Reconstructionism

Affiliations

 * Chalcedon Foundation - movement's main think tank (Sugg)
 * Rushdoony, Rousas John - founder (Sugg)
 * Ahmanson, Howard - financeer (Sugg)
 * DeMar, Gary - publisher (Sugg)
 * Hayford, Jack
 * Hill, Paul
 * Hunt, Nelson Bunker - financeer (Sugg)
 * Jones, Roy
 * Kennedy, D. James
 * LaHaye, Tim - author (Sugg) (Dominionist?? - jel)
 * McDonald, Larry
 * Moore, Roy - former federal judge (Sugg)
 * North, Gary - author (Sugg)
 * Olasky, Marvin
 * Rushdoony, Rousas John - founder (Sugg)
 * Schaeffer, Francis - Author (Sugg)
 * Terry, Randall
 * Weyrich, Paul

Goals of the Movement

 * The Old Testament—with its 600 or so Mosaic laws—is the inflexible guide for the society DeMar and other Reconstructionists envision. Government posts would be reserved for the righteous, as long as they are male. There would be thousands of executions a year, with stoning a preferred method because it would turn the deaths into “community projects,” as movement theologian North has noted. Sinners in line for the death penalty would include women who commit adultery or lie about their virginity, blasphemers, witches, children who strike their parents, and gay men (lesbians, however, would be spared because no specific reference to them can be found in the Books of Moses). DeMar told me that among Reconstructionists he is considered something of a liberal, because he’d execute gays only if they were caught indulging in sodomy. “I’m happy to just drive them back into the closet,” he said. (Sugg)
 * Besides facilitating evangelism, Reconstructionists believe, government should largely be limited to building and maintaining roads, enforcing land-use contracts, and ensuring just weights and measures. Unions would not exist, and neither would unemployment benefits, Social Security, and environmental protection laws. Public schools would disappear; one of the movement’s great successes has been promoting homeschooling programs and publishing texts used by tens of thousands of homeschooling families. And, perhaps most importantly, the state is “God’s minister,” as DeMar puts it in Liberty at Risk, “taking vengeance out on those who do evil.” A major task for the government key Reconstructionists envision is fielding armies for conquest in the name of Jesus (Sugg).