Category Archives: Reconstructionism

God’s Remaking the Earth

Free E-book: Law and Liberty

Biblical Law, Government, R.J. Rushdoony, Reconstructionism, Theonomy

Before I get to my review of Gary North’s Millennialism and Social Order, I wanted to pass along something that appeared in my e-mailbox this week.

Right now, Chalcedon Foundation is offering a free copy, in PDF format, of R. J. Rushdoony’s Law and Liberty for subscribing to its newsletter.

Here is the link for that newsletter offer and free e-book.

The book is also for sale in hard copy (soft cover) on Chalcedon’s website.

Law and Liberty is not like Rushdoony’s massive magnum opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law.

It is a much more manageable, 200+ page paperback!

I read it more than 15 years ago when I came across a copy in the used book section of my favorite Christian bookstore in Phoenix.

It is comprised of 32 short chapters, each of which is a self-contained unit and deals with a single topic relating to law and biblical Christianity.  This “self-contained” aspect of the chapters is due to the fact that they were originally based on a series of radio addresses delivered by Rushdoony back in the 1960s.

The material is not dated, though.  It reads just as timely and engaging as if it were written in the 21st century.

I recommend subscribing to the newsletter and getting a free copy of the book in PDF.  (You can always order a hard copy or look for a used copy later.)

This is theological and historical meat and potatoes condensed into compact form.  It is solid intellectual and spiritual food for the Christian soul.

For a sneek peek, click here!

Backward, Christian Soldiers? (Book Review, Part 2)

Biblical Law, Gary North, Reconstructionism, Theocracy, Theonomy

In Part II of his book, Backward, Christian Soldiers?, Gary North identifies who “The Enemy” is: atheistic secular humanism.

In chapter 6, he reminds us that it’s “1984 [when he wrote the book–PR] not 1948”, meaning that we can’t solve our cultural and moral problems simply by turning the clock backwards to insulate ourselves (the Church) from them.

He says pastors need to preach a specific message to their congregations. A message of repentance:

Now is the time for faithful Christians to start preaching for repentance, or judgment which leads to repentance. It appears that we are unlikely to wake up the slumbering faithful in the pews apart from judgment. So we should preach for judgment. Not judgment unto destruction, but judgment unto restoration, the kind of judgment preached by the prophets.

I would call this “purpose-driven preaching”.

We’re in for a rude awakening, Gary says. But it’s an opportunity to rebuild after the disintegration: “That is what the early church did for the collapsing Roman Empire. We must be ready to do it again.”

Chapter 7 talks about how, in the early 20th century, the enemies of Christianity “captured the robes” of authority in American culture by invading and overtaking its institutions: the courts, the schools and the churches.

In chapter 8, he talks about “humanism’s chaplains”: preachers who hold, and preach, a worldview similar to that of the Church’s detractors, the atheistic secularists, even though their theology may be “conservative”–men like D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the famous Welsh Reformed minister, whom he profiles as his case in point.

In chapter 9, he calls out “humanism’s accomplices”: Christian college campuses that preach and teach “a theology of retreat”. In doing so, they frustrate the cause and message of the Gospel.

As far as most Christian campuses are concerned, the theology of retreat has accomplished the goals of the secularists: to snuff out the life-giving, society-reconstructing message of Christ to the whole of man’s existence.

In chapter 10, he continues this theme: “subsidizing God’s opponents”–government-funded public schools (K-through-college) and denominationally-funded Christian schools and universities that choose to underwrite liberalism and anti-Christian curricula.

Just because a group of political liberals once earned Ph.D.’s doesn’t mean that conservative laymen have a moral obligation to support them in their tenure-protected security.

Amen.

Part III of the book discusses Strategy.  Chapter 11 is about breaking out of the “stalemate mentality”.  Chapter 12 asks, “What kind of army?”  Answer: one with Jesus Christ as Supreme Commander and its victory assured.  But the present army seems to lack a clear “chain of command”.

What kind of army functions without a chain of command? None. Then what kind of army is the church? A defeated army. An army which is told that it must suffer defeat, that any sign of victory is an illusion or else a lure into a subsequent defeat, that victory must be the Devil’s, will be a defeated army. Yet this is precisely what modern Christians have been told, and since they don’t like the rigors of battle, and since they don’t like the discipline of a chain of command, and since they really don’t trust the judgment of their officers, they prefer to listen to stories of defeat. Defeatism justifies their own softness.

I don’t think anyone will ever accuse Gary North of mincing words, beating around the bush or being vague about what he is trying to say!

Chapter 13 deals with the “progressive responsibility” that Christians have to exercise leadership.  We’ve been given God’s law, whose perfection more than compensates for our inexperience as judges.  Also, we are working towards what Paul envisioned: a Christ-centered theocracy (rule by God’s law), not a Church-centered ecclesiocracy (rule by priests and ministers).  And he says we need “on-the-job training” in exercising godly judgment in this world since (as Paul reminds the Corinthians), “the saints shall judge the world with Christ.”

In Chapter 14, Gary says that biblical law and Christianity shaped Western civilization by influencing “the little things” in life.

However important theology may be, it is the application of that theology to specific instances of daily living that makes the difference cul- turally. Theology is not simply an affair of the educational specialists. Flourishing theology is always practical theology. Theology has implications for every sphere of human existence. It is basic to the successful outworking of God’s dominion covenant (Gen. 1:28) that people begin to apply the truths they have learned, especially in family affairs. If theology is untranslated into the little things of life, then it is truncated theology-cut off at the root.

In chapter 15, Gary stresses the need for “shepherds and sheep” to pursue decentralization in the church, and a “working federalism” among Christian groups and within each group, to fulfill the church’s mission.  This especially includes education.

In chapter 16, he talks about “the three legs of Christian Reconstruction’s stool”–Presbyterian-oriented scholarship, Baptist day schools and churches, and charismatic-Pentecostal telecommunications systems (satellites).  Together these have evolved into the supportive structure of the movement.

Chapters 17 through 19 deal with the necessity for long-term education–mainly self-education through reading, both by pastors and laypersons who wish to know more–and a revival of apprenticeship: learning valuable practical skills through training under a master (craftsman or pastor)–essential skills that cannot be imparted academically or bureaucratically.

Part IV covers “Tactics”.

This section of the book gets down to brass tacks with specific recommendations.  Some of the technical details are dated, but the general advice is still good and worth following.

In chapter 20, Gary discusses the need for Christian day school operators, educators and lawyers to come together to develop materials for a system of legal defense training to successfully go up against the bureaucratic State, which seeks to protect its education monopoly by slowing down and even reversing the spread of private education–especially religious and home-based–alternatives.

In chapter 21, he talks about using newsletters, which tend to be short, to educate the public, rather than long, densely-worded books.  At least in the beginning.  He goes into the benefits and advantages of using this format.

Chapter 22, “The Tape Ministry”, would seem to be an obsolete and useless topic for a generation that has probably never seen a cassette tape, yet the general advice and admonitions about how–and why–to produce quality educational, doctrinal or pastoral audio content are as relevant today as they were when Gary first penned (typed) his words.

Chapter 23 talks about “The Computer”.  Again, the technical aspects and recommendations are dated–though they do have historical curiosity and entertainment value!  The same goes for chapter 24, “The Case for a Satellite T.V. Reception Dish”!  As with the three previous chapters, it’s Gary’s “reasons why you need to do this and do it NOW” that are important.  We can apply what he says to the technology of today.

Part V: The Duration.

The remainder of the book deals with the question of time: how long do we have?

Gary’s answer: longer than most Christians think!

We don’t know exactly how long it will be before Christ returns.  Only God does.  But we do know that he will give his Church as much time as it needs to fulfill its mission.

Chapter 25 addresses the death issue that many modern Christians assume they can avoid via the Rapture.  Gary touches on eschatology here and maintains that postmillennialism is the only position that realistically (and optimistically) accepts the fact that ALL Christians alive today are going to DIE, and that this fact helps us to become more future-oriented and long-term in our thinking (which is why he titled this chapter, “Optimistic Corpses”!).

Chapter 26 asks the question directly, “How much time?”  He answers, in the conclusion:

We do not know for certain when the end will come. We must be like long-distance runners who conserve their strength because they are never quite certain until the very end where the finish line is.

That naturally leads into the theme of the next chapter (27), “The Long, Long Haul.”  Modern social and political conservatives and revolutionary radicals have very different time perspectives.  Gary compares these.  Then he contrasts a “proper” time perspective for Christians (long-term) with the prevailing one (short-term), and says this:

The proper strategy for Christian reconstruction is long-term discipline in every area of responsible action. We dig in early and steadily expand our area of influence…..

The shortening of men’s time horizons as a result of both premillennialism and amillennialism has contributed to a decline in competence among Christian workers and an increase in reliance upon the miraculous. If men do not believe that they have a life-time to develop their skills and capital, let alone to pass down both skills and capital to later generations, they must become dependent upon God’s miracles to advance their causes. As men’s time horizons shrink, their quest for “the big payoff” increases, since only through such a discontinuity can they expect to advance themselves significantly in a brief period of time.

“Small Beginnings” is the theme of chapter 28.  Gary compare’s political liberalism’s faith in the State and in using the power, resources and control of the State (via taxpayer funding) to achieve its ends for solving society’s problems vs. conservatism’s preference for seeking private-sector, non-statist solutions–which tend to be small and underfunded–to achieve its ends for solving those same problems.  And he warns against the tendency to become discouraged at the slow or seemingly non-existent progress of these small, grass-roots organizations:

The apparent ineffectiveness of small, underfunded ideological or religious organizations is deceptive. All long-term social change comes from the successful efforts of one or another struggling organization to capture the minds of a hard core of future leaders, as well as the respect of a wider population. There is no other way to change a society.

The “Conclusion” of the book is a call to action, with some very specific recommendations on how to get started individually and collectively in the long-term project of Christian reconstruction, advancing the cause of the Gospel and the crown rights of King Jesus.

A short but helpful Glossary at the end defines a handful of terms such as eschatology, fundamentalism and, of course, Christian Reconstruction, which in part says,

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… is biblical law. This is the “tool of dominion.”

Also,

The founders of the movement have combined four basic Christian beliefs into one overarching system: 1) biblical law, 2) optimistic eschatology, 3) predestination (providence), and 4) presuppositional apologetics (philosophical defense of the faith). Not all CR’s hold all four positions, but the founders have held all four.

All in all, this book packs a considerable punch, rhetorically and instructively, for being a paperback that’s smaller than a Roget’s thesaurus!

MY CONCLUSION

Backward, Christian Soldiers? is still worth reading today even though it was written three decades ago, compiled from a series of articles that together formed a contemporary “handbook” for Christians to follow.  It shows some historical wear, yes, but its spot-on advice, observations and admonitions are just as relevant today as they were then.

This was one of the first books I read–shortly after I happened across Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law–early on in my self-education and introduction into this “new” theological frontier known as Christian Reconstruction.

The book is still available (limited quantities) from several resellers. You can also download it for free (PDF) here: Backward Christian Soldiers.

Book Review: Backward, Christian Soldiers?

Gary North, Reconstructionism

(Continued from previous post)

The first thing to notice about Gary’s book is that he frames its title as a question: Backward, Christian Soldiers?  

As if to elicit the response (from us, upon reading his book): No way! NOT ANYMORE! Not us soldiers of the living God and of his victorious, reigning Christ!

That’s because the book is a call to action.  A call to arms.  It is not a devotional.  It is not a commentary–unless you consider it a “commentary” on the sad state of affairs in the Church with respect to the impotence of Christians in the arena of battle known as The Culture War.

And it is not a large, unfathomable (big, fat) tome.  It is a small, very readable paperback of about 300 pages.

The book is divided into five parts:

I. THE WAR

II. THE ENEMY

III. STRATEGY

IV. TACTICS

V. THE DURATION

Part I has five (brief) chapters: Backward, Christian Soldiers?, Impending Judgment, Eschatologies of Shipwreck, Fundamentalism: Old and New, Why Fight to Lose?

Part II chapters: 1984, Not 1948, Capturing the Robes, Humanism’s Chaplains, Humanism’s Accomplices, Subsidizing God’s Opponents.

Part II chapters: The Stalemate Mentality, What Kind of Army?, Progressive Responsibility, The “Little Things” of Life, Shepherds and Sheep and The Three Legs of Christian Reconstruction’s Stool, Crisis Management and Functional Illiteracy and Pastoral Education.

Part IV chapters: Reviving Apprenticeship, Brush-Fire Wars, Church Newsletters, The Tape Ministry, The Computer, The Case for a Satellite TV Reception Dish. (The book was written in 1984, so some of these chapters show their age, but still good reading!)

Part V chapters: Optimistic Corpses, How Much Time?, The Long, Long Haul, and Small Beginnings.

The remainder of the book consists of: conclusion, a glossary of terms, Scripture index and recommended reading (a few titles written by Gary as well as David Chilton and James Jordan).

Now, I’ll briefly summarize the book.

First, Gary calls Christians to challenge the culture.  Western Civilization was largely built on the premise that “the Bible has the answers for all of life’s problems.”  Yet Christians seem to have retreated–especially during the last 200 years–intimidated, it seems, by the apparent intellectual superiority of modern secularism, which has overtaken the very universities and institutions Christians themselves founded several centuries ago, and relinquished control over the reins of influence in these institutions to their mortal and spiritual enemies.   He points out (rather pointedly), “A book like R. J. Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) should have been written two centuries ago; a culture should have flowered because of it. Instead, we let the secularists do our work for us. We do not trust our own competence.”

Confidence, buoyancy and optimism used to characterize our Western Civilization.  Not anymore.

Right now we face “Impending Judgment”.  But this can be turned around.  If pastors will preach like prophets.  Old Testament prophets.

The prophets of the Old Testament believed that there is a fixed relationship between the moral character of a nation and the external blessings or cursings visited by God on that nation. They believed in the reliability of biblical law. They knew that if people continue to cheat their neighbors, commit adultery, break up the family, and defy all lawfully constituted authorities, the land will be brought under judgment. They had no doubts in this regard. They recapitulated the teachings of Deuteronomy 28:15-68, warning their listeners that God’s laws cannot be violated with impunity forever.

Gary observes: “twentieth-century preaching has neglected the outline of Deuteronomy 28.”

He then draws attention to the Church’s “Eschatologies of Shipwreck.”  Which are based on a “theology of shipwreck”.  Which, in turn, leads invariably (he says) to tyranny:

If men have no hope of being able to reform the external world–the world outside the institutional churches–then they are faced with two sources of tyranny. The first is ecclesiastical. The second is political.

The historian in Gary then talks about Fundamentalism: Old and New in chapter 4.   He gives an interesting political vignette that highlights the huge transition Fundamentalist Christians made mentally from the defeatism of the early 20th-century to the triumphalism of the 1970s and 80s.  Unfortunately, their theology didn’t make the transition, so now they are (as of the writing of the book) suffering from “theological schizophrenia”!

We will find out whether fundamentalists are committed to premillennial dispensationalism- pretribulation, midtribulation, or posttribulation- or whether they are committed to the idea of Christian reconstruction. They will begin to divide into separate camps. Some will cling to the traditonal Scofieldism…. Others will scrap their dispensational eschatology completely and turn to a perspective which offers them hope, in time and on earth…. Pessimistic pietism and optimistic reconstructionism don’t mix.

Boy, isn’t that the truth! (I know from firsthand experience.)

In the chapter, “Why Fight to Lose”, Gary talks about the enormous opportunity presented to Christians, validated and assured by the successes they enjoyed beginning, almost immediately, during the First Century–improbable successes given the insurmountable odds they overcame through the power and sovereignty of God, who predestined their victory beforehand, and is still carrying out that victory, conquering Satan’s weak, temporary and unstable dominion on their behalf. Moreover,…

Satan cannot win. Why not? Because he has denied God’s sovereignty and disobeyed God’s law…. It is time for Christians to stop giving Satan credit for more than he is worth. Christians must stop worrying about Satan’s power, and start working to undermine his kingdom. Contrary to a best-selling paperback book of the 1970’s, Satan is not alive and well on planet earth-alive, yes, but not well.

More of this scintillating review coming in our next post….

‘A New Way of Thinking’ for Christians: Positive, Optimistic

Postmillennialism, Reconstructionism

Sometime back in the early 1990s, I read Gary North’s Backward Christian Soldiers: An Action Manual for Christian Reconstruction.

It was one of several of Gary’s books that I began to acquire and read one by one as I began to “reconstruct” my worldview as well as my theology and eschatology.

It is one thing to be a conservative evangelical Christian and have hope for the future.

It is quite another to be one and have hope for the present.

That’s where the majority of evangelical and Reformed Christians find themselves.  It’s where they found themselves three decades ago.

Stuck somewhere between waiting for the Rapture and waiting for the world to keep on sliding into the cultural and moral abyss, with the Church doing its best to hold on to its not-so-solid ground.

In 1984, Gary offered the Church something better.

An ‘action manual’ for VICTORY on the field of battle.

A small book introducing Christians to a “positive, optimistic way of thinking” about the world around them.  An alternative to the doom-and-gloom, prophetically-challenged pessimism that ruled the airwaves–and printing presses–almost exclusively back in the 1980s.  I remember it so well!

Recently–as recently as the last two weeks–I acquired several (10) fresh copies of this book, Backward, Christian Soldiers, which I plan to give away.  “Fresh” is a relative term, though.  These are original editions left over from the second printing of the book: 1986.  So they’ve been around awhile. Unsold. (Until two weeks ago.)

That, by the way, is a testimony to the overall reticence and reluctance of evangelical Christians en masse to heed such a “positive, optimistic” message of “victory” for the Church–especially one that posits this victory as taking place, progressively, prior to the Lord’s return.  Eschatological heresy!

I’ll be taking a closer look at Gary’s book here, unpacking its contents and pulling out whatever nuggets of proactive, biblically-based optimism that I can.

Don’t let the title fool you.  Gary knows how to wield a catchy headline (or book title).  It’s meant to startle Christians into realizing that, for the last century or more, we’ve been marching backwards, away from the conflict and out of the war, culturally speaking, the entire regiment beating a retreat in the face of humanism’s relentless onslaught.

The victory spoken of in this book is not just the victory over indwelling sin that all believers agree has already been won.  It’s the victory over the effects of sin in every area of life.  

It can be done. Not perfectly, of course. Perfect victory over personal sin comes only on the day of a person’s death, or on the day of resurrection, whichever comes first. Perfect victory over the effects of sin throughout the universe comes only at the day of judgment. But progressive victory over sin in the individual’s life can and should be mirrored in the progressive victory over the effects of sin in the society.

As Gary points out, this is the message of Deuteronomy 8 and 28:1-14. (Take a look at those passages. They’re still relevant.)  The victory of the one in Christ as well as the victory of the many.

He talks in his introduction about “social sanctification.”  Something we individualistic Christians tend to find a foreign-sounding phrase.  It is the “leavening influence” that the presence of believers exerts on a culture.

As godly people begin to restructure their behavior in terms of what the Bible requires, the world about them begins to change. They serve as leavening influences in the whole culture. As more converts are added to the rolls of the churches, and as these converts begin to conform their lives to the Bible’s standards for external behavior, all of society is progressively sanctified- set apart by God for His glory, just as He set apart Israel in Old Testament times.

That last point underscores where Christian Reconstructionists sometimes part company with others in the evangelical camp, finding some (but not much) comraderie and kinship with those in the Reformed camp through covenant theology: the continuity of the ethical and moral precepts of the Old Testament, with their commensurate blessings and curses for corporate and individual obedience and disobedience.

That is what our victory is based on.

More on Backward, Christian Soldiers in the next post.

Growing Pains: Evangelical Celebrity Kirk Cameron ‘Outed’ by Critics as a Reconstructionist.

Eschatology, Postmillennialism, Reconstructionism

Kirk CameronOutspoken Christian actor Kirk Cameron was already in the doghouse for recent remarks he made on Piers Morgan’s program concerning homosexuality.

But now, he has not only further alienated his detractors on the issue of gay marriage, he may also have offended some of his conservative brethren, those of his own evangelical household.

You see, once upon a time, in an industry not so far, far away, Kirk Cameron was a talented, likable, conservative, born-again Christian TV actor, movie star and media evangelist.  Now–as some of his ideological critics are pointing out–he is a talented, likable, conservative, born-again Christian TV actor, movie star and media evangelist,… with Reconstructionist tendencies.

The horror of it! Not only does Kirk strongly disapprove of gay marriage, now he’ll probably want to campaign and run for president, whereupon his first executive order after being sworn in will be to round up all known and suspected homosexuals and send them straight to Guantanomo Bay for “enhanced interrrogation,” “indefinite detention” (and worse)!  No judge, no jury.  This is, after all, a theocracy!

Anyway, that’s how the fertile imaginations of certain “anti-reconstructionists” would envision it.

What has put Kirk in the crosshairs of the media for the second time in as many months is this: the release of his new film Monumental, and the accompanying hoopla and media scrutiny it has generated, have brought to light some of Kirk’s recent “ties” to well-known Reconstructionists like Gary DeMar, president of American Vision and sponsor and speaker at numerous Reconstructionist events, and Herb Titus, constitutional lawyer and former dean of Regent University law school (and public admirer of Rousas J. Rushdoony), among others.

And the list, i.e., “friends of Kirk”, keeps getting longer, now with this “new” group of folks.

Julie Ingersoll, religion professor, has written an article for the Huffington Post on Kirk Cameron’s “growing circle of Reconstructionist friends.”

She says it like it’s a bad thing.

In fact, so does this guy.

And this guy.

They can all be forgiven for getting it wrong about what Christian Reconstructionism really teaches.  They’re just parroting the same distortions that have been around for the last 40 years.  Which is easier than engaging in close, scriptural and historical examination, thoughtful research and reflection.  In other words, they’re being theologically correct!

Ingersoll makes a valiant attempt at explaining Reconstructionism in her review of Monumental. She makes this observation, which is accurate for the most part:

Reconstructionists, unlike many Christians read the Bible as a coherent whole; both Old and New Testaments. They believe that the Trinity was present at creation and that while some parts of the Old Testament are no longer applicable, most of them are, giving them a somewhat different notion of the character of God than most contemporary Christians have.

Christianity Today did a feature article on Cameron and his new movie, without ever mentioning the “R” word. Not once. Must be an evangelical media blackout or something. Sort of like the secular media blackout on that other “R” word… Ron Paul.

Cameron has moved from the mainstream of conservative evangelicalism to its outer “fringe.”   Let’s hope he can influence other believing Hollywood media stars into joining the fray and widening the fringe!

I would love to see Kirk produce and star in a series of Christian films that would offset the peculiar eschatological views he held (and which are still widely held) back when he appeared in the Left Behind series.

Now, that would be MONUMENTAL!

Rock Your Worldview: The Institutes of Biblical Law

Biblical Law, Eschatology, Government, Reconstructionism, Reformed Theology, Theonomy

If there is one book that I can honestly say took my nascent Reformed faith and shifted it into theological overdrive, it was R.J. Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law (1973, Craig Press).  This single volume is considered by many to be Reconstructionism’s “founding document” and its most cogent, erudite statement of what it believes.

When I first picked up a used copy of Rushdoony’s Institutes in late 1989 and began reading it in early 1990, I had already been questioning and shedding my Arminian, Dispensationalist, Fundamentalist, Pentecostal views.  A refugee of the televangelist wars of the mid-80s and a former follower of “defrocked” Gospel crusader Jimmy Swaggart, I had begun to read some of the Puritans and other Calvinist writers and was slowly becoming attracted to (what appeared to me) the rock-solid stability and doctrinal consistency of the Reformed faith.

Believe me, after the deflating disappointment of Edgar Whisenant’s failed prediction of Christ’s return and the Rapture of the Church in 1988, I was ready for a BIG change in my evangelical worldview, as well as in my eschatology.

Rushdoony’s book was not immediately appealing to me.  Too academic, too dry, too intellectually dense.  My tastes leaned more towards fervent, devotional, pietistic reading and teaching.  That began to change.

As I started reading, I began to change my entire Christian outlook.  Or, I should say, GOD began to change my entire Christian outlook. (That darned sovereignty thing again!)  The Institutes of Biblical Law became a theological lifeline.  Christianity took on flesh and bone and a more extensively (and intensively) “mission-critical” significance. The Scriptures became a flood where they once were only a creek.

Anyway, one thing led to another and this book introduced me to a host of other like-minded, Reformed/Reconstructionist writers, including Dr. Gary North.

It is not for the faint-of-heart, though. This is nearly 900 pages of high-octane, high-protein, heavy-duty reading.  But, for a well-grounded, scripturally and historically informed understanding of biblical law, this is the one to read. The book is structured according to the Decalogue: an introductory section on the Importance of the Law followed by ten chapters, one on each of the Ten Commandments, then separate chapters on the Promises of Law, the Law in the Old Testament, the Law in the New Testament, the Church, the Law in Western Society, and several appendices, three of which were written by Gary North.

If you want what is probably the most astute introduction to biblical law and Christian Reconstruction, Institutes is still available in hardcover from the Chalcedon Foundation, Amazon, and possibly from other resellers used.  It can also be viewed online here.

FREE! 31-Volume Economic Commentary on the Bible by Gary North

Economics, Postmillennialism, Reconstructionism, Theology, Theonomy
Gary North’s magnum opus, a comprehensive economic commentary on the Bible is finished.  It is available online, all 31 volumes, for free, for a time.  FREE!  No cost.  No charge.  Right now, he is putting them out via his website one by one, offering them as a “free weekly book.” You can download them to your hard drive, as much as you want, to your heart’s content.  No cost.  No charge.Gary will keep them online for free until Dec. 31, 2012.  The reason he is doing this?  He wants feedback between now and then.  At this stage in the development of the commentaries, all that remains is final “polishing of the text” which he is doing, and final proofreading, with corrections as needed.  That’s where you and I come in.  He wants feedback from his readers.  Mainly what he wants is for folks to download and read his commentaries and then e-mail their responses to him to let him know if there are any typos, factual errors, faulty biblical citations, etc., that need to be addressed.Then, after the end of this year, on Jan. 1, 2013, he says he will take the entire commentary offline and begin the process of making a “new and improved” version of the 31-volume set available on CD-ROM shortly thereafter, exactly 40 years after he began working on this project.  He will then sell the finished product on CD, for a price (for “a lot more than zero”!).

If you want to take advantage of this FREE offer, you have until New Year’s Eve 2012.  After that, the principles of Austrian economics kick in and the set will no longer be free. So, act now.

You can start here.  With the book of Genesis.

Theocracy: Is It Totalitarian or Libertarian?

Government, Reconstructionism, Theocracy
There is a common strain of thinking that I’ve noticed among those who attack and criticize the Christian Reconstruction movement.

Naturally, they call it “extremist” (but so is Biblical Christianity).  They say that it’s “outside the mainstream of modern evangelicalism” (which indeed it is).  But then they go on to characterize it as an attempted coup of the government by a fanatic, fringe group of Old Testament-minded Christians who are seeking a hostile TAKEOVER of the levers of power in order to force their narrow and strange beliefs onto an unwitting populace via a top-down, authoritarian bureaucracy that they themselves control (which it isn’t, it doesn’t, and they don’t).
And in their denunciations they usually employ a certain word to try and defame Reconstructionism in the strongest terms possible, characterizing it as a repressive faction of do-gooders “hell-bent” on installing a regime of religious totalitarianism.  They try to use this word in the most pejorative and derogatory sense that they possibly can.
That word is (horrors!) theocracy.
Now, theocracy for some people, thanks to media distortions, misappropriations of the word and just plain, bad theology, amounts to little more than an intolerant, bigoted, religious dictatorship.
The trouble is, “theocracy”, the way Reconstructionists use the word, is neither authoritarian nor totalitarian.

If It’s Not Authoritarian and It’s Not Totalitarian, Then What Is It?


Theocracy, as far as Christian Reconstruction is concerned, really does mean, simply, “God’s rule”.  God’s government, by God’s laws.  Government by the Creator, by the Creator’s laws.  As opposed to man’s government by man’s laws, i.e., government by man’s misguided, depraved, humanistic, atheistic, sin-reinforcing, justice-perverting laws.
Under a true, i.e., biblical theocracy, human authority is limited.  Man only “rules” in a delegated, temporal (and limited) sense. He does not have absolute sovereignty or total, unchecked power over the people.  Actually, theocracy begins and ends with the most fundamental and rudimentary form of government known to man: self-government.
But for this kind of regime to work properly and function fairly and equitably, it requires that the people living under it be SELF-GOVERNING and SELF-DISCIPLINED.  And that requires an intelligent, educated and biblically-informed population.  Without this, theocracy does degenerate into an authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorial, tyrannical regime.
Now, if you’ve ever read or heard anything by either of the two primary founding fathers of the Reconstruction movement, Gary North and Rousas John Rushdoony, rather than relying simply on second-hand, readily-available-but-factually-inaccurate sound bites from misinformed detractors, you know that this is exactly what they mean when they talk about “theocracy.”
Here’s a quote from Rushdoony’s “Christian Manifesto” (1984):
“Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had” (Roots of Reconstruction, p. 63).
Everything that both North and Rushdoony have written and spoken on the subject over the years bears this out.  (North is even dismissed as being TOO libertarian for some “conservative” evangelical Christians!)
For Christian Reconstructionists, “theocracy” is self-government under God.  It really is the closest thing to “biblical libertarianism” that there is without lapsing into its atheistic alternative, anarchy.

Review (Part 2), "Christian Reconstruction, What It Is, What It Isn’t," Book by Gary North & Gary DeMar

Reconstructionism

Today, I’ll be taking a look at Gary DeMar’s Introduction to the book he co-authored with Gary North, Christian Reconstruction, What It Is, What It Isn’t.

Gary’s Introduction focuses exclusively on the critics of the “movement.”

In doing so, he says that he’s been able to “categorize the critics” into five distinct groups based on the nature of their refutations over the years.

These five categories are:

1. Gross misrepresentation
2. Eschatology as the test of orthodoxy
3. Anti-biblical culture (i.e., disavowing a uniquely biblical, Christian culture–PR)
4. Combination of gross misrepresentation and no alternative
5. Honest disagreement but appreciation and benefit

Before he gets into what he means by these five categories, Gary mentions how the “flood of critiques of Christian Reconstruction by popular writers began in earnest in 1985, twelve years after Rushdoony’s Institutes of Biblical Law appeared.” And two of its most prolific critics during this time were Hal Lindsey and Dave Hunt.

He highlights the fact that it is the theologically and historically inaccurate dispensational premillennialist views of these two men, being in stark contrast to the covenantal postmillennial outlook of Reconstructionism, that are behind their “gross misrepresentations” of the movement as being anti-semitic due to their differing interpretations of prophecies concerning Israel.

I won’t go into the details of the five categories, but I will mention that Gary takes the occasion of his writing to highlight the “poorly reasoned approach and the failure to study the existing materials” that the critics of Christian Reconstruction (and theonomy) have exhibited and shared in common for the most part over the years.

He says that responses from critics have ranged from mere disagreement with the position to outright accusations of heresy.

It is very much worth reading Gary’s discussion of his five categories. They make up the lion’s share of his introduction.

A lot of people tend to skip over the introduction pages of a book.  To me, that’s a mistake.  If you skip Gary DeMar’s introduction, you’re skipping (and cheating yourself out of) a vital piece of understanding and appreciating the book!

In conclusion, Gary notes, “the assumption of every critic is that his belief system is orthodox while the position he is examining is unorthodox.”

Tomorrow, a review of Part I, God’s Covenantal Kingdom, written by Gary North.

A Review of "Christian Reconstruction: What It Is, What It Isn’t," Book by Gary North & Gary DeMar (Part 1)

Reconstructionism

The book I’m reviewing here, Christian Reconstruction, What It Is, What It Isn’t, co-authored by Gary North and Gary DeMar, wasn’t meant to be an “exhaustive” treatment of the subject when it was first published in 1991.

But it is a very good, albeit brief introduction (200+ pages).  It’s concise enough to be read in a fairly short amount of time.

The book summarizes the most relevant points and arguments concerning Christian Reconstruction as a biblical philosophy and “blueprint” for a long-term, spiritual project of renovating the earth as per the transformative, regenerative power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The explicit goal of the book is to dispel myths and present facts and biblical evidences (as Dr. North and Mr. DeMar see them) to support their position.

Here’s an overview of what is covered in the book.

First, the Preface, which Gary North writes.  It’s an interesting and lively, 13-page recap of the “origins” of the Reconstruction movement, beginning with his first meeting of Rousas J. Rushdoony in 1962.  He tells about how his interest in economics and history crossed paths with Rushdoony’s foundation-laying work in biblical law and applying the principles thereof to all areas of life, including law, politics, theology and education, how Rushdoony’s thinking was influenced by Calvinist theologian Cornelius Van Til, and how his own thinking about biblical law was shaped by what he learned through his research (Ph.D.) into the New England Puritans of the 17th century.

North talks about how the early movement evolved from one of “negative criticism” to one of “positive reconstruction,” offering books, publications and institutional foundations that were needed to begin presenting to the public, and to the church, clear, “actionable” and explicitly biblical solutions and alternatives to the humanist, atheist and generally unbiblical solutions currently in vogue that were being offered as “solutions” to the world’s problems, and cures for society’s ills.

He discusses how the boldness and confidence of those who believe in the continuing application and validity of God’s law in the world, who have an unwavering conviction that the future belongs to covenant-keepers not covenant-breakers–and the Bible offers no common ground between these two disparate factions of the human race, other than the fact that they’re both made in the image of God–is often misinterpreted and mistaken as arrogance.

This he refers to as The Offense of Christian Reconstruction.

“God is plowing up the modern world.” North says.  And He’s busy establishing His New World Order–the true New World Order that Jesus launched–to supplant Satan’s counterfeit world order.  And, according to North and DeMar, He’s using His own infallible, immutable law–contained in the Old and New Testaments–as the basis for it.

“And so we go about our work.  We have time on our side; our opponents don’t. We have a sovereign God on our side; our opponents don’t. We cannot afford to be complacent; we can, however, afford to be confident, and for the same reasons that David was.”

Tomorrow, Gary DeMar’s Introduction.