CHRISTIAN RECONSTRUCTIONISM,
DOMINION THEOLOGY
AND THEONOMY

History

Christian Reconstructionism, Dominion Theology and Theonomy are not denominations or faith groups. Rather, they are interrelated beliefs which are followed by members of a variety of Catholic and Protestant denominations. They have no connection at all to Reconstructionist Judaism, which is a liberal group within Judaism. Generally speaking:

Christian Reconstructionism is a belief that society, particularly in the United States, has seriously degenerated morally and religiously and must be totally rebuilt to Biblical standards.
Dominion Theology is derived from Genesis 1:26 of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament):

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.'" (NIV)

Most Christians interpret this verse as meaning that God gave mankind dominion over the animal kingdom. Dominion theologians believe that that this verse commands Christians to bring all societies, around the world, under the rule of the Word of God.

Theonomy (Greek for "God's Law") is the concept that all of the non-ceremonial laws given to Moses and recorded in the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Hebrew Scriptures) are binding on people of all nations forever.

The term Reconstructionism has been used to refer to various combinations of the preceding three terms. This type of confusion is common in the field of religion. Many words such as Christian, Fundamentalist, Occult, New Age, Reconstructionism, Unitarian etc. have been assigned so many different interpretations by different groups in different eras that they are almost meaningless.

Its most common form, Theonomic Reconstructionism, represents one of the most extreme forms of Fundamentalist Christianity thought. It originated in the United States from the Reformed or Calvinistic tradition. Its goal is the peaceful conversion of the United States government to a theocracy, which is based on the Mosaic Law of the Hebrew Scriptures. They intend to achieve this by using the freedom of religion in the US to train a generation of children in private Christian religious schools. Later, their graduates will be charged with the responsibility of creating a new Bible-based political, religious and social order. One of the first tasks of this order will be to eliminate religious freedom. Their eventual goal is to achieve the "Kingdom of God" in which the entire world is converted to Christianity. They feel that the power of God's word will bring about this conversion. No armed force or insurrection will be needed; in fact, they believe that there will be little opposition to their plan. People will willingly accept it if it is properly presented to them.

All religions other than Christianity would be suppressed. Nonconforming Evangelical, main line and liberal Christian institutions would no longer be allowed to function. Society would revert to the laws and punishments of the Hebrew Scriptures. Any person who advocated or practiced other religious beliefs would be tried for idolatry and exterminated. Blasphemy, adultery and homosexual behavior would be criminalized; those found guilty would be executed. To our knowledge, this is the only religious movement in North America in which many of its members advocate genocide for followers of minority religions. Ralph Reed, the executive director of the conservative public policy group the Christian Coalition has criticized Reconstructionism as "an authoritarian ideology that threatens the most basic civil liberties of a free and democratic society."

Leading writers in the movement are:

Greg L. Bahnsen of the Southern California Center for Christian Studies
David Chilton
Gary DeMar
Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.
Gary North of the Institute for Christian Economics. He is a prolific author.
Larry Pratt: head of the Gun Owners of America and English First, a group opposed to non-English speaking immigrants and bilingual education. Author of "Armed People Victorious" which documents Guatemalan and Philippine militias and para-military death squads. Campaign co-chair of the Buchanan presidential campaign in 1996.
John Quade
Rousas John Rushdoony of the Chalcedon Foundation is often considered the founder of Christian Reconstructionism. Author of Institutes of Biblical Law.
Rev. Andrew Sandlin

Beliefs

According to Gary DeMar, a popular Reconstructionist author, the foundation of Reconstructionism is a unique combination of three Biblical doctrines:

  1. Regeneration of the individual, through an intimate relationship with Christ
  2. Individuals guiding their lives closely by following a specified subset of Biblical laws
  3. Promoting of the world-wide Kingdom of God. 1

Specific beliefs include

A rejection of Antinomianism: the belief that salvation is obtained totally through faith and not through performing good works and living a moral life
Presuppositionalism: the acceptance on faith that the Bible is true. They do not attempt to prove  that God exists or that the Bible is true.
Inerrancy: the belief that the Bible, as originally written, is totally free of error
Postmillennialism: the belief that Christ will not return to earth until after all nations in the world have converted to Christianity. This will not take place for some considerable time; it will not be a painless transition. Most Fundamentalists and other Evangelists are Premillenialists; they believe that Christ's return will occur soon.
The laws contained in the Hebrew Scriptures can be divided into two classes: moral and ceremonial. Christians are not required to follow the ceremonial laws, because Jesus has liberated them from that responsibility. However, all persons must follow the Scripture's moral law. (Non-reconstructionist Christians generally divide these laws into three classes: moral, civil and ceremonial law, and generally believe that most Old Testament laws are no longer binding on Christians.)
The laws given by God to the ancient Israelites are all reflections of God's character, which is unchangeable. The laws were not tailor-made to meet the unique needs and environment of Israel at the time. Thus those laws are intended for all nations and all eras, including the present time.
The primacy of the Hebrew Scriptures, relative to the Christian Scriptures (New Testament). All of the Hebrew Scriptures' non-ceremonial laws are still in force, unless they have been specifically rescinded or modified by verses in the Christian Scriptures. "Only if we find an explicit abandonment of an Old Testament law in the New Testament, because of the historic fulfillment of the Old Testament shadow, can we legitimately abandon a detail of the Mosaic law." 12 This is largely supported by their interpretation of Matthew 5:17:

"Do you think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them." (NIV)

Civil laws must match the Bible's moral rules. That is, anything that is immoral (by their standards) is also to be criminalized.
The only valid legislation, social theory, spiritual beliefs, economic theory are those derived from the Bible
In every aspect of life, there are only two options: God-centered or man-centered; Theonomy or autonomy. Their political goal is to ban the latter, everywhere. Each individual, family, church, government and society must be reconstructed to eliminate sin. Each Christian has the responsibility to contribute to this conversion.
They oppose

"inter-religious, inter-racial, and inter-cultural marriages, in that they normally go against the very community which marriage is designed to establish."

R.J. Rushdoony, "The Institutes of Biblical Law", Craig Press, Nutley, NJ (1973), P. 257.

One of the tasks of Christians is to replace Judaism with Christianity. According to David Chilton:

"The god of Judaism is the devil. The Jew will not be recognized by God as one of His chosen people until he abandons his demonic religion and returns to the faith of his fathers--the faith which embraces Jesus Christ and His Gospel."

David Chilton, "The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation", Dominion Press, Ft. Worth, TX (1984), P. 127.

Of course, there exists diversity of opinion within the Reconstructionist movement. Not all followers will necessarily agree with the above statements of the movement's leaders

Practices

If they gained control of the US or Canadian federal government, there would be many changes:

the use of the death penalty would be greatly expanded, when the Hebrew Scriptures' laws are reapplied. People will be executed for adultery, blasphemy, heresy, homosexual behavior, idolatry, prostitution, evil sorcery (some translations say Witchcraft), etc. Presumably that would be done by stoning people to death or burning them alive, as the Bible requires.
an individual who does not accept the Mosaic Law has another god before them, and is thus guilty of idolatry. That would be punishable by death. That would include all non-Christians. At the present time, they total two-thirds of the human race.
the status of women would be reduced to almost that of a slave as described in the Hebrew Scriptures.
it would be logical to assume that the institution of slavery would be reintroduced, and regulated according to Biblical laws. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery.
Polygamy and the keeping of concubines would be logically permitted as well.
The Old Testament "Jubilee Year" system would be celebrated once more. Every 50 years, the control of all land reverted to its original owners. This would require every part of North American land to be returned to the original Aboriginal owners (or perhaps to those persons of Aboriginal descent who are now Christians). Hawaii would be given back to the native Hawaiians.
governments would have balanced budgets
income tax rates would be eliminated
the prison system would be eliminated. A system of just restitution would be established for some crimes. The death penalty would be practiced for many other crimes. There would be little need for warehousing of convicted criminals.
legal abortions would be banished; those found to be responsible for illegal abortions would be executed.

The reinstitution of slavery appears to be a hot button item among Reconstructionists. We have received a few negative E-mails which complained that the movement does not recommend slavery. But we have received many more Emails from Reconstructionists claiming that legalizing slavery would be good for North America.

Conflicts with other Fundamentalist Groups

Theonomic Reconstructionism differs from more common forms of Fundamentalism in a number of key areas. Reconstructionists:

emphasize the importance of the Hebrew Scriptures vs. the Christian Scriptures
believe that all Christians must attempt to reconstruct society along ancient Jewish lines
believe that, once they attain power, they will suppress other religions through genocide, rather than through proselytizing
would require each individual to strictly follow the Mosaic law
believe that Jesus' second coming is in the far future

References

  1. J. Ligon Duncan, III, "Moses' Law for Modern Government: The Intellectual and Sociological Origins of the Christian Reconstructionist Movement", Premise, Vol II, No. 5, 1995-MAY-27. See: http://capo.org/premise/95/may/ssha2.html
  2. An essay on Christian Reconstructionism with many links is at: http://abacus.oxy.edu/qrd/www/rrr/recon.html
  3. The Chalcedon Foundation of Dr. R.J. Rushdoony is at: http://www.chalcedon.edu
  4. The Southern California Center for Christian Studies (founded by the late Dr. G.L. Bahnsen) is at: http://www.cleaf.com/~covenant/
  5. The Institute for Christian Economics, (ICE) founded by Dr. Gary North, has many Christian books free for downloading. See: http://www.freebooks.com/ You need the Acrobat Reader 3.0 program to access these books. But their site contains a hyperlink to Acrobat for a free download.
  6. Political Research Associates is a liberal group critical of the political right wing. They have an essay on Christian Reconstructionism at: http://www.publiceye.org/pra/chrisrec.html
    They also have an essay on Traditional Values, Racism, and Christian Theocracy at" gopher://gopher.igc.apc.org:7021/00/publiceye/1
  7. Christian Worldview: Discipling the Nations... has a Reconstructionist page at: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1492/.
  8. Rev. Andrew Sandlin, "The Creed of Christian Reconstruction" at: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~jimmon/crc.htm
  9. Robert Parsons, "Christian Reconstruction: A Call for Reformation and Revival" at: http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0505_Parsons_-_What_is_Re.html
  10. Media House International of Melbourne FL has made available a series of articles by leading Reconstructionists. See: http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0496.html
  11. Paul Thibodeau maintains a site that is critical of Reconstructionism. See "Christian Reconstruction: God's Glorious Millennium?" at: http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/cr.htm
  12. Gary North, "The Sinai Strategy: Economics and the Ten Commandments," Institute for Christian Economics (1986)

Book References

  1. G.L. Bahnsen "Theonomy in Christian Ethics"
  2. G.L. Bahnsen "By This Standard"
  3. G.L. Bahnsen "No Other Standard"
  4. David Chilton's "Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators"
  5. George Grant and Mark Horne, "Legislating Immorality: The Homosexual Movement Comes Out Of The Closet." (This book advocates the death penalty for homosexual behavior.)
  6. R.J. Rushdoony "Institutes of Biblical Law"
  7. News dispatch, untitled, by AANEWS, a service of American Atheists, 1999-MAR-13.
  8. Joseph Conn, "Christians Stoning Teens," at: http://members.aol.com/timgore/teenstone.htm

Copyright 1998 & 2000 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2000-NOV-23
Author: B.A. Robinson

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