Normally, folks who talk about Dominionists and Reconstructionists are engaging in hyperbole, needing multiple links, like "A was influenced by B who cited C who cited Reconstructionist biggie RJ Rushdoony." However, this Julie Ingersol piece on Kirk Cameron's new film Monumental has a couple of actual Reconstructionists on the hoof.
Before going any further, I'll put in that Eileen saw the film with her mom while we were in Tennessee visiting her folks earlier this month, and both liked its take on the oft-overlooked religious nature of America's founders. Carmeron's allies seem to be fairly on-target in their history, but might be a tad off in their eschatology.
Interestingly, Cameron's adult film career (Growing Pains was his big claim to fame as a teen) has been highlighted by playing the lead in the Left Behind movies. That takes a pre-millennial take where the Antichrist takes over the UN and turns it into a world government after the believers have been raptured, leaving post-Rapture converts to take him on. That doesn't lend itself to a Reconstructionist worldview, which is not premillennial, coming in either post-millennial or preterist flavors.
Ingersol is one of the few writers to catch that disconnect;
Once the film was released, there were even more Reconstructionists in prominent places including the co-producer and significant presence: Marshall Foster. Moreover, between Cameron's pre-release promotion and the film itself, there was more and more evidence of his being influenced by Christian Reconstruction including his embrace of the three core features: postmillennialism (an end-times theology emphasizing "dominion" and directly contrary to the view he promoted in the "Left Behind" movies), the idea that there can be no philosophical or religious neutrality and the applicability of biblical law.
Good catch, ma'am. Now can we back up the Reconstructionist rhetoric? Surprisingly, she delivers the goods.
Now, Cameron is joining the conference circuit of the Christian Reconstructionist groups with a "Monumental Tour and Equipping Cruise." Each year Reconstructionist groups like American Vision and Vision Forum sponsor conferences and study tours and participate in many such events sponsored by larger groups like tea partiers and home schoolers. I've been to several as part of the research for my forthcoming book.
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Promoters promise that "every step of the journey will be filled with in-depth teaching, soul-stirring narratives, and unforgettable experiences." But wait, there's more. The bus tour will be followed by a seven-day cruise through New England into Canada with "18 total hours of in-depth teaching and workshops for Patriotic individuals" to "train and equip the next generation of liberty minded Americans." All of it led by Cameron, Marshall Foster and Gary DeMar.
Let's crank up Google and see what Foster and DeMar are up to-
Marshall Foster has charismatic roots in his graduate studies, as the host church of Cathedral Bible College buys into evidential tongues and has an apostolic take as well. His Talbot School of Theology is premillennial and seemingly dispensationalist, so he might not be a good candidate for the Reconstructionist lable, although it is possible to get a degree from a place and not buy into their statement of faith decades later.
The Reconstructionist tag seem to flow from Ingersol's statement-"he told me at a 2009 pre-cruise conference in Ft Lauderdale that Rushdoony had changed his life." If that's true, Foster might have changed gears from a premillennial eschatology to either a post-millennial or preterist view. Other than that, Foster seems to be Reconstructionist only by interpretation, since folks with a variety of eschatologies will agree on aiming towards a godlier government.
Gary DeMar seems to have more of a traditional Reconstructionist resume, coming from a Reformed vantage point-he goes to a PCA Presbyterian church and got a M.Div from Reformed Theological Seminary. According to his Wikipedia entry, he is a partial preterist, which puts a lot of Bible passages of prophesy in the past rather than the future. Preterists tend to be amillennial, which would lead them to make common cause with postmillenialists in shooting for a godly government in the here and now.
Also, the seven-degrees-of-Rushdoony game can be distilled down to one, if we take Reconstructionist biggie Gary North as a stand-in-
In the Editor's Introduction [of Ruler of the Nations], Gary North points out DeMar's description of "an intellectual war going on, a war between two rival views of God, man, law and society." North says that the "book has made the meaning of theocracy clear."
OK. Now what do we do with Monumental and its likely follow-up films given that we have two Reconstructionists running herd behind their former teen idol front man.
1) Check for spin. The Founding Fathers were religious guys by modern standards, but ran the gambit from orthodox to Universalist; Jefferson did his own Jesus Seminar two centuries ahead of time and wrote a miracle-free rewrite of the Gospels. Washington was the equivilent of a center-left Episcopalian, more George H.W. than George W. Making all of them out to be conservative Southern Baptists would be a bit of a reach.
2) Don't get too worried. Remember, this is a minority viewpoint in the modern church. Hard-core Reconstructionism is a Reformed criter by and large, and while neo-Reformers are gaining ground in the SBC, I've yet to see any Reconstructionist thought creep into the Gospel Coalition crew even if Reconstuctionist might like them.
3) Acknowledge the truth where it lies. If the stuff's legit, then go from there. Unless they have twisted or spun things, noting that we had more of a Christian past then most people thought isn't a bad thing.
4) Agree about the past, fight in the present. If you want to fight off a theocracy, the real battle isn't over our heritage but about what we want the future to look like. My take on a state religion is that it's unlikely to be yours; that's why a Christian-tinged government that is informed by the Gospel would be better than one that strives to impose a faith on the whole country.
5) Much of the Biblical talk of government is Jewish rather than Christian. When government is addressed in the OT, it is a Jewish theocracy that it is dealing with. That can get more tribal and less grace-full than modern evangelicals would be comfortable with.
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