Liberty Under God
A CAMPAIGN FOR
Christian Reconstruction

• not impede the Christian Reconstruction of society

On this page:

• What is "Christian Reconstruction"
• How does this campaign for "Liberty Under God" relate to the "Christian Reconstruction" movement?

What is "Christian Reconstruction"

If you already know about the "Christian Reconstruction" movement, you can skip directly to how this campaign relates to that idea.

On June 1, 2015, I googled the phrase "Christian Reconstruction."

• The #1-ranked webpage was from Wikipedia.
• #2 was a hit-piece by the left-leaning Mother Jones magazine: "A Nation Under God."
• Left-wingers frequently portray Christian Reconstructionists as an "American Taliban."
• If Reconstructionists "come to power," there will be round-the-clock executions of "blasphemers," homosexuals, and "rebellious children," adjudicated without mercy or justice by hand-picked Reconstructionist clergy. Hand-picked, I suppose, by the founder of "Christian Reconstruction," R.J. Rushdoony, or as he is called by the Left, "The Ayatollah Rushdoony."
• The third link comes straight from the horse's mouth: The Chalcedon Foundation. Let's look at that short statement:

Christian Reconstruction The best description of the tenets of Christian Reconstruction, as espoused by Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, is found in his "Christian Manifesto"1: Sovereignty is an attribute of God alone, not of man nor the state. God alone is Lord or Sovereign over all things; over state, school, family, vocations, society and all things else. The Bible is given as the common law of men and nations and was for most of U. S. History the common law, as Justice Story declared. Salvation is not by politics, education, the church, or any agency or person other than Jesus Christ our Lord. The myth of Machiavelli, that, by state control at the top, bad men can make a good society is at the root of our cultural crisis and growing collapse. A good omelet cannot be made with bad eggs. Truly redeemed men are necessary for a good society.2 Civil rulers who rule without the Lord and His law word are, as Augustine said, no different than a mafia, only more powerful. The state is not the government, but one form of government among many, others being the self-government of the Christian man, the family, the school, the church, vocations and society. The state is civil government, a ministry of justice. For the state to equate itself with government is tyranny and evil. The Christian man is the only true free man in all the world, and he is called to exercise dominion over all the earth. Humanism is the way of death and is the essence of original sin, or man trying to be his own god. All men, things, and institutions must serve God, or be judged by Him. "It is urgently important that we think now of Christian reconstruction, but our thinking cannot be idle talk: it must be both Biblical and also practically applied in our daily life. There are many people ready to eliminate statism, but they have nothing but wishing to replace it. How then will independent schools, private welfare, and individual initiative deal with the vast complex of our social problems? Already most of our Christian conservative causes, and Christian schools, are continually short of funds. What is the answer? "In any advanced social order, social financing is a major public necessity. The social order cannot exist without a vast network of social institutions which require financing and support. If a Christian concept of social financing is lacking, then the state moves in quickly to supply the lack and gain the social control which results. Social financing means social power."3  1. R. J. Rushdoony, Chalcedon Report No. 225, “A Christian Manifesto,” April 1984 (c.f., Roots of Reconstruction, p. 1114f). 2. This is not to suggest that Rushdoony endorsed simply replacing “bad men” with “godly men” at the top of a state-run society. Rushdoony’s concept of theocracy was not a centralized form of power in the hands of clerical leaders. He wrote, “Few things are more commonly misunderstood than the nature and meaning of theocracy. It is commonly assumed to be a dictatorial rule by self-appointed men who claim to rule for God. In reality, theocracy in Biblical law is the closest thing to a radical libertarianism that can be had” (Roots of Reconstruction, p. 63). 3.  R. J. Rushdoony, Roots of Reconstruction (Vallecito, CA: Ross House Books, 1991), 605. also: The Importance of Christian Reconstruction

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How Does This Campaign for "Liberty Under God" Relate to the "Christian Reconstruction" Movement?

Let me take a biographical approach to this question.

Christian Reconstructionism

Before I graduated from high school, I had come in contact with R.J. Rushdoony [Google], founder of the "Christian Reconstruction" movement. Soon thereafter, I wanted to be "the next Rushdoony" when I grew up. Some would say neither one has happened yet. I became a "Chalcedon Scholar" and wrote a regular column for The Chalcedon Report. I substituted on occasion for Rev. Rushdoony in the pulpit which he regularly occupied and from which he first delivered the contents of his magnum opus, The Institutes of Biblical Law. David Chilton and I met regularly with Rushdoony for mentoring. The Institute for Christian Economics (Gary North) also published several of my articles. North described this article as "dynamite."

Rushdoony was influential in starting the "scientific creationism" movement, by getting a book called The Genesis Flood published. Becoming a creationist was for me the first of many radicalizing departures from the status quo. My first article published by Chalcedon was on the creationist issue.

One of Rushdoony's protégés was Greg Bahnsen, who wrote the book Theonomy in Christian Ethics (1977). "Theonomy" comes from two Greek words meaning "God's Law." The alternative is man's law, or autonomy.

Vine & Fig Tree 

I graduated from USC with a degree in political science in 1979. Because of the negative things Rushdoony said about secular universities, I did not want to go to college, hoping to move more directly to a Rushdoony-like career, but my father (a USC alumnus) was insistent. Perhaps the most enjoyable class I had was a class on "Political Philosophy" with John Hospers, who had been the Chairman of the Philosophy Department until he ran for President as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1972. Hospers could be described as a "minarchist." He believed society needed a small civil government. One of his recommended textbooks was Murray Rothbard's For A New Liberty. This was a breathtaking book in the mid-1970's. Rothbard argued that society needed no "civil government" whatsoever. I didn't think Hospers defended his minimal state against Rothbard's critique. My memory of chronology fails me, but if I was not an anarchist walking into Hospers' class, I was when I walked out.

I am Not an Archist.

Beginning around 1978 I began writing for an organization I envisioned called Vine & Fig Tree, which obtained tax-exempt status from the IRS as a non-profit corporation in 1982. The name comes from the Old Testament Prophet Micah, who spoke of a day when we beat our "swords into plowshares" and everyone dwells securely under his own vine and fig tree. More Info. I received positive encouragement on this venture from Dorothy Rushdoony, and on the trip back home from Vallecito, I think I realized that my future was not with Chalcedon, but rather with Vine & Fig Tree. My "swords into plowshares" pacifism, combined with a rejection of capital punishment (on strictly "Theonomic" grounds), seemed to me to be the logical development of Rushdoony's thinking, but ran contrary to the prevailing views of the "Christian Reconstructionist" mainstream.

School Teacher

My mother taught in California public schools for 30 years. The first job I had after graduating from college was teaching in a small Christian school. Part of our ministry to the homeless was teaching English as a second language to dozens of "illegal" immigrants. One of my housemates went on to teach in public schools, and I spent many hours helping her with bureaucratic administrative paper work.

Legal Education

Rushdoony was a proponent of Christian education, frequently appearing as an expert witness in Christian school cases vs. the increasingly-secular government. I worked with homeschoolers and studied law to help defend them in court. This was when homeschooling was illegal in California. By the time I passed the California Bar Exam, it was less persecuted. But then I was told by a Federal District Court in Los Angeles that because my allegiance to God was greater than my allegiance to the State, I could not be permitted to take the oath to "support the Constitution" required of all would-be attorneys, so I could not get a license to practice law. Details

"Seminary"

I shared the pulpit at a small church in Anaheim, CA with David Chilton, until he joined Gary North, James B. Jordan and the "Christian Reconstructionists" in Tyler, TX. Greg L. Bahnsen, one of the leaders of the "Christian Reconstruction" movement and a pastor in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, wanted to see if he could get me ordained in the OPC by apprenticing me, rather than through the modern "seminary" system. I thought that was quixotic, but I enjoyed his one-on-one mentoring. Bahnsen was a Christian scholar with integrity and a sharp mind. Scholarship is a virtue. Bahnsen taught me that we should treat our intellectual opponents with Biblical love (1 Corinthians 13:5-7), and interact with their arguments with respect. My personal library is about 10,000 volumes, becoming something of an anarchronism in the Internet age.

Social Work

After passing the Bar Exam, I spent the better part of a decade with a small group of Christian anarchists who rented a large house in the "wrong" part of town and opened its doors to those who were homeless and wanted to get clean and sober, find a job, and save up first- and last-month's rent for a place of their own. We gave shelter and encouragement to over 1,000 people during the time I lived there, with an average of about 19 people at a time sharing our home, and served tens of thousands of meals and passed out thousands of bags of groceries to the poor in our neighborhood. We held weekly candlelight vigils in front of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station to question militarism and violence.

Our house was called "Isaiah House," and took its inspiration from Peter Maurin, a man who thought a great deal like Rushdoony. Maurin was a decisive influence in the life of Dorothy Day, a socialist agitator in the New Deal era, who converted to Christianity and founded the Catholic Worker movement, largely perceived today as a "left-wing" movement. Maurin said, "I am a radical of the right. I go right to the right because I know it is the only way not to get left." Maurin advised, "Read Our Enemy the State by Albert Jay Nock."

I moved in with these Catholic Anarchists because I saw in their kitchen and dining room the closest thing I'd seen to the L'Abri fellowship under Francis and Edith Schaeffer, a family setting I greatly admired and to which I aspired. The closest I came to the Schaeffers was seeing Francis Schaeffer live at the Anaheim Convention Center in 1977 when he was on tour promoting his book and film, How Should We Then Live.

Hospice

When my father got lung cancer, I left the Catholic Worker and helped him gulp down 70 pills a day and daily pumped into his heart two liters of an anti-cancer solution under an FDA clinical trial in Houston, TX. After his death I moved my mother back to Missouri (where she was born), and our house was destroyed by a tornado. After being taken by helicopter to the hospital, she came back to my care on a feeding tube. For six years she was immobile, and for the last three years of her life my full-time job was turning her over in bed every three hours to avoid bed sores. We buried her on May 3, 2015.

During all of the above, I have been researching and writing, preparing to advance the Vine & Fig Tree vision, and have produced in the neighborhood of 2,000 webpages and blog posts. Some of them have been duplicated on other sites by people I don't think I've even met.

2016 and Beyond

That brings us to this campaign for "Liberty Under God."

Beginning in 2002, I have been a perennial candidate for U.S. Congress, both before and after I moved to Missouri. Even though I haven't been able to get out of the house to do much campaigning recently, I've still managed to be the top vote-getter among Libertarian Party Congressional candidates in Missouri for the last few elections (FWIW). I would love to campaign full-time, and bring my brand of "Christian Reconstruction" before the press and electorate.

I am actually an "anti-candidate."

When I first decided to run, it was primarily to gain a soapbox. I knew I had no chance of winning any election (or being inaugurated into any political office). But being an "official" "candidate" presented an opportunity to appear on radio, TV, and newspaper which an "ordinary" propagandist cannot get.

My first decision was which political Party to affiliate with. I decided against the Constitution Party because of their advocacy of state violence against immigrants. I joined the Libertarian Party even though it is not an explicitly Christian party, as the Constitution Party is.

The biggest issue in the 2016 Presidential race will be whether the forces of smaller government can unite behind a candidate who can defeat the candidate of the forces of bigger government.

• The forces of smaller government are secular libertarians and Christian conservatives. They don't like each other.
  • Christian conservatives oppose abortion and homosexual "marriage," but too often favor big-government solutions to immigration, drugs, and "national defense."
  • Secular libertarians do not oppose abortion and homosexuality (etc.).
  • "Christian Reconstructionists" are generally perceived as favoring government solutions to social problems like abortion and homosexuality, that is, making them "illegal" and threatening violence (fines, prison, execution) for those convicted of these offenses.
  • Libertarians support legalization of these sins. (There are pro-life libertarians.)
• The forces of bigger government are generally the Democrats and Progressives. If the Republicans nominate a true social conservative, Republican "neo-conservatives" would rather vote for the (usually neo-conservative) Democrat candidate, thus splitting the Republican vote.

As a social conservative, I believe abortion and homosexuality are both sinful. I want to eradicate them from society. As a pacifist libertarian, I do not believe in threatening abortionists and homosexuals with state-violence.

It is difficult persuading secular libertarians to believe that abortion and homosexuality are "sinful," because they do not accept the authority of the Bible.

It is easier (though still difficult) to persuade Bible-believing Christians that the Bible does not endorse state-violence.

This, I believe, is the most important issue in politics today. Americans who claim to be in some sense anchored by the Bible make up one of the largest and potentially most powerful of all voting blocks. Often these Americans do not vote. They are too conservative to vote for Mitt Romney, but they are un-discerningly liberal enough to cower before media hit-pieces against social conservatives who might be influenced by those "dangerous" Christian Reconstructionists. Socially conservative Christians need to see that the State is the greatest threat to social conservatism, and that libertarians who do not actively promote abortion and homosexuality passively promote social conservatism, even if they don't take an overt stand against these and other sins.

"The State" always and inescapably promotes vengeance and violence, and thereby opposes key Christian virtues. "The State" will inevitably decline to the point where it actively promotes death: abortion, homosexuality, war, euthanasia, and the economics of Keynes ("In the long run, we're all dead").

My campaign for "Liberty Under God" is both radically libertarian (politically) and radically Reconstructionist (theologically). It embraces (in a radical way) the three most hated and controversial positions in today's political arena:

• Liberty
  • that is, "anarchism"
• Under God
  • that is, "Theocracy"
  • belief that America was originally a Christian nation (if any "nation" can be)
• Non-Violence
  • "pacifism"
  • anti-war
  • non-patriotic
  • no "allegiance to the flag"
  • "Zero-Aggression Principle"

* print media, radio, TV, and voters share a similar demographic: the vanishing elderly of "the greatest generation."

My advocacy of these controversial positions has not yet reached the radar of the mainstream media. If it has, then the media have decided not to tar-and-feather me as a "kook," but rather hide these controversial positions in an attempt to create in the mind of their audience* the idea that this political race is worth paying attention to, because thus far they have treated this race as a genuine three-man race. I have been on the front page of the largest newspaper in the district several times, and when debates have been televised, they have been advertised with a graphic containing headshots of the three candidates, and my photo is most often in the middle, between the Republican and Democrat candidates. Extreme libertarians are sometimes blacked-out (or ridiculed), but the press has been very "fair" toward my campaign -- if one considers my campaign to be a serious attempt to get elected. It is not. The press has neglected my prime (and most controversial) issues: anarchism, Theocracy, and pacifism. I have sometimes said, "Bad publicity is better than no publicity at all." The press has not helped me engage SW Missouri voters on what I feel are the most important issues facing us.

This is the proposition I defend:

Radical libertarianism	is the best way to advance	socially conservative morality
"anarchy"		"Theonomy"

Let me compare my views with those of the Christian Reconstructionists, using the chart from Chalcedon, above.

Thank you for your interest and support.

• Anarcho-Theocracy
• A Nation "Under God"
• The Myth of the "Separation of Church and State

next: Campaign Finance, Corruption and the Oath of Office