Christian Reconstructionism

Christian Reconstructionism is a Christian movement based in the United States that advocates the reconstruction of society in terms of biblical law. Rousas John Rushdoony, founder of the movement, established one of its more influential organizations, the Chalcedon Foundation, in 1960. Small in number, the Reconstructionists provided some of the early intellectual foundation for the American Religious Right. Through their work in Christian schools and home schooling, they were an important force in the early mobilization and organization of the movement.

Christian Reconstructionist theology is rooted in two ideas: postmillennialism and presuppositionalism. Reconstructionists believe that Satan was defeated in Christ's resurrection and that we are currently living in the 1,000-year reign of the Kingdom of God. Postmillennialist Reconstructionists believe that creation was redeemed with the resurrection and that the Kingdom of God is increasingly apparent as history progresses and as Christians, exercising dominion, labor to build it. Postmillennialism was prevalent in America in the 19th century, but it is a rather obscurely held view today; presuppositionalism is a technical theological/philosophical position unfamiliar to most conservative Christians. Presuppositionalists hold that all knowledge is derived from presuppositions that cannot be proved or disproved. They hold that godly presuppositions and worldly (humanistic) presuppositions are mutually exclusive. The corollary to Reconstructionist presuppositional epistemology is Theonomy (meaning “God's law”), which asserts that there can be no neutral, objective way to determine ethics and law. Humans must live under God's law or substitute some humanistic value system; the only alternatives are an objective absolute (the Bible) or abject moral relativism resulting in chaos. While there are few explicitly Reconstructionist churches, postmillennialism and presuppositionalism are widely influential in American conservative Protestant culture in their respective popularized forms: dominion theology and the critique of secular humanism.

Some of the most important Reconstructionist books have been Rushdoony's two-volume commentary on the Ten Commandments, Institutes of Biblical Law; Greg Bahnsen's defense of theonomy, By This Standard; and David Chilton's postmillennial works, Paradise Restored and Days of Vengeance. In addition to these relatively technical theological, exegetical works, Reconstructionist authors have also produced an extensive list of books designed to help everyday Christians apply the theology in their own lives: in their families, their churches, and in civil society as a whole. Key figures in this dimension of the movement include author and publisher Gary North. He published the multivolume Biblical Blueprint Series, which, in a widely accessible style, addresses economics, government, and family issues. Both the more technical theological works and the more popular strategic works have been used as Bible study materials and sold in church bookstores in fundamentalist Christian churches.

A key strategy for Reconstructionists’ efforts to transform society is to “raise up a generation of leaders” imbued with a “biblical worldview” and trained to “exercise dominion.” To this end, they [Page 208]have promoted Christian schools and advocated that Christian families home school their children, producing and distributing instruction and curricular materials. While this is primarily a North American movement, there also exist small Reconstructionist groups in Europe, notably in Switzerland and in Denmark.

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