New York Times Columnist Pooh-Poohs His Own Story

While many journalists, scholars and activists have done serious writing about the theocratic Christian Reconstructionist movement and its influence on the development of the Religious Right — others have pooh-poohed it. In a recent column in The New York Times Mark Oppenheimer placed one foot firmly in the pooh-pooh camp.

Oppenheimer’s piece explores the influence of prominent Reconstructionist theorist Gary North on the recent anti-union surge. Sort of. He starts out by stating that North is prominent on the Christian Right, but not widely known elsewhere and is an important influence in the recent anti-union surge in Wisconsin and elsewhere. And then he spends much of the column undermining this idea.

He had read a blog post at Religion Dispatches by Julie Ingersoll, who has written a great deal of excellent material on Christian Reconstructionism. Ingersoll makes a matter-of-fact argument that Christian Reconstructionist writers have been decidedly anti-union, and that this very likely has has played a role in the wider Christian Right. She specifically names authors Gary North, David Chilton, and Gary DeMar.

And yet Oppenheimer, in an interview with Michael McVicar, another scholar of Reconstructionism, makes the matter mostly about just one of them, Gary North.

Mr. McVicar believes that Professor Ingersoll’s attempted connection between Christian economics and the rallies in Madison is a bit tenuous. “Her insight has to be in my mind so heavily qualified as to make it almost nothing,” he said. But he concedes that it “has the most basic essence of truth,” given how widely Mr. North’s teachings have been disseminated on the Christian right.

The problem with this is that Ingersoll was not attempting to make a direct connection, as any reasonable reading of her post would find. What’s more, Oppenheimer and McVicar agree with Ingersoll that North is a prolific author; that his works are widely used in conservative Christian educational settings and that his views are widely influential.

Thus this is a classic case of creating controversy where there actually is none, and undermining the thesis of the piece itself. The unfortunate result is a certain pooh poohing of the role of Christian Reconstructionism. Simply put, Reconstructionism and even Christian economics (North’s specialty) is not all about North.

Here is the relevant section of Ingersoll’s post:

There are now families in which multiple generations—grandparents, parents and children—have all been shaped in these contexts; contexts that include “Christian American history,” dominionism, creationism, and biblical economics. For Reconstructionist Doug Phillips’ organization Vision Forum, cultivating this kind of “multi-generational faithfulness” is an explicit goal. And when you look at tea party rallies and see all those white middle class fifty-somethings you are looking at many of them. Sarah [Posner] has also made the case for this at RD. We’re not arguing that this in the only influence… just that it is an important one.

‘Reconstructionism as one important influence among others’ is a perfectly reasonable hypothesis. I have no idea why Oppenheimer and McVicar tried to make it seem like it is not. (On the other hand, Oppenheimer has had trouble discussing the Religious Right accurately in the past.)

The fact is that Reconstructionism’s claim that all areas of life must be brought under a decidedly conservative and theocratic “Biblical worldview” plays a deeply influential role on the Religious Right. While reasonable people may differ on the matter of degree, I have also argued that Christian Reconstruction is central, rather than peripheral, to the ongoing ideological development of the Christian Right. So far, I think history is bearing me out.

An excellent example was a 2007 conference organized by Christian Reconstructionist Gary DeMar, attended by 800 people, and co-sponsored by a number of leading organizations of the Christian Right. Gary North was among the featured speakers.

I wrote at the time:

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