Everything about Christian Reconstructionism totally explained
Christian Reconstructionism is a religious and theological movement within
Protestant Christianity that calls for Christians to put their faith into action in all areas of life. The beliefs characteristic of Christian Reconstructionism include:
- Calvinism as the basis for personal regeneration that's required to change people before changes occur in the broader culture,
- Theonomy applying the general principles of Old Testament and New Testament moral law and case laws in the appropriate family, church and/or civil government,
- Postmillennialism, the Christian Eschatology belief that God's kingdom began at the first coming of Jesus Christ, and will advance throughout history until it fills the whole earth through conversion to the Christian faith,
- The presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til which holds there's no neutrality between believers and non-believers, that the Bible reveals a self-authenticating world-view and system of truth, and that non-believing belief systems self-destruct when they become more consistent with their presuppositions, (Bahnsen, Van Til's Apologetic, pp. 145-6, 97, 315-6) and
- Decentralized social order resulting in minimal state power.
Christian Reconstructionism isn't related to Reconstructionist Judaism, Progressive Reconstructionism or any form of Polytheistic Reconstructionism. This movement is also unrelated to the Reconstruction period that followed the American Civil War.
Origins
The movement, in its modern form, was founded in the
United States of America popularized by
Rousas John (R. J.) Rushdoony in his work, The Institutes of Biblical Law (published in 1973) the second half of the 20th century, though to an extent it had its beginnings in the colonial governments of early New England (especially that of the Massachusetts Bay colony). Other past and present Reconstructionist leaders include
Gary North (Rushdoony's son-in-law),
Howard Ahmanson, Jr.,
Greg Bahnsen,
David Chilton,
Gary DeMar,
Kenneth Gentry, and
Andrew Sandlin.
Reconstructionist perspective
The social structure advocated by Christian Reconstructionism would have the clergy, laity and government, individually and corporately, to be in ultimate submission to the moral principles of the
Bible, including the
Old Testament, while retaining their separate jurisdictional spheres of authority and roles in society as inferred from principles of biblical law, both Old and New Testaments. It is the claim of Christian Reconstructionism that even as under the Davidic administration of the Israelites, the Priests (Levitical line) and Kings (Davidic line) were distinguished by their scopes of authority (for example, the King couldn't offer sacrifices for others and the Priests couldn't pass or enforce legislation) and their roles in society (for example, the King maintained the social welfare and the Priests maintained personal welfare), so it should be in a modern Christian Reconstructionist society.
Theonomy
While many Christians believe that biblical law is a guide to morality and public ethics, when interpreted in faith, Reconstructionism is unique in advocating that civil law should be derived from and limited by biblical law. For example, they support the recriminalization of acts of
abortion and
homosexuality, but also oppose confiscatory taxation,
conscription, and most aspects of the
welfare state. Protection of property and life needs grounding in biblical law, according to Reconstructionism, or the state set free from the restraint of God's law will take what it wishes at a whim. Accordingly, Reconstructionists advocate biblically derived measures of
restitution, a definite limit upon the powers of taxation, and a
gold standard or equivalent fixed unit for currency.
Christian Reconstructionists describe their view of public ethics by the term, "
Theonomy" (the Law of God governs); while their critics tend to label them "
Theocratic" (God governs). The notable differences are that "theocracy" is usually thought of as
totalitarian and involving no distinction between church and state, while Reconstructionists claim that "theonomy" is broadly
libertarian and maintains a distinction of sphere of authority between family, church, and state. For example, enforcement of moral sanctions under theonomy is done by family and church government, and sanctions for moral offenses is outside the authority of civil government (which is limited to criminal matters, courts and national defense). However, in some areas the application of theonomy could increase the authority of the civil government; prominent advocates of Christian Reconstructionism have written that according to their understanding, God's law approves of the death penalty not only for murder, but also for propagators of idolatry, active homosexuals, adulterers, practitioners of witchcraft, and blasphemers, and perhaps even recalcitrant youths (see the
List of capital crimes in the bible).
The founders of the movement have all been
Calvinists, and they believe that their view of the law is a faithful extension of the Reformed Christian view of the continuing validity of Biblical Law in a modern context. This is sometimes bitterly contested in the conservative Reformed churches where their influence first began to appear. Some Reformed denominations have crafted official statements rejecting theonomy as a heresy, but others tolerate some forms of it on the grounds that as a Biblical theology it can appeal to historical and doctrinal precedent within the
Puritan and Reformed tradition.
Postmillennialism
Christian Reconstructionism was originally formulated as a practical expression of
Postmillennial Christian Eschatology, though the distinctive tenets of the school of thought (generally referred to as
Theonomic Ethics) are purported to be compatible with other eschatological viewpoints within conservative Christianity. The "second generation" of theonomists includes some
premillennial evangelical and fundamentalist movements.
Views on pluralism
Christian Reconstructionists make no pretense of subscribing to the
pluralistic ideals of
religious tolerance (derided as "Political
Polytheism", by author Gary North, in a book of that name), because this would require them to accept a non-Biblical source of ethical standards. They envision a future in which opponents to Jesus Christ will eventually be relatively few in number and surrender the public square to his rule. In principle they're opposed to bringing this about through martial or political means. Adherents of the movement are opposed to any institutional combination of Church and State, as in
Erastianism and
Caesaropapism.
They don't view politics as their primary, or even an important, instrument of change. Nevertheless, in political terms the ideal toward which they aim might be called "denominational tolerance", or "tolerance within the bounds of Christianity": in the predominantly Christian world they envision, this is the only kind of tolerance that will be necessary. Therefore, they use the Bible, in contrast to political documents like the Constitution of the United States, as their pattern and guide for envisioning the future. They are more in line with the theonomic Christian Commonwealths, such as that of Colonial
Massachusetts under
John Cotton,
Geneva under
John Calvin, or the
Netherlands under
Abraham Kuyper, even though Kuyper was a pluralist who governed in coalition with the Roman Catholic political party and was opposed to the freemarket economics that theonomists think Biblical law requires. Christian Reconstructionists cite the eventual failure of the
English Commonwealth under
Oliver Cromwell as evidence that only majority rule and consent can sustain a Theonomic Christian Commonwealth. They seek to pervade society from within, through the gradual spread and perfection of Christian belief and obedience; and they believe that this influence is ultimately inexorable, having no need for or benefit from top-down coercion of any kind, because it's carried out under the already established authority of Jesus Christ.
Christian Reconstructionist leader
Gary North summarized his views this way:
» "What I found is this: the concept of the rule of law was
Mosaic, not Greek (Ex. 12:49). The concept of private property is supported in the
Decalogue's laws against theft and covetousness. The Mosaic economic law as a whole was pro-market, pro-private ownership, pro-foreign trade, pro-money-lending (Deut. 28:12). The New Testament didn't break with most of these laws, and the few that it did break with, such as slavery and the jubilee land law, made the resulting position even more market favorable. It is my goal in life to do what I can to persuade people to shrink the State. The messianic State is a crude imitation of a religion of redemption. It makes the State the healer and, ultimately, the savior of all mankind. This messianic religion is what the early church battled theologically and risked martyrdom to oppose. Christians refused to toss a pinch of incense onto the altar symbolizing the genius of the emperor. For that seemingly minor resistance to State power, they were thrown to the lions. Both sides knew the stakes of that contest. Christianity was a dagger pointed at the heart of the messianic State."(
"Authentic Libertarianism"
).
Cultural views
Reconstructionists seek an approach to culture and ethics that's ideally biblical. Unlike most Calvinists, they deny that non-Christians can be appealed to apart from scripture, to persuade them to adopt ideas that are approximately scriptural. They believe that where there's no faith in the Bible, there's no
functional common-ground between people, because God is denied in whose image all people are made. This is one reason that politics isn't a significant instrument of change in the Reconstructionist program, and the political involvement that they urge is explicitly Christian and biblical, not consensus-building.
Reconstructionists claim that biblical law requires equal treatment of all people regardless of their beliefs, and that it's inherently just toward all men. They argue that the social laws that might be established under biblical law wouldn't regulate
beliefs, but only
actions, and more specifically,
public actions (where
public denotes a demonstrable
corpus delicti or
mens rea). It isn't consistent with their goal of a severely limited role for the civil state, to seek out religious deviants. However,
public actions, which are contrary to their understanding of general principles of the moral law (for example, open hostility to God (blasphemy), propagation of idolatry, public homosexuality), wouldn't be tolerated, because these are acts of public intolerance of God's rule and would be disruptive of the social structure. They see only two options inevitably opposed as totalities: the kingdom of God which subverts sin, against the totalitarian humanist state which subverts God's rule.
Reconstructionists claim to be continuing Reformed theology, especially in its Puritan form. There has been debate between Reconstructionists and their critics over the extent to which similar views were held by the authors of major Reformed standards, such as the Westminster Confession. A more recent precursor to Christian Reconstruction was businessman and Christian Reformed Church member Frederick Nymeyer who published the journal
Progressive Calvinism (1955-1960) in which he advocated Biblical law and Austrian economics.
Influence on the Christian Right in general
Although relatively insignificant in terms of the number of self-described adherents, Christian Reconstructionism has played a role in promoting the trend toward explicitly Christian politics in the larger U.S.
Christian Right.
Elsewhere he wrote:
» The man who is being progressively sanctified will inescapably sanctify his home, school, politics, economics, science, and all things else by understanding and interpreting all things in terms of the word of God and by bringing all things under the dominion of Christ the King.
According to sociologist and professor of religion William Martin, author of
With God on Our Side:
» "It is difficult to assess the influence of Reconstructionist thought with any accuracy. Because it's so genuinely radical, most leaders of the Religious Right are careful to distance themselves from it. At the same time, it clearly holds some appeal for many of them. One undoubtedly spoke for others when he confessed, 'Though we hide their books under the bed, we read them just the same.' In addition, several key leaders have acknowledged an intellectual debt to the theonomists.
Jerry Falwell and
D. James Kennedy have endorsed Reconstructionist books.
Rushdoony has appeared on Kennedy's television program and
the 700 Club several times.
Pat Robertson makes frequent use of 'dominion' language; his book,
The Secret Kingdom, has often been cited for its theonomy elements; and pluralists were made uncomfortable when, during his presidential campaign, he said he 'would only bring Christians and Jews into the government,' as well as when he later wrote, 'There will never be world peace until God's house and God's people are given their rightful place of leadership at the top of the world.' And Jay Grimstead, who leads the Coalition on Revival, which brings Reconstructionists together with more mainstream evangelicals, has said, 'I don't call myself [aReconstructionist],' but 'A lot of us are coming to realize that the Bible is God's standard of morality … in all points of history … and for all societies, Christian and non-Christian alike… It so happens that Rushdoony,
Bahnsen, and
North understood that sooner.' He added, 'There are a lot of us floating around in Christian leadership—James Kennedy is one of them—who don't go all the way with the theonomy thing, but who want to rebuild America based on the Bible.'"
Variations
Christian Reconstruction broadly divided into two branches. One group, oriented to the ideas of
R.J. Rushdoony and associated with the
Chalcedon Foundation of California, maintained an emphasis on the role of the individual and family in their own self-discipline and interaction with culture, while the other, associated with
Gary North and the Institute for Christian Economics (ICE) in Tyler, Texas began to emphasize a unique five-point covenant model, the institutional church, the clergy and sacraments. Some writers published by ICE went on to repudiate Christian Reconstruction. Of these Ray Sutton became a bishop in the Reformed Episcopal Church, and
James B. Jordan and
Peter Leithart, building on the anti-theonomic theology of
Meredith Kline, developed a new theological movement known as
Federal Vision theology.
A group adopting some aspects of Christian Reconstructionism has arisen recently, with a new racial reinterpretation of Christian Reconstructionism called
Kinism ("kin" as in "family" or "race"). This new movement is
neo-Confederate white separatism re-tooled using Reconstructionist rhetoric, and mixed with
agrarian economic principles. Like the Reconstructionists, the Kinists claim to be indebted to Reformed apologist,
Cornelius Van Til, who argued that the
Bible contains a self-vindicating system of knowledge (Van Til 1969). However, they reject what they refer to as "Austrian economic principles", that is, the
libertarian market economics advocated by the Reconstructionists, which is comparable to the
free-market principles associated with
Ludwig von Mises.
Critical views
Critics are skeptical of the pragmatic value and actual viability of the proposed Christian Reconstructionist social structure, claiming that an overly authoritarian civil society would be a very real threat if such a structure were to be adopted. They believe that Christian Reconstructionism would entail abandoning the historical interpretation of the principle of
separation of church and state as promoted by
Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison. Critics also argue that Reconstructionism would in practice result in the domination of the church by the state (or vice versa), regardless of the stated goals of Reconstructionists.
Evangelical groups and individuals also worry about postmillennialist
Dominion Theology. These include
Gavin Finley and others in the free church tradition such as the
Mennonites and the
Amish.
Christian critics
Within their own Reformed and Christian circles, critics have been vocal. Some have raised the criticism that the use of biblical sanctions will accomplish more evil than good, even though the law is good, because people are not good. In line with an idea like this,
Michael Horton of
Westminster Seminary California has warned against the seductiveness of power-religion. The Christian rhetoric of the movement is weak, he argues, against the logic of its authoritarian and legalistic program, which will always drive Reconstructionism toward sub-Christian ideas about sin, and the perfectibility of human nature (such as to imagine that, if Christians are in power, they won't be inclined to do evil). On the contrary, Horton and others maintain, God's Law can, often has been, and will be put to evil uses by Christians and others, in the state, in churches, in the marketplace, and in families; and these crimes are aggravated, because to oppose a wrong committed through abuse of God's law, a critic must bear being labeled an enemy of God's law.
Professor
Meredith Kline, whose own theology has influenced the method of several Reconstructionist theologians, has adamantly maintained that Reconstructionism makes the mistake of failing to understand the special prophetic role of Biblical Israel, including the laws and sanctions, calling it "a delusive and grotesque perversion of the teachings of scripture." Kline's student, Lee Irons, himself suspended from office in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for his view of the Law, furthers the critique:
Rodney Clapp wrote that Reconstructionism is an anti-democratic movement.
Reconstructionist Greg Bahnsen writes that Christian criticisms of Theonomy and Reconstructionism tend to be of such poor quality, that they discredit Christian scholarship as a whole:
Theocracy and neofascism
Some critics categorize the Christian Reconstructionist movement as a form of
totalitarianism or theocratic
neofascism. For example,
Karen Armstrong sees a potential for fascism in Christian Reconstructionism, and notes that the system of dominion envisaged by Christian Reconstructionist theologians R. J. Rushdoony and Gary North "is totalitarian. There is no room for any other view or policy, no democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom," (Armstrong,
Battle for God, pp. 361-362). Berlet and Lyons have written that the movement is a "new form of
clerical fascist politics," (
Right-Wing Populism in America, p. 249).
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Relation to Dominionism
Some sociologists and critics refer to Reconstructionism as a type of "
Dominionism". These critics claim the frequent use of the word, "dominion", by Reconstructionist writers, strongly associates the critical term, Dominionism, with this movement. As an ideological form of Dominionism, Reconstructionism is sometimes held up as the most typical form of
Dominion Theology.
The Protestant theologian
Francis Schaeffer is linked with the movement by some critics, but some Reconstructionist thinkers are highly critical of Schaeffer's positions and he himself disavowed any connection or affiliation with Reconstructionism. Authors Sara Diamond and Fred Clarkson suggest that Schaeffer shared with Reconstructionism the tendency toward
Dominionism.
Christian Reconstructionists object to the "Dominionism" and the "Dominion Theology" labels, which they say misrepresent their views. Some separate Christian cultural and political movements object to being described with the label Dominionism, because in their mind the word implies attachment to Reconstructionism. In Reconstructionism the idea of
godly dominion, subject to God, is contrasted with the
autonomous dominion of mankind in rebellion against God.
Dominionism and
Dominion Theology are pejorative terms that are applied by critics, and not generally adopted by a group to describe itself.
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