The Dominionist Movement

Overview

The purpose of this chapter is to identify the first generation of major thinkers within the dominionist movement founded by Rushdoony and how their collective intellectual force caused a paradigm shift within conservative evangelical Christianity. This represented perhaps the greatest reorientation of the conservative church in its history.

Reconstructionism

Three appendices to Rushdoony’s Institutes were written by Gary North. North was supported by Rushdoony through doctoral studies and eventually hired to work at Rushdoony’s Chalcedon foundation. With North came Greg Bahnsen. Both men were recognized as “brilliant students,” and both had studied under Van Til at Westminster Seminary.[1] They worked closely with Rushdoony and developed the platform that became known as Reconstructionism and propagated his ideas into the mainstream of evangelical consciousness.

Greg Bahnsen and Theonomy

We saw in the previous chapter that theonomy was central to Rushdoony’s philosophy and was built upon Van Tillianism. Theonomy was taken on and developed with great academic rigor by Bahnsen, who was really the intellectual engine and popularizer, and the center of the controversy, of this central component of Reconstructionism. As it was such a large part of the movement and the foundation of so much of its program, it is worth considering Bahnsen’s position and contribution in detail.

Van Til had wanted Bahnsen to replace him when he retired from Westminster, and Bahnsen had been asked by him to lecture for Van Til during a period of illness—such was his confidence in the student. Bahnsen comprehended the full implications of Van Til’s apologetic and developed it rigorously. His first major statement was in the publication of Theonomy in Christian Ethics.[2] It is especially significant that Rushdoony wrote the foreword to the book and put it in the context of the dominion mandate. For Rushdoony, a failure to keep the law renders the church impotent because it denies God’s holiness and separates humanity from God’s power.[3] Bahnsen’s thesis centered on an exegesis of Matt 5:17–20 and asserted that the Old Testament law was not abrogated in any theological or ethical sense by Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.[4] The law was to be kept “every jot and tittle[5] but, as with Rushdoony, it is important to understand that Bahnsen was not asserting legalism:

The law does not save a man, but it does show him why he needs to be saved and how he is to walk after he is saved. Because God’s moral nature, his holiness, is revealed in the law, the law accuses and convicts its reader of sin.[6]

The ethics for the Christian remain the same as for the old covenant believer, but how God enables us to keep the ethical law have changed; it is by the grace through Jesus Christ writing the law on our hearts:

“Fulfilment’ in [Matt 5:17] [is] not any sort of euphemism for “relaxation” or “invalidation” . . . far from being different from the first covenant, the ethical stipulations of that new covenant would be the same as the original law; God says He will write the law on His people’s hearts, not change the law.[7]

Fierce reaction to Bahnsen ensued from within the liberal, evangelical, and, perhaps most surprisingly, from his own Reformed circles.[8] There was a concerted campaign against his ordination in the OPC, and after completing his doctorate, he only managed a brief controversial tenure at RTS, where the controversy surrounding his theonomical views within the faculty led to the termination of his position.[9] He was not again to hold a position in a major academic institution despite his brilliance and recognition as a skillful debater within mainstream academia.[10]

Yet, during this brief period, he inspired a group of students, including Keith Gentry, Gary DeMar, James B. Jordan, Michael Butler, and David Chilton, who became the next generation of Reconstructionist thinkers developing work on eschatology (Gentry and Chilton), pastoral theology (Jordan), political theory (DeMar), and philosophy (Butler). Between them, in less in a matter of a few years, they authored over sixty-seven books that were to force Christian Reconstructionism to the forefront of the evangelical consciousness. Bahnsen’s legacy is still strongly represented by the output of the Covenant Media Foundation, which he began as the means to distribute his written and recorded materials.[11]

Greg Bahnsen and “Federal Vision”

After the premature death of Bahnsen, his CMF became influential in the propagation of the “federal vision” theology, which is viewed as a paradigm shift within classical Calvinism and effectively dilutes, if not denies, historical Reformed commitments regarding the Christian’s relationship to the law of God.[12] Even its most enthusiastic proponents recognize it as a “paradigm shift” away from classical Calvinism and into a more legalistic framework.[13] Bahnsen’s son indicated he believed his father would be sympathetic to FV, whereas other past students of Bahnsen have argued forcefully to the contrary.[14] Nevertheless, with James Jordan, a former pastor of Tyler’s Reconstructionist Westminster Presbyterian Church firmly in the FV camp, FV is sometimes viewed as a distinctive development of Reconstructionism having a more moderate theonomical viewpoint:

The strict Theonomists . . . say that [we] must implement the Mosaic law as it stands. The more moderate Christian Reconstructionists have said that the Bible as a whole, including the Mosaic law wisely applied in line with New Covenant principles, should be the guide.[15]

There is nothing controversial in this statement; indeed, it would be considered the mainstream theonomical position. However, this is then combined with the requirement to keep that law as a continuing condition of salvation. In contrast, Bahnsen’s Theonomy had argued that the keeping of the law was a consequence of salvation: we are saved by “grace alone.”

Thus, the chief theological argument concerns the interpretation of the relative positions of James and Paul regarding “faith” and “works,” which have long caused problems of interpretation as their literal sense would appear contradictory.[16] However, the Reformed position, since Luther has always been clear—we are saved by grace alone—which is the Pauline principle; but our works evidence our faith, which Calvin then viewed as surely the correct application of James’s polemic. Whereas Luther was initially less persuaded on this last point, Calvin was explicit in his exposition of it in his commentary on James. FV seems to be a retrograde iteration of this argument, taking a side against both Calvin’s and Luther’s positions; hence, the intense opposition to this position from within the Reformed communion, and it is correct to view it as an aberration and departure from New Testament orthodoxy.

Gary North and the Tyler Reconstructionists

Gary North was first hired to edit the scholarly journal of Rushdoony’s Chalcedon foundation and published his seminal Introduction to Christian Economics in 1973.[17] North excelled at developing economic theory, becoming known as “the economist of the Reconstruction movement,” and he distilled Rushdoony’s dense narrative into practical tools.[18] He presented these through a mixture of popular, polemical, and scholarly publications targeted at the seminary, conservative political activist groups, and the layperson.[19] His Institute for Christian Economics (ICE) was primarily responsible for the vast literary output of the Reconstructionist movement during the 1980s and 1990s.[20]

His intention was for a relentless polemic and scholarly rebuttal of the movement’s critics within academia and the development of practical programs and strategies to promote the Reconstructionist agenda at a grassroots political level.[21] He effectively founded a separate political, militant, and publishing wing of the Reconstruction movement based in Tyler, Texas, which also had an associated “prototype” Reconstructionist church and a divinity school.[22] This functioned in a similar but more aggressive fashion to Rushdoony’s Chalcedon foundation. He was a guest numerous times on Pat Robertson’s CBN’s 700 Club during the 1980s, which was testimony to the success of his strategies, his increasing reputation within Reconstructionism, and the growth of Reconstructionism’s influence on the wider evangelical consciousness.[23]

Schism and Reformation

During the early years of Tyler, North was still editing the Chalcedon journal, but he was to split ideologically with Rushdoony over the means for societal reformation and broke acrimoniously with him over a mix of personal and theological issues in 1981.[24] North was fired by Rushdoony, who, at the same time, also fired his fellow Tyler men Ray Sutton and James Jordan, who were on the Chalcedon staff. Sutton and Jordan had developed a radical ecclesiology as the means for societal transformation in opposition to Rushdoony’s familial model, which became known as the “Tyler theology.”[25] However, the Tyler church and divinity school had both unraveled by the end of the 1980s, being described by one important former member as an example of “Reconstructionist ecclesiolatry.”[26]

The Tyler men eventually left to their own projects and think tanks, with Reconstructionism becoming an effective blend of Tyler, Bahnsen, and Chalcedon. Though much is made of the excesses of Tyler and the break with Chalcedon, North and the other Reconstructionists were still to reference Rushdoony through their own works.[27] Their tributes to him at his passing in 2001 are testament to the intellectual and personal debt they felt that they owed to him.[28] Thus, in the contemporary context, alongside second-generation Reconstructionist Gary DeMar’s stewardship of the American Vision foundation and the post-Bahnsen CMF, the three arenas of Reconstructionist thought might be now better thought of as complimentary rather than in an adversarial mode of relation, as was the case for a period in the early 1990s.[29]

The Diversification of the Movement

“The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend”

An aspect of North’s earlier thought, which brings us into the contemporary period of dominion theology, was his recognition and willingness to engage with what he felt was a major “convergence” between Protestant theologies that had been implacably polarized and hostile to one another. As both Tyler and Chalcedon pushed into the mainstream ideology of the New Right and began to heavily influence a new generation of Christian activists, both he and Rushdoony recognized that elements of Reconstructionism were being incorporated into revised fundamentalist, charismatic, and Pentecostal ideologies, far from Reconstruction’s Reformed roots:

[The] growing alliance between charismatics and Reconstructionists has disturbed Reformed Presbyterians almost as much as it has disturbed premillennial dispensationalists. It has led to accusations of heresy against both groups from all sides: pietistic Pentecostalism, pietistic Scofieldism, and pietistic Presbyterianism. The critics worry about the fact that Pentecostalism’s infantry is at last being armed with Reconstructionism’s field artillery. They should be worried. This represents one of the most fundamental realignments in U.S. Protestant church history.[30]

Both North and Rushdoony addressed charismatic conferences and seminars and developed personal contacts and friendships with charismatics, which would have been thought impossible when Rushdoony first wrote the Institutes, with its stinging criticism of charismatic Christianity. Both recognized a shift in the political and theological consciousness of evangelical Christians:

Younger charismatics and most of the independent Christian day schools are headed toward biblical law and away from the social and political policies of inaction that have been common in traditional, pietistic, dispensational circles since 1925. They are picketing against abortion clinics (legalized in 1973 by the U. S. Supreme Court, but not by God’s Supreme Court). They are adopting ethics religion and abandoning the older escapist religion. The key word in this shift of perspective is “dominion.” The secondary word is “resistance.” Resistance to what? Secular humanism and its legal arm, the Federal government.[31]

There is little argument with North on this point. By the end of the 1980s, Rushdoony had estimated “20 million Christians [in the US] ascribed to some aspect of theonomical or Reconstructionist thinking.[32]

The Fundamentalist Dimension

Reconstructionism’s movement into the mainstream was due to its influence on key fundamentalist and evangelical leaders. One of the hugely significant bridges between the previously hostile Reformed Reconstruction movement and what can be loosely called the “fundamentalist” and “broad-church” conservative movements were the Schaeffers.[33] Francis Schaeffer, the elder Schaeffer, was one of the important US cultural figures of the 1960s and 1970s, and even more so for the modern evangelicals; he had also studied under Van Til in the 1930s and had clearly taken some inspiration from him.[34] He is credited more than any other evangelical leader during the 1970s with rallying conservative Christian opinion in response to the “abortion on demand” ruling in the Roe vs. Wade ruling in 1973.[35]

The younger Schaeffer, Franky, was a filmmaker and took his father’s words and turned them into films that reached a large audience and helped galvanize anti-abortion opinion.[36] However, Franky also wrote highly polemical works encouraging legal activism and worked with John Whitehead at the Rutherford Institute. Whitehead had been influenced and personally mentored by Rushdoony into legal activism and advocacy in the founding of the ACLJ, a conservative version of the ACLU. The focus was on defending religious liberty, the right to homeschooling, and preserving space for religious expression within the public sphere, which, as we have previously documented, had been under siege owing to the barely disguised radical socialism of the ACLU, and the legacy of the liberal Warren Supreme Court period during the 1950s and 1960s. Franky Schaeffer was brought into contact with Rushdoony’s works, quoted them in his work and recommended Rushdoony’s Chalcedon foundation to his evangelical audience.[37]

The Pentecostal Movements

However, what was more startling was the influence Reconstructionism began to exert on Pentecostalism. The twentieth-century Pentecostal movement that had started in Azusa Street around 1906 emphasized spiritual experience, the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, and was apocryphally related to the “enthusiasm” of the Welsh Revival of 1904–5.[38] Pentecostalism fundamentally changed the spiritual dynamics of a section of the Protestant church and became the putative heirs of eighteenth-century Arminian revivalism, emphasizing the role of free will and individual choice in salvation.

This revivalism precipitated an evolution of many new denominations during the twentieth century. First, the emergence of the “classic” Pentecostal denominations, such as the Apostolic Faith Church, AOG, COG, COGIC, Elim, and Foursquare, which were all founded before 1930. Secondly, the 1950s saw the emergence of the “big tent” healing revivals and the foundation of Oral Roberts University (ORU), which had close links with the Word of Faith movement under Dr. Kenneth Hagin, was founded in 1963.[39] Thirdly, during the 1970s and 1980s, the emergence of the “house church” and charismatic movements in both Britain, America, and Western Europe. It was also a time of a new wave of mission movements, such as the CCFC and YWAM. It continued to mutate and develop during the 1980s with the Kingdom Now movement and the birth of the distinctive neo-Pentecostalism of Central and South America[40] and the megachurches of Africa and Asia.[41]

Historical Pentecostalism had shared the theological emphasis of the modern revivalist movement that was inherited from the classical fundamentalists and their antipathy to social action, which meant that though many millions had “come into the kingdom,” there was frequently little evidence of national change or positive influence of the massive numerical growth of the new churches. Such was the lack of social progress that by the mid-1970s, key leaders within the movements, such as C. Peter Wagner, Loren Cunningham, and Landa Cope, began to reflect on this wider cultural irrelevance and the political impotence of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

For example, in a documentary study related by Cope, it was found that in the most “Christianized” city of the United States (Dallas, Texas), there was found to be no improvement in drug addiction or homelessness, and divorce was at equivalent or greater rates than non-Christian communities.[42] What provoked Cope more than anything else was that when the local spiritual leaders of the community had been challenged regarding the decay of their communities, they held that none of this was their concern, for they were “spiritual leaders.”[43] Thus, the paradox seen by Wagner, Cope, Cunningham, and others like them was that even though the Western church was numerically stronger than it had ever been, its influence politically and economically was smaller than it had ever been.

As a response, by the mid-1970s, they began to embrace Rushdoony’s ideas of a “cultural mandate” in a slightly softened and repackaged form as the “seven mountains” mandate.[44] Notably, Wagner had explicitly adopted the language of dominion theology and was clearly influenced directly by Reconstructionism, though he attempted to distance himself explicitly from the extreme, theocratic elements of the Tyler theology.[45] In fact, the perceived similarity to Reconstructionism was so obvious that Wagner himself testifies, “Some wanted me ousted from Christendom— immediately!”[46] In reaction, it is arguable that he softened his view and rebranded his ministry to a degree in mitigation to the hostility aimed at him, but he remained clear that

the underlying premise is that God wills his people here on earth [to] take dominion of the society in which we live, promoting the values, blessings and prosperity of His Kingdom . . . fear is . . . the principal driving [element] underlying the sincere opposition by some to Dominionism.[47]

Wagner is also important because of his links with John Wimber of the “power evangelism” movement, perhaps the most famous of the charismatic leaders during the 1980s and the first part of the 1990s. This, in turn, is important because Wimber is the spiritual father of what might be termed the contemporary “fifth wave” churches. These are churches that trace their genesis and inspiration to the 1994 “outpouring” of the Holy Spirit at what was then the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church with the Arnotts as leaders. This movement attracted a notoriety of such a degree that Wimber suspended the church from the Vineyard association, which provoked the corresponding response from the Arnotts of withdrawing themselves from the Vineyard covering completely, establishing a fully independent prototype church for the “fifth [charismatic] wave.” Key members of this movement signed on to a “Reformer’s pledge,” which was a conciliatory articulation of Wagner’s “dominionist” position in response to the criticism that had been leveled at it from within the charismatic and house-church movements.[48] Though not by name, the pledge itself obliquely mentioned the Reconstructionist movement, underlining the putative dependence of this “reform” movement on dominion theology and the Reconstructionists that went before it.

Summary and Concluding Remarks

We have seen that the movement seeded by Rushdoony was firmly established on the theonomical foundation of Bahnsen. With the economic and media expertise of North, a precocious and militant form of dominionism generated an enormous literary output that caused the movement to grow rapidly and extend its influence far beyond its Reformed roots. It became established within mainstream evangelicalism and was rather unexpectedly included in the Pentecostal and charismatic movements. Though the movement had split into factions, this diversification worked in its favor, and the hostility was generally short-lived. None of the main organizations are in an adversarial relation, and numerous hubs have remained easily recognizable as Reconstructionist, even if that terminology has fallen out of favor. Many other movements incorporated dominionist ideas during this period (we list some of these shortly.) The central conception remained that the gospel is relevant and necessary in every sphere of human life; it is the motivation, modus operandi, and unifying principle of the diverse conceptions of dominion theology now found within this broad and theologically diverse network. Rushdoony’s ideas influenced key leaders within all these movements, whom, although they did not share his Calvinism, imported his ideas whilst, like Wagner, distanced themselves from “extremism” by never publicly acknowledging the Reconstructionist influence.[49]

However, the controversy surrounding Rushdoony and his ideas has meant he has basically gone unacknowledged by those he inspired as they absorbed and morphed dominionism. Dominionism might now be better described as a genus and the associated terms (Reconstructionist, post-millennialist, dominionist, theonomist, Kingdom Now, Business as a Mission, Discipling Nations, New Apostolic Age, Christian nationalism, and some fellow travelers within the Hamonite prophetic movement) as species. The days of evangelical movements being politically neutral and considering sociopolitical involvement “unimportant” were largely ended during this period.[50] A whole new political consciousness amongst the evangelicals was born. The next chapter examines the extended and ferocious critiques of this newfound political consciousness amongst evangelicals and investigates why many Christians preferred to distance themselves, publicly at least, from dominonism.

[1] McVicar, Christian Reconstruction, 151, 157.

[2] Rushdoony’s introduction to the first edition was written in October 1971. The publication was delayed until 1977 owing to “factors beyond Bahnsen’s control” (North and DeMar, Christian Reconstruction, xiii). With the later acrimonious split in the Reconstructionist movement (we consider this shortly), some initially asserted that it was Bahnsen, rather than Rushdoony, that first articulated theonomy (Rushdoony’s Institutes were not published until 1973.) However, the fact that Rushdoony was invited to write the foreword by Bahnsen strongly suggests he was inspired by Rushdoony’s development of Van Til. Rushdoony and Bahnsen also reconciled quickly after the initial split when Bahnsen left with North.

[3] Rushdoony, “Foreword” in Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, vii–ix.

[4] Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, 39–88.

[5] Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, xv.

[6] Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, 127. Emphasis original.

[7] Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, 46.

[8] McVicar, Rushdoony, 163; Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, xiv.

[9] North, Theonomy, xiii–xiv; McVicar, Rushdoony, 160.

[10] Stein and Bahnsen, “Great Debate.”

[11] It is notable that most of this material is now available free of charge: https://www. cmfnow.com/.

[12] Bahnsen, “Auburn Avenue Controversy,” 433.

[13] This was discussed at length by Otis in Danger in the Camp.

[14] Otis, Danger in the Camp, 431–51.

[15] Jordan, “Theocratic Critique of Theonomy,” para. 1. As noted earlier, Cope argues for this more moderate position, and convincingly so. The real issue between the positions was the status of the penal sanctions, especially those mandating public execution. The strict theonomists argued for a literal application, an obviously controversial position.

[16] Luther initially described the book of James an “epistle of straw” in his translation of the Bible, viewing it as contradicting sola fide (“through faith alone”) and had relegated it to an appendix. However, after 1537, he removed this comment from his preface, suggesting he had come to see the matter differently. It is worth noting that he had also moved Jude, Hebrews, and Revelation to the same appendix, viewing the content and authorship as contested. Modern Lutherans have accepted these books as canonical.

[17] North and DeMar, Christian Reconstruction, xiii. North passed away in 2022, aged eighty. His website (https://www.garynorth.com/) is still active and maintained by some associates. It is an excellent resource for getting access to primary source material regarding Reconstructionism; he graciously replied to me when I found a dead link to his “free materials” when I was writing the thesis upon which this book is based.

[18] Clarkson, “Christian Reconstructionism,” entire issue. (Note this is not the British satirical Public Eye magazine but an American research journal.)

[19] North et al., Theology of Christian Resistance and Tactics of Christian Resistance; North, Backward, Christian Soldiers?, 190.

[20] North, Theonomy, xvi.

[21] North and DeMar, Christian Reconstruction, xvii. He had come to this conclusion after interning for Senator Ron Paul. He viewed the inertia of national politics so large that change could only come from the grassroots.

[22] McVicar, Christian Reconstruction, 182–87.

[23] North was far more polyvalent than Rushdoony when it came to engaging with the evangelical Christian world outside of Presbyterianism, going so far as to be involved with charismatics and Pentecostals. Rushdoony had been extremely critical of charismatic Christianity when he had written his Institutes but later joined North ministering to these groups as the influence of Reconstructionism grew.

[24] McVicar, Christian Reconstruction, 192–94.

[25] Rushdoony, “Christian Reconstruction as a Movement,” 9.

[26] Chilton, “Ecclesiastical Megalomania,” para. 5.

[27] With the coming and passing of the financial apocalypse predicted by North with Y2K, the more extreme survivalist rhetoric and Tyler extremism was quietly buried as he closed the ICE in 2001, though all its publications remain accessible at no cost at https://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/sidefrm2.htm. McVicar, Christian Reconstruction, 220–21; House and Ice, Dominion Theology, 18–19, 351–52.

[28] Rushdoony et al., “Tribute to RJ Rushdoony.”

[29] McVicar, Christian Reconstruction, 221; American Vision is found at https:// americanvision.org/.

[30] North, “Reconstructionist Renewal,” 2.

[31] North, Unholy Spirits, 12.

[32] McVicar, Rushdoony, 201.

[33] Dobson et al., Fundamentalist Phenomenon, 186–223. A succinct presentation regarding the Schaeffers is given by Edgar in “Francis Schaeffer.” As both Edgar and Bahnsen note, Schaeffer’s skill was to “translate every important theological concept into the vernacular” rather than in the academic rigor of his work; he did not write for the academy but for the laypeople. L’Abri was founded by him and his wife in 1955 as an experiment in communal living for the philosophical and religious pilgrims of the era, sitting intellectually somewhere between informal colleges and Christian communities. There are still eleven sites around the world: https://labri.org/.

[34] However, Schaeffer never publicly acknowledged this, perhaps aware of the political and sectarian implications of doing so, though he was acknowledged by many important members of the Reconstructionist movement as doing “yeoman’s service” for the cause (North, Christian Reconstruction, xiii). As Bahnsen critiques in his Presuppositional Apologetics, 241–60, Schaeffer’s presuppositionalism was also qualitatively distinct from Van Til, owing far more to evidentialism than Van Tillianism.

[35] McVicar, Christian Reconstruction, 173.

[36] The anti-abortion Whatever Happened to the Human Race adaptation of the elder Schaeffer’s book of the same name was particularly influential in generating activism amongst newly politicized evangelicals.

[37] McVicar, Christian Reconstruction, 173–76. Franky suffered an existential crisis in the 1990s and retreated from his evangelical conservatism, offering public repentance for his previous radicalism. He tells his story in numerous works as seen in this New York Times profile: “To millions of evangelical Christians, the Schaeffer name is royal, and Frank is the reluctant, wayward, traitorous prince. His crime is not financial profligacy, like some pastors’ sons, but turning his back on Christian conservatives” (Oppenheimer, “Son of Evangelical Royalty,” para. 2).

[38] Joyner, Power to Change the World, loc. 47; Johnson and Joyner, “Azusa Now Livestream 04.09.2016.”

[39] The relation between Kenneth Hagin and the denominational Pentecostal movements was a tense one, though many American Pentecostals had worked with Hagin in his early days. As a “new wineskin,” Hagin eventually founded Rhema Bible College, which is the strongest independent international Bible college today. Hagin also heavily influenced a wing of the emerging prophetic movement of Bill Hamon. He was also foundational to ministries such as Kenneth Copeland Ministries and the River Church movement under Dr. Rodney Howard Browne. See also Hamon, Eternal Church, 239–61.

[40] Martin, “From Pre- to Postmodernity,” 107.

[41] Boonke, Extra Impact.

[42] Cope, Old Testament Template, 21–23. Where “Christianized” was defined as evangelical and attendance was mid-week as well as Sunday to distinguish it from traditional and formal attendance. It is also not without significance that radical Islam considers Texas to be “ground zero” in their colonization of the United States (Anderson, “Congressmen Call Texas ‘Ground Zero’”).

[43] Cope, Old Testament Template, 23.

[44] McVicar, Christian Reconstruction, 200.

[45] Wagner, Dominion!, 12–17.

[46] Wagner, On Earth, 7.

[47] Wagner, On Earth, 8.

[48] Wagner et al., Reformer’s Pledge.

[49] “Never” may be too strong an adjective here, but only marginally so. A full-length book by a charismatic leader (Hamon, Eternal Church) purporting to be a modern history of the church gave Reconstructionism a single sentence; another book by a group of charismatic leaders on the imperative for societal reform (Wagner, Reformer’s Pledge) gave a single obfuscated reference to the movement.

[50] Though I argue in my Politics that a dangerous reaction to partisan political involvement amongst believers that sometimes places party before Christian principle is to slip back into a sophisticated, spiritualized, politically agnostic indifference that is of equivalent, if not, greater danger because of its reasoned basis. In particular, many British evangelicals find US Christian support for Trump, or right-wing conservatism generally, unacceptable. This, as I argue in my Politics, reflects the European addiction to socialism, which permeates the big government models of Europe.