Discussion Group Report

"So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God." So declared Gary North, a featured speaker at the Continental Congress on the Christian World View III in Washington D.C. on July 4, 1986. North was one of a number of persuasive writers and preachers, who, though viewed as radical outcasts even by conservatives, have begun to influence the thought of leading fundamentalist apologists.

The Congress "twas no mere social get-together for friendly faith-partners," say Frederick Edwords and Stephen McCabe in "Getting Out God's Vote: Pat Robertson and the Evangelicals" in the May/June, 1987, issue of The Humanist. These fundamentalists are vociferously advocating Christian Reconstruction, a concept first advanced by Rousas J. Rushdoony in his book By What Standard? Christian Reconstructionists adhere to what they call "dominion theology." It calls on them to dominate society, take control, and institute God's covenant as the basis of law and government. A critical aspect is postmillennialism, the notion that the second coming of Christ will be after the millennium, a thousand years of Christian utopia. The idea is that that Christians must set up God's kingdom by claiming dominion over the world and reconstructing society to make the world ready for Christ's return. The opposite doctrine, premillennialism, is the belief that the second coming will precede the millenium. Christ will come first and he, not mortals, will set up the thousand-year utopian reign. This idea was put forth in Hal Lindsay's doomsday best seller, The Late, Great Planet Earth.

Rushdoony says the premillennials have a duty under God to conquer in Christ's name. This change in thinking from premillennialism to postmillennialism has made possible the religious right and the political mobilization of millions of otherwise fatalistic fundamentalists. Pat Robertson is denying that a nuclear war will usher in the second coming. "What's coming next? I want you to imagine a society where church members have taken dominion over the forces of the world...no drug addiction...pornographers no longer have any access to the public whatever...the people of God inherit the earth...these things can take place now in this time.. and they are going to because I am persuaded that we are standing on the brink of the greatest spiritual revival the world has ever known!"

The Christian Reconstructionist influence on conservatives has increased. With the influx of Calvinistic ideas into their convention, Southern Baptists have been influenced to shed their once sacred individualism, move into political action, and turn their seminaries from academically free institutions of higher learning to trade schools for evangelists and conservative social reformers. Others have been taken in as well. The Coalition on Revival represents a unification of Reconstructionists with charismatics, other evangelicals, black revivalists, creationists, and fundamentalists behind a theocratic political agenda. The goal is to hammer out a unified social policy for all conservative Christians to be promoted actively from the pulpits of various denominations, through legislation, and by other means. Their position paper declares that, "the Bible is therefore a guidebook both for man's spiritual/religious life and for society's legal life; and that it is therefore to be followed by civil law as it sets standards for societal conduct." They are trying to use the U.S. Constitution as a vehicle for taking over the public schools and every other major aspect of political life.

"Clearly," say Edwords and McCabe, "the latter-day influence on American fundamentalists, evangelicals, and others has changed the politics of a nation. We are already in the third presidential campaign in a row that bears unmistakable witness to the power of politicized conservative religion. We are at this point because we failed to read the Reconstructionists' own honest words about their aims. In Germany they failed to read, and believe, the plan set forth in Mein Kampf. Our only hope is that the majority of Americans will, through the reverend Pat Robertson's brazen presidential bid, see the obvious implications of the religious right's agenda and therefore decide that this country doesn't need theocracy."

A tactic that is used by religious conservatives to undermine the secular posture of our government established by the U.S. Constitution is to accuse secularists of causing "moral decline." LDS church president Gordon B. Hinckley, in a speech to the Provo Community Centennial Service on August 4, 1996, said, "I believe that a significant factor in the decay we observe about us comes of a forsaking of the God whom our fathers knew, loved, worshipped, and looked to for strength. There is a plainly discernible secularization that is occurring. Its consequences are a deterioration of family life, a weakening of self-discipline, a scoffing at the thought of accountability unto the Almighty, and an unbecoming arrogance for any people who have been so richly blessed through the goodness of a generous Providence as we have been."

God, the early American Christian settlers with their Judeo-Christian moral concepts, and other ethnic groups who believed in and worshipped God, says Hinckley, were the foundation of what Lady Margaret Thatcher called "the goodness and strength of America," much of which persists and keeps hope for our country's future alive in spite of the "growing moral deficit" growing out of "secularizing America."

In our country during the past seven decades we have created rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters, improved provisions for the care of the homeless, passed civil rights laws, bettered economic and social opportunities for minorities (although there is still much need for improvements in these), helped preserve the peace in Bosnia and other areas, established an extensive social welfare net, and made some other ethical achievements showing that in some respects we are a more caring society than we used to be. Historians estimate that between the years 1880 and 1940 60,000 black people were lynched in the United States, and that problem is no longer with us. In view of the facts that nearly all of these killings were carried out by avowed Christians and that the pilgrim settlers persecuted people whose religious beliefs differed from their own, is the faith of our fathers what we really want to return to? In many respects we have become a more moral people.