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Family Ties—and Strange Bedfellows


This is the first draft for chapter three of End This Wicked Marriage. Please send constructive suggestions.


“The heresy of democracy has since then worked havoc in church and state. ... Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.” – R.J. Rushdoony, founder of the Christian Reconstruction movement


Mention the name RJ Rushdoony to the average modern evangelical and you will be met with a blank stare. Few have ever heard of Rushdoony, of his Chalcedon Foundation, or of his calls for a reconstructionist-style theocratic government. But despite his relative obscurity, his views have—to varying degrees, depending on the denomination—influenced most evangelical churches.


Rushdoony’s Reconstructionist Regulations

Throughout my many years teaching Sunday school classes in evangelical churches I often sought to help my fellow evangelicals see the inconsistency of promoting the Ten Commandments as rules for modern living while disregarding nearly all the surrounding portions of the book of Exodus. My goal always was to help students understand that the book of Exodus—and the entire Old Testament—was written to the Hebrew people of that ancient era, not to modern-day Christians. While modern Christians can find deep and powerful bedrock principles in Old Testament passages, the specifics do not apply today. Period.


While I fervently disagree with the reconstructionist goal of a national theocracy, I do respect their consistency. Reconstructionists understand something most other modern evangelicals—including many scholars—miss: The Old Testament Levitical laws are a package deal, all or nothing; no cafeteria-style pick and choose. Reconstructionists have chosen all—well, almost all. Ten Commandments? Yes. Capital punishment for rebellious children, adulterers, homosexuals, and apostates? Yes. Consistent. Mostly.


Historically, virtually all Christians agreed that, from Moses until Christ, the Mosaic laws were rules for life for the Hebrew people. Throughout the following centuries, theologians have debated whether those Mosaic Laws were meant to be applied in the same manner to other cultures in other eras. More specifically, they have sought to determine whether those Mosaic laws carried forward to be directly applied to those within Christian churches. For Rushdoony and his fellow reconstructionists—including Gary North, Greg Bahnsen, David Chilton, and many more—the debate over that question has been settled. Rushdoony wrote, for example, in his book The Mediator: Christ or the Church? The Witness of Jesus Christ,


In the name of toleration, the believer is asked to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions as though no differences existed. ... the covenant people must wage war against the enemies of God, because this war is unto death. The deliberate, refined, and obscene violence of the anti-God forces permits no quarter … this warfare must continue until the Amalekites [anyone who is not a reconstructionist Christian] of the world are blotted out, until God's law-order prevails and His justice reigns.


Simply put, Rushdoony and many of his followers believe(d) that modern Christians, like the Old Testament Israelites, need to wage holy war on anyone who will not submit to their Old Testament-based beliefs and practices—to their theocratic ideals, which are based on their belief that the USA is a modern-day version of Israel.

Simply put, Rushdoony and many of his followers believe(d) that modern Christians, like the Old Testament Israelites, need to wage holy war on anyone who will not submit to their Old Testament-based beliefs and practices.

Levels of Reconstructionist Fervency

The crucial question to be answered, then, is how many evangelicals embrace Rushdoony’s level of fervor? How many of them are ready for warfare “until the Amalekites [anyone who is not a reconstructionist Christian] of the world are blotted out”? My experience-based guess is that only a small percentage are ready, willing, and able to go to that extreme. (However, if just 5 percent of America’s evangelicals are willing to go to that extent, that could mean more than 4 million Americans. A Pew survey found that approximately 25 percent of Americans identify as “evangelical.” Twenty-five percent of a population of 330,000,000 equals 82,500,000 Americans, and 5 percent of 82,500,000 yields more than 4 million. Four million Americans fervent about creating a theocracy could create massive national turmoil. Actually, they already have done so during Trump’s four-year term as president. That turmoil is likely to increase when their new messiah is forced out of the White House.)


Meanwhile, that does not mean that the other 95 percent of evangelicals will be happy to simply live and let live. It’s vital to understand that white nationalist theocracy sentiments come in a variety of flavors and fervency levels.


Before we consider the various names for and levels of commitment to this movement, we need to examine the most basic doctrine that influences its followers. At the movement's root is one’s belief—as a Christian—about the return of Jesus, the Christ/Messiah.


Premillennial: Christ will return suddenly, and His return will set off a chain of events that will culminate in the establishment of his 1,000-year (millennial) reign on a renovated Earth. Christians are to be “salt and light,” positively influencing their unbelieving neighbors, but are not called to rule over those neighbors. Includes Baptists and Southern Baptists, Christian & Missionary Alliance, Calvary Chapels, and many or most independent churches.

Amillennial: There will be no literal millennial kingdom. The period between Christ’s first and second advents constitute a figurative millennial kingdom. “[W]e are called to be model citizens. … our basic posture toward government, according to the New Testament, is to be submissive and obedient citizens of the state,” says R.C. Sproul, prominent amillennial leader. Includes Catholics, Lutherans, some Reformed, Anglican, Methodist, many Presbyterians, and many Messianic Jews.

Postmillennial: Faithful Christians will establish a theocratic kingdom, and after 1,000 years, Christ will return and be given the authority to reign over this kingdom. In order to establish the required theocracy, Christians need to gain control of governments, preferably by peaceful means, but by any means necessary. Includes some Reformed, some Presbyterians, some Pentecostals, and small numbers from many other denominations.


Note: I’ve heard of some theologians attempting to draw—usually minor—distinctions between reconstructionists, dominionists, and theonomists, but for practical purposes the distinctions are so minor as to be little more than hair splitting. Practically speaking, the terms can be viewed as interchangeable. Regardless of the name applied, all stem from the postmillennial position that calls for Christ followers to take control of civil governments worldwide, Christianize the populations governed by those entities, and then, after 1,000 years of peaceful theocratic reign, present this theocratic government to the returning Messiah, Jesus.


The WallBuilders Influence

Another important point to remember is that the lines between these doctrinal positions—especially among average congregants—are not nearly as rigid as the distinctions above might appear. Throughout my decades of evangelical involvement I aligned almost exclusively with premillennials, and among those premillennials I saw an increasing influence from postmillennial teachers, most prominently David Barton’s “WallBuilders.” Barton is a frequent guest lecturer on many programs aired on most of the evangelical TV networks listed in Chapter 1 of this book. Barton’s educational credentials consist of a bachelor’s degree from Oral Roberts University and nothing more.


For those unfamiliar with Oral Roberts, the man was a famous Pentecostal prosperity-gospel preacher, prominent in the mid to late 20th century. His teachings were light on biblical doctrine and heavy on health-and-wealth teachings (God wants His obedient followers to be physically healthy and materially wealthy). In the early 90s, Roberts gained notoriety for his claim of meeting with a 900-foot-tall Jesus who told the preacher, "I told you at the beginning that you would not be able to build it [his 'City of Faith'] yourself. I told you that I would speak to your partners and, through them, I would build it!"


As I mentioned earlier, nearly all my evangelicals interactions have been with those that have a long history in premillennialism. Yet in my experience regarding political involvement, the prevailing position among those premillennial churches was often closer to that of traditional postmillennialists. That is, Christians need to go beyond being “salt and light” (which refers to representing Jesus in a friendly, nonconfrontational manner) to their neighbors. Beyond that, they need to help fellow Christians gain political offices so that those fellow Christians can bring Christian morality to all levels of government and culture. That view reached millions as it was filtered down through better-known evangelical celebrities such as D. James Kennedy, R.C. Sproul, Jerry Falwell (senior and junior), Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, and many more. (For a more-detailed examination of David Barton’s and WallBuilders’ ties to Rushdoony-style postmillennialism and their expansive influence, read “Meet David Barton—the Evangelical Quack 'Historian” Exposed as the Fake He Is.”)


It is worth noting that some prominent Christian scholars have taken issue with Barton’s less-than-rigorously-honest approach to U.S. history and Christian involvement in government. Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter of Grove City College, a conservative Christian institution in Pennsylvania, wrote a book titled Getting Jefferson Right: Fact Checking Claims about Our Third President. For example, the pair wrote that Barton’s explanation for Thomas Jefferson’s failure to free his slaves “is guilty of taking statements and actions out of context and simplifying historical circumstances.” Sadly, however, far more evangelicals have watched Barton’s many misleading videos than have read Throckmorton and Coulter’s fact-checking book.


But despite those relatively few attempts to counter such postmillennial-inspired misinformation, a grossly distorted, romanticized view of America’s history has taken hold in most American evangelical churches. And any attempt to counter that view is typically met with indifference at best or sometimes even outright hostility. In a contest against the seductive allure of a popular narrative, cold, hard, objective facts had no chance.


As a result, most white evangelicals believe America is God’s chosen nation, founded by wholly virtuous, dedicated Christians as a Christian nation, and it’s godless socialists who are trying to counter that blessed “truth.” So, when Donald J. Trump—despite his manifestly ungodly lifestyle—offered to protect and defend their Christian-nation narrative and promote their favored-religion rights in exchange for their unwavering support, the deal seemed too good to pass up. More than 70 million Americans—with white evangelicals being the largest unit—eagerly and tenaciously signed on.


Mephistopheles—with Rushdoony and his fellow Christian Reconstructionists working fervently in the background—surely smiles at the strange bedfellows he’s assembled.




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