Secrets of the extreme religious right: Inside the frightening world of Christian Reconstructionism

[DonViejo]

The zealots pushing a horrifying vision of "religious freedom" really have in mind a new Biblical slavery

PAUL ROSENBERG

As an unprecedented shift in public opinion brought about the legalization of gay marriage, a vigorous counter-current has been intensifying under the banner of “religious freedom”—an incredibly slippery term.

Perhaps the most radical definition of such freedom comes out of the relatively obscure tradition of Christian Reconstructionism, the subject of a new book by religious studies scholar Julie Ingersoll, Building God’s Kingdom: Inside the World of Christian Reconstructionism. As Ingersoll explains, Reconstructionists basically reject the entire framework of secular political thought in which individual rights have meaning, so “freedom” as most Americans understand the term is not the issue at all. Indeed, they argue that such “freedom” is actually slavery—slavery to sin, that is.

Reconstructionists aim to establish a theocracy, though most would no doubt bristle at that description. They do not want to “take over the government” so much as they want to dismantle it. But the end result would be a social order based on biblical law—including all those Old Testament goodies like stoning gay people to death, while at the same time justifying “biblical slavery.” These extreme views are accurate, Ingersoll explained, but at the same time quite misleading in suggesting that Reconstructionism is a fringe movement with little influence on the culture.

‘If someone wants to understand these people, I think the smart thing to do is to take those really inflammatory things, acknowledge that they are there, and set them aside,” Ingersoll advised. “And then look at the stuff that’s less inflammatory, but therefore, I think, more important. I think the Christian schooling, homeschooling, creationism, the approach to economics, I think those kinds of things are far more important.

“The fights that we’re seeing right now over how religious freedom and constitutionally protected equality for the LGBT community, how those two things fit together—or don’t—that fight was presaged by theologian Rousas Rushdoony in the ’60s. He talked about that fight. Not particularly with regard to LGBT, but with regard to the expansion—it was civil rights. He didn’t say explicitly racially-based civil rights, but that’s what he was talking about in the era.”

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http://www.salon.com/2015/07/31/secrets_of_the_extreme_religious_right_inside_the_frightening_world_of_christian_reconstructionism/

[haikugal]

1. Dominionism the American Taliban, very scary people. nt

[Fred Sanders]

2. These are the folks the GOP WH candidates are pandering to and this needs to be made clear who

these voters are in Iowa and NH who are driving the entire nation insane just by insisting they are not.

[hedda_foil]

3. Great interview! I've got to get that book.

It's horrifying and understandable at the same time. And it's being understandable makes it even more horrifying.