A couple months ago, Fuller Seminary personality Richard Mouw placed a shot across the bow of Christian Reconstruction, and also took a couple cheap shots at Gary North and Greg Bahnsen before the smoke cleared. A new “fine” academic book was coming out detailing R. J. Rushdoony and Christian Reconstruction, Mouw would be reviewing it in the near future, but in the meantime, he just had to share a couple anecdotes of his own.
I’ll address some of that “fine” book and its treatment of Greg Bahnsen in a separate post. Briefly, let’s consider for a moment the nature of what’s really going on here. It looks merely like another book reviewed by another academic figure. But it is so much more! Look at all the pieces and put them together: a liberal academic imprint (UNC Press), a prominent neoevengelical seminary name (Mouw), a secular religion professor (the new author, Michael McVicar), and the premier neoconservative public-policy publication in the country (First Things) have all joined hands in a great drum circle to create a united front against the dreaded enemy of God’s Law and its modern proponents.
But I thought Theonomy was dead? I thought Christian Reconstruction breathed its last? What’s going on here? Have these great media forces of American religion and politics joined together merely to beat a dead horse? Don’t get me wrong, I understand that’s what they do for mere politics every four years, but fringe religious movements? That can’t be anywhere near as profitable as campaign puff. This seems terribly out of proportion. And bringing prominent liberals, neoevangelicals, and neoconservatives (sorry, did I repeat myself there?) together for such an endeavor seems, well, ecumenical—but for such a allegedly marginal thing. Who knew Christian Reconstruction had such power to unite like-minded folk! Well, you’ve heard that politics makes for strange bedfellows. I’d say the same applies to the socio-theological mélange opposing us, but there are enough homosexuals quietly harbored among all those groups that someone would take “bedfellows” seriously, and Right Wing Watch might do a nasty write-up about American Vision.
Add to all of the above the fact that the new book is a fresh Ph.D. dissertation which the Press picked up and published as a book. While some academic presses public dissertations regularly, getting selected in such a process is either a matter of luck or knowing someone.
No, this is not business as usual. There is an agenda here. It is a concerted agenda between several self-interested anti-theonomy groups.
The message that follows in this concerted effort is bad enough, but in this case, the event is far more telling than the anti-theonomy propaganda they want you to swallow. One great irony here is that we have been told year after year about how Theonomy and Reconstruction are dying, dead, dwindling, demoralized, fractured, factious, and yes, dead and dying again. And yet, for a movement that is supposed to die out any day now, our opponents are legion, and they can never shut up about us. By the quantity of criticism, you would think we’re a bigger threat to American society than terrorism, liberalism, or Hillary Clinton’s email. Whether it’s the White Horse Inn, Westminster Escondido, R. Scott Clark, Michael Horton, First Things, Richard Mouw, UNC Press, or Brannon Howse, Todd Friel, or Chris Rosebrough—the list could go on and on—the attacks keep coming.
But again, I thought we were dead, marginal, fringe—nothing? Why all the attention. Why all the dire warning? Why the innuendo, lies, and outright hate?
Don’t get me wrong, while liberalism, secularism, and paganism creep up on us steadily from all sides, our opponents never have an answer to social ills much beyond “I’ll Fly Away,” but while it burns, they sure do want everyone to stay away from that one great danger of preaching God’s Law in modern society.
The joke with Mouw is that his entire moralizing piece is emotional. It revolves around a personal grudge he’s held against Gary North for 37 years because—get this—Gary allegedly did not shake his hand at the airport. Because Gary allegedly refused to exchange pleasantries, Mouw levels the charge of “irreverence,” and proceeds to remind us how much he himself prays for his enemies despite considering our theology “deeply offensive.”
Well, Mouw does best what seminary presidents are too often hired to do: not so much theology, but public relations. Let’s use images and anecdotes to create the impression that we’re the good guys because we’re nice, and our theological opponents (whom we can’t answer very well) are the bad guys because, we’ll, they’re not nice.
And, in a testimony to the state of the modern evangelical mind, the donors line up. (Or do they still? Hmm.)
North has nicely responded by taking Mouw’s coat for him—as well as the rest of his clothes. Read the debriefing here.
What concerns me even more, however, is Mouw’s underhanded portrayal of Bahnsen, and its reinforcement in the “fine” new book. More on that here.
