Then, in 1970, he wrote, "The white man is being systematically indoctrinated into believing that he is guilty of enslaving and abusing the Negro." The theologian concluded that blacks actually benefited from slavery — they were introduced to Christianity.
While gay marriage is now a hot button, Reconstruction would reopen old racial conflicts about who should be allowed at the altar. Rushdoony wrote in his Institutes that "The burden of [biblical] law is thus against inter-religious, inter-racial and inter-cultural marriage."
Strong elements of anti-Semitism also are found in Reconstruction writings. North tells us that it is his movement's "stated goal ... to preach the Gospel of salvation in Christ to the Jews, until not a trace of the traditional practices of Judaism remains."
Even more dramatically, David Chilton, one of Reconstruction's inner circle, has written, "The god of Judaism is the devil."
Rushdoony opined about what he calls the "false witness" of Germany's responsibility for the Holocaust. He dismissed the accuracy of 6 million Jews being slain, suggesting it was likely only a fraction of that number, and he shrugs off Josef Mengele's hideous human experiments as "a few sterilized women and a few castrated men."
The Revelation
Down a winding, hard-to-find road near Kannapolis, N.C., is a compound. Its ostensible purpose is to house a business, Lincoln Log Homes International, but the circular huddle of buildings and the one-road access convey a feeling of, well, paranoia. Entering the office and announcing myself as a journalist, I watched as a receptionist scurried to close doors and employees found somewhere else to be other than near me.There was a reason, as I'd find out.
The owners of Lincoln Log donate office space to one of dominion theology's elite battalions, Operation Save America — previously known as Operation Rescue, which for decades has besieged abortion clinics around the nation. Its founder, Randall Terry, is departed — he fell into sin due to a "woman problem," said his successor, Philip "Flip" Benham.
Many Americans have deep-rooted, sincere religious opposition to abortion, and many have been attracted to the civil disobedience of Operation Save America. Few of its grunt privates, however, understand the theology that moved Terry and is now articulated by Benham.
"There was always separation of church and state in the Bible," says Benham, thumbing a well-worn Bible ("I go through two or three a year"). "They had different missions. But God appointed the church to be the conscience of the state, to run the state."
Benham's office is full of pictures of abortion protests. One photo shows him baptizing Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Roe" in Roe vs. Wade who later became an ardent foe of abortion.
Outside Benham's office, along Lincoln Log's hallways, are more pictures. Featured prominently is former Alabama Gov. George Wallace. Checking records, it turns out that Lincoln Log's CEO, Richard Schoff, was a true-blue supporter of Wallace, which isn't surprising. Schoff also was once the leader of a faction of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. "I wouldn't be today," Schoff told me.
Schoff had other memberships, particularly with a group called the Council for National Policy. It was founded in 1981 as a project of John Birch Society leaders, including Marietta Congressman McDonald.
Other members included Rushdoony, Gary North, Tim LaHaye (now writing science-fiction/eschatology novels), Pat Robertson, Oliver North, radical right activist Paul Weyrich (who said when the group was founded that it is "working to overturn the present power structure of this country") and Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly.
Another group was formed a year earlier — the Coalition on Revival — at the impetus of Christian Manifesto author Schaeffer. More public than the Council for National Policy, it shares many members.
Neither group is overtly Reconstructionist. But the Coalition on Revival has targeted 17 areas for Christian (as they define it) domination, including government, the economy and education.
With preachers such as Don Boys working the small churches, publishing houses such as DeMar's cranking out scores of titles, and the Washington-based pressure groups pushing policies as diverse as the anti-gay marriage amendment and bills that would gut social and environmental programs, Christian Reconstruction has merged far-right politics and the most anti-democratic elements of the religious movement.
The University of Georgia's Larson says it has gone unnoticed by many, perhaps the majority, of Americans for a simple reason. "A hundred years ago," he says, "newspapers published the sermons preachers preached on Sunday. Everyone knew what the Baptists believed, or the Lutherans or the Presbyterians. That's no longer the case. And it has worked to the benefit of [Christian Reconstructionists] as they doggedly pursued their goal."
