- In his book Victim's Rights, ...Gary
North writes that stoning is a communal activity, something in which all
the members of the family can participate. The purpose of this communal
activity is to instill fear in the community so that if they deviate from
the theocratic rules laid out by the elders, stoning would be their fate.
http://www.ifas.org/fw/9504/stoos.html
-
-
-
- Christian Reconstructionism
Theocratic
Dominionism Gains Influence
By Frederick Clarkson
-
-
- Gary North
-
- Part 1
-
- Overview and Roots
-
- The Christian Right has shown impressive
resilience and has rebounded dramatically after a series of embarrassing
televangelist scandals of the late 1980s, the collapse of Jerry Falwell's
Moral Majority, and the failed presidential bid of Pat Robertson. In the
1990s, Christian Right organizing went to the grassroots and exerted wide
influence in American politics across the country.
-
- There is no doubt that Pat Robertson's
Christian Coalition gets much of the credit for this successful strategic
shift to the local level. But another largely overlooked reason for the
persistent success of the Christian Right is a theological shift since
the 1960s. The catalyst for the shift is Christian Reconstructionism--arguably
the driving ideology of the Christian Right in the 1990s.
-
- The significance of the Reconstructionist
movement is not its numbers, but the power of its ideas and their surprisingly
rapid acceptance. Many on the Christian Right are unaware that they hold
Reconstructionist ideas. Because as a theology it is controversial, even
among evangelicals, many who are consciously influenced by it avoid the
label. This furtiveness is not, however, as significant as the potency
of the ideology itself. Generally, Reconstructionism seeks to replace democracy
with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation
of "Biblical Law." Reconstructionism would eliminate not only
democracy but many of its manifestations, such as labor unions, civil rights
laws, and public schools. Women would be generally relegated to hearth
and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps
executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment
beyond such crimes as kidnapping, rape, and murder to include, among other
things, blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality.
-
- What is Reconstructionism?
-
- Reconstructionism is a theology that
arose out of conservative Presbyterianism (Reformed and Orthodox), which
proposes that contemporary application of the laws of Old Testament Israel,
or "Biblical Law," is the basis for reconstructing society toward
the Kingdom of God on earth.
-
- Reconstructionism argues that the Bible
is to be the governing text for all areas of life--such as government,
education, law, and the arts, not merely "social" or "moral"
issues like pornography, homosexuality, and abortion. Reconstructionists
have formulated a "Biblical world view" and "Biblical principles"
by which to examine contemporary matters. Reconstructionist theologian
David Chilton succinctly describes this view: "The Christian goal
for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics,
in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of
Jesus Christ and the rule of God's law."
-
- More broadly, Reconstructionists believe
that there are three main areas of governance: family government, church
government, and civil government. Under God's covenant, the nuclear family
is the basic unit. The husband is the head of the family, and wife and
children are "in submission" to him. In turn, the husband "submits"
to Jesus and to God's laws as detailed in the Old Testament. The church
has its own ecclesiastical structure and governance. Civil government exists
to implement God's laws. All three institutions are under Biblical Law,
the implementation of which is called "theonomy."
-
- The Origin of Reconstructionism
-
- The original and defining text of Reconstructionism
is Institutes of Biblical Law, published in 1973 by Rousas John Rushdoony--an
800-page explanation of the Ten Commandments, the Biblical "case law"
that derives from them, and their application today. "The only true
order," writes Rushdoony, "is founded on Biblical Law.
-
- All law is religious in nature, and every
non-Biblical law-order represents an anti-Christian religion." In
brief, he continues, "Every law-order is a state of war against the
enemies of that order, and all law is a form of warfare."
-
- Gary North, Rushdoony's son-in-law, wrote
an appendix to Institutes on the subject of "Christian economics."
It is a polemic which serves as a model for the application of "Biblical
Principles."
-
- Rushdoony and a younger theologian, Rev.
Greg Bahnsen, were both students of Cornelius Van Til, a Princeton University
theologian. Although Van Til himself never became a Reconstructionist,
Reconstructionists claim him as the father of their movement. According
to Gary North, Van Til argued that "There is no philosophical strategy
that has ever worked, except this one; to challenge the lost in terms of
the revelation of God in His Bible. . .by what standard can man know anything
truly? By the Bible, and only by the Bible." This idea that the correct
and only way to view reality is through the lens of a Biblical world view
is known as presuppositionalism. According to Gary North, Van Til stopped
short of proposing what a Biblical society might look like or how to get
there. That is where Reconstructionism begins. While Van Til states that
man is not autonomous and that all rationality is inseparable from faith
in God and the Bible, the Reconstructionists go further and set a course
of world conquest or "dominion," claiming a Biblically prophesied
"inevitable victory."
-
- Reconstructionists also believe that
"the Christians" are the "new chosen people of God,"
commanded to do what "Adam in Eden and Israel in Canaan failed to
do. . .create the society that God requires." Further, Jews, once
the "chosen people," failed to live up to God's covenant and
therefore are no longer God's chosen. Christians, of the correct sort,
now are.
-
- Rushdoony's Institutes of Biblical Law
consciously echoes a major work of the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin's
Institutes of the Christian Religion. In fact, Reconstructionists see themselves
as the theological and political heirs of Calvin. The theocracy Calvin
created in Geneva, Switzerland in the 1500s is one of the political models
Reconstructionists look to, along with Old Testament Israel and the Calvinist
Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
-
- Capital Punishment
-
- Epitomizing the Reconstructionist idea
of Biblical "warfare" is the centrality of capital punishment
under Biblical Law. Doctrinal leaders (notably Rushdoony, North, and Bahnsen)
call for the death penalty for a wide range of crimes in addition to such
contemporary capital crimes as rape, kidnapping, and murder. Death is also
the punishment for apostasy (abandonment of the faith), heresy, blasphemy,
witchcraft, astrology, adultery, "sodomy or homosexuality," incest,
striking a parent, incorrigible juvenile delinquency, and, in the case
of women, "unchastity before marriage."
-
- According to Gary North, women who have
abortions should be publicly executed, "along with those who advised
them to abort their children." Rushdoony concludes: "God's government
prevails, and His alternatives are clear-cut: either men and nations obey
His laws, or God invokes the death penalty against them." Reconstructionists
insist that "the death penalty is the maximum, not necessarily the
mandatory penalty." However, such judgments may depend less on Biblical
Principles than on which faction gains power in the theocratic republic.
The potential for bloodthirsty episodes on the order of the Salem witchcraft
trials or the Spanish Inquisition is inadvertently revealed by Reconstructionist
theologian Rev. Ray Sutton, who claims that the Reconstructed Biblical
theocracies would be "happy" places, to which people would flock
because "capital punishment is one of the best evangelistic tools
of a society."
-
- The Biblically approved methods of execution
include burning (at the stake for example), stoning, hanging, and "the
sword." Gary North, the self-described economist of Reconstructionism,
prefers stoning because, among other things, stones are cheap, plentiful,
and convenient. Punishments for non-capital crimes generally involve whipping,
restitution in the form of indentured servitude, or slavery. Prisons would
likely be only temporary holding tanks, prior to imposition of the actual
sentence. http://www.publiceye.org/pra/magazine/chrisre1.html
-
-
- Three
-
- The fifth and by far the most important
reason is that stoning is literally a means of crushing the murderers head
by means of a rock, which is symbolic of God. This is analogous to the
crushing of the head of the serpent in Genesis 3:15. This symbolism testifies
to the final victory of God over all the hosts of Satan.
-
- Stoning is therefore integral to the
commandment against murder.
-
- Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics
and the Ten Commandments (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics,
1986), p. 123 http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/stoning2.htm
-
-
- Four
-
- Cursing
-
- The question eventually must be raised:
Is it a criminal offense to take the name of the Lord in vain? When people
curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime (Ex. 21:17).
The son or daughter is under the lawful jurisdiction of the family. The
integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death. Clearly,
cursing God (blasphemy) is a comparable crime, and is therefore a capital
crime (Lev. 24:16).
-
- What about the integrity of the church?
What if someone who is not a member of the church publicly curses the church?
Is the State required to apply the same sanction? The person may not be
covenantally subordinate to the particular church, or any church, unlike
the subordinate child who curses a parent. There is no specific reference
to any civil penalty for cursing anyone but a parent or God, nor is there
any civil penalty assigned for using Gods name in vain. Then is there a
general prohibition against cursing? On what grounds could a church prosecute
a cursing rebel?
-
- One possible answer is the law against
assault. Battery involves physical violence against a person, but assault
can be verbal. A threat is made. A curse is a threat: calling the wrath
of God down upon someone. Another approach is the law against public indecency.
A third: cursing as a violation of the victims peace and quiet. Restitution
could be imposed by the civil magistrate to defend a church or an individual
who is victimized by cursing.
-
- What about cursing a civil magistrate?
It is clear that this is an act of rebellion analogous to someone in the
military who is insubordinate to his superior officer. A citizen or resident
alien is under the lawful authority of the civil government. By publicly
challenging this lawful authority, the person becomes a criminal rebel.
There is no explicit penalty assigned to this crime. We know, however,
that public flogging is lawful, up to forty lashes (Deut. 25:3), yet no
crime in the Bible ever explicitly requires public physical punishment,
except on an eye-for-eye basis, or the unique case of the woman who has
her palm split in response to her specific prohibited physical violence
against her husbands opponent in a fight (Deut. 25:11-12). The punishment
for cursing a civil magistrate is therefore left to the discretion of the
magistrates or a jury. It might be public flogging; it might be a fine
imposed in lieu of public flogging.
-
- Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics
and the Ten Commandments (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics,
1986), pp. 59-60 http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/cursing.htm
-
-
- Five
-
- Religious Liberty
-
- So let us be blunt about it: we must
use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian
schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is
no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral
civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based
social, political and religious order which finally denies the religious
liberty of the enemies of God.
-
- Gary North, "The Intellectual Schizophrenia
of the New Christian Right" in Christianity and Civilization: The
Failure of the American Baptist Culture, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), p. 25. http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/liberty.htm
-
-
- Six
-
- The Common Enemy
-
- Christians are supposed to love each
other. Communists are supposed to share bonds with all proletarians and
other communists. Every ideological group proclaims universality, and all
of them bicker internally, never displaying unity except in the face of
a common enemy. Humanism today is the common enemy of Christians.
-
- Gary North, Backward Christian Soldiers?
An Action Manual For Christian Reconstruction (Tyler, TX: Institute for
Christian Economics, 1984), p. 136. http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/enemy.htm
-
-
- Seven
-
- The Attitude of Superiority
-
- It occurs to me: Was Moses arrogant and
unbiblical when he instructed the Israelites to kill every Canaanite in
the land (Deut. 7:2; 20:16-17)? Was he an "elitist" or (horror
of horrors) a racist? No; he was a God-fearing man who sought to obey God,
who commanded them to kill them all. It sounds like a "superior attitude"
to me. Of course, Christians have been given no comparable military command
in New Testament times, but I am trying to deal with the attitude of superiority--a
superiority based on our possession of the law of God. That attitude is
something Christians must have when dealing with all pagans. God has given
us the tools of dominion.
-
- Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics
and the Ten Commandments (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics,
1986), p. 214n. http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/superior.htm
-
-
- Eight
-
- "Pitying the Almost Noble
Savages"
-
- Furthermore, there is that other great,
intolerable evil of the New England Puritans: the Puritans took land away
from the "native Americans." You know, the Indians. (Liberals
have adopted the phrase "native Americans" in recent years. They
never, ever say "American natives," since this is only one step
away from "American savages," which is precisely what most of
those demon-worshipping, Negro slave-holding, frequently land-polluting
people were.... This was one of the great sins in American life, they say:
"the stealing of Indian lands".... That a million savages had
a legitimate legal claim on the whole of North America north of Mexico
is the unstated assumption of such critics. They never ask the question:
From whom did the Indians of early colonial America get the land? They
also never ask the even more pertinent question: Was the advent of the
European in North America a righteous historical judgment of God against
the Indians? On the contrary, our three authors [Noll, Hatch, Marsden]
ridicule the Puritans for having suggested that the Indians were the moral
and covenantal equivalent of the Canaanites (p. 33). In fact, if ever a
continent of covenant-breakers deserved this attribution, the "native
Americans" did.
-
- Gary North, Political Polytheism: The
Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989),
pp. 257-258. http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/indian.htm
-
-
- Nine
-
- God's World
-
- This is God's world, not Satan's. Christians
are the lawful heirs, not non-Christians.
-
- Gary North, Political Polytheism: The
Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989),
p. 102. http://www.serve.com/thibodep/cr/world.htm
-
-
- Ten
-
- Gary North is a member of the far right
Council for National Policy, along with Ed Meese, Oliver North, Pat Robertson,
Phyllis Schlafly, John Singlaub, Richard Armey, Tom DeLay, Robert Dornan,
Jerry Falwell, Lauch Faircloth, Jack Kemp, Trent Lott, Howard Phillips,
Ralph Reed, and a veritable host of others.
-
- http://www.ifas.org/cnp/index.html
-
-
- Eleven
-
- Press release
-
- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 1, 1996
CONTACT: Skipp Porteous (413) 274-0012
-
- Cover Lifted on Secretive Conservative
Group
-
- Great Barrington, Massachusetts Clothed
in secrecy since its founding in 1981, the Council for National Policy
(CNP) is a virtual Who's Who of the Hard Right. Comprised of the Right's
Washington operatives and politicians, its financiers, and its hard core
religious arm, the CNP's membership list, until today, has been highly
confidential.
-
- Starting today, "The Council for
National Policy Unofficial Information Page" went on the Internet
through the web site of the Institute for First Amendment Studies (IFAS),
publishers of Freedom Writer magazine. Freedom Writer publishes information
on religious political extremists.
-
- According to Freedom Writer publisher
Skipp Porteous, "Hard core conservatives use the CNP's three-times-a-year
secret meetings to plan strategy for implementing the radical right agenda.
It is here that the organizers and activists meet with the financial backers
who put up the money to carry out their agenda."
-
- For example, televangelist Pat Robertson
met Amway's Rich DeVos at the CNP. Then, this year, they launched a scheme
for broadcasting the Republican National Convention on Pat Robertson's
Family Channel.
-
- Last September, the CNP sent a confidential
memo to its members outlining how religious conservative freshman in Congress
planned to stand up to Speaker Newt Gingrich and shut down the government
to force implementation of the conservative's social agenda.
-
- Because CNP rules state that "Council
meetings are closed to the media and the general public," and "Our
membership list is strictly confidential and should not be shared outside
the Council," the mainstream press knows very little about the CNP.
Through this site, and the Freedom Writer, the Institute for First Amendment
Studies is, for the first time, revealing the activities and current membership
of the Council for National Policy.
-
- The IFAS home page lists the more than
500 CNP members both alphabetically and by state. In most cases, the member's
affiliation or company is also listed. The web site also includes several
articles about CNP from recent issues of Freedom Writer magazine. "New
information is being added regularly," according to Porteous.
-
- A private promotional video obtained
by Freedom Writer reveals the purpose of the CNP as described by some of
its members. "It isn't often in life that reality is better than the
dream. That's the way it is with the Council for National Policy,"
according to the Rev. Tim LaHaye, CNP co-founder and the group's first
president.
-
- "The Council for National Policy
allows people to know each other, and by knowing each other they can integrate
one movement with another," said Judge Paul Pressler.
-
- "I've often thought back that when
we launched this organization with prayer and some very good men, and it
really seemed like the Lord was with us that day in Dallas," remarked
right-wing fund raiser, Richard Viguerie.
-
- Amway head, Rich DeVos said, "I
got inspired by the people who spoke here, who shared their stories, got
thrilled by not just talking about being a conservative person, but by
the number of people in this organization who are doing things to make
the country a better place."
-
- Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson
said, "If you want to be in the know about the real scoop, that you
don't read about in the newspapers, this is the organization to be part
of."
-
- One of the group's few women members,
Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum said, "I was a charter member
of the Council for National Policy, and it is a great organization. It
has all the best people in it."
-
- "CNP is an organization which has
been effective in developing links among people who ought to know one another,
who are moving in the same direction. But who, but for the fact that these
meetings occurred, would simply by ships passing in the night," according
to Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus and The U.S. Taxpayers Party.
-
- Former U.S. Attorney General and current
CNP president, former, Ed Meese, said, "Council encourages it's members
to be activists. And, that is not just to learn something about the issues,
but do something about it. It is so important to get involved."
-
- Other leaders, such as Dr. James Dobson,
of Focus on the Family, said, "There are very few organizations left
that say 'yes, we believe.' And, we're out to implement that policy in
every way we can. We need those people out there who are considering linking
hands and arms with us in this battle.
-
- Christian Coalition executive director
Ralph Reed, who originally joined CNP through its Youth Council, said,
"I think the Youth Council for National Policy has been a critical
part...because what it has allowed us to do is to sit at the feet of our
elders and to learn from them."
-
- Former senatorial candidate, Oliver North,
said, "The kind of people that are involved in this organization reflect
the best of what America really is."
-
- http://www.ifas.org/cnp/
-
-
- Response:
-
- The Error of Reconstructionist
Christianity
James Neff
webmaster@sightings.com
1-9-99
-
-
- The strange theo-ideology of Reconstructionist
Christians (often called Covenant Theology) represents one of the most
dangerous and unenlightened interpretations of Scripture. Reaching into
the grab-bag of Old and New Testaments, reconstructionists assemble a hodge-podge
constitution for government and civil life using little or no rationale
for their picking and choosing of scriptures which fit their world-control
presuppositions and viewpoint. As if one could scramble the life and meaning
of, say, Mark Twain and reconstitute the breadth of his life, ideas and
writings to formulate a Twain opposed to literature and a despiser of words,
so have the Covenant Theologians developed their twisted view of the Hebrew
God and Jesus Christ 's Gospel teachings. Often reconstructionists have
a "latter-day saints" mentality, ascribing something next to
holy writ to the constitution of the United States, and equally, a prophetic
if not outright providential view of America far flung from the founding
father's vision of a new society dedicated to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness. The radical reconstructionist would contend that the founding
fathers explicitly intended such for the Christian alone. Similar to puritan
views, the Covenant Theologists view the world, everyone and everything
in it as being subject to their interpretations of the "law of God."
-
- While speaking of the Law, upon which
they base much of their views, one should examine the writings of the Apostle
Paul, whom Jesus Christ put forth as both teacher to the gentile church
(Galatians 1:12, 1 Corinthians 11:1), as well as a living example of his
supernatural ministry (and whose writings naturally dominate the epistles
of the New Testament).
-
- Regarding the Law and its teachings,
the whole of the Apostles assembled and came to a determination about its
applicability to the vastly inhabited world which laid before them, the
great unenlightened masses to whom they were being sent with the "great
commission" by Christ.
-
- Acts 15: 8-29
-
- "And God, which knoweth the hearts,
bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us;
And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.
Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples,
which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that
through the grace of the LORD Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.
Then all the multitude kept silence, and gave audience to Barnabas and
Paul, declaring what miracles and wonders God had wrought among the Gentiles
by them. And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men
and brethren, hearken unto me: Simeon hath declared how God at the first
did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And
to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, After this I
will return, and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen
down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That
the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon
whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. Known
unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Wherefore my
sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are
turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions
of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.
For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read
in the synagogues every sabbath day. Then pleased it the apostles and elders
with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch
with Paul and Barnabas; namely, Judas surnamed Barsabas and Silas, chief
men among the brethren: And they wrote letters by them after this manner;
The apostles and elders and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which
are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Forasmuch as we have
heard, that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words,
subverting your souls, saying, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law:
to whom we gave no such commandment: It seemed good unto us, being assembled
with one accord, to send chosen men unto you with our beloved Barnabas
and Paul, Men that have hazarded their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We have sent therefore Judas and Silas, who shall also tell you
the same things by mouth. For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to
us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things; That
ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things
strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall
do well. Fare ye well."
-
- Clearly, by counsel, the Apostles determined
that laying the Law upon the believers among the gentiles to whom they
were being sent would be useless, saying "Now therefore why tempt
ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our
fathers nor we were able to bear?" The assembly concluded with a letter
giving the gentiles (and note, this is speaking to converted gentiles WITHIN
the church alone) commandment to restrict certain practices regarding blood
and to abstain from fornication. Such was the full extent of the Law which
the Apostles determined for the new converts among gentiles, and there
the Hebrew Law and its many practices ended.
-
- At no time did Jesus Christ ever command
that the Apostles go into the world to conquer it, but rather to bring
a message of salvation by grace through faith. The great commission spoke
nothing of a Christianity which would inherit the world through politics,
gain, social order or structure, but rather an inheritance of a kingdom
to come, which would not be governed by fallible man, but rather infallible
and Almighty God, the Christ Himself (as the Lord's Prayer makes perfectly
clear, "thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
One is not possible without the other).
-
- Nonetheless, the Covenant Theologian
will tell you that it is the purpose of Christianity to rule the world,
here and now, in all strata of human endeavor (despite the fact that such
is missing entirely from scripture, apart from prophetic pronouncements
which hinge upon the Second Coming of Christ and His perfect authority),
and, to impose the Law of God, extracted from the Old Testament upon all
people on earth. But what does the Apostle Paul have to say of this?
-
- 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
-
- "I wrote unto you in an epistle
not to [keep] company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators
of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters;
for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto
you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator,
or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner;
with such an one [do not even eat]. For what have I to do to judge them
[also] that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them
that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves
that wicked person."
-
- Here Paul makes it abundantly clear;
There is the church and there is the world. Two unique entities with two
unique qualities of judgment. Regarding judgment -- law -- Paul clearly
says he has no business judging those in the world who are OUTSIDE of the
church, and explicitly exhorts that such judgments are only within the
church itself, brother to brother. The world, according to Paul, is in
the grip of Satanic influence and turmoil; it is a lost world, a world
filled with sin and corruption and in need of salvation -- hence the great
commission: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I
am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen" (Matthew
28: 19-20). Nothing about the state of the world surprises Paul. He fully
expects the world to be filled with sin, being unenlightened to the truth.
How would it be then that Paul, the example to all Christians, is a Covenant
Theologian/Reconstructionist? It is impossible. Paul's directive, like
that of his master Jesus Christ, was to sacrifice all -- even life if need
be -- for the singular purpose of going into the world, with love and mercy,
teaching Christ and his resurrection to "every creature." Those
who are gathered within the church, there would be authority and law and
judgment, etc. To those outside... Paul says it best, "What have I
to do with judging those who are outside of the church?"
-
- Paul knows full well that the Law of
God, even the government as God prescribed it to Israel, existed within
a unique framework of God's plan, using a single people toward the advent
of Messiah. Nothing in the teachings of Jesus Christ or Paul suggest that
Christians are to make conquest, or impose its religion upon the unbelieving
world. On the contrary, it was the method of both Christ and Paul to speak
the message of the Gospel (knowing that it is the Holy Spirit which works
in the hearts of men, not mere words) and if rejected, to leave those who
reject the words alone.
-
- Galatians 3:19
-
- "Wherefore then serveth the law?
It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom
the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator."
-
- Christ stated that not one dot or tittle
would pass from the Law until all things were fulfilled. He said he had
not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. And this he did. The debate
over what exactly "all things" means has raged for centuries,
and in light of the essential fact that Jesus Christ did indeed change
the immutable Law (Hebrews 7:12), claiming the right and power to do so
as the Son of God, it stands to reason that with Christ came new commandments,
further enlightenment and greater understanding of the ancient doctrines
and dogmas. In fact, without accepting this one point, Christianity cannot
even exist! Christ spoke often of the transition which was to be made through
him:
-
- Luke 5:36
-
- "And he [Jesus] spake also a parable
unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise,
then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the
new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles;
else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles
shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.
No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith,
The old is better."
-
- The changes from old to new are express
throughout the Gospels and Epistles. It requires a deep desire to distort
the entire structure of the New Testament to arrive at reconstructionist
views; discarding, ignoring or redefining hundreds of essential passages
which make it abundantly clear that the government God had imposed with
Israel, and its laws, was for Israel alone for a purpose; and with Jesus
Christ, even these would change:
-
- Matthew 5:38-45
-
- "Ye have heard that it hath been
said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That
ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and
take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel
thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and
from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. Ye have heard that
it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.
But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and
persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:
for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth
rain on the just and on the unjust."
-
- Christ, and Paul, taught love, mercy,
respect, forgiveness and above all things, longsuffering and patience as
the guild of the Christian in a world raped by sin. Paul never appealed
to politics or the control of authorities to gain any ground in his teaching
of the way of Christ, but rather suffered loss and imprisonment for its
sake. Whatever law, whatever commandments are given, they are given to
those of The House of God, not to the unbeliever and a world Paul described
as belonging to Satan until Christ returns to establish his eternal Kingdom
of justice and peace:
-
- 2 Corinthians 4:3
-
- "But if our gospel be hid, it is
hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the
minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."
-
- The great commission of Jesus Christ
is not "Go ye into all the world, conquering" but rather the
meek and simple declaration of an abiding truth which has burned in the
hearts of caring, compassionate and decent people for more than 1900 years
since His advent: Love.
-
- "But I say unto you, Love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the
children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise
on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."
-
- -----
-
-
- From Steve <etcetc@ptdprolog.net
- 1-12-99
-
- It seems odd that Sightings would attempt to politicize
its posted news
- articles choices. But "your" (?) recent choice
of posts against
- "Right-Wing" religions is a surprise. I'm
speaking of the Unification
- Church article of an ex-member and the Christain Coalition/Gary
North
- articles. (I'm hoping you don't decide what gets posted.
It would
- reflect badly on you "cutting-edge" spiritual
consciousness.)
-
|