Christian reconstructionism

Based on Wikipedia: Christian reconstructionism

When Democracy Becomes Heresy

"Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies." That's not a quote from some medieval theologian. It's from Rousas Rushdoony, writing in twentieth-century America, laying the intellectual groundwork for a movement that would quietly reshape American religious politics.

Rushdoony called democracy "the great love of the failures and cowards of life." He wasn't mincing words.

Christian reconstructionism is a theological movement that emerged in the United States during the latter half of the twentieth century with an audacious goal: rebuild all of society—government, education, family, everything—according to the laws laid out in the Old Testament. Not just the Ten Commandments. All of it. Including the penalties.

The Architects

Three names dominate the movement's founding: Rousas John Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen, and Gary North. Rushdoony is generally considered the father of reconstructionism. His 1973 book, "The Institutes of Biblical Law," serves as the movement's foundational text. The title deliberately echoes John Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion"—a signal that Rushdoony saw himself as carrying the Calvinist tradition to its logical conclusion.

Gary North, who married Rushdoony's daughter, became one of the movement's most prolific writers and applied reconstructionist thinking to economics. Greg Bahnsen contributed the philosophical framework, particularly through his development of presuppositional apologetics—a method of arguing for Christianity that treats the Bible as the necessary starting point for all rational thought.

The movement's intellectual roots run deep. Religious studies scholar Julie Ingersoll traces reconstructionism back through Southern Presbyterianism to the mid-twentieth century right-wing conservatism of the John Birch Society. It's a peculiar genealogy that combines rigorous Calvinist theology with American anti-communist paranoia.

Theonomy: God's Law as Civil Law

At the heart of reconstructionism sits a concept called theonomy—literally "God's law." The word combines the Greek "theos" (God) with "nomos" (law). Theonomists believe that the legal code given to ancient Israel in the Old Testament wasn't just for Israel. It's God's blueprint for all nations, for all time.

This stands in stark contrast to how most Christians have understood the Old Testament law. The traditional view, going back centuries, divides Mosaic law into three categories: moral law (like the Ten Commandments, still binding), ceremonial law (animal sacrifices, dietary restrictions, fulfilled by Christ and no longer applicable), and civil law (penalties and governance structures for ancient Israel, also no longer directly applicable).

Reconstructionists reject this threefold division. They argue that God's law is a unified whole, and while the ceremonial elements pointed forward to Christ, the civil and penal aspects remain valid models for modern governance.

What does that mean in practice?

It means capital punishment. Not just for murder, which most societies throughout history have considered a capital offense. Reconstructionists, reading the Old Testament literally, advocate death penalties for what they call propagators of idolatry, practicing homosexuals, adulterers, practitioners of witchcraft, blasphemers, and potentially even persistently rebellious children. The method Rushdoony proposed? Stoning—the method prescribed in the biblical text.

The Spheres of Authority

Before you imagine reconstructionists calling for a theocratic police state, their framework is more nuanced—though critics argue the nuances collapse under scrutiny.

Reconstructionists divide human life into distinct spheres of authority: the individual self, the family, the church, and the state. Each sphere has its proper jurisdiction. The family handles education and moral formation. The church handles worship and spiritual discipline. The state, in their vision, has a remarkably limited role—essentially courts, criminal justice, and national defense.

Here's where it gets philosophically interesting. They advocate for libertarian economic principles alongside theonomic governance. Government shouldn't regulate the economy or provide welfare. But it absolutely should execute homosexuals.

The tension is obvious. Critics point out that once you're executing people for religious offenses, you've already massively expanded state power beyond anything a libertarian would recognize. Reconstructionists counter that they're not expanding state power but redirecting it—away from economic meddling and toward its "proper" function of punishing evil as defined by God's law.

Greg Bahnsen, addressing the more alarming implications, noted that such a system could only work in an already-Christian culture. The government couldn't impose Christianity on an unwilling population. The transformation had to happen organically, from the ground up, individual by individual, family by family, generation by generation.

Gradual Revolution

This is crucial for understanding reconstructionism. Despite rhetoric that sounds revolutionary, the movement explicitly rejects revolution.

Rushdoony advocated what he called "regeneration"—a gradual, bottom-up transformation of society. Start with yourself. Then your family. Raise your children in the faith. Educate them at home or in Christian schools, outside the corrupting influence of secular public education. Build Christian institutions. Wait generations if necessary.

This patient, multi-generational approach explains why reconstructionism became so influential in the Christian homeschooling movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Bill Gothard, Doug Phillips, and Howard Phillips—all connected to reconstructionist circles—helped build the evangelical homeschooling infrastructure. They weren't expecting to transform America next year. They were playing a very long game.

Rushdoony believed a republic was superior to a democracy. In a democracy, he argued, the majority rules—fifty-one percent can impose their will on forty-nine percent. Might makes right. A republic, by contrast, has constitutional limits that protect minorities from the mob. He saw the American Constitution's separation of powers among three branches as a safeguard against tyranny.

Ironically, Rushdoony interpreted the Constitution as designed to "perpetuate a Christian order." The First Amendment's prohibition on establishing religion? In his reading, that was meant to protect religion from federal government interference and preserve states' rights—not to create a secular public square.

Postmillennialism: The Optimistic Eschatology

Most American evangelicals in the twentieth century held to premillennialism—the belief that the world will grow increasingly wicked until Jesus returns to set things right. This creates a certain passivity about cultural engagement. Why polish brass on a sinking ship?

Reconstructionists hold to postmillennialism, a very different view. They believe Christians are called to advance God's kingdom on earth now. The world will get progressively better—more Christian, more just, more aligned with God's law—until Christ returns to a largely Christianized world.

This optimism about history's trajectory energizes reconstructionist activism. They're not waiting for rescue. They're building the kingdom.

The theological basis comes from the Great Commission, where Jesus says "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth" and commands his followers to make disciples of all nations. Rushdoony interpreted this as a republication of what he called the "creation mandate" from Genesis—God's instruction to humanity to be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion over the earth.

Dominion. That word matters.

The Dominionism Debate

Critics of reconstructionism often use the term "dominionism" to describe it and related movements. The word comes from that Genesis passage about having dominion over creation. Reconstructionists do use dominion language frequently. Rushdoony wrote that redeemed humanity is "called to the original purpose of man, to exercise dominion under God."

But reconstructionists object to the dominionism label, arguing it misrepresents their views. They distinguish between godly dominion—authority exercised in submission to God and his law—and autonomous human dominion in rebellion against God. They're not seeking power for its own sake, they insist, but faithful stewardship.

Critics remain unconvinced. Popular religious author Karen Armstrong has called the movement's vision potentially "fascist" and "totalitarian," arguing there's "no room for any other view or policy, no democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom" in the society reconstructionists envision.

Influence Beyond the Faithful

Here's what makes reconstructionism historically significant: its influence far exceeded its membership.

The movement never had many self-described adherents. You won't find reconstructionist megachurches. But its ideas filtered into the broader Christian right in ways that reshaped American politics.

Consider the names who have endorsed or promoted reconstructionist ideas, explicitly or implicitly: Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, Tim LaHaye, Francis Schaeffer. These weren't marginal figures. They built the modern Christian right.

Robertson hosted Rushdoony on his television program. He used dominionist language in his book "The Secret Kingdom" and in his 1988 presidential campaign. Kennedy did the same. Jay Grimstead of the Coalition on Revival captured the attitude of many evangelical leaders when he said: "I don't call myself [a Reconstructionist]," but added that "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."

They didn't accept the whole system. Stoning homosexuals was a bridge too far. But the underlying premise—that America should be governed according to biblical principles, that secular neutrality is a myth, that Christians have a responsibility to dominate the culture—took root.

Julie Ingersoll argues that reconstructionism helped shape what we now call Christian nationalism. The movement provided theological justification for Christian political activism and a vocabulary for talking about the relationship between faith and governance.

The Reformed Push Back

Not everyone in the Calvinist tradition appreciates reconstructionism claiming their heritage.

Most Calvinists reject reconstructionism and hold to classical covenant theology—the traditional Reformed understanding of how the Old and New Testaments relate to each other. This traditional view does maintain the threefold distinction between moral, civil, and ceremonial law that reconstructionists reject.

J. Ligon Duncan of Reformed Theological Seminary has been particularly pointed in his criticism. Theonomy, he argues, "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." The civil law was God's application of eternal principles to the particular situation of ancient Israel—not a timeless blueprint for all nations.

Meredith Kline, whose theological work actually influenced several reconstructionist thinkers, called the movement "a delusive and grotesque perversion of the teachings of scripture." He argued they fundamentally misunderstood the special role of biblical Israel, including its unique laws and sanctions.

Michael Horton of Westminster Seminary California warned against what he called "power-religion." Even if Christians gain power, he argues, they remain sinners inclined to do evil. God's law has been, can be, and will be put to evil uses by Christians. And when someone commits wrongs while claiming divine authority, critics must bear being labeled enemies of God's law.

This is a profound objection. It's not just about biblical interpretation. It's about human nature and the corruption of power.

The Question of Other Christians

What would happen to Christians who disagree with reconstructionist theology in a reconstructed society?

Douglas Kennard, a theology professor, has raised an uncomfortable point: Christians from non-Calvinist traditions—Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Orthodox—could potentially face capital punishment as "idolaters" under an extreme theonomist regime. The First Commandment, after all, is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

Other observers, like Ligon Duncan, note that the broader umbrella of what might be called "Christian America" ideology includes Catholics, Episcopalians, Pentecostals, and others across the theological spectrum. The movement is more diverse than simple labels suggest.

But the tension remains. If biblical law is binding on all societies, and if Christians disagree about what biblical law requires, whose interpretation wins?

Francis Schaeffer: Fellow Traveler or Distant Cousin?

Francis Schaeffer presents a fascinating case study. The popular Protestant theologian and cultural critic is often linked to reconstructionism by its opponents. He influenced many of the same people. He shared concerns about secular humanism and abortion. He argued Christians should engage the culture.

But Schaeffer himself disavowed any connection to reconstructionism. Some reconstructionist thinkers, in turn, criticized his positions. They maintained a cordial correspondence—Rushdoony and Schaeffer occasionally exchanged letters—but they weren't theological allies.

Authors Sara Diamond and Fred Clarkson argue Schaeffer shared with reconstructionism a tendency toward dominionism, even if he rejected its specific prescriptions. The question of where concerned cultural engagement ends and dominionism begins remains contested.

The Long Shadow

Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical publication, described reconstructionism in 2009 as outside "mainstream" evangelical views, bordering "on a call for outright theocracy." George Marsden, the Notre Dame historian of American evangelicalism, called it "a radical movement" whose "positive proposals... 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."

Small, yes. But the ideas spread. The homeschooling networks remain. The political vocabulary—biblical law, Christian America, dominion, taking back the culture—saturates certain segments of American Christianity.

And the questions reconstructionism raises don't go away easily. What is the proper relationship between religious conviction and civil law? Can a society be religiously neutral, or is that itself a religious position? If you believe God has revealed how societies should be ordered, what do you do with that belief in a pluralistic democracy?

Rushdoony had clear answers. Most Americans, including most American Christians, reject those answers. But the underlying tensions—between revelation and democracy, between divine law and human freedom, between the city of God and the city of man—are as old as Christianity itself.

They're not going anywhere.