[vanity] Christian Dominion Theology & Second American Revolution?

Interesting interview with the late Rousas J. Rushdoony, founder(?) of the Christian theonomic philosophy:

Rousas John Rushdoony, born in 1916, the son of Armenian immigrants, was ordained as a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and distinguished himself as a missionary on the American Indian reservations. One of his early books, The Messianic Character of American Education, was a major influence in the fledgling home school movement in California. During the 1960s, Rushdoony was called upon in court cases as an expert historian on home schooling as a legitmate alternative to public education. Rushdoony was primarily influenced by the teachings of Cornelius Van Til's Presuppositional Apologetics and began to work to restore the historic Christian doctrines of Postmillennialism and Christian Dominion in the church. Not until 1973 with the publication of R. J. Rushdoony's The Institutes of Biblical Law was there an attempt at a Biblical social philosophy that uncompromisingly affirmed the validity of biblical law. Since then over 100 volumes have been published elaborating the details of Calvinistic social philosophy from a "theonomic" perspective. Led by Rushdoony, Gary North, Greg Bahnsen, James Jordan, and Gary Demar, theonomic authors have expounded the Mosaic law with a fullness of application to modern society never before seen in Church history.

Question:-- Can we really legislate the biblical standards of morality on non-Christians? The non-Christian doesn't even believe in the Bible, so how can we even talk about building a society based on the Law of God?

One of the things most people don't understand about Christian Reconstruction is that first it is nothing new. It has been the historic position of the Christian church over the centuries. In Western Europe and the America it has receded in the past century or two, but it has been the Christian way of life. Then what we have to understand is that in our time, we've had a totally false picture of reality -- a top-down view of whatever faith it is that people hold -- that we have to capture the upper echelons of society, or the machinery of the state, and impose something on the people.

We have never had a more top-down culture than for about 1500 years, than since Rome fell. Rome fell because it confused simplicity with efficiency. They simplified the state and centralized more and more as if that were the answer. The more they centralized, the more they destroyed the fabric of society. We are following the Roman pattern. We are centralizing as though that were the answer and we are destroying the pattern of society.

Now as Christians we believe that the basic starting point is the regeneration of man. Then man takes and applies that faith. For Christians the basic government is the self-government of the Christian man. Then the basic governmental unit is the family. This means that every father and mother will be more important in the sight of God than heads of state, because He controls children, property and the future. Then the third is the church as the government, fourth the school as a government, fifth your job governs you, then sixth society governs you with its ideas, beliefs and standards, and seventh, one among many forms of government, is the civil government.

Today, we are implicitly totalitarian. We speak of the state as the government. That's totalitarian. So we have to rid ourselves of such things. The Christian theonomic society will only come about as each man governs himself under God and governs his particular sphere. And only so will we take back government from the state and put it in the hands of Christians.

Can we really legislate the biblical standards of morality on non-Christians?

Been there, done that.

Not ALL the Biblical standards, but the last 5 Commandments of the Decalogue

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Noah Webster, the man personally responsible for Art. I, Sec. 8, ¶ 8, of the U. S. Constitution, explained two centuries ago:
The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments, consisting of two tables; one comprehending the duties which we owe immediately to God-the other, the duties we owe to our fellow men.

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The Ten Commandments are two sets of laws. Enforcement of the first 5 remains only in God's purview. The LAST 5 Commandments were laws between men AND punishable BY man. Breaking one of these 5 Commandment is what defines *crime*

This is what is known as Natural Law, or the law of Nature and nature's God of the Declaration of Independence.

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If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave.
John Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772

To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature....Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind.
Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775

That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774

Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind.
James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791

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The Constitution defines and restricts federal jurisdiction...what the Founders referred to as 'authority'.

The states, on the other hand are a CIVIL authority. They were free to do what the Federal government could not. The Texas law against sodomy is a perfect example of codified natural law. Aside from the Biblical prohibition, the fact the lifestyle is not conducive to the perpetuation of the human species as well as being rampant with disease is a matter of common sense.

The bogus separation of church and state was invented by the 'legal system' (i.e. government) so that GOVERNMENT was no longer restricted by Natural law:

The Supreme Court of Mississippi, (1988) citing the Decalogue, reproached a prosecutor for introducing accusations during cross-examination of a defendant for which the prosecutor had no evidence:
When the State or any party states or suggests the existence of certain damaging facts and offers no proof whatever to substantiate the allegations, a golden opportunity is afforded the opposing counsel in closing argument to appeal to the Ninth Commandment. “Thou shalt not bear false witness . . . ” Exodus 20:16.

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Natural law STILL exists, and operating with these TWO separate sets of laws is what the Framers meant by a 'Republican form of government'

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Besides, any religion that allows you to; lie, cheat, steal, murder, or conspire, really isn't a religion at all, IMHO

It's a cult.

You can't very well govern yourself according to the laws of God when the state is mandating secularist beliefs onto your children, your employer, etc. And we long ago stopped having control over the lives of our children. Also, we only control our own destinies to the point that we control our own finances and the consequences of our own actions. But the gov't takes a huge chunk of our money in order to force innocent people into paying for the mistakes of others, or the "protection" of others. That's not freedom. Liberals want to impose extremist ideas onto all by using the "right to choose" language while their plans always result in silencing opposition and imposing conformity on all who disagree. When their imposed ideas render bad results they force the innocent to pay the consequences for the guilty.

Too many people take on freedom terminology while advocating exactly the opposite.

The historical idea is not that our laws must have a Christian base. It's that it doesn't matter. We can choose. If the constitution is interpreted in such a way as to mandate only legislation contrary to Christian morality then we have a problem. We the people should be free to make our laws any way we want -- we need only respect the right of all to participate in the persuasion and voting process. Everyone can speak, print and persuade. Then everyone can vote according to their own conscience. We can't BAN Christian values in government. And it isn't even correct to call them "Christian" because it really has nothing to do with Christianity. That's just a phony claim by those who want to find conservative values to be automatically unconstiutional. They want to ensure that conservatives can NEVER win. The values are more accurately called Judeo-Christian values, and they're not about religion.

It is really impossible to be all things to all people. If we allow some people to post pornography on billboards, for example, it corrupts the morality of everyone who must drive past that billboard. When the gov't says that homosexuality must be treated with equality and respect then it becomes just too damn bad for those who want to raise their children to respect God's truth. That's not freedom for those who hold to Judeo/Christian morality. Some things are just mutually exclusive. We don't need a government that bans us from defining our own culture and our common values. That isn't freedom, rather it is slavery to the lowest desires of the least of us.

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