The Christian Reconstructionism political movement

NPR broadcasts a show called No Compromise (NC). It is a series of programs that deal with aspects of modern society and politics and their origins. The 45 minute NC broadcast below, Building the Kingdom of God, starts out with comments about the Dorr family, a radical pro-gun and anti-public school family that travels all over the Midwest as paid agitators for various clients. One of the things they get paid to do is protest against funding of public schools. Their clients sometimes want to block school funding to keep their property taxes low. 

After meandering somewhat confusingly for ~10 minutes, the program finally turns to the topic of Christian Reconstructionism (CR). CR appears to be some form of Christian fundamentalism. Extreme biblical beliefs are at the core of this religious political movement. CR adherents want to establish Old Testament law as American law. Homosexual sex and adultery would be capital offenses punishable by death. The movement wants to establish Christianity and Christian law as the world's religion and law, starting with the US. Those laws will be imposed by by force according to God's sacred, righteous will. These people are terrifying in their ice-cold nonchalance and absolute moral certainty about the righteousness of what they are trying to do.

Wikipedia gives some definitions:

Christian reconstructionism: a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement.[1] It developed under the ideas of Rousas Rushdoony, (1916 - 2001) Greg Bahnsen and Gary North[2] and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States.[3][4] In keeping with the cultural mandate, Christian reconstructionists advocate theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continuing applicability.[5] These include the death penalty not only for murder, but also for propagators of all forms of idolatry,[6][7] open homosexuals,[8] adulterers, practitioners of witchcraft and blasphemers.[9] .... Christian reconstructionists are usually postmillennialists and followers of the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til. .... Christian reconstructionism's founder, Rousas Rushdoony, wrote in The Institutes of Biblical Law (the founding document of reconstructionism) that Old Testament law should be applied to modern society, and he advocates the reinstatement of the Mosaic law's penal sanctions. .... Rushdoony wrote in The Institutes of Biblical Law: “The heresy of democracy has since [the days of colonial New England] worked havoc in church and state” [citation needed] and: “Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies,” and he said elsewhere that “Christianity is completely and radically anti-democratic; it is committed to spiritual aristocracy,” and characterized democracy as “the great love of the failures and cowards of life.” .... Some sociologists and critics refer to reconstructionism as a type of dominionism. .... religious author, feminist, and former Roman Catholic nun, Karen Armstrong sees a potential for “fascism” in Christian reconstructionism, and sees the eventual Dominion envisioned by theologians R. J. Rushdoony and Gary North as “totalitarian. There is no room for any other view or policy, no democratic tolerance for rival parties, no individual freedom.”

Theonomy: Christian reconstructionists advocate a theonomic government and libertarian economic principles. They maintain a distinction of spheres of authority between self, family, church, and state.[14][15] For example, the enforcement of moral sanctions under theonomy is carried out by the family and church government, and sanctions for moral offenses are outside the authority of civil government (which is limited to criminal matters, courts and national defense). .... Reconstructionists also say that the theonomic government is not an oligarchy or monarchy of man communicating with God, but rather, a national recognition of existing laws (Germaine: whatever that means, if anything). 

Presuppositionalism: a school of Christian apologetics that believes the Christian faith is the only basis for rational thought. It presupposes that the Bible is divine revelation and attempts to expose flaws in other worldviews. It claims that apart from presuppositions, one could not make sense of any human experience, and there can be no set of neutral assumptions from which to reason with a non-Christian. .... Presuppositionalists compare their presupposition against other ultimate standards such as reason, empirical experience, and subjective feeling, claiming presupposition in this context is:
a belief that takes precedence over another and therefore serves as a criterion for another. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition… This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of God in the area of human thought. It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing.

Dominion theology or dominionism: a group of Christian political ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians based on their understandings of biblical law. Extents of rule and ways of achieving governing authority are varied. For example, dominion theology can include theonomy, but does not necessarily involve advocating Mosaic Law as the basis of government. The label is applied primarily toward groups of Christians in the United States.

The flaw running through all of this gobbledygook and nonsense is the fact that for any of it to make any rational sense, a person has to have faith and believe in what the Christian elites and leaders are telling them is true. Actual facts and logic are absent and scorned whenever they are inconvenient.

Some key points in the broadcast:

10:20 CR believes that Christianity and its laws will come to dominate all people everywhere on Earth and non-believers will be suppressed

11:05 Just waiting for the 2nd coming of Christ will not work, and instead it will be necessary for Christians to get involved in politics and change secular laws to Old Testament Biblical laws

13:40 In 2018, Paul Dorr, patriarch of the Dorr family (11 home-(un)schooled kids), burns children's library book that discuss homosexuality and other forbidden subjects and streams the book burning live on Facebook; he is convicted of criminal mischief 

15:40 The Dorrs do not appear to be just grifters, the money they take in isn’t great, but instead are motivated by radical Christian belief, e.g., hate of feminism, abortion, drag queens, false Christian churches and Jews; Dorr says he is advancing Christ's kingdom via the law of God

Paul Dorr

17:20 On the reconstructionist radio program, the War Room, Dorr advocates RC propaganda, lies and tactics for living a strategic Christian life

20:26 Paul’s main focus is on dismantling public education funding because it is secular and pluralistic and thus not biblical, while his sons focus on opposing gun regulations; Paul is paid by anti-school tax people to set up opposition to proposed local school funding ballot measures; he spreads disinformation and foment fomenting irrational distrust; Paul sets up local Facebook sites and focuses on deceiving, angering and/or scaring local voters into opposing school; the NC program asserts that Paul's efforts are successful about 70% of the time 

23:30 CR (like Christian nationalism) is a political movement, not a specific religious denomination; it wants to literally reconstruct all of American society according to its radical Christian vision, which is a necessary prelude for the 2nd coming of Christ

24:50 The closest thing to a leader that the CR movement has is Rushdoony; his Chalcedon Foundation think tank (for example, this blast on dominionism) advocates CR dogma and propaganda:

25:21 Rushdoony argues this: “Thus the goal of modern politics is to make man guilty in order to enslave him and to have people themselves demand an end to liberty. To have the people demand of Washington and of the UN ‘here are our hands, put the chains on, we are afraid of liberty’. .... This, then is our destiny as Christians. Freedom. And Christians are the only true freedom fighters the world has ever had. The rest offer slavery.”  There Rushdoony argues that humans do want liberty, not secular government and its spiritual slavery; that is something that Christians cannot allow because only Christian government, and God’s law or theonomy (not sinful human or secular law) can free people 

30:05 CR dogma is patriarchal and women serve their men, say home and have lots of babies; women who have power are cruel, brutal and oppressive 

31:55 a core CR goal is to completely eliminate public or “government schools” and replace them with Christian schools, hence constant attacks on public school funding; the public school system causes mass shootings because there is no right or wrong

34:15 CR wants to end all government spending on anything that is not biblical, including social security and highways

34:45 CR dogma is includes a core belief that people have a divine right, or actual moral obligation, from God to carry guns, which are needed for defense of family

37:10 current CR propaganda argues that the BLM movement is intensely racist and a political front for sodomy and transgenderism and committed to ending the family

38:05 a lot of people who hold core CR beliefs do not know they are Christian constructionists or what CR is or who Rousas Rushdoony was; there is no church of Christian reconstructionism, just like there is no church of Christian nationalism; in addition, there is a lot of ignorance going on here; some of the more informed Christian reconstructionists deny that they are Christian reconstructionists because they know how radical and crackpot their beliefs are usually seen to be in our secular, multiracial and multiethnic society

39:15 a former Christian reconstructionist pastor abandoned CR because it was too hard, too out of step with modern society, too divisive within some Christian denominations and, with Google available, it is too easy to find out just how crackpot and hateful the CR movement is, e.g., Rushdoony was a holocaust denier and a staunch defender of American Black slavery because it was good for Black people and for society, i.e., textbook racism

41:45 some modern CR pastors simply ignore the hate, racism and crackpottery that underpins CR ideology; they keep quiet via lies of omission, so that average many or most parishioners are unaware that their church donations are going to support the CR political movement; these preachers do not use inflammatory terms that accurately describes the CR movement to keep the cash flowing and minds deceived; millions of conservative Americans hear the ideas of Rushdoony and his CR movement without understanding what they are being told is God’s word and will; ignorance is dangerous and IMO, inherently theocratic, anti-democratic and pro-authoritarian

42:50 Rushdoony’s main legacy today is home schooling and conservative religious opposition to funding public schools, expansion of gun rights and White nationalism

It is unclear how many Americans are Christian reconstructionists. Probably not a large number. What is hard to asses is how much poison the movement injects into government, religion and society.

What's wrong with libertarianism

 The following is a very long assertation, so I won't post it all on here, suffice it to say, it gives a somewhat biased, but not totally inaccurate breakdown of what is wrong with libertarianism.

Apparently someone's curse worked: we live in interesting times, and among other consequences, for no good reason we have a surplus of libertarians. With this article I hope to help keep the demand low, or at least to explain to libertarian correspondents why they don't impress me with comments like "You sure love letting people steal your money!"

https://www.zompist.com/libertos.html

In short, they're spoiled, and they've evolved a philosophy that they should be spoiled.

ENJOY!

Chapter review: The Spoils: Plundering Congress

The Spoils: Plundering Congress is chapter 11 of Jane Mayer’s 2017 book, Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Mayer has been an investigative reporter at New York Magazine since 1995. Chapter 11 is in part three of her book which is entitled, Privatizing Politics: Total Combat, 2011-2014. Given titles like that, one can imagine where this little review is going to go.

This chapter details several important things. One is the rise of tax cuts for the top 0.1% and cuts in domestic spending that billionaire Republican donors demanded. Another traces the loss of power by the Republican Party and its purchase by billionaires who bought Republican candidates for congress. 

Chapter 11, like the rest of the book is reasonably readable for general audiences. But it is dense with details and facts, which are backed up by 51 pages of citations to information sources. The content is based on work that Mayer did as a journalist over about a 30 year period, starting in the 1980s. A post on part of the book is here.

Mayer’s other book

Mayer starts the chapter with this accurate quote by billionaire Warren Buffett: There’s class warfare all right. But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.

Some key facts and points:

• Republican billionaire donors, like the Koch brothers (only Charles is still alive, David died in 2019), usually operate in as much secrecy as they can, but their power and reach are staggering. They have taken control of the Republican Party and ruthlessly use their power to enrich themselves and increase their power, while claiming that what they do is for our good. They hate government and government regulations. They hate domestic spending programs and want to eliminate all Medicare, Medicaid and other major safety net spending. The donors literally see this as a necessary and moral thing to do. 

• In an apparently unguarded moment in 2011, just before John Boehner was sworn in as House Speaker for the 112th Congress, David Koch answered a reporter’s questions. In response to a question about what he wanted from Boehner and the new Republican House, David said: “Well, cut the hell out of spending, balance the budget, reduce regulations, and uh, support business!” He and the rest of his donor class saw it the same way.

• Some of the billionaire donor class propaganda claimed that the GOP favored personal charity over government spending on safety nets, because individual people should be free to spend on charity. Charles Koch, saw it a bit differently, arguing in a speech that, like Maimonides (a influential medieval Sephardic Jewish Torah philosopher, 1138-1204) he saw the highest form of charity as paying no taxes to government and no charity to anyone. Charles commented: “I agree with the 12th century philosopher, Maimonides, who defined the highest form of charity as dispensing with charity altogether, by enabling your fellow humans to have the wherewithal to earn their own living.” One expert on Maimonides, a university professor who taught classes on him, commented “This is false and tendentious and idiotic.” He argued that Maimonides wrote that “he who averts his eyes from the obligation of charity is regarded as a villain.” For whatever reason, the billionaires seem to feel a need to try justify themselves and their policies, which invariably adds to their own power and wealth. Maybe this mental gymnastics gives them a fig leaf to hide the social, governmental and environmental wreckage their core policies leave behind. Regardless they are either just bad liars or blind motivated reasoners. At best, Republican billionaire moral philosophy and morality sucks.

•  The Kochs were radical libertarians and that is what their money bought and still buys. Hate of government and regulation were at the core of their scared laissez-faire capitalist ideology. In an essay, Charles wrote: “Morally, lowering taxes is simply defending property rights.” He argued that it was a moral imperative for the wealthy to cut their own taxes. Money is property and taxes take some if it. Another billionaire, Foster Friess (a Christian nationalist who claimed ownership of a business with $15 billion in 2020, he died in 2021), tried to be a bit more nuanced about the morality of not paying taxes. He argued that “wealthy people self-tax” by contributing to charities, commenting “It's that top 1% that probably contributes more to making the world a better place than the 99%.” (Some data helps put that in context. In 2017, total contributions to charities by all Americans were about $390 billion. Over their lifetimes, the top 25 billionaires gave $149 billion as of 2019, but getting accurate numbers is hard because of complexities in how billionaires do charity, some of which is self-serving and some of which is to political action committees and political campaigns, etc. Maybe billionaires aren’t better than the 99% at making the world a better place, especially since some of their charity spending is offset by the damage social and environmental their policies inflict -- they ignore that part.)

• Coordinated campaign contributions and a relentless public propaganda campaign got the Republican Party in congress to oppose efforts to deal with climate change. Republicans in congress who wanted to act on the climate issue, were threatened with being primaried by a well-funded opponent. One happy donor operative commented that the tactic of threatening to primary a reluctant congressman was so effective it caused them to “pee their pants.” Republican climate polluting efforts the billionaire-tamed House put forward included proposed legislation to (i) block all legislation to deal with climate change, and (ii) requiring the EPA to consider costs of regulations, while ignoring the science about pollutants and any health impacts on humans. The billionaires hate the government trying to protect the environment. One billionaire operative, Tim Phillips (president of Americans for Prosperity, an influential Koch-funded political advocacy organization) was tickled pink at how effective billionaire cash was in setting the GOP straight about climate change. He commented to the National Journal: “Most of these candidates have figured out that the science has become political. We’ve made great headway. The vast majority of people who are involved in the [Republican] nominating process -- the conventions and the primaries -- are suspect of the science. Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it.” Koch industries was one of America's top polluters and Koch money was hell bent on keeping the the pollution freely flowing, regardless of who or what it killed.  

• The billionaires like to operate quietly in public, while they and their lobbyists exert pressure behind closed doors. A former associate claimed that Koch family patriarch, Fred had a saying he liked to use: “The whale that spouts is the one that gets harpooned.” That sums it up nicely. Billionaires really are whales, but they just need to breathe quietly in the dark. 

• The Republican billionaires play hardball politics. They rely on lies and slanders when they think they can get away with it, and sometimes even when they know they can’t. For example, in August 2010, Mayer wrote, and New York Magazine published, a long article about Koch brother influence on the GOP. The Kochs were enraged and caught flat footed. They thought they and their billionaire peers could buy a major American political party and no one would notice or comment on it. In response the Kochs hired a new team of public relations propagandists who specialized in aggressive, hard ball tactics. One of them, Michael Goldfarb, had worked on Sarah Palin's vice presidential campaign. He had founded the Washington Free Beacon, a radical right propaganda and lies source whose motto was “do unto them.” He described his job as “attack the press” using “combat journalism” against “liberal gasbags.” The Kochs’ tactics included hiring a private investigator to find dirt on Mayer to smear her with. That failed so the propagandists made up a potentially career-ending lie that Mayer had plagiarized four journalists in various stories she wrote and had published. She found out about the impending story that the radical right propaganda and lies source The Daily Caller (one of seven big conservative politics sites that banned me from commenting in 2016), edited by Tucker Carlson (at the radical right CATO institute at the time), was planning to publish. Mayer realized that if the Koch slanders published, her career would be seriously damaged, even if it was later disproven. People remember juicy lies against evil journalists much better than they remember the later truth, assuming they even hear the truth in their echo chambers, which they usually don’t. (Hence the dangers of lies and smears in hyper-partisan echo chambers.) Once she understood the danger her career was in, Mayer contacted the journalists she would be falsely accused of  plagiarizing and asked them to look at the allegations and comment. Three of the four asserted in writing she had not plagiarized their work. Later the fourth said they were not plagiarized. Mayer found out that The Daily Caller had not even bothered to contact any of the journalists it had planned to cite as Mayer’s victims. Mayer then sent the real facts to The Daily Caller, which then confirmed them and dropped the story before they published it. Another reporter who was aware of all of this sleaze asked the Kochs if they were behind it, but their spokesman refused to answer any questions. He then contacted Carlson (a self-confessed (under oath in court) professional liar, now lying to audiences at Fox News) and asked who the source of the Mayer smears was. Carlson responded with, “I have no clue where we got it.” Good old plausible deniability -- the best friend of liars, crooks, tax cheats, traitors and thugs the world over.

• Over time, the billionaires got their money’s worth from their corrupted, captured and radicalized Republican Party. Yes indeed, the billionaires really did radicalize the GOP. Politicians who hesitated to radicalize and tow the line were either RINO hunted out of the party into retirement or primaried out in the next election. The tax rate on billionaires dropped to levels below average taxpayers making less than $50,000 per year. In the past, they paid much higher tax rates to pay for things like wars and safety net programs. They fixed that problem by forcing government into creating endless new debt. That allowed themselves to keep their loot mostly intact. Some of the tax breaks they bought were potentially worth tens of billions to the 16 wealthiest families in America, e.g., estate tax reductions. Campaign contributions, a/k/a/ free speech, really does have great value. Of course, that assumes you have enough cash to make your free speech heard above all the other free speech out there. Given how pay-to-play politics works, all the other speech is just white noise that Republican politicians can and do safely ignore. 

Data on the deep American political divide

The Center for Politics at the university of Virginia has collected interesting data on the divide. The research was intended to look for common ground and a basis for compromise. The researchers looked for insight about political and social-psychological motivations that drive both sides of the divide. The study comments:

In the study, the idea that the “government should work for people” surfaces as a potential compromise corridor for starting a conversation and finding common ground. The opportunity is to leverage this consensus to realize the positive change and action many Trump and Biden voters want.

But these positives are offset by the fact that Biden and Trump voters do not see how working with the other side fits into a bigger picture or translates into benefits for them. If anything, they view compromise as contrary their own priorities. They are convinced that the other side is pursuing an agenda that is contrary to their interests, principles, and values. They are convinced they will suffer personally if the other side has their way, despite the fact that many Biden and Trump voters want many of the same things from government.  

Widespread disillusionment with the other side, and perceptions of a system that is rigged to favor the wealthy and powerful, has undermined faith in our representative democracy: 

• On one hand, roughly 80% of Trump and Biden voters view democracy as preferable to any non-democratic kind of government.
• On the other hand, more than 6 in 10 Trump and Biden voters see America as less a representative democracy and more a system that is run by and rigged for the benefit of the wealthy.

For the foreseeable future, major compromise will be limited or nearly non-existent in view of deep distrust that decades of radical right anti-government and anti-democracy propaganda has fomented in the minds of tens of millions of Americans. Fomenting distrust is the point of that propaganda. It has worked especially well in the last ~5 years. The result will be more power and money flowing to elites at the top, while rights and wealth will ebb away from the rest of us.

Are perceptions of a system that is rigged to favor the wealthy and powerful mostly real, mostly false or mostly ambiguous?