Premillennialists absorbed postmillennial Reconstructionism despite direct theological contradiction.

Evidence

Like many other leaders in the Religious Right, LaHaye was inspired by Christian Reconstructionism. Citing Rushdoony and those influenced by Rushdoony, he argued that America was founded as a Christian nation, and he advocated for biblical authority in the realm of family, church, and government. Yet LaHaye’s embrace of Christian Reconstructionism is in some ways curious. Like most fundamentalists, LaHaye was a premillennialist. Premillennialists tended to see America, like any other nation, as doomed to destruction. Reconstructionists, on the other hand, were postmillennialists who believed Christians needed to establish the Kingdom of God on earth by bringing all things under the authority or dominion of Christ before Christ returned. LaHaye’s embrace of Reconstructionism demonstrates how theological contradictions could be smoothed over in practice. In adopting Reconstructionist teachings piecemeal, premillennialists patched over a long-standing division within conservative Protestantism. Such quibbles apparently paled in comparison to what they held in common—a desire to reclaim the culture for Christ by reasserting patriarchal authority and waging battle against encroaching secular humanism, in all its guises. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 216

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the premillennial/postmillennial distinction and why LaHaye’s borrowing of Reconstructionist dominion theology technically contradicted his own end-times view.
• SEED: Strong evidence for the book’s method and core thesis: theological coherence was secondary to a shared cultural-battle posture. Useful for the critique of whether this represents ‘white evangelicalism’ or one mobilization within it.
• DEEPTHINKING: The way contradictions get smoothed over when a shared enemy and a shared desire to reclaim culture override doctrine is a dense, generative observation about how movements hold together.
• XREF: connects to: End-times theology split between premillennialists and postmillennialists yet believers often hold both — Andrew L. Whitehead; Samuel L. Perry, Taking America Back for God, 621