Christian Reconstructionism
March/June
1994
Theocratic Dominionism Gains Influence
by Frederick Clarkson
Part Four
A Covert Kingdom
Much has been made of the "stealth tactics" practiced by the Christian
Right. Whereas the Moral Majority, led by Jerry Falwell, was overt about
its Christian agenda, many contemporary Christian Rightists have lowered
their religious profile or gone under cover. In fact, these tactics have
been refined for years by the Reconstructionist movement, as Robert Thoburn's
education strategy suggests. Gary North proposed stealth tactics more than
a decade ago in The Journal of Christian Reconstruction (1981), urging "infiltration" of
government to help "smooth the transition to Christian political leadership.
. . .Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party
structure, and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional
order." Similar stealth tactics have epitomized the resurgence of the Christian
Right, as groups like Citizens for Excellence in Education and the Christian
Coalition have quietly backed candidates who generally avoided running
as overtly "Christian" candidates. The Christian Coalition actually proposed
something similar to Gary North's notion of "infiltration" when its 1992 "County
Action Plan" for Pennsylvania advised
that "You should never mention the name Christian Coalition in Republican
circles." The goal, apparently, is to facilitate becoming "directly involved
in the local Republican Central Committee so that you are an insider. This
way," continues the manual, "you can get a copy of the local committee rules
and a feel for who is in the current Republican Committee." The next step is
to recruit conservative Christians to occupy vacant party posts or to run against
moderates who "put the Republican Party ahead of principle."
Antonio Rivera, a New York Christian Coalition political advisor, suggested
similar ideas at a 1992 Christian Coalition meeting. While urging that Coalition
members seek to place themselves in influential positions, he advised that "You
keep your personal views to yourself until the Christian community is ready
to rise up, and then wow! They're gonna be devastated!" Some leaders have now
publicly renounced "stealth" tactics.
Central to the Christian Right's strategy is to exploit the national pattern
of low voter participation by turning out their constituents in a strategically
disciplined fashion and in greater proportion than the rest of the population.
An important vehicle for achieving this goal is the ideology of Christian Reconstructionism
or its stripped-down root, dominionism, which at once deepens the political
motivation of their constituency and widens that constituency by systematically
mobilizing a network of churches, many of which were politically uninvolved
until the early 1990s.
Much has been written about the success of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition
in accomplishing these goals. But it could be argued that the Christian Coalition
would not have been possible without Reconstructionism, and that Operation
Rescue would not have been possible without the Reconstructionist-influenced
philosoper Francis Schaeffer. In the 1970s, Pat Robertson was an apolitical
charismatic televangelist, and Randall Terry a would-be rock n' roll star.
Conclusion
Christian Reconstructionism's ultimate moment may or may not arrive; however
it has had tremendous influence as a catalyst for an historic shift in American
religion and politics. Christian colleges and bookstores are full of Reconstructionist
material. The proliferation of this material and influence is likely to continue.
Christian Reconstructionism is largely an underground, underestimated movement
of ideas, the rippling surface of which is the political movement known as the
Christian Right.
Frederick Clarkson is an author and lecturer who has written extensively on
right-wing religious groups from the Christian Coalition to the Unification
Church. He is co-author of Challenging the Christian Right: The Activist's
Handbook, (Institute for First Amendment Studies, 1992), and is author of Eternal
Hostility: The Struggle Between Democracy and Theocracy in the United States,
(Common Courage Press, 1996). This article originally appeared in the March
and June 1994 issues of The Public Eye.
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