abstract: we do know what a society explicitly governed by the Lordship of Christ would look like in outline. It would be a society in which Christian men, families, and churches would govern themselves by the written law of God. It would be a society in which the individual freedoms of the unregenerate would be respected within the perimeters of biblical law. It would be a society in which the civil magistrate enforced biblical law appropriate to the civil sphere. It would be a society that permitted maximum individual freedom under God's law

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by Andrew Sandlin

In the recently released Explicitly Christian Politics (you can obtain a copy from the NRA--obtain at least one copy), Bill Gould, our capable treasurer, offers a cogent case for national confession in the United States.1 This is the position the NRA has championed since 1864. In short, it is the conviction that nations should explicitly recognize Christ's Lordship in their political instruments--in the case of the United States, its Federal Constitution. Bill surveys the history of national confessionalism (largely with the Scottish Covenanters, its courageous popularizers) and concludes that, while national confession is not incompatible with a state church, such an idea in the American context may not be wise.2 Instead, Bill contends that recognition of Christ's claims in the Federal Constitution would suffice. Bill's essay, like the rest of the contributions to the book, is forthright and uncompromising while delightfully congenial and carefully balanced.

I observe, however, an Achilles heel in the traditional national confession position, and so, to his credit, does Bill.3 The NRA leadership today represents a strong working coalition of Reformed Presbyterians and theonomists. All of us are national confessionalists. If we can add a theonomic distinctive to national confessionalism, I believe we can heal our traditional Achilles heel[ ! ] and equip a healthy NRA poised to face the issues of the future. Let me elaborate by referring more extensively to Bill's chapter.

National Confession and Theonomy

Bill recognizes the affinity between national confession and theonomy (what I call biblionomy), the latter being defined as the conviction that the law of Holy Scripture (including the Mosaic stipulations and penology) constitute a binding standard for both believers and unbelievers, and that civil magistrates today are enjoined to enforce this law appropriate to the civil sphere. This is the position articulated, among others, by our vice president and editor, William Einwechter.4

Bill Gould's chapter pointed out that theonomy and a national confession are essentially two species of a single genus and that those adhering to the two views (and many of us adhere to both) should work together to advance the cause of the NRA.5 With this sentiment, the other Christian Reconstructionists and I in the NRA agree heartily. In the course of discussing theonomy, Bill suggested that national confession be an initial programmatic step for the NRA, waiting to work out the theonomic details later, since the church has come to no consensus of any kind on the authority of the law of God. In short, let's get the Federal Constitution to recognize Christ's Lordship (no small feat in itself) and then get to work on the biblionomic details. I have a counterproposal.

A Biblionomic Counterproposal

Bill observed in his excellent chapter that one problem with traditional national confessionalism is that it does not stipulate what a society officially recognizing the Lordship of Christ would look like.6 This I consider to be the Achilles' heel of national confessionalism as held until now. This fact is evident in the vast majority of sermons and lectures delivered in 1913 at the Second World's Christian Citizenship Conference in Portland, Oregon, convened by the NRA.7 These messages offer a fascinating glimpse into the NRA's theological orientation early in the century.8 One striking feature of these speeches is their commitment to a generally socialistic program. There can be little doubt that many of the speakers maintained sympathy for Walter Rauschenbausch's social gospel, a theologically liberal expression of socialism late in the last century and early in this century. Again and again the speakers herald the Lordship of Christ over the nations and argue that coercively redistributionist policies constitute a means of implementing that Lordship. To take one example, Samuel Zane Batten, a Baptist pastor, declared:

The supreme task of our time is nothing less than a Christianization of the Social Order.... A society...is unjust when a disproportionate share of the goods of life falls into the hands of any special class.... Will [Christians] live to establish social democracy and industrial Brotherhood? This demands a new scale of values and the humanizing of industry. The dollar has reigned long enough.9

While no NRA leader today or (one hopes) supporter would advocate the "reign" of the dollar, I doubt that Batten's sentiment would find any favor now in the NRA.10 Bill Gould himself warmly criticizes the Big Brother redistribution of the modern United States. Interestingly, Gould contends that national confession at the Constitutional Convention would have impeded the growth of redistributionist civil government;11 this is just the opposite of what our early-century forebearers in the NRA argued: they thought recognition of Christ's Lordship required some version of state socialism.

It is not the commitment to the Lordship of Christ over the nations that has changed; it is not the civil government's ravenous appetite for redistributing wealth that has changed (except perhaps to have enlarged); it is the NRA's view of what constitutes the exercise of the Lordship of Christ that has changed. The variable then is this: What does it mean for Christ to exercise Lordship in a nation? We cannot afford to miss a key point: it is easy to pour contrabiblical content into biblical molds. The most notorious and extreme example of that in recent years is liberation theology, which argues that God is necessarily on the side of the poor whose armed revolution, like the armed conflict of Israel in Canaan, God endorses.12 Biblical form and terms are there, but the content is at the opposite end of the spectrum from biblicity. This is where a national confessional stress on the Lordship of Christ apart from specific content renders the NRA vulnerable.

And this is a problem biblionomy can solve. While biblionomists do not pretend to know in precise detail what an explicitly Christian society would look like (not even Rushdoony and Sandlin!), we do know what a society explicitly governed by the Lordship of Christ would look like in outline. It would be a society in which Christian men, families, and churches would govern themselves by the written law of God. It would be a society in which the individual freedoms of the unregenerate would be respected within the perimeters of biblical law. It would be a society in which the civil magistrate enforced biblical law appropriate to the civil sphere. It would be a society that permitted maximum individual freedom under God's law.13

Those of us biblionomists who also endorse national confession would see the explicit recognition of Christ in the Federal instrument as the capstone, not the foundation, of a biblically ordered society. In fact, we would perhaps stress even more strongly than national confession, state confession, county confession, and even municipal confession. Biblionomists, as Christians libertarians, stress a highly decentralized society and civil government. This constitutes a slightly different tack from our Scottish Covenanter brothers who tend to see Christian civic fidelity largely in terms of the nation-state. By no means do we disagree with them on the need for godly nations and the explicit recognition of Jesus Christ's authority in those godly nations. We simply hold that localism is the correct biblical strategy for re-Christianizing culture and the nation itself.

Bill Gould observes that an obvious problem with ecclesiastical establishment is that the wrong church may get established. Then it may start meddling in affairs like church government[ ! ].14 But we must point out immediately that a non-establishmentarian national confession like Bill suggests, but without a biblionomic anchor, is equally susceptible to this scenario. A recognition of the Lordship of Christ over the nation, when the "Lordship of Christ" equates society with civil government and endorses socialism, liberation theology, "Christian" homosexuals and feminists, and so forth, would be deadly. In simpler terms, we do not want the nation officially recognizing Christ's Lordship when the World Council of Churches would be able to supply the content of the exercise of that Lordship.

Bill argues that, "Theonomy is perceived as a radical movement. It emphasizes areas of Biblical teaching that Christians today are not accustomed to. The majority of people in any society or church are uncomfortable with radicalism and are only reluctantly persuaded of radical ideas, even good ones.... For this reason, the actual process of rewriting a nation's law should be done gradually."15 I imagine that no thoughtful biblionomist would disagree with that assessment, but we biblionomic national confes-sionalists would point out that what is true of biblionomy is perhaps equally true of national confession. In fact, in today's secular climate, is national confession any less "radical" than biblionomy? I don't think so. The entire program of a biblionomic national confession is radical (or perhaps, "retrogressive") in a secular age. It is only slightly less radical or retrogressive among supposed orthodox Christians deeply influenced by the secular ethos surrounding them.

Conclusion

In my opinion, therefore, the program of the NRA should be to work toward the official recognition of Christ as Lord in the political realm, beginning locally, and moving outward to the states or provinces, and finally to the nation, stressing that the Lordship of Christ in the political realm means, among other things, that the civil magistrate is required to enforce the inscripturated Word of God apposite to his sphere--that is, society should be required to submit to specific civil biblical law.

Andrew Sandlin is the president of the National Reform Association, editor of Chalcedon Report, and The Journal of Christian Reconstruction, and an ordained minister. His articles have appeared in numerous scholarly and popular publications. He is the author of A Christian Reconstructionist Primer and A Postmillennial Primer. He resides with his wife and children in Murphys, California.

Endnotes

1. William Gould, "National Confession Primer," ed., William O. Einwechter, Explicitly Christian Politics (Pittsburgh, 1997), 114-144.

2. Ibid., 133-134.

3. Ibid., 138.

4. William O. Einwechter, Ethics and God's Law: An Introduction to Theonomy (Mill Hall, PA, 1995).

5. Gould, op. cit., 141-142. This is also the position of national confessionalist spokesman, H. B. Harrington, "The National Confessionalist Response to Theonomy," in God and Politics: Four Views on the Reformation of Civil Government (Phillipsburg, NJ, 1989), 68-72.

6. Gould, op. cit., 138.

7. Second World's Christian Citizenship Conference (Pittsburgh, n.d.). I am indebted to Anthony Cowley for supplying me with this valuable source.

8. Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (Louisville [1907], 1991).

9. Second World's Christian Citizenship Conference, op. cit., 30-31.

10. Tom Rose's position is typical: "The Free Market: Arguments For and Against," in Einwechter, ed., Explicitly Christian Politics, 174-202.

11. Gould, op. cit., 124.

12. See Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God (New York, 1974), 317-341.

13. Andrew Sandlin, "Christian Libertarianism," Chalcedon Report, September, 1996, 3-8.

14. Gould, op. cit., 131-134.

15. Ibid., 141.

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