are the antics of the Coalition
on Revival (COR), one of the more active Reconstructionist-based
organizations.
COR is headed by Dr. Jay Grimstead, who founded the group in 1982.
Though the California-based organization denies it is Reconstructionist,
some of its views fall more or less into lock step with adherents of that
philosophy.
At one time, COR's steering committee list read like a virtual
Who's Who in Religious Right circles. The Rev. Donald Wildmon, head of
the pro-censorship American Family Association, was a member. Other
Religious Right luminaries who claimed membership included televangelist D.
James Kennedy, Robert Dugan of the National Association of Evangelicals,
the Rev. Tim LaHaye of the Traditional Values Coalition, former U.S. Rep.
Mark Siljander, a Michigan Republican whose congressional comeback effort
in Virginia failed in 1992, and Ed McAteer of the Religious Roundtable.
Gary North is also a steering committee member.
Unhappily for COR and its sympathizers, the group's militant
agenda, which calls for abolishing public education, forming county-wide
"militias" and dismantling the Federal Reserve banking system, began to
leak out in the late 1980s and early 1990s.(8) In the wake of the dis-
closures, the more prominent Religious Right leaders began scurrying away
from the group; several hastily resigned from the steering committee.
Wildmon went so far as to sue an official with the National Endowment for
the Arts who attributed some of COR's ideas on capital
punishment to him.
COR has issued a series of "Worldview" documents and a list of
twenty-five theological tenets. Investigative reporter Frederick Clarkson,
who often writes about fringe elements of the Religious Right, reports that
one tenet reads in part, "We deny that anyone, Jew or Gentile, believer or
unbeliever, private person or public official, is exempt from the moral and
juridical obligation before God to submit to Christ's Lordship over every
aspect of his life in thought, word, and deed."(9) Once again the
Reconstructionist-type intolerance comes rapidly to the
surface. Just who is to determine how to interpret "Christ's Lordship"?
Could it be Jay Grimstead?
Grimstead himself seems to think so. In December 1991 Grimstead
became infuriated when Bill Allen, a conservative California Republican,
decided to run in a primary election for a U.S. Senate seat. Grimstead was
angry because he wanted all California far-right forces to throw
their support behind former U.S. Rep. William E. Dannemeyer, an
ultra-conservative ally of the Religious Right. AlLen's candidacy, he
feared, would split the Religious Right vote.
COR activists drafted a harshly worded letter to Allen warning him
of the consequences if he did not drop out of the race. Although the letter
was never mailed, a copy somehow got to Allen. He was appalled by the
strident tone it took.
Grimstead said three things would occur if Allen did not drop out.
First, activists would work to "expose to our Christian network the
foolishness and destructiveness of your efforts and encourage them to see
your campaign for what it truly is--a political abortion which can only
aid, indirectly, the forces of darkness." Second, the letter said, Allen's
future political plans would be jeopardized. Last and most ominously,
Grimstead warned, "We suspect that God Himself will take efforts to
discipline you and judge this action of yours however He sees fit. Any of
us who have been disciplined by our Heavenly Father can tell you
He can deal very forcibly with us."(10)
Although the actual letter sent to Allen was softer in tone and
deleted the reference to divine reprisal, the candidate took the original
threat seriously and asked state officials to investigate. The California
attorney general's office declined to do so. In the end, both Allen and
Dannemeyer were trounced in the primary.
While Grimstead and company enjoy meddling in California politics,
COR and other Reconstructionist groups by no means limit the scope of their
activities to the political sphere. A COR document issued in 1990 contains
a twenty-four point action plan that covers virtually all
aspects of life, including the arts and popular culture. To counteract what
they see as the negative effect of the television, COR calls for producing
a Reconstructionist version of"Saturday Night Live."(11)
Other COR goals relating to film and television are not so amusing.
Dr. Theodore Baehr, a COR steering committee member who heads the Christian
Film and Television Commission, has called for implementation of a
restrictive film code that would ban, among other things, "lustful kissing"
and "dances that suggest or represent sexual actions" in movies. The code
also declares that, "No movie shall be produced that will lower the moral
standards of those that see it," a guideline so loose it would give COR
censors what they really want: veto power over all films.(12)
Baehr's code was originally endorsed by Cardinal Roger Mahony of
Los Angeles, an arch-conservative Roman Catholic who in 1992 called on the
motion picture industry to voluntarily adopt the Baehr standards. If the
industry refuses, Mahony said, the government should intervene. When
reporters exposed Baehr's ties to Reconstructionism, Mahony quickly broke
contact with him and backed away from the code.

Pat Robertson and Reconstructionism

At this point, readers might be wondering how Pat Robertson fits
into all of this. After all, where there are wild eyed anti-separationists
to be found, Pat Robertson is usually not far behind. But when it comes to
Reconstructionists, Robertson at least tries to keep a distance.
Robertson disagrees with a key component of Reconstructionist
theology concerning the end of the world. Reconstructionists believe
Christians of their stripe will rule over the world before the second
coming of Christ and perhaps pave the way for His return. This view,
common among evangelicals in the 19th century but largely out of favor
today, is called postmillennialism.
Robertson, by contrast, is a premillennialist. He believes that
"born- again" Christians will not rule over the planet until a period of
chaos and conflict following Christ's return.
Robertson has said of Reconstructionism, "I admire many of these
teachings because they are in line with the scripture. But others I cannot
accept because they do not correspond with the biblical view of the sinful
nature of mankind or the necessity of the second coming of Christ."(13)
In June 1992 Robertson told Christianity Today, "I don't agree with
Reconstructionism, although I do believe that Jesus is Lord of all the
world. I believe that he is Lord of the government, and the church, and
business and education, and, hopefully, one day, Lord of the press. I see
him involved in everything. And that's why I don"t Want to stay just in the
church, as such. I want the church to move into the world."(14)
The comments sparked an interesting response from Gary DeMar, a
Georgia-based Reconstructionist. In the letters to the editor section of
the magazine, DeMar wrote, "I was a bit confused when Pat Robertson claimed
that he doesn't 'agree with Reconstructionism' but does believe that 'Jesus
is Lord of all the world...of the government, and the church, and business
and, hopefully, one day, Lord of the press.' This is the heart and soul of
Reconstructionism."
Concluded DeMar, "At the very least, Pat Robertson, as I've always
suspected, is an operational Reconstructionist."(15)
Although Robertson shuns the title "Reconstructionist" and says he
disagrees with the movement over "endtime" theology, that hasn't stopped
him from using books by Rushdoony and North at his Regent University. Also,
Herbert Titus, former dean of the university's School
of Law, once attended a small, Reconstructionist-affiliated Orthodox
Presbyterian church in Oregon and has allowed his essays to appear in
Reconstructionist publications. Titus, however, says he is not a
Reconstructionist.

More Reconstructionist Connections
Reconstructionist ideas also influenced John Whitehead, founder of
the Rutherford Institute, one of the most active of the Religious Right
legal aid groups. Whitehead says he is not a Reconstructionist but readily
admits to liking some Reconstructionist ideas. Rushdoony wrote the
introduction to Whitehead's first book, The Separation Illusion, an attack
on separation of church and state, and the two appeared at a Washington,
D.C., Religious Right conference in 1985.
Also apparently influenced by Rushdoony is John Lofton, a far-right
columnist who was fired by the ultra-conservative Washington Times
newspaper (controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his controversial
Unification Church). Lofton, who now puts out an anti-separationist
newsletter, occasionally writes columns for Rushdoony's Chalcedon
Foundation. What do these spider web-like connections mean? How
concerned should we be about Christian Reconstructionists?
To begin with, any group that advocates policies as radical as the
Reconstructionist agenda should be watched. Like the U.S. neo-Nazi groups,
the Reconstructionists are a potentially dangerous force that cannot be
ignored just because they are currently scarier on paper than in real life.
At the same time, Americans must be cognizant of where the real
danger lies. There is very little threat that Reconstructionists will seize
power next week and institute their odd ideas. Rather, as has been pointed
out, the real danger lies in the influence they have had on some
churches.
With that thought in mind, the best strategy for fighting
Reconstructionism is simply a strong defense of separation of church and
state. The Reconstructionist agenda will not appeal to any church leader
who sees the value in maintaining a healthy distance between church and
state. It needs to be said time and time again, therefore, that separation
protects churches and helps them grow. If American church leaders lose
sight of this, they are open to being tempted to embrace portions of the
Reconstructionist agenda. They won't become theonomists overnight, but they
might sign up with a Pat Robertson crusade or agree to show an
anti-separationist video at church. Those types of small victories are what
the Reconstructionists want--for now.

Fighting the Reoonstructionists
The fight against Reconstructionism must be two-pronged. Many
mainstream Christian bodies find theonomistic teachings abhorrent and
completely anti-biblical. These organizations must take the lead in working
to persuade their brethren in other theological camps not to fall under the
sway of Rushdoony and company.
At the same time, secular opponents of Reconstructionism must come
to the forefront, While religious communities wage war against
Reconstructionism from a theological perspective, secular groups can attack
it from a public policy angle. The majority of Americans do not favor
executing children for any reason. Nor do most Americans, even those who
believe that the sexual revolution has gone too far, want to see adulterers
or fornicators dragged into the streets and stoned.
Americans, by and large, do not believe that prosecuting people for
blasphemy is a good idea. They also do not want to see the government
making judgments about which religious beliefs are "true" and warrant state
support and which are "false" and warrant state persecution.
Some Reconstructionists are now making feeble attempts to portray
themselves as "moderates" on the religious scene, but few are fooled by
this stance. Reconstructionists are radicals who would impose a religious
state on America. They want to line those who disagree with them up against
a wall and stone them to death. They favor mandatory tithing to churches
and executions for blasphemy. No matter how one tries to recast it, this is
what Reconstructionism is about. These are not moderate positions, and they
are not positions that Americans, even conservative Americans, want to see
implemented.
Exposing these facts should be enough to cut Reconstructionism off
at the knees. if the past is any guide, it will do exactly that. In 1990
Mother Jones magazine, a journal of liberal opinion, exposed the
theonomistic leanings of the Coalition on Revival. Almost immediately
members of the mainstream Religious Right who had been flirting with the
group began deserting it. When the dust settled, Religious Right luminaries
Beverly LaHaye, Robert Dugan, Donald Wildmon, and others had jumped ship.
Unlike the Reconstructionists, COR does not advocate stoning or the
death penalty for a variety of "religious crimes." Their agenda is much
more vague, but portions of it are extremist enough to weaken its support
once it is examined under the harsh light of media scnrtiny. If COR's
stated goals are radical enough to cause desertions like this, the even
more extreme agenda of the Reconstructionists should be more than enough to
scare away any religious leaders tempted to flirt with the philosophy and
still be taken seriously in the American religious community.
Most Reconstructionists can't be argued with or persuaded to return
to the more sane folds of American theology. Separationists shouldn"t waste
too much time on efforts like that. Rather, the emphasis should be on
containing the spread of Reconstructionism and isolating it to
where it belongs--the lunatic fringe of extreme right-wing Christianity. If
successful, this strategy will eventually relegate Reconstructionism to the
long list of forgotten ideas in American religious history.
As recently as thirty years ago some misguided religious leaders in
America still preached that segregation of the races was "God's plan." It
took a while, but eventually religious leaders came to realize that no
worthwhile church would deny membership to anyone based on race or ethnic
heritage. Today there are still faith groups that preach racism, but they
are few in number and almost universally scorned in the United States.
Separationists must work diligently to make sure that the same fate awaits
the Reconstructionists.
American theology is diverse. Some Americans are deeply devout,
others are completely irreligious. Such diversity keeps our country
vigorous in spirit. It also guarantees, unfortunately, that certain strains
of religious fanaticism will always be with us. Religious extremists will
never hesitate to equate their twisted political and social notions with
the word of God. This is their right in a free society.
But while these groups may have the right to exist, they have no
right to demand to be taken seriously by the American people. They are, in
fact, fair game for exposure and condemnation. In the end, these two
powerful weapons may be all we need to spare America the tyranny of the
Reconstructionists.

Notes,

(1). Rob Boston, "Thy Kingdom Come," Church & State 41 l(September 1988):
612.
(2). Ibid., 7-8.
(3). Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Vallecito, CA:
Ross House, 1973), 236.
(4). Boston, 7.
(5). H. Wayne House and Thomas D. ice, Dominion Theology: Blessing or
Curse? (Portland, OR: Multnomah Press), 73-74,
(6). Rousas John Rushdoony, Law and Society (Vallecito, CA: Ross House,
1986), 160.
(7). Boston, 10.
(8). Fred Clarkson, "HardCOR," Church & State 44 (January 1991): 9-12.
(9). Clarkson, 11.
(10). Frederick Clarkson, "Divine Discipline," Church & Stare 45(March
1992): 13-14.
(11). Clarkson, "HardCOR,"11.
(12). "Cardinal Teams Up With Fundamentalist Radical To Censor Movies, TV,"
Church & Stale 45 (march 1992): 19.
(13). Boston, 9.
(14). "Robertson Bullish On Family Channel, UPI," Christiantiy Today (June
22, 1992):51-52.
(15). Oary DeMar, "Letters," Chrintianity Today (August 17, 1992): 10.
(SOURCE OF INFORMATION: Why the Religious Right is Wrong About Separation
of church & State., Robert Boston, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, N.Y. (1993)
pp 181-194)

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PART IV

The battle being waged by the Christian Right to reclaim American for
Christ is being waged on other fronts as well. The extreme right-wing of
the movement is prominently occupied by the Reconstructionists, who believe
fervently that the law given by God for the political, legal, and spiritual
ordering of ancient Israel as set forth in the Old Testament is intended
for all people in all ages. Consequently, the United States should adopt
and implement the Mosaic Code as the theocratic foundation of its legal
system. Under the Reconstructionists' political theology, religious liberty
for all Americans would essentially cease, and all heresy would be stamped
out through the enforcement of biblical law.
One new strategy of the Reconstructionists is to identify all Christian
pastors across America who support their views, as well as those who do
not. According to Reconstructionist leader Jay Rogers, "the idea is to
divide the church in America into two camps: 1) those who are committed to
the battle for a Christian republic, and 2) those who are committed to 'the
myth of neutrality' or who are openly opposed to rebuilding a Christian
nation." All church leaders would be asked to sign a statement confirming
their allegiance; the lists would then be Posted on the Internet, made the
subject of press releases, and disseminated by mail. Those not aligning
with the cause would be "recruited" for membership. National synods of the
new "Confessing Church in America" would be held in odd-numbered years over
the next decade. The ultimate goal would be to build a spiritual army
"organized to re-build America upon the principles of the Bible," according
to Reconstructionist precepts. The "Confessing Church" would also issue
prayer Proclamations to call attention to misfits such as "Jesse Jackson,
Peter Comes (the openly homosexual 'Professor of Christian Morals at
Harvard'), or whoever are the 'pestilent prelates' God raises up and
hardens to oppose the 'Confessing Church' in the 21st century." The
"Confessing Church" would also pay for full-page ads in newspapers
around the country proclaiming that "A vote for Al Core is a sin against
God." Finally, as the United States was formed by a "Declaration of
Independence," the new America would be governed by a formal
"Declaration of Dependence Upon God," which calls for, among other
things, a turn away from "humanism and lawlessness" to a "covenanted
nation of biblical warrant."
In many ways, of course, the rhetoric of the mainstream Christian Right
is sometimes indistinguishable from that of Reconstructionists. Jerry
Falwell, for example, asserts that "God promoted America to a greatness as
no other nation has ever enjoyed because her heritage is one of a republic
government by laws predicated on the Bible." David Barton, in his widely
circulated book, The Myth of Separation, argues that the founding fathers
intended "that this nation should be a Christian nation; not because all
who lived in it were Christians, but because it was founded on and would be
governed by Christian principles." But the overall political agenda of the
Christian Right is less extreme, less strident in tone, and less theocratic
than the Reconstructionists. The Christian Right's political model might
have theocratic tendencies, but it would be a distinctly "Christianized"
version based more on the New Testament covenant emphasizing grace than the
Old Testament covenant emphasizing law. There would be, in theory, freedom
for non- Christians to worship according to conscience, with the hope that
they would, over time, become convinced of the merits of a nation
constructed on biblical principles. Non-Christians would not be denied the
right to worship privately according to their own beliefs, but they would
be expected to submit to a Public agenda that implemented Christian ideals
in many quarters. There would be Christian prayer in the public schools,
Christian symbols in the public square, public monies available to
religious enterprises (with most going to those operated by the culturally
dominant faith, Christianity), and governments in which the principal seats
were held by Christians.
The operative church-state legal framework would be Chief Justice William
H. Rehnquist"s nonpreferentialism. Rather than placing limits on
government's ability to be an advocate of religion in general, which is the
Supreme Court's current and controversial position, nonpreferentialism
holds that government can advance religion provided it is done
nondiscriminatorily. The problem with this doctrine, although hardly a
problem for the Christian Right, is that it would permit the dominant
religion of the culture (Christianity), by sheer force of a numbers
advantage, to be the religion most often advanced. In other words, formal,
programmatic discrimination against religious minorities would be illegal,
but a de facto discrimination would not.
Journal of Church and State, Volume 41, Summer 1999, Number 3, Editorial:
Thoughts on the Possible Realignment of the Christian Right in Twenty-first
Century America, by Derek H. Davis pp 436-438
=====================================================================

The Christian Right's foray into Politics over the last three decades
fails in large measure because the aim of theocratizing the nation goes far
beyond the biblical mandate they claim to rely upon. It has long been a
source of agitation for many faith-minded Americans that so many
conservative Christians enter the battle to Christianize the nation without
any real sense of a biblically-based political theology for doing so.
Obviously, there are many within the Christian Right movement who have a
political theology that differs from that which will be presented here, and
their views deserve respect, but there are many who seemingly have thought
very little about the subject whom perhaps could be persuaded to reconsider
their motives for seeking to reconstitute America along theological lines.
This is neither the time nor place to attempt anything like a full
exposition of the Bible's teaching on Christian political involvement, but
examining even a few basic principles will serve to make the main points of
what the Bible seems to teach.
We might begin by suggesting that if one examines the New Testament, he
finds that it is in no way a textbook for political ordering. It says a
great deal about Christians responsibility to submit to Political
authority, but is virtually silent about any political regime's duty to
operate pursuant to theological underpinnings. The Church Fathers sensed
this only too well, and that is why they began to look elsewhere for
assistance in formulating a political theology. They looked first to the
Old Testament, but it was clear to them that the New Testament had
abrogated the Mosaic law, and thus not wanting to rejudaize Christianity,
they turned to the only other available source of information, classical
political philosophy. For several centuries to come, Christian theologians
were prone to bathe this secular philosophical tradition in the Bible, thus
creating a political theology that merged church and state and made their
goals synonymous. This was a fatal error, leading to centuries of political
efforts to define and enforce acceptable religious belief, and the
consequent elimination of hundreds of thousands of "heretics" whose sole
crime was to subscribe to religious beliefs outside state-mandated norms.
It was also an unnecessary error, given that the New Testament upon which
they supposedly relied never prescibes such a merger of state power and
religious activity. Unfortunately, this error is now being repeated by the
Christian Right.
The Reconstructionists make the most obvious error, that which the Church
Fathers knew was not an option-failing to see that the New Testament offers
Christ as the fulfillment of all the demands of the Law. Christ's
announcement in Matthew 5:17 that He had come to fulfill the Law indicated
that he was the One to whom all of the Law (civil, moral, and ceremonial)
had pointed and was to find its ultimate fulfillment. In other words, all
of the holy demands of the Law, all of the strict requirements of being a
nation ruled by God, found their completion in Jesus Christ, who alone
could satisfy them. Add to this Christ's admonition to obey the Roman
secular authorities, and the fact that He never took steps to reinaugurate
Israel's old theocratic system, and we are left with the conclusion that
every nation should avoid, on biblical grounds, constructing a theocracy
based on the teaching of the Old Testament.
But of course most of the Christian Right do not advocate, in the fashion
of the Reconstructionists, a reinstatement of the entire body of the Old
Testament Law, but rather an increased attention to timeless, divine
principles that presumably will give the nation the moral rudder it now
lacks. This sounds more palatable, but what are the dhine principles to be
implemented, and what is the ultimate goal of this implementation? If we
look at the political issues emphasized by the Christian Right, we get some
idea of what divine principles are to be implemented. The Christian Right
advocacy for banning abortions, allowing school prayer, penalizing
homosexuality, and permitting government-funded private education all
assume that the Bible supports these positions. Whether these positions
represent the correct interpretation of the Bible is not the question here,
but rather the fact that these positions, based on the Bible and enacted
through political means, amount to the creation of a religious state,
something the founding fathers specifically declined to do, choosing
instead to place national sovereignty under the people rather than God,
evidenced most demonstrably by the fact that they chose to omit God's name
from the Constitution after deliberating the possibility of inclusion.
Moreover, the political enforcement of these positions surely has as its
aim the goal of pointing all citizens to God as the ultimate source of
truth, and teaching that the most critical aspect of God's truth is
humanity's need for salvation of the soul. Is this not a confusion of
kingdoms (earthly and heavenly) which Christ himself taught against? Did he
not teach that spiritual goals and political goals are not synonymous? In
Matthew 22:21, Christ said that Christians are to "render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's." Christ
here was clearly affirming that spiritual commitments are to be
distinguished from political commitments.
Christ perfectly modeled this distinction between spiritual and temporal
ends. He never advocated the overthrow of the Roman government, or even its
adjustment, in favor of a more theocratic order. He never identified
Himself with any particular form of government, nor any political party,
nor did He even remotely suggest that it was the duty of human government
to aid His mission. Christ was amazingly unconcerned with much of what
falls under the rubric of politics. He preached against tyranny and
oppression, of course, but his main mission was to bring men to Himself and
it was apparently a secondary matter to Him what specific form of
government (monarchy, democracy, etc.) men live under. The temporal was for
him far less important than the eternal; thus He focused on the spiritual
rather than the physical aspects of Kingdom building. The idea of a
"Christian" nation, it seems, was foreign to him.
If Christ was largely unconcerned with many of the details of politics
and far more concerned with soul winning, perhaps Christians should be too.
Christians in America, it seems, and this is perhaps what Paul Weyrich and
Cal Thomas seem to be saying, frequently become too concerned with the need
for government to become identified with Christian principles. Many
Christians wrongly believe that Christianity will flourish in a more
Christian political environment. History shows the opposite to be true.
Christianity grew more rapidly than at any time in history in the first
three centuries after Christ's death when Christians were persecuted for
not bowing the knee to Caesar. Christians understandably sought more
favorable political conditions for themselves. By the fourth century,
Christianity was so widespread that it became impossible to control it by
means of outright persecution; the emperor Constantine placed it on a
neutral basis with other religions in 313 A.D., and in 3130 A.D. Theodosius
made it the official religion of the empire. The faith thereafter lost much
of its vitality, distinctiveness, and vigor, owing to its Preferred
political status. Merged with government, Christianity became consumed with
temporal affairs--armies, police, crime, taxation, commerce, economics,
etc. and less focused on the mission outlined for it by Christ and the
apostles. In its witness, the Church gradually began to rely less on the
power of its spiritual message than on the power of the sword to enforce
its politicalwill. The persecuted had turned persecutor. Is this not the
same path the Christian Right would now have us follow?
I would hope not to be misunderstood here. I am not advocating
indifference to politics, just as I do not think Weyrich and Thomas are
advocating indifference to politics. As John Courtney Murray once said,
politics is part of the moral universe, and Christians are rightly
concerned with morality. In their daily lives, Christians are to be
Christian citizens, not merely Christians, But because the Bible does not
require that political and governmental affairs be Christian, those who are
Christians are free to join with non-Christians in our democratic form of
government to make laws that from the perspective of the American people as
a whole, not from the perspective of their own interpretation of the Bible,
best ensure the common good. In this process, negotiation and compromise
are not dirty words, and Christians should be satisfied with laws that fall
short of biblical standards as they understand them. Biblical standards may
dictate the contributions that Christians make toward the formation of laws
if they believe their views advance the common good, but Christians do not
fail God if the negotiated product, even laws on such controversial areas
as abortion, school prayer, and homosexuality, do not meet their standards.
The everwidening religious pluralism that is America is not, according to
this model, a threat. Indeed, religious pluralism pursuant to this model is
something to be celebrated rather than denounced because the religious
views of all citizens are given equal standing under the law. The goal,
even duty, of Christians should be to respect non-Christians' equal
ownership of the nation, and to 戢ssist the government in the promotion of
the welfare of all American citizens based upon a shared morality, not to
set up a Kingdom of God on earth. It was Reinhold Niebuhr who said that it
is the achievement of democracy, not a sectarian Political agenda, that is
the heart of a Christian public philosophy
Meanwhile, Christians should vigorously pursue the spiritual mission of
the Church, which is to do good to all people (Galatians 6:10), and to
spread the gospel (Matthew 28:19-20). They might call upon the government
to assist them in the first task, but not in the second.
Journal of Chruch and State, Volume 41, Summer 1999, Number 3, Editorial:
Thoughts on the Possible Realignment of the Christian Right in Twenty-first
Century America, by Derek H. Davis pp 438-441

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PART V

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
8. RECONSTRUCTIONISTS

Reconstructionism in its broadest sense describes the rebuilding by
Christians of' every aspect of` Western civilization according to biblical
strictures, beginning in the United States. It is founded on the belief
that God's laws, as described in the Bible, pertain to all people
throughout history and comprise the only legitimate basis for culture.
According to their literature and statements, reconstructionists
would raze most of the structures of American life; a streamlined society
would be rebuilt according to the Mosaic code, which is considered an exact
blueprint for social order. This effort to remake America as ancient Israel
entails the abolition not merely of` the federal government and public
education, but also, as sociologist Anson Shupe has written in The Wall
Street Journal, of the entire Western liberal tradition, including "popular
sovereignty, civil liberties, and 'natural rights' concerned with
such things as freedom of conscience and separation of church and state."
As Shupe notes, there would be no place in this reformed society for Jews,
Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, Baha'is, humanists, atheists, or even
non-reconstructionist Christians. Movement founder Rousas John (R.J.)
Rushdoony has stated that "in the name of toleration, the believer is asked

to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist, the

pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions."
Indeed, the writings of leading members of the movement suggest
that any dissenters could be "eliminated." Gary North, Rushdoony's
estranged son-in-law and one of reconstructionism's most militant
spokesmen, has asserted that "the perfect love of God necessarily involves
the perfect hatred of God's enemies." North also declares: "That's how our
King wants us to pray against His enemies: let them he destroyed."
Such a destruction may be abetted by reconstructionism's most
controversial concept: the installation of the legal code of the Hebrew
Bible as the basis for civil law. This idea has led the most rigorous
reconstructionists, those associated with the teaching of Rushdoony, to
espouse the death penalty as a possible punishment for adulterers,
homosexuals, blasphemers, incorrigible juvenile delinquents, and
propagators of false doctrines, among others. Non-capital offenses could be
punished by slavery
In addition to fostering Godly families, "the purpose of the law is
to suppress, control, and/or eliminate the ungodly..." Rushdoony has
declared.'

THE PROBLEM WITH RECONSTRUCTIONISM

Absolutism and parochialism may be virtues in a religious system,
but not in a pluralistic democracy. And while reconstructionism's core
adherents are neither particularly numerous (roughly 40,000, according to
Gary North) nor unified, many of its teachings -- and teachers -- have been
absorbed into the religious right movement.
This fact should not be overstated. The r-eligious right is not
primarily reconstructionist, and most of those who do adopt some
reconstructionist teachings reject its more extreme views (and its
postrnillennialism). Christianity Today and other observers maintain that
most churchgoers have probably never heard of Rushdoony. Religion professor
James Manis states, "One often hears fundamentalist leaders articulate the
denial,' I'rn not a Reconstructionist, but...,' and then proceed to expound
a Reconstructionist tenet or two."
Reconstructionism's influence among Christian activists dates to
the 1960s and 1970s, when reconstructionists were elucidating an
evangelical political philosophy even as evangelicals began to turn to
politics after a half-century of abstention. This philosophy drew on
historic themes of dominion -- the: notion that believers are called to
exercise control over all the earth -- that came to undergird the religious
right's efforts. In 1981, Newsweek named Chalcedon, Rushdoony's Vallecito,
California, reconstructionist center, as the religious right's leading
thinktank. Robert Billings, founder of the pioneering National Christian
Action Coalition and later a Moral Majority leader, reportedly stated: "if
it weren't for [Rushdoony's] books, none of us would be here."
Rushdoony's impact on the religious right is especially disturbing
because, in addition to their theocratic intolerance, his hooks have
maligned Jews, Judaism, and Blacks, and have engaged in Holocaust
"revisionism." Other leading reconstructionists have also attacked Jews.
And though their unflinching theocratic rhetoric keeps these thinkers off
of major forurns, their association with major religious right figures and
groups underscores the apparent insensitivity of many of the "pro-family"
movement leaders.

R.J. RUSHDOONY

Rushdoony was born in New York City in 1 916, the son of Armenian
immigrants whose ancestry reportedly traces an unbroken succession of
ecclesiastics dating to the fourth century. He earned a Ph.D. in
educational philosophy, and served as a Presbyterian pastor; a missionary
to Native Americans, and a John Birch Society activist. In 1959, he
launched reconstructionism with By What Standard?, an interpretation of the
apologetics of the late Calvinist theologian Cornelius Van Til (while Van
Til is considered the "patron philosopher" of
Reconstructionism, he reportedly opposed the movement).
In 1964, Rushdoony established Chalcedon (cal-see-don), named for a
fifth century church council, to disseminate his ideas. The author of
dozens of books, he pumped out reconstructionist volumes in relative
obscurity throughout the 1960s. At the same time, he continued to cultivate
his arch-conservative secular credentials: in July 1965, according to The
John Birch Society Bulletin, he shared a conference podium with former
Noire name law school dean and popular far-right radio and television
propagandist Clarence Manion, wile once declared that the U.S. government
had adopted "in whole or in part" eight of the ten commandments of the
Communist Manifesto.

THE MOVEMENT TAKES HOLD

In 1973, Rushdoony published his massive tome, The Institutes of
Biblical Law, a 900-page exposition of the Ten Commandments (whose title
evoked John Calvin's epochal institutes of the Christian Religion). The
work became reconstructionism's benchmark text. Rushdoony's views were
absorbed by a younger and often fractious coterie, who in turn est:ablished
their own reconstructionist thinktanks and churches. The busiest enclaves
include Tyler, texas, the site of Gary North's Institute for Christian
Economics (North holds a Ph.D. in history), and Atlanta, home to both Gary;
DeMar's , American Vision and Joseph Morecraf't's Chalcedon Presbyterian
church.

RECONSTRUCTIONISM'S DISCONTENTS

The movement that Rushdoony sired has never disguised its disdain
for modern liberal govarnance and culture. "The state is a bankrupt
institution," Rushdoony asserts. The only alternative to this bankrupt
"humanistic" system is "a God-centereed government": "The choice," says
Rushdoony acolyte David Chilton, "is Christian morality or no morality."
Rushdoony believes that "every Law-system must maintain its
existence by hostility to every other- Law-system and to alien religious
foundations...." He and his kinsmen consider democracy to be "heresy"
Rushdoony calls it "the great love of the failures and cowards of` life."
lie insists that "Christianity is completely and radically
anti-detnocratic; it is committed to a spiritual aristocracy."
This aristocracy foregoes noblesse oblige, however. North says:
"People who use the phrase 'the universal brotherhood of man' to Prove an
underlying unity based mutual respect and love are rnisusing the Bible's
testimony. The universal brotherhood of man is a brotherhood of` death and
destruction."
Many Christians have failed to grasp this notion, according to
Byron Snapp. a Virginia reconstructionist. "[T]]he Christian must realize
that plualism is a myth." he maintains. "At no point in Scripture do we

read that God teaches, supports or condones pluralism. To support pluralism
is to recognize all religions as equal."

North goes even further: he encourages the likeminded to use
America's religious liberty to destroy itself:
"We must use this doctrine of religious liberty to gain

independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people

who know that there is no religious neutrality. . . Then they will get busy
in constructing a Bible-based social, political and religious order which

finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God."

THE ENEMIES OF GOD

In an appendix to David Chilton's 198'7 reconstructionist reading
of the prophecies of Revelation, The Days of Vengeance, colleague James
Jordan wrote, "At the present time, the Jews are apostate enemies of
God...." Breaking with most evangelicals, Jordan asserted that "Modern
apostate Jews have absolutely no theological, and therefore no historical
right to the land ol` Palestine." Thus, "Christian Zionism is blasphemy. It
is a heresy."
Jordan maintains a disinterested view of political events in the
Middle East: "As Christians we see both Jews and Moslems [sic] as groups
that have rejected Christ as Messiah, and who have opposed the true faith.
If they want to convert, we rejoice. If` they want to kill each other off,
then that is too bad, but let them have at it -- there's nothing we can do
about ii."
In his 1999 work, The Judeo-Christian Tradition, North mused on the
Jews rejection of Jesus with his customary brio: "The Jews as a covenanted
nation refused to listen. Instead, they killed Jesus -- divorce through
execution. They submitted their- own final divorce papers to God by killing
the bridegroom To their shock and horror, the Bridegroom returned from the
dead to issue the final divorce decree to Israel."
In killing God, North argues, the Jews bankrupted their religion
and joined the ranks of humanists -- the enemies of God.l He states: "The
crisis of modern Judaisrn is today the crisis of humanism. Rushdoony
identified the underlying problem a generation ago [in a 1967 newsletter]:
Judaism grew out of the rejection of Jesus Christ and steadily became
humanism, and the Talmud is essentially the exposition of humanism under
the face of` Scripture."'
As Rushdoony maintained in his Institutes: "Although Israel between
the captivity and the crucifixion observed the sabbaths of` the earth, at
other Points they despised God, and they crucified His Son, so that the
curse fell upon them and the earth for their sake."

"THE INSTITUTES" -- HOLOCAUST "REVISIONISM"

In The Institutes, Rushdoony elaborates 18 offenses which, he
contends, merit the death penalty according to Mosaic law. In his
exposition of one of these offenses -- bearing "false witness in a case
involving a capital offense" -- he writes:
The false witness borne during World War II with respect to Germany
is especially notable and revealing. The charge is repeatedly made that six
million innocent Jews were slain by the Nazis, and the figure -- and even
larger figures -- is now entrenched in the history books. Poncins, in
summarizing the studies of the French Socialist, Paul Rassinier, himself a
prisoner in Buchenwald, states:

"Rassinier reached the conclusion that the number of Jews who died
after deportation is approximately 1,200,000 and this figure, he tells us,
has finally been accepted as valid.... Likewise he notes that Paul [sic]
Hilberg, in his study of the same problem, reached a total of 896,292
victims."
Very many of these people died of epidemics: many were executed.(5)
Rushdoony argues that the purportedly inflated Holocaust death toll derives
from a "basic insensitivity to truth which too extensively characterizes
this age." Histories of the Holocaust, he contends, are exaggerated to
shock the insensitive:
"...a generation schooled to violence in motion pictures, radio,
literature, and press could riot be expected to react to a murder or two.
The result was a desperately twisted mentality which could only appreciate
evil as evil on a massive scale. Did tile Nazis actually execute many
thousands, tens, or hundred thousands of Jews? Men to whom such murders
were nothing had to blow up the figure to millions.... The evils were all
too, real: even greater is the evil of bearing false witness concerning
them...."
Poncins, bitterly anti-Jewish, is ready to report the errors in
thc` accounts of Nazi murders of Jews; he is not ready to be distressed
that any were brutally murdered.
Despite the ostensible compassion of this last phrase, these
passages comprise a striking addition to the canons of` Nazi apology. The
addition may be termed Holocaust reconstructionism: Jews were wrongfully
killed by Nazis; the number of victims was vastly inflated to shock a
desensitized modern world; the Nazis were therein victims of false witness;
false witness is punishable hy execution. One may deduce from this twisted
scheme that those who refute Holocaust "revisionism" and its false
calculations deserve death.

GARY NORTH AND THE "FINAL SOLUTION"

Gary North wrote three appendices to Rushdoony's Institutes, adding
his imprimatur to his father-in-law's hateful theories. While apparently
refraining from outright revisionism himself, he adds an unpleasant coda to
Rushdoony in The Judeo-Christian Tradition:
"The words 素inal solution' have been associated with Hitler's
Third Reich. The phrase is used in history textbooks to describe the
removal of Jews through extermination. But what people fail to understand
is that the concept of the 素inal solution' is universal. Ever): religion
and every social philosophy has a doctrine of final solution, some means of
eliminating 爽nbelievers'.... The Jews will eventually be reconciled to
God through iaith in Jesus Christ.... This is God's "final solution" in
history to the wall of` separation between gentiles and Jews."
Nazism here becomes a natural and fitting approach to reconciling
differences even God is a kind of Fuhrer.

bucke...@nospam.net

unread,

Feb 22, 2004, 3:30:14 PM2/22/04

PART VI
Some info on Reconstructionism:

I did not preview any of these pages, I do suspect from a quick glance over
them, that there are going to be both pages supportive of the movement and
those that are not supportive.

Seems like a balanced combination to me.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.ifas.org/fw/9501/chalcedon.html

http://www.ifas.org/fw/9607/rushdoony.html

http://www.chalcedon.edu/

Now it is interesting that when I typed in the name Rushdoony, R J, doing a
web search using the go network search engine, the following web page was
listed.

Kindly note, the the connection with Regent U. Pat Roberetson's graduate
University, on the grounds of CBN here in Va beach, Va.

http://www.regent.edu/acad/schdiv/syllabi/fall97-syllabi/cdh520sl.html

Under Reconstructionism one can find the following:

http://admin.qrd.org/qrd/www/rrr/recon.html

http://www.publiceye.org/pra/magazine/chrisrec.html

http://www.johnco.cc.ks.us/~mfoster/reconstruction.html

http://www.phptr.com/ptrbooks/ect_0136245609.html

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/2850/Theonomy.html

http://www.camano.net/~dcloud/otimothy/tl07000d.htm

http://www.teleport.com/~mkmcconn/calvin.html

http://www.execpc.com/~awallace/reconstruction.txt

Some info on Reconstructionism:

I did not preview any of these pages, I do suspect from a quick glance over
them, that there are going to be both pages supportive of the movement and
those that are not supportive.

http://www.execpc.com/~awallace/endtime.htm

http://listserver.charis.net/archives/genevanet/389

http://www.ifas.org/fw/9703/review.html

http://apocalypse.berkshire.net/~ifas/fw/9801/godly.html

http://www.faith.edu/pulpits/90_01.htm

http://geneva.rutgers.edu/src/faq/reconstruction.txt

http://www.kipertek.com/forerunner/puritan/PS.Puritan_Storm_Rising.html

http://mel.org/humanities/theology/THEOL-christian.html

http://hugin.imat.com/~sheaffer/rightwing.html

bucke...@nospam.net

unread,

Feb 22, 2004, 3:30:21 PM2/22/04

PART VII

The U.S. Constitution:

"A Legal Barrier to Christian Theocracy"

For example, by interpreting the framing of the Constitution as if
it were a document inspired by and adhering to a Reconstructed version of
Christianity, Reconstructionists avoid such inconvenient facts as Article
VI of the Constitution. Most historians agree that Article VI, which states
that public officials shall be "bound by oath or affirmation to support
this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a
qualification to any office or public trust under the United States," was a
move toward the disestablishment of churches as official power brokers, and
the establishment of the principles of religious pluralism and separation
of church and state.
Rushdoony writes however, that "The Constitution was designed to
perpetuate a Christian order," then asks rhetorically: "Why then is there,
in the main, an absence of any reference to Christianity in the
Constitution?" He argues that the purpose was to protect religion from the
federal government, and to preserve "states rights."'25
Such a view requires ignoring Article VI. Before 1787, most of the
colonies and early states had required pledges of allegiance to
Christianity, if not a particular sect, and that one be a member of the
correct sect to vote or hold public office. Part of the struggle toward
democracy at the time was the "disestablishment" of the state churches-the
power structures of the local colonial theocracies. Thus the "religious
test' 'was a significant philosophical matter. There was little debate over
Article VI, which passed unanimously at the Constitutional Convention.26
Most of the states soon followed the federal lead in bringing their legal
codes into the constitutional framework. Delaware was the first, in 1792,
to bring its laws into conformity with this constitutional provision .27
Gary DeMar, in his 1993 book America's Christian History: The
Untold Story, also trips over Article VI. He quotes from colonial and state
constitutions to prove they were "Christian" states. And of course,
generally they were, until the framers of the Constitution set
disestablishment irrevocably in motion. Yet DeMar tries to explain this
away, claiming that Article VI merely banned "government mandated religious
tests"-as if there were any other kind at issue. He later asserts that they
did not intend disestablishment. 28
By contrast, historian Garry Wills sees no mistake. The framers of
the Constitution, he concludes, stitched together ideas from
"constitutional monarchies, ancient republics, and modern leagues... but we
(the U.S.) invented nothing, except disestablishment... No other government
in the history of the world had launched itself without the help of
officially recognized gods and their state connected ministers."29
Similarly, historian Robert Rutland, of the University of Virginia, writes
that the United States was founded "on purpose in the bright light of
history. The mere existence of the nation," he observed, "was itself a kind
of Declaration of Independence from the folk gods and religious and
semi-religious myths that had always and everywhere surrounded governments
and their rulers."30 .
Disestablishment was the clear and unambiguous choice of framers
of the Constitution, most of whom were serious Christian They were also
well aware of the history of religious persecuti carried out in the name
of Christianity. The Protestant Reformation had a horrific record of
persecution and religious warfare long befo it provided the basis for
religious liberty. Rutland notes that one ten of the population of Germany
was killed during the Thirty Years W between 1616 and 1648, "the very time
that the New England Puritans were settling in the New World in quest of
their own religio liberty, and incidentally, their freedom to persecute in
their ow way."31 Similarly, neo-conservative scholar Michael Novak observ
that the authors of the Constitution "had learned from the bitter exp
rience of the religious wars that they had to treat well the matter
religion. They had to do so in a practical way that would work." 32
Even Gary North (who holds a Ph.D. in History) sees the connection
between Article VI and disestablishment, and attacks Rust doony's version
of the "Christian" Constitution. North writes th "In his desire to make the
case for Christian America, he (Rus doony) closed his eyes to the judicial
break from Christian Ame ica: the ratification of the Constitution." North
says Rushdoony "pretends" that Article VI "does not say what it says, and
does n mean what it has always meant: a legal barrier to Christian theoc
racy," leading "directly to the rise of religious pluralism. 33 The
long-term national goal," he concludes, "has to be the substitute of a
Trinitarian national oath for the present prohibition against reli gious
test oaths. 34
25. R. J. Rushdoony, The Nature of the American System, The Craig
Press, vi., 1965.
pp., 2-3.
26. Leo Pfeffer, Church, State and Freedom, Beacon Press 1967. p.
254 (revised edition).
27. Albert J. Menendez, No Religious Test: The Story of Our
Constitu tion's Forgotten Article, Americans United for Separation of
Church & State, 1987. p. 11.
28. Gary DeMar, America's Christian History The Untold Story, Amer
ican Vision, 1993. pp. 88-89.
29. Garry Wills, Under God: Religion and American Politics, Simon
and Schuster, 1990. p. 383.
30. Robert Rutland, "The Courage to Doubt in a Secular Republic,"
in James Madison on Religious Liberty, Prometheus Books, 1985. p. 208
[209].
31. Ibid., p. 209.
32. Michael Novak, ibid., p. 300.
33. North, Political Polytheism, op. cit., pp. 681-685. A non-Recon
structionist advocate of the "Christian Nation" doctrine, Harold O.J.
Brown, agrees with North. "America made a mistake in the year 1787.
Officially, government ...broke with Christianity," God and Politics, Four
Views on the Reformation of Civil Government, Gary Scott Smith, ed.
Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1989. p. 132.
34. North, ibid., p. 568.
Frederick Clarkson, "Eternal Hostility, The Struggle Beteen Theoracy and
Democracy." Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine (1997) 83-86
****************************************************

Cary Kittrell

unread,

Feb 22, 2004, 3:49:11 PM2/22/04

Wow. Sharia for Christians. Amazing.

-- cary

bucke...@nospam.net

unread,

Feb 23, 2004, 7:11:40 AM2/23/04

PART VIII

Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 18:22:54 -0500
From: John Popelish <jpop...@rica.net>
Organization: This space not available for advertising.
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Christian Reconstructionism (was Re: Question for Group Re:
(U.S.)
Founding Fathers and Religion

> Christian Reconstructionism . . .

Here is a site with a big collection of the most un-American, racist
and ironic quotes you could ever imagine from the leaders of this
movement:

http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/words.htm

--
John Popelish
########################################

From: "Michelle Malkin" <hypa...@comcast.net>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Christian Reconstructionism (was Re: Question for Group Re:
(U.S.) Founding Fathers and Religion
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 22:40:31 -0500
This one just about says it all:

The chuch today has fallen prey to the heresy of democracy.

R.J. Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: Craig Press,
1973), p. 747.

For while modern theologians will affect a weepy attitude over the
sufferings of "humanity" in general, or in the abstract, the prophets
suffered from no such humanitarian impulses.
David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of
Revelation (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1984), p. 269.

What the ten commandments set forth is a strategy. This strategy is a
strategy for dominion.
Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics and the Ten Commandments (Tyler,
TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1986), p. 7.

Those who are obedient to His commands will rule the world, reconstructing
it for His glory in terms of His laws. Psalm 2 shows God laughing and
sneering at the pitiful attempts of the wicked to fight against and
overthrow His Kingdom. He has already given His Son "all authority in
heaven
and earth," and the King is with His Church until the end of the age (Matt.
23:18-20)! Is it possible that the King will be defeated? He has, in fact,
warned all earthly rulers to submit to His government, or perish (Ps.
2:10-12). And the same is true of His Church. The nation that will not
serve
us will perish (Isa. 60:12); all the peoples of the earth will be subdued
under our feet (Ps. 47:1-3)--promises made originally to Israel, but now to
be fulfilled in the New Israel, the Church.
David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of
Revelation (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1984), p. 117.

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy
responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ - to have dominion in
the civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.
But it is dominion that we are after. Not just a voice.
It is dominion we are afier. Not just influence.
It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time.
It is dominion we are after.
World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We
must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle
for anything less.

If Jesus Christ is indeed Lord, as the Bible says, and if our commission is
to bring the land into subjection to His Lordship, as the Bible says, then
all our activities, all our witnessing, all our preaching, all our
craftsmanship, all our stewardship, and all our political action will aim
at
nothing short of that sacred purpose.

Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the
land - of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and
governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority
of
God's Word as supreme over all judgments, over all legislation, over all
declarations, constitutions, and confederations. True Christian political
action seeks to rein the passions of men and curb the pattern of digression
under God's rule.
George Grant, The Changing of the Guard (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press,
1987), pp. 50-51.

These inhuman beasts are out for nothing less than forced conquest
of the entire world to their poisonous beliefs for no other reason than
to pave their own way to their 'heaven'. They are purely sefish and care
for no one but themselves. They don't even care about their followers.
#############################################################

From: johac <jha...@ixpresremove.com>
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Christian Reconstructionism (was Re: Question for Group Re:
(U.S.) Founding Fathers and Religion
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 21:46:35 -0800

And don't forget these guys:

http://www.chalcedon.edu/desk/ministry_of_chalcedon.shtml

The Ministry of Chalcedon

Established in 1965, Chalcedon (kal-SEE-dun) is a non-profit 501(c)(3)
and Christian educational organization devoted to research, publishing,
and promoting Christian reconstruction in all areas of life.

Chalcedon is geared to all who understand that Jesus Christ speaks to
the mind as well as to the heart.

We believe that the whole Word of God must be applied to all of life. It
is not only our duty as individuals, families and churches to be
Christian, but it is also the duty of the state, the school, the arts
and sciences, law, economics, and every other sphere to be under Christ
the King. Nothing is exempt from His dominion. We must live by His Word,
not our own.

Chalcedon is premised on the belief that ideas have consequences. It
takes seriously the words of Professor F. A. Hayek:

"It may well be that scholars tend to overestimate the influence which
we can exercise on contemporary affairs. But I doubt whether it is
possible to overestimate the influence which ideas have in the long run."

Chalcedon's resources are being used to remind Christians of this basic
truth: What men believe makes a difference.

"Therefore men should not believe lies, for it is the truth that sets
them free" (John 8:32).

Chalcedon's activities include foundational and leadership roles in
Christian reconstruction. Our emphasis on the Cultural or Dominion
Mandate (Genesis 1:28) and the necessity of a return to Biblical Law has
been a a crucial factor in the challenge to Humanism by Christians in
this country and elsewhere. Chalcedon's involvement in and commitment to
Christian education began with its inception when founder Rousas John
Rushdoony pinpointed the Christian and home schools as the most
important institutions in reversing the influence of secular Humanism.

Our scholars speak regularly at conferences in America and overseas for
various churches, schools, and private organizations. Chalcedon also
hosts its own regional conferences across America.

In an era of uncertainty and fear of doom, Chalcedon presents a message
of victory and envisions our age as a great opportunity for the
consistent Biblical believer. A world that is increasingly pessimistic
and disillusioned with the failure of secular Humanism is now feeling
the impact of Christians who are exercising dominion and reclaiming lost
spheres of authority for Christ the King.

Chakcedon, this nest of disgusting little creatures, is Rushdoony's old
group.

John Hachmann aa #1782

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