[1] It developed primarily under the direction of R. J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North[2] and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States.
[10] Christian reconstructionism is closely linked with postmillennial eschatology and the presuppositional apologetics of Cornelius Van Til.
[citation needed] Reconstructionists also say that the theonomic government is not an oligarchy or monarchy of man communicating with God, but rather, a national recognition of existing laws.
Some of the prominent advocates of Christian reconstructionism have written that according to their understanding, God's law approves of the death penalty not only for murder, but also for propagators of all forms of idolatry,[15][7] open homosexuality,[16] adulterers, practitioners of witchcraft, blasphemers,[9] and perhaps even recalcitrant youths[17] (see the List of capital crimes in the Bible).
Under such a system, the list of civil crimes which carried a death sentence would include murder, homosexuality, adultery, incest, lying about one's virginity, bestiality, witchcraft, idolatry or apostasy, public blasphemy, false prophesying, kidnapping, rape, and bearing false witness in a capital case.
Rousas Rushdoony, for example, interpreted the Great Commission as a republication of the "creation mandate",[28] referring to Genesis 1:28 Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing…For Rushdoony, the idea of dominion implied a form of Christian theocracy or, more accurately, a theonomy.
[31] Grimstead, of the Coalition on Revival, summarized the position of many evangelical leaders: "'I don't call myself [a Reconstructionist],' but 'A lot of us are coming to realize that the Bible is God's standard of morality ... in all points of history ... and for all societies, Christian and non-Christian alike...
He added, 'There are a lot of us floating around in Christian leadership—James Kennedy is one of them—who don't go all the way with the theonomy thing, but who want to rebuild America based on the Bible.
He views their denial of the threefold distinction between moral, civil, and ceremonial law as representing one of the severe flaws in the reconstructionist hermeneutic.
[1] The late Professor Meredith Kline, whose own theology has influenced the method of several reconstructionist theologians, adamantly maintained that reconstructionism made the mistake of failing to understand the special prophetic role of biblical Israel, including the laws and sanctions, calling it "a delusive and grotesque perversion of the teachings of scripture.
"[34] Kline's student, Lee Irons, furthers the critique: According to the Reformed theocrats apparently… the only satisfactory goal is that America become a Christian nation.
Ironically… it is the wholesale rejection (not revival) of theocratic principles that is desperately needed today if the church is to be faithful to the task of gospel witness entrusted to her in the present age… It is only as the church… puts aside the lust for worldly influence and power – that she will be a positive presence in society.
[38] George M. Marsden, a professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, has remarked in Christianity Today that "Reconstructionism in its pure form is a radical movement".
Some separate Christian cultural and political movements object to being described with the label "dominionism", because in their mind the word implies attachment to reconstructionism.