Rushdoony and Theocratic Libertarians on Slavery
(Lew Rockwell is the founder of the "anti-state, pro-market" Ludwig von Mises Institute, based in Auburn, Alabama, which melds cultural conservatism with Austrian School economics. He served as Ron Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978 to 1982.)
Rushdoony was the founder of Christian Reconstructionism and described as the father of the modern homeschooling movement. He was forthright in his teaching that the U.S. should be subject to Old Testament law in the most literal sense and mapped this out in his 800-plus page 1973 book Institutes of Biblical Law. He laid the groundwork for today's theocratic libertarianism, or the belief that the ultimate freedom and liberty will be found through the elimination of most of federal government and the uniform imposition of biblical law. In other words, replacing "statism" with Christian dominion would provide a utopian society in which federal regulatory systems and central government are not required. Think of it as a marriage between Ayn Rand's anti-religious, laissez-faire gospel of the free market with theocratic law. I described the timeline of the development of this ideology in my article Biblical Capitalism - The Sacralizing of Political and Economic Issues.
Rushdoony's goal of imposition of biblical law on the U.S. did not neglect issues such as slavery, and he claimed that "some people are by nature slaves and will always be." He argued that socialism tries to give the slave the benefits of freedom, and thus "destroys both the free and the enslaved."
In his article, Bruce Wilson references Wallbuilders, founded by David Barton, and Stephen K. McDowell, co-founder of The Providence Foundation. McDowell is co-author with Mark A. Beliles of America's Providential History, a popular Christian nationalist history textbook which quotes Rushdoony and several other Reconstructionist including Gary North, Gary DeMar, and David Chilton. America's Providential History begins on page one with the following statement,
"The goal of America's Providential History is to equip Christians to be able to introduce Biblical principles into the public affairs of America, and every nation in the world, and in so doing bring Godly change throughout the world. We will be learning how to establish a Biblical form (and power) of government in America and we will see how our present governmental structures must be changed."
The Providence Foundation is now working in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America. Barton is author of The Myth of Separation, and is currently featured on "Glenn Beck's University". (See Chris Rodda's weekly articles debunking Barton's revisionist history.) Barton is on the board of directors of the Providence Foundation and McDowell is on the board of directors of Wallbuilders. America's Providential History lists Wallbuilders as a resource and Wallbuilders uses resource material from the Providence Foundation. Despite McDowell's statement that he is not a Reconstructionist, America's Providential History quotes Rushdoony and other leading Reconstructionists and mirrors much of Rushdoony's ideology. McDowell starred on the DVD God's Law and Society produced to spark a "neo-Puritan revival within the church" and also featuring Rushdoony, George Grant, Howard Phillips, Gary DeMar, Jay Grimstead (Coalition on Revival), and Randall Terry.
Bruce Wilson references McDowell's article addressing the subject of slavery on Barton's Wallbuilders site since 2003, which repeatedly quotes Rushdoony. Rushdoony taught that slavery was biblical as long as involuntary slavery was used solely as a punishment and voluntary slavery was by non-Christians only. Rushdoony believed that slavery in its most evil context is slavery to statism, welfare systems, socialism, the Federal Reserve, and the "religion of humanity." His 1973 Institutes of Biblical Law describes his belief that Christians must "subdue all things and all nations to Christ and His law-word."
In order to justify tearing down the wall of separation of church and state, Christian nationalist historians work to legitimize their interpretation of Old Testament law as legally binding to Christians. This does not mean sourcing the bible as one of the foundations for today's secular law but using biblical law as a blueprint for governing, including guidelines for criminal and civil law. They are particularly concerned about economics, taxation, and property rights. For instance Beliles and McDowell's text teaches that property tax and inheritance tax are not biblical and that the only taxes biblically allowed are the head/poll tax and tithe. They criticize the 16th Amendment "which gave us the progressive income tax, which is a non-biblical form of taxation that destroys personal property rights."
The application of biblical law to modern America requires some serious logical contortions on the topic of slavery.
Following are quotes about slavery, the Civil War, and civil rights, from Rushdoony and from Beliles and McDowell's text America's Providential History. Also see McDowell's article on slavery at Wallbuilders.
"The law here is humane and also unsentimental. It recognizes that some people are by nature slaves and will always be so. It both requires that they be dealt with in a godly manner and also that the slave recognize his position and accept it with grace. Socialism, on the contrary, tries to give the slave all the advantages of his security together with the benefits of freedom, and in the process, destroys bot the free and the enslaved. The old principle of law, derived from this law, that the welfare recipient cannot exercise the suffrage and related rights of a free citizen, is still valid.
In the following paragraphs, Rushdoony includes quotes from Benjamin M. Palmer, whom he describes as the greatest of Southern Presbyterian Calvinists:
"Indeed an important aspect of the Civil War was the Unitarian statist drive for an assault on its Calvinist enemy, the South... The gathering conflict (South Carolina had moved as early as November 16, 1860) Palmer saw as forces of a false theology, of atheism and of the French Revolution, of the religion of humanity, in short, arrayed against a Christian people dedicated to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and to Constitutional government. These forces sought to frame "mischief by law." The South had slavery, the North had its growing and fearful problems of capital versus labor. Interference of one into the problems of the other could not be tolerated, because it would be destructive of the social order. Moreover, `In the imperfect state of human society, it please God to allow evils which check others that are greater.' The anti-Christian, Jacobin attack on slavery had to be fought and slavery defended, because the revolutionary reordering of society would be far worse than anything it sought to supplant. "Human legislation" was seeking to supplant God and to set "bounds to what God can alone regulate."Note that in the following quotes the term "religion of humanity" is used by Rushdoony as a slur similar to the current use of "secular humanists" by the Religious Right.
"The Civil War was a triumph for the religion of humanity. Most churches, whatever their stand on slavery, opposed abolitionism and its social radicalism. As a result, in the North, these churches supported the war effort rather than demanding it. The Unitarian, Universalist, and transcendentalist champions of abolition were thus the real victors of the war."
America's Providential History
"Why was the North losing the battles? Because God induced the greatest generals to fight for the South."
The text describes the Confederate troops as an ongoing revival.
"During the winter of 1862 and 1863, while the Confederate army bivouacked along the Rappahannock, a religious revival swept the entire command. Jackson, [Gen. Stonewall Jackson] of course, enthusiastic, bent his energies toward facilitating the tide of Christian sentiment that bathed his army. He also strove to better organize the chaplains of the army, arguing they should meet together and through God's blessing devise successful plans for spiritual conquests.
The authors recognizes the abolition of slavery and the preservation of the Union as two positive aspects of the war. The negative aspects are described as follows:
"After the war an ungodly, radical Republican element gained control of Congress. They wanted to centralize power and shape the nation according to their philosophy. In order to do this, they had to remove the force of Calvinism in America, which was centered in the South at this time, and rid the South, which was opposed to centralization of its political power. They used their post-war control of Congress to reconstruct the South, pass the Fourteenth Amendment, and in many ways accomplish their goals. This explains the strong bias against the Republican Party in the South up to recent times."
Stephen K. McDowell on Wallbuilders Website
"Personal and civil liberty is the result of applying the truth of the Scriptures. As a person or nation more fully applies the principles of Christianity, there will be increasing freedom in every realm of life."
This is just the tip of the iceberg, a sampling of an ideology that has been marketed to homeschoolers, private schools, and adult education programming for three decades. The existence of this theocratic libertarian movement is often overlooked, since it differs in significantly from the stereotype of the Religious Right. For example, the movement tends to be anti-war and critical of the neo-conservatives of the Bush administration, while strongly committed to social conservatism. Consider the similarities between theocratic libertarianism and segments of the Tea Party movement, which much of the press has described as a competing, and very different entity than the Religious Right.
Despite the glorification of the Confederacy in the writings of Rushdoony and the text of Beliles and McDowell, the Christian nationalist movement is going to great lengths to appeal to African Americans. See this PFAW booklet on the issue, "David Barton: Propaganda Masquerading as History." For a condensed version of the current talking points by Christian nationalists on why African Americans should flee from the oppressive and racist Democratic party, see an example from Peter Marshall Ministries website. Note that the "Southern strategy" realignment is conveniently left out of these histories.
Peter Marshall and David Barton were both on the advisory board for the Texas School Board of Education during the recent controversial changes to the history curriculum guidelines, an example of the gradual movement of Christian nationalist ideology into public school curriculum. No crystal ball is required to know what is coming next. Take a look at America's Providential History and the writings of Rushdoony.
Gary North, Rushdoony's son-in-law and prolific Reconstructionist writer, describes how theocratic libertarianism can be implemented.
"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, and no neutral civil government.For more information on how theocrats can claim to be libertarians, and information on Reconstructionism see the following:
The Libertarian Theocrats: The Long, Strange History of R.J. Rushdoony and Christian Reconstructionism,
Frederick Clarkson’s four-part series on Reconstructionism in The Public Eye including Part Three, “No Longer Without Sheep.”
The Christian Right, Dominionism, and Theocracy,
Bruce Wilson on the U.S. Taxpayers Party/Constitution Party's relationship with Reconstructionism at Talk to Action.
Rand Paul and the Influence of Christian Reconstructionism, by Julie Ingersoll, Religion Dispatches
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