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the covert campaign against liberal chuches and the social justice tradition
[above: click on image for YouTube video trailer]"Renewal or Ruin": New Video Documentary By Steve D. Martin Spotlights Secretive Rightwing Effort To Destroy Mainstream Protestant Churches
Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy, by Frederick Clarkson
Right-Wing Populism in America: Too Close for Comfort
by Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons
sample chapter
God's Profits: Faith, Fraud and the Republican Crusade For Values Voters
By Sarah Posner
Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right's Alternate Version of American History
By Chris Rodda
Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism
: by Michelle Goldberg
With God on Their Side: How Christian Fundamentalists Trampled Science, Policy, and Democracy in George W. Bush's White House.
by Esther Kaplan
Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement
Tanya Erzen
Attack on The United Churches of Christ
Attack on The United Methodist Church
"The Christian Right, Dominionism, and Theocracy", by Chip Berlet
"Taking Over The Republican Party", a four part series by Joan Bokaer
The Woman in A Mink CoatWhile We Were sleepingAngels On a PinheadUnder Cover of Night
The Indian River Incident : What You Can Do
link > The "Stop the ACLU Coalition" Shaming Project
How you can help stop "Stop The ACLU" just by sending a few emails
The Shaming Projectdoes the violence of "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" bother you ? If so, what can you do ? Well, to begin with you can email Jonathan Hutson's stories to people you know. That will help to bring more public scrutiny of the game. Public shaming really works ! Just click on the "email" icon and link at the top or bottom of the story and you'll be taken to a form that will allow you email the first story, The Purpose Driven Life Takers or the latest installment without leaving this site. Thanks.
R. J. Rushdoony, Stern Father of Reconstructionism |
| Thu Jun 22, 2006 at 04:42:51 PM EST |  print story | |
 
In the continuing series of postings on individual portraits, bios, quotes and links on the major "American Fundamentalists" portrayed in my painting, this week features R. J. Rushdoony, intellectual leader and "founder" of the modern Christian Reconstructionist movement. I welcome your comments, further quotes and links on these individuals and the groups they run and/or support (to be included on my site). R. J. Rushdoony is considered to be the modern day father of Christian Reconstruction. He was one of the writers and signers of "A Manifesto for the Christian Church" (download PDF). Rushdoony comes across to me as a mean - REALLY mean - version of Francis Schaeffer. Where Schaeffer might be appalled at the uniquely American fusion of Christian, free market/libertarian and political empire theologies, Rushdoony actually created the stew (and his son in law, Gary North, continues the tradition by consulting on how to dodge tax law while at the same time starting the Armageddon). |
| topic: History |
There are so many writings left by the man (he died in 1992) that it's not hard to find 'interesting' quotes. Since he is the founder of the modern American "Christian Reconstructionist" movement, what follows is a brief description of the term, as well as samples form his writings (as he Biblically justifies slavery, the destruction of democracy, intolerance, Jesus wasn't really a Jew, etc.).
Christian Reconstructionism considers democracy/freedom a heresy. Its distortion/reconstruction of American Christian traditions is used to justify its evil. Its social and religious dogma promotes genocide, enslavement, and terror to promote the delusions of a self-chosen royal race to dominion over the earth. They see themselves in religious terms as a new "master religion" whose destiny is to crush all others in the name of God.
Except for perhaps Christian Identity, Christian Reconstructionism has to be one of the worse perversions of Christianity ever devised. It is the personal political opinions of its founders wrapped in a form of hyper-Calvinism totally stripped of anything Jesus ever said (they claim Jesus' moral teachings are for Jews only) while preaching a society stripped of all freedoms and personal choice. Every facet of society, government, family, schools, etc, would be "reconstructed" along Old Testament lines. This includes the death penalty for abortion, homosexuals, atheists and other non-believers, blasphemy, etc. (Lewis Loflin)
Quotes
"The Church today has fallen prey to the heresy of democracy" ("The Instutues of Biblical Law," 1973, p. 747)
"The goal is the developed Kingdom of god, the New Jerusalem, a world order under god's law." (ibid, p. 357)
"Democracy is the great love of the failures and cowards of life." ("Thy Kingdom Come," p. 39)
"All who are content with a humanistic law system...are guilty of idolatry...they are asking us to serve other gods." ("Law and Society: Volume II" of the "Institutes of Biblical Law," 1982, p. 468)
"Segregation or separation is thus a basic principle of Biblical law with respect to religion... toleration is the excuse under which this levelling is undertaken... the believer is asked to associate on a common level ... with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions" ("The Institutes of Biblical Law," 1973, p. 294)
"The private ownership of slave labor in the American South has been the subject of extensive distortion." (Reconstructionists glorify it) "The condition of the Irish immigrants on arrival was far worse than that of slaves: they had no master to feed and clothe them or to provide shelter." "The basic difference between the Irish and the Negro has not been color: it has been character...it is a significant difference that cannot be explained altogether by color or environment." In other writings they refer to the pre-1865 South as a "victim" and its society as the "ideal" Christian society." ("Politics of Guilt and Pity," 1970)
Links
- The Royal Race of the Redeemed? Christian Nazism Exposed, by Lewis Loflin
- The Words of Christinian Reconstuctionists", compiled by Lewis Loflin
Los Angeles-based artist Joel Pelletier is the creator of "American Fundamentalists (Christ's Entry into Washington in 2008)", an 8x14 foot painting depicting American religious, political and economic fundamentalists. He has been touring the US with the painting talking about "American Fundamentalism and the Threat to Democracy and Freedom of Faith" (more at americanfundamentalists.com)
Blogs
Bartholomew's Notes On ReligionChip BerletMax BlumenthalThe Panda's ThumbFrederick Clarkson Chuck Currie DefCon father Jake Stops The World John Gorenfeld Religion Clause Chris Mooney Religious Right Watch The Revealer Jesus Politics Majority Report Radio Blog Mainstream Baptist Orcinus Dispatches from the Culture Wars Ex-Gay Watch The Wall of Separation Blog From The Capital:a blog on religious liberty issues and the separation of church and stateOrganizations
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