The CORE Ideas of Christian Reconstruction | Mark Rushdoony

Mark Rushdoony presents an overview of the Christian Reconstruction worldview at the Pacific Northwest Christian Reconstruction meeting in June of 2018. Dualism contested that, due to the higher view of the immaterial and spiritual, the incarnation of Jesus Christ was impossible. Personal piety became the highest view of spirituality, all pagan viewpoints. This created a subjective view of spirituality and negates the objective commandments of Christianity. Instead of a metaphysical view of reality, Christianity gives us a moral view. Mans problem is that he is a rebel against God's law; Jesus was in flesh, yet not in rebellion. Christian Reconstruction necessitates some necessary demolition to destroy these old views, critiquing the structures of our culture in order to "reconstruct" a proper view because they do not hold a biblical worldview. But primarily Christian Reconstruction is about building. The basic principles of Christian Reconstruction:1. Presuppositionalism - We approach God's word and our own intellect in terms of faith in what God rather than our own reason. It treats our reason as a fallible function of our creaturely minds because we have two great limitations: 1) We are creatures and 2) We are (fallen).Presuppositionalism is contrasted with all forms of rationalism, particularly evidentialism: that we can somehow prove things and that we have to prove that what God says is true and it has to be entirely understandable to us. And if it doesn't make sense to us, then we don't have to obey it.If man's problem is a moral one he needs more than an intellectual, rational change in his thinking, man needs a moral change this necessitates the grace of God which will make man a new creature. He needs God's grace to believe that God's word is truth. 2. Saved By Grace thru Faith Alone - This is the Sovereignty of God applied to salvation. Christian Reconstruction is attacked for being anti-grace because we are for God's law. The tragedy of such thinking is that God's law is in conflict with his grace, which is inherently anti-Trinitarian. There is no conflict between God's law and God's grace just as there is no conflict between the Father and the Son. Christian Reconstruction says that God's law is an act of grace in itself. Its revelation of true justice is an act of grace. Satan tempts us to be as gods and know good and evil by our own standard, which is a horrible lie.3. Covenant Theology - "The Sovereignty of God applied to all of redemptive history. (It) holds that God's salvation is one consistent plan throughout scripture and history, it is not disjointed by different eras or dispensations. (It) says that the history of Abraham and the jews is part of the Christian church's history."Included is a discussion of dispensational theology and its distinctiveness in historic Christian thought.4. Postmillennialism - Christian Reconstruction has had to challenge Dispensationalism's view of the past and present, by Covenant Theology, but it also has with its view of the future. Dispensationalism holds that the kingdom of heaven, of which Jesus spoke, is suspended for 2,000 years. It has a very top-down scenario, in contrast to what they level against Christian Reconstructionists. Ideas have consequences and eschatology is not an academic exercise. Our view of the future dictates what we see of our present responsibilities. Postmillennial thought sees all references to the kingdom in the gospels as references to Christ's present rule as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Postmillennialism sees the kingdom now developing towards a maturity that may be FAR into the future. 5. Biblical Law - Discussed in depth in a different lecture.6. Anti-Statism - Sovereignty is a religious term which belongs to God, it doesn't belong to man. Humanism is the elevation of man, which leads to two paths: 1) Anarchy - the idea that ultimate authority is in the individual. 2) Statism - the State is the highest collective voice of mankind and therefore speaks for the good of all. Statism has been a problem of man's existence since the tower of Babel. Theonomy has a real government concern, but the government which it is concerned is God's and his law. A society regulated by biblical law would have a small limited government one which would be protective of liberty. The solution is not political and Christian Reconstruction is not a political force because biblical law cannot be imposed it must be embraced. Government is mostly the source of problems, not their solution.7. Dominion - Which is regularly interpreted as domination by statist means. The dominion which Christian Reconstruction speaks is NOT the political dominion of any national or local jurisdiction, but the dominion of God's law in the advance of His kingdom. A true dominion under God's law would allow for freedom; it would allow for limited government.