Peter, I would like to share my thoughts about leading a
_Restoring America_ class in our church, Arrow Heights
Baptist. You had been here in person at least twice that I
remember and I did get to meet with you personally. Your
research on early American History is top notch. I was happy
to teach your class and look forward to teaching another. I
was educated in New York public schools during the late 50’s
and 60’s and remember when all of a sudden prayer was no
longer a part of my school day. For the most part Christians
compromised in their world view with the secularists and
progressives of that day.
It could have been your ministries, but it was Dr. Gary North,
with his Institute for Christian Economics, and later Gary
DeMar at AmericanVision.org where I learned, for the first
time, our Christian historical heritage. I felt I had been
let down by my parents, clergy, and those Christian
historians, educators, lawyers, (there were no self-confessing
Christian politicians at that time) etc. professionals. As
Nancy Pearcey put it in _Total Truth_, Christians had
swallowed the lie: that there is a division of the secular vs
the sacred.
Growing up I had felt it quite odd that politics or even
Christian history was so rarely mentioned from pastors or
Christians in general. I was raised a Republican and was
taught that government should have as little power, authority,
as possible but this was *not* tied at all to Scripture. It
was only my parents opinion. In 1967, I went off to college
at Oral Roberts University, a fine Christian school, or was
it? Oral was a life-long democrat. He invited chapel
speakers like the Rev. Jesse Jackson several times to speak to
students. My thought was how can Christians be so divided
and/or confused about a biblical approach to politics?
Almost 20 years ago, when homosexual “marriage” became a legal
issue in the state of Hawaii I became interested in the
application of the Christian (or better yet biblical) world
view as it pertains to legal (moral) issues. Obviously this
lands right at the foot of ‘politics’ too. I finally read
Dr. Greg Bahnsen’s _Theonomy in Christian Ethics_ and saw a
thorough biblical exegesis applied to this area. Bahnsen
concluded that Christ condoned the so-called Old Testament
“Judicial” law for nations to obey. This was a totally new
teaching to me. It seemed so unusual and rare (Only the
Christian Reconstructionists teach this.) that I felt
compelled to dismiss it. I couldn’t.
OK I thought, All I need to do is get an exegesis from my
pastor, who’s a Southern Baptist, or discuss this with a
Christian Constitutional law professor at a, more decidedly
politically aware college. I contacted literally dozens of
Christian politically active organizations asking for this.
Most have ignored my plea. All I asked for was an exegesis
which would straighten those Reconstructionists out. After 15
years I have to conclude: there isn’t any!
In the _Restoring America Leader’s Guide_ your tiny
recognition of this group of biblical scholars is hardly
complimentary. “There is a small group of people that
advocate this mistaken idea of restricting public office to
Christians. They are called Reconstructionists, and advocate
the taking over of the reins of government by Christians.”
Yet, everything you taught about the founding Fathers cried
out this same sentiment. John Quincy Adams said we ought to
elect only Christians to political office. The major law book
of Hooker’s Connecticut was the Bible, specifically
Deuteronomy. Who else is more equipped to judge the
difference between good and evil [Hebrews 5:15] than a
Christian? We all understand this “taking over” is to be from
a bottom up, Constitutionally legal voting mechanism. No one
is talking about anything contrary to legal means. At least
your tone is better than Dr. Richard Land’s tone in his book
_The Divided States of America_ where he says:
“Christian reconstructionism, … fringe movement,
explicitly opposed to democratic means of government, has
been largely responsible for the fantasy that if the
Religious Right prevails, then the USA is headed into
theocratic Fundamentalism. That idea is “nuts” — a
bogeyman scenario cooked up by secularists who paint the
opposition with one big brushstroke.”
The Southern Baptists, you, in fact, most fundamentalists are
well-known for the phrase “Sola Scriptura”. The secularists,
as well as I, know what that means. There is another motive
of the secularists, but we both want an exegesis that sets the
large camp of fundamentalists apart from the
Reconstructionists. Since there is none the secularists must
assume the “Sola Scriptura” of you, Peter Marshall, as well as
Dr. Richard Land, the national voice of the Southern Baptist
Ethics and Religious Liberty, have the same exegesis as these
Reconstructionists. What else are we to conclude? So, right
at the front of the secularism’s web sites, for example,
theocracywatch.org, we see these Reconstructionists mentioned
and then the site mentions all those other ‘religious’ groups
trying to influence politics.
With this as my introduction you may not want to hear about
how my teaching of this class went. But, please, if you do
have a friend who is a U.S. Constitutional lawyer, or
professor at a seminary, or a book title where a political
exegesis of politics is presented and Bahnsen’s _Theonomy_ is
taken head-on I would like to see it. Perhaps a book that
presents an exegesis of Old Testament judicial law as no
longer being applicable (such as ceremonial law) in the New
Testament would be another way of looking at these major
differences in the biblical political world view.