CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

Spero News
June 1 2006

I’m going to be creating a new WIKI on Christian Nationalism.

What, you ask is Christian Nationalism?

KINGDOM COME: THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM

(excerpt)

Roy Moore and Rick Scarborough are Baptists, D. James Kennedy is a
fundamentalist Presbyterian, and John Eidsmoe is a Lutheran. All of
them, however, have been shaped by dominion theology, which asserts
that, in preparation for the second coming of Christ, godly men have
the responsibility to take over every aspect of society.

Dominion theology comes out of Christian Reconstructionism, a
fundamentalist creed that was propagated by the late Rousas John (R.
J.) Rushdoony and his son-in-law, Gary North. Born in New York City
in 1916 to Armenian immigrants who had recently fled the genocide
in Turkey, Rushdoony was educated at the University of California at
Berkeley and spent over eight years as a Presbyterian missionary to
Native Americans in Nevada. He was a prolific writer, churning out
dense tomes advocating the abolition of public schools and social
services and the replacement of civil law with biblical law.

White-bearded and wizardly, Rushdoony had the look of an Old Testament
patriarch and the harsh vision to match — he called for the death
penalty for gay people, blasphemers, and unchaste women, among other
sinners. Democracy, he wrote, is a heresy and “the great love of the
failures and cowards of life.”

Reconstructionism is a postmillennial theology, meaning its followers
believe Jesus won’t return until after Christians establish a thousand
year reign on earth. While other Christians wait for the messiah,
Reconstructionists want to build the kingdom themselves.

Most American evangelicals, on the other hand, are premillennialists.

They believe (with some variations) that at the time of Christ’s
return, Christians will be gathered up to heaven, missing the
tribulations endured by unbelievers. In the past, this belief led to
a certain apathy — why worry if the world is about to end and you’ll
be safe from the carnage?