TOTAL POWER HAS ALWAYS BEEN TOTALLY CORRUPTIVE!

The "Kingdom Now" teaching is that of having a "State Church," or if you will, a Church State, having a Church that is in control of the Government. The concept of a "State Church" is an unholy mixture, an abomination which attempts to combine the kingdom of God and the domain of Satan - who is the god of this age, into one entity... It's man's attempt to create a Theocracy without God's permission or participation...

Kingdom Now: Recent History

Amos 3:3: "Can two walk together except they be agreed?"

Since the 1960's a group of American Christians have been calling for a 2nd Reconstruction which would combine the church of Jesus Christ with society and government, into a Church-State combination, an idea which has become known as Reconstructionism. What they propose is a reconstruction that is even more radical and ominous than the post-Civil War restructuring of Southern society turned out to be.

Among the Reconstructionists most startling proposals for society are the abolition of democracy and the reinstitution of slavery.

1 John 5:10-12: The one who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the witness that God has borne concerning His Son.

And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

Rousas John Rushdoony is the patriarch of modern Reconstructionist thought. He is an Armenian who traces his family in an unbroken succession of fathers and sons or nephews who were pastors from the early 4th century until the present. He is the son of immigrants from Armenia which became the first nation to accept Christianity as their state religion about 300 A.D. This automatically put them outside God's will, according to His Word, for although the church is to submit to the government, Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world, it is to be separate and apart from it, for in Luke 20:25: [Jesus said] to them, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." He never insinuated in any way that the two should be combined.

Rushdoony admits that his family background has something to do with his Biblical understand. For 2,000 years prior to their immigration, the Rushdoony family had lived on a mountain adjoining the biblical Ararat. The present day father of Christian Reconstruction comes from a highly "religious" family living in a distinctly "religious" country, but unfortunately, it is not Biblical Christianity that they practice.

The church is the "ecclesia" - the "called out ones" whose calling is first and foremost to worship God. This is the business of the church. They are to worship God in spirit and in truth, and by doing so to reflect His glory before the world, through the strength that He provides them. All else flows from this: preaching the gospel, and witnessing by ministering their loving good works throughout their community and around the world.

In placing themselves outside the revealed Word of God by combining the church with the Government in this manner, they moved outside God's protection and became subject to the attacks and whims of Satan, as did the Catholic Church a few years later in 325 A.D., for just as Jesus is the head of His Church, Satan has power over the government, as it is part of this world's infrastructure, so "how can two who are not agreed walk together"? Amos 3:3

John 8:44* Jesus told the Pharisees: "You are of [your] father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own [nature;] for he is a liar, and the father of lies.

Unfortunately whenever Christianity has been institutionalized into an ungodly mixture with government, it has placed "strange fire" upon the altar of God which has resulted in intolerable bondage for the members of the Body of Christ, as it defeats God's purpose in calling them out to be separate and apart from the World's system and destroys their ability to function with Jesus as their Head. As Jesus told the church: in John 4:23-24: "But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth."

Because the government, as part of the world's system is subject to the power of Satan whom Jesus called the "god of this age" and because Jesus said that "Satan is a liar and the father of liars", combining church and state creates an unholy mixture putting the members of the institutionalized or State Church in the position of trying to serve two masters, Jesus Christ and Satan and of trying to combine God's truth with the lies of Satan. Jesus said in Mark 3:24-25: "And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

Rushdoony head's the Chalcedon Foundation which has published dozens of books on the subject of Reconstructionism. In the 1980's the charismatic wing of evangelicalism adopted their philosophy renaming it "Kingdom Now." They are post-millennial in their end times view, believing that the Church will triumph over the entire world, and will claim the "crown rights" of Jesus Christ, ruling over all earthly governments, and placing all people under the law of the Ten Commandments, before Jesus' Second Coming. Other well known Reconstructionist authors are David Chilton, Gary North and Greg Bahnsen.

What Is The Reconstructionist Plan For The Future?

Imitating Rushdoony's Armenian ancestors, Reconstructionists believe the detailed laws of the Old Testament are not at all obsolete, but must be adhered to today. They have designed their political, economic and legal agendas solely on the details of Old Testament Law, with New Testament modifications, for instance, they are not polygamists.

As Rushdoony writes in "The Institutes of Biblical Law," in the Reconstructed society, there will be no democracy, which Reconstructionists regard as a heresy, because the believer is expected to associate on a common level with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal and the adherents of other religions. Government will operate only at a state and local level. There will be no federal government. In a Reconstructed society, the Bible will be the only charter and constitutional document. Rushdoony's Institutes proclaim that women cannot claim "priority or even equality" with men. Parents will be responsible for the education of their own children, as any other form of education is said to "emasculate" men, detracting from their leadership of the family and render's women either fluffy luxuries for men or aggressive competitors to men."

Gary North writes that "The so-called underdeveloped societies are underdeveloped because they are socialist, demonist, and cursed... The Bible tells us that the citizens of the Third World ought to feel guilty to fall on their knees and repent from their godless, rebellious, socialist ways, and that they should feel guilty because they are guilty."

Reconstructionists quote the Old Testament laws condemning usury, and The Chalcedon Foundation's Journal of Christian Reconstruction argues that a thirty-year mortgage on a home is an unbiblical practice (citing Deuteronomy 15) and they suggest that debts be limited to six years.

The Reconstructed society will reinstitute a "biblical" form of slavery to allow impoverished persons to labor away their indebtedness, or for criminals to make restitution for damages, arguing that "even Southern slavery was not as unbiblical as many have charged." David Chilton says the slave should be cared for, educated in civic responsibility, and (if Christian) freed after set periods of time. With such boons as "job security," slavery is to be regarded as among "the most beneficent" of biblical laws.

The Reconstructed society will have no property tax, since taxes supposedly imply that the state, not God, owns the Earth. Tithing will substitute for income tax, and "tithe agencies" will take over the services currently provided by the welfare state.

Greg Bahnsen lists fifteen crimes that deserve capital punishment in the Reconstructed society. These include murder, rape, sodomy, Sabbath breaking, apostasy, witchcraft, blasphemy and incorrigibility in children. Bahnsen writes that "Christians do well at this point to adjust their attitudes so as to coincide with those of their Heavenly Father." The Reconstructed society will have no prisons. Under biblical law, "men either died as criminals or made restitution." Career criminals will be executed and occasional lawbreakers will pay for the damages of their actions, possibly as slaves.

Reconstructionist Joseph Kickasola, now teaching at Regent University, wrote in the Journal of Christian Reconstruction, "We do not believe in revolution or in massive and rapid social change... What is important is bottom-up-ism, grass-roots - transforming moral and spiritual change... for we cannot allow our social base and religious liberty to deterioriate in the meantime.

Reconstructionists have some appeal with independent Baptist churches and more with fundamentalist and Reformed roots. The Presbyterian church in America issued a statement in 1978 which said the Reconstructonist position was not heretical. Their greatest appeal, however, has been among Charismatics. Twenty million charismatics worldwide are part of the Reconstructionist movement. This is true because one cannot be a consistent charismatic, insisting on the continuing exercise of miraculous gifts, and remain dispensational.

The most interesting Reconstructionist political ties are to television evangelists Pat Robertson and to Presbyterian minister of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Dr. D. James Kennedy. Rushdoony and North have appeared a number of times on Robertson's "700 Club."

They are very close to the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church and the Episcopal church - which is the Anglican church or Church of England, although they are amillennial believing that there will be no 1,000 year reign or time of tribulation because the endtime prophecies of the tribulation were all fulfilled before 70 A.D. when the temple was destroyed, instead of being postmillennial. The church is to gradually take dominion over all the earth for Christ - both it's government and geographical territory and reign in His name. Authority and Control, not love, are what these "churches" are all about. They believe the Church is now the true spiritual Israel and that physically, God's purpose for the Jewish people and for Israel is finished. They choose to believe that the return of the Jewish people to Israel, after 1900 years, is a mere coincidence and is in no way an act of God or a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

The view of "Christiandom" (not Christianity) they advocate for future society is very similar to the viewpoint of the Roman Catholic Church during the dark ages (which is unchanged today), which produced the crusades, the inquisition and ultimately contributed heavily to Germany's Holocaust. They are seducing the right wing conservative branch of the church into ignoring the literal historical meaning of prophecy and buying into the false eschotological view that will allow them to persecue the Jewish people. This persecution may fit into God's plan forcing the Jewish people to return to Israel - which is where God intends for them to be, however; those who touch Israel and/or the Jewish people (the apple of God's eye) will be judged. This apostate movement will agree with and ultimately unite with Rome to form a One World Nazified End Time Church.

Other well known teachers of this viewpoint are Gary North, whose book Conspiracy is very well known. He is published by Dominion Press, a Reconstructionist publisher. Crossway Books, a conservative Christian publisher is also producing Reconstructionist material. Thomas Nelson copublished (with Dominion) four titles in the Biblical Blueprint Series, which are edited by Gary North. These books were endorsed by Jerry Falwell as "a tool Christians need" for the difficulties "that confront society" and preceded his move into politics as "The Moral Majority."

Reconstructionists have claimed that the late Christian philosopher, Francis Schaeffer's A Christian Manifesto relied on Rushdoony's analysis of society and John Whitehead, prominent conservative attorney and author called Rushdoony one of the two major influences on his thought. As radical and frightening as the views of Reconstructionists are, they cannot be ignored by Bible believing Christians who view the Bible literally and understand God's love and endtime purpose for the Jewish people because Reconstructionists or Dominion Theologists are no longer considered an eccentric marginal movement but have moved to a position of considerable influence in traditional conservative Christian thought.

Kingdom Now: Historical Beginnings within the Christian Church

The root beginning of the interpretation of prophecy that allows people to buy into a teachings such as Reconstructionism happened in Alexandria, Egypt at the beginning of the 3rd century. Origen (185-254 A.D.) was a leading teacher of theology and philosophy at the influential catechetical school of Alexandria. Church historian A H. Newman reported that "Origen was the first to reduce the allegorical method of interpretation of prophecy into a system... His method of Scripture interpretation was soon adopted throughout the church, and prevailed throughout the Middle Ages. In this particular Origen's influence was bad, and only bad."

Because of Origen's desire to harmonize the New Testament with the philosophy of Plato, he powerfully introduced, taught and spread the allegorical method of interpreting the Scriptures, particularly in the area of prophecy. This was also the beginning of "Christian" Church anti-Semitism, for from this method of prophetic interpretation, Church theologians began to develop the idea that the Israelites had permanently forefeited all their covenants by rejecting Jesus as the Messiah.

By using this method of prophetic interpretation, and forsaking a literal historical view of prophecy, which had prevailed with the Apostles and through the first two hundred years of the Church age, Church theologians developed the belief that all of the covenants which God had made now belonged to the Church, and that it was now the only true Israel, now and forever.

In their eyes, this meant that the Jews were now imposters who no longer had any vocation or reason to exist except as a witness to the misery and degradation that would befall a people originally chosen by God, but unfithful to its election by rejecting the Messiah and bringing about His death.

This interpretation is impossible, when the Bible is read as literally and historically true. It was only by interpreting prophecy allegorically, which is something God never intended.

Origen's system of interpretation dominated the Christian scene by the time of Augustine (354-425 A.D.), the famous Bishop of Hippo. Augustine then systematized Origen's allegorically based teachings into a cohesive theology that would dominate the church for over a thousand years. Even the Reformers continued to hold most of his views, for just as with infant baptism, they were unable to separate themselves completely from the seduction of false teaching, including Origen's allegorically based, unrefinded eschatology.

The Roman Catholic church, using Origen's system of interpretation and Augustine's theology, soon applied and instituted the teaching that they were the inheritors of Israel's promises - that they were the inheritors of the "Kingdom" promised to Israel and therefore must take ultimate authority over the political powers of this world, thus arriving at their policy of "temporal power," i.e., control of both Church and State whenever and wherever possible, becoming The Church Militant. This policy has never changed. Roman Catholicism hates democracy, for it makes it much more difficult for them to gain political power in a country, than working with a Roman Catholic dictator or king.

At one point during the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church actually held authority over virtually all the rulers of Europe. History witnesses that this was one of the most oppressive periods of Christianity, both toward the Christians and those outside the Church, for Christiandom is a Satanic imitation of Christianity and does not place Jesus Christ as it's Head, nor does it follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, but substitutes human earthly rulers.

Kingdom Now, Dominion Theology or Reconstructionism, also use Origen and Augustine's misinterpretation of Biblical Prophecy to continue the Church Militant teachings that Constantine introduced into Roman Catholicism in the 4th century.

As worldly men work feverishly to create a false unity among the world's "Christian" churches, the Anti-Christ of prophecy waits in the wings to come on stage. These foolish men believe they are fulfilling a mission that must be done before our Lord can return, but in reality, the prophet Daniel, in Daniel 4:34-35 corrects them: "His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No-one can hold back his hand or say to him: "What have you done?"

"Our God is God and He does as He pleases."

It is the god of this world they serve, as they prepare the earthly Satanic church that will entice the world to receive his false prophet.

IF They Build It, He Will Come!