Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Reformed theonomic movement that developed under the ideas of Rousas Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North; it has had an important influence on the Christian Right in the United States. In keeping with the cultural mandate, reconstructionists advocate theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continuing applicability. The movement declined in the 1990s and was declared dead in a 2008 Church History journal article, although Christian reconstructionist organizations such as the Chalcedon Foundation and American Vision are active today. Christian reconstructionists are usually postmillennialists and followers of the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til.
A Christian denomination that advocates the view of Christian reconstructionism is the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States. Most Reformed Christians, however, disavow Christian reconstructionism and hold to classical covenant theology, the traditional Reformed view of the relationship between the Old Covenant and Christianity.
A Christian denomination that advocates the view of Christian reconstructionism is the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States. Most Reformed Christians, however, disavow Christian reconstructionism and hold to classical covenant theology, the traditional Reformed view of the relationship between the Old Covenant and Christianity.
Reconstructionist perspective
Theonomy
Christian reconstructionists advocate a theonomic government and libertarian economic principles. They maintain a distinction of spheres of authority between family, church, and state.
For example, the enforcement of moral sanctions under theonomy is
carried out by the family and church government, and sanctions for moral
offenses are outside the authority of civil government (which is
limited to criminal matters, courts and national defense). However, some
believe these distinctions become blurred, as the application of
theonomy implies an increase in the authority of the civil government.
Reconstructionists argue, though, that under theonomy, the authority of
the state is severely limited to a point where only the judicial branch
exists (e.g., a criminal does not fear of a police force breaking in
their house at night, since, under theonomy, there is no executive
branch and therefore no police). Reconstructionists also say that the
theocratic government is not an oligarchy or monarchy of man
communicating with God, but rather, a national recognition of existing
laws. 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 all forms of idolatry, open homosexuals, adulterers, practitioners of witchcraft, blasphemers, and perhaps even recalcitrant youths.
Conversely, Christian reconstructionism's founder, Rousas Rushdoony, wrote in The Institutes of Biblical Law
(the founding document of reconstructionism) that Old Testament law
should be applied to modern society, and he advocates the reinstatement
of the Mosaic law's penal sanctions. Under such a system, the list of
civil crimes which carried a death sentence would include murder, homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one's virginity, bestiality, witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying, kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case.
Kayser points out that the Bible advocates justice, and that biblical punishments prescribed for crimes are the maximum allowable to maintain justice and not the only available option, because lesser punishments are authorized as well.
Views on pluralism
Rousas Rushdoony wrote in his magnum opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law:
"The heresy of democracy has since [the days of colonial New England] worked havoc in church and state"
and: "Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies", and he said
elsewhere that "Christianity is completely and radically
anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy," and characterized democracy as "the great love of the failures and cowards of life".
He nevertheless repeatedly expressed his opposition to any sort of
violent revolution and advocated instead the gradual reformation (often
termed "regeneration" in his writings) of society from the bottom up,
beginning with the individual and the family and from there gradually
reforming other spheres of authority, including the church and the
state.
Rushdoony believed that a republic
is a better form of civil government than a democracy. According to
Rushdoony, a republic avoided mob rule and the rule of the "51%" of
society; in other words "might does not make right" in a republic.
Rushdoony wrote that America's separation of powers between 3 branches
of government is a far more neutral and better method of civil
government than a direct democracy, stating "[t]he [American]
Constitution was designed to perpetuate a Christian order". Rushdoony
argues that the Constitution's purpose was to protect religion from the
federal government and to preserve "states' rights."
Douglas W. Kennard, a Professor Theology and Philosophy at the Houston Graduate School of Theology, wrote with regard to Christian reconstructionism, that Christians of non-Reformed
traditions, such as some "Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, [and]
Orthodox", would be "under threat of capital punishment as fostered by
the extreme Theonomist." On the other hand, Ligon Duncan
has stated that "Roman Catholics to Episcopalians to Presbyterians to
Pentecostals", as well as "Arminian and Calvinist, charismatic and
non-charismatic, high Church and low Church traditions are all
represented in the broader umbrella of Reconstructionism (often in the
form of the "Christian America" movement)."
Influence on the Christian right in general
Although relatively small 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 American Christian right.
This is the wider trend to which some critics refer, generally, as
dominionism. They also allegedly have influence disproportionate to
their numbers among advocates of the growth of the Christian homeschooling
and other Christian education movements that seek independence from the
direct oversight or support of the civil government. Because their
numbers are so small compared to their influence, they are sometimes
accused of being secretive and conspiratorial.
In Matthew 28:18,
Jesus says, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." This
verse is seen as an announcement by Jesus that he has assumed authority
over all earthly authority. In that light, some theologians interpret
the Great Commission
as a command to exercise that authority in his name, bringing all
things (including societies and cultures) into subjection under his
commands. Rousas Rushdoony, for example, interpreted the Great Commission as a republication of the "creation mandate", referring to Genesis 1:28
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing...
For Rushdoony, the idea of dominion implied a form of Christian theocracy or, more accurately, a theonomy. For example, he wrote that:
The purpose of Christ's coming was in terms of the creation mandate… The redeemed are called to the original purpose of man, to exercise dominion under God, to be covenant-keepers, and to fulfil "the righteousness of the law" (Rom. 8:4)… Man is summoned to create the society God requires.
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.
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 is 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 [a Reconstructionist],' 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.'
Christian critics
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.
J. Ligon Duncan of the Department of Systematic Theology of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi,
warns that "Theonomy, in gross violation of biblical patterns and
common sense, ignores the context of the giving of the law to the
redemptive community of the Old Testament. This constitutes an approach
to the nature of the civil law very different from Calvin and the rest
of the Reformed tradition, which sees the civil law as God's application
of his eternal standards to the particular exigencies of his people."
Duncan rejects the reconstructionist's insistence that "the Old
Testament civil case law is normative for the civil magistrate and
government in the New Covenant era". He views their denial of the
threefold distinction between moral, civil, and ceremonial law as
representing one of the severe flaws in the reconstructionist
hermeneutic.
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, furthers the critique:
According to the Reformed theocrats apparently… the only satisfactory goal is that America become a Christian nation.
Ironically... it is the wholesale rejection (not revival) of theocratic principles that is desperately needed today if the church is to be faithful to the task of gospel witness entrusted to her in the present age… It is only as the church… puts aside the lust for worldly influence and power – that she will be a positive presence in society.
Rodney Clapp wrote that reconstructionism is an anti-democratic movement.
In an April 2009 article in Christianity Today about theologian and writer Douglas Wilson, the magazine described reconstructionism as outside the 'mainstream' views of evangelical Christians. It also stated that it "borders on a call for outright theocracy".
George M. Marsden, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, has remarked in Christianity Today
that "Reconstructionism in its pure form is a radical movement". He
also wrote, "[t]he positive proposals of Reconstructionists are so far
out of line with American evangelical commitments to American republican
ideals such as religious freedom that the number of true believers in
the movement is small."
Popular religious author, feminist, and former Roman Catholic nun, Karen Armstrong sees a potential for "fascism"
in Christian reconstructionism, and sees the eventual Dominion
envisioned by theologians R. J. Rushdoony and Gary North as:
"totalitarian. There is no room for any other view or policy, no
democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom."
Traditional Reformed Christians have argued that Christian
reconstructionists have "significantly misunderstood the positions of
Calvin, other Reformed teachers and the Westminster Confession
concerning the relationship between the Sinai covenant's ethical
stipulations and the Christian obligation to the Mosaic judicial laws
today."
Relation to dominionism
Some sociologists and critics refer to reconstructionism as a type of dominionism. These critics claim that 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, though
he did cordially correspond with Rushdoony on occasion. 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.
