From: allan@sunk.hc.ti.com (Allan Poindexter)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Christian Reconstruction
Date: 8 Jan 93 05:18:00 GMT


   In it I found a quote from Gary North out of Christian Reconstruction, vol
   XIV, no 3:

       The collapse of Marxism is symptomatic of a far more crucial collapse.
       Marxism's demise is the first stage of a much more significant
       transformation: the collapse of Western humanist culture.

   I find this a very interesting statement, but there was no support for it
   in the book. I don't know Gary North nor Christian Reconstruction. I guess
   the latter is a magazine. Do you know either? Did you read the article? I
   am mostly interested in the reasoning behind the above statement.

Christian Reconstructionism (also known as theonomy or dominion
theology) is a movement emerging out of the conservative Reformed
heritage which is marked by postmillenialism and a desire to apply the
concepts of biblical law to modern society.  The most influential
proponents of these ideas are R. J. Rushdoony, Gary North, Gregory
Bahnsen, and possibly David Chilton.  While I am not sure he would
identify himself as a Reconstructionist Herbert Schlossberg's analysis
is also well respected in CR circles.  There are several
Reconstructionist organizations such as the Institute for Christian
Economics.  In addition there is at least on newsweekly that is at least
somewhat Reconstructionist in tone, _World_ from God's World
Publications.  Pieces by David Chilton appear there often.

The central principle of Reconstructionism seems to be that the modern
quest for a secular society divorced from religion is not only ill
advised but impossible.  This quote from p. 4-5 of R. J. Rushdoony's
_Institutes_of_Biblical_Law explains why:

"Law is in every culture _religious_in_origin_.  Because law governs man
and society, because it establishes and declares the meaning of justice
and righteousness, law is inescapably religious, in that it establishes
in practical fashion the ultimate concerns of a culture.  Accordingly, a
fundamental and necessary premise in any and every study of law must be,
_first_, a recognition of this religious nature of law.

_Second_, it must be recognized that in any culture _the_source_of_law_is
the_god_of_that_society_.  If law has its source in man's reason, then
reason is the god of that society.  If the source is an oligarchy, or in
a court, senate, or ruler, then that source is the god of that system.
Thus, in Greek culture law was essentially a religiously humanistic
concept.

...

Modern humanism, the religion of the state, locates law in the state and
thus make the state, or the people as they find expression in the state,
the god of the system.  As Mao Tse-Tung has said, "Our God is none other
than the masses of the Chinese people."  In Western culture, law has
steadily moved away from God to the people (or the state) as its source,
although the historic power and vitality of the West has been in
Biblical faith and law.

_Third_, in any society, any change of law is an explicit or implicit
change of religion.  Nothing more clearly reveals, in fact, the
religions change in society than a legal revolution.  When the legal
foundations shift from Biblical law to humanism, it means that the
society now draws its vitality and power from humanism, not from
Christian theism.

_Fourth_, no disestablishment of religion as such is possible in any
society.  A church can be disestablished, and a particular religion can
be supplanted by another, but the change is simply to another religion.
Since the foundations of law are inescapably religious, no society
exists without a religious foundation or without a law-system which
codifies the morality of its religion.

_Fifth_, there can be no tolerance in a law-system for another religion.
Toleration is a device used to introduce a new law-system as a prelude
to a new intolerance.  Legal positivism, a humanistic faith, has been
savage in its hostility to the Biblical law-system and has claimed to be
an "open" system.  But Cohen*, by no means a Christian, has aptly
describe the logical positivists as "nihilist" and their faith as
"nihilistic absolutism".  Every law-system must maintain its existence
by hostility to every other law-system and to alien religious
foundations, or else it commits suicide."

[emphasis in original - dex]
* Morris Raphael Cohen, author of _Reason_and_Law


As postmillenialists, Reconstructionists believe that the Christian
world view is destined to achieve dominance before the return of Christ.
This is the background to the quote you saw.  There is much more to
theonomy than this.  For example, most theonomists seem to eschew any
attempt to abstract principles from Old Testament law.  They would
prefer to apply the laws as written.  However, that is a discussion for
another day.

I am sympathetic with the cultural critique in Reconstructionist
thought.  I am less confident of their proposed solutions.  For example,
while I perceive the dangers of abstraction that the Reconstructionists
see I am not confident that the solution is not to abstract at all.
Indeed I am not sure that in the radically different cultural context of
today it is even possible to avoid abstraction.  I also agree with much
of what Reconstruction has to say about the problems of the
inseparability of religious and political society.  However, I hesitate
to propose theocracy as a solution for those problems.

Another problem area in Reconstruction is the place of law in their
belief system.  Another quote from Rushdoony (p. 4):

"Lawless Christianity is a contradiction in terms:  it is anti-Christian.
The purpose of grace is not to set aside the law but to fufil the law
and enable man to keep the law."


In other words grace is a means to the law.  Yet Paul seems to imply in
Romans 3 that this is exactly backwards.  Law is a means to grace.
"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing
the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." (Ro 3:20)
Paul seems to think the purpose of the law is not that it be kept but
that it drive us to seek grace.

tntigwi,
dex

Note:  I am not the net.expert on Christian Reconstruction.  That title
probably belongs to Tom Albrecht.  Hopefully he will fill in the details
I left unsaid.