Christian Reconstructionism reconceived freedom as submission to hierarchical authority

Evidence

In this way, Gothard’s philosophy built on the Christian Reconstructionist teachings of Rousas John Rushdoony. A somewhat shadowy but influential figure in conservative evangelicalism, Rushdoony gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s by advocating a strict adherence to the authority of “biblical law.” By any measure, Rushdoony was an extremist. He believed that America was founded as a Christian nation, but also that Enlightenment notions of equality were dangerous and wrong and that democracy was antithetical to God-ordained governing structures. The Civil War wasn’t a battle over slavery, he insisted, but rather a religious war in which the South was defending Christian civilization. In his view, slavery had been voluntary, and beneficial to slaves. He opposed interracial marriage, looked unfavorably on the education of African Americans and women, and disapproved of women’s suffrage and of women speaking in public. Some of his writings bordered on anti-Semitism. Rushdoony believed that the disorder of modern society could be remedied with the institution of Old Testament law, and at the heart of this project was the assertion of hierarchical authority. For Rushdoony and his devotees, freedom was found not in individual autonomy, but in proper submission to authority, and he believed that God-ordained authorities in each sphere of life—family, church, and government—should function without outside interference. Churches must be free from government interference, and the family, under the authority of the patriarch, must also be protected from state intrusion. Public schools, too, posed a direct threat to the authority of the family by usurping parents’ role in inculcating values. For this reason, Rushdoony and his followers promoted Christian schools and, even more preferable, homeschooling. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 175

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Rushdoony’s Christian Reconstructionism: freedom as submission to God-ordained patriarchal authority in each sphere.
• XREF: Connects to homeschooling-as-infrastructure themes and the family/state authority contest. — connects to: Christianity’s spiritual turn ceded worldly life to profane authority; Christian doctrine institutionalized women’s subordination despite early egalitarian impulses — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 204; The system’s celebrated freedoms function as instruments of domination — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 45 (+2 more)