Politics and Christian Reconstructionism

Matt Shea was the Republican candidate for Washington’s 4th legislative district, a small race without much importance until a Facebook post leaked the candidate’s views on biblical law and the justifications for war. Shea was quick to downplay the leak, calling it sermon notes dating back almost half a decade. Despite this, Shea has received considerable backlash and lost a good deal of support. His views included ideas that fit with much of Christian Reconstructionism, such as ending the legality of abortion and same sex marriage. But crucially, it also included returning to biblical law as the main judicial text.

Christian Reconstruction is the idea that America should return to, or reconstruct, the pseudo-theocratic government that was used by the Puritans during the early days of American colonization. It seeks to abolish much of the current U.S. government and install a theocracy based on laws and policies from the Bible as interpreted by certain religions groups. This would be an alarming thought to most people, even to many Christians who likely would not fit under the fundamentalist stance of Christian Reconstruction. However these same Christians likely have no idea they are in fact supporting this view when they vote for further right leaning Republican politicians.

The scary part about Christian Reconstruction is the way that it uses common mainstream Christian rhetoric to further advance a more fundamentalist goal. And many mainstream Christian groups have taken bits and pieces of Christian Reconstructionism without endorsing the viewpoint as a whole. In the case of Matt Shea, the more controversial portions of this theology came to light and caused quite an issue for the politician.

The founder of Christian Reconstructionism was a man named R.J. Rushdoony, a biblical fundamentalist with rather revolutionary views on government. His writings inspired an initially small group of Christians to adopt a heavily Calvinist view on soteriology, or the theology of Salvation. This group of Christians began to push for a much greater biblical influence in politics than had been previously seen, but did so in a way that flew under the radar of mainstream politics.

Because of this, many Republicans whether they know it or not end up furthering the Reconstructionist agenda when they push for more conservative policies and protect the Christian moral viewpoint. The heavily nationalist leanings of Donald Trump are a great example of the ways Reconstructionists seek to change the country. Most would see a transition period where America withdraws from major world affairs, followed by a change in government structure from democratic republic to strict theocracy ruled by a select group’s interpretation of the bible from a literal and fundamental worldview.

But as the controversy around Matt Shea points out, not everyone is onboard with this. Multiple donors even requested their campaign donations back after the leak, while a sharp increase in donations to his Democrat opponent took place. Christian Reconstruction is a long game, however, and it would be highly unlikely to see any kind of major changes to government or politics taking place in the near future.

Source Article can be found here:

https://religionnews.com/2018/11/05/a-washington-state-lawmakers-notes-on-biblical-war-threaten-his-re-election-bid/

Mormons and the Legalization of Marijuana

The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as Mormons, are one of the most influential religious and conservative groups in the State of Utah. Yet, recently, an announcement has been made that the Church is backing a piece of legislature called Proposition 2 that would legalize medical marijuana in the state, but not without some stipulations that regulate the still Federally illegal drug. While available medically, there will not be edibles available that might appeal to children, and the growth of marijuana will be more heavily regulated.

The Mormon Church has historically been a stronghold of very conservative values, and this has put them in the national spotlight multiple times. But one of the major tenements of the religion is the abstinence from caffeine in drinks like coffee and tea, as well as alcohol and any kind of illicit drugs. So why the change? It comes as no surprise when states with a more liberal population like California or Colorado voted to legalize the drug, but for Utah it means a great deal to be the first highly conservative state to do so. For the legislation to have the backing of a major conservative religious group is even more surprising.

However, as surprising as it seems in the short-term, this shift in religious ideology to more effectively conform to culture is something that has been going on in America since the 20th century and perhaps even earlier. Will Herberg wrote an article on this phenomena back in the mid 1900s called Protestant-Catholic-Jew and described the way that American secular culture and the religious cultures of the time both had profound effect on each other. He talks about the way that religion had come to pervade almost every aspect of America from the individual to the fact that elected officials were seen as more credible if they claimed to be affiliated with a major religious group. Yet the reverse was also true. Secular culture began to invade organized religion by merging itself to common themes such as generosity, loving one’s neighbor, and individual success. Because of this, a quasi-religious popular culture called “The American Way of Life” began to form and embodied what Americans wanted from religion and culture at the same time. Churches became affected by the public’s new style of “cherry-picking” only the values, theology, and other religious aspects that appealed to the individual while leaving the rest behind.

What this means is that while it seems surprising that a major conservative religious group would take on an unusual stance towards a secular issue, this has been going on for years and is just another result of the way America appears to like its culture to have religion and its religion to keep up with the culture. As shown by the way American culture is still vastly religious according to self-identification surveys, this trend is unlikely to slow down. In fact, The U.S. is much more likely to see church and common culture continue to merge until one is hardly indistinguishable from the other. There will be hold-outs, of course, but mainstream religion has become about catering to what the public wants, not about creating its own systems.

The article can be found here.

Supplementary information:

Herberg, Will. “Protestant-Catholic-Jew.” American Religions: A Documentary History. Ed. R. Marie Griffith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. 518-533.