Beliefs and practices of Christian Reconstructionism

Beliefs and practices of Christian Reconstructionism from  Religioustolerance.org, an interfaith group inn Ontario, Caanada that promotes freedom of conscience and separation of church and state.

Theocrat Gary North defines Christian Reconstruction

CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTION-- A recently articulated  philosophy which argues that it is the moral obligation of Christians to recapture every institution for Jesus Christ. 

It proclaims "the crown rights of King Jesus."

The means by which this task might be accomplished -a few CR's are not convinced that it can be-is biblical law. This is the "tool of dominion." We have been assigned a dominion covenant--a  God-given assignment to men to conquer in His name (Gen. 1:28; 9:1-7).

The founders of the movement  have combined four basic Christian beliefs into one overarching system: 

1) biblical law,

2) optimistic eschatology, 

3) predestination (providence), 

4)  presuppositional apologetics(philosophical defense of the faith).

 Not all CR's hold all four positions, but the founders have held all four.

The first person who put this system together publicly was Rousas John Rushdoony. He was my mentor during the 1960's, and while I was working on the specific field of economics, he was developing the overall framework. The first comprehensive introduction to the Christian Reconstruction position was Rushdoony's The  Institutes of Biblical Law (Craig Press, 1973), in which three of my appendices appear. The.easiest introduction to the position is my book, Unconditional Surrender: God's Program for Victory (2nd ed., Geneva Divinity School Press, 1983). 

from the glossary of  BACKWARD, CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS?  pp 267-68 , North, 1983

The Other Rush: Rousas John Rushdoony

Theocrat Gary North's support for modern day public stoning of sodomites, blasphemers, and other violators of Mosaic Law comes straight from the magnum opus of his father-in-law Rousas John Rushdoony, the Armenian immigrant who was intent on revoking the US Constitution.

R.J. Rushdoony 1916-2001 .

In 1973 Rushdoony
published the Institutes of Biblical Law, a comprehensive  application of Mosaic Law, per Deuteronomy and Leviticus  to modern life.
 His goal: To reconstruct the ideal society that Yahweh originally intended for his chosen people, the Israelites over 300 centuries ago.   Hence Rushdoony called his brand of neo-Calvinist theocracy Christian Reconstruction.

A broader term for today's theocrats is Dominionists, because they rely so heavily on an esoteric interpretation of Genesis 1:26-28 (boldface added by me--KJ

 26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, 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 that moveth upon the earth.

 Although the passage makes no specific mention of "dominion" over other men and women through political institutions, dominionists believe that Christian men, Calvin's "elect" living in a state of grace have been restored to the image and likeness of God as the "new Adam" and are exclusively fit to rule God's kingdom on His behalf.

  

By using the word Institutes in his title, Rushdoony places himself on an exalted plane alongside the great Reformer John Calvin, whose Institutes of the Christian Religion was the foundation ofseveral theocracies, including his own Geneva, the English dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell, and  the Massachusetts Bay Colony, infamous for the Salem Witch Trials.

Grandiose,indeed,  but in 1981 Newsweek called  Rushdoony's Chalcedon Institute "the think tank of the Religious Right". A decade after his death, the ascent of the Tea Party and the popularity of Dominionist loons like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Rick Perry has made it impossible to deny the influence of  Rushdoony and his acolytes.  

• THE RUSHDOONY TAPES
  1314 hours worth of R.J. Rushdoony's recorded sermons and lectures brought to you by the generosity of the radical free market ideologues like Home Savings of California heir Howard Ahmanson, Jr.